Chapter 3: Onset to Arrival

The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary — LNCrawler · All chapters

Chapter 3:
Onset to Arrival

“ALL RIGHT, let’s get going.” Ein finally urged his group down the stairs a considerable time after Parmè’s party had left. While he had sent Parmè’s party ahead to secure his own safety, to a degree, he was devious enough to know not to stick right behind them.

Neither of these decisions were particularly laudable, as far as Loren saw it, but his role was to proctor the exam, not to complain about how it was accomplished.

“That’s not very respectable, is it?” said Lapis, who didn’t care much about their role to begin with. She had a way of blurting out what Loren refused to say, and she eyed the examinees with disfavor. Loren continued to match pace with her just the same. “In the first place, sending a woman ahead to save your own skin must go against some code. I’d have docked a substantial number of points, were I in charge of the rubric.”

“We’re adventurers, not knights. Didn’t you once say something about doing anything to survive?” asked Loren. And I can sympathize with that.

The battlefield was generally a place where if you survived, you were in the right. It wasn’t as if chivalry was never respected or praised, but if you let chivalry lead you to your death, you’d be a laughingstock.

“Anyway, Lapis, don’t you use whoever you can to obtain knowledge?”

At that, Lapis stared at Loren’s face before folding her arms in thought. “Hm? They might be surprisingly capable then.”

“I’m starting to get anxious about sticking with you, though.”

Loren’s face twitched as he watched her consider it. After a while, Lapis declared that she was joking. Loren decided it was better not to think about whether that was true.

“Either way, it’s probably not gonna go the way they want it to,” he said.

“Why do you think so?” Lapis asked, sounding bemused.

Just then, Ein reached the bottom, pushing open the door to the labyrinth. It opened to a dark corridor, and the road beyond branched left and right after a short, straight path.

“It’s too dark to see anything. Phem, prepare a light.”

“Got it.”

After striking her flint a few times, Phem used the sparks to light her lantern. Only after its light illuminated the walls did Ein and his party finally breathe a sigh of relief.

“All right, let’s move on.”

Ein and Cloud took up the front, with Al and Phem behind them.

The labyrinth corridor was wide enough for two people to walk side by side, and the ceiling was beyond the reach of Phem’s lantern. Even so, Loren could tell exactly how high it was, and he knew he could swing his sword with some room to spare.

“That’s a high ceiling,” Lapis said, looking up as well.

Loren nodded. “I could fight as usual.”

“Oh? Can you see it, Mr. Loren?”

Only then did Loren realize—if Phem’s lantern didn’t reach through the darkness, then his eyes couldn’t possibly have made out the ceiling, shrouded in gloom. But when he looked up, he could clearly see the bare stone.

“I told you, I’ve got good night vision. That’s enough light to vaguely make it out.”

“I see.”

Lapis seemed to completely lose interest after he answered, and while she didn’t bring it up again, Loren was left agitated. He called for Scena, asleep somewhere inside him, and received an immediate response.

He’d thought their shared senses only went in one direction, with Scena feeling what he felt, but it seemed Scena’s senses were also reflected in his own organs. To the undead, darkness was always close, and perhaps unsurprisingly, they possessed the ability to detect their prey within it.

As a Lifeless King, the highest form of undead, Scena apparently boasted eyesight that saw through dark as if it were day. For Loren, that now meant he could see farther than the lantern’s light permitted.

A part of him wished Scena had mentioned this beforehand, but he had his doubts about whether it was worth it to criticize Scena for her good intentions. For now, he offered his thanks.

This exchange carried on as the party proceeded down the corridor until they finally reached the first branching path. If they were to honor the school’s teachings, they would go along the left wall. Ein’s party was already headed that way without discussion.

“I’m thinking about what Claes said,” Loren muttered softly, so only Lapis could hear.

She cocked her head. Given the curriculum she’d perused, the route Ein was headed down was standard practice.

“Sure, Parmè lost the argument, but I bet she’s thinking, Like hell I’m gonna test the waters for that riffraff. Don’t you think?” Loren said.

