Chapter 31
The remaining woman could not be identified.
It was because her face had been horribly mutilated.
“Let’s go.”
Karin urged the party onward.
“Are we really leaving like this? What about the bodies?”
Karin answered Yushin’s question.
“They’re already dead. If they were alive, we’d take them with us, but corpses are just baggage. If it really bothers you, go to the guild and tell them that a dwarf you knew has died.”
“Understood.”
“Don’t forget. We’re an investigation team, not a corpse-retrieval unit.”
“Yes.”
Gilsion looked at Karin.
“Karin, shouldn’t we inspect the floor more thoroughly? There shouldn’t be any need to rush through it like this.”
Karin shrugged.
“What business could we possibly have on such a shallow floor?”
“There are still many novice explorers who haven’t returned. Shouldn’t we at least ‘investigate’ why?”
“Some other investigation team will do it. We have more important work to handle.”
“...”
Gilsion gave up trying to persuade her and fell silent.
Roynel and Ahiman did not seem particularly interested, either, and said nothing.
“Let’s go.”
At Karin’s urging, the party proceeded through the dark cave.
They walked for several more hours and fought two more battles.
The battles were one-sided massacres carried out by Karin’s side.
Apart from staying safely in the rear and conserving his strength, there was little for Yushin to do.
So he tracked the arcs of Karin’s and Gilsion’s swords with his eyes and committed their movements to memory.
There were aspects of Gilsion’s and Karin’s movements that he could not understand.
Gilsion’s greatsword sometimes moved with bizarre speed, while at other times Yushin momentarily lost sight of Karin’s movements.
Was it the power of their engravings? Or the power of leveling up?
He was curious, but he did not ask.
He was a porter, not a companion.
The third battle had just ended.
They walked on again, crossing over corpses and blood.
With time, Karin’s party reached the edge of the fourth floor.
A large cavern containing a transfer stone.
Murmur, murmur.
People had gathered in the cavern, filling it with a bustling crowd.
Their faces looked familiar. They were the investigation teams he had seen several days earlier, before entering the labyrinth.
Most of them were high-rank explorer parties.
The black-haired Barbaroi was there too, but he was talking with his party members, so their eyes did not meet.
“What’s going on?”
When Karin entered the cavern and spoke, everyone’s attention turned to her.
The navy-haired man pushed his way through the crowd and approached.
“Karin, aren’t you a mid-rank explorer? Why did you get here so quickly?”
“Hans, you’re the ones who are slow. Why are you all gathered here instead of going to the next floor?”
The navy-haired man, Hans, pointed at the stele.
“The portal’s color has changed.”
When Karin approached the stele, the crowd parted and made way for her.
As though it were only natural for the crowd to part, Karin walked calmly through the opening and reached the stele.
Curious, Yushin cautiously craned his neck forward.
A black portal was rippling in front of the stele.
Hans spoke to Karin, who was standing close to the portal.
“Karin, don’t do anything reckless.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“Go back. This is no place for a mid-rank explorer.”
“Is it really reasonable for the great high-rank explorers to be hesitating at the entrance to the fifth floor?”
Hans’s expression hardened.
A tense atmosphere began to develop between Karin and Hans.
Sensing that something was wrong, Gilsion, Roynel, and Ahiman edged closer behind Karin.
At Gilsion’s nod, Yushin also approached and stood beside Karin.
Hans said,
“This is the first time a portal’s color has changed. Naturally, we’re approaching it cautiously. Don’t call the high-rank explorers here cowards. Even if you are the daughter of the Beastkin Alliance’s leader...”
“What’s that about being the Beastkin Alliance’s daughter?”
Karin glared at Hans. Hans closed his mouth.
“When I started as an explorer, I never received any help from my family. Everything I have now, I built with my own hands. Why are you suddenly bringing up my status? Answer me, Hans.”
Hans sighed.
Although Labyrinth City had laws like that, Karin’s status was so high that the prominent families of the Eastern Alliance could not even compare.
Hans was a high-rank explorer, but he knew his place well.
Even if he retired and everything went well, the best he could hope for was to become the city’s knight-captain. If he acquired a strange negative engraving, even that position would be lost.
The cost of removing negative engravings was also increasing exponentially, so he was beginning to consider retirement.
He had no desire to provoke the daughter of the Beastkin Alliance’s leader and suffer the consequences.
Hans took a step back and said,
“I’m sorry.”
“Hmph.”
Karin twisted her lips into a smile.
Then the ground began to tremble.
Rumble.
Someone among the high-rank explorers shouted,
“It’s an earthquake!!”
“All of a sudden?!”
