Chapter 61: Chapter 61 – Into the Second Half of Labyrinth

Jayr POV - Tortus, Orcus Great Labyrinth -  2013

After crashing against many rocks on my way down toward the second half of the  Orcus Great Labyrinth, I finally stop falling as I hit a body of water and start to sink, but soon I feel the water's currents pushing my body toward what appears to be a waterfall, and I cannot do anything to prevent that, as I still have my Cloth on, and without my Cosmo, I'm unable to move under its weight, and so I brace myself and let the current lead me while holding my breath.

Soon, I see that I'm getting close to the edge, so I try to slowly move my body so that I can protect the girl in my arms better, and the next moment I start to plunge down the waterfall, and feel my body colliding against many hard rocks on my way down, and after a few seconds of slamming around like flipper ball, once again I find myself pushed underwater by the waterfall's currents, I unequip and put my Cloth back into my Territory and start to swim away from the fall's whirlpool immediately, even before breaking the surface.

Once I reach the shore the first thing I do is check the girl, and I quickly tilt her head back and look, listen and feel for breaths, 'Shit! She isn't breathing! Too much time in water!', noticing that she isn't breathing I quickly act, I tilt her head back, sealing my mouth over hers, pinch her nose and blow into her mouth, I repeat this five times, then I start to give 30 chest compressions, I push firmly in the middle of her chest and then release.

I again seal her mouth and give two rescue breaths then continue with cycles of 30 chest compressions, and luckily she soon she spits some water and starts breathing normally, there are also signs that she is regaining her senses but after telling her to rest she calms down, and she lays on the ground then it looks like she fell asleep, 'Now she is out of immediate danger, but I have to treat her hypothermia...', and so I remove her wet clothes while apologizing to her, then I quickly wring them and lay them on the ground, and after that, I cover her naked body in a big warm blanket, that I pull out from my Territory to keep her warm.

Once I'm sure she is safe, I finally give a careful look at her, she is a cute young woman with short black hair that is kept in a tiny bob, brown eyes, and is wearing glasses that are strangely still on her face even after everything we just have gone though, something about her seems familiar, and as I once again study her features, it finally clicks in 'Hory Shiet! Isn't she one of the antagonists of Arifureta!? If I remember well, she is the one obsessed with hero-wannabe, and also the one who killed Kaori and a bunch of other people! I don't remember her surname, but her name should be Eri...'.

(Image Here - Eri Nakamura)

I look at her with a slight panic as I think 'And now, what should I do with her? Kill her for something she still didn't do? No way! Try to make her change her mind about her plans? Fat chance... If I remember well she is basically a psycho capable of doing just about anything to have what she wants, in fact now that I think about when I read Arifureta the first time, she gave me some strong Yandere vibes... What if I help her get hero-wannabe in a non-evil way homicidal way...'.

While I was thinking that, I also remove my wet clothes leaving only my underwear, and pulling out some dry pieces of wood and some rocks, I start a fire, to keep the Yandere whose name I forgot warm and dry our clothes, then I start to study my surroundings, even though the cave is dim, thanks to the emission from the green light stones, it was not like I am blinded by the darkness.

In front of me, there is a river about 5 meters in width, with many protruding rocks located at the side of the river, I also notice that there are countless waterfalls here, and there is also a waterslide-like tunnel further in the distance, moreover, I notice that there is a body sliding down that tunnel and seeing it, I let out a sigh of relief 'Ahh... That is Hajime... So the plot isn't completely fucked...', then I look something that was only a myth happening right before my very eyes,

Hajime's body falls into the water, and then is slowly pushed by the currents generated by the waterfalls' whirlpool in such a way that he is able to dodge all the sharp rocks and dangerous currents, and slowly his body moves closer and safely to the shore, and then his upper body seems to have been caught and stranded by one of the protruding rocks located at the side of the river a few hundred meters away from me, keeping him safely there.

