Chapter 191: Another Labyrinth
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 191: Another Labyrinth
The Fox Spirit god, dropped into the heart of the Abyss, was like an airborne unit deployed in the middle of enemy territory.
The Labyrinth Master had no time to pursue Caleb, Bipa, or Mugol.
For a brief moment, the lord of the Labyrinth was tied down to the volcano's summit.
"Mugol!"
Bipa didn't try to scale the erupting volcano again.
"Let's retreat for now!"
"What about Hyedam!"
"She's already dead!"
Hyedam had likely been seized by madness at the hands of the Labyrinth Master. Or, in resisting it, something from beyond the Ethereal Galaxy had taken root inside her.
And Caleb didn't want Hyedam to be enslaved by those Transcendent beings, her body stolen from her. So he had stabbed her in the neck.
Of course, a hundred Calebs couldn't have laid a scratch on such a powerful Fox Spirit guardian, but in the throes of madness and possession, she would have been unable to resist his blade.
"Just run!"
Bipa and Mugol fled with all their might.
The penalty was causing their strength to drain away. If they delayed any longer, they would all die here.
Although Bipa didn't know the Gumiho had appeared, the fact that the Labyrinth Master wasn't giving chase for some unknown reason was a golden opportunity.
"We have to escape now!"
Bipa and Mugol sprinted toward the stairs and escaped to the 10th floor.
They became the first duo of adventurers to descend into the Abyss, face the Labyrinth Master, and not be consumed.
And as for Caleb...
After reaching the 10th floor, Caleb set down Hyedam's fox bead and her bag.
A fox bead is part of their body. The bead was Hyedam's body.
Of course, the body currently grappling with the Gumiho in the Abyss was also Hyedam's.
You could say her body had been split in two, like a planarian worm. But one half was hosting the Gumiho, while the other...
"Holds Hyedam's soul."
He took the rattling ossuary from the bag and placed it beside Hyedam.
He had poured everything into this expedition, using up every resource he had gathered from the west.
"A Death Deferral Scroll."
It was a scroll of 8th-grade magic that could revert a 'corpse' to a 'living being' by judgment.
"A Hyper-Regeneration Scroll."
And a magic scroll that rapidly regenerated damaged parts of the body.
"A Rapid Vitality Potion."
He also used a potion that would continuously grant vitality until its effects wore off.
The scene looked as if he were transmuting Hyedam's entire body from scratch.
He dressed her naked form in the clothes he had brought. And then.
"A Resurrection Scroll."
The fox bead reclaimed the soul from the ossuary. The Resurrection Scroll brought her back to life.
"Wake up, Hyedam."
Though it would take some time for her mind to recover.
"Ugh... Ughh..."
Hyedam thrashed in shock and pain as her body, which had completely vanished, returned to her.
"Aaargh!"
"It's all over now. Calm down."
Caleb stroked her hair, though Hyedam's consciousness was so low she wouldn't even remember it.
"Bipa and Mugol will come for you. But before they do, I need you to help me."
"..."
She rose to her feet with a dazed expression, like a sleepwalker.
Caleb led her away from the spot.
To a place he had found long before reaching the Deep Layer stairs, but had left alone, judging it wasn't yet time to return.
He ran into the Exit Room.
CRASH!
Kicking the door open, he came face to face with the 10th-floor exit boss, the Silver Sword Paladin.
It was an enemy as formidable as most Deep Layer monsters, but...
'Tailwind Blade.'
For a Deep Layer adventurer like Hyedam, it wasn't too difficult. Besides, Caleb had...
"Foxfire of Delight."
...her powerful fox bead.
After subduing the exit boss, he tossed three magic stones into the gate.
"Hyedam. You might be possessed soon," Caleb told her.
Hyedam didn't seem to fully understand.
"Bipa and Mugol are on the 10th floor."
"Ugh..."
"Go find them. Bipa will know what to do. Don't worry."
Caleb pushed her out of the Exit Room and turned toward the exit gate.
Grip.
As he was leaving, Hyedam grabbed the hem of his clothes.
She was barely conscious.
But she was sad.
Tears as clear as fox beads streamed down the Eight-tailed Fox Spirit's pale cheeks.
"Sorry."
Caleb pulled his hand away and jumped into the exit gate.
"..."
Hyedam wandered tearfully in front of the vanishing gate.
