Chapter 232: His Death
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 232: His Death
“N-No…”
Back Attack shook his head violently.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
In front of the fountain on the 1st floor of the Labyrinth.
Yernil was slumped on the ground, staring into space with a vacant, devastated gaze.
“What the hell did you just say?! Say it again, clearly!”
Back Attack grabbed her by the shoulders and yelled.
“Calm down, Back Attack.”
Aimus pulled him away.
Her testimony was difficult for even Krom, Nimue, and Rococo to accept.
“Caleb is dead…?”
Nimue frowned.
The wizard had led both parties to the fountain while being pursued by the Abyssal Eruption.
He had taken out the depleted Void Vortex Orb and desperately shouted, “Left! Left!” at the fork in the road.
A high-speed caster could sometimes ignore a spell’s cooldown and cast it again in rapid succession.
Could a wizard with such a talent even ignore an item’s cooldown?
It was possible.
Hadn’t Caleb been able to fire four or five Fireballs in a row back when he was a slave wizard?
Those Fireballs came from a wand, which meant he had broken through the item’s cooldown with his high-speed casting.
The Void Vortex Orb was no different.
Caleb had used the orb to evacuate everyone. But…
“He didn’t make it up himself. That much is true,” Rococo said.
“And the vortex closed.”
Normally, a Void Vortex didn’t close so quickly.
That meant either the user in the Deep Layer had closed it himself, there was a problem with the orb itself, or…
“Something happened to the caster. It has to be one of those three.”
“There’s no way Caleb would be taken down so easily,” Aimus pointed out.
“But your party’s elf saw it, didn’t she?”
“Yernil.”
Nimue moved closer, crouching down to meet her eyes.
“Tell us again. What happened? You said a monster came out of a fox bead and stabbed Caleb?”
“…Yes.”
The moment she entered the vortex, Yernil had detected an unsettling sound.
It was the sound of something sharp piercing Caleb’s side, tearing through muscle and bone.
Yernil immediately activated Sentry Relocation and re-entered the 10th-floor fountain area.
The scene that unfolded before her was of a giant fox monster shoving its fist into Caleb’s abdomen.
In his final moments, the wizard looked at Yernil.
His desperate gaze wasn’t a plea for help.
Go back.
It was as if Caleb was telling her just that. It felt like he was trying to send her back to the 1st floor.
And as if to prove it…
CRACKLE!
Caleb unleashed a Lightning Shock on his own body.
The momentary electrocution coursed through him and spread to the connected Nine-Tailed Fox.
The opening created by the Gumiho’s paralysis lasted only for a fleeting instant, and Yernil didn’t have time to think.
Seeing Caleb right before her, his heartbeat clearly gone, her mind reeled with cognitive dissonance.
Why did he tell me to go back to the 1st floor?
There was no way Caleb would die so meaninglessly. No matter if his opponent was the Labyrinth Master, no matter if he’d taken a single blow from that giant monster fox.
Didn’t he have some other ace up his sleeve?
Until now, Yernil had always followed Caleb’s instructions in the Labyrinth.
She moved on pure reflex.
Believing that Caleb must have a plan.
No.
Was it belief?
Or was it just what she wanted to believe?
Soul Preservation hadn’t been cast on him.
Surrounded by Deep Layer monsters, in front of the Gumiho and the Labyrinth Master.
There was no way Caleb could have survived if he was left behind alone.
Logically speaking.
Sometimes, her Sound Mapping ability felt like a curse.
Just like when Aimus was dying after being hit by the Caretaker of Rest’s magic.
Because she could perceive someone’s death with far too much clarity.
Caleb’s heartbeat had stopped completely.
So why did I come through the vortex?
“Ugh…”
Yernil clutched her hair.
“Uuuugh.”
Her vision blurred in an instant. As her mind shattered from the immense shock, an old memory surfaced.
‘The three of you, go ahead as planned. Yernil and I will escape separately.’
