Chapter 35

Chapter 35

The Labyrinth (4)

In a small room located in the deepest part of the Labyrinth.

A man sat at a wide desk cluttered with miscellaneous scrolls and magical tools whose purposes were unknown.

Once a mage of the Hero’s Party that defeated the Demon King, he had come to be called the Sage as time passed.

A golem he had made approached the Sage, who had been lying collapsed over the desk.

Though it was called a golem, at a glance, it looked like an ordinary person.

The golem, wearing a maid uniform filled with the Sage’s tastes, opened its mouth.

“Master, someone has taken the ‘necklace.’”

“...What? The necklace?”

The Sage glared at “Ithea,” the golem he had made, and asked.

“Yes. A certain first-year student obtained the Necklace Containing the Hero’s Protection.”

As he listened to Ithea’s explanation, the Sage recalled the process by which he had made the necklace.

Though it had been hundreds of years ago, it was still a memory vivid to him even now.

It had been when the Hero’s Party was on the way to the Demon King’s Castle to defeat the Demon King.

“Hero, could you place your protection in this necklace?”

“Protection?”

The Sage had great interest in creating magic items.

The Hero grinned at him as usual, wide enough to show his teeth, told him to leave it to him, and immediately infused his protection into the necklace.

Likewise, he had also made items that received each member’s protection or blessing for the other members of the party.

It had been something that began with the intention of commemorating the Hero’s Party.

After that, in the battle against the Demon King, the Hero killed the Demon King and died a glorious death.

The other members of the party, excluding the Hero, were able to keep their lives thanks to the Hero.

The Sage was the same.

The party members honored him in their own ways.

The Saintess, in particular, cried so very much.

The method the Sage chose to honor the Hero was none other than “Innocence Academy.”

It was something only he could do, as someone who had always prepared alternative plans for prevention and plans for the future even when making strategies in the party.

The Sage prepared for the case that the Hero did not appear, and for the day the Demon King might someday appear again.

The other members of the party either died in battles against demons or peacefully died of old age.

But the Sage alone used the ancient magic he had finally found to defy aging, maintaining the academy.

The Labyrinth he lived in was also his work.

He had hidden the items he found or created throughout his life inside this Labyrinth.

They were gifts for the students.

The better the item, the harder he made it to find.

Hiding items was the Sage’s amusement, one he had enjoyed for hundreds of years.

The Hero’s necklace was like a gift for the Hero who would appear someday.

It had been made with the Hero’s “reincarnation” in mind.

The device had been prepared because, if it were the Hero the Sage knew, he would see his own statue, take the same pose, and laugh loudly.

“Bring me the second-floor transmitter.”

The transmitter was an object that allowed one to recheck what had happened in the Labyrinth through a screen. This too was something the Sage had made.

“Here it is, Master.”

As if she had known the Sage would say that, Ithea handed him the transmitter she had prepared in advance.

Ithea knew the Sage very well. Considering the years they had lived together, that made sense.

The Sage sat still and examined the transmitter’s screen.

He was curious whether the student who had obtained the necklace was the reincarnated Hero.

“A blind man...?”

The student shown in the transmitter had white bandages wrapped around his eyes.

After staring into the transmitter for quite some time, the Sage closed it.

“He is not the Hero.”

“Why is that?”

“The fellow I know was not this meticulous.”

The Sage shook his head left and right as he said this.

“And why does he talk to himself so much? Does he have some illness? If not... then we must assume he is conversing with something that does not appear on the screen.”

Ithea nodded in agreement with the Sage’s words.

“He bothers me a little... Could you bring me information about this student?”

Talking to oneself was possible if there were spirits or whatever else involved, but it was excessively detailed.

“Putting aside the fact that his senses are excellent enough to find the gap before the statue... to immediately think of inserting his sword there... He is no ordinary fellow.”

“I will prepare it.”

Ithea bowed her head to the Sage and headed somewhere.

Since it was the academy he had created, at least within the academy, there was no information he could not reach.

The Sage picked up the fifth-floor transmitter he had thrown into the corner beside his desk.

There was an “impurity” that had accidentally mixed in when this year’s Labyrinth regenerated on the fifth floor.

Looking at the screen, students were being attacked by the “impurity.”

Fortunately, according to the Sage’s calculations, the protective magic applied to the students seemed to be operating unchanged.

There would be no casualties.

After all, the academy he had built was not so fragile.

“This too is fate. A hardship to overcome.”

The Sage murmured in one corner of the cluttered room.

If the students joined forces, or if a student of outstanding skill faced it, it was not impossible to defeat.

Since its race was what it was, shallow wounds recovered quickly.

Who would be the one to defeat it?

What kind of hero would appear?

The Sage decided to watch.

“It was good that I gave the instructors vacation as usual. If things go well, I will be able to see the students’ performance.”

