Chapter 37

Chapter 37

The Labyrinth (End)

“The ‘prey’ on the fifth floor is mine. Don’t even think of laying a finger on it, and get lost.”

“...Ah, then I have no choice but to yield.”

Amon walked down the passage with triumphant steps.

“Of all people...”

Of all people, it had to be Zeto.

Until now, Amon had been subtly avoiding Zeto.

The sound of Zeto’s footsteps following from behind irritated him greatly.

“I told you to get lost...?”

Amon swallowed the curse that had risen to his throat, opened his eyes wide, and turned around, but Zeto was farther away than he had expected.

Zeto shrugged with that annoying smile, giving him a strong impression of saying, “What do you want me to do?”

“Ugh...”

Amon turned his head away and thought.

“If only this weren’t the Labyrinth...”

That was as far as it went.

Amon stopped thinking any further.

If this really were not the Labyrinth, would he be able to slam that annoying face into the ground?

The events of the class placement exam suddenly came to Amon’s mind.

Back then, it had not been because he let his guard down against a blind opponent.

“He definitely dispelled. With a sword, at that.”

No matter what one might say about Amon, in the end, Caligus was still Caligus. He had not learned magic for nothing.

He did not dismiss Zeto’s dispel as something close to mere coincidence.

“Even if we fight again, it will be hard to win.”

Amon had already experienced dispel. He knew very well how much advantage dispel held against a mage.

By nature, dispel required deep understanding of the magic one intended to nullify.

His father could dispel his magic easily.

Because Amon had learned magic from his father.

That bastard Zeto had dispelled his Earth Gauntlet. Moreover, he was not even a mage, but a swordsman.

Even to Amon, using a sword to dispel magic was something he had never heard of nor seen.

It meant there was a tremendous difference in level between Amon and Zeto.

“I was going to deal with it... Please just go away...”

Many students had been defeated by the powerful unidentified monster on the fifth floor.

He had planned to subdue that monster splendidly and prove the greatness of the Caligus family, as well as who “Amon Caligus” was, to the academy students.

And in the middle of that, he had run into Zeto.

“That bastard is definitely aiming for the monster too.”

Because Amon had grown impatient without realizing it, his steps quickened.

It was because he worried that Zeto, following behind him, might steal his achievement.

At last, Amon turned back and shouted.

“Get lost, damn it!”

Fortunately, this was the Labyrinth.

Even if Amon spoke a little roughly, Zeto could not punish him.

The reason he had not picked fights with him until now was none other than to avoid punishment.

If he pointlessly picked a fight with someone stronger than himself, something humiliating would happen.

Amon was thoroughly the type to be weak against the strong and strong against the weak.

To Amon, Zeto was already the strong, and he himself was the weak.

For such a person, even spitting curses at Zeto inside the Labyrinth made him feel as if the blockage in his chest had been swept away refreshingly.

After hearing Amon’s curse, Zeto’s expression gradually hardened.

“Yeah, if you’re upset, what are you going to do?”

Amon grinned at Zeto.

Ridiculously enough, he was the type to think about consequences later.

Soon, Zeto’s mouth opened.

However, the words that came from Zeto’s mouth were completely different from what Amon had imagined.

“...It is coming.”

Zeto said this in a rather serious voice.

At Zeto’s meaningful words, Amon hurriedly turned his head forward.

The dim passage was still silent as death.

Aside from the scent of blood spreading throughout the entire floor, nothing was different from before.

“No, it’s coming...”

Without even having the time to admire Zeto’s absurd detection ability, Amon immediately took a combat stance.

—Tap, tap, tap!

Only then did the thing’s footsteps reach Amon’s ears as well.

Judging by the sound growing gradually closer, it was extremely fast.

Amon could not even see its form yet, but he had to prepare in advance.

“Earth Wall!!”

Amon touched the ground and created a thick wall of rock in front of him.

“It will obviously break the wall. When it breaks the wall and charges in without thinking, I will strike its head hard.”

Before long, the footsteps reached the front of the wall, and Amon sensed it.

Now the wall would break.

—Boom!

Just as Amon thought, the wall broke, and the thing revealed itself along with stone fragments scattering everywhere.

“A mane?”

The thing’s gray mane swayed.

Without panicking, Amon swung his gauntlet down in time.

—Whoosh!

However, the thing avoided Amon’s gauntlet, which had seemed about to strike its face immediately.

“Impossible...!”

Next, the thing’s long claws came at Amon.

—Clang!!

Amon quickly blocked them with his gauntlet.

Fortunately, the gauntlet was not pierced.

That was right.

Even if Amon died, he was still a “Caligus.”

He was Amon Caligus, son of Maxim Caligus, the “Shield of the Empire” and the foremost master of earth magic, the sturdiest of all.

“Earth Spear!”

Even as Amon was sent flying by the fierce impact, he summoned a spear made of stone in midair and threw it at the thing.

Even if it had dodged the gauntlet at close range, the speed of Earth Spear was also quite fast.

—Clang!

Perhaps the thing found it hard to dodge as well, because it moved its arm and knocked Earth Spear away.

