Chapter 69: Chapter 69 – Reisen Great Labyrinth

Jayr POV - Tortus, Reisen Gorge- 2013

I rest the Tactical Arms Sword Form on my shoulder, imitating the stance that Guts from Berserk usually takes, and look at the monsters surrounding us, there are mainly two kinds of monsters here, one group is made up of some kind of giant two-headed tyrannosaurus, while the other, are some giant winged monsters that are similar in appearance to a wyvern.

Seeing that, there aren't any hidden surprises, I stop waiting, and make my move, and with a burst of speed, I move to the closest one and take a vertical swing with my huge swords, which easily cuts the monster in half like it was made of butter resulting in death without resistance, and at the same time, splits the ground in front of me apart, raising a cloud of dust, that covers my figure.

Pulling out the sword from the ground, I look at it and think, 'Okay, the sword is still fine, not even a scratch on it... And while it is heavy it isn't unmanageable for someone like me... This is good...', and while thinking that, the sound of the monster's halves falling on the ground echoes in the canyon, and I notice that the monsters froze in place unable to understand what exactly happened.

Seeing the dumbfounded monsters, a small smile appears on my face as I think 'It's the right time to try the gimmick...', and under my command, the sword splits open revealing the Gatling gun hidden in the middle, and pressing the trigger on the handle, I start to fire in the direction of the giant wyvern-like monster.

And the roaring sound of the Gatling gun, and of the bullet as they cut a straight line through the air, drowned the dying howls of the monster, as they are ripped apart by the shower of bullets.

At last, one monster couldn't hold the tension anymore and lets out a roar while lashing out, and soon the remaining giant two-headed t-rexes, start to rush toward Eri and me, but before they could get even closer, I push another button on the handle, and the Tactical Arms, transforms once again, this time taking the Sword Arm Form, splitting apart and becoming two separate smaller blades, and urging my Mana to enhance my body stats I rush at the monsters with them.

What happened next couldn't even be called a fight, it was a slaughter-fest, the monsters couldn't even take one step in any direction before their head got cut off, or their bodies cut in half, and soon, the monsters' corpses littered the view for as far as the eye could see, and only five minutes had passed.

Putting the Tactical Arms back into the S.T., I look at the mountain of corpses in the surrounding, and say "Well... The test is for sure successful... But...', and at the same time, Eri approaches me from behind with small steps and asks, "What's wrong?", and scratching the back of my head I reply, "Well... I was having so much fun, that I forgot to test the Magic Bullet mode of the Gatling gun... And before I knew it, all the monsters are dead...".

Eri looks at me and says "Baka... In this place, you can't even use them... Remember... In the Reisen Gorge, you can't use external magic, it gets dispersed... You just reminded me of that a while ago!", and that is totally true, I was having so much fun that I forgot about that, and as I scratch my cheek, I try to change the subject, "So... What do you want to do now? Do we quickly move toward the next Labyrinth or do you want to the nearest settlement and rest?".

Hearing my question, Eri thinks about it for a moment before replying, "It is better that we quickly head to the next Labyrinth... The sooner we get all the Age of Gods Magics, the sooner I can meet your parents and give them their grandchildren...", I nod and say "Right...", then I realize what she means and yell "Wait! We are too young for that! You are 17 and I'm 16! It's way too early!!".

She looks at me with a deadpan expression and says, "Really? With all the times you came inside me, and with those quantities, I'm pretty sure that I'm already pregnant by now... After all, you have never used any kind of protection... So I thought that you wanted to knock me up... Not that I mind...", but soon I explain to her that I prevent unwanted pregnancies using my Cosmo, which upset her a little and she started to demand that I stop that and let nature run its course, luckily after a little of back and forth I'm able to convince her to wait a little more, at least for now.

Then I quickly bring out the Mana Compass and think about everything I remember about the Reisen Great Labyrinth the closest one to our position, and the next moment, the needle starts to spin around, then it stops to point in a precise direction.

The Reisen Gorge is comprised of, in a sense, two cliffs that extend straight from the east to the west of the continent, there are hardly any bypasses, therefore by advancing along one of the cliffsides would eventually lead us to the Sea of Trees or Gruen Desert without getting lost.

And because we didn't have to worry about losing our way, we carefully searched for the entrance of the dungeon following the Mana Compass, while casually traveling on the Magic Powered Bike I made, while Eri clings to my back, while still being chased by the monsters, but once they get to close, Eri releases her army from the ring and then we simply have to wait for a little for her Undead Puppets to rip them apart and collect their bones, before continuing on our journey, and only stop the night as we go in my S.T. to rest.

The journey continues like this for almost two days, when finally, on the night of the 2nd day, we finally reach our destination.

