Chapter 169: Desperate Elf Encounters Rescue by Natsuka (Patreon)

"As expected of Boss Dix!"

That expression was uncannily similar to how Natsuka looked sometimes.

Xi'er had specifically asked two Lv6s to escort and protect Natsuka.

Natsuka himself, of course, had no idea.

Right now, he was crouched inside the ice-cold, pitch-black Knossos, using his Spatial Gate to survey the surrounding terrain bit by bit.

At his feet lay a shattered monster statue.

He'd already pried the crimson ruby out of its eye socket and stuffed it into his pocket as a makeshift trinket.

"Hey, aren't you done yet?"

"Just how much longer are you going to keep peeping?"

Asfi crouched behind Natsuka, shoulders hunched, eyes darting nervously, her voice thick with resentment.

She was still keeping herself invisible.

But this place—Knossos—was simply too cold and dank.

The damp, metallic chill in the air grew more unnerving the longer they stayed.

"Don't rush me, almost done," Natsuka said without even turning his head.

He'd been holding this position for a long while now.

He'd shrunk his Spatial Gate down into a round, one-centimeter "peephole," then dropped one every thirty meters or so—his current maximum range.

That way, like some gleeful little peeping creep, he could sweep an area roughly six hundred meters in radius.

The problem was—

for the whole of Knossos, that range still covered only a tiny fraction.

Click, click.

As Natsuka kept watching the shifting corridors, he quickly noticed a pattern.

"Ever since I started destroying the surveillance devices—those monster statues—the labyrinth's rate of change has clearly slowed down."

"So if it's still shifting now, there can only be two reasons."

"One, it has some kind of automatic mechanism that switches the layout on its own at intervals."

"Two, someone outside is on alert, forcing the labyrinth's master to keep altering the routes."

Asfi lowered her voice and pressed him.

"Which one do you think it is?"

"The latter," Natsuka answered without hesitation.

Once he'd confirmed the general direction, the next problem was how to actually get there.

Their target was, at minimum, dozens of walls away from where they currently stood.

The Flying Thunder God Kunai were useful, but they definitely weren't unlimited.

Natsuka took quick stock of his inventory.

"I've got twenty kunai left."

"In theory, each one can still teleport at least three more times."

"But there are quite a few of us, and I need to save some for the trip back."

"So I'll go take a look first."

"You all stay here on standby, or keep mapping the place."

As soon as he finished speaking, he casually flicked out a kunai.

A flash of starlight.

And in an instant, he vanished, reappearing two hundred meters away.

"Eh?"

Asfi stared at the sudden empty space beside her, frozen for a few seconds in her duck-legged crouch.

Then, little by little, her expression crumpled into a wounded pout.

"Hey!"

"Why do you keep dumping the most annoying jobs on me?!"

Yuuki crouched down, patted Asfi's head, and consoled her earnestly.

"There, there. We're invisible right now anyway, so there's not much danger."

"Let's keep moving forward."

Asfi rolled her eyes.

Easy for all of you to say.

It's not like any of you are the ones doing the hardest work.

Guess I'm just born to be worked to the bone, huh?

On the other side of the labyrinth.

Ryuu strode on her long legs, weaving swiftly through corridor after corridor.

Just an hour ago, the labyrinth's rate of change had suddenly dropped sharply.

The routes that had been constantly shifting seemed to have abruptly gone still.

It seemed the labyrinth's master had been tied up by some alert and no longer had the spare attention to focus entirely on trapping her to death, as before.

Ryuu seized the opportunity at once.

She pushed through several corridors she hadn't had the chance to explore before.

To avoid doubling back on herself, she left dye marks on the walls along the way, tracing the route she'd already covered.

Just as she pulled out a key and opened a sealed metal door—

a dark shadow suddenly flickered past in front of her.

"Who's there? Stop!"

Ryuu barked the warning, her body already giving chase almost before the words left her mouth.

She drew her bokuto and closed the distance on the shadow within a few breaths.

The figure stopped and turned back, grinning at her.

The smile made Ryuu's stomach lurch on pure instinct.

It was the kind of revolting grin only a death-worshipping cultist could manage.

"Die!"

The black-robed figure yanked a hidden device from his robes.

The next instant, a line of fire raced out from the cracks in the wall.

Ryuu's face went pale in an instant.

"The whole corridor is lined with Flame Stones!"

Her pupils contracted, and she moved to retreat immediately.

But it was already too late.

The walls, floor, and ceiling of the entire corridor were densely studded with Flame Stones.

This was no ordinary trap.

It had clearly been built for the sole purpose of blowing her to pieces.

Worse still, the entrance she'd come through had, at some point, been sealed again with Hardest Metal.

Gritting her teeth, Ryuu had no choice but to pull out her key again.

A red light flared.

The metal door began rising, inch by inch.

But at the same time, the roar of chain-reaction explosions from the Flame Stones was already thundering behind her.

Scorching firelight lit up half her face.

Ryuu flattened herself almost against the ground and forced her body through the gap beneath the still-rising door, rolling underneath it.