Seeing what just happened, I can't help but exclaim in silence 'Plot Armor! That is clearly Plot Armor!! What the fuck! We fell from the same bridge! I crashed against countless sharp rocks, fought strong currents, fell from a really high waterfall, and almost drowned, while an unconscious Hajime, safely slid down a natural waterslide tunnel, and is gently pushed by the currents to safety on the shore!'.

While crying injustice in my mind, I move closer to Hajime and check on him, 'He is also fine... Yes, exhausted and knocked out, but still fine... Oh well, I'll leave him here then, he should wake up in a few hours...', and return back to the temporary camp, once there I see that the girl is up and awake, and is intensely looking at the fire with her eyes unfocused like she is in some deep thought, but as soon as she hears me coming, she turns her head to look at me, and see her eyes spark to life as she shyly asks "A... Are you the one tha... That saved me?".

Seeing her like that, I let out a sigh and think, 'What to do now? Well... Let's improvise', then I sit in front of her before looking straight into her eyes and start speaking in fluent Japanese "Yes, I'm the one that saved you, Jayr Pucci...", and I see her eyes widening a little as she immediately realizes that I'm speaking in Japanese and not in the language of Tortus, meanwhile, I think 'Well at least she is smart enough to realize the effects of the skill Language Comprehension...', meanwhile, I continue "... Nice to meet you".

Eri POV - Tortus, Great Orcus Labyrinth -  2013

I'm falling down this bottomless abyss and looking at the back of the only person that matter to me as he totally ignores my plight while all his attention is on Kaori, Shizuku, and Ryutaro, 'A bridge again... Only this time, he isn't going to save me... In fact, he doesn't even notice that I'm falling... Ever after all I have done to try to get closer to him and make him mine... The mask I had to put on... The things I had to endure... The people I had to manipulate, included my mother and the only girl that only now I realize truly treated me as a true friend, Suzu...', and reaching that conclusion I realize 'Maybe things would have been way different if the one I meet that day was Suzu instead of Kouki... But it is too late now...'.

As I continue falling looking towards the light that gradually becomes dimmer as despair and rage and resignation swirl around my mind 'Why!? Why!? I realized some time ago that Kouki's first act of kindness towards me had not been a romantic gesture, but rather a general sense of chivalry, and that he had treated all the girls he encountered the same way... But why does he cares more for those two bitches... they clearly take being Kouki's friend for granted and they feel like it is a burden to be his friend... While I had to work hard just in hope of getting closer to him... But in the end is all useless... I'm about to die and no one cares about me... In the end, Kouki saving my life that day was a mistake, a cruel joke of god to make me suffer more... Five years ago I was right, all the hardships I endured over the years had been for nothing... I should just accept to die and stop suffering...'.

But all of the sudden, I see in the distance that someone jumped down the bridge and is quickly approaching me, and as he grows closer I recognize him as the strange adventurer named Jayr, at the same time, I hear the wrathful roar of the Behemoth, and in malicious glee, I think 'Kouki's attack failed... Serves him well, I hope that everyone dies... Well not everyone, I hope that Kaori and Shizuku are caught by some monster and used as a breeding tool until they break... But at least I hope Suzu is able to escape... Among all that useless trash, she is the only one that is worth saving... Someone so pure, shouldn't die in such a dark place like me!'

Then looking at the handsome young man, 'Did he see that there is no hope and choose to end his life... Oh well, nothing matters anymore... Eh?', but while I was thinking that, I see that he is focusing all his attention on me, and soon to my immense surprise, I feel his arms wrap around my body, and as his body grows closer to mine, I notice that he is using his body to cover as much of mine as possible, and at that moment, I blank out, and the only thing I can feel is the heat of his body that seems to warm not only my body but my whole being, and then I have a feeling of being safe and protected of the likes I've never felt before.