“That is, well, understandable.”

“So I think they went right. Not like following the right wall will screw them.”

This method of labyrinth mapping essentially involved consistently sticking to one side or the other; there was no reason the left had to be your side of choice. As long as you kept to the outer walls, it hardly mattered. In that case, foreseeing that Ein’s party would go left, Parmè and company would naturally head right to ensure they offered no assistance to their enemy.

“You’re not going to tell them?” Lapis asked.

If Ein’s party was acting under the assumption that they had secured a bit of safety by sending the other party ahead, then letting them go down the left path might prove fantastically dangerous. A short warning—Parmè might not have gone that way—would have been enough to make them raise their guard, but Loren didn’t intend to offer it.

“They never asked,” he said. “We’re just proctors here. We’ll give a bit of advice if they ask for it.”

After all, they had only just entered, and he doubted there was anything too lethal on the shallowest levels. It wouldn’t be that serious even if their charges didn’t notice that Parmè had taken a different route. Even if it got messy, the headmaster had said everything that happened in the labyrinth wasn’t ultimately the proctors’ responsibility.

“And if they asked for help this early, they’d never reach the last floor,” he finished.

“You have a point,” Lapis agreed and turned her eyes to the two walking at the lead.

At present, they were proceeding a little fast for comfort, only occasionally touching the tips of their weapons against the walls and floors. They were sure that the other party had triggered any obvious traps in advance. This left their priest and magician chasing after them.

They won’t be able to deal with a sudden attack from behind, Loren thought. Then he realized that he and Lapis were the ones actually at the rear, and if there were a surprise attack, they would be the ones dealing with it.

“Are we being used as sturdy meat-shields here?”

Whatever monsters the labyrinth produced, it was difficult to imagine that they would be smart enough to discriminate between targets.

“Perhaps making good use of the proctors is part of the exam?”

“Maybe I’d be a bit more willing to be used if someone told us that in advance.”

“Given that headmaster, I cannot deny the possibility that he simply forgot.”

Loren thought back on that giant of a man. Wolfe XV definitely hadn’t looked like the sort of person who mulled over the fine details. Given his name, the headmaster was presumably descended from the ancient adventurer himself, but the child of a hero wasn’t necessarily a hero as well. And even if he had inherited the hero’s power, that didn’t mean he could teach anyone else to use it.

“Perhaps we should just consider it part of our paycheck and give up.”

“Then we’re being paid chump change.”

“Yes, we’re practically volunteering at this point.”

Loren and Lapis continued to whisper as they walked, but there was a reason for this. They had far too much free time.

They were moving a bit fast, but Ein and Cloud remained alert for enemies and traps. Meanwhile, Al and Phem prepared themselves to use blessings and magic at any time, ready to deal with any unforeseen complications. Despite the party’s vigilance, the all-important enemies were nowhere to be seen. It was so quiet, in fact, that Loren had to wonder if Parmè’s party had actually chosen the left path after all.

“Is it because this is the shallowest floor?” Loren wondered.

“It’s ominous when nothing happens at all.”

“Is it?”

The lack of monsters had left them bored, but it also meant there was no danger, and that was a good thing so far as Loren was concerned.

But Lapis disagreed. “If this is a labyrinth, even the shallow floors should have spawning points somewhere.”

And so long as there were locations where monsters were certain to spawn, no matter how vast the labyrinth, the chances of never encountering a single monster were exceedingly low. They couldn’t argue with their reality, however, and Loren hadn’t caught a glimpse of a single thing since setting foot in the labyrinth.

“Doesn’t that mean we’re in luck?” Phem asked, intruding on their conversation.

The other three were too focused on watching their surroundings and moving forward to participate. Only the girl, whose main role was to hold the lantern, had time to spare.

“I hope it can be explained with luck.”

“You’re a pessimistic lady, you are. Worry like that, and you’re gonna end up looking as old as Mr. Frowny Face beside you.”

