Chapter 21: 20

Depths of the Otherworldly Labyrinth

Chapter 20: Academy’s Assignment

“An exam…?”

“Indeed. We are challenging ourselves in the Labyrinth as part of the academy’s examination.”

The twin-tailed young missy, Franrühle Hellvilleshine, answered with pride. She was the leader of the party of four and gave me an approximate situation all by herself. By the way, for some reason, she forced me to call her by her first name, even though it was our first time meeting. 

Apparently, Franrühle and her friends were academy students from Eltheaulieux, a country located to the west of the Labyrinth. Eltheaulieux was a country rich with culture surrounding magic, and I remembered it as a country characterized by its industrious nature. It was a well-known story that one of the country’s special features was that it had the largest educational institution on the continent, placed right next to the Labyrinth. That was their academy, it seemed.

However, from what I had heard, it wasn’t exactly an excellent institution. My impression of it was that it was a public school where those with money and authority prevailed.

“Oh, is that how it is…”

Frankly, I couldn’t care less. I was in the middle of an experiment to see how far I could go on my own, and I couldn’t attend to their party the whole time. However, Franrühle wouldn’t stop talking to me, so it was hard to find a good chance to say goodbye.

“Why, yes! Labyrinth Exploration is an exam that only the most powerful students of the highest classes are allowed to try. The qualifications to be a top-notch explorer cannot be obtained by the power of one’s family background, after all!”

That was something I’d gladly hear more about in my spare time, if possible. Any information about this would be welcome, but the location was inappropriate for it. We were in the Labyrinth, and I wanted to concentrate on my own challenges first.

I decided I should take my leave, even if a little forcefully.

“That’s awesome. If you guys are that strong, you should be okay from here on out. Well, that means I should leave now—” 

“W-would you please wait for a minute! Erm, right, gratitude! Please let me give you a token of gratitude! You have saved my life. Not repaying you in any way would be a disservice to my status as an aristocrat!”

Franrühle blushed, desperately trying to stall me. 

Even I, as obtuse as one could be, could tell when she was that blatant. It would seem that Franrühle wanted me to accompany her. Either she wanted to use me to pass her exam with ease or… if I wasn’t being too audacious, she had feelings for me, probably.

“This is my younger brother, Liner. He wishes to express his gratitude to you… Come on, Liner.”

The boy, who was one step shy from death not too long prior, came forward. He was dressed in a smaller sized uniform and had a classy appearance.

“You have my deepest gratitude for saving us from such a grave situation, Christ-san. I can see that you are a skilled explorer… Well, our situation is as you can see. May I ask you to somehow convince my sister not to bet her life for nothing? Please tell her that an upright young lady such as her should be going home.”

In a heartbreakingly exhausted voice, Liner-kun spat out ill words of his sister to me.

Yup. The one guy who was almost dying sure knows different.

“How could you say that, Liner!”

“Nee-sama. What we need to do now is thank him with heartfelt gratitude. We should go back the way we came, leave the Labyrinth, and welcome him in our mansion. That is the best we can do to repay him. Let’s just say we had bad luck and end the exploration for the day.”

Liner-kun didn’t seem to be keen on exploring the Labyrinth. He was trying to convince Franrühle to give up one way or the other.

I’d hate to be dragged away, though. Personally, I couldn’t care less. Even if they wanted to welcome me or whatever, I’d rather have continued on with my experiment.

“No, you don’t have to. I’m in a hurry to get ahead, you see…”

“Ah, wai— please hold on…! If you’re going to go away either way, please break my sister’s heart before you go! I will repay you with whatever you want later if you can convince her to withdraw…!”

Liner was just so desperate that he was actually clinging to my leg as I was about to leave. Liner-kun, has anyone told you you’re brazen? He was trying to make the most of me and have me talk his sister out of it.

“No, Liner. I, Franrühle, will not withdraw. This exam is not just about me; it is also about the honor of the House of Hellvilleshine.”

Nevertheless, Franrühle didn’t show any sign of giving up. 

As I was stuck between the siblings, a third person entered the conversation. It was the sword-wielding beastman girl. That being said, she wore cloth headgear and loose-fitting clothes, so she really was no different from a normal human being. Her name was Erna. She had meat where it mattered on her body, and she spoke quite uniquely.

“Hey-nyaa, Onii-san. Since mew are an explorer, is it okay to make a request to mew?”

“Request?”

It was a word I had heard for the first time, so I couldn’t help myself from repeating it. I really should have just walked away, but when I heard the word Request, the vidya-freak part of Kanami Aikawa began to resurface.

