Chapter 28

Chapter 28 \nVol 3: Chapter 28\n

Leon warily looked at us and said.

「Polina disappeared after she fell in the trap. I was able to rejoin with the other members afterwards… but Justin was already dead by then. And then we were attacked by an automaton and were almost annihilated.」

「If that was the case… you should have just said it from the start! Kuh…」

「Dante!」Mimino-san exclaimed.

「Hey, don’t you move a step, Mimino.」Leon warned.

Dante-san was in a state of being unable to move while holding his stomach. …I’m worried about his wound. It has to be healed quickly.

However, it isn’t possible as long as Leon is holding Non-san as a hostage.

If he’s sticking that closely to Non-san, I can’t shoot a long-range attack with magic… Even with a high level of【Mana Control】, I can’t use magic like precision shooting.

「The problem is what happened after. Saving my own life was all I could do. I left my friends, who were more or less riddled with wounds, and even pushed the employers towards the automaton to escape.」

「What!?」Dante-san’s eyes widened.

「Did you abandon your friends once again!?」Mimino-san exclaimed.

「Shut up! In that situation, my mind was dominated by fear! There’s no way I could fight properly!」

I see… If the party was divided and injured by the trap, and an automaton launched an emotional attack in that situation, no matter how skilled the adventurers were, they would be helpless.

「Cat beastman. And you, kid. You two came here first and must have noticed…that the faces here are the ones who died in this labyrinth.」

「…………」

The fact that Leon, who witnessed the death of the people on the wall, or perhaps guessed that the faces of the people on the wall were dead, proves that – this wall is a death mask.

What a bad taste.

I feel sickened.\n

「You guys were lucky, weren’t you? You had such a great halfling herbalist to nullify the automaton’s attack! You hid away such a useful medicine!」

「Ugh……」Non-san groaned in pain as Leon’s grip tightened

「Don’t hurt her!」

「Shut up, Mimino! Hey, Dante, why are you glaring at me? Maybe if you had accepted my invitation to return to the Golden Brigade things may not have ended up this way, you know!? I am spilling out everything that happened because I want you to feel responsible too! You! If the “Silver GreatShield” Dante had been with us, then we could’ve beaten that automaton!」

「…………」

A drop of blood trickled down from Dante-san’s mouth, as he glared at Leon. His forehead was drenched with sweat, meaning the wound was quite severe.

(—Bocchan, what should we do?)

In a very quiet voice, Zerry-san asked at a volume that only I can hear.

(Leon is distracted. For now, pretend to be talking and when a chance presents itself–)

When I was in the middle of replying,

「Hey, kid! Cat beastman! Walk toward the wall!」

「What do you mean?」I asked.

「What do I mean? Aah, this is why I don’t like to deal with dumb kids. Do you really not know? This is obviously the innermost part of the dungeon, right? There is always an extra-large trap at the innermost part of every labyrinth of “Labyrinth of 9 Emotions”. Activate it.」

Indeed, the document said that the largest trap is set up at the very end of the labyrinths of “Labyrinth of 9 Emotions”.

Overcoming it means you can capture the labyrinth. It wasn’t written what you would find in that place, but no doubt there must be some kind of magic tool.

Leon seems to think that this is the last hurdle.

And he is trying to sacrifice us to overcome it.

「…Don’t……」\nNon-san tried to raise her voice, but Leon’s grip tightened. Non-san’s face was now turning blue-black.

「Don’t go, Reiji… Zerry…」

Dante-san had also collapsed and fainting. A huge pool of blood around him.

「Dante, you fool… I even told you last night to let me join the party. But you coldly turned me down.」

Leon, this shameless guy, approached Dante-san last night for something like that. He must have wanted to hide what he did and thought he would be protected if he buttered up to Dante-san.

However, Dante-san did not accept him.

Dante-san must have said, “Let’s find your party members first.” A man like him wouldn’t allow an “ingratitude” such as transferring to another party when your own was still in danger.

「Leon.」

I was angry. I felt sick to my stomach. I was pissed off. There were many words to describe how I was feeling, but my mind was as quiet as the calm sea.

I was indeed angry, yet also sad.

「As you say, Zerry-san and I will examine the wall, so let Mimino-san treat Dante-san’s wounds first. This amount of bleeding is life-threatening.」

Dante-san was inflicted with petrification while shielding this man. He then traveled in search of a place to die; Mimino-san went along with him, and Non-san’s suppressed the painful emotions and accompanied him on the journey.

All because of this man in front of us.

But that was also why Raikira-san and I were picked up and found a home in Silver Balanceーthis thing called fate, is complicated, cruel, and sad.

「…………」

Leon stared at us suspiciously. A human, who has once betrayed others, will they become suspicious of everything else?

I didn’t intend to wait for Leon’s reply.

「Mimino-san, please heal Dante-san. Zerry-san, let’s go.」

「O-Okay.」Mimino-san responded.\n\nIt seems that the “answer” was to bow down before the statues. The problem was the order of worship, and if the order was wrong, spears and rocks would fall on the challengers head. While suffering many casualties, they tried the patterns one by one and finally found the correct order.

In the Labyrinth of Grief, a shallow bowl-like cup was fixed in the center of a circular room. A copy of the cup was also included, but it looked like a victory cup, with the face of a grieving person carved on the side.

You can immediately understand “to fill the cup with something”. And since it is “grief”, the answer was likely “tears”.

The problem was that the size of the cup was large enough to hold a wine barrel. Furthermore, there was a small hole in the center, and every time tears were poured in, it was sucked into the hole.

When they tried to fill it with salt water, the room was sealed off and water rose from the ground, drowning the people within.

That said, in order to collect enough tears to fill a wine barrel, you would need thousands of people to come to the cup and cry. Traversing through the labyrinth is dangerous, so it was kept as a last resort.

The solution was rather simple. First, collect the tears of the citizens of the Empire inside a container. Then transport the containers into the labyrinth, and fill up the cup. When the tears of thousands of Levs were poured into the cup, a strange stench wafted, but the way to capture the labyrinth was opened.

(In other words, if this is the innermost part of the Labyrinth of Fear, showing “fear” should open the way. But… how do I show “fear”?)

The trap will not be activated unless some sort of action is taken, so just investigating the trap should be “fine”.

「—Dante, I have closed the wound! Try to stay awake!」

I heard Mimino-san’s voice from behind. But I could hardly hear any sound from Leon who should also be right over there.

Oh right, the sound is blocked because of the fog…

(Hmm… fog?)

At that moment, I was struck by a mysterious chill.

Why is there fog in this room? Even though it’s supposed to be a normal fog, it blocks not only the view but also the sound?

I looked back in a hurry.

Leon’s figure can only be seen faintly.

And further behind him, darkness was slowly encroaching closer.

In that darkness, a huge shadow appeared without a sound.