I suddenly feel tears falling from my eyes as I realize 'This feeling... Like no matter what happens, I'll be safe... It's exactly what I longed for so long... I thought that only Kouki could give me that... At least I finally felt it before I die...', then all of the sudden, I start to feel many impacts but no pain and see that my sight is spinning around, a clear sign that we are hitting some of the rocks I saw protruding from the wall, but he is using his body to protect me, at the same time, I notice that I can't hear even a single sound from him, as he silently endures everything as his body crashes against the rocks.

After a while, I'm totally disoriented, I do not know how many times we crashed against a rock, but the next moment, I feel surrounded by a cold, wet sensation,  we crashed in some very turbulent waters and I don't have the time to do anything as the water enters my mouth for a few seconds but luckily I instinctively react and close my mouth and that mouthful of water didn't go into the wrong pipe, next I hold my breath and feel as we are spun around by the strong currents, I'm now not even sure if he is still alive but even then he doesn't let me go, but still with all this movement, I can't hold my breath for much longer, and soon I start to suffocate, and desperate for air, I open my mouth and the water enters my lungs, but even so I continue to feel his warm body as he keeps holding me and as I start to lose consciousness think, 'Well, this isn't a bad way to go...', then everythink blanks out.

I suddenly feel someone's lips on mine, as he breaths some very needed air in me as I can't breathe, then I feel a strong pair of hands painful pressing my chest, at the same time, I feel some liquid raising from my throat and on instinct, I throw it out and start coughing and finally I can breathe again, then I hear his voice as he gently says "Stay still, it is still too soon for you to move...', hearing that, I stop moving and close my eyes, calming my breath making look it like I feel asleep.

After a few seconds, I hear him say "Sorry, but I have to strip those wet clothes from you to avoid the risk of hypothermia...", and I feel my heart beating strongly as he slowly undresses me, so much that I almost feel like it's about to beat out of my chest, once I'm fully naked, I feel as he carefully warps my body in a big warm blanket, then I hear him shuffling around and after some time I hear the sound of rocks clashing against one other, and after a few seconds, I hear the sound of a fire crackling, and feel the heat coming from it.

Then I hear the sound of my savior undressing, and unable to contain myself, I sneakily open my eyes and take a look, and what greets me is the sight of my savior fully undressed, with only his wet underwear on, he is handsome tall young man, he is 1,84 meters tall, he has slightly tan skin and the body of a greek god, medium length dark blue messy hair, and charming green eyes, moreover, I can see the wet underwear sticking to his body, leaving nothing to the imagination, 'Big...'.

After some time, my savior's attention is caught by something else, and soon he moves away to check on something, so I get up and look at what he is doing, and notice that he is checking on the body of someone else, and with a quick look I recognize him as Nagumo Hajime, then I look at the fire and think 'If he is still alive... Would he join us...? Do I have to secretly get rid of him in some way? What would he think?'.

While I was having some random thoughts, I hear his footsteps getting closer, so I look up at him and nervously say the first thing that came to my mind "A... Are you the one tha... That saved me?", then he sits in front of me and looking straight into my eyes with his captivating green eyes, he says "Yes, I'm the one that saved you, Jayr Pucci...", and immediately realize that he is speaking in Japanese and not in the language of Tortus, 'What? That is clearly Japanese! What is going on!?', meanwhile, he continues "... Nice to meet you".

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Jayr POV - Tortus, Great Orcus Labyrinth -  2013

She looks at me with clear shock and confusion and asks "Y... You... That... What is going on?", since I have nothing to hide and even less to fear, I decide to be honest and tell her the truth, "Well, you see like you and your classmates, I'm not from this world... But unlike you guys, I wasn't summoned by some shitty God so that he can play with my life because he is too bored... In fact, I'm not even from this Universe...".

I'm surprised to find out that after hearing what I just said, instead of showing more confusion, she calms down and asks "What do you mean by saying that you aren't from this Universe?", I do not immediately answer her question, but after thinking about what I remember about this Universe for a few seconds I give her a simple explanation "You see think of this as the Universe in which you lived...", at the same time I draw a small circle on the ground and continue "... In it, you will find your homeworld the planet Earth with everything in it as you know...".

