Labyrinth of the Ark (2)

Every scrap of scenery before us was red.

Cold, stiffened hunks of flesh snagged at our feet, and intestines tangled like spiderwebs lay embroidered across the ground.

A demon realm beyond the human world. The road of hell itself. No expression I could summon would ever be equal to the horror of it.

"This is… too much…"

Karin's voice shook uncontrollably.

"……."

Baek Seo-ha shut her eyes tight, her fists trembling.

Every one of us was a seasoned hunter, and still we could not keep the shock off our faces. It was as if some vast ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠battlefield had been crammed, whole and unfiltered, into this single cramped space.

"Agh… Aaaaaaah!"

Diana's legs simply gave out and she collapsed where she stood.

"No… no, this can't be… why…!"

The people of her Magic Tower — people who had been like family to her — had all become corpses overnight.

Until now she had kept her emotions on a tight leash, but demanding composure in the face of this… was simply cruel.

"Gabe… Darren… Neville… Norman…"

She crawled on hands and knees, searching through the fields of the dead, and every time a human face emerged from the carnage she called a name and gathered the body into her arms.

"Hhk… hic! Uuuuuugh…"

Her own body had to be in the worst possible condition, yet she paid it no mind at all as she dragged herself across the blood-soaked floor.

"Lou… Louis…!!"

The moment she saw the golden-haired mage's head, her shoulders heaved and she broke into open wailing.

"I'm sorry… I was too… too late… I couldn't protect you… hic! Uuuuugh!"

Her retreating back, the hell that ringed her — and shamefully, none of it felt foreign to me.

Destruction.

A world where death was more common than the pebbles on the street, where tears were worth less than raindrops. Yesterday's comrade buried in today's soil, your most precious people slipping from your side without warning.

A world so brutal it stole the breath from your lungs.

I thought I wouldn't have to see this kind of scenery in this life.

Heat surged up from somewhere deep inside me.

So in the end, you bastards went and pulled something like this after all.

This was how easily they trampled the value of life into the dirt. The weight of the lives those people had carried, and the lives they had yet to live, ground underfoot like it was nothing at all.

Then that meant—

I'm free to treat your lives exactly the same way.

No mercy. No forgiveness. I would cut off that breath of theirs without hesitation.

And I don't care if that drags me down to your level.

If I couldn't kill you without breaking, then I would gladly throw everything I was into shattering myself.

No — I had done exactly that a long time ago.

"…Tae-hyun?"

"L-Lord Tae-hyun…?"

Baek Seo-ha and Karin glanced warily at me and flinched.

"Whew… sorry. My emotions got away from me there."

Right now, more than anything, I needed to get into the labyrinth and find whoever had massacred these mages — and kill them.

I approached Diana with care.

"Lady Diana. We have to go."

"Hkk… ugh…"

"If you stay here like this, their deaths will have been for nothing."

You could wish for someone to weep for you, but no one wishes for the people they cherish to fall apart over it.

I drew a blue pill from my subspace.

"Eat this. It'll refill your drained mana in no time."

Grieving could wait until everything was over.

What she needed to carry in her chest right now was only one thing — the hatred that would turn this anguish and sorrow into a blade and pay it all back in kind.

Hollow comfort is nothing but hypocrisy.

What Diana needed now was a reason to stand back up. A place to arrive at if she made her grief and despair the stepping stones beneath her feet.

And that place was—

"…Yes."

Revenge.

A repayment more terrible and more brutal than any other. What moves a person out of despair is the thirst for vengeance.

It had been that way for me.

"I will… I'll return every ounce of pain these children felt to that intruder — no, ten times, a hundred times, something far, far worse…!"

The sorrow on Diana's face faded bit by bit, and hatred rose to fill the space it left behind.

Like a soldier weeping tears of blood, her face twisted to its limits, her lips bitten raw as if they might burst. And somehow, watching her like that, a faint smile crossed my lips.

"That's exactly it."

I helped Diana to her feet as she still staggered from the spell's aftereffects, and pressed the Azure ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Qi Pill to her mouth.

Crunch!

The moment her small teeth bit down, blue energy bloomed and spread through her.

