Chapter 179 – The Space-Warping Labyrinth

As for Ally’s question about how he found the right path, he can’t answer right now.
Out of the seven paths, it is the only one with runes in the right direction.
Heading to the far right, I moved with my party first.

“I’ll explain as we go. Let’s move to a place where there are no people.”

There are too many listening ears to explain at the entrance of the labyrinth. The only ones who can properly find the way in the underground labyrinth are wizards who have learned runes. When the adventurers find out, they will relentlessly pursue us. Isn’t it safe and good to drive people around? You might think so, but that’s not necessarily the case.

‘Even if he is killed in the labyrinth, no one knows if he was killed by a person or a ghoul.’

Let’s say you find a valuable treasure in a labyrinth. At that moment, the adventurers accompanying him could turn into robbers.

There is a saying that the next most dangerous thing after monsters are adventurers.
If you want to explore safely, you should only bring trusted party members.

How long did it take
The rightmost path I chose was also the correct answer.
No matter how much you walk, you never return to the entrance of the labyrinth, and new structures appear as you walk.

“Allie. Is there anyone around?”

I decided to call Ally comfortably.
It’s awkward to keep using honorifics for Halfling Jammin.
Ally didn’t care much about what I said and answered her question.

“No. At least to the point where you can hear their voices, there are no humans or ghouls.”
“I was asking how you found the way earlier. I figured it out by looking at the runes engraved on the ceiling of the road. The Thurisaz you showed me is a rune meaning a passage. The only one that was stuck in the right direction was this way.”

I gave the people following me tips on finding the right path in the labyrinth.
To break through this labyrinth, it is essential to interpret the runes.

“I see. The runes engraved on the ceiling are pointing in the right direction.”

Hannah, the only wizard in the party, understood my words the fastest.
Although she is a third-rate wizard, she is a female secretary who has learned the magic theory as quickly as possible.

“Luke-sama, this underground labyrinth seems to have been built before the great war broke out. I learned about it when I was a student at the Mage Tower. It is said that using rune-engraved bricks as a material is an ancient architectural style.”
“Before the Great War, when the Ashers ruled the continent?”
“Yes. There are cases where the buildings built at that time were not destroyed by luck. The ancient buildings seen as pictures in textbooks are similar to this underground labyrinth.”

I guessed that this labyrinth was an old place.
The feeling came right from the space magic.
But now that I know the exact time of construction, I’m excited and my cheeks tremble.

Why are you excited?
Of course, it’s not that I’m excited because I’m romantic with historical sites.

‘It’s too old and dangerous.’

If it was before the Great War, that is, before Ragnarok, it was a labyrinth built 500 years ago.
There’s no way maintenance was done properly during that time.
If an earthquake occurs, the labyrinth made of bricks might collapse!
It is time to end the life of a dreamer who could barely see the light of day if he was buried alive.

“Ooh, we’ll be fine, aren’t we messing with something and the labyrinth collapses? If you look closely, you can see cracks in the ceiling. 500 years is crazy. It’s a complete labyrinth.”
“What is the labyrinth?”
“I’m talking about a very old labyrinth. It’s old enough that the bricks crackle like false teeth.”
“It’s a strange expression.”

Suddenly, the peaceful labyrinth exploration turned thrilling.
We kept checking the ceiling for any falling rocks. As we continued to move forward, we again found a fork in the road.

This time, if you guess whether the rune is in the forward or backward direction, it is a fork in the road.

It’s just like a fighting game.
Is it a matter of guessing whether it is a regular guard or a reverse guard?
If it’s wrong, it’s the death of returning to the starting point.

“Allie. What do the runes on the ceiling look like?”
“I’ll draw you now-!”

Allie drew the runes for me in her notebook and showed them to me. However, this time there were not one rune engraved in the right direction, but two. It makes sense that both are the right pathways forward.

Which of the two are you going for? After a short thought, I took one anywhere. You don’t have to go back to the starting point anyway. That way, I kept choosing the right path and moving forward.

As time passed, we arrived at a different space, not on a narrow road.
It is a room with countless stone beds installed just like a bedroom. As long as the dust was removed, it could not have been a great living space to stay overnight here.

“Bed? Why is there a bed in the labyrinth? Who lives here?”

Rebecca looked around her with a bewildered expression and tapped her stone bed.
At that moment, there were things slowly crawling out from under the bed.

ㅡ Bake it.
ㅡ Bake it.

It was the ghoul hiding in the stone bedroom. They crawled out, wriggling their rotten bodies under the bed. The way he stumbles and rises is grotesque.

“Ghouls! Ghouls are out! What are these corpses!”

We were frightened and immediately took up a combat posture.
Ten ghouls crawled out from under the bed one by one.
It’s not like I’m shooting a horror movie, but I showed up in an unusual place.

“Kill them all-!”

The battle began with each other’s shouts.
Rebecca and Brute lined up and Hannah fired back with her magic.
Kate and Ally, who lack fighting ability, stayed behind to cover Hannah.

It’s the first time I’ve had a team match with this member, so the connection is clumsy.
We have no choice but to believe in our own skills and fight.

“Hagalaz! Blizzard!”

I jumped forward and slammed the ground with my staff. I adjusted the angle well and burst into a compressed blizzard. A massive shockwave exploded from the point the staff struck, pushing the ghouls away.