“Nyaah, a request. Well… I happen to have a piece of gold coin with me. I want to ask mew to guide us through the Labyrinth for this. Mew seem to be quite skilled, and this includes the bodyguard fee. We want to win first place in this exam competition, mew see. I just think that mew’re a good fit for the job, Onii-san. —Nyahaha. Excuse the accent.”

In short, the so-called Quest event. My curiosity was lit a little.

I was also curious to know what kind of ears would appear if I removed the cloth from Erna-san’s head. From the fact that her accent was mews and nyaas, it was highly likely that they would be cat ears. I had yet to see cat ears in this world, so my curiosity was at an all-time high.

“Excellent suggestion, Erna! You’ll agree with this too, won’t you, Liner?!”

Franrühle turned to Liner as if to say that a great revelation had just come to her.

Seeing how excited Franrühle was, I realized I had to calm her down, so I interrupted their conversation.

“That is indeed easy to understand… However, I don’t think I am up to speed. You should look for someone older and more skilled. As you can see, I am still young and green; I’m not fit to be a guide.”

“That is simply untrue! It is unthinkable to say that you are unskilled, Christ-sama!”

Franrühle, however, with her blind trust in me, denied my refusal. I was starting to get scared, seeing how insane she was.

Unable to watch it any longer, Erna-san approached me and whispered.

“P-please be meowr understanding, Onii-san. It seems like our lil princess is interested in mew. Just calm her down and be our merc before she starts rampaging around like crazy. I know she can be quite annyaing, so I’ll give mew twice the reward. Outrageous, nye? Twice, nya know? Mew don’t need to bother guiding us too. That’s that dragonyewt girl’s job. I won’t be complaining if mew abandon us if something happens too, so just follow us for now.”

Erna-san seemed to be about to burst into tears.

She seemed to fear the lil princess—a.k.a. Franrühle, running rampant. Right, there’s no telling what she’d do if I refused.

That was exactly why I wanted to get away from there. I did, but two gold coins for it was most outrageous indeed. From their stories, I could guess that the four of them were children of some aristocratic families and were loaded. Their promised reward should be genuine.

And the fact that it was the first time I had been asked to do something so intently made my heart shake.

Thus—

“I-I understand… I have some business on the deeper floor, so I don’t mind accompanying all of you up until the 10th floor. You have it hard too, don’t you…”

I compromised. I could try solo exploration anytime, but a deal as sweet as that hardly came by. As long as I was someone who made a living exploring the Labyrinth, it wasn’t something I could ignore.

I apologized to Dia in my heart. However, there was still a week left until he was discharged. I didn’t have to focus on the challenge right away, or so I told myself.

“Thank mew, Onii-san. Being a poor aristocrat has its fair share of hardship, nya see?”

Erna-san pretended to wipe away nonexistent tears and smiled. There seemed to be a wide range of variety even amongst the nobility.

“And that’s final, Liner. It seems like Christ-san will be helping us. He’s going to escort us up to the 10th floor. Isn’t that great?”

Erna-san immediately reported back to her party mates.

“Escort! How wonderful! Christ-sama will become my knight to protect me, then!”

“No, I’m no knight… Anyway, for a little while, I’ll be looking forward to working with all of you…”

Pulling away from the excited Franrühle, I formally greeted them. The other three approached and returned my greetings.

“I am Liner. I’m counting on you, Christ-san. Though, I really do want us to leave… I guess there’s no helping it. Worst comes to worst, I’ll use my own body to shield my sister. That’s the least I can do to be of any use, after all… ha ha ha…”

“I’m Erna, a beastfolk, and I’m a warrior. The quiet girl there is Snow, jack of all trades, our scout.”

“…hey.”

Those were quite the diverse introductions. 

“I am Franrühle, the seventh daughter of the House of Hellvilleshine! Pleased to make your acquaintance, Christ-sama!”

After Franrühle, presumably their leader, finished her introduction, we resumed our exploration.

* * *

* * *

Thus, the newly formed party of five proceeded through the Labyrinth.

Along the way, we discussed each other’s tactics and objectives, and it was decided that we would head straight into acquiring the items that were the subject of the academy.

Their task was to collect drop items from boss monsters on each floor. They said that only those who managed to proceed up to the 10th floor and returned safely would be recognized by the academy.

Oddly enough, their objective was similar to mine.

However, there was a huge difference between cooperating and working alone. Cooperating would be much easier in comparison.

—Easier, yeah.

I had thought so. I just couldn’t foresee it happening.