Then I draw a bigger circle that includes the one from before and then draw eight other smaller circles within and explain "What you do not know is that your Universe is a small part of a bigger Universe known by the name True Astral World, which contains nine parallel but different Universes... One of which is the one we are currently in...", and I point at one small circle near the one on where Earth is located, then I draw another bigger circle next to the True Astral World one and say "Now, about me... I'm not from any of the 9 Parallel Universes, and not even the main one... I'm from another totally different Universe... And these two aren't the only ones, there are many Universes out there some with similar structure and rule as your own, others, totally different and alien, and the collection of all these different Universes is called the Omniverse... Is everything until this point clear, Eri?".

Eri nods and says "I see... So you are someone from a totally different Universe... Wait! How do you know my name? I'm sure that I didn't tell you my name...", I smile and say "I could lie to you and say that I heard one of your classmates said your name before and I heard it... But the truth is that the Omniverse is infinitely big... But from time to time some people are able to gaze upon different Universes in their dreams, and some of them write, draw or simply tell stories about what they saw... And I've read a story about this Universe... But with my presence here some things already changed from what I knew...".

Eri immediately realizes what I mean and so she asks "So I was meant to die in that fall and you choose to save me?", hearing her misunderstanding, I shake my head and decide to tell her the whole truth as I do not want to fool her "No, you shouldn't have fallen in the first place... The only one who should have fallen is Hajime over there... You would have returned back with the rest of the class...", I stop for a few seconds unsure if I really what to tell her everything, but in the end, I chose to be honest, even if she is truly evil to the core and tries to do something, I'm strong enough to deal with it, so I continue "...Then you would have blackmailed the classmate who caused Hajime to fall, all so that you could use him to get hero-wannabe... basically you became one of the villans of the story, and you ended up becoming a puppet of the God of this world dying without reaching your goal...".

I see that tears start falling from her eyes, then she mutters "Then... What should I do now?" then she snaps,  looks at a me, and yells "If that is my destiny why did you save me? If I'm a villain destined to die why did you go through so much just to save me!? This piece of trash that has wasted 5 years trying to get noticed by a piece of shit with the head so high up his ass that he doesn't even notice what is going on around him!!? I knew it!! I should just die and make everyone happy... I already lost everything important to me many years ago!", while she was yelling that, seeing her in that state, I unconsciously move next to her and start to hug her to comfort her.

And while caressing her back I say in the most gentle tone I can muster "I saved you because you still didn't do anything wrong... Until this moment, you didn't hurt anyone... You are innocent... You can still change your future... And you haven't lost everything, you still have life in you! The most precious gift that every creature has... You must never give up, not as long as you still have life, for if you live you can bring about Miracles... Don't ever give up!!", it seems that my words have a substantial effect on her as soon she starts to cry in my arms for a few minutes, so much she collapses and starts to sleep in my embrace.

At the same time, I notice that Hajime is also about to wake up, and since I do not want to interfere with his transformation and his new outlook in life, I quickly pick up our clothes, extinguish the fire, and put everything, Eri included, in my Territory, then I hide and watch over Hajime, to make sure that he survives what's to come.

I look as Hajime releases a groan as he woke up and absentmindedly sits upright while his body throbs with pain and mutters "Ow, This is…For sure I…", and holds his unsteady head with one hand, as he studies the vicinity and says as he remembers what happened "Yeah… I fell down the broken bridge… thereupon… Anyway, I was saved… Achoo! I-It's cold".

Then he finally notices that the lower half of his body is still submerged and so Hajime quickly picks himself up, trembling and shivering he also takes off his clothes and wrings them, then I look as he uses his transmutation to create a single sheet of paper and on it, he starts to engrave a magic circle while saying "It's too cold to concentrate…", and after struggling for a few minutes he finally succeeds and starts a long chant "I seek fire, The power of light, Manifest, Spark! …Why is there such an exaggerated chant just to create an ordinary flame? So embarrassing… Haa", and invokes a fist-sized flame to warm himself.