Thinking that, the Sage rested his chin on the desk and quietly waited for Ithea to come.

“What is taking so long...?”

But Ithea was later than expected.

***

While standing watch, I faced goblins that approached the area around the tent a few more times.

As I listened to the stories Sierra told beside me, time passed quickly.

The pouch where I stored mana stones was gradually growing plump, and just then, I heard rustling from inside the tent.

Soon, Yuri poked her head out of the tent.

“Ahaha, did I sleep too much...?”

Yuri laughed awkwardly.

Seeing her hollow eyes, it did not look like she had rested at all.

Not long after she first entered the tent, I had heard a surprised sound, but after that it went quiet, so I had thought she had fallen asleep.

Was the bedding uncomfortable?

There were people who could not fall asleep unless it was their own bed. Besides, Yuri was the young lady of a prestigious family who had grown up delicately, so she could be even more sensitive.

“Did you rest well?”

I asked Yuri, who was soaked in fatigue.

“Yeah! Thanks to you, I rested well. Thank you, Zeto.”

Yuri spoke a lie with a bright smile.

[...Rather than resting, she looks as if she could not sleep a wink. ]

Sierra beside me secretly glared at Yuri.

Soon, Yuri fully came out of the tent, approached where I was sitting, and opened her mouth.

“How about it? Should we switch now?”

“I still have plenty of stamina left. I was thinking of going down to the third floor now...”

At my answer, Yuri’s eyes widened.

Yuri’s neatly braided hair was slightly disheveled. It seemed she had slept without even undoing her hair.

“You really don’t need to rest?”

“Yes. I’m truly fine.”

“Hmm... All right. There probably isn’t much time left now, so it would be better to move quickly.”

Leaving those words behind, Yuri went to the tent and brought out both my backpack and hers.

Then, as she had learned in Edward’s class, she touched the bottom of the magic tent and lifted it as it was, making the tent small.

“Cleanup is done. Let’s go!”

Yuri called out as she stuck close beside me.

“The stairs are at a place I passed by.”

Yuri was bewildered, asking if I had really passed by the stairs, but when I told her I had found treasure thanks to that, she accepted it.

Like that, I descended the stairs whose location I had remembered with Yuri.

“So that goblin, you see...”

“Ugh, I’m sick of it. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that story.”

“Do you have any other stories? Like hidden treasure...”

When we arrived on the third floor, I saw several magic tents and the guards from each tent chatting around them.

“Everyone has already formed parties.”

Yuri, watching them, said to me.

“I’m used to going around alone, so I didn’t think of forming a party.”

For now, seeing that magic tents were safely set up around us, it seemed the lycanthrope was not on the third floor either.

“There probably isn’t much time left, so going straight to the fourth floor seems impossible.”

Yuri and I slowly walked around the third floor.

Since Yuri showed signs of exhaustion, I did not push too hard.

The monsters appearing on the third floor were still goblins and kobolds.

If anything had changed a little, it was only that their numbers had increased.

Well, they were still goblins and kobolds, though...

—Slice!

I sent the head of the last remaining goblin flying and shook the blood from my sword.

As strength slowly filled my body, it seemed my level had risen.

“As expected, levels rise well once I enter the Labyrinth.”

Taking the effect of the blindfold into account, only now was the leveling proper.

When I checked my status window briefly, I had reached level 20, and I had four skill points remaining.

If I invested this into Demon Swordsmanship, I could raise the level of Rebellion Against Heaven once.

However, I had no intention of investing them immediately. Having spare skill points allowed me to respond to many possibilities.

“Come to think of it, Zeto, you’re using your sword in a reverse grip now?”

Yuri, who was picking up mana stones, spoke to me.

“Yes. This sword must be used that way.”

“You said it was your master’s sword, right? Even at a glance, it looks high-quality. To think you had such a sword all this time and weren’t using it...”

“Haha, my master left behind some words when leaving the sword to me.”

I continued chatting with Yuri while helping pick up the mana stones.

After picking up all the mana stones and rising, a part of my finger happened to be scattering away as if disappearing.

“Zeto... your finger... Oh, mine too?”

“It seems the time is up.”

The transfer of students remaining in the Labyrinth had begun. The thirty hours inside the Labyrinth had ended.

Of course, if one wished, one could use the entry pass to escape at any time.

As long as a student was not ejected from the Labyrinth by suffering damage that would lead to death, the student’s last location was saved, and they could start from there when they returned.

It should be seen as something like a “save point” in the Labyrinth.

Aside from that, there were also real “save points” every ten floors, such as the first, tenth, and twentieth floors, where one would start even if they died.

It was for player convenience.

Even while my body was disappearing, I opened my mouth and tried making small talk.

“The location is not good. Since this was where goblins appeared, there is a high chance we will meet goblins immediately upon entry.”

