The Key
Once a thing had hardened to that point, it was hardly difficult to understand.
Taylor picked out a single word.
"'For now'? So you're leaving yourself an out, too?"
"If I flatly refused, how would Brother Alan take it?"
"You're hilarious. He wouldn't give a damn."
Just as Taylor said, Alan took no interest whatsoever. He was collecting the spiders, inspecting them for malfunctions, and repairing whatever problems he found on the spot.
"All right, that's enough of that."
Alan clapped his hands to gather everyone's attention, then strode toward the throne. The black door yawned wide open.
"Alan. What about that rabbit that bolted on us earlier?"
"It's probably hiding in the Primeval Forest."
As always, Alan sent the Panther in first and followed after. The instant they emerged from the black passage, the first thing he witnessed was a ball of flame hurtling straight at them.
BOOM! WHOOOOSH!
The explosion went off, and fire spread across the surrounding ground.
"There we go! Direct hit!"
"What are you, cops?"
"We announced ourselves, so we've got to finish the job! What are you waiting for? Pour it on!"
The moment they entered the Primeval Forest, some group had ambushed them. The attackers were squeezing every last drop of output from their Evies, hurling firepower in torrents.
Fire-element spells and bombs came flying in especially thick. Burning the Primeval Forest's creatures to ash left nothing behind to salvage, but against human targets, was there really any more efficient attack?
The flames swelled larger and larger, the heat piling on top of itself — and just as the ambushers began to stagger back from it, a great feline beast burst clean through the wall of fire. It had absorbed all those attacks and come away with nothing worse than a light scorching on its exterior plating.
The Panther showed no mercy. It carried its charging momentum straight through, flattening one attacker beneath its weight, then tore at the man's throat with its rapidly spinning drill fangs.
CRUNCH-CRUNCH-CRUNCH!
"AAAAAHHH—"
The screams that had rung out freely thanks to the throat guard grew quieter and quieter.
Muzzle dyed red, the Panther lifted its head slightly and stared dead ahead, sharp eyes sweeping over the remaining enemies.
Taylor, emerging through the door behind them, took one look at the scene and immediately searched for Alan.
"You all right?"
"Yes. I fought a fire mage once before, remember? I applied as much of the data from that fight as I could to the Power Suit."
"Ah... that time."
The memory surfaced in Taylor's mind — grabbing the mage by the head and firing a heat beam point-blank into his face.
"Don't tell me the numbers you were counting back then were—"
Even as the thought crossed his mind, he bared his teeth and charged forward. There in front of him stood a band of explorers — no, murderers and robbers.
"Attacking out of nowhere? Crazy bastards."
Taylor swung his mana sword without hesitation. Conversation was a luxury. To put it precisely, there were people worth talking to, and there were beasts.
Shiva laid protective holy arts over Taylor with his left hand while his right, charged with healing energy, fussed over Alan.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm not injured, so you can ease off."
"Even if the outside looks fine, your mana could have been disturbed. Maggots, of all things, out of nowhere..."
"Hmm."
Alan thought he understood why this had happened. His left eye swept rapidly across the surroundings, then magnified one spot dramatically.
Behind a thick tree roughly a hundred meters away, white hair was visible. The Rabbitfoot that had fled earlier. Even at that distance, it was poking out nothing but a pair of timid eyes, terrified of something.
And the Rabbitfoot's fear was hardly unfounded. If it had truly wanted to escape, it should have abandoned the ambush entirely and hidden itself away for good.
When Alan sent the Panther a signal, the beast — which had been caving in someone's chest with a Kitty Punch — slipped away into the brush.
The battle ended quickly. The combined result of all that indiscriminate spell-slinging was a faint smudge of soot on the Panther's exterior plating; the gap in skill was simply too vast.
At first, blood rushing to his head, Taylor had aimed only for vital points, but he soon collected himself and took two of them alive, dragging them over by the hair and flinging them to the ground.
"Sons of bitches, daring to attack us of all people..."
For all his fury, Alan himself looked barely mussed — but the fact that they had been attacked all the same didn't simply go away.
"They're connected to that Rabbitfoot that ran off, aren't they? The bastard's already long gone — what do we do about that?"