While Hajime is slowly trying to cheer himself up, I continue to watch around searching for any monster but I can't feel anything nearby 'With all the commotion that we caused... This place should already be swarmed with monsters but in fact, there is nothing... Could this be a hidden safe zone prepared by Orcus?'.

Meanwhile, Hajime is about to give up, but the next moment, he wipes away the tears that were about to fall from his eyes, slaps his own cheeks, and says "Got no other choice, I have to find a way back. It's fine, I'm sure it will be fine", and look as Hajime's face develops into a determined one after he muttered encouragements to himself, all while staring at the flames.

After about 20 minutes, his clothes are dry and warm, and so Hajime set off, he carefully proceeded to walk down into a huge passage that lead into the depths, and I follow him while still hiding my presence, the passage feels like a cave, rather than a low-rise square passage, the passage had rocks and walls protruding in many places and it winds around complicatedly, it is similar to the last room on the 20th floor, the only difference was the size.

The complicated passage full of obstacles is 20 meters in diameter, and even the more narrow places are still 10 meters in diameter, it isn't an easy path to tread for Hajime, but there are a lot of places to hide, so Hajime is able to advance stealthily from hiding area to hiding area, and I can easily follow him without being found.

He continues this way for a while until he finally reaches a fork for the first time, a huge crossroad is presented to him, and as he hides behind a boulder, Hajime is clearly unsure of which path he should take, but right at that moment, I feel a few presences nearby, and indeed a white fur ball hopped into my and Hajime view, it has long ears, and it looks like a rabbit, however, it is about the size of a mid-sized dog and its hind legs are heavily muscled.

The "rabbit" also has several dark red lines running along its body like blood vessels, these lines also pulsate like a heart, Hajime quickly decides to avoid it by going left, he holds his breath and waits for the time to move, and soon the moments he is waiting for come, as the rabbit turns around and starts to sniff the ground, so he tries to move.

But the rabbit seems to react to the sound he produced and it quickly straightens its back to stand up as its vigilant ears rustle, 'Nope... The rabbit isn't aware of Hajime... He is reacting to another newcomer...', and the next moment, a wolf-like monster with white fur jumps out and growled at the rabbit.

The white wolf has two tails and was about the size of a large dog, just like the rabbit, the wolf has the same palpitating dark red lines all over its body, and after that wolf appeared, two more wolves jumps out from behind different stones to join it, but soon the rabbit acts "Kyu!", and with a cute cry, it jumps into the air with a rotation and gives a roundhouse kick with its massive legs smashing the head of the first wolf.

There was a resounding echo I can clearly see that the wolf's neck had been bent in the wrong direction, meanwhile, using the centrifugal force from the roundhouse kick, the rabbit rotates in the air until it was in an upside-down state, then the rabbit stomps the air and falls towards the ground like a meteor and just before landing, it rotates itself perpendicular to it and gave a powerful heel drop to the wolves close to the landing point.

Without even getting the chance to give off death throes, both the wolves' heads are pulverized, but another two wolves appear to jump at the rabbit when it is about to land,  but the rabbit is able to do a handstand while rotating his legs, just like a break dancer, sending both of the wolves were flying towards the wall and soon they slam against the rock dying on the spot.

The last wolf ruffles its tails as it growls, and soon the tails start to discharge electricity, 'Hoo... It's trying to cast a Special Magic...', and with a howl, it releases lightning which flies at the rabbit, but it is able to dodge it splendidly by performing zigzagging steps.

When the lightning dissipated the rabbit, who is already in front of the wolf, hit it in the jaw with a somersault kick breaking its neck and sending it flying, "Kyu!", then the rabbit raises its forelimbs and brushed off its ears, letting out a victory cry, meanwhile the rabbit fighting style reminds me of someone from a particular game franchise and so I can't help but shout in my mind, 'Perfect! Eddie Gordon wins!', at the same time, I notice that Hajime is about to succumb to fear and do a fatal error.

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