The few that did manage to get past the mochi-pounding bunny of death were burned to a crisp by Yue’s magic. Though it took more mana than usual to activate her spells, her enormous mana pool combined with the mana she’d stored into her accessories meant she never ran out. The gorge’s mana dispersing abilities lowered her range, but also decreased her cast time, so she was able to throw out blazing fireballs almost instantly.
Hajime’s techniques were no joke either. Even while driving Steiff, he never missed a single shot with Donner. Despite powering Steiff and his Lightning Field simultaneously in the gorge, he didn’t seem to be running out of mana at all.
The ferocious beasts that prowled this harsh land were nothing but fodder for the group. They slaughtered armies of monsters over the course of their hunt for an entrance to the labyrinth. In the few days they’d spent there, they’d already filled the ravine with corpses.
“Haah. Knowing the entrance is somewhere in Reisen is just too vague a lead.” They’d thoroughly examined every cavern they’d passed, but they still hadn’t found anything resembling an entrance. Hajime was starting to grow impatient.
“Well, we’re just checking this place out on our way to the volcano anyway, so finding something is just a bonus. And who knows, we might find some more clues after we clear the volcano.”
“Guess you’ve got a point.”
“Yeah... but these monsters are starting to get on my nerves.”
“Same here. I guess you’d really hate this place, Yue-san.”
Even as they complained, the trio pressed onward. And so, another three days passed.
They hadn’t found anything that day either, and as the moon’s light began to illuminate the ravine, Hajime decided to make camp. They set up their tent and began preparing dinner. Ingredients were brought out, seasonings measured, and dishes set. Everything from the tent to the tableware had been crafted by Hajime, so they were all of artifact quality.
The tent was augmented with heatstone and coldstone, which regulated the temperature inside. Thanks to the properties of coldstone, Hajime had been able to craft a refrigerator and freezer as well. The metal frames of the tent had stones interspersed within them too. These stones had been imbued with the “Hide Presence” skill, making it difficult for monsters to locate their camp.
The pots and pans all heated up in proportion to the mana poured into them, removing any need to start a fire. Even the knives had been enchanted with Gale Claw, making them razor sharp. He’d also made a makeshift steam cleaner. They were all beloved creations that made his travels more comfortable. And because they were only useful to people who could control mana directly, no one would want to steal them.
“Ancient magic from the Age of the Gods sure is handy.” Those had been Hajime’s exact words when he’d created all these Artifacts. Any present-day practitioner of magic would have fainted upon hearing the relatively pointless things Hajime used his abilities to make.
Tonight’s dinner was Kululu meat boiled in tomato soup. Kululus were basically chickens that could fly. Their meat tasted identical to that of regular chicken. Kululu dishes were apparently very popular in Tortus. They’d already marinated and cut the Kululu meat, so they just boiled it together with some vegetables in a tomato-based broth.
The Kululu’s flavor was further enhanced by the butter smeared over it and the tangy hint of tomato that had soaked into the meat. The other vegetables, all of which resembled one kind of earth vegetable or another, and the soup itself were also exquisite. Even the bread they’d brought to dunk into the soup tasted amazing.
After they finished their dinner, Hajime and the others settled down to chat for a while, as they did every night. Thanks to the stealthstone in the tent, they didn’t have to worry about monster attacks. The few that wandered nearby by accident were summarily dealt with by Hajime. He’d just stick his hand out of the window designed for the purpose, then shoot them down. When it was time for bed, the three of them would rotate the watch until morning.
Tonight, it was Hajime’s turn to be on first watch. Yue and Shea prepared for bed while he got ready. The tent was furnished with soft futons as well, so they could sleep well even out in the wild. Right before they fell asleep, Shea walked out of the tent.
Hajime gave her a questioning look, and she replied casually.
“Just going to pick some flowers.”
“There’s no flowers down here.”
“Ha-ji-me-san!” Her nonchalant facade crumbled and she glared reproachfully at Hajime.
“My bad,” he said without remorse, realizing what she actually meant.