Back in his days as a penniless university slave.
Caleb had rejected the Birtanen party’s recruitment offer, the chance for immediate escape, and a large sum of gold coins, all to stay by Yernil’s side.
‘Don’t throw your life away so easily.’
And after surviving the monster wave on the 3rd floor, Caleb had also told her this.
‘You were trying to die in my place back there, weren’t you? You shouldn’t have done that, even if I was getting mauled by the wolves.’
He told Yernil to stay behind him whenever possible.
‘I’ll protect you.’
And when they were targeted in a hate crime against slaves.
The moment the prime suspects, the Deep Layer adventurers Bisan and Mugol, raided their dorm room, he had said the same thing.
‘Yernil, get out through the window. Sentry Relocation doesn’t work on allies. Go alone.’
Throughout that entire series of events, did Caleb really have a perfect plan to protect Yernil?
Or was it…
Thud!
Yernil suddenly slammed her head against the fountain.
Smash!
Then she slammed her fist down with all her might.
“Yernil!”
A startled Aimus rushed over and held her back.
“Ugh!”
Yernil struggled in his grasp.
Screaming.
“Aaaah!”
“Calm down!”
“I shouldn’t have left him…”
After that single, split-second misjudgment, tears streamed down her face like a storm cloud bursting.
“I shouldn’t have left him! I should have just died there with him! Maybe… maybe he killed himself because I went in there…”
She rambled incoherently, her words not making any sense.
“Remember? When Aimus died, he was the first one to jump into the 1.5th Floor.”
Her slumped shoulders trembled with sobs.
“He… he killed himself to get me to safety! To electrocute that fox monster!”
“Shut up, you idiot!” Back Attack shouted.
“I… I don’t believe it. Stop spouting nonsense. There’s no way Caleb-hyungnim went down that easily. He’s not that kind of person.”
“…”
Yernil bit her lip and collapsed.
“Caleb is smart, but…” Nimue said.
“He can’t survive in the middle of the Labyrinth Master and its Deep Layer army. If he couldn’t take the vortex, there’s no other way.”
“I said I don’t believe it!”
“All three of you, listen up,” Rococo said to them.
“The Labyrinth is erupting right now. On a scale that makes the incident from twelve years ago look like nothing! Don’t let that wizard’s sacrifice be in vain. You are not people who can afford to lose their minds to grief over a lost comrade.”
“…”
“All three of you are ‘adventurers who have returned alive from the Deep Layer.’”
That was what the Labyrinth City called such individuals.
“You are some of Sohen’s strongest assets. Stop sitting around like a bunch of greenhorn rookies. Get up and prepare for battle!”
“Let’s go.”
Krom patted Yernil’s shoulder encouragingly.
“I know the sorrow of losing a comrade better than anyone. But don’t you dare stay down. There’s barely enough time to even think about revenge.”
“…”
“And Back Attack.”
Krom glanced at him.
“I don’t believe it either.”
The countless superhuman feats the wizard had shown them until now. The miracles that were difficult to even explain.
Having witnessed it all, Krom somehow felt that Caleb was still alive.
*
“Pant… pant…”
On the now-empty 10th floor of the Labyrinth.
An adventurer with superhuman skill was running.
Hyedam.
“Caleb!”
She had sensed the unusual currents on the 10th floor.
An intense chill and clouds spreading from the end of the maze.
It looked like the magic Caleb often used.
And there was one more thing Hyedam had noticed.
The Gumiho.
As a guardian of the Fox Spirit tribe, Hyedam could feel it.
The Gumiho had been summoned here.
It’s not the real one.
The Gumiho had already been killed by the Labyrinth Master and devoured by the Labyrinth.
That fox bead was like Bearhim’s corpse on the 6th floor.
A fragment of a god that had lost its power.
The Labyrinth Master had forcibly drawn out the Gumiho’s power submerged in the Labyrinth’s abyss to regenerate the fox bead. The result was likely a far cry from the real Gumiho, but still.
