Death March — Fixed

“Tek here, labyrinths from classic books and games usually have treasures, Monsters, and mysterious traps. While there is a lot of danger, the returns you get, from both the treasure and easy levels is well worth it--These can be said to be the real thrill of the labyrinth. But--A party consisting of only warriors has terrible balance--if it weren’t for my high level, we would all be dead!”

After two more rests, and quite a few more levels for the girls, we’re finally around 80% of the way out of the labyrinth. Since the rest before last, we haven’t seen any more corpses on the ground.

Pochi and Tama exchanged their daggers for the ornamental shortswords, but that’s the extent that the Beastkin girls’ equipment has changed, but all three are now level thirteen. It seems that their Stats are about three levels higher than the average Human of that level.

Pochi now has Enemy Search, Throwing, Dismantling, and the Shortsword skills; Tama has Dismantling, Collecting, and Shortsword; Liza has Cooking, Dismantling, Spear, and Thrusting.

It can be said that their strength is now the difference between heaven and earth compared to before.

If the enemy has no special attacks which cause an Abnormal Status, then even if it is level twenty, the three can handle it. Although, it could be a dangerous fight if several enemies of the same level attack, since there are no shield users--

“That wall is strange?” Tama turns to one of the walls inside our current room, she seems to sense something strange again.

When I stare at it, I found a ‘Hidden Door’--and when I check the map, I see that there’s certainly a passage hidden behind it.

However--When I change the map view into the top-down view, I see that five meters from the room is a shape that is around a hundred meters in diameter with a depth of three meters, which seems to be a pitfall trap.

Tama looks at the floor with her ears twitching, “The floor?”

This time she seems a lot more uncertain--it seems that the way she detected the Life Drain trap was through seeing a slight difference in the floor and not sensing the Magic, which is what I thought at first--but she can almost see the pitfall as well, which is good to know.

With a smile at Tama, I warn her and the others not to get close to it.

There’s a crossroad after the pit, and beyond that is a room with three survivors inside it. Since they seem to have been in the same place for the last hour or so, it’s probably some form of safe zone. Although they are only five rooms from the exit, it is likely that they don’t have a map, so it can’t be helped.

 

“Everyone, stop!”

 

The radar indicates an enemy approaching at high speed, but it’s only one enemy.

While slowly walking backwards, keeping the girls behind me, I check the enemy’s information.

Undead Beast; five meters in length and two in height; attacks can paralyze, both bites and claw attacks; very agile--weakness: Holy.

 

“Level is--40 you say?” I mutter quietly to myself, it seems to be the labyrinth’s sweeper.

 

It really does feel like an old game--an abnormally strong enemy will appear to kill the Player who’s running out of time.

Before we come in contact with the enemy, we get back to the room that we just left.

With hand signals, I evacuate Pochi, Tama, and Liza into a corner of the room; Liza stands defensively in front of the smaller girls, but her hands are shaking as they tighten on her spear’s grip.

The enemy is very dangerous--if they make one mistake, a single blow could easily kill them.

The enemy casually approaches from the passage.

It’s a jet-black panther-like beast with a red horn on its head--and it suddenly disappears from view, but when I hurriedly bring up the map, it hasn’t actually moved.

Suddenly the marker on the map seems to flicker as the enemy jumps straight up at high speed, before attacking us from its position above; it kicks off the ceiling, rapidly increasing the speed and power of its attack.

It slams into me, and while I feel a soft impact--I hear the stone floor under my feet crack.

Being this fast--if it begins to jump around and attack anyone other than me, the three Beastkin girls will end up in danger.

Taking it on from the front is no good.

Concentrating on me, the Undead Beast opens its jaws to bite me, but it leaves itself open as it does so. Taking the chance, I tighten my grip on it and throw it into the wall.

The Undead Beast lands on the wall feet first, ready to pounce again, but I move first and punch it, causing the wall to break and the Beast to fall into the pit behind it.

This room had both a pit on the floor, and behind the wall--I only saw the one on the floor because Tama alerted me and I looked on my map, I didn’t know there was one behind the wall--I was trying to kill the Beast, it will probably be back later.

Oh well, it’s too late now.

***

Now then, why don’t we join up with the survivors?

Beyond the crossroads, the floor is plastered with sticky white threads.

“Stickystick--” Tama mutters in a singsong voice as she starts clearing the web with her shortsword.

“My feet are sticky.” Pochi quickly joins her, both are having fun swinging their swords.

“I wonder if it’s spider silk.” Liza mutters as she looks closely at some of the web, before beginning to clear it with the sharp tip of her spear--but she isn’t doing too well, and I can see her tail drooping a little.

Walking over, I take a dagger from storage and give it to Liza--she looks a little surprised before a happy look appears on her face, and she says a quick thanks, as she starts clearing the web.

Inside the room, there are seven cocoons, though only three of them have living people inside them. We should move quickly and rescue them before the spider comes back--I really dislike spiders.

When the people inside the cocoons realize that we are entering the room, they begin to wriggle.

Just in case, I quickly check the contents inside before we help them.

 

Name: Nidoren

Job: Slave Trader

Age: 25 (40)

Level: 15

Skills: Negotiation, Torture, Arithmetic

 

Name: Jin Belton

Job: Noble

Age: 25 (33)

Level: 35

Skills: Fire Magic, Flame Magic, Social

Title: Viscount

 

Name: Tana Belton

Job: Noble

Age: 14

Level: 8

Skills: Social, Etiquette

 

The Viscount seems to have good potential.

Even so, why was a noble in the square?

We’re going to split the work, to save them faster.

I will handle the Viscount, Liza the daughter, Pochi and Tama are responsible for the trader.

