Chapter 55: Two Exit Bosses
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 55: Two Exit Bosses
Soyul had a cold resistance spell.
She cast it on herself and on me.
And like me, Soyul was a shaman with a high Wisdom stat.
So neither of us would fall into a state of confusion.
We could resist both the cold and the delirium.
When monsters appeared, we subdued them with the Hourglass, Dust Explosion, Lightning Shock, and Soyul’s foxfire and charm spells.
As long as we didn’t run into a monster wave, there was only one real danger for our two-person team.
‘Traps.’
Neither I nor Soyul could detect them.
We needed a party member with a keen eye, like Back Attack or Kappa.
But for now, we didn’t have to worry about that either.
Because…
“This way.”
The monster wave had swept away all the snow.
It was practically a snowplow. The monsters had trampled over the deep snow, packing it down and creating a path.
As long as we stepped in their footprints, we were safe.
We followed the direction the compass pointed across the wide-open snowfield, sticking to the footprints as much as possible.
“This way, we won’t run into the monster wave either.”
We journeyed like this for two hours.
We saw many gruesome sights along the way.
“More bodies.”
Most of the adventurers active on the 3rd Floor hadn’t been able to handle the sudden monster wave.
Naturally, there were plenty of monster corpses, too. But not a single magic stone had been harvested from any of them.
No one had had the time for that.
“That lich… it could talk,” Soyul said.
“I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“It’s probably because it harvested its own soul.”
Before that, it likely couldn’t do anything but chant spells.
Adventurers gripped by madness tend to act based on habits their bodies have learned.
For example, even when Back Attack was lost to madness and couldn’t think straight, he would still walk cautiously or use wall-walking if he came across an icy path.
How could that be explained?
Did he, while in the throes of madness, make the rational judgment that he might slip if he ran on ice?
No.
From my experience in the game, those in a state of madness have no ego, no ability to reason.
There wasn’t even a plot point that suggested otherwise.
So, Back Attack avoiding the ice was…
‘A habit his body remembered.’
That was the correct way to see it.
It was similar to how a person who has blacked out from drinking can still find their way home despite being unconscious.
As a rogue, it had been his habit in life to find a way around icy paths, so his body simply reacted.
The lich going down to the 3.5th Floor to find the ossuary was the same.
Necromancers normally need souls to cast their spells, so harvesting souls and storing them in soul-binding jars is part of their daily routine.
They are always searching for stronger souls.
It gets to the point where maniacs emerge who don't care if the 3rd Floor descends into chaos, thinking only of harvesting the ossuary.
“So it went to harvest the most powerful soul it could access—the ossuary. But after consuming it, it realized one soul was Gildal’s, and the other was its own.”
“So its soul was restored then… and it regained its sense of self, like Back Attack?” Soyul asked.
“I don’t think so.”
In the game, I had encountered a lich that had harvested its own ossuary, but it just repeated the same words over and over.
At best, it could manage a very simple Q&A.
It was a completely different case from Back Attack, who had recovered his soul.
If you compare losing a soul to losing a leg, Back Attack had his severed limb reattached, while Antonelli had eaten his own leg and digested it.
“You have to see him as a completely different being from the old Antonelli.”
Antonelli was…
“Still in a state of madness.”
As far as I knew, the only way to escape the Labyrinth Master’s grasp was to be resurrected, like Back Attack.
*
There was one other party that had encountered the monster wave and had not yet been wiped out.
They were a trio consisting of a Fighter Orc, a feline beastman Ranger, and an Elf Druid.
“We barely made it out of there,” the Fighter Orc said.
“I can’t believe a monster wave broke out.”
“We have to get out of here, fast.”
The Elf Druid, the most experienced member of the party, had been through a monster wave once before and had narrowly survived that time as well.
Surviving a monster wave was a race against time.
If you took too long, you couldn’t even escape.
Why?
Because the monsters would seize control of all the key escape points, one by one.
If there was a monument, it was their first priority, as monuments were a threat to the monster wave itself.
Next was the Exit Room.
Of course, the monsters wouldn’t attack the Exit Boss, but they would stage a sit-in in front of the Exit Room, preventing adventurers from approaching.
After that came the Stair Gates.
This was to stop adventurers from fleeing to other floors.
“The 3rd Floor has a monument. And an Exit Room. They’ll probably block the Stair Gate to the 2nd Floor first,” the Druid said.
“It’ll take a while before they get to the 4th Floor gate. So we find Antonelli as fast as we can and head to the 4th Floor.”