Until Bipa and Mugol found her.
"Hyedam!"
Bipa waved a hand in front of Hyedam's eyes.
"Hyedam! What... what happened to you? How are you alive?"
"..."
"Looks like her mind is wandering."
Mugol nudged Bipa's shoulder with his elbow.
"Let me take a look."
Fortunately, the Spirit Race Taoist was Wyndham's most skilled healer.
He helped stabilize Hyedam and bring her back to her senses.
Hyedam remembered nothing.
Not even the fact that Caleb had stabbed her in the Abyss.
And there was another problem.
'She was possessed.'
Hyedam must have heard the Labyrinth Master's whispers.
And she had resisted the madness. She had been dominated by a champion from beyond the Ethereal Galaxy.
But perhaps because Caleb had killed her at that very moment?
Hyedam...
"She's ended up in a state like she has a split personality."
It was a case even Bipa had never seen before.
"What do we do? Can we reverse it?"
"I don't know. It seems difficult for her to go to the surface in this state."
Bipa and Mugol took Hyedam up to the 3rd floor of the Labyrinth.
They passed through the inter-wall space to the Sohen-side of the Labyrinth. Using the stairs in front of the stele, they moved to the inter-floor village.
And there, Bipa placed Hyedam in the hideout she had created for Possessors.
The entire journey took about two months.
In that time, Caleb, who was thought to be dead, voluntarily appeared in a Wyndham court.
Using the fox bead as evidence, he confessed to killing Hyedam.
Evidence suggesting Hyedam had been possessed was found in the house where she and Caleb had lived together.
The prosecutor suspected it was fabricated.
But it was difficult to prove. Caleb passed most of the confession spells, including lie detection magic.
What was even stranger was that he didn't pay the fine.
In Wyndham, the penalty for killing a Possessor was a fine of 3,000 gold. Considering the wealth of a Deep Layer adventurer like Hyedam, 3,000 gold would have been pocket change for Caleb, who managed their finances.
"Please put me on a slave ship."
He refused to pay the fine to the very end and was enslaved.
For a while, rumors about the man who had left for Sohen circulated among the citizens of Wyndham.
Rumors that he seemed happy.
"..."
Bipa, Mugol, and even the Spider Doctor.
Listening to their cross-referenced accounts of that day only deepened my confusion.
And Bipa and Mugol's confusion grew as well.
"You... you bastard!"
Suddenly, Mugol grabbed me by the collar.
"Were you planning to kill Hyedam from the start? Listening to this spider freak, it sounds like you had it all planned out!"
"..."
"You son of a bitch! I knew something was off about you from the start. You've got those fucking sinister eyes!"
"Calm down, Mugol!"
"And you're lying about not remembering anything from back then, aren't you!"
"Wait a minute!"
The Spider Doctor grabbed his arm.
But even the Spider Doctor struggled to match Mugol's strength.
"A girl like Hyedam is so naive, she's easy to deceive. A shaman that powerful, yet as clueless about the world as a child. Do you have any idea how many scammers tried to latch onto her?!"
"..."
"Bipa and I got rid of every damn one of them we met, inside and outside the Labyrinth! But there was one. Her fiancé, who she knew even before she met us. Caleb. You son of a bitch! You were the only one I couldn't touch, even though you felt sketchy as hell, so I just watched!"
"Mugol! Calm down!"
Bipa smacked Mugol's head repeatedly with her fan.
"Nothing has been confirmed yet! Besides, Caleb also brought Hyedam back to life!"
"Grrr..."
The Tiger-folk warrior's fangs were bared in a snarl.
He shoved me hard, sending me stumbling back.
"Dammit."
My head was spinning.
Because of Mugol's outburst?
No, I couldn't care less about that.
It was the Caleb from that time.
'How fucking brilliant is that?'
The Labyrinth Master coveted Hyedam. Even I can see that now. It's only natural he'd want an Eight-tailed Fox Spirit guardian with that much power.
But he probably didn't have a good way to get her. Killing her wouldn't be hard, but to drive her to madness, Hyedam would have to be devoted enough to something to throw away her own life. Just like how Back Attack had offered his soul to save Aimus's team.
Before the possession... no, should I say before I lost my memories?
My past self used that.