Standing in front of us is a huge monolith that leans on the ravine's wall, and a space can be seen between the monolith and the wall, we look at each other before nodding, and move into the crevice between the rocks, and when we enter the wall's side, I can see that it has a hollow interior, and it is wider than I expected.

Then the next thing that catches my attention is the wall, on it, there is a splendid rectangular signboard that is engraved with cuts in the wall, and there are characters carved there that are clearly from a female hand that says "Please come in! Into Miledi Reisen's thrilling Great Labyrinth?".

After a long pause, Eri exclaims "... What is this!? Something about these characters rubs me off..." then she starts to study our surrounding and asks "Are you sure this is the right place? Where is the entrance?", and pointing at the Mana Compass I reply "Yes, it is the right place... Let's just say that the one who made this Labyrinth has quite a peculiar personality... And the entrance is right in front of us...".

And holding Eri's hand, I move close to the wall and start to lightly tap in some random places, until I hit the hollow part of the wall, and the part of the wall that I touched generates a strange sound, and suddenly rotates, like a door mechanism inside a ninja's house, sending us to the other side.

The inside of the Labyrinth is pitch black, and only the sound of the door as it rotates back to its former position can be heard, but the next moment, the sounds of something coming flying at us resounds, and I immediately use my senses to discover what they are.

They are arrows, around 20 arrows, flying our way to remove any intruders that entered, so I quickly summon my Tactical Arms in its Sword Form, and move in front of Eri, then place my sword in front of me and use it as a shield, and soon the sounds of metal knocking metal can be heard, and once all of them are dealt with and silence return in this place, the surrounding walls begin to shine, illuminating our surroundings.

I take a glance at the ground in front of me and see that there are exactly 20 arrows, jet black arrows made of metal that didn't reflect any light scattered on the ground, then I look at the rest of the area.

The area we found ourselves in is a room with a length of 10 meters in every direction, and straight ahead, a passage into the interior appears, in addition, there is a lithograph inside the room with words with the same characters as the signboard carved on it. "Did you get scared? Hey, did this scare you? Then you're a kid, Niya Niya! Or, were you injured? Or did someone die? … … bufu...".

I notice that Eri is looking at the words in silence, then she says "I see... So the one who made this Labyrinth is trying to irritate the challengers... It is quite well thought out... Also, the "Niya Niya" and "bufu-" parts are carved with certain emphasis as if to provoke the challengers further, especially, if someone in their party truly died, then surely the survivor would curse the heaven... Quite a flamboyant style... Apparently, the Reisen Great Labyrinth will be a difficult place in a different way than the Orcus Great Labyrinth...".

Hearing that, I nod and say "Yup... This is a place full of traps and nasty messages to mess with you... Moreover, magic can't be used at all because the strength of magic disintegration is far stronger than inside the ravine... For you who is specialized in magic, this place is especially difficult... You can still use your puppets, but they can't use their special magics, and you can't use your spells to support them basically crippling your fighting potential... In fact, even I'm affected by it... Only body strengthening can be safely used and so it becomes the most important magic in this Great Labyrinth".

After saying that, we continue our advance into the passage, and find ourselves in a certain vast space.

Inside, there are staircases and passages, and the passageway that continues from the entrance is a mess without any regularity, it was as if this place was made by casually combining lego blocks.

The staircase from the first floor is connected to a passage on the third floor, and the passage on the third floor gradually becomes a slope that connects to the first floor's passageway, in contrast, the staircase that is erected on the second floor is connected to nothing but wall, it was truly a mess.

Seeing that, I fall on my knee and shout aggrieved toward the heavens, "Staircases!! Again my nemesis makes its appearance! Why!? I thought I left the endless staircase behind when I left my Universe!!", at the same time, I feel Eri patting my back as she says, "There... There...", then after shouting out my grievances, I get up like nothing happened and say "As expected of a Labyrinth made by a rotten person... This mess is an expression of her mind's contents".

Then Eri says, "I don't understand what you feel but don't let this get you, anyway let's just move on... The faster we clear this Labyrinth, the faster we are out of it...", then she looks around and says, "Well then, how should we advance now?", I look around and let out a sigh then I say, "There's no other method... For now, let's advance while marking and mapping the way...", and Eri nods and says, "Un…"

Mapping is the basic thing for exploring a labyrinth, but what I mean by "marking" is to use a special magic called Tracking, this special magic operates by leaving a "mark" made of magical power on the places that I touch.

When the "mark" is used on living things, I'm able to track where they moved, in the case of this place, I plan to put my "mark" on a nearby wall and make it visible to Eri, and because the magic power is applied directly, the disintegration doesn't take effect so we don't have to worry about that.