They were a 4th Floor party. Antonelli’s main group had come up to the 3rd Floor to find their companion, who was long overdue.
They all suspected that the current monster wave might be related to Antonelli, but no one voiced the thought aloud.
“We can make it to the 5th Floor.”
A Labyrinth adventurer must always be a gambler.
In the end, it was one or the other.
Either you get digested on a certain floor of the Labyrinth, or you obtain a vital resource there and descend to the next.
“We will not be digested.”
There was a high probability that Antonelli had already fallen victim to the monster wave.
But the party members remained silent about this possibility as well.
“It’s Antonelli!” the feline beastman Ranger suddenly shouted, his night vision piercing through the darkness.
“Antonelli!”
The necromancer was crouched at the foot of the snowy mountain where the monument stood.
“Antonelli!”
The 4th Floor party rushed toward him.
“…”
But something was off about Antonelli.
“Hey!”
The Orc Fighter got closer and leaned down.
Antonelli was muttering to himself.
“Dokkaebi soul! Dokkaebi soul! Dokkaebi soul! Dokkaebi soul! Dokkaebi soul! Dokkaebi soul! Dokkaebi soul! Dokkaebi soul! Dokkaebi soul!”
“…”
The party members’ expressions turned cold as they instinctively realized something was wrong.
“A-Antonelli?”
The Druid shook his shoulder hard.
“Ah! It’s you! My companions!”
Antonelli grinned a grotesque, ear-to-ear smile.
“Thank you! Thanks to you, I’ve reached the final stage of necromancy I was pursuing! Let’s go to the 5th Floor!”
The terrified trio stumbled backward.
“A-Antonelli… what happened to you?”
“Your… your face is…”
Antonelli’s face had turned a deathly blue, completely drained of blood. He looked like a victim of frostbite. His purplish lips were completely dry.
There was no life in his eyes. Even for nighttime, his pupils were far too dilated.
“Kek! Kekekek! Kekek!”
Antonelli covered his mouth and burst into a fit of laughter.
“Let’s go! I’ll take you there.”
With that, Antonelli held up a soul-binding jar.
The jar was broken.
It was an item originally used by necromancers. When Antonelli first died, Caleb had looted it and thrown it over a cliff as the monster wave approached.
A lich had no need for such a thing.
“Let’s go! Let’s go to the 5th Floor!”
The mad lich opened the lid of the broken jar.
“Come in here, everyone! I’ll harvest you!”
*
Halfway up the roughly 500-meter-high snowy mountain.
There was a staircase leading down to the 3.5th Floor. At the end of it, in a small room, Yernil sat scribbling in a notebook.
In front of her were several messages she had received from Hijikata.
[This is Hijikata. I’m with Aimus and Back Attack. The cold and confusion aren’t a problem. Are you okay over there?]
Yernil wrote back, describing her strategy of hiding out in front of the 3.5th Floor.
Another message arrived from Hijikata.
[This is Hijikata. We’re currently about 200 meters south of the point where Caleb and Yernil fell. We found a small ice cave and are hiding inside.]
Yernil relayed the message to Caleb verbatim.
While also sending a reply to Hijikata, telling him she had informed Caleb.
[This is Hijikata. Should we wait here? Will Caleb be able to find us?]
Yernil clutched her head as another note flew in.
“Ugh…”
The center of two parties.
A tactician with the lives of seven adventurers on her shoulders.
A woman who was giving orders to none other than Caleb.
‘Yernil of the Command Tower.’
She thought hard about what Caleb’s next move would be.
‘Knowing Caleb’s personality, he would never abandon me, Aimus, or Back Attack.’
This was an objective, cold analysis. Caleb had already risked his life twice to save his party members—by refusing Birtanen’s offer to escape and staying with Yernil, and by jumping back into the 1.5th Floor to save Aimus.
‘So he’ll definitely try to regroup our entire party, right? To escape together.’
But could Caleb travel safely from the 4th Floor stairs to the vicinity of the snowy mountain? Without getting caught anywhere in this hellscape teeming with a monster wave?
‘He can do it!’
Yernil had blind faith.
He was the man who had a card like a heatwave up his sleeve even at the last moment when she thought all hope was lost.
Caleb would find a way.
In that case, Hijikata, Back Attack, and Aimus shouldn’t move.
Their paths might cross.
[Caleb will come to you. Don’t worry and don’t move. Just stay put. -Yernil]
“Send message.”