The next instant—

BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—

A terrifying blast wave of flame slammed into her, hurling her body several meters through the air.

A dozen or so seconds later,

Ryuu pushed herself up against the wall, slowly rising to her feet.

Half her body had been scorched by the heat; her skin stung, and even her breath felt scalding.

She pressed a hand to the burn and quickly cast a Heal spell.

[Noah's Heal]

A soft green glow flowed out from her palm, mending the charred, raw wound bit by bit.

Ryuu let out a slow breath, but her frown only deepened.

The labyrinth's master had changed its approach.

Or rather, it had started to panic.

Before, it had only been trying to trap her.

Now it had clearly switched to trying to kill her.

It was even willing to throw Evilus cannon fodder in as bait, luring her into more dangerous traps.

What did that mean?

It meant the other side had something more urgent to deal with.

That was why it wanted to exterminate this "rat" of a nuisance as quickly as possible.

Which meant—

someone else, someone the labyrinth's master feared even more, had already broken in?

Ryuu quickly arrived at this conclusion.

Whether or not that was actually the truth,

she knew she had to seize this opportunity now.

She shook out her freshly healed arm, drew a deep breath of ash-tinged air, and pressed on deeper into the corridor scoured by the blast.

After passing through three more metal doors,

she arrived at an unusually spacious hall.

A staircase leading upward stood at the center of the hall.

Giant glass containers filled with unidentified liquid lined the walls all around.

One bizarre-looking monster after another floated inside the liquid, eyes closed, as though asleep.

Ryuu's steps came to a sudden halt.

These things were nothing like any monster she'd ever seen before.

Some had vines growing straight out of their bodies.

Others had tendrils bulging beside their heads like flower buds.

She even spotted a Hellhound that had been stitched together with three heads.

Between the heads, clumps of green flesh squirmed slowly.

"What... are these things?"

A chill settled in Ryuu's chest, but there was no time to dwell on it.

She quickly swept her gaze around the hall.

There were four doors in total.

Aside from the one directly above the staircase, which stood open, the other three were all sealed shut with metal.

Ryuu quickly recalled the direction she'd come from and turned to dash toward the corridor on the right.

But just as she stepped across the center of the hall—

the floor tile beneath her feet suddenly sank noticeably.

Click.

Ryuu's heart dropped.

Click, click, hum— a low, continuous whir of turning gears reached her ears.

She rolled instinctively, drawing her blade on guard, her movements so fast they seemed almost reflexive.

In the next instant,

the entire hall was flooded with a blazing crimson light.

The monsters that had been floating silently in their nutrient fluid seemed to be jolted awake all at once, their crimson eyes snapping open one by one.

Splash—

the sound of liquid draining out was jarringly loud in the silence.

Then, row after row of the glass cages began to open.

The twisted, deformed monsters tumbled out one after another, landing heavily on the floor and letting out ferocious snarls.

The three-headed Hellhound was the first to burst free, charging straight at Ryuu.

Ryuu raised her blade to block the fangs snapping down from one of its mouths.

But the other two heads opened their jaws at the same time, spewing gouts of flame.

The fire forced her to abandon her position and fall back at once.

She flipped her right hand and drew the small tachi at her waist, unleashing a dozen flashing arcs of steel in an instant.

Clang, clang, clang.

A mass of green branches shot toward her like a hail of steel needles.

As more and more of the stitched-together monsters stirred awake, the entire hall began to feel less like an experiment chamber and more like a man-eating, nightmarish botanical garden.

[Luminous Wind]

A sphere of blue-green light burst violently around Ryuu.

Several monsters were shredded instantly, but once the storm subsided, her breathing had grown noticeably heavier.

Her head felt thick and dull, her eyelids growing heavier by the second.

The prolonged, high-intensity fighting had pushed her Mind to the very brink.

"Is this as far as I go..."

She looked at the dozen or so grotesque, stitched-together monsters closing in ahead, and her heart sank to the bottom.

But the monsters weren't going to give her a moment to catch her breath.

A silverback ape covered in blue splotches leapt up, hoisting a vine-wrapped fist high overhead, and brought it crashing down at her skull.

Ryuu raised her blade horizontally to block.

But this creature—normally no higher than Lv1—had clearly been forcibly enhanced by some kind of power, its strength now shocking.

Her tachi had barely cut a dozen or so centimeters into the vines before the sheer force drove it back into her own chest.

Crack.

Her ribs shattered.

Ryuu was blown backward off her feet, tumbling across the floor before finally managing to steady herself.

Gritting her teeth, she used her blade to prop herself up and slowly rose again.

It was only then that she got a clear look at the silverback ape's back.

The green flesh on its back suddenly split open, writhing, and a featureless human face crawled out from within!

The thing squirmed, slick and slimy, revolting enough to make her scalp crawl.

A wave of nausea gripped Ryuu's chest.

For an elf with such a severe aversion to filth, this sight was even more sickening than facing the monster head-on.

"Even if my journey ends here..."