He predicted that if a rookie like himself entered the Abyss, the Labyrinth Master would think it was the perfect chance to come out and grab Hyedam.
From the 1st to the 10th floor, no ordinary incident could threaten the Deep Layer trio, so the Labyrinth Master had to personally intervene once they reached the Abyss.
'If he used force on Mugol and Bipa and then turned his blade on Caleb, Hyedam would surely give herself over to madness, right?'
...He predicted what the Labyrinth Master would think and turned the tables, setting a trap. Using himself as bait.
Then, using the Deep Layer's magic and the fox-charming talismans, he turned Hyedam into the Gumiho, and used her fox bead to resurrect her on the 10th floor.
Death Deferral, Hyper-Regeneration, Rapid Vitality.
Scrolls and potions like these are all incredibly valuable and not easy to obtain. They're Deep Layer-grade treasures. It's amazing he managed to procure them. Did Hyedam bring them to him before?
Hmm.
Maybe.
What about when he brought Hyedam out of Fox Pass? Could he have planned this from that moment?
As Mugol said, Hyedam was like a child, naive about the ways of the world. She knew nothing of the world outside Fox Pass.
So she had no choice but to rely completely on me, the one who had held her hand and led her out of there.
Could it be that he had been gaslighting her from the very beginning, breaking her spirit of defiance and making her devoted to him? All to make her strike a deal with madness when they faced the Labyrinth Master in the Abyss?
No. Isn't this practically on the level of a mind controller?
'Is this even possible?'
It was truly shocking.
Now I understood why the Spider Doctor had singled me out and proposed a deal after being freed from the 3rd-floor stele.
"There are many Deep Layer adventurers. Any one of them was stronger than Caleb at the time. But there are very few knights who can engage in a battle of wits with the Labyrinth Master. Back then, Caleb was the first human to ever put the Labyrinth Master in a predicament."
The Spider Doctor had been functioning as a part of the Labyrinth, as the eyes of the 3rd floor.
He had witnessed the whole disaster that unfolded in the Abyss.
That's why he targeted me.
"I believed Caleb was the only one who could retrieve my body."
I was impressed, I'll admit, but it couldn't end there.
"Isn't that a little strange?"
I still hadn't solved all the mysteries of that day.
"Why did he summon the Gumiho there?"
Was he trying to use the Gumiho to kill the Labyrinth Master?
But it's common sense that a single Gumiho couldn't possibly handle the Lord of the Abyss, who had killed, devoured, and driven out so many gods during the Age of Myths.
Why was there a need to go down to the Abyss and do all that? What was his real intention?
"I do not know the reason for that. And it seems these two don't either," the Spider Doctor said, gesturing to Bipa and Mugol with his chin.
"You're the one who should be explaining!" Mugol barked at me again.
Dude. I really don't remember.
"Caleb."
In any case, the Spider Doctor wanted to move on to the next item on the agenda.
"I have fulfilled my end of the promise."
The Spider Doctor had originally planned to use Hyedam's location and condition as leverage, but since I figured all that out on my own, he had to change his terms.
Testifying about the Great Eruption on the surface, and explaining what he knew about my past.
"Now that that is done, it is time for Caleb to keep his promise. Please retrieve my body from the Labyrinth."
He said.
"Where can I find it?"
"The 9.5th floor."
I thought it was strange that the Spider Doctor, who was so damn powerful himself, didn't just go get it.
"The bodies of all the Inter-floor Lords are under the White Lion's management."
That's a ridiculously high difficulty.
"Go to the 9.5th floor and find the White Lion's Fortress. My body is there. You just need to bring it to me."
But it wasn't so bad.
As for the difficulty of my Labyrinth trips, when has it ever been low? And if I'm going, now is a good time.
"The timing is perfect. I'll go."
"Indeed. The White Lion is currently dead, and even if he resurrects, it will take him some time to recover."
"That's not why I said the timing is perfect."
"Then?"
The Consul is preparing for a Deep Layer Expedition and an all-out war.
That's what's important to me.
It would be great if the Consul could handle everything, but it won't be that easy.
I also need to become an adventurer worthy of being called 'Deep Layer-grade.' To prepare for any emergencies that might arise.
And...
"Spider Doctor. You said I resurrected Hyedam on the 10th floor, right?"
I'll have to go there and check things out.
It looks like this trip to the Labyrinth is going to be a busy one.