Shea pouted angrily as she stepped out of their camp and trotted off. A few minutes later...
“H-Hajime-san! Yue-san! I found something! Come over here!” She had forgot that monsters still swarmed the ravine outside of their camp and screamed for help. Hajime and Yue exchanged glances before running out of the tent.
Shea’s voice was coming from where one of the boulders had fallen against the ravine wall, creating a small gap. She was waving her arms wildly right in front of it, her face filled with excitement.
“Over here! Look at what I found!”
“Alright, alright, stop pulling me. Your body strengthening’s on full blast. Just calm down.”
“...So annoying.”
Shea grabbed both of their hands and pulled them deeper into the crevice. Hajime tried to calm her down, while Yue just showed her frustration on her face. As she led them inside, Hajime saw that the wall had been hollowed out on one side, making for a surprisingly spacious room. Shea puffed out her chest proudly and pointed to a section of the wall that was halfway between the entrance and the back.
Hajime and Yue looked at what she was pointing at and blinked in confusion. A rectangular signboard was carved directly into the stone wall. Written on it, in cute cursive letters, was this:
—Welcome everyone! Welcome to Miledi Reisen’s heart-pounding dungeon~
The exclamation marks and tildes only served to exacerbate the reader.
“The hell is this?”
“...What?”
Hajime and Yue spoke simultaneously. It looked as if they couldn’t believe their own eyes. That cutesy handwriting was completely out of place in the desolate gorge.
“What’s that supposed to mean? This is the entrance, obviously! When I was going to the bath... I mean, when I was looking for flowers, I found it here by accident. To think Reisen Gorge really was the entrance to another one of the labyrinths.” Hajime and Yue finally recovered from their shock enough to stare at each other in disbelief.
“Yue. You think this is really it?”
“......Yeah.”
“That was a long pause. What makes you think so?”
“...Miledi.”
“Makes sense...”
Oscar’s notes had informed them that Reisen’s first name had indeed been Miledi. The name Reisen was famous, but most people hadn’t known her first name. And so, the fact that it was written on the board made it highly likely that it was the entrance to the labyrinth proper. The only reason they were doubtful at all was because...
“What’s with this stupidly cutesy writing?” Hajime thought back to the numerous life and death struggles he faced in the Great Orcus Labyrinth. If this labyrinth was anything like it, he’d be in for a tough fight. And yet, the entrance was marked with this utterly incongruous lighthearted sign. Yue, too, had felt firsthand just how harsh a labyrinth could be, so she couldn’t help but wonder if this wasn’t just someone’s idea of a prank.
“But there’s nothing that looks like an entrance here. The cave just leads to a dead end further up...” Oblivious to their inner turmoil, Shea glanced around the cave and tapped the walls, searching for an opening.
“Hey, Shea. Don’t...” Clunk!
“Fugyah!?”
“Don’t touch things carelessly like that” was what Hajime had been trying to say, but before he could, the wall Shea had tapped sudde
nly flipped around, dragging Shea toward whatever was on the other side. It was just like one of those trick doors you’d see in a ninja hideout.
“......” As Shea had just found a secret entrance, the words carved in the stone suddenly seemed more believable. So the entrance to Reisen’s labyrinth really is here. Hajime was already starting to miss the more serious atmosphere of Orcus’ labyrinth. This seemed more like an amusement park than a dungeon. He located the revolving door that Shea had disappeared through, exchanged a sigh with Yue, and pushed forward.
Whatever mechanism operated the door activated, pushing Hajime and Yue to the other side of the wall. Darkness greeted them on the other side. The door finished its revolution, eventually coming to a stop in its original position.
An instant later there was an odd whirling noise, as a bunch of somethings flew straight for Hajime. Upon activating Night Vision, Hajime was able to see what was coming at him. Arrows. They were painted jet-black to make sure not even a sliver of light reflected off them.
Hajime pulled out Donner and shot most of them down. The rest he blocked with his prosthetic limb. Clanging noises filled the room as metal impacted on metal.