"I'll keep fighting until the very last moment."

The thought flashed through her mind.

The next instant, she moved again.

Her lips began chanting rapidly.

[Come—o wandering wind, o vagabond traveler...]

Her eyes suddenly turned razor-sharp.

She flipped upright, snatched up the fallen bokuto from the ground, and with a reverse-grip slash sent a one-horned Bugbear flying.

[Leap through the sky, race across the wilds...]

The elf, clad in emerald green, swept through the mass of monsters like an actual gust of wind.

She spun, slashed, leapt, and landed.

Using her speed to dodge the silverback ape's heavy blow, she swiftly reaped the lives of the enemies around her.

Nothing remained in her eyes but a final, resolute will.

Her Mind was nearly completely spent.

And on the very edge of collapse, she thought she truly saw her old companions.

They stood not far away, smiling, reaching their hands out to her.

"Ah..."

"So this is where my journey ends after all, Alise..."

A sphere of blue-green wind burst around her again, blasting toward the twisted monsters

ahead.

[Luminous Wind]

The silverback ape let out a shrill, agonized howl.

But even so, it kept charging straight at Ryuu.

That fist drew closer and closer.

And Ryuu's vision grew hazier by the moment.

She knew her Mind had reached its absolute limit.

Even if this blow could kill the monster in front of her, she'd most likely not survive it herself.

Just as her consciousness was about to sink into darkness for good—

a voice full of impatience and disdain suddenly cut through the roaring in her ears.

"Ugh, you really can't let a guy relax for a second!"

"Snap out of it, will you?!"

"You can't die yet, you useless elf!"

Right after that—

a flash of starlight, familiar as a dream, streaked across her vision.

A crimson figure trailing a long tail of flame slammed a kick straight into the silverback ape's face.

"Ah— Alise..."

Ryuu managed a dazed, hazy smile.

The next moment, her knees buckled and she collapsed to the ground, her consciousness finally giving out completely.

A few minutes earlier.

Natsuka had still been using his Spatial Gate to cut rapidly across the labyrinth.

He could clearly feel that the mechanisms inside the labyrinth were shifting faster and faster.

Right at that moment—

a muffled explosion echoed from somewhere deep within one of the corridors.

"Over there?"

Natsuka immediately changed direction, moving swiftly toward the sound.

A flash of starlight.

He appeared in a corridor that had just been blasted by Flame Stones.

Scorch marks from the explosion covered the walls, and the air was thick with an acrid burnt smell.

The floor was pitted and uneven.

But on closer inspection, the craters were actually just the sockets where the Flame Stones had been embedded—the actual walls and load-bearing structure were barely damaged at all.

That made sense.

Ultra-Hard Metal wasn't quite as absurd as Hardest Metal, but it was still an extremely rare material.

Especially the Ultra-Hard Metal mined from the deep levels—its hardness was frightening.

An ordinary Flame Stone explosion had no chance of easily blasting through it.

Natsuka reached out and touched the wall.

He could still feel obvious residual heat.

He looked up at once, gazing deeper into the corridor.

"She can't have gone far!"

He kicked off and sprinted down the corridor.

Soon enough, he spotted the elf's figure flitting like a butterfly along the edge of the firelight.

"Holy crap!"

"How reckless can you possibly be?!"

"You actually dared to charge into Knossos alone?!"

Honestly, by Natsuka's original estimate, the odds of Ryuu actually running into Knossos alone had been absurdly low.

No sane person would be this reckless.

Who in their right mind would be stubborn enough to dive alone into a place that so obviously exceeded normal specs and reeked of danger at every turn?

He'd only come with a "well, I'm already here, might as well take a look" kind of mindset.

And somehow, he'd actually run into her.

All the frantic internal griping aside,

the most important thing right now was saving her.

Once the aftershocks of [Luminous Wind] had died down a little, Natsuka quickly scanned the battlefield.

Not many monsters remained.

Only three of the most troublesome ones were still alive.

Especially the silverback ape with a human face growing on its back—just looking at it was enough to make his scalp crawl.

"A Sprite avatar? No, wait..."

"It's an unfinished, female-type prototype."

But he had no time to keep analyzing.

Because Ryuu's condition was clearly very wrong.

Natsuka flicked out a Flying Thunder God Kunai, crouched low, and gave a light twist of his fingers at the edge of his combat boots.

Flame and spirit-light burst out at the same time.

The next moment, he vanished from where he stood.

When he reappeared, he was already driving a brutal kick into the silverback ape's face.

Bam!

A dull, heavy impact rang out.

The kick snapped the ape's head sideways, and it let out a low, pained roar.

Natsuka landed and darted forward in a series of rapid steps, moving so fast he seemed to leave afterimages.

He grabbed the unconscious elf who'd collapsed to her knees and turned to run.

"Hey! Wake up!"

"Don't fall asleep now of all times!"

There was no response.

Ryuu had completely passed out.

Natsuka had no choice but to hoist her onto his back and sprint desperately toward another corridor—