ch01-ch20 · 006-ch05

Chapter 5

"Anyway, we're getting out. Or we die."

Stating their current objective, Hayasaka Toru — Toru — looked at Tia, who was nodding with a straight face, the holy sword slung across her back.

Looking at her properly now, she really was beautiful.

Her platinum-blonde hair was tied simply at the back of her neck, and her big green eyes resembled a friendly kitten. She was about a head shorter than Toru. Even with the pale blue light armor attached to various parts of her body, he could tell she was slender for someone who wielded a sword.

Her facial features were different from a Japanese person's, so he couldn't guess her age, but... she definitely didn't look like she was in her thirties. She could be eighteen, or if someone said she was twenty-six, he'd be a bit surprised but would accept it.

She didn't look like a holy sword bearer at all — but she was unmistakably a holy sword user.

Just standing there looking back at Toru, her stance had absolutely no openings.

"Hey, Toru. Escaping sounds good, but where are we anyway, and how did you end up pulling out Lightbringer and that crimson-black blade?"

"...Right, I haven't filled you in on the situation."

"Well, from my perspective, the holy sword found a new owner and connected with their soul, which made my consciousness suddenly sharpen, and when I tried to manifest, I could. Then you were collapsed on the ground, and the blade that should've been there had vanished."

Tia raised both hands in a "hands up" gesture and laughed casually.

She wasn't thoughtless — she was simply confident.

Confident that no matter where they were or what situation they were in, she'd find a way through.

"Ah... well, let me tell you what happened on my end. If you have questions, just listen to everything first, alright?"

He told her about being a dungeon cleaner. About hearing a strange tinnitus-like sound during yesterday's cleaning. About hearing the sound again today, and a figure in hakama appearing.

About following the figure, watching it disappear into a wall in the middle of a straight corridor. Touching that wall revealed it was an "illusion wall," and the floor of the small room beyond it was also an "illusion"...

And then — the fall.

How he'd somehow survived the fall without injury. A black ogre at the far end of a long straight corridor. Trying to escape, about to be caught, spotting the hakama figure again, watching it disappear into another wall...

Managing to escape into the "illusion wall" — and finding two swords stuck in the middle of the room. About to be killed by the ogre, Toru grabbed both swords.

"...And then I passed out, and when I woke up, you were there."

"Call me Tia. Not 'you.'"

"I'll do that when I feel like it."

"Such a tease, Toru is. But for now, that's fine. If this labyrinth is anything like the labyrinths I know, you probably stepped on a teleport trap."

Tia nodded with a "hmm," and Toru clapped his hands together in agreement.

"Ah... probably, yeah. The free fall was too long. If I remember right, ignoring air resistance, a fifteen-second free fall drops you about a kilometer."

In reality, there was air resistance and mass to account for, making the calculation more complicated, but at fifteen seconds it'd be about half that distance.

At any rate, since it didn't make sense to be unharmed after falling five hundred meters, it was natural to assume they'd stepped on a teleport trap.

"You look like you're thinking about something complicated, but I think you should think about something else. Not 'why' but 'what now,' at least."

Tia narrowed her eyes with a slightly exasperated look.

Toru nodded at that too. There was nothing he could deny.

"True. Let's say we stepped on a teleport trap. And, probably a one-way teleport trap. Which means, our current location is unknown, our escape route is unknown, and it's questionable whether the structure even allows escape. If it's the kind of place you can only leave by teleporting, we're in serious trouble."

"If this is a labyrinth, it should definitely be structured so you can escape."

The certainty in Tia's tone made Toru tilt his head.

He'd never heard anything like that.

"Hmm, well. Labyrinths are like... how should I put it, a kind of welt on the world. The magical power, spiritual power, divine power, whatever that drifts around the world seems to create labyrinths, but apparently, labyrinths fundamentally 'want to let their contents out.'"

"...That doesn't make much sense to me?"

"So, think about it. There are passages people can walk through, monsters people can fight, traps that can be disarmed, treasure — labyrinths are clearly things that invite people in, right? If you destroy the core at the deepest part, the labyrinth disappears — so why are you able to reach the dungeon core?"

"...Well, they could've just put it somewhere people can't reach."

"Labyrinths are meant to be conquered. That's the premise. So you can escape. Absolutely."

She smiled encouragingly, as if to reassure him.

Toru found himself genuinely heartened and let out a wry laugh.

"Anyway, I can't just stay holed up in this room till I die. I don't know how reliable you are, but I'll take you up on that offer."

"Yeah, count on me. I think I can handle up to a Fire Dragon while protecting you."

◇◇◇

And the holy sword wielder Tia's strength was the real deal.

That said, since Toru was below even D-rank explorers and didn't have the eye to measure other people's abilities, he couldn't really tell how strong Tia was compared to other explorers, even when she defeated a black ogre in a single blow.

But at any rate, as long as they weren't in danger, all they had to do was memorize the labyrinth's structure while walking around. He'd braced himself for a tough fight if it was the kind of labyrinth that made you step on teleport traps repeatedly, but it looked like they'd be okay.

The straight corridor from earlier ended at a T-junction after about five hundred meters, so this was probably a labyrinth with long corridors.

That said, whether this labyrinth was actually Sugai Dungeon was another question.

After all, they'd been teleported — probably — and there was a chance they'd been sent to a completely different labyrinth. No black ogres had ever been confirmed in Sugai Dungeon, a fully explored D-rank dungeon, so that possibility seemed high.

Thinking about all this, Toru watched Tia's back as she walked a few meters ahead. There was no tension in her stride, and the holy sword was still strapped to her back.