"The Panther went after him, so he'll be back shortly."
"Oh, really? No wonder I didn't see it. I figured it was hiding around here somewhere like usual."
Taylor was one of the few who could perceive the Panther's presence clearly, yet even he lost track of the beast the moment his attention drifted elsewhere.
Just as Alan said, the Panther came trotting back with someone's collar clenched in its jaws. The Rabbitfoot dangled limply, quiet as a newborn beast. It had seen firsthand what happened to those who resisted and got their napes caught between those drill fangs — rebellion was not worth the price.
The moment the Rabbitfoot, head hanging low, caught sight of human feet, it snapped its face up.
"My name is Con—"
"Shut it. Nobody asked."
"I only thought you'd want to know—"
"Why did you bring your friends here? Do you have a grudge against us? We've never had anything to do with criminals like you."
"You're not with the cops, then?"
"I said we're not, didn't I?"
"Heh heh. Then let's start with a civil conversa—"
"A conversation?"
"We're civilized men, and intellectuals, and city dwellers, after all."
"You're saying that while looking at that? If you'd wanted a civil chat, you should have acted like a gentleman from the start."
"Are you familiar with the concept of redefining a relationship—"
Taylor clubbed Connie across the back of the head. His irritation index had climbed with every word out of the thief's mouth.
Alan stepped forward.
"You're the thief who stole something from an Essel Magic Tower subsidiary, aren't you?"
"Mmm."
When Connie's eyes began rolling around in his head, Taylor struck him again.
"I can hear your brain rattling. It's not like it's going anywhere — it's sitting right there in your palm — so answer the questions you're asked, and I won't kill you."
"..."
"There goes the head rolling again. See him over there? He's a monk of the Mother Church. He keeps his word."
When Shiva flashed a benevolent smile, Connie convulsed in his bindings.
"The Purification Volunteer Corps! You're going to make me a slave, aren't you? You sadistic monsters!"
Alan glanced briefly at Shiva, who looked bewildered. What on earth went on in the Purification Volunteer Corps to earn this kind of reaction? Then he looked back down at Connie.
"There are insects on the 25th Floor swampland that eat human flesh while it's still alive. The Labyrinth's creator keeps the hosts intact as long as possible for the sake of the next generation. Or perhaps it's a monster designed purely to inflict suffering. One of the two."
"..."
Connie gazed up at the sky for a moment — at the sun of the Primeval Forest that hung in its place always, never moving.
"I'd rather have the real thing than a fake, I suppose..."
"Then shall we talk about what you stole?"
Alan relocated with Connie in tow. The battle had produced a great deal of noise, and a calm conversation required a quiet, safe place.
Just below the crest of a low hill lay a flat stretch of rock. Alan's party sat down there, while Connie and the attackers were made to kneel at its base.
Connie glanced at his unconscious comrades, then turned his head away.
"How did you know I was the one who borrowed the—"
Taylor's hand rose, and Connie's shoulders shrank.
"...You knew?"
"We ran into the police. We heard they were hunting a thief who stole some item from a research institute — an Essel Magic Tower subsidiary."
"My nose was right after all. You did reek of something foul."
"We have nothing to do with the police. We were simply on our way down to the Snowfield when you attacked us — that's how we ended up tangled in this."
"Just three of you, aiming past the Primeval Forest and even further down? That's insane— ow!"
Taylor hurled a broad, flat stone, and Connie, struck in the forehead, let out a small yelp. He didn't seem to have the courage to glare back, and dropped his gaze to the ground.
"Ha, damn it all. I picked the wrong marks."
"Your nose was right, but your eyes were wrong."
Connie had no retort to that. As he fidgeted in place, Alan murmured half to himself.
"I wonder why the police came down this far, though."
"You don't know that either? One of the police higher-ups is the research director's husband."
"They investigated thoroughly, then."
"That much is just the basics."
THWACK!
"Where do you think you're puffing up? Don't forget you're a thief who just got caught. In the old days I'd have started by cutting off your legs and working up from there."
The thief, who had been preening as if he'd said something to be proud of, was left with nothing but a fresh lump on his forehead for his trouble. He glared at his own comrades, but they were in no state to react.
