Chapter 137: The Void Devourer
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 137: The Void Devourer
Let's not spend more than five seconds on despair.
It's completely useless anyway.
“What kind of boss is on the 7th floor?”
First, I needed to gather information.
If it was the 7th-floor boss, it was safe to assume we had zero chance of defeating it in a straight fight. Even with Clorence's team, it would be incredibly difficult.
Our goal was to ‘escape to the 5th floor.’
To do that, we had to stay out of the 7th-floor boss's sight at all costs.
To predict its behavior and movements, I first needed to figure out what type of monster it was.
“I-I’m not sure myself.”
The Dwarf Puppeteer shook his head.
“Clorence said it was the 7th-floor boss, so that’s all I knew. But I’ve never seen it on the 6th floor, at least.”
“I don’t need the details. Just tell me what it looked like.”
“...An octopus...?”
“It looked like an octopus? How many legs did it have?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it floating in the air?”
“It was.”
“Was it bigger than the iron-plate mushrooms?”
“Yes.”
“Ah...”
I’m going to need another five seconds of despair.
Now that I thought about it, this wasn't just any boss.
“But wait a minute.”
Back Attack cut in while I was having my mental breakdown.
“If the 7th-floor exit boss came up here, wouldn’t the gate in its exit room be empty now? Can’t we just go down to the 7th floor and escape through that gate?”
It was a plausible idea.
But it was impossible.
“We can’t. For one, the 7th floor is ‘underwater.’ It’s submerged in the Sea of Void, so if we go in without a means of breathing underwater, we’ll drown instantly.”
“What? What kind of fucked-up labyrinth is...”
“And the boss that appeared isn’t the exit boss.”
I knew from the description.
“It’s a special boss.”
The 4th floor had a special area, the Ironworks, where the special boss, the Blacksmith or the Golden Golem, would appear.
The 6th floor, where we were now, also had a special area: the garden where Bearhim, the true master of the mushroom forest and the King of Ancient Fungi, resided.
There was a special boss there, too.
And the 7th floor was no different.
“The Void Devourer.”
The boss that ruled the 7th floor's special area, the Void Waterfall.
That thing had become an Eccentric Boss. And it had come up to the 6th floor.
“It’s the smartest monster on the entire 7th floor.”
And because of that, there was another, even bigger problem.
*
“What the hell is that bastard doing...”
Clorence couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Hiding in a crevice between mushrooms, he had cast ‘Owl’s Hunt’ magic to suppress all noise, peeking out to observe. What he saw was...
“The exit room...”
It was the monster, opening the door to the exit room.
“What’s it doing now?” Dorothy asked from below, busy treating the dying Richard’s wounds.
“It’s picking the lock on the exit room door and going inside.”
“What...”
CRASH!
A moment later, the corrupted Verdure burst out from the door. The wicked deer charged, ramming the Void Devourer with its antlers and sending it flying several meters into a pile of mushrooms.
“...”
But the 7th-floor special boss was completely unharmed. The monster’s flexible legs caught and blocked Verdure’s antlers as a metallic sound scraped from its mouth.
“Hup.”
Despite the noise-suppressing magic, Clorence was so terrified he clamped both hands over his mouth.
“Be careful not to let any light escape,” he whispered, worried Dorothy might be spotted.
Beyond the mushrooms, the octopus-like monster was now strangling Verdure.
The 6th-floor exit boss was no match for it.
CRACK!
A horrific sound echoed out—the sound of Verdure’s antlers snapping. The exit boss’s scream reverberated across the entire map.
And then...
“Verdure is...”
Clorence had never seen anything like it in his life. In all his years of adventuring in the labyrinth, from the 1st to the 6th floor, he had never even heard of such a bizarre phenomenon.
“Verdure is prostrating itself on the ground.”
“What?”
Dorothy’s eyes went wide with surprise.
She briefly set Richard down and climbed up next to Clorence to see for herself. It was true.
Verdure was trembling, head bowed to the ground like a defeated beast begging for its life.
The Void Devourer then gently stroked the monster’s head with the tip of one of its legs.
“The Void Devourer just made Verdure its subordinate.”
And that wasn’t the end of it.
The Devourer took off a backpack that was slung over one of its tentacles. It was the one Richard had been using.
In their haste to escape with the critically injured Richard, Clorence’s party hadn’t been able to retrieve his pack. He knew that, but he never imagined a monster would be carrying it around.
He wondered what it could possibly want with it, but he soon found out.
The Void Devourer opened the bag, took out four magic stones, and...
BOOM! KABOOM! BOOM!
...threw them inside the exit gate.
The gate closed.
And Verdure, now an Eccentric Boss itself, set off, following the Void Devourer.
There were no enemies in the Devourer’s path.
The mushrooms were too busy fleeing.
‘This is insane.’
Clorence instinctively understood what was happening, and a chill ran down his spine.
*
“...It’s probably building its own party.”
My statement was grammatically sound and clear, but no one understood it.
“Building a party?”
“A monster?”
“How is that possible?”
Aimus, Back Attack, and the dwarf Kudrum were all in a state of utter confusion.
Surprisingly, only Yernil accepted it without question.
“So it’s building a party...”
She didn’t understand, though.
“It’s probably going around opening exit rooms one by one to release the exit bosses. If it finds one it thinks is useful, it’ll recruit it. If not, it’ll just kill it. Then it will close the exit gate.”
