Chapter 131
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 131
Chapter Title: Calamity
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Calamity.
The monkey goblin, a member of the Peninsular Alliance and lord of the Black Garment Manor, had joined this war.
Keka was frozen.
He wasn't the only one.
The nobles of the Peninsular Alliance.
The bandits of the Bandit Guild.
High-ranking species.
Low-ranking species.
Ally.
And foe.
Truly, everyone, regardless of race or faction, had frozen stiff, having even stopped breathing.
Ever since the curse Lar Arga cast on Pandora—who had crashed the duel—began to crack.
Because everyone had been feeling it.
Danger.
Something was wrong.
This shouldn't be happening.
It was instinct.
Even if their minds didn't understand.
Every living being…
No, perhaps even the dead.
It was a fundamental fear they knew—couldn't help but know—by sight alone.
Finally, the barrier shattered to pieces.
Flowing out from Pandora.
Hazy like fog.
Thick like mud.
A curse so ominous that it felt as if one would go mad just by looking at it—even from within a manor protected by a Divine Beast—surged out like a tidal wave.
What roused the stiffly frozen Keka was a great roar.
Krawwwwww!
Kreeeeee!
Guooo.
Starting with Mirmidon, who carried the Black Garment Manor, the numerous Divine Beasts on this battlefield all began to scream and flee at once.
Even the Divine Beasts that had been slumbering without drivers fled, all heading in the opposite direction from Pandora.
Like a swarm of rats fleeing a sinking ship to survive.
“Yes! Run! Quickly!”
If he fled like this, far from achieving merit in the war, he would be treated as a deserter and face dire consequences.
The war.
The repercussions.
Keka didn't care.
The only thing that mattered now was getting even a little farther away from that horrifying curse.
There was just one problem.
The curse was spreading faster than the Divine Beasts could flee.
So much so that dozens of manors were swallowed by the fog in the blink of an eye.
“Hiek!!!”
“Argh!”
The moment they were swallowed by the fog.
From high-ranking Awakened Ones to the common folk, everyone collapsed, trembling in fear and despair at the curse that would soon overwhelm them.
But a moment later.
Keka found a glimmer of hope within it.
“E-everyone, calm down! As long as we are in a manor protected by a Divine Beast, that curse cannot harm us!”
“Ah…!”
Though it covered the entire Labyrinth.
The fog could not seep into the manors.
Seeing this, the people's faces lit up.
The fact that the Calamity Princess's curse was ineffective against Divine Beasts was well known through this war.
So the hope that they could avoid the curse as long as they didn't leave the manor brought them a momentary sense of relief.
However…
“My lord! I-it's an emergency!”
“What could be more of an emergency than this?!”
“The purified water, Mirmidon's purified water is drying up!”
“What?!?!”
Keka was horrified.
He ran to the center of the manor, and upon seeing the spring of purified water, his eyes looked ready to pop out of his head.
A spring large enough for hundreds of people to use comfortably, even in a small manor.
The purified water collected in that spring was boiling and diminishing at a terrifying rate.
Like a bucket of water placed in a furnace.
It was clear at a glance that at this rate, the purified water would dry up in a few hours… no, perhaps even in a few dozen minutes.
And then?
After that?
…Would the Divine Beast's protection still be able to block the curse then?
Even if it did block the curse, would it be possible to survive without purified water until they escaped this Labyrinth?
“Driver! Quickly, quickly, move Mirmidon! Now!”
“E-even if you say move, where to…”
“I don't give a damn where! Just get us out of this curse, you idiot!!!”
Therefore, naturally.
Keka chose to flee.
To escape the range of this curse before the purified water ran out—it was a simple yet most effective method.
And indeed, the majority of lords made a similar choice.
Ruuuumble!
“What?!”
But.
That escape.
Was blocked.
A widening space.
A suddenly soaring mountain.
An endlessly cracking cliff.
A stone bridge connecting the cliffs.
It threw the Divine Beasts, already floundering in the fog, into a confusion where they didn't know where to go.