Yernil sent the message to Hijikata, then wrote one for Caleb.
[Caleb. I know I can’t get a reply, but I believe you’re on your way to Hijikata right now. I told him as much. But he said they’re hidden deep inside a cave. It might be hard to find them.]
“Send message.”
*
Good, well done.
She’s practically Hedwig at this point.
Your tactical decision to bring my team and Hijikata’s together by sending notes back and forth—no, the tactical decision I had you make.
You’ve executed it perfectly.
‘Alright then.’
After receiving the note, I waited for an opportunity, and when I encountered a few Frost Hunters, I turned the Hourglass.
“Dust Explosion, Dust Explosion, Dust Explosion.”
I blew them all up and sent a reply (?) to Yernil.
“Yernil. I have a fox next to me with tracking skills that rival any canine beastman’s. Once we get near the mountain, we can use the fox-spirit’s soul tracking to find Hijikata. We can find them even if they’re hiding in a cave.”
…Just saying that wouldn’t be effective. It wasn’t an ‘order.’
It was just me muttering to myself during my turn.
“Explain it to Kappa like that, Yernil. Reassure Kappa that I will find Hijikata’s party.”
Now that was an order.
Of course, there was no need to reassure him. Since Kappa was Soyul’s companion, he would have already anticipated the soul tracking.
He probably had it in mind from the moment Soyul used the Stair Scroll.
“Dust Explosion.”
I hit a nearby wolf with one more Dust Explosion.
[All Action Points have been consumed.]
[Ending turn.]
[The Hourglass has been flipped again. Time remaining: 60 seconds.]
*
I found a treasure room.
My prediction was spot on.
‘A whale sitting at a table with a napkin tied around it, holding a fork and knife in its fins.’
The Gourmet Whale.
A coin engraved with that image popped out. I also got a few miscellaneous items, some potions, and a hat that radiated magical energy.
Of course, a 3rd Floor coin came out too.
‘A half-beast, half-human spider-person, crying alone in a doctor’s coat.’
The pitiful Spider Doctor.
I now had all three coins. I’ll put these in my pocket.
As for the hat, potions, and various scrolls, it would be nice to put them in my bag…
‘But my bag isn’t with me right now.’
Yernil has it.
Should I ask Soyul to hold onto them in her bag for a bit?
“…”
I carefully approached the fox-spirit shaman. She was currently in a state of complete despair.
I felt a little bad asking her to hold my stuff in this atmosphere, but…
“Soyul.”
“…”
When I spoke, she wiped her eyes with her sleeve and turned to look at me. Her face was soaked with sorrow.
It was understandable.
I completely understood.
‘The Exit Room is open.’
The massive, cave-like Exit Room we had stumbled upon near the treasure room had its door wide open.
The Exit Boss inside had come out.
It was obvious who it was.
‘Gildal.’
The corpses lined up in front of the Exit Room hadn’t been killed by wolves or Frost Hunters. There were no cuts, lacerations, or puncture wounds. They had been bludgeoned and crushed by an incredibly powerful blunt weapon.
Some bodies had their upper or lower halves burst open, as if they’d been crushed by a hydraulic press.
The Dokkaebi’s Club.
That monster, once the strongest adventurer on the 3rd Floor, had opened the Exit Room himself and come out.
Because some lunatic had soul-harvested his ossuary.
Gildal had become an Eccentric Boss.
He was probably roaming the 3rd Floor right now, looking to teach a harsh lesson to the insolent fool who dared to consume an Exit Boss’s ossuary.
‘Man, it’s huge.’
The footprints, I mean.
The size of the dokkaebi’s footprints in the snow was beyond imagination.
To exaggerate slightly, they were twice the size of my own.
The tracks of a monster standing 260 cm tall and weighing 220 kg.
And coincidentally…
‘He’s heading for the snowy mountain with the monument.’
Was it to be expected? Antonelli would be over there, too.
Gildal was heading in the same direction as us.
If we were unlucky, we would run into him.
“If we meet him, we’ll have to fight.”
If we were lucky, we might witness the incredible spectacle of two Exit Bosses fighting each other, but we could never consider Gildal an ally.
There was no way to escape the madness, other than through a method like Back Attack’s.
“There’s no turning back for Gildal now.”
I said it to steel her resolve, but Soyul, who had just managed to stop crying, burst into tears again.
“Let’s go.”
Still, she gritted her teeth and stood up.
Like a seasoned adventurer.