Amon touched the ground and rose, confirming the thing’s identity.

“A lycanthrope...?”

A human with the head of a wolf.

Though the only thing that could be called human about it was the fact that it walked on two legs...

At the very least, that was the only name that came to Amon’s mind.

It was not a monster.

It was not something that should appear in the Labyrinth.

Amon thought so, but battle came first.

In that instant, the lycanthrope’s shape distorted.

“It’s coming...!”

The lycanthrope approached Amon at a speed difficult to react to, and its claws hammered against Amon’s gauntlets.

—Scratch! Clang! Clang!

Amon was raising his guard with the gauntlets and blocking, but he did not think he could hold out forever.

The lycanthrope’s threatening claws headed toward Amon’s lower body, which he had not managed to protect with the gauntlets.

“Earth Wall!”

In that instant, Amon made a wall rise beneath his feet and barely avoided the lycanthrope’s claws.

—Boom!!

The lycanthrope broke the wall once again.

Amon, flying over the thing’s head, cast magic one more time in midair.

“Stone Shower!”

Large and sharp stone fragments fell fiercely over the thing’s head in time with Amon’s voice.

It was the specialty of Amon, an earth mage who favored close combat.

The lycanthrope hurriedly raised its arms and tried to block the stone fragments, but it could not block them all.

“Whew...”

In Amon’s eyes, he saw the lycanthrope with stone fragments embedded all over its body.

He thought that perhaps this might be doable.

—Awoooo!!

Next, the thing looked at the ceiling and howled savagely.

Then the stone fragments embedded in its body fell to the ground with a clatter.

The lycanthrope was regenerating its wounds.

Torn skin knitted together, and the flowing blood stopped.

—Grrr...

Hot breath leaked from the lycanthrope’s mouth.

The thing’s red eyes carried an even more hideous energy.

He had thought he had inflicted damage, but instead, he had only provoked its anger.

—Scrape...

Soon, the lycanthrope’s legs dragged backward.

—Bang!

The thing kicked off the ground and charged with even greater force than before.

In the blink of an eye, the sharp claws of the thing that had reached right before Amon’s nose drove toward his face.

Amon hurriedly raised his gauntlet to block, but...

—Claaang!!

The battered gauntlet cracked, and Amon’s body flew sideways.

—Crunch!

Then Amon slammed into the wall.

“Kgh!”

Blood surged from Amon’s mouth.

“Did my ribs break...?”

Amon’s body felt as if it might fall apart at any moment. He could not stand.

“They said it was a monster...”

It was not an easy opponent.

It was not simply because the thing’s movements were agile and he was a mage.

Amon was confident in close combat too.

The lycanthrope was just that powerful.

At this point, even Amon had no choice but to admit it.

“Did I overreach?”

He had always figured out his place only after tasting bitterness.

Zeto during the placement exam had been like that, and the lycanthrope now was like that.

Drool dripping, the lycanthrope approached Amon.

“...I guess I’ll go get treated at the infirmary.”

Just as Amon thought this and was about to give up cleanly.

“...It is my turn now, correct?”

Suddenly, an annoying voice, one he did not want to hear at least right now, came from over there.

The lycanthrope also reacted to that voice. As if only now noticing Zeto’s existence.

Amon, lying on the floor, rolled his eyes with difficulty toward where Zeto should be.

But Zeto’s appearance was strange.

“He has the usual bandages around his eyes... and now he’s even covering his mouth...?”

Zeto, whose entire face seemed tightly wrapped in bandages and cloth, looked like an assassin whose face was unknown.

The lycanthrope stepped toward the new challenger.

“You should probably... block your nose.”

Zeto left those incomprehensible words to Amon.

Zeto threw the pouch at his waist toward the lycanthrope.

Then, just before the pouch reached the lycanthrope, Zeto drew his sword first and cut it.

—Crack!

Soon, the sound of the pouch bursting rang out, and yellow powder that came from the pouch scattered everywhere.

“Powder...?”

The powder quickly spread around and entered Amon’s nose, since he had difficulty moving his body and had not covered it.

“...My body isn’t moving.”

Whatever powder it was, it had a paralysis effect.

“The lycanthrope does not use magic. In other words, ‘dispel’ will not work against it.”

To be blunt, the swordsmanship Zeto had shown when Amon had faced him before was ordinary.

It did not even reach the toes of the Aisin family’s storied Ice Swordsmanship, the family among the four elemental families responsible for ice magic.

“What will you do, Zeto...”

Since things had turned out this way, Amon decided to lie quietly and watch Zeto’s battle.

The lycanthrope, distracted by the powder, sniffed, and its body temporarily stiffened.

Zeto did not miss that instant.

“What kind of way is that to hold a sword? Reverse grip...?”

Zeto, unusually holding his sword in a reverse grip, immediately rushed at the lycanthrope.

Zeto’s sword strike followed.

Zeto’s red sword came in aiming for the thing’s head.

However, the lycanthrope’s outstanding physical ability, which Amon could not understand, reacted to it despite the paralysis.

—Slice!!

Instead of the head, the thing’s wrist was cut off.