"Originally, it didn't have a scabbard or any fittings. Since it's a sword without an edge, it doesn't really need a scabbard, but carrying it around was still inconvenient. So I asked a dwarven artisan to attach a fitting to the guard."

Tia laughed, saying "Those were the days," but Toru wondered — when exactly was that, and was it even from this world?

It felt like it wasn't.

He had a feeling that the "past" she was talking about was from the other world before the Fusion.

That's what Toru thought, but he had no proof, so he didn't say anything.

The silence was a bit awkward, so he pulled out his mobile device from his pocket and checked if the connection was restored... but it was still out of range.

Probably an unexplored area.

As for the time... it had already been twenty-six hours since Toru entered Sugai Dungeon. He must have been unconscious for quite a while.

"Still, I'm not that hungry. And I'm not tired either."

"That's an effect of Lightbringer. Besides astral attacks, it nullifies intermediate-rank and below magical attacks, mental magic, has strong resistance against dragon-kind attacks in general, and has automatic recovery. You don't have any pain anywhere, do you?"

Tia answered as if it were nothing.

"...If that's true, it really is mythic-class."

So many passive effects.

If he hadn't seen Tia swinging the holy sword right in front of him, and if she hadn't demonstrated disappearing and re-manifesting, he never would have believed it.

"Oh, another black ogre."

Apparently spotting a monster at the other end of the corridor, Tia muttered and then dashed off. She covered the distance — over thirty meters where vision didn't reach — in almost an instant, and three trails of light rose and vanished.

Normally, the blade of Lightbringer looked like lead, but during combat it gave off a pale blue glow. Apparently the holy attribute imbued in the sword itself resonated with Tia's own magical power.

Among the people Toru had actually seen, the labyrinth section chief was the strongest. A tired-looking middle-aged man in a suit, but he remembered feeling a chill when they'd met. They'd only exchanged a few words, a couple of times.

But even then, the moment they'd faced each other, Toru had clearly understood the biological difference in rank.

Like a small child looking up at an adult and instinctively understanding, even without putting it into words, "If this person seriously got angry, I'd be killed without being able to resist."

Toru had felt that clear and cruel "difference."

That wasn't the kind of opponent you could take on by swinging a bundle of welded rebars.

And compared to that labyrinth section chief, Tia was probably on a completely different level.

Even for a former A-rank explorer, she shouldn't be able to sweep away ogre-types the way Toru swept away furballs and big rats.

"I'm baaaack!"

In Tia's hand, as she returned at a ridiculous speed, was a fist-sized "magic core." Even if she handed it to him, his waist pouch was already full. With no other choice, Toru took off his jacket and turned it into an impromptu wrapping cloth to carry it.

The amount of "magic cores" Toru scraped together in a day was about enough to fill one or two sushi pieces' worth. In monetary terms, about three thousand yen.

Since the "magic cores" he could pick up on the upper floors of Sugai Dungeon were only rice-grain-sized, it couldn't be helped — but still, repeating this twenty days a month, on top of his cleaner contract fee, gave him an extra sixty thousand yen in income.

The "magic core" dropped by the black ogre Tia had hunted... was probably worth at least three hundred thousand. Maybe even over six hundred thousand.

"So 'magic cores' still have value in this era?"

"I don't know when your 'past life' was, but yeah, they're worth money. Also, I'm a poor guy. I don't have a way to carry a mountain of them back, but leaving behind 'magic cores' I've earned would kill my spirit."

"Ahaha... well, money is important, I guess."

Tia seemed surprisingly understanding.

After that, perhaps out of consideration, she stopped killing monsters indiscriminately — only taking down the ones that were in their way.

About four hours after leaving the room where the swords were stuck.

The stairs they finally found went both up and down.

Or rather, on the stairs going from Floor A to Floor B, there was an "illusion wall" midway, and the area Toru and Tia had been walking through was, so to speak, a "sub-Floor B."

"...That's such a malicious structure."

"Yeah. I've never seen anything like this either. This probably has nothing to do with the labyrinth's conquest. That's why it's such a strange structure."

"Hypothetically, if that holy sword had been left behind in the labyrinth and the dungeon core got destroyed, what do you think would've happened?"

"Hmm... probably, a similar structure would've been born in a different labyrinth. Labyrinths are like the world's way of making things consistent. I think it would rather teleport Lightbringer somewhere than let it be destroyed along with the labyrinth."

"Huh?"

He didn't really get it, but maybe that was just how things worked. Setting aside the rights and wrongs, he nodded vaguely and decided to climb the stairs.

It seemed they'd cleared the malicious zone. He didn't know what floor it was, but they'd managed to get to a higher floor. From here on, it should be a proper labyrinth. Toru let out a small breath.

Then, on a whim, he checked his mobile device.

The connection was restored.

Finally, some good news — he turned his gaze toward Tia, but her expression, which had been cheerful until a moment ago, was now dead serious.

A chill ran down his spine.

In the presence of that overwhelming, transcendent stronghold, Toru's back bristled with goosebumps.

He watched the back of the "holy sword wielder" as she dashed off almost simultaneously... and two seconds later, a heavy clang echoed as the sword hit the ground. Quite far away.

A moment later, Tia was standing right next to Toru.

"Toru! It looks like I can't go beyond a certain distance from you! Sorry for running off like that, but since I'm already in trouble, could you run that way? Hurry! Quick!"

She rattled off her words with a serious tone, but there was too much information and Toru was a bit lost.

"No, I don't get it. Why do I have to run? What's over there?"

"Someone's being attacked by a monster! We have to help them!"

Tia shouted.

As if it were the most natural thing in the world.