"And I'll help you with that revenge."

"…You mean it?"

"I do."

Over Diana's figure — so fragile it seemed she might crumble at any moment — the ghost of my past self overlapped. Lee Tae-hyun in the immediate aftermath of the apocalypse, listless and wandering with nothing left in him but hatred.

"Let's gift the one who did this a pain so terrible they'll pray for death."

I now had the strength to speak of revenge. All that remained was to act.

Thump! Thump!

My heart hammered violently and my throat burned dry. A thrill crawled up my spine as if I were savoring this situation.

"Ah…."

Tears burst from her eyes.

Diana's pupils, drained of life and focus, turned toward me. Then her small hand settled over mine, and she whispered:

"Yes. Absolutely."

Absolutely.

"Let's kill them."

"Yes."

Without leaving a single shred behind. Let's burn them down to the last fragment of bone.

The traces of slaughter continued even as we entered the tower proper.

"These people…"

"…The Argos Guard. These ones fell too."

Among the dead lay the corpses of hunters who were clearly strong — some decapitated, others hacked apart limb from limb and brutally butchered.

"That's the tower's elite guard, made up entirely of S-rank hunters. If even they were beaten this badly…"

"Then the intruder is at least World Ranker class."

Karin swallowed dryly.

Granted, we had a World Ranker of our own in Diana. But—

She's still suffering the aftereffects of the coordinate shift.

The Pill had restored her bottomed-out mana, but a spell of that magnitude left considerable strain behind after casting. It was no accident she could only use it once a month — and her mana stat would have taken a heavy toll as well.

As things stand, Diana is effectively at the very top of S-rank — upper tier, nothing more.

It would be hard to hope for the 'Moonlight Witch' who had pressed me so hard in that battle.

"The labyrinth where the Ark is sealed lies underground. Everyone, follow me."

We trailed behind Diana into the bowels of the Magic Tower.

The security enchantments… are all disabled.

It meant the intruder had punched through every barrier on the way down. That was the moment it became certain: the Advent Cult's target really was the Ark.

Clatter!

We descended an endless staircase in silence until we reached a chamber dominated by an enormous stone gate. And, true to form, blood and corpses were strewn across the floor there too.

"The Council elders…"

Mages ranging from middle-aged to elderly lay cold and still around the stone gate.

"You guarded the Ark… guarded the tower, all the way to the end. Thank you — truly, thank you. Rest easy now."

Diana offered them a brief silent prayer, then turned back to us and began to explain.

"This is the underground labyrinth where the Ark is sealed. Knossos."

Knossos. The most famous labyrinth in all of mythology.

"I can feel an enormous power coming from inside."

"How did anyone build a labyrinth like this in the past?"

Baek Seo-ha tilted her head as she felt the energy pouring out from within the stone gate.

"Nobody built Knossos. It's a protective mechanism the Ark created of its own will to defend itself."

"Wait — that's even possible?!"

"When you gather that many spells in one place, things outside the bounds of common sense are bound to happen."

Mages had stored their research in a single repository, and from that act the 'Ark' and 'Knossos' had been born. A tower was later raised upon the site — that was the origin of the Magic Tower, the world's first guild.

"Normally I could issue an access pass that would let you reach the Ark without the labyrinth interfering, but the labyrinth is already active."

"Then…"

"To reach the Ark, we have to break through this labyrinth."

It wasn't all bad news, though. Thanks to that, the intruder couldn't simply walk up to the Ark either.

"We have to find the Ark and protect it before they do."

I drew my spear from my subspace and declared it flatly.

"If the Ark falls too, the Magic Tower is finished."

Once the UK Magic Tower — the gravitational center of them all — disappeared, the other towers would lose their power and collapse in its wake. And a world thrown into chaos would only make the Advent Cult's work easier.

I can't just stand by and watch that happen.

The Ark, the very wellspring of the Magic Towers, was something I would never hand over.

"Then let's go."

"Yeah."

"Yes…!"

"Right."

Each of us carrying our own resolve, we stepped into the darkness beyond the stone gate together.

A strange sensation swept over my body, like passing through a gate — and in the same instant, the landscape before my eyes changed completely.