There had been around twenty arrows. The arrows were made entirely of metal, as if they had been carved into that shape. After the last one hit the ground, silence returned to the room.
Faint light started permeating the room around the same time. They were in a room about ten meters wide on all sides, with a hallway extending out of the far end. There was a stone slab in the center of the room, with a message carved into it in the same cutesy handwriting as before.
—Hey, did I surprise you? Well, did I? I bet you peed your pants, didn’t you? Hahaha. Any of you get hurt? Maybe someone in your party died? Fufu~—
“.....” Hajime and Yue were in complete sync as they read the message.
“Annoying bitch.”
Only the laughter in the message was carved deeper into the stone to emphasize its presence. She was being purposely irritating. Had someone wandered in and actually lost a member of their party due to that trap, they would surely have been furious.
As it was, Hajime and Yue were still quite angry, but Yue’s anger suddenly faded away as she realized something.
“...Where’s Shea?”
“Ah.”
Remembering the remaining member of their party, Hajime quickly turned back to the revolving door. Since the door did a half-revolution with each activation, it was possible Shea had been sent back outside when they’d come in. What worried Hajime was that she hadn’t tried to come back in even though a good minute or two must have passed. And so, he hurriedly activated the door again.
As the door turned around once more he saw... Shea. Stuck to the door.
“Uuuu... Hic... Hajime-saaan... don’t look at meeee. But please take these off. Let me down, but don’t look at me. Pleaseee.” The poor little bunny girl. Shea must have been greeted by the hail of arrows too. Though she couldn’t see in the dark, her sharp senses must have allowed her to dodge. But it had been a near miss, so the arrows had skewered her clothes, pinning her to the wall in a comedic pose reminiscent of those emergency exit signs.
Her rabbit ears were twisted in a weird zig-zag pattern, so it was clear that it had taken everything she’d had to dodge. The reason she was crying wasn’t because she’d nearly died, though. The puddle at her feet was the cause of her distress.
“Oh yeah, you were in the middle of your ‘flower picking,’ weren’t you...? Well, whatever. Happens all the time.”
“No it doesn’t! Uuu, why didn’t I just finish my business before calling you guys over!” Shea wept uncontrollably. Not only had she wet herself, but she’d done it in front of the man she loved. Her rabbit ears twitched again. Though, considering how pathetic she’d looked when she’d first met Hajime, this was basically a drop in the bucket. That was why Hajime was more annoyed than disgusted as he gazed up at Shea. However, his look only served to hurt her feelings more.
“Don’t move.” As a fellow girl, Yue did feel a little sympathy for her, so she quickly removed the arrows pinning Shea to the door.
“You should be able to handle threats of this level... Amateur.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll work harder from now on... Hic...”
“Hajime, we need a change of clothes.”
“You got it.” He pulled a spare set of Shea’s clothes from the Treasure Trove and handed them over. Red faced with embarrassment, Shea quickly changed.
Once she was ready, Shea spiritedly ran forward, only to stop when she saw the stone tablet in the center of the room.
Her bangs covered her expression as she read the inscription. After a few seconds of silence, she suddenly drew Drucken and swung it down with all her might. With a thunderous roar, the tablet shattered into a thousand pieces. That tablet must have been the last straw, as Shea continued to slam down her hammer on the already shattered stone over and over.
But once it was pulverized, new words carved themselves into the pieces of stone. Now it read: —Too bad~ After a little while the stone regenerates~ Kukukuku—
“Graaaaaah!” Overcome with rage, Shea mindlessly swung Drucken down again. The entire room shook as if it were in an earthquake, and a massive shockwave spread out from the point of impact.
Ignoring Shea, Hajime started talking to Yue.
“Miledi Reisen might have been the only Liberator that really was an enemy of humanity.”
“Agreed.”
The Great Reisen Labyrinth was surely not going to be anything like the Great Orcus Labyrinth, but not quite for the reasons they were expecting.
A few hours after Shea’s crazed outburst, Hajime had discovered that the dungeon had far outstripped even his pessimistic estimations of how it would turn out.