I immediately put a "mark" on side of the passageway at the nearest place to the entrance and continue to advance, the passageway is two meters wide and made from countless blocks that look like bricks, and because the walls emit a faint light, there is no problem with our vision, looking at the walls, I think, 'Well, not that being in total darkness is an inconvenience... After all, I gained Night Vision special magic from the monsters... And even if I didn't have that, I can use my other senses to move around...'.

While advancing in the long passageway, lost in thought, suddenly, a sound came out of one of the blocks that I just stepped on, and that block sank into the floor due to my weight, and at that moment, the sound of gliding blades resounds, and in the space between blocks on the wall, giant saw-toothed blades come out rotating at high speed while vibrating.

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The blades approach us at height of the neck from the right, while the one from the left wall is at the height of the waist, and I quickly shout "Get down!!!, and at the same time, and dodge it by leaning my back just like the protagonist from the Matrix, while Eri, who is small in the first place, only needs to squat down to evade the lethal blades.

The two blades that are filled with murderous intent and malice were unable to do anything to us and quickly disappear into the walls, but I'm still vigilant about a possible second wave and focus my senses to the maximum while watching my surroundings.

And soon feel something quickly coming from above, so I grab Eri and quickly dash out, and soon after, countless blades fall onto the place where we were just like a guillotine, and cut the ground as if it was made of butter, and as expected, they are rotating at high speed and vibrating just like the blades from before.

Eri looks at the blades that dropped just a few centimeters ahead with cold sweat and says, "That long pause after the first attack was nasty... I just thought that we were safe when all of a sudden you pulled me and those blades fell from above... Truly a devious trap...", I let out a laugh and say, "Well, against normal humans those are pretty deadly... But I could easily take them on if I put on my Cloth... And even if wounded, I can simply return to my S.T. and use my Cosmo to heal... So if this is the level of danger, we still are pretty safe...".

After that, we continue to advance while being wary of traps, but at the same time, my mind wanders once again, 'Even now, we haven't seen even one monster...', but soon we exit the passageway and reach an open space, where the roads are split into three inside the room.

So, I quickly put down another "mark", then we chose the leftmost passage that leads to a staircase that goes down, and while taking a few steps down, I say, "I do not want to raise a flag here, but since stairs are my nemesis, I got a bad feeling about them now...", and Eri quickly replies "Really what do you have against stairs... It is impossible that they are the source of all...", but then a clicking sound is heard and Eri exclaims, "Oh Come on...!?".

And soon after that sound resounded, suddenly the stair steps disappear, and as it is a considerably inclined staircase, and with the disappearance of the steps it become a steep slope, moreover, a tar-like slippery liquid begin to overflow from the countless small holes on its surface.

And I didn't have the time to do anything before we start to slide down this steep slope, while slipping, our speed become faster and faster, and while holding Eri, I do not have the time to bring out my Tactical Arms to try to stop our fall, but I can clearly feel that we are getting close to the end, so I shout, "Eri! Hold on tight!!", and she quickly nods, and hold tightly on my body.

Finally, we reach the end of the slope and we are thrown in the air, and in that one moment, in which we are floating, I pull out my Tactical Arms, tie a rope around the handle and throw it at the ceiling, piercing the wall fixing us in place and stopping our fall.

Hanging on the rope tied to the Tactical Arms, I let out a sigh of relief, when all of the sudden, I feel Eri slightly shivering, and ask "What's wrong?", and in a shaking voice she replies "B... Below..."

And I finally take note of the strange sounds coming from below and look down to see the source of this sound.

Those sounds come from a lot of scorpions wriggling around, their length is around 10 centimeters, which gives a psychological feeling of disgust, and looking at them I think, 'If I didn't halt our fall with the anchor, we would have dived into a sea of scorpions...', and that realization made me feel goosebumps all over my body.

At the same time, we stop looking below and start to look at the ceiling, then,  somehow the lights that the wall emit makes us notice a new message that is forming on the ceiling, and I inadvertently read it out loud, "These guys don't have lethal poison. But, you'll be paralyzed. Please be satisfied by lying with these cute children, pugya—!!", then I comment, "Maybe she purposely set up these luminous ores there, so that these messages stand out in the dim space... And so that those who fell here would surely, with scorpions wriggling around their body, desperately try to move, and try to reach out to heaven... Then, they'd discover it... Those playful words"

Hearing that, once again, Eri falls into silence for a few seconds before she says, "I'm starting to like her cruelty... Maybe if she were still alive I would have asked her some advice on how to deal with...", but I try to ignore what she is saying and focus on observing our surroundings.

And notice something in a particular place below us, there is an empty tunnel, and so I say, "There is a tunnel there... What should we do? Are we going to climb up to our previous location or are we going over there? What do you think?", and Eri focuses back on our situation and shaking her head she says, "I will follow Jayr's decision. I have been nothing but a burden after all...".