Attacked when he least expected it, Loren scratched his head with a conflicted expression while Lapis covered her mouth and turned away. Her shoulders were shaking. He could tell she was laughing, but he was well aware he looked older and couldn’t complain.

“Oh, but, Mister, I happen to like a bit of an older face,” said Phem.

“Pfft.” This sudden change made Lapis do a double take, if for different reasons this time. She then crumpled into a coughing fit.

For his part, Loren continued scratching his head, not knowing what to say.

That had sounded like a compliment, but Phem had still called him old. He wasn’t angry per se, but he felt that offering gratitude was just as wrong. He simply couldn’t find the words.

For now, he hushed the ice-cold voice in his head and began worrying about whether they could finish this job safely—although his concerns were founded in reasons that had nothing to do with the labyrinth.

They finally encountered their first monster right when they reached the second floor. They had ultimately failed to encounter anything on the first floor and soon came upon the stairs leading down. There, they spotted four goblins in a hut, just a short walk from the entrance to the second floor.

Ein’s party swiftly got into formation, and they reacted with a speed that suggested a considerable amount of training. Loren hadn’t expected much, but that alone made him consider giving them passing marks.

Compared to that… Loren thought as he watched the goblins ready themselves for these intruders. Not all that long ago, he had gone through hell in an ancient ruin filled with the horrid little creatures. But as long as each side had equal numbers, goblins were just as weak as most of the world thought them to be.

In fact… Loren knit his brow. These goblins seemed even weaker than he had expected. If he hadn’t heard that a labyrinth’s monsters could be influenced by the scale of the labyrinth, he would have assumed this pack was sickly or otherwise enfeebled.

The goblins clumsily flailed the crude shortswords and spears in their hands. As the party’s two vanguards raised a battle cry, Loren knew it was practically over. However, they weren’t the first to attack. That prize went to Phem, the magician.

Loren would have chalked the party up for a failure if she had deployed her single use of magic at that moment. But Phem didn’t cast, nor did she swing her wooden staff. She had hung her lantern from the latter, after all. Instead, she freed her right hand to throw a dart from her sleeve.

The dart flew with force, stabbing straight into the shoulder of one of the goblins. Unfortunately, its needle wasn’t too long. A goblin’s skin was thick—about as sturdy as the cheapest leather armor—and a dart with just barely enough power to pierce it couldn’t deal much of any damage.

At least, that was what Loren thought. Contrary to his expectations, the goblin clutched its shoulder as it toppled and writhed on the floor.

“All right! It worked!” Phem clenched her fist.

“What a piece of work. She slathered it with poison.” Lapis glanced at Phem with appraising eyes.

Between Phem, who used poison, and Lapis, who immediately realized it was poison, Loren had to wonder who had the nastier mind. His thoughts were dispelled by the clash of blades.

Ein and Cloud had closed in and engaged the remaining goblins—Ein had caught two with his shield while Cloud took on the last one.

Ein’s fighting style was concerningly passive. He concentrated both his shield and sword on defense, and he didn’t seem to have any intention of wounding his foe. However, taking the blows of two goblins meant he was indeed fulfilling his role as a vanguard.

Cloud used his speed to get in as many cuts as he could. His estoc was specialized in thrusting and wasn’t fit to lock blades. For that reason, he slipped through his enemy’s attacks, ensuring that he was the only one dealing damage. In this particular engagement, his goblin opponents were so weak that it was an all-around pitiful sight to behold.

Cloud’s goblin foe completely failed to keep up with his movements. Even so, it desperately used sword and shield to fend off Cloud’s thrusts, attempting to get in a counterstrike. Cloud never closed in too far—he always dodged out of range after getting in an attack, and the goblin swung through empty air.

In Loren’s eyes, it was a waste. Why continuously inflict small wounds on a weak goblin? It was as if Cloud was messing around. If he wasn’t, he was ridiculing his opponent, and it wasn’t great to watch.

“Al! Do it! I have it pinned down! Get it!”

“Ehhh?! It’s still moving!”