It was an exploration of a five-person party. Reasonably, that should mean one person would only need to give one-fifth of the effort, but the reality was different. I had fallen into a situation where I was five times more tired than I would have been had I done it alone.

“—This is your end!!”

Franrühle’s extravagant sword pierced the boss monster’s brain.

The boss monster, a giant bee, lost its floatation and fell. As it plummeted down, it turned into light, which obviously meant that Franrühle, who was on top of it, was freefalling through the air.

I ran towards where the fall would be to save my employer, Franrühle. I sheathed my sword and caught Franrühle midair so she wouldn’t hurt herself.

It was like a repeat of our first encounter, and her cheeks were just as flushed. 

I immediately put her down on the ground and made sure everyone was safe.

Liner-kun looked deeply exhausted from trying to support Franrühle. Erna-san put her own safety first and foremost, so she remained a distance away and faced off against the underlings. While Snow-san…yup, she’s just not doing anything.

“…”

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I was speechless. It was simple, really. Those people just couldn’t function as a party.

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Although each one of them was individually skilled, their movements together were too disjointed due to the lack of unanimity in their motivation and mind. 

The effort required to keep the four of them together was incomparable to the effort required to do it all by myself.

“We’ve vanquished it! With this, we have cleared the 8th floor! Fufu, ever since Christ-sama joined us, our floor clearing speed has grown. As expected of my knight in shining armor!”

“C-congrats, Franrühle-san… But please don’t forget that your brother, Liner-kun, almost died because of this…”

Liner approached then, breathing ragged, sounding like he was about to vomit blood.

“Haa, haa, haa… It’s all right, Christ-san. An adopted aristocrat like me can only find value in protecting my sister. If I can’t be useful here, I’ll be no different than trash. I’m just trash, hahaha, hahahaha, ha, haa, haa…”

With the face of a man on the verge of dying, Liner-kun gave me a smile. I had no idea how to respond to that since many of his comments showed glimpses of a very complicated family environment. I’d lose if I got myself involved. For some reason, trying to probe around it gave me the image of sticking my feet into a quicksand, so I tried never to go into it.

I decided that I would leave the party without hearing anything about their situation.

“Nyahaha. Wows, mew really are strong, Christ-san. I could fight my battle at ease.”

“You could have helped us out a little bit, Erna-san… Or rather, are you really a friend of Fran and her brother?”

“Nylandering much? Mew see, the Hellvilleshine siblings’ number one friend is me.”

Erna-san, who had been fighting away in a safe zone, walked in closer. 

She was the most talkative person in the party, so I could tell immediately that she had no intention of playing along with the exam.

She really put herself first and foremost. She would only help the siblings if she could afford it. Her frank attitude was proof that she was only doing her share of work purely out of her own interest. I liked her personality, and I knew we could get along well, but by no means would I want to entrust my back to her.

“…good work.”

Timidly, Snow also grouped up. In fact, she was the biggest problem that we had.

【Status】

Name: Snow Walker

HP: 511/533, MP: 211/240

Class: Scout

Level: 14

STR: 10.22, VIT: 10.01, DEX: 5.24, AGI: 5.43, WIS: 7.91, MAG: 10.84, APT: 2.62

Innate Skills:

«Dragon’s Blessing» 1.09

«Optimal Movement» 1.89

«Ancient Magic» 2.02

«Mind’s Eye» 1.07

«Fresh Blood Magic» 1.00

Acquired Skills:

That girl had the highest level and was the most talented one out of the bunch. Her basic ability was also high due to her race as a Dragonewt, and she had the most talent I had seen, second to Dia. Above all else, the fact that her abilities were comparable to mine at that moment was truly lucrative. Frankly speaking, I really wanted to have such a gifted individual as my ally.

However, she was fatally unmotivated. She was supposed to have a high aptitude for magic, and yet she didn’t use magic at all, merely attacking around with herself physical strength.

It was hard to believe that she was taking the assignment seriously.

When I asked Franrühle about her, she answered with, “she’s just to fill the number,” and when I asked Snow herself, she mumbled, “…won’t someone die already? I want to go home.”

—A reckless young missy, a boy who only saw his sister, a beastfolk warrior who prioritized her own safety, and a dragonewt with a total lack of motivation.

The stonks for that academy institute thing sure were goin’ down. It was supposed to be an academy, so there must be people who teach there. Did those teachers see those four and thinkg, “yeah, they could enter the Labyrinth alright”. If they asked me, I would have stopped them. I definitely would have.