I shake my head and say "Do not worry about it... But, rather than returning, it feels better to advance, so let's go to the tunnel", and she simply nods and mutters "... Un", and so I pull out another rope and tie it around the handle of the Tactical Arms, then I change it in its Sword Arm Form, and pull out one of the blades before shooting at another point of the ceiling and start to move just like Tarzan until we safely reach the tunnel.

Then we advance in the passageway that is lit by luminous ores while still being vigilant about any other unpleasant traps that might appear.

And soon, while walking through the passage, the next trap makes its appearance, all of the sudden, the ceiling of the passage starts moving, dropping down with the clear intent of crushing us,  so I quickly pick up Eri, and once again use the Body Reinforcement Magic to enhance my speed and rush out of the passage as fast as possible.

But the passage is too vast to make it out of it in time, and Eri, who notices the same, says "Don't worry, I'll take care of it... You keep going!", and from her ring she summons, dozen of giant Undead Puppets, that use their back to support the ceiling slowing it down for enough time to allow us to get out of this passage safe and sound.

And once outside of the passage, we again discover the Labyrinth Creator's taunting message, "Pupu—, in a hurry~?, how uncou~th", and say "This time it is a shorter one, and not so impactful...", and Eri adds "But I can understand the feeling of those who risk their lives in the Labyrinth only to be constantly taunted at every deadly trap... Nice job...".

Afterward, we continue to advance on the passage and reach other rooms with other traps waiting, poisoned arrows came from every direction, a sulfuric acid-like liquid that melts anything that enter the pitfall, there was also a room where the floor turned into something like an Antlion Nest, with worm-like monsters in the center of the room, also the taunting sentences lots of them.

So many of them that, even if I never was in any kind of lethal danger, I started to get annoyed by it, while Eri outright said that she grew bored and chose to go into my S.T. to rest and to call her only when I'm done.

After that, I pass through all of the traps and arrive at the biggest passage I have seen until now, its width is around 6-7 meters, It gradually becomes a slope that bends to the right, 'It is probably a passage that descended in a spiral shape... And why the hell I'm getting some Indiana Jones vibes here?', and after moving for a while, that weird feeling proved to be right.

An unpleasant sound of a mechanism is heard, and immediately, I realize that I didn't step on or push any kind of switches, and think, 'Of course, Miledi Reisen is watching and controlling the trap...', then I hear something coming, it is the sound of something heavy rolling down.

In silence I look overhead but can't see anything because the slope is curved, while at the same time, the strange noise becomes louder, then, a giant boulder as big as the passage rolls down from the curve, the rock is in the form of a big ball, it is a completely standard trap, I let out a sigh and mutter, "Surely after I desperately run away from it, some kind of sentence would be there waiting for me..."

But I do not run, instead, I again use the Body Reinforcement Magic and take the good old Pankratio fighting stance and watch the approaching, roaring big ball, and feel my lips transforming into a fierce smile, "I still remember my Granpa's lessons, sometimes the correct answer for a problem is pure violence..."

I gather all the energy on my foot and once the ball is close enough, I release a fierce spartan kick, while at the same time, I equip part of my Cloth on my foot.

And the next moment, a loud sound of something being destroyed emerges when my foot meets the big ball, my attack crushes the big ball at the center when they collide, and it is cracked all over, stopping the big ball in place, but it doesn't end here, with a roar, my kick produces even more power, that exceeds the big ball's durability by a lot, and it crumbles with a thundering sound that can be heard resounding all over the passage as the ball scatters into tiny pieces.

But soon after I do not stop to admire my work, knowing very well that Miledi could simply unleash another deadly trap after the first one failed, so I unequip the piece of my Cloth, and start to run, and just in time, as I can now hear the sounds of another thing rolling down the slope, but at the same time, I hear a low sizzling sound, like some kind of acid that melts the rock's surface, and calmly think, 'Another nasty trap...'.

But luckily I have quite a lot of advantages, and in the distance, I can clearly see the end of the passage, apparently, it is quite a big and wide space, however, what I see is a little strange, 'I can't see the floor of the room... Another surprise...', and seeing that, I again pull out the Tactical Arms, in Sword Arm Form, and tie it to some ropes, so that I can use the same trick as before.

And as I reach the exit, all I see is a sharp slope, and still cautious, I slid down descending on the exit, then, as expected another nasty surprise waits for me, right under the exit there is a pool filled with an obviously dangerous liquid, and I immediately shot out the blade and use it as an anchor while also pulling my up to be as close to the ceiling as possible, and soon after, a metallic ball that scatters around dissolution liquids dashed out below me, and falls into the pool before my eyes, it sinks with 'blub blub,' sounds while raising some toxic smoke rises.

After that, I move like a pendulum using the anchor, then land on the ground after jumping over the pool of dissolution liquid, while humming the theme of a certain famous archeologist.

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