“Brace yourselves!”
But before anyone had time to prepare, the next thing happened.
Every torch in the cavern began to flicker.
It was as though the candles on an altar had suddenly been struck by a cold wind and begun to flutter.
The people looked around and began to murmur.
“Wh-what’s happening?”
“The earthquake is getting worse.”
That was exactly what was happening. The trembling of the ground grew increasingly violent, making it difficult to keep one’s balance.
“The portal’s acting strange!”
Someone pointed behind them and shouted.
“Get back!!”
The black portal was pulsing like a beating heart.
Karin flinched at the sight and took a step backward, colliding with Yushin, who was standing close behind her.
“Karin!!”
Gilsion and Hans shouted urgently and reached out their hands.
But it was too late.
The black portal swelled and swallowed Karin and Yushin.
Everyone could only gape with their mouths open at a sight none of them had ever seen or even heard of in their lives.
The black portal returned to its original state. Karin and Yushin were gone.
“Goddammit!!”
“The portal swallowed people!!”
Voices filled with shock rang through the cavern.
The high-rank explorers grabbed Gilsion and held him back as he tried to charge straight into the black portal.
“Let go of me!!”
Gilsion shouted and struggled, but the high-rank explorers did not budge.
“Captain, what should we do?”
Someone asked Hans.
Hans, the leader of this labyrinth investigation team, felt a headache coming on.
“Team One goes back and reports. One team stays here, and the other three teams, including mine, go in.”
“Are you sure that’s all right?”
“I was going to go in anyway. Besides... No, never mind.”
Hans, captain of the investigation team, thought of a woman and swallowed dryly.
The current representative of the Beastkin Alliance and leader of the Red Wolf Tribe.
One of the members of the Labyrinth City Council.
The Cold-Blooded Queen.
Ingrid Redtail.
No matter how much of a mid-rank explorer Karin was, she was still the daughter of the Beastkin Alliance’s leader.
If they left her like this and Karin died, there was no guarantee they would not face retaliation later.
“Please tell us the whole plan, Captain.”
Rumble.
The earthquake was growing increasingly violent.
“There’s no time! Do as I said!”
Hans shouted furiously.
The people began moving hurriedly.
Hans approached Gilsion. Silver eyes glinted through the helmet’s opening.
Hans opened his mouth.
“We’re going in too.”
“We have to go in now!”
Gilsion said urgently.
“No. We go in after the earthquake ends. The portal is unstable. We don’t know where it might send us.”
“Tsk!”
A sound of grinding teeth came from beneath the helmet pulled low over his face.
Hans raised his head and stole a glance at the stele.
‘Will those two be able to hold out? If they fell to the fifth floor, that would at least be fortunate.’
* * *
It felt as though he had dreamed a long dream.
There had been a convenience store, as well as his family and friends.
A deserted factory that had been ruined for so long that no people remained, only weeds growing thickly everywhere.
There, he had lit a campfire and danced hand in hand with blasphemous, grotesque shadows.
And then.
Jeong Yushin opened his eyes.
Someone was holding a torch and looking down at him.
It was Karin.
Jeong Yushin stared blankly at Karin’s ears.
“Are you awake?”
“Where are we?”
“The fifth floor.”
“Have I been here long?”
“Who knows? I’m not sure. I think I wandered around for about three hours before finding you.”
Had he been in the darkness for three whole hours?
“It’s a relief I didn’t go mad.”
“Yeah. It’s a relief.”
Jeong Yushin got to his feet.
The floor was damp, and the surroundings were quiet. It was still a cave.
Karin said,
“The end of the cave is just a little farther.”
“I see. Shall I carry the torch?”
“No. I’ll carry it. Let’s go.”
Karin led the way, and Yushin walked behind her.
The two of them walked in silence for a long while before reaching the end of the cave.
They passed through the exit and stepped outside.
Outside the cave was a wide basin.
When he looked up, the ceiling was so high that he could not tell where it ended. It looked like a starless night sky.
He lowered his gaze.
Far away, he could see a city immersed in darkness.
A city sleeping quietly inside an enormous underground cavern.
He had learned about it during the final class of the novice explorer course.
The Forgotten City.
Engrave.
Rumors and speculation abounded, but the city had never been recorded in history. It was an unknown city that even a long-lived elven historian had never heard of or seen.
He had heard that it was a vast area teeming with high-rank hobgoblins.
The final obstacle faced by novice explorers, and the starting line for mid-rank explorers.
Though he had come as a porter, he felt a small sense of accomplishment.
Karin approached and said,
“The transfer stone is in the city’s central district. We need to move as far toward the outskirts as possible, then seize an opportunity to enter the center in one go.”
