Chapter 168: Black and White Twin Swords Guard the Labyrinth Entrance (Patreon)

The other side of the opening was pitch black, but there was no doubt — this was the space beyond the door.

"You really are something..." Asfi leaned toward the opening and peered inside, then her expression froze again.

"Though... isn't this a bit too small?"

"Could you make it a little bigger?"

I have a strong suspicion she's dropping innuendo, Natsuka thought.

He grumbled the thought to himself, but his hands didn't stop moving.

He casually flicked out a Flying Thunder God Kunai.

The next instant, his whole body turned into a streak of starlight and appeared directly on the other side of the door.

"Come on over," he said, standing on the far side of the opening and waving the others forward.

Yuuki thought it over, then pulled out her own Flying Thunder God Kunai and flashed across in a blink.

Lyra had it even simpler.

Being a spirit body to begin with, she simply turned herself into spirons and passed straight through, letting Natsuka designate her landing point on the other side.

On this side of the door, Asfi watched them all cross over and nearly short-circuited.

On the other side of the wall, Natsuka was still grinning.

"Hurry up, would you?"

"Aren't you supposed to be Perseus?"

"Then get me over there too!" A vein throbbed at Asfi's temple.

"Magic swords are expensive — every use is one use closer to gone." Natsuka rubbed his chin as if giving it serious thought. "Or, you could just keep watch out there."

"If anyone comes back, you can just sneak in behind them."

"You can turn invisible anyway."

"Don't you dare leave me out here alone!" Asfi nearly lost it. "And wasn't it you who asked me to come help in the first place?"

Her, standing guard outside?

As if.

Invisibility wasn't omnipotent either.

If that group from before came back, wouldn't she just get trapped right at the door?

"But you really didn't help with much just now," Natsuka said, all innocence.

Seeing Asfi's eyebrows shoot up, Natsuka quickly changed his tune.

"Ah, fine, guess it's just because I'm too soft-hearted."

"I'll lend you one."

"Remember, now — you owe me a favor."

A moment later.

Everyone had crossed through the great golden door and formally entered the Man-Made Dungeon.

Natsuka pulled out a Magic Stone lamp for light, its faint glow tearing a ring open in the surrounding darkness.

The others stayed invisible, ready to move in support at any moment.

Boot soles struck the hard stone floor, letting out one crisp click after another.

Before long, they reached a fork in the path.

"Which way?" Asfi asked, voice low.

"Left," Lyra said first.

"I feel like it's more likely the right," Yuuki said, sounding hesitant.

Natsuka thought it over, then made a snap decision.

"Then let's split up.

Lyra, Yuuki, you two take the left and right respectively.

"Asfi and I will go straight ahead."

"Straight ahead?" Asfi blinked, caught off guard.

Because no matter how you looked at it, there was nothing ahead but a wall.

There was no path at all.

But Natsuka knew better.

Through his shrunken Spatial Gate, he could sense that a traversable space actually existed about a meter ahead.

He pulled the Spatial Gate up in front of him and gently pried it open.

The Flying Thunder God Kunai passed through first.

Right after, Natsuka himself flashed to the other side of the wall.

Click. Click.

Almost the instant he landed, a trap triggered.

Fwip fwip fwip!

More than a dozen poison-coated arrows fired simultaneously from overhead and both side walls.

Natsuka's pupils narrowed slightly as his eyes traced their trajectories in an instant.

The next moment, the Spatial Gate split into more than a dozen small openings all at once, each sized just right to swallow every arrow whole.

"That was close."

Only then did Asfi finally catch up, a beat too late.

She caught sight of the row of poison arrows vanishing and felt a chill run down her spine.

"That's a bit too..."

"Basic stuff," Natsuka replied calmly.

He knew better than anyone just how absurd the difficulty of clearing a Man-Made Dungeon could be.

The maze layout and trap mechanisms alone were enough to wipe out even a huge outfit like the Loki Familia.