"Legs? Would you really?"
At Alan's words, Taylor and Connie turned to look at each other. An earthquake rippled through the thief's pupils, and Taylor asked whether he was serious.
"That was sudden."
"Well, even if we cut them off, a prosthetic can be attached later. Though when you factor in treatment and transport, leaving him whole so he can walk on his own two feet would actually be more convenient."
"The stolen item is the Mysterious Key."
Connie blurted out a confession without being asked. For reasons unknown, his attitude had become remarkably cooperative.
"The Key? Do you have it on you now?"
"Of course I hid it. That thing is my last line of defense — my life depends on it."
Alan called to mind the Degree Magic Research Institute, the Essel Magic Tower subsidiary. The prestigious research topics went to the Tower itself, the trivial scraps got passed down to subsidiaries — but it still bore Essel's name.
Burglary and combat were different disciplines, but watch anyone move for a while and you could generally gauge their caliber.
"How did you steal it?"
"Something about that question feels unpleasant."
"I'm asking because I'm genuinely curious. Try some self-objectification. Could you truly have breached that facility's security and walked out with the item?"
"Don't look down on me. I got caught this time, sure, but my skills are formidable."
Hearing that, Taylor nodded along vigorously.
"Come to think of it, that's exactly it. How did a slippery slob like you breach their security and make off with anything? The Degree institute may be small, but I've never heard rumors that its internal security was a mess."
"..."
Connie didn't argue with Taylor. Judging from how he only snapped back at Alan's remarks, it seemed violence did frighten him after all.
"No need to think any further. You were someone's errand boy, weren't you? Perhaps you were issued a stealth-specialized magic tool. Or perhaps an insider helped you."
"No!"
"Then why did you descend into the Labyrinth? With your friends in tow, no less?"
"..."
"Did they promise to clear your warrant as soon as the job was done? Or to smuggle you out to another country with a fat account under a false name?"
Connie, who had been talking back to everything until now, fell silent. Even if he hadn't hit the whole truth, he'd clearly struck part of it.
Alan continued.
"You took the job without thinking because of the pay, but once the theft actually succeeded, a certain thought must have crept in. Is this right? If I hand this over, will they really send me off unharmed?"
"In one word: you chickened out and ran. Every route out of Maze City is under surveillance, and once the net tightens, the only place left is the Labyrinth. You're a rat in a trap — but what a spacious trap it is. Wait for things to quiet down, slip out, and make your escape. That was the plan, wasn't it?"
"Goodness... Then instead of agonizing over it, why not contact a Sister? She would have come to collect you so kindly."
Connie had kept quiet while Alan and Taylor spoke, but the moment Shiva chimed in, his face twisted in disgust.
"I'd rather die than go there."
"What on earth do they do in the Purification Volunteer Corps to earn a reaction like that?"
"We merely cleanse the sins a man has committed. Most serve there contentedly for the rest of their lives."
"Content, my ass. A bomb planted under your brain, and you call that content?"
"A bomb, you say? Please do not compare Mother's stern discipline to some crude instrument of violence. Though the discipline is severe enough that quite a few of the volunteers do set off on a journey to Mother's side."
"They explode! It explodes!"
Connie shouted at Shiva's sly, self-satisfied tone. The general situation was clear enough now — it was time to decide what to do with Connie.
"We were heading down anyway, so we can simply sell Mr. Connie to the research base on the 23rd Floor."
"I don't know if word of this has reached them yet, but a subsidiary is involved now, so they won't just sit on their hands."
"Wait!"
Connie raised his voice. He seemed to be trying to express as much pitifulness as possible through his actions and expressions, but bound tightly as he was, all he could manage was wriggling like a caterpillar.
"I have friends on the 26th Floor. Let me go and I'll pay you back."
"Ah, the 26th Floor — where the maggots were."
"Not maggots — call them free men, would you? Ow!"
This time it was Alan who acted. Before Taylor could step in, he rapped Connie squarely on the crown of the head with his staff.
"I consider myself a lover of peace, yet for some reason, the moment I set eyes on you, Mr. Connie, destructive urges I never knew I had come boiling to the surface. Judging by how little you know, Essel Magic Tower kept its information control airtight."