“…!”
Finally, Hyedam found the traces.
It was in front of the fountain on the 10th floor.
The walls, the floor, and the fountain itself were covered in scratch marks from sharp claws.
Ice crystals were scattered everywhere, and the ground was frozen over.
And the water in the fountain.
Originally, the water was a beautiful sapphire color, but not anymore.
It was blood-red.
Floating in the fountain, stained crimson with blood, was a small, thin corpse.
“Caleb…”
Hyedam lifted his body from the fountain.
“Where did your party go?”
She picked up the Void Vortex Orb from the ground.
“Did they take this and leave? Leaving you behind…?”
She still vividly remembered the moment Caleb had left her, Bisan, and Mugol in front of the 3.5th-floor stairs to join a new party.
“If this was going to happen, why…”
If it had been her, she would have fought the Gumiho and died here rather than abandon Caleb and run away.
Hyedam wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“Levitate.”
She used the fox bead’s magic to float Caleb’s body in the air.
Soul Preservation probably wasn’t cast on him.
Hyedam knew what was happening on the surface.
The Consul had assembled all the adventurers. They were on the verge of a great Labyrinth subjugation. The priests of Nathaniel were likely busy as well.
And while Caleb’s party was on the 10th floor now, they must have been on the 6th when they first entered.
With the Deep Layer adventurers gathering for the subjugation, the bishop-level priests of Nathaniel wouldn’t have had the capacity to cast Soul Preservation on Caleb’s party.
But.
“Caleb, you know what?”
Hyedam began to move, taking his body with her.
“I can’t give up on you.”
The Deep Layer Fox Spirit Shaman began to walk calmly through the 10th-floor maze with the corpse.
“You didn’t either.”
When Hyedam had been ready to give up her own life for the fate of the Fox Spirit tribe, it was Caleb who had dragged her out of Fox Ridge.
Even when she hit him with a long pipe and chased him away, even when the elders threatened to kill him, even when the Eight-Tailed Shaman unleashed her magic on him.
“You never gave up until the very end.”
Through Caleb, she had met the world.
To Hyedam, that wizard was the world itself.
“I heard something from Bisan and Mugol.”
After the Labyrinth Union general assembly in Sohen, the two had told her everything.
That perhaps Caleb had approached Hyedam from the beginning to make the Gumiho and the Labyrinth Master fight. That what happened in the Deep Layer that day was a premeditated murder.
“You must have had your reasons.”
Even so, Hyedam’s resolve didn’t waver.
“They also said you were the one who took me away and saved me.”
Her heart was now so firm that no doubt could penetrate it.
And one more thing.
The person who told Bisan and Mugol about the incident that day wasn’t Caleb.
The Spider Doctor.
They said he was the world’s greatest healer.
“Soul Preservation isn’t on you, but there has to be a way. Caleb. I’ll save you, I promise…”
“Is that you, Hyedam?”
At the end of the 10th-floor maze.
A massive Floor Boss revealed itself.
“Spider Doctor!”
“Please call me Eulparyeong.”
“…”
“You’re trying to save Caleb, aren’t you?”
The Spider Doctor adjusted his hat and smiled.
“Yes. I was just about to look for you.”
“Hyedam. How much can you sense?”
“What?”
“In the maze of the 10th floor, the easiest place to get lost in the entire Labyrinth, for me to run into you by chance like this the moment I came down…”
To the Spider Doctor, it felt both unfamiliar and familiar.
There was someone else who arranged things like this.
The Labyrinth Master.
It opens the stairs and invites the ants wandering its maze.
That was why some people encountered the stairs to the Deep Layer the moment they descended to the 10th floor.
So, what did it mean for the Spider Doctor to encounter Hyedam in the middle of the complex 10th-floor maze, as if by appointment and without any communication—an event of astronomically low probability?
“It has placed you and me in this spot.”
For the resurrection of its own body.