The Heart of the Labyrinth
Aside from the early stretch after we first entered the labyrinth, monsters never appeared in overwhelming numbers.
Honestly, ten strong monsters were easier to deal with than a thousand weak ones. That much went without saying.
And even the “strong” ones weren’t all that strong. Only creatures our expedition could handle without much trouble kept showing up.
“Kraaaaaah…!”
Sure enough, a monster burst up from the dirt floor that had been empty only a moment before.
Given how many bone corpses littered this place, skeleton monsters were especially common.
But the skeleton that had just finished forming at the front of the pack slammed into a glowing shield and vanished without a trace.
“As expected, smashing them with Lightning Shield doesn’t give much of a satisfying feel!”
“Kazix! You really shouldn’t charge in like that!”
Ignoring Lumine’s protest completely, the man who had suddenly dashed forward and was now swinging his sword hard at the skeleton-type monsters was our party’s vanguard.
I’d heard he held a high position called “Paladin,” dispatched from the Church Nation.
The paladin I knew looked exactly like him, too—a warrior type who stood at the front with a shining sword and shield.
He glanced at Lumine, who was still trying to rein him in, gave a short snort of laughter, spat on the ground, and wiped the mark away with his boot.
“Never thought I’d hear those words from Chief Mage Lumine herself.”
“Wh-who’s a chief mage?!”
To Lumine, who had no intention of returning to the Lord Alliance and was keeping her past a secret, that title was a bolt from the blue.
She tried desperately to clap a hand over his mouth, but there was no way a girl of about 150 centimeters could silence a man over two meters tall.
“The Chief Mage Lumine I know would charge in without thinking and burn the monsters to—”
“F-fine! Do whatever you want!”
“Then that’s exactly what I’ll do! Lightning Shield!!”
Apparently he decided that running wild was better than having his secrets exposed.
The moment Lumine told him to do as he pleased, Kazix flashed a broad grin and dove back into the pack of skeletons.
Satisfying feel or not, testing a body reinforced by overflowing mana seemed to be fun for him.
I could relate. Right after my own ability first awakened, I’d blown up mountains and seas just to experiment.
I’d already set both him and Lumine with infinite mana recovery, so whether they used skills or magic, their mana never ran dry.
I’d even layered continuous recovery magic on top, so their stamina would keep regenerating until their mana finally gave out.
When I thought about combinations like that, my infinite mana recovery ability really did feel broken.
Anyway, with the vanguard and the rear-line mage smashing every monster that approached the carriage, nothing had come up yet that required me to step in.
In fact, any situation that needed me was basically the worst-case scenario, so lying here with my head on Enge’s lap was probably better for the expedition as a whole.
“Esilly. Shall I stroke your hair?”
“I’d love that~”
Enge looked out at the fighting and gave a bitter little smile.
Wondering why, I tilted my head, and she rested her hand on my hair and began gently stroking it.
“This is the first time I’ve ever felt an expedition atmosphere like this.”
“Normally if an expedition has to go out, the situation isn’t good, right?”
“Yes… but this time, with you here, Esilly, the mood is completely different.”
Using the phrase “completely different” while we were still underground in a labyrinth…
Enge really did have more sense of humor than she let on.
“Huh?”
“It suddenly got dark.”
While I was spending time with my head on Enge’s lap, the interior of the labyrinth began to grow steadily darker.
At first I thought the lights had gone out, but the torches and mana lamps were still burning just fine.
They should have been bright, yet something like a black net seemed to be covering everything.
Wait a second…… this is……!!
Danger!
Hadn’t we been told before we set out?
The monster with dozens of heads swallows light.
I’d wondered what kind of “light” that meant… but it was literally light itself.
How could I have failed to recognize the information the 99th party member had given their life to pass on to us after being sent into this labyrinth!
I had to warn everyone right now.
I was just about to open my mouth and shout at the top of my lungs when—
“All combatants, listen!! This is the deepest part of the labyrinth! The lair of the creature we came for!”
At that moment, the Guild Master’s enormous voice rang through the entire labyrinth, reaching every last person.
We’d already reached the heart of the labyrinth.
I’d noticed the monsters increasing little by little, but I never imagined we’d arrived at the deepest level.
Enge and I immediately jumped out of the carriage and moved behind the rest of the party.
The paladin uncle who’d been smashing skeletons until a second ago was smiling like things had just gotten more fun, while Lumine swallowed hard, looking a little tense.
In a situation like this, being tense was far better than being completely relaxed.
I didn’t say anything to her serious face and simply settled into my own stance.
“Delia! If a monster escapes from here, is there anywhere it could run to?”
“If we let anything escape from this point, there’s nowhere outside the labyrinth city for it to go!”
That was right.
We had only ever moved straight forward.
I couldn’t imagine a fleeing monster weaving around and taking side paths. It would charge straight ahead.
And then?
The labyrinth city would be finished.
The responsibility was heavy.
While everyone else drew the monster’s attention, I would have to land a massive blow with my magic if we were going to defeat it without failure.
Could I really do it?