Zeto’s sword lightly sliced through the mass of muscle that looked sturdy at a glance, as if cutting water.

Having lost one hand, the lycanthrope quickly leapt backward and opened distance from Zeto.

Reverse grip.

A red sword that could be called a famous blade even from afar.

Zeto had changed in many ways of his own.

“It hasn’t even been long since we entered, and he has already grown that much?”

Amon realized that the gap between himself and Zeto had widened even further.

Meanwhile, after opening distance from Zeto, the lycanthrope was waiting for something.

Blood poured from the stump of its severed wrist.

It seemed that, even for a lycanthrope, losing a wrist was not something that could be recovered immediately.

But to Amon, it did not look as if the thing was waiting for recovery.

It was waiting for the strange powder that stopped its body to settle to the ground and become still.

Whether that was the thing’s instinct or intelligence... Amon could not know.

Zeto removed the cloth covering his mouth and nose, then waited quietly for the thing.

The standoff did not last long.

The lycanthrope sniffed, then began charging at Zeto.

—Kyaaaak!!

The thing screamed and swung only its left hand, leaving the severed right hand alone.

Even though it had one hand, the attack was far quicker than when it had attacked Amon.

However, Zeto let the attacks slide past with light movements.

“He obviously should not be able to see... so how...?”

As if he could see, he avoided every one of the lycanthrope’s sharp claws with astonishing movements.

The lycanthrope’s attacks grew faster and faster.

Each time the thing swung its arm, a sharp sound of cleaving air followed.

Judging that he could no longer evade the relentless chain of strikes, Zeto blocked the thing’s claws with his sword.

—Claaang!!

Though he had blocked it with his sword, Zeto’s body could not withstand the impact and lifted backward into the air.

—Scrape.

Zeto dragged his sword against the ground and stopped his body.

Even so, he still maintained his composure.

Zeto shook his sword once, then quietly smiled.

“He cannot win by only dodging. What is he hiding that lets him make that kind of expression?”

Amon swallowed dryly and watched Zeto.

Then Zeto raised his index and middle fingers and swept them down along the blade.

It was a movement whose meaning could not be understood.

However, in that moment, Amon saw the flow of Zeto’s mana change.

It was such a bizarre thing that even seeing it with his own eyes made Amon wonder if what he saw was right.

Zeto’s mana operation, glimpsed for an instant, far exceeded the scope of Amon’s understanding.

Soon, Zeto took a stance as if he were about to swing his sword.

—Grr...

—Grrrr...

The lycanthrope was panting.

The reckless chain of attacks from moments ago had tired the thing out as well.

Thus, there was distance between Zeto and the lycanthrope.

A distance at which neither one’s attack should reach the other at all.

Ignoring that, Zeto swung the sword he held in a reverse grip several times, drawing elegant curves.

The red arcs appearing as his sword crossed the air were incredibly beautiful.

However, the problem was that he had cut the empty air.

It was a strange thing.

How could one swing a sword through the air without releasing sword aura?

Sword aura was not something one could draw out so easily. It was something only swordsmen who had reached a certain level could handle.

In that moment, Amon looked at Zeto and thought.

“So he really can’t see. He’s lost his mind. They said being hit by that thing’s attacks causes confusion... He must have been grazed during that chain of strikes.”

If Amon, who was watching this sight, had not been paralyzed, he would have clicked his tongue.

But right after Zeto swung his sword, a tremendous sound stabbed into Amon’s ears.

—Craaaack!!!

Along with a roar, enormous sword marks carved themselves all over the passage.

As if defying space itself, the walls and ceiling of the passage were sliced open.

Startled, Amon rolled his eyes and checked his own body first.

Fortunately, the fierce sword marks had not swept over Amon’s body.

Even though attacks between students did not work in the Labyrinth, Amon, terribly flustered, had completely forgotten that.

“Then what this unknown ‘sword aura’ cut through was...”

The lycanthrope entered Amon’s trembling vision.

The thing stood still.

But only for a moment. The path Zeto had cut appeared upon the thing’s body, and soon, its body slowly fell to pieces.

—Thud.

First, the head.

—Thud, thud.

Then the arms and torso.

—Thud...

The remaining lower body split in half as well.

The lycanthrope was completely cut to pieces, and in the place where it had stood, only its ankles remained upright.

—Slash!

For some reason, Zeto shook blood from the sword that should not have had blood on it, scattering it around him in a diagonal line.

The blood he shook off was definitely the lycanthrope’s.

—Clack.

Then Zeto sheathed his sword.

Because the events that had unfolded in an instant were far too complicated, Amon stopped thinking any further.

He was far stronger than himself.

That was the only thought in Amon’s head.

Soon, Zeto strode forward and shouted loudly.

“Amon! Are you still alive?!”

Zeto’s annoying smile was still the same.

Perhaps not to the other students, but at least to Amon, it was unbearably annoying.

“That son of a bitch... He deliberately avoided cutting everywhere I was...”

Amon wanted to spew curses refreshingly, but he could not because he was paralyzed.

In any case, to Amon, that was how it was.