Not to mention there might also be all sorts of monsters and Sprite avatars mixed in.

Still... at this point in time, had Sprite avatars already taken up residence in the Man-Made Dungeon?

Natsuka ran through the calculations quickly in his mind.

Judging from the situation back in Sword Capital, the other side still seemed to be figuring out how to use the gem.

A full-form Sprite avatar parasitizing a monster shouldn't have officially come into being yet.

That thought let him ease up a little.

At least the pressure right now wasn't at its worst.

He led Asfi onward.

Soon, the voices of Lyra and Yuuki came through, transmitted via the Eye Crystal.

"Left is a dead end.

"And the right splits into two more branches!"

Natsuka took out an eyeball-shaped magic tool.

Asfi leaned in closer, curiosity in her eyes.

"What's this?"

"An Eye Crystal," Natsuka explained casually. "A magic tool for communication — Rei and the others lent it to me for now."

As he turned the little eyeball device over in his hand, a golden light rose up behind his eyes.

Bit by bit, he saw through and dissected the principle behind how it worked.

It turned out to rely on a particular band of magic power to transmit information.

If he could just master this technique...

It seemed like he might be able to make something similar himself down the line.

The thought flickered past, and Natsuka refocused, speaking into the Eye Crystal.

"Yuuki, keep scouting ahead. Watch for traps.

"Lyra, fall back for now and go check the other branch on Yuuki's side."

With the arrangements made, he and Asfi continued deeper in.

Their route turned out to be more dangerous than the other two.

Rolling boulders, pit traps, monsters, hidden arrows — not a single hazard was missing.

At the edge of one deep pit, Asfi even ended up carrying Natsuka in her arms, slowly bringing him up from below.

"How many pit traps is that now?" Asfi panted, a bead of sweat at her temple.

"Eighteen," Natsuka answered, deadpan.

"Still no end in sight?"

"Should be soon."

The two of them landed again.

Natsuka's ear twitched faintly.

From the far end of the corridor to the right came the faint sound of footsteps.

He immediately shifted his Spatial Gate over to take a look.

There was nothing there.

Hm?

The instant he frowned—

a voice suddenly came from the other side. Yuuki's voice.

"Natsu-kun?"

"Yuuki?" Natsuka blinked. "What are you doing here?"

The two of them exchanged a look and fell silent for half a second.

Natsuka slowly pulled out the map he'd marked earlier.

Asfi leaned in to look it over, and her face changed too.

"Looks like this is a looping structure."

"We might've circled all this way just to end up back where we started."

Natsuka's brow furrowed tight.

He'd deliberately gone off the normal route, and yet he'd still been led right back here.

That meant it wasn't just the maze itself shifting.

Someone, somewhere, was watching them specifically and continuously adjusting the terrain.

He slowly lifted his head to look at the eyes of the monster statues carved into the walls on either side.

The beast eyes inlaid with rubies looked as if they'd actually rotated a full turn.

A chill so cold it raised gooseflesh spread silently through the air.

The entrance to the Man-Made Dungeon.

Not long after Natsuka's group had passed through the great door—

two figures smashed straight through a section of rock wall that had only recently been repaired and strode into the passage.

One had brilliant golden hair and a pure white cloak, the long ears characteristic of elves peeking out from beneath the cloak's edge.

The other was dressed entirely in black, his short white-and-purple hair standing out sharply in the dark.

Except there was something odd about him.

He had a habit of always keeping the back of his head turned toward everyone.

The two of them walked deeper in, finally stopping before that massive door of hardest metal.

The white elf, Hedin Selland, reached out and slowly ran his hand over the cold surface, his brow furrowing bit by bit.

"They've already gone in."

The black elf Hogni still had the back of his head turned to him, but his tone was perfectly casual.

"Looks that way."

Hedin turned his head, only to find himself looking at the back of Hogni's head again.