“A D-Dungeon Break? Of all times, the Labyrinth has been eroded by the [Crumbling Gorge]☆☆?!”
The worst disaster that occurs in a Labyrinth.
Dungeon Break.
Due to an excessive rampage of contaminated mana.
The Labyrinth's boundaries collapse.
And it is eroded by a higher-level Labyrinth.
Caught in a natural disaster incomparably more terrible than any earthquake or typhoon, Keka screamed.
Of course, if they could find other scattered manors and cooperate, they could easily escape a 2-star Labyrinth, but that was only in normal times.
To have to escape the Labyrinth in a situation where leaving the manor meant being caught by the curse, and the purified water was dwindling by the moment.
It was a situation so bleak it was horrifying.
Still, manors with a driver that could move their Divine Beast could at least attempt an escape, but…
Crash! Ruuumble!!!
“No, no!”
“Aaaaaaaargh!”
“……!”
Whether they were allies from the Peninsular Alliance.
Or enemies from the Bandit Guild.
Along with the sound of a collapsing cliff, he heard the chilling echo of hundreds screaming as their Divine Beast and manor plunged into a bottomless abyss.
Keka realized.
‘Move the manor recklessly, and you die.’
Now, with vision blurred by fog and the terrain transformed by the Labyrinth's erosion.
Moving a Divine Beast carelessly was no different from leaping off a cliff.
As Keka, who had learned this lesson through a brutal sacrifice, swallowed dryly.
Thud!
“No! Get up, Mud Rhino! Get up, I said!”
“Th-the purified water…!”
“Hiek! My lord! The curse is seeping into the manor!”
“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
“……!!!”
A loud clamor, invisible through the fog, but impossible for a high-ranking Awakened One not to hear.
Perhaps they had too many people for the size of their manor, or perhaps they had been negligent in managing their purified water.
The purified water had run out.
The Divine Beast had collapsed entirely.
And along with the heavy sound came.
A scene of pandemonium tens, no, hundreds of times more horrifying than the screams of those who had fallen to their deaths with their manors.
Keka shuddered.
‘If we don't escape this place before the purified water dries up, we'll be swallowed by the curse.’
Move recklessly, and you die.
Don't move, and you still die.
Worse, the more time you waste, the more gruesome your end will be.
A situation less like a dilemma and more like being lost in a maze of mountains—it could only be described as despair itself.
And yet, the despair they had to face did not end there.
“M-my lord! Over there!”
“That's, that's…”
“……My god.”
Some screamed.
Others despaired.
Turning his head toward the sound of his vassal's cry, Keka let out an involuntary groan.
Twitch. Twitch.
As if possessed.
Or driven mad by pain.
Covered in the cursed fog, their bodies twisted and melted.
From the cliffs.
From underground.
From the clouds.
Running along the walls.
Bursting from the ground.
Flying across the sky.
Comprised of swarms of Horned Rabbits, Arrow Birds, Poison Moles, Rock Monsters, Bombardment Hawks, and mixed in among them, a few 3-star bosses.
Watching the wave of monsters, numbering not in the hundreds but well over a thousand—a number so great it was meaningless to count.
Keka understood.
And accepted it.
This was the end. The moment the family his ancestors had built for generations would fall to ruin.
The moment his manor would be devoured by monsters or the curse, leaving nothing behind.
That was why, even as his kin and subordinates desperately pleaded for orders, he could only stand there, slack-jawed and stunned.
BOOOOOM!!!
With a massive roar.
A flaming crow exploded.
And a corner of the swarming monster horde was blown away entirely.
Right after, with a rumbling sound, a single… no, a massive shadow, tightly clustered as one, appeared before him.
“Hmm, it's that monkey mister I've seen somewhere.”
“……White-Masked Young Master?”
“Perfect timing.”
To him, who had frozen upon seeing his savior from the pirate lord's attack a dozen days ago, who was also the fiend who had scraped his family's fortune clean as ‘payment’.
The white-masked boy said with a bright smile.
“Mister, tell everyone you meet.”
“……?”