“You mean to use the transfer stone?”
“If it comes to that. It’s better to have more options, right?”
“Shouldn’t we wait for the others first?”
Karin gave a short laugh.
“Who’s going to come rescue us? Don’t put too much faith in explorers.”
“Lady Karin’s party might come to rescue us.”
“We could expect them to, and even hope for it. The problem is that we have no certainty they’ll definitely come.”
“Are you saying the party won’t come?”
“I’m saying they might not be able to come. There was an earthquake, remember? And didn’t you see the black portal? We don’t even know for certain that it will bring them here.”
“Even so, let’s wait a little longer…”
Karin’s face turned cold and hard.
“Why do you keep trying to rely on other people?”
‘Fuck?’
Yushin’s expression hardened along with hers.
It had clearly been a perfectly sensible suggestion.
He could not understand at all why she was so determined to risk moving forward. It felt almost like an obsession.
‘What the hell is she thinking?’
Several days earlier, Darmong had casually told him about her at the inn.
Karin Redtail.
The daughter of the Beastkin Alliance’s leader.
He had heard that Karin’s father had been killed in a mysterious attack before Karin was even born.
The truth behind the attack had yet to be uncovered. Darmong seemed to know something more, but he had kept his mouth shut.
Karin was the strongest newcomer, having risen to mid-rank explorer in just three months.
Just three months.
Looking back, Jeong Yushin and Karin had arrived in Labyrinth City around the same time.
Yushin had been laboring away at the monster disassembly facility.
Karin, meanwhile, had used the strength and wealth she had amassed by then to surge ahead.
They had started from different points and came from different stations. They saw the world differently. They were different races, too.
Jeong Yushin could not understand this red wolf beastkin. What was her goal? What was she thinking?
You can know ten feet of water, but not the heart of a person.
that a person’s heart, too, was a labyrinth.
Jeong Yushin realized it, if only faintly.
Karin glared at Jeong Yushin.
She could not understand him, either.
This perfectly normal-looking Barbaroi was strangely cowardly.
When they first met, he had been surrounded by slave hunters in the forest, kneeling on the ground.
The second time they met, he had bowed his head to her.
The third time, he had faced her with confidence, so she had thought he had changed—but that had been a mistake.
This Barbaroi was no different. He was a man who hid behind others, just like everyone else.
Once Karin realized that, she felt irritated for no reason.
With the torch between them, the man and woman met each other’s eyes.
“Is it because you want more money?”
Karin smiled, one side of her lips curling upward.
Jeong Yushin glared at Karin.
“...”
“Are you unhappy because you came as a porter but ended up having to fight? Are you asking for more money because it isn’t worth the price?”
“...”
“That figures. In the end, you’re just like the rest of them. The kind of man who hides behind me and leeches off my efforts while I take the lead. Darmong really misjudged you. Why did he help a man like you?”
Jeong Yushin spoke.
“Fine. Let’s go. Into the city.”
He spat the words out.
“You won’t take the money? How will you stand the injustice?”
Karin taunted him.
“Your mama sure did a fine job raising her little girl.”
At Yushin’s offhand remark, Karin was rendered speechless, her mouth opening and closing.
A vein bulged on Karin’s forehead.
Her eyes burned with rage, as though she had never heard words like that in her life.
“···What?”
“Are you deaf, too?”
Jeong Yushin dropped his pack.
There was no way someone who made people kneel, slam their heads into the ground, and even lick her belly could be normal.
Unfathomable.
He might have to cross swords with her.
The atmosphere grew increasingly murderous.
Karin set down the torch.
Outside the cave, in the clearing, the man and woman stood one step apart and glared at each other.
“You’ve gotten awfully bold.”
“Must be convenient. When it suits you, you’re an independent explorer, but when things turn against you, you’re the daughter of the Beastkin Alliance’s leader. Pick one.”
“How dare you!!”
Karin ground her teeth.
Yushin’s fingers tapped lightly against his scabbard.
Karin was a mid-rank explorer.
He had seen her overwhelming skill with his own eyes.
Even if he seized the initiative, there was a good chance he would lose the fight.
But he could not back down.
That was because Karin had insulted Darmong’s goodwill.
That insult also belittled all the effort Yushin had poured into struggling to survive in Labyrinth City.
Karin growled.
“...If you ever get out of here.”
“What if I do? Think you can survive getting out? How’s a bitch who charges headfirst without knowing what’s ahead supposed to survive?”
Yushin taunted her as he took a fighting stance.
The situation was on the verge of exploding.
Karin gritted her teeth and gripped her dagger.