It's like someone lifted the image that comes to mind at the word 'labyrinth' and dropped it here whole.

They had taken a dungeon and a ruined palace, blended them together, and stretched the result into an infinite maze. A place where oppressive gloom and unknowable mystery coexisted.

Damp air pressed against my skin.

"This is the Magic Tower's underground labyrinth — Knossos!"

"Be careful. The labyrinth is not a place that forgives carelessness."

Diana fed a faint current of mana into her staff as she warned us.

"It rivals any of the serious gates."

As if to mock her warning —

something enormous immediately came kicking its way toward us head-on.

"Graaaaaah!"

"Kuooh!"

Two monsters. And one of them had a shape more grotesque than anything I'd ever seen.

"Wh-what IS that?!"

"Disgusting…!"

The legs of an orc. The head of a werewolf. Long lizardman tails sprouting from every part of its body — a deeply unpleasant silhouette. A chimera stitched together from a dozen different monsters stood there before us.

"That's a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠monster born of the Ark itself."

"If you're going to make one, couldn't you at least make it look decent?"

"The Ark is nothing but an aggregate of magic — it has no intelligence. It was born from the simple logic that fusing strong monsters produces a stronger monster."

It had a grotesqueness on the level of a mutant hunter. Grotesque, but—

The killing intent it radiates… is at least top-of-the-line A-rank.

And that was a quasi-boss-class specimen, no less.

"Tch."

If this place is crawling with nothing but those, it's going to be a nuisance.

I was just pouring mana into my spear, about to unfold my spear art, when—

"Wait a moment."

Baek Seo-ha reached out a hand and stopped me.

"I will take this one."

"You shouldn't be wasting strength here, Lord Tae-hyun! Leave it to us."

"…I said I will take it."

"Yes, yes. We will."

"……."

Baek Seo-ha turned away as if conceding defeat — and then, with a sharp ring, drew her sword.

The Chamryonggeom revealed its frigid blade, radiating an awesome presence.

Baek Seo-ha's hair stained itself pitch black.

Beside her, Karin — standing shoulder to shoulder — finished her incantation in a rush.

"Ame-no-Habakiri!"

The sword of myth manifested, and pressed itself into her hand.

"The sword art Lady Seo-ha taught me. I finally get to use it in real combat."

"…Quiet."

"You're blushing."

And so the two hunters raised their blades.

"Kuoooaaaah!"

The two monsters caught sight of us and came shrieking their grotesque cries. And in the next instant, it unfolded—

Shrrrack!

A dance of the black dragon's blade.

In the blink of an eye, the monster's body was carved into ribbons and fell.

"Ah! That was dirty, going first!"

"Hm… is there a 'first' and a 'later' when it comes to killing monsters?"

Baek Seo-ha's lips curled up slightly as she looked at Karin. Karin's cheeks puffed out.

"I've been practicing really hard too, you know…!"

She sheathed the sword of myth, steadied her breath, sharpened every nerve —

"Hah!"

— and drew in a single flash.

The first battoujutsu I had seen since Fujiwara Manabu. I'd thought that bastard's draw was quick enough in its own right, but—

Fwack!

Karin's draw was, quite literally, godspeed.

BOOM!

The two monsters were dispatched in a heartbeat.

"Miss Karin, what was that just now?"

"Ah… it's a sword art I built myself, watching Lady Seo-ha's technique. She told me that anyone who handles a sword should master at least one proper sword art, but I couldn't find one I liked…"

"…So you made one yourself?"

"Yep! Hehe… it's still a little rough, though."

So this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was what geniuses were like. Their entire way of thinking existed on a different plane from ordinary mortals.

Well… either way, that settles it.

No need to worry about holding back in the labyrinth anymore. Bringing those two along had been the right call, as expected.

"Still lacking. Could you really protect Tae-hyun like that? You might as well just leave everything to me."

"Ha… haha…! Lady Seo-ha, whenever your hair turns black like that, your personality gets strangely off… I mean, distinctly unique…"

"What? Tae-hyun said it was pretty. My black hair."

"…Pardon? Really?"

Uh. Um…

It'll be fine, right?