First, they couldn’t use magic properly inside. Whatever it was that dissipated the mana in the gorge was far more powerful down in the depths. Yue was hit especially hard by that. She couldn’t even form her higher level spells, and her more intermediate ones were extremely limited in range. Five meters was often the upper limit. It was still serviceable enough to use in fights, but she could no longer blow monsters away with a single attack.
Even the reserves she’d stored in her magic stone accessories were drained at an alarming rate, so she had to be careful. That was how much mana it took to do anything. A normal person wouldn’t have been able to cast anything at all in this dungeon.
Hajime was adversely affected as well. Both Aerodynamic and Gale Claw required maintaining magical energy outside of one’s body, so he couldn’t use them very effectively, and even his Lightning Field was crippled. Donner and Schlag operated at less than half of their usual power, and even Schlagen could only fire with as much force as Donner normally did.
Hence, body strengthening was essential to clearing this dungeon. Shea’s area of expertise. As such, the reliable rabbit of Hajime’s party was...
“I’m gonna murder you... Once I find your hideout, I’m going to tear you limb from screaming limb!” Shea was screaming as she hunted her prey, a dangerous gleam in her eyes. She’d completely, utterly, totally, lost it. Even the way she talked sounded more feral. Miledi Reisen’s love of teasing others seemed to have gotten to Shea.
Hajime and Yue completely understood the feeling, so they didn’t say anything. And as long as Shea stayed comically enraged, they’d be able to maintain some semblance of composure by looking at her. It said something about how much their mental state had deteriorated that they needed Shea to keep them sane. They’d made decent progress since entering, but they’d already run into a number of frustrating traps and annoying inscriptions. Without Shea’s anger to calm them, Hajime and Yue would probably have lost it long ago.
Shea had already devolved into a madly cackling mess, but everyone still kept a sharp eye out for traps as they valiantly pressed forward.
Finally, they found themselves in a strange room. The stairs, connecting pa
ssageways, and even the layout of the room was completely haphazard. It looked like a three year old had just randomly assembled a bunch of lego blocks. The staircase leading up to the third floor then connected to a sloping path that led back down to the passage leading out of the first floor, while the staircase on the second floor seemed to just end at a wall.
“Well, I guess this place is a labyrinth.”
“...Yeah. Looks easy to get lost in.”
“Hmph, I should have expected this from that rotten bitch. This twisted room is a reflection of her terrible personality!”
“Believe me, I understand how you’re feeling, but I think you need to calm down.”
Shea’s rage still hadn’t cooled. Hajime gave her a look that was half-exasperation, half-pity and posed a question.
“So, which way do we go now?”
“Hajime. There’s no point thinking about it.”
“Hmm, guess you’re right. We’ll just have to mark and map the place ourselves as we explore.”
“Yeah...” Yue nodded in agreement. Mapmaking was a fundamental skill needed to explore dungeons. However, with how winding the labyrinth’s construction was, Hajime wasn’t sure how accurate his maps would be. He frowned, clearly unhappy.
The marking he had been referring to was another one of his special magic skills, Tracking. This spell let Hajime mark certain locations with mana. He could then find those marked locations no matter where he was. If he marked a living creature, he could track its location. He was going to use it in the labyrinth to mark where they’d been, so he could map out their location. He could also make his marks visible, so Yue and Shea could see them too. As the mana was attached to an object, it wasn’t dissipated like the other spells they cast.
Hajime decided to start with the passage on the right-hand side, and marked it before going in.
The passageway was around two meters wide, made out of brick. And like the Great Orcus Labyrinth, the walls glowed faintly. They weren’t illuminated by green glowstone, though. The light in this dungeon was a pale blue.
When he checked what it was with Ore Appraisal, he discovered it was called linrock. It glowed upon coming in contact with air. The first room they’d been in must have been enchanted somehow to not glow until someone stepped inside. The passageway resembled the mine in Laputa, actually. The one where they met the old guy who could talk to rocks. It seemed that linrock never stopped glowing after coming into contact with air even once.
Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest Vol. 2 Page 19