“Yes, now make it stop moving!”

Holding his mace in both nervous hands, Al approached the first goblin, which Phem had taken out. She stood beyond it, her foot planted on its back to keep it down.

“Hurry up! The poison isn’t that strong!” she urged.

“Ugh… I know…” Half in tears, Al lifted his mace.

The goblin flailed harder as it saw Al raise his weapon, desperately attempting to escape Phem’s foot, but Phem ground her heel down.

“Take this!” Al’s voice was a bit too weak to call a yell as he swung his mace down to crush the goblin’s head. However, he missed his mark, hitting it around the shoulder blades. The dull thud was followed by the goblin’s shrieks of anguish.

“Hyah!” Al tried again, this time hitting the arm that the goblin raised to shield its face. Its broken arm was bent in an uncanny direction.

As the goblin shrieked even more loudly, Al wiped away his sweat and stared, baffled, at the mace in his hands. “Why can’t I hit it?”

Loren could contain himself no longer. “I mean, how the hell are you supposed to hit if you’re swinging with your eyes closed?”

As a proctor, he wasn’t supposed to offer advice when no one asked for it, but at this rate, he got the feeling that Al would eventually end up hitting Phem by mistake. Even if he didn’t, the sight of the goblin being forced to remain on a painful mortal coil was a tad too pathetic to bear.

“But if I keep my eyes open, I’ll have to see what happens when I do hit…”

“Fine, then don’t. But if you do, why’d you even become an adventurer? In the first place—”

Loren was about to wade in and grab the kid when Lapis wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, stopping him from going forward. Al, still bewildered by Loren’s lecture, suddenly remembered that the goblin was still alive and once more held his mace aloft.

“What’re you doing, Lapis?” Loren growled.

“I do understand how you feel, but rein it in for now. You’re overstepping your role, and this is probably where they’re supposed to learn these things.”

“Still…”

“Yes, I didn’t think it would be this terrible either. However, even if they’re taking the graduation exam of an adventurer training academy, that doesn’t necessarily ensure they’re ready to pass it.”

Loren’s frustration remained fixed on his face until he finally clicked his tongue and lightly placed his palm against Lapis’s head to remove her from his waist. He meant to signal that he was fine now, but she wasn’t letting go.

“Oi, Lapis.”

“Mr. Loren, did you always have such a shockingly slim waist?”

“I’m thicker than you. Don’t worry. More importantly, you’re saying this is all part of the labyrinth experience?” Loren asked. Lapis released him, apparently not fully understanding his question. “I mean, the goblins here are monsters born from the labyrinth, right?”

“Yes, I don’t see any sign that they could have come from the outside.”

“Which means the labyrinth created those weakened goblins for the purpose of the exam, right?”

Lapis turned her gaze to Ein and his party.

Ein continued drawing the focus of two goblins, never going on the offense, and carrying on a battle that was essentially a stalemate. Cloud, meanwhile, was still inflicting small cuts on the slow-moving goblin. The goblin that Al and Phem had attempted to take out was thrashing in its struggle to escape, especially after Al’s mace missed again. At the same time, Phem was trying to stab another paralyzing dart into its back.

“Mr. Loren, a labyrinth’s monsters do vary in strength based on its design, but I’ve never heard of a labyrinth that deliberately produced weakened entities.”

“Yeah, well, look at them.”

“No, think about it. If it could produce and then weaken a monster, why couldn’t it just use less energy to produce a different, naturally weaker monster in the first place? Why would a labyrinth choose the more elaborate process?”

“Don’t ask me.”

There was no way Loren could hope to understand something Lapis didn’t. But as he threw in the towel, so too did Lapis. Nevertheless, she folded her arms and frowned as she watched the party fight.

“If you say they’ve been weakened, they probably have been,” he admitted. “The problem is more the why.”

Just in case, Loren also secretly turned his mind to Scena and asked whether this was her doing. He suspected she could have used her energy drain to yield a similar effect, but she confirmed that she’d done no such thing.