“...”
“It might even invade Bearhim’s garden to recruit the special boss there.”
“No. You’ve got to be kidding me!” Back Attack screamed.
“So you’re saying that thing is building a party of exit bosses? Right now?”
“Yes.”
And I was worried they’d faint if I told them this, but it might not stop at a four-member party.
There was a high probability it would station its newly formed boss party near the 5th-floor stairs, preventing anyone from escaping.
It would patrol the 6th floor and slaughter every adventurer it found.
“This is a race against time.”
We didn’t have the luxury of slowly avoiding monsters or taking detours.
“We either escape this place as fast as possible, or we hunt down the Devourer. It’s one or the other.”
If we gave it time, we were finished.
*
There was an old saying among the adventurers of Sohen’s Labyrinth.
‘Never enter the labyrinth right after an eruption.’
The reason was that a labyrinth eruption made the labyrinth itself extremely unstable. It was impossible to predict what strange phenomena might occur.
Furthermore, very few adventurers were capable of dealing with such phenomena.
Why? Because they were too busy dealing with the aftermath—recovering from injuries sustained during the eruption, mourning dead party members, helping injured family, rebuilding destroyed homes, and so on.
Therefore, even a relatively minor incident in the labyrinth becomes much harder for adventurers to handle than usual. There simply aren't enough of them.
That’s why entering the labyrinth right after an eruption is more dangerous, which means fewer adventurers go in, which in turn makes it even more dangerous.
It was a vicious cycle that was not easy to break into.
“How many other parties besides us do you think came down to the 6th floor this time?”
Clorence smoked his cigarette, his heart heavy with anxiety.
“I wonder.”
After the monsters left, Dorothy refocused on treating the critically wounded Richard.
“To think this happened from just a single graze from that tentacle.”
The moment Richard was hit by the tentacle looked like a tennis racket serving a ball.
Richard was a burly, muscular Orc from the west, and his armor, made of double-layered steel alloy, was like a fortress of rock. But the monster’s tentacle had torn through it all in one go.
Richard collapsed unconscious with a gruesome wound. The puppeteer, Kudrum, bought them time by sending his combat dolls charging forward, allowing the rest of the party to escape.
Later, while treating Richard under the cover of noise-suppressing magic, they witnessed the bizarre sight of an Eccentric Boss creating another Eccentric Boss.
“I wonder what happened to Kudrum.”
In that moment of crisis, the puppeteer had sent his combat dolls forward to buy time for the entire party.
Get Richard and run!
Dorothy was essential for treating the injured Richard, but it was impossible for her to carry the massive, heavily armored Orc on her own.
What was the rational decision for a party leader and wizard to make in that situation?
1. Decide that abandoning the Dwarf Puppeteer is cowardly, fight without a front-liner, and get wiped out.
2. Escape with Dorothy, carrying Richard. Kudrum’s chances of survival would become slim, but...
“Dammit.”
Clorence took a long drag from his cigarette.
He was worried about Kudrum.
“Phew.”
He exhaled a long plume of smoke.
There was one sliver of hope.
‘The wizard who cast that ice magic.’
The traces left near the treasure room were from no ordinary spell. Judging by its estimated power and scale, it was likely a Tier 5 magic.
Perhaps the party with the wizard who cast that spell was on the 6th floor.
If Kudrum had been spotted by that party, he might still be alive.
“Or maybe that spell was cast by another monster that came up from the 7th floor,” Dorothy said, shattering his wishful thinking.
“That’s possible, too.”
Clorence took a deep drag of his cigarette.
“But at least we know none of the wizards on the 6th floor can use magic like that.”
“Ugh...”
Richard groaned in pain and opened his eyes.
“You guys are so damn loud I can’t even pass out in peace.”
“Richard. How are you feeling?” Dorothy asked, her face full of concern.
“Like fucking shit. Like I kissed that puppeteer dwarf.”
“Have you?”
“Damn it all.”
Richard grunted and pushed himself up.
“Let’s go find that dwarf.”
“Just rest a little longer before you move.”
“I can recover on the move.”
Richard chugged a healing potion.
At that very moment.
Pop!
A message scroll suddenly appeared before Clorence’s eyes.
“A message scroll!”
Everyone’s eyes widened in hopeful surprise.
Kudrum didn’t have a message-sending wand.
And they’d never heard of a monster that could use message scrolls. Maybe something like the White Lion could, but a creature like that wouldn’t be on the 6th floor right now.
Which meant...
“It’s another party!”
And the fact that the message was sent to Clorence meant they knew his name and face.
They might have even made contact with Kudrum.
The sender of the message was...
“Caleb?”
“What?”
“Caleb?”
[The Dwarf Puppeteer Kudrum is with our party. Please tell us your current location. -Caleb-]
*
RUMBLE! CRASH!
The ground shook.
It happened around the time we met up with Clorence again.
The mushrooms stirred, and spores flew everywhere.
“Another exit room has been cleared.”
Everyone’s expression was grim.
The Void Devourer’s party was now likely three members—no, three monsters—strong.
“You said it took Verdure with it earlier, right?”
The Void Devourer was something akin to a wizard. While it could easily crush 6th-floor adventurers just by smacking them with its tentacles, its true power came from its magic.
It seemed it was planning to use Verdure as its front-liner.
“Let’s go.”
The creature might be heading for Bearhim’s garden.
To capture the special boss there.