CH 74

Chapter 74 – Labyrinth Exploration

The two of them took off at the same time, closing the distance in the blink of an eye before colliding. Kuroki didn’t use his fists at all, instead unleashing a barrage of super fast kicks, which Shiki nimbly avoided.

With a click of his tongue, Kuroki simultaneously let out a low, middle, and high kick at a blinding speed. Against this lightning fast strike, Shiki used his arms and legs to block instead of evading.

The moment he blocked the attack, the earth underneath Shiki’s feet cracked from the force of the blow. It was obvious from that alone how tremendously powerful the blow was. But this time, Shiki wasn’t blown away.

When Shiki swung his scythe, Kuroki was able to see through it and sway to one side to avoid it… But, he actually hadn’t managed to avoid it completely, as there was a cut on the tip of his nose.

In the end, even Kuroki seemed to be unable to deal with the speed of Shiki’s attacks perfectly.

“Uuuoooooohhhh!!” (Kuroki)

Letting out a roar for the first time, Kuroki unleashed a kick with a frightening look on his face. The kick was like a flash of light, coming straight at Shiki’s face.

However, Shiki caught the blow in an unbelievable way.

“W-Wha?!” (Kuroki)

Kuroki let out a cry of surprise, and that was because…

Shiki had caught the kick with the tip of his elbow and knee. It was akin to stopping a sword with one’s bare hands. However, the elbow that caught the force of the blow had caused a huge amount of damage to Kuroki’s right leg.

This was a form of Shiki’s technique that combined both offense and defense. It could only be described as brilliant.

Shiki swung his scythes towards Kuroki, whose face was contorted in pain. A x-pattern was carved out of his chest, causing blood to spurt out of his body. Seeing this, Takasu and Tengawa shouted his name in concern.

However, Shiki didn’t stop there.

As if he was trying to outdo Kuroki in his own specialty… No, it was more like he was trying to repay him for earlier. Shiki unleashed a kick at Kuroki.

Kuroki didn’t have any defensive moves, so he took Shiki’s strike directly and was sent flying like a pinball. He crashed into the door of the gymnasium warehouse, flattening the door as he continued to tumble and roll further inside.

“…It’s over, milady.” (Shiki)

“Well done, Shiki.” (Komon)

Most likely, even Kuroki, who possessed inhuman strength, wouldn’t be able to stand up to an attack of that magnitude. In fact, there weren’t any signs of him getting back up. He might have died just like that.

“…Now then.” (Komon)

All that remained were these little bugs, but…

“”Hyiii!?””

Seeing me turn my gaze towards them, Takasu and Tengawa lost their footing and fell on their butts out of fear. Their appearances right now really looked like that time with Ohsaka.

“In the end, all you guys can do is dishonor people.” (Komon)

I got a bit swept up in the moment, so my tone had gone back to that of my original form’s tone. I caught myself and focused back up.

“I wonder if you guys understand how it feels to be betrayed?” (Komon)

“W-What are you saying…!?” (Takasu)

“Y-Yeah! We were originally on Ryudou’s side! That means we didn’t betray Kuzuhara! We weren’t his friends from the beginning!” (Tengawa)

Tengawa spat out a bunch of excuses. Just listening to his words was irritating.

“I’m not interested whatsoever in how you guys live your lives. In the end, your life is your own to live. However…” (Komon)

I dashed forward and first kicked Takasu in the face, sending him flying.

“Hyyiiii! F-Forgive me!! Please forgive me! I won’t defy you anymore!” (Takasu)

“Uggghhh….I-It hurts…!!” (Tengawa)

“If you had killed people, I would have already sent you to your graves right here and now. So consider this a warning. You must know about karma―what you’ve done in the past will surely come back to you in the future. And―” (Komon)

“Gubwaaah?!” (Tengawa)

I gave Tengawa a hard blow to the stomach, sending him flying.

” ―The next time you do something stupid, I’ll kill you.” (Komon)

This was just my way of paying them back for bullying me in the past. I felt a bit better now, so this much was plenty. The rest was up to these guys to live their own lives. But if I saw them again and they were still acting this way, I wouldn’t show them any mercy.

Well, they might be found by monsters and killed after this, but I couldn’t take care of them that much. If they died, then they died, and that was on them for being unlucky.