“I simply cannot believe a labyrinth would do something so inefficient,” Lapis insisted. “In which case, I can think of two potential explanations.”

“The first?”

“Something weakened them following their birth.”

“And the second?”

“The system that produced them has suffered a malfunction.”

“You can’t guess which is more likely?”

“I don’t have enough information.”

Whichever it is, there’s definitely something going on here, Loren thought with a sigh. He could already tell this was going to be a pain. If only it had been one of Scena’s little tricks. “This reeks of trouble.”

“If I weren’t looking for a part of me, I would be considering turning around and leaving right this instant—although I would also be mulling over the penalties for failing a quest, or the fines for abandoning it halfway.”

“Just for reference, around how much is the fine?”

“Five times the reward. Can you pay that, Mr. Loren?”

“You know how lonely my wallet is.”

Naturally, Loren didn’t have sufficient cash to pay anything like that. He didn’t know what sort of calamity awaited him if he failed to do so, but either way, a grim future was most definitely ahead of him.

“I won’t hold it against you if you slip out on your own,” Loren said. He was under the impression that Lapis had funds enough that the penalty would be little more than a slap on the wrist.

This was probably true, but Lapis smiled cheekily. “You must be joking. I’m the one who wanted to take this job.”

“Oh, really?”

Loren hadn’t been counting the swings, but by pure coincidence, Al finally got the goblin’s head. That was the final blow—the goblin convulsed one, two, three more times before falling motionless.

Once the life had left them, the monsters of the labyrinth were absorbed into its walls, leaving only a portion of their bodies behind. At least, that was how it was supposed to be. Yet after crumbling away, the goblin left nothing in its wake.

“Huh? What?” Al looked nervously around.

“How strange. I guess they don’t always leave something.” Phem, on the other hand, seemed intrigued by this unprecedented result.

Meanwhile, Cloud finally defeated his opponent and rushed over to Ein to take over one of the two he had been keeping contained. Behind him, the defeated goblin crumbled and melted into the floor, once again leaving nothing to remember it by.

After that drag of a battle with the goblins, they soon found the stairs to the third floor. Again, they encountered no further monsters. The absence of obstacles made clear that something was very wrong. Loren wondered if Ein’s party was feeling anxious as well. On the contrary, they seemed relieved by the lack of combat.

“At this rate, we’ll be at the pass line in no time,” said Ein, and his party members happily nodded.

As far as Loren could tell, if the academy graduated adventurers at this party’s skill level, the probability that they would all be alive a year later was about the same as the probability that he would suddenly learn magic in the next five minutes.

He had been misled by the word examinee; once again, he was reminded that the exams weren’t taken solely by those with the skill to pass them.

“They won’t last long,” Lapis mused indifferently, having reached the same conclusion. There was little Loren could do but nod. “Incidentally, have you noticed, Mr. Loren?”

“You mean how there’s no signs of Ringlets?”

Lapis looked a little dissatisfied with his answer—not because he was wrong, but because she had plainly hoped to start the conversation with him asking, What do you mean? However, the cause for concern was fairly obvious to him, and he couldn’t always play dumb just to keep up with her antics.

What concerned them were the whereabouts of Parmè’s party, the one Claes was tagging along behind. According to the map the headmaster had given them, each labyrinth floor only had one set of stairs leading down. With so few obstacles, it wouldn’t have been strange if they’d caught up before long.

However, they hadn’t seen so much as a hint of Parmè’s party.

“They seemed to be better at combat, so I’m sure they’re blazing forward even faster than we are.”

“I doubt we passed them.”

Ein’s party had wasted a good chunk of time on the weakened goblins. It was hard to imagine they could have outpaced their competitors.

“The way this is going, don’t you think they’re on the fifth floor by now?” Loren asked.

“Hmmm…” Lapis mumbled to herself, unfolding the map while Ein and the others weren’t looking. “That depends on how skilled they are. If they’re about on par with our gaggle, I’d say they’re on the fourth floor, no farther.”