An unexpected weight of pressure wrapped around my body like chains.
“Hero Esilly!”
“Guild Master.”
While I was standing gloomily behind the party members, the Guild Master waved and strode over.
He clapped my shoulder hard twice, then fixed me with wide eyes and spoke.
“Hero Esilly! Fix mana recovery on everyone present!”
“Ah… understood!”
“Just thinking that I can finally avenge my comrades makes me itch all over! I’m counting on you!”
With that, the Guild Master whispered a loving “be careful” to Enge and returned to his position.
Watching him, the pressure that had been crushing me a moment earlier vanished as if it had never existed.
What was I getting nervous about? Landing powerful magic was literally the one thing I was best at.
There were plenty of people here who had far more reason to be tense than I did.
Get a grip.
With that thought, I packed mana into my hands and slapped both of my own cheeks hard.
“Lumine, Enge! You two absolutely must not get hurt!”
“Don’t worry!”
“Please be careful yourself as well, Esilly.”
Of course Enge was worrying about me.
She was starting to feel more and more like a mother.
“Young lady! Why aren’t you worrying about me?”
At that, the paladin uncle standing in front with his shield stuck out his lower lip.
“Because you look like nothing could possibly hurt you, Uncle.”
“Hahaha! Well, you’re not wrong! This old man will keep everyone safe without a scratch, so don’t you worry!”
The paladin uncle was never going to get hurt.
Anyone looking at that glowing armor would think the same.
The man who until a moment ago had been using his shield like Captain America now poured mana into it and expanded its size.
When I’d asked how big it could get, he’d said there was no limit—he’d once made it large enough to cover the entire labyrinth city.
And he’d done that even before I started supporting his mana recovery.
That shield would never be pierced.
All that remained was for me to cast infinite recovery fixation on everyone present.
Once I finished, a stretch of silence followed.
Thud…… thud……
Thud…… thud……
Covered in dust falling from the ceiling, we held our breath. At the end of that deathly quiet came a rumbling sound of something approaching.
The shadow that advanced with a noise loud enough to shake the ground was…
A gigantic snake.
A gigantic snake with dozens of heads.
Anyone who saw it would call it a hydra.
Every clue left by the 99th party had been accurate!
For us to have prepared with only those short hints and still made it this far was nothing short of heaven’s blessing.
“Grrrrrrr……” “Krrr…”
The heads were spewing fire, yet no color was visible.
Because the creature was absorbing every last bit of light in the area, we simply couldn’t see it.
“Type: Hydra! Type: Hydra!”
“Vanguard, sever the necks! Rear mages, burn the cut surfaces with fire magic!! If three minutes pass without the heads regenerating, we can defeat it!”
On the Guild Master’s order, the vanguard charged forward.
Defense was important, but to beat a hydra the top priority was cutting off as many necks as possible and cauterizing them with fire so the heads stayed gone.
The front-liners moved as fast as they could to sever necks even a second sooner.
And the paladin uncle, who had shot out faster than anyone, succeeded in cutting off the largest central neck.
The massive head vanished without a trace the instant it hit the ground, and from the severed wound a new head began to grow.
It wasn’t lightning-fast, but if magic didn’t land within about two minutes it would fully regenerate.
Yet he was a paladin dispatched from the Church Nation.
To slow the process as much as possible he sliced the already-cut neck thinner and thinner, over and over, delaying the regeneration to the absolute limit.
“Is he a monster…?”
“That’s even possible?!”
The other vanguard members, stunned, started trying to copy him after cutting their own heads.
But slicing the center of a neck and slicing the tip were worlds apart; none of them managed it.
“Chief Mage!! Now!”
“I keep telling you…! I’m not a chief!”
Charging high-rank magic had taken a long time, but once she was ready Lumine swung her staff as if she meant to throw it.
The condensed mana sphere that shot forward at high speed instantly became a fireball, and when it struck the hydra’s severed neck it transformed into pure fire magic.
The blue-white flames that roared to life were Hellfire.
It was said to be an eternal flame that would never go out even if submerged in water.
Perfect against a hydra—yet because it was Emperor Class magic, almost no one could use it.
I couldn’t use it either, of course.
Lumine had essentially been unable to cast it due to lack of mana, but with my infinite mana recovery support she finally could.
“Kyaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!”
“How dreadful! To bring forth the fires of hell right in front of a holy knight of the gods!”
“If you keep making noise I’ll burn you first!”
Looking at it this way… maybe I wasn’t even needed?
Lumine and the paladin uncle alone seemed more than enough.
“Ah. That’s a defeat flag.”
I blurted it out without thinking.
Damn it.
Sure enough, from the wound that had been burned by Hellfire a new head began regenerating again.
Not even five seconds had passed before a perfect new head emerged.
The same thing happened everywhere else.
No matter how hard they cut and burned, every head returned to normal in less than three minutes.
“G-Guild Master!”
“A hydra that regenerates endlessly no matter how much we burn it! What a nuisance!”
Looks like it’s my turn after all.
Guess I should loosen up a little first.