“Right. So this is what Instructor Edward meant when he said to choose our position well when leaving.”

Yuri nodded while mentioning Edward.

Edward tended not to tell the correct answer. He wanted the students to find their own answers in their own ways.

Thanks to his educational philosophy, the Class A students would struggle quite a bit.

Yuri’s body and mine gradually disappeared.

Before long, my vision went dark.

***

When I came to my senses, I was at the entrance of the Labyrinth.

The Labyrinth, no, the Sage, had some thought to it too.

Even when ejecting the remaining students outside, it did not eject them all at once.

Looking around, I could not see Yuri.

If I had exited before Yuri, then perhaps students were ejected in the order they had entered the Labyrinth.

But the area in front of the entrance was chaos.

“Aaaagh...!”

“Hurry and move them to the infirmary!”

“What the hell did that thing do to them?”

I saw injured students bleeding, and instructors or staff moving them.

It was the omen of the lycanthrope episode.

“Since this uproar happened from the first day... it must be the fourth or fifth floor.”

As I walked toward them, one large male student helping the injured approached me.

“Over there! Are you perhaps Student Zeto?”

“Yes, I am Zeto. What is it?”

At a glance, he was a senior student.

A call from a nameless senior student.

It was the same scenario as the start of the Medical Technology Exchange Group quest.

“Medical Officer Priscilla was looking for you. She said she was short on hands, and that it was part of the exchange group, so you should come to the infirmary quickly.”

“Hands... understood for now. The situation seems urgent, so I will go first.”

“Um... can you get there on your own?”

The senior student looked at the area around my eyes, scratched his eyebrow, and said that.

“Yes, you do not need to worry about that.”

“Right, if you came out of the Labyrinth, then well... For now, I’m also a member of the Medical Technology Exchange Group, but I didn’t think our first greeting would turn out like this. Anyway, see you later!”

The senior student showed me a serious gaze and went back to helping support the injured.

How had this quest come about?

First, there were not many people in the academy who possessed divine power.

Even if there were, they would probably be closer to holy knights than priests.

Above all, divine power was not a power one could encounter very commonly.

Finally, Priscilla possessed far more divine power than other people thought.

It was also the reason she handled the academy’s infirmary alone.

However, she needed my help to handle the work more easily.

After all, there were not many people in the Medical Technology Exchange Group.

I saw people moving in perfect order.

“Yuri... will make it back on her own, right...?”

Somehow, I felt like situations where I kept leaving Yuri alone continued to appear.

Still, this was a rather urgent situation.

I could not stand around leisurely.

A decision formed in my head, and I immediately ran quickly toward the infirmary.

“I didn’t think it would be the first day. If I hadn’t met Yuri, would I have encountered the lycanthrope?”

It was early, but still according to plan.

While I was running with mana infused into my legs, Sierra spoke to me.

[ Medical Technology Exchange Group? You know how to handle medicine as well? ]

While running, I had no room to answer Sierra, but it would be better for her to see it directly rather than hear an explanation.

I glanced at Sierra, who was chasing after me with an easy posture.

“Come to think of it, is this the first time I’m meeting Priscilla after making the cursed blade...?”

Since Priscilla possessed immense divine power, she might notice the cursed blade.

If she noticed it, I would have to somehow get through it properly.

After all, I could not hide the cursed blade every time I ran into her inside the academy.

For that, through this incident, I needed to perform well enough to appear like a more capable person.

I entered the academy’s main building and went straight to the infirmary.

The infirmary door was already wide open.

“Hmm... No matter how I look at it, these look like claw marks...”

Priscilla was continuing to treat the students with holy magic.

Hearing my footsteps, she turned her head toward me.

“Oh, you’re here. Good timing, when we’re so busy.”

I approached Priscilla.

As I entered the infirmary, I heard the groans of the injured.

It was because they had been hit by the lycanthrope’s attacks and had received a status abnormality called “confusion.”

“I heard you called for me.”

“When I told him you had bandages around your eyes, that fellow Butler found you quickly.”

It seemed the name of the senior student who had informed me of the quest was “Butler.”

Priscilla turned her head back to focus on treatment and continued speaking to me.

“I don’t know what happened either. They were attacked by a monster, but I don’t know what kind of monster. Anyway, thanks to that, quite a few of them died. Injuries are the bonus.”

Priscilla clicked her tongue, as if annoyed by the sudden increase in the injured.

Death in the Labyrinth meant being ejected from the Labyrinth.

If they had been hit in one blow, they would have had no injuries, but the lycanthrope’s characteristic was fast consecutive attacks, so there were many injured.

“...What should I do?”

After finishing treatment on one student, Priscilla soon rose from her seat and approached me.

Even in this chaotic situation, her eyes maintained calm and gave off a quiet light.

Then her firmly closed lips opened.

“Acupuncture... you practiced a lot, right?”