I took another glance over at the place to where Kuroki had been sent flying, then ran with Shiki into the building that Kuzuhara and the others had entered.

—

(TL: It switches to Kuzuhara’s POV here.)

Thanks to Komon, I was able to enter the labyrinthine building first, but as soon as I stepped inside, I was met with a shocking sight.

The building that I had entered was a relatively small two-story building and was one of the school buildings that existed when I was still a high school student here. It was almost exclusively used for club activities, not for classes. Our investigation of the place revealed that that fact still hadn’t changed to this day.

It was supposed to be small compared to the other school buildings, but…

“This is…!”

It had been large enough that you could sprint from one end to the other in less than ten seconds, but the current situation was clearly different. From what I could see, the interior had hardly changed since I went to this school.

However… the scale was unusual.

After coming through the entrance, the stairs that go up to the second floor were right ahead, and it normally should have been possible to climb them in a few big steps. However, no matter how I looked at it, the staircase there at the end of the hall seemed to be nearly 50 meters long.

The doors to the classrooms were on either side of me, but they were so large that I had to look way up to see the top of them, and they seemed to be so heavy that they didn’t look to be openable by force.

It was as if the school building had become huge… No, it felt as if I was the one who had been miniaturized and had wandered into a different world. The labyrinth was truly a bizarre place befitting its name.

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On top of that, the place was crawling with monsters as far as the eye could see. In a place this large, it was possible to freely choose whether to fight or flee, but if we weren’t careful, we could end up surrounded by monsters, so we had to be careful.

We were able to enter the building, but we didn’t know where the most critical piece, the Core, was. Do we have no choice but to through it one by one? That would take a lot of time, but…

Right after I thought that, a small shadow swooped down from the sky and landed smoothly in front of us.

“You’re―Sol?!” (Kuzuhara)

It was the monster that followed Komon.

“Please come with Sol! Sol will show you the safest route to the innermost chamber!” (Sol)

It seemed that she had already grasped the location of the Core Monster.

“Saito-san, what should we do?” (Chake)

“Of course, we follow. Right now, we can only rely on her information after all.” (Kuzuhara)

After responding to Chake’s question, we followed Sol, who took to the air and flew on ahead. Well… after that, all of the monsters that had noticed us and approached were defeated by Sol in one blow.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about running along the route that someone else had laid out for me, but now wasn’t the time for that. For now, I was just thankful that I could conserve my energy.

But more than anything, I found my gaze captivated by Sol’s tremendous, astonishing power.

While keeping an eye out for traps and such, we safely arrived at the staircase leading to the second floor.

“From here on, things may get a bit confusing, so please be careful.” (Sol)

Sol’s words made sense as soon as we reached the second floor. Rather than ‘confusing’, the surroundings already no longer looked like the school building and had become more like a different world altogether.

The surroundings had become all rugged and rocky, giving us the illusion that we had wandered into a cave of some kind. There were also holes all over the place, making it completely unclear as to which direction we needed to go in order to reach the innermost chamber. I couldn’t help but think that this was clearly a trap meant to mislead the people who came to clear this labyrinth.

“Sol, do you really know the right path?” (Kuzuhara)

As far as I could see, ther were at least ten different paths. It would take a long time to go through each and every one, and there were probably brutal monsters and traps waiting for us at the end of the fake paths.

“Of course. Sol already scouted out the various paths, so Sol already knows where the Core Monster is!” (Sol)

“S-Seriously?! In such a short time?!” (Kuzuhara)

Sol puffed up her chest and cleared her throat with a cute ‘ahem’ as if to say it was natural for her.

She already declared as such, but did she seriously finish exploring the place in such a short time…?

With Sol’s flight speed, it certainly might be possible. From what I heard, it was possible for her to fly at the speed of sound, so it wouldn’t take her long to check all of the paths if she wanted to, even with the scale of this massive labyrinth.

…I felt pretty envious of Komon. It was hard to believe that she had such a useful monster by her side.

The fact that her strength wasn’t inferior to any of the monsters out there and that she was skilled at scouting and exploration made her an extremely valuable asset. This was especially true in a world like this. Not too long ago, we could still obtain such information via the internet, but now we had no choice but to use our own feet to explore.

Under such conditions, Sol’s ability to gather intel was truly outstanding.