“If you’re wondering about Parmè’s party, they’re the academy’s top swordswomen,” Phem piped up, intruding upon Lapis’s monologue.

As the rest of her comrades walked ahead, she was the only one who fell back to join Loren and Lapis. Her mere proximity seemed to irritate Lapis. Loren hid her grim expression behind his hand—he wanted to try getting some information out of Phem.

He had concluded that his words couldn’t be taken as advice so long as they had nothing to do with the labyrinth exploration, and thus, he wouldn’t be violating the rules by asking. Or so he hoped. “Is that ringlet girl that strong?”

“Incredibly so. The girls in her party are all among the top ten sword fighters of this year’s examinees.”

“Ain’t there a pretty big difference between you and them?”

“Does it feel that way?” Phem laughed, but this was no laughing matter. If her words were to be believed, Parmè was definitely already on the fifth floor or beyond. “We’re not nobles, and it’s not like we’ve got any real talent. We’re just the oddballs and leftovers.”

“Wait, isn’t the academy a place for those with talent?” Loren asked. At least, that was what Lapis had said. He looked sideways to see her shaking her head, insisting she hadn’t been lying.

“That’s generally the case,” Phem agreed. “But you know, gather enough people with talent, and you’ll still find yourself with the truly incredible and the not so incredible.”

I guess so, thought Loren. It was a simple equation—there were degrees of talent, and for everyone who possessed a shocking ability came another who, next to them, could be barely recognized as having any ability at all.

“Sure, the upper crust can cultivate a friendly rivalry all they want. But what if you’re just slightly above average and you’re put face-to-face with true genius?” Phem asked. “You’d start feeling inferior, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah, I see what you’re saying…” Loren muttered.

In a nutshell, while the school branded itself as a place to nurture talented individuals, a portion of its student body wasn’t actually talented—or rather, they also accepted students who had no special skills to speak of. While Loren wondered why they would do such a thing, Lapis offered an answer.

“Certain people feel more secure when they know there are people below them,” said Lapis. “It’s an effective means of boosting confidence in one way but a rather foolish one in others.”

Phem laughed again. “It’s not so bad. They still teach us, and they train us to fight.”

Does Claes know about this? Loren wondered—though he concluded that the kid had to be in the dark. If Claes had known, he would’ve been too embarrassed to saddle Loren with a party of predetermined failures.

“And we get financial support from the state too!”

“If they’re supporting you, the school must be taking a handsome cut.”

In order to nurture the actually extraordinary talents, the school also took in students who they expected would never amount to anything. The school was probably taking funds from the state to finance this operation, which meant the headmaster was in on the corruption. That surprised Loren, as the large fellow hadn’t seemed the corruptible sort.

However, Phem denied this hypothesis. “The school’s probably getting something, but the headmaster wouldn’t know.”

“Why? Isn’t he in charge of the place?”

“Other people manage the school. The headmaster is…you know? He’s descended from the adventurer who founded the academy.”

Yeah, I could tell by the name, thought Loren. Then he realized, “Wait, they’re just using his name to hide their scheme?”

“If you think about it, the headmaster is just another hired hand,” Lapis added.

It was as yet unclear if the headmaster was privy to the deal, but Loren got the feeling that he’d be the sort to fight back against the whole thing.

“Anyway, you get the picture. I don’t know what the headmaster thinks about us, but we were never expected to pass this exam,” Phem said.

She seemed content, but Loren couldn’t help but see danger all around. Normally, these students would have failed and been sentenced to either continue their lives as students or quit and choose a different path.

However, for some reason, the labyrinth was practically devoid of monsters. They were only on the third floor, but Loren foresaw the fourth and fifth floors would be similar stories. If that happened, this party would pass without meriting their victory, and they’d be sent off into the world as supposedly first-rate adventurers.

This would ultimately prove to be a disaster for these kids—and it would likely be even worse for whoever hired them.

“I have a question.” Lapis raised her hand. “Is that priest—your Mr. Al—in the same boat?”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard Mr. Al serves the supreme god. The other gods might not be so selective, but not just anyone can serve the supreme.”