A vein bulged visibly on his forehead.

"Could you look at me when you talk?"

"No!" Hogni answered with tremendous conviction. "A mere Hedin doesn't deserve to be looked at directly."

The vein on Hedin's forehead throbbed even more visibly.

"Eternal Subjugation, Undying Thunder Soldier!"

BOOM — a bolt of golden lightning suddenly burst open in the passage and shot straight for Hogni.

Hogni kicked off the ground and shot backward at speed, his Black Demon Sword slashing out to hack the bolt of lightning clean apart.

Fwip!

In the instant the lightning's afterglow scattered, Hedin flashed in close and grabbed Hogni's scarf, yanking him around to face him.

The two elves stood locked eye to eye.

The air thickened with tension in an instant.

Hedin bit down on his temper and spoke coldly.

"This is the young lady's request."

"So you'd better start taking it seriously."

The reason the two of them had come was that they'd taken on a commission from Syr.

The objective was simple.

Find out where Ryuu was.

And, incidentally, keep an eye on Natsuka's safety.

In Syr's own words—

"If you follow Natsu, you'll find Ryuu. Please make sure she comes back safe. I'm counting on you."

Of course.

This was only a young lady's "please" — a favor, not an order.

If it had come as a command instead, the ones sent would almost certainly have been more than just the two of them — the boar and the cat might well have come along too.

The reason Hedin had come at all was that he simply couldn't refuse a request the young lady made with such sincerity.

As for Hogni...

By his own account, he owed a debt and had to repay it.

Right at this moment,

under Hedin's close, furious glare, Hogni's eyes actually started to waver, and even his speech grew unsteady.

"I... shall of course heed the divine oracle. When the Gatekeeper of Hell's Gate descends, the road to the Underworld shall by rights reopen—"

"Speak like a normal person."

Hedin's brow twitched violently.

In the end, he let go without a flicker of expression and simply turned away.

"Forget it. Just be quiet.

"You'd better turn your back again after all."

A huge question mark popped up over Hogni's head.

Wasn't he the one who'd insisted on being looked at in the first place?

As expected.

White elves — creatures like that were as irritating as ever.

He gave a cold snort and clasped his hands behind his back.

"White Elf Wand, your magic can't even break through a wall?"

Hedin had already noticed the problem himself.

That strike a moment ago had only been a casual probe, but the surrounding rock's hardness was clearly abnormal.

He walked over to the wall, ran his fingertips across the spot he'd struck earlier, and pinched up a bit of dust to rub between his fingers.

"Obsidian."

"Could the whole body of this maze be made of this?"

His expression darkened slowly, and his gaze shifted back to that door of hardest metal.

"Looks like we can't get in for now."

Hogni asked.

"What about the divine oracle, then?"

"Are we just going to admit we're powerless?"

Hedin gazed at the door, unmoved.

"If there's a door, then its owner is bound to come back eventually."

"So..."

He simply sat down cross-legged and closed his eyes, as if planning to meditate right where he was.

"We wait."

Time crept by.

Hedin sat as still and silent as a statue.

Hogni, on the other hand, was nothing like him.

He simply couldn't sit still.

Before long, he'd wandered all the way to the outer mouth of the cave and stood there with his hands clasped behind his back, letting the wind snap his scarf about.

In his head, he was still turning over a few cool lines he'd come up with on the spot.

Most of the inspiration for these came from his master, Dekomori.

Hm.

He wondered how his master Kuroneko had been doing these past few days.

Whether she'd managed to properly awaken her memories of a past life.

Right as his head was full of scattered thoughts—

Hogni's "people radar" suddenly went off in a frenzy.

A bead of cold sweat instantly slid down his temple; he could feel several gazes fixed on him from the darkness.

He spun around in a blink, long sword pressed against his hip, his whole presence suddenly turning cold.

"Sneaking little rats, hiding your heads and showing your tails!"

"Taste my blade!"

Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, he'd already adjusted his angle, and — in his signature back-turned stance — aimed the tip of his blade toward the source of those gazes.

"Strike them down! Black Demon Sword!"

Fwip!

The pitch-black blade shot out to a full forty meters in an instant, lashing out and snapping back once through the night like a striking viper.

From the forest far off, a dull thud of something hitting the ground followed immediately after.

When the blade retracted, a thin line of blood clung to its edge.

"What happened?" Hedin asked, having slowly walked out from inside, eyes fixed on Hogni.

Hogni flicked the blood off his blade, turned the back of his head around again in a flash, and put on an air of total nonchalance.

"Just a little thief, that's all."

Hedin walked forward, frowning.

Sure enough, forty meters off in the trees lay a body.

He crouched down for a quick look.

"An adventurer I don't recognize."

"A holdover from the old age?"

Adventurers who could make it safely as far as Rivira usually carried titles bestowed by the gods, and word of them would circulate widely through the Guild.

But this man wasn't anyone Hedin had ever heard of.

Hedin slowly lifted his head and looked off in a certain direction.

"Eternal Struggle, Undying Thunder Soldier!"

[Caelus Hildr]

As the chant came to an end—

hundreds of orbs of lightning appeared beside Hedin, hovering and coiling, crackling with electric snaps.

The next instant, they surged forward like a storm of rain, bombarding the distant thicket in a frenzy.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM—

In an instant, more than half the forest ahead was blasted to nothing.

Smoke, dust, splinters, the smell of burning, and flashes of lightning all churned together.

Once the dust and haze thinned out a little, Hedin spotted, deep in the darkness at the far edge, the fleeing back of an adventurer scrambling away in a panic — gone within a few breaths.

"Level 4, huh..."

Hedin didn't give chase.

He just stood there, his gaze growing colder by the moment.

"Since we can't get through the door—

"—then at the very least, we should have a safe path ready for their retreat."

"That falls within the scope of the commission too."

With that, he withdrew back to the mouth of the passage and simply sat down outside the rock wall.

"From this moment on—

"—all manner of demons and specters shall go no further than this."

Hogni stood atop a rock some distance off, still with his back to Hedin, his tone tinged with self-satisfaction.

"So cool, so cool — the Thunder Soldier of Hell guards the borderlands, and the Abyssal Gate stands for nothing."

"Hmph." Hedin's mouth actually curved up faintly at the corner.

Hogni's face twisted, uneasy thoughts churning inside him.

So he'd actually understood that one?

Hedin shot him a sidelong glance, disdain written plainly across his face.

On the outskirts of Rivira town.

Dix and his group were fleeing in a state of complete disarray.

Not until they'd nearly reached Ruffian Town did the group finally stop, gasping for breath.

Gran, still shaken to the core, shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Hey, Dix!"

"What in the world is going on?"

"Why is Black and White Twin Knights standing guard right at our base's entrance?"

Dix's face was every bit as grim.

That sword strike a moment ago had come within fifty centimeters of his head, at most.

Not that he'd have been completely helpless in a real fight.

But who could've expected an attack like that, landing from forty meters out, with him totally unguarded?

He cursed through gritted teeth.

"How the hell would I know!"

"Damn it, don't tell me that bunch of freaks led them here again?"

"I told Thanatos from the start — working with that mysterious City Destroyer, Enyo, was a bad idea."

"And look what happened?"

"It's barely been a few days, and already this crap happens!"

Gran was thoroughly fed up too.

"Dix, so what do we do now?"

"Do we still go back into the dungeon?"

Dix didn't even have to think about it.

"Go back, why wouldn't we?"

"Even against a Level 6, I'm not necessarily afraid of them once we're inside the dungeon."

"They should be thankful they don't have the key and can't get in."

"Otherwise, this exact day next year would be Black and White Twin Knights' death anniversary."

Gran immediately flashed a practiced, flattering grin.