“To hold out as best they can until I get rid of the curse and come back.”
* * *
“H-help me!”
“D-don't panic! They're mostly low-level monsters anyway! If we respond calmly, we can… Argh!”
In some ways, the movement of a Divine Beast was similar to sailing.
Just like the vast, open sea.
The Labyrinth had no paths.
Like a voyage where losing your course meant dying of thirst, a manor could easily end up adrift.
In that respect, the current situation of the Bandit Guild and the Peninsular Alliance was reminiscent of a fleet smashed to pieces by a sudden typhoon.
Swept up in a Dungeon Break.
Scattered to the winds.
And having lost their way.
The problem was that their situation was several times more severe than that of such a fleet.
At least on the ordinary seas of the Old Kingdom era, one wouldn't have to face an endless horde of monsters while surrounded by a cursed fog.
Thus, the sight of manors collapsing one by one was both incredibly tragic and inevitable, but…
Ruuuumble.
“My lord, look over there!”
“That's… the Crouching Dragon Manor! Is that the White-Masked Young Master?!”
There are exceptions to every rule.
The five manors, clustered together and advancing through the fog amidst this pandemonium, were just such an exception.
“Hah! Come at me, monsters! As long as Cael, son of Chavera, is here, you won't lay a single claw on our manor…! Gack!”
“Hey! If you have time to chatter, bring out more Broodmothers! Can't you see how many Forest Spiders have already died?!”
“There is no need to deal with all the monsters. They are also in a state of confusion, so focus only on breaking through in an arrow formation.”
“Chik, break through in arrow formation. Break through in arrow formation.”
With the Crouching Dragon Manor at the lead.
The Strange Tree Manor in the center.
The Lesser Willow Manor guarding the rear.
And the Slashing Sword Academy and Wildcat Academy to the left and right.
Arsha, calmly giving orders even in this chaotic situation. And their stable advance, protecting the manor with the Strange Tree Manor's Broodmothers and clearing the monster hordes with slave soldiers, naturally stood out.
The lords drifting in this cursed fog all clung to them, begging for salvation.
Not just the Peninsular Alliance, but even the bandit nobles of the Bandit Guild.
“White-Masked Young Master, help us! If you help us escape this place, we will surrender immediately!”
“Ah, that's impossible.”
“……Impossible?”
“We're not trying to escape right now. We're on our way to get Pandora.”
“What?! No, what do you mean…”
“If you really want to surrender, just hang in there. I'll take you as prisoners on our way back.”
“H-hey! Wait! White-Masked Young Master? White-Masked Young Master!!!”
But no matter who pleaded.
Dion did not stop the manor.
He just steadfastly advanced into the cursed fog.
That was why the dark elf maid standing behind him, her face unusually expressionless, finally couldn't hold back and spoke.
“I've long known you were brave to the point of being… insane, Young Master, but I must ask out of duty.”
“What is it?”
“Do you really have no intention of escaping?”
“Nope, none.”
“……”
“Don't look at me like I'm a madman, Parsha. This wasn't a matter of choice in the first place.”
“Not a matter of choice, you say?”
As not only Parsha but also Naru watched with suspicious eyes.
Dion shrugged.
“Because if we don't stop Pandora, we'll be swept up in a Dungeon Break no matter how fast we run.”
“You're not some kind of… idiot. Can't you see we're already caught in a Dungeon Break?”
“No, I mean the next Dungeon Break.”
“……”
Parsha's eyes widened.
And the rabbit-eared boy, who had been blinking stupidly, finally realized the meaning and his jaw dropped.
“W-wait a minute. Are you saying another Dungeon Break is going to happen? In this situation?!”
“Yep.”
“That means…”
Hearing this, not only Parsha and Naru, but even Arsha let out an involuntary groan.
This place, originally a 1-star Labyrinth, had already been eroded by the [Crumbling Gorge]☆☆ and become a 2-star Labyrinth.
But if another Dungeon Break were to occur in this situation?
There was only one answer.
“That this place is about to become a 3-star Labyrinth.”
“……!!!”