Halfway through the rescue, the radar detects a spider coming from below us. It seems that there is a pit behind one of the walls here too--since the wall isn’t trapped or weakened, Tama can’t detect them.

 

“There is an enemy! Pochi, Tama, Liza, stop the rescue and prepare to intercept!”

 

At my words, the three girls step back and prepare their weapons, they move quickly and efficiently--with cooperation that could be expected because of battling together quite a few times.

Fortunately, the victim’s mouths are clogged up, so they can’t be noisy and distract us during the battle.

With a cracking noise, the back wall breaks and a spider comes crawling out.

First I throw a stone, knocking it unconscious--then Liza skewered its head with her spear, while Pochi and Tama slice at both the joint between its head and body, and in its thorax.

I hoped that it would die with our first attack, but--to managed to survive even after its head has been pierced by a long spear, its truly a Monster.

It regained consciousness when it felt the pain of three attacks.

Liza got hit by one of the spider’s legs, she blocks it with the shaft of her spear and jumps back to reduce the impact, Pochi and Tama take advantage of the gap to rapidly slice with their shortswords, shaving off the spider’s health.

Since it seems that it would take some time, and put the girls in danger, I throw a rock in secret--giving the finishing blow.

I leave recovery of the Magic Core to Tama, and we get back to rescuing the people.

“I’m saved. I come from the distinguished family of the founder Yamato, the current head of the Belton family, Viscount Belton. Expect rewards when we get out of here!”

“Thank you very much, Viscount. I’m Tek, a traveler."

When we finish our introductions, the viscount quickly rushes over to where his daughter is cocooned; grabbing the dagger from Liza’s hand, he continues the rescue himself.

 

Is it because he doesn’t want a Demi-Human touching his daughter, or because he wants to save her himself?

“Thank you for saving me, I’m Nidoren, a merchant--the girls will dislike me, because I deal in slave trading.”

“I’m a traveler, Tek.”

 

“A traveler--is it? I thought that you would be an Adventurer.”

 

While listening to Nidoren, I give him the water bottle that I kept in one of the large pockets of my robe.

 

“Do you know about Adventurers?” I feel slightly surprised at the word.

 

“Yes, they are explorers in the Shiga Kingdom aren’t they? Killing Demons in the labyrinth, salvaging Magic Cores and treasures--it’s a high risk, high return, kind of job.” Nidoren replied to me.

Tama returns with the Magic Core from the spider and politely gives it to me.

 

“Putting aside the size of the Magic Core here, it’s purity is low, probably because the labyrinth is still young.” Nidoren looks at the core I am holding, before beginning to explain the refined Magic Cores are used in the creation of Magic Tools--the higher the purity of the Core, the more efficient its Magic is, and the higher quality the produced tool is.

 

“Still, it was brilliant cooperation. Surely you trained them for a long time, didn’t you? Such good slaves can easily fetch twenty gold coins each--I’d love to buy them from you.”

 

At Nidoren’s words, the three girls move to stand behind me, with Tama and Pochi looking nervous--for some reason, Liza’s hands tighten on her spear.

 

“I’m not going to sell them.” I make sure to say it clearly--it seems not to tell him that they’re not officially my slaves, since that would probably come back to bite me--but even if they were, I wouldn’t sell them.

I hear a relieved sigh from Liza behind me, Tama and Pochi stare up at me with small smiles, their ears and tails waving slightly.

Seeing this, Nidoren backs off.

The girls know what to do next, they quickly move to the other cocoons, cutting them open and retrieving locks of hair or small personal items that can be used as mementos.

Pochi placed her bag down next to me before going for the mementos, so I take out some food, passing it to Viscount Belton, Nidoren and the Viscount’s daughter.

Of course, it’s not the frog meat.

The two men eat heartily, the viscount complains a little about the poor quality of the food; he isn’t meaning it badly, he speaks without malice and there is an amused twinkle in his eyes--his daughter however, only eats the cheese and sips the water, without making a sound. She must be exhausted.

***

There are three rooms left before the exit.

The Viscount has been helping support his daughter this whole time--should I carry her on my back?

When I suggested that, both the girl and her father rejected the idea.

There is a major problem before the exit, the next room.

Like a dungeon designed by a bad GM, located in front of us, with no way to avoid it, is a Monster House. Leading the pack is a level thirty-five Demon, followed by a level thirty Skeleton Knight, Skeleton DeathScythe, and Skeleton Warrior. The last remaining Monsters are regular Skeleton Soldiers that are between level ten and fifteen.

Should I change into my masked-hero disguise?

When I check the rest of the nearby rooms, I see that the younger priest is ten rooms away. I intended to join up with him, but the Viscount’s Daughter’s exhaustion is extreme--she needs to get out. Furthermore, all of the nearby rooms has at least three Undead Monsters in them--even if we were to join up and break through, it would require between an hour and an hour-and-a-half each way.

However, if we keep going towards the exit, and break through the Monster House--the last two rooms seem to be empty, probably because the Demon doesn’t seem to expect anyone to survive the Monster house.

Liza and Tama, who I had sent out scouting, came back.

 

“Lots of bones.” The look on Tama’s face when she says this shows that she is unsure of how to explain the number and type of enemies; she probably hasn’t seen a Demon, other than the man who mutated.

 

“Something spherical with wings is flying around the room--the others are approximately twenty Skeleton Monsters. I, think it would be better to search for a detour--” Liza’s assessment is accurate, and her knowledge is conveyed well.

 

In a normal situation, this assessment would be sound--but the exit is just ahead.

Well then, it’s time to show off my special Deception skill!