Wheeeee

A skill that attacks the enemy with a shock wave bursting with a blizzard!
The 10 ghouls that had bounced off were covered in snow and staggered. Now that the enemy’s posture has collapsed, it’s your chance to attack. The group of ghouls that had stopped were attacked by party members.

“Haap-!”
“Kurrrr!”

Rebecca and Brute slashed the throats of the ghouls as they galloped forward.
Even if his head fell, he would be a ghoul, but there was no need to worry about the aftermath. I immediately caught up behind him and froze the ghoul corpse with [Quick Freeze].

“Freeze!”

Puck! Puck! Puck!
Spinning the rod like a propeller, it hit the ghouls whose heads had fallen in succession. It is a stick-twisting technique that I learned when I took a baton class from Old Man Nickel. It’s like a skill for Mu-in, but it was different for me. If you only turn the wand, the enemies you collide with will freeze on their own.

ㅡKuiyiyi!
ㅡKuiyiyiik.

The ghouls froze as they screamed in agony.
The skill of turning the wand while maintaining [Quick Freeze] Is very cost-effective.

With Rebecca and Brute at the forefront, I charged as the Nightma Propeller.

“Hanna-san! Break the ghoul I’ve frozen! Take care of it!”
“All right!”

Hanna attacked the frozen ghouls using earth magic.
A thick stone pillar rising from the floor shattered the icy corpse.
We didn’t relax until we dealt with all 10 ghouls.

*

30 minutes after that.
We rested for a while in the bedroom after the battle. All the ghouls who were the owners of the bedroom were smashed into pieces of ice. While resting, we checked how much time had passed.

“Luke-sama. Almost a day has passed since we entered the labyrinth. It must be night outside now.”

Because it is an underground labyrinth, it is difficult to distinguish day and night with the naked eye. Thanks to the pocket watch Hannah was carrying, she could tell the current time.
The current time is 11:00 PM. The time has come to camp in the Labyrinth. I didn’t find any expensive antiques, but I can’t say there weren’t any exploration results. As we moved, Ally and Kate drew a rough map of the labyrinth. Completing the map is definitely a part of exploration.

“How long are you going to explore the labyrinth? Are you just going to keep moving forward like this?”
“There’s no need to be in too much of a hurry. We’ll explore until tomorrow morning, then go back to town and reorganize. We’ll go out and come back in.”

The size of the labyrinth is wider than expected. If I tried to attack the labyrinth on a day trip, there would probably be an accident. I have no intention of squeezing the party members. Life is more important than performance.

“It’d be better to bring a lot of dry food when you go home. There doesn’t seem to be anything to eat in the labyrinth.”
“Luke! What happens if you cook and eat a ghoul?”

Upon receiving Rebecca’s lively question, I shook my head.

“Of course you get food poisoning. Besides, that’s cannibalism after all.”
“Poetry, cannibalism? Isn’t this just a monster?”
“A ghoul is, to be precise, a human being turned into a monster. When a living human is cursed, it becomes a ghoul.”

Like undead monsters, ghouls were born with an unusual origin. According to the monster encyclopedia I read, ghouls were born from living humans cursed.
Even the ghoul corpses here were once human. I still don’t know what they were doing in their lifetime.

“Somehow, it looks too human. I’m afraid that it will appear in my dreams.”
“If you’re scared, you can sleep next to me. Shall I sing you a lullaby?”
“Blood, I don’t need it. It’s embarrassing, so don’t call me for real?”

I said I didn’t need it, but Rebecca looked at her and she sneaked up to me.
He was okay with big monsters, but he was my lover who was secretly afraid of ghosts.

“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star-.”
“Joe, be quiet.”

I took her by the shoulders of Rebecca and comforted her for a moment.
Rebecca gave her me a gentle hug as her face blushed.

Time passed, the order of the night watch was decided, and it was time for us to go to sleep. I built a wall of ice to block both passages leading to the labyrinth’s bedroom. If a ghoul attacks by any chance, it will drag down the time.

Since it was Malvern, I planned to sleep right now after building the ice wall.
I covered my robe like a blanket and lay down on the stone bed to sleep, but I heard Kate’s voice from somewhere.

“Mongma-nim! Come here for a moment!”

She raised her head and looked at Kate, who occupied the bed right next to mine. Kate was pushing her upper body under her bed for some reason.
My eyes could see the outline of her plump buttocks wrapped in a nun’s uniform.

“What are you doing there all of a sudden? Are you asking me to spank you?”
“Don’t spank me on the butt-. There’s a piece of parchment under the bed here?”

Kate, who only showed off her lower body in a bewitching manner, spoke from under the bed.
It felt like I was talking to a nun’s ass.
She had a chimney-like desire to spank her peachy ass, but she had to hold back. Kate’s voice was serious, unlike her usual.

“What do you mean? Take it out quickly.”
“Now my butt is stuck between the beds. It’s hard to get it out. Please take me out first.”

Kate, with her easy-to-delivery hips, was caught between the beds.
Reluctantly, I grabbed her hips and gave her strength.

The supple feel is wonderful.

“Huh!”
“Whoah.”

A mysterious old parchment was in Kate’s hand as she stepped out of her bed.