But since I had agreed to be their paid bodyguard, I couldn’t back off. I shut my mouth and listened to Franrühle ordering everyone to proceed once she was done collecting the boss’s drop item.

“Excellent work, Liner, Erna, Snow-san. Now, let us pick up the pace and head for the 9th floor. With this speed, aiming for the first rank is not impossible.”

My employer started walking with enthusiasm.

There were only two tasks left. We had to defeat a boss monster on the 9th floor and get the Eternal Flame from the 10th floor.

Since there were no bosses on the 10th floor, it seemed like we really only had one task left. There was no worry in terms of ability as I still had leeway going that far—it was the accumulated stress that was undoubtedly weighing me down.

Having continued to play the most efficient meta gameplay in my original world and having had an ideal two-person party with Dia, manageable that he was, that disjointed teamwork was taking its toll heavily on my psyche.

…no, calm down.

I just need to do one last thing. Just one last thing… and this is over. I can test my strength and score a lot of money at once. Just calm down and see the positives, not the negatives.

Yeah. I’ve done well. This is a much more fruitful exploration than merely going to the 10th floor alone. Once this is over, this will be a good experience for me. It’s a bit side-track from my original goal, but I could always try solo anytime. In fact, I should be glad since an opportunity like this doesn’t come along very often.

I regained my composure and walked ahead. I had already told the rest of the party that detecting enemies was my strong point, so it was Snow-san and me who walked in the front.

“Let’s continue then… Let’s go, Snow-san.”

“…ok.”

I glanced over to steal a glance at Snow-san’s profile as she walked beside me.

She wasn’t so different from a human, despite being a dragonewt and all. She had bluish-black hair with small black horns and a tail covered with scales protruding from her waist. Her horns were decorated with ethnic ornaments, so they looked more like an extension of her hair ornament, and the tail was only seen in glimpses due to the long hem of her garment.

If not for her languid, sanpaku* eyes, she would pass as a cool beauty in a traditional costume.

“…what’s the matter?”

As expected of a high-leveled scout. Snow-san noticed that I was spying on her. Despite some personality difficulties, she was the most decent ability-wise, so I tried to interact with her.

“It’s nothing. I’m just wondering why you’re taking this exam.”

“…not enough credits.”

“Credits?”

“uuh, credits are, well… aah, whatever. I’ll tell you later.”

Not some, a lot of personality difficulties.

“Hmm, I can’t say for sure, but I assume that credits are something required at the academy. You didn’t have enough of them, so you took this exam to get some credits. Is that how it is, Snow-san?”

I speculated, based on my own experience in my original world. It wasn’t far-fetched to imagine it as school credits. 

“…Ooh, amazing. You got it right.”

It seemed I was right. Snow-san showed a surprised look.

“I see. So you’re taking this exam because you had no other choice. That’s why you look, well, unmotivated… But is that okay? Wouldn’t you have to pass the assignments to get the credit?”

“Not really, just taking on the challenge has its meaning… it seems… I get credits just by participating anyway.”

“Aah, that explains it…”

That explains why she’s so slack.

I don’t know why, but that sure reminds me of students back in my world. They attend lectures and classes for credit, but they spend their time sleeping in class since they’re not actually interested in the lecture. She feels similar to them.

“Christ-sama! Snow-san alone is enough as our scout, so come this way!”

As I was conversing with Snow-san, Franrühle’s voice interrupted us from behind.

I turned around and saw Franrühle, skulking and beckoning to me. Talk about a troublesome employer with a sour mood. If what Snow-san said was true, then I would have liked to fish out more information about the dragonewt, but I had no choice but to do as I was told and move back.

I walked next to Franrühle as if I was protecting her.

“…”

“…”

With our positions, I was protecting Franrühle’s left flank while Liner-kun was protecting her right. Erna-san walked at the end of the line, on the lookout for an attack from the rear.

“…”

“…Christ-sama, don’t you have anything for me?”

“Eh, anything like what thing?”

“Questions about me! What you wish to know more about regarding me, or what I occasionally do in my time!!”

Franrühle’s sudden outburst left me speechless.

To be honest, I had no interest in anyone other than Snow-san. Franrühle was as talented as anyone else, but she simply wasn’t a match compared to the languid girl.

However, if I stayed silent, trouble would come my way, so I started trying to put Franrühle in a good mood.

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—While doing so, our party reached the 9th floor.

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PR/N: Sanpaku (三白) is a Japanese term meaning “three whites”. This expression applies to those people where the white of the eye can be seen at the top or bottom of the iris even if the person is staring straight ahead.

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