Strongest in the pantheon, the supreme god was the most exalted deity, he who stood above all others. Anyone who wished to serve him either had to hail from a prestigious lineage or be uniquely talented. Thus, Lapis explained, she couldn’t comprehend how a priest of the supreme god could have found his way into a self-admitted failure of a party.

“Al is a bit different. His full name is Alford Veronica, and he’s the second son of a noble. Apparently.”

Well, if he’s a priest and a noble, doesn’t that make him pretty impressive? Loren couldn’t help but wonder. The way Al handled his mace was downright regrettable, but that wasn’t a huge flaw if he could perform his priestly duties.

“Oh, well, Al isn’t just the kind of guy who’d befriend commoner dregs like us. He’s helped us a ton with his knowledge and blessings. He’s really dependable.”

“That guy?” Loren muttered. Al’s general mien was far from what anyone could call reliable, so Loren found this hard to believe.

However, Phem didn’t look the least bit like she was joking; she was serious. “I mean, he’s a bit of a coward, and sure, he’s terrible with weapons.”

“I can hear you!” Al sarcastically chimed in from ahead.

Phem paid him no mind. “But he really is reliable. Just look at us—we’re only here because Al assured us that we would definitely pass. That if we could clear the fifth floor, the tenth floor wasn’t a far-off dream. That’s what got us motivated to take the test this year.”

“I’ve seen you guys at work—you do all your training, and you focus in class.” Al still sounded as quiet as ever, but he spoke with confidence. “Sure, it doesn’t always work out, but I think it’s totally possible if we combine our strengths.”

The other three nodded, convinced. These students, written off as failures, were doing their best to defy the world.

Upon bearing witness to this scene, Loren whispered to Lapis, who had been spacing out beside him. “So what are their actual chances?”

“Who knows? Perhaps someone will awaken to secret talents along the way. Perhaps one of them is hiding a predilection for blind rampages akin to your own, Mr. Loren. I cannot weigh in on the matter.”

“But there’s also a chance we were right about them.”

“It’s not a bad thing to have hope. Probably.” Lapis sounded as if her heart wasn’t in it—as if she was simply saying these things because the situation called for it.

Loren felt there was no need to put it like that, but at this rate, it seemed the kids would pass regardless of their proctors’ evaluation or their own abilities. They were, after all, waltzing unhindered through their test.

“I see the next stairs!” Ein’s words from the front made the others jog forward.

Watching their backs, Loren couldn’t help but wonder where the hell the third-floor monsters had gone. There was clearly something wrong with the labyrinth, but the party pressed on, refusing to see it. He didn’t even know what part of this problem was most concerning.

Loren’s fears became reality. Without receiving any further insights into what was going on, they proceeded through a monsterless fourth floor and found the stairs to the fifth.

He couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Isn’t this messed up?”

This exploration was supposed to be an exam, but if his internal clock was to be believed, they had reached the pass line in just over half a day. This speed was abnormal, as was the cause.

Not only had they encountered no more than one group of monsters in the entire labyrinth, they also hadn’t come across any traps. With nothing to slow them down, they had simply walked their way to the fifth floor. Of course, such an unimpeded stroll wouldn’t take them long at all.

Loren suddenly turned to Lapis, since she had the map. “Hey, are they…ever lost?”

“You’ve picked up on something rather key, Mr. Loren.” As always, Lapis checked the map, making sure none of the others could see her do it. She spoke like an old detective talking to her assistant. “There’s something wrong with those children. They occasionally make detours, but…they’re almost always taking the shortest route from entrance to exit. As if they know the path.”

Loren gazed at the four backs ahead of him. The magician, Phem, was in charge of recording the distances and directions that the party traversed on their map. However, the party leader, Ein, decided their path, though at times Al weighed in.

“Additionally, our map shows the location of traps, but with the route they’ve chosen, it’s strange that they haven’t fallen for any of them yet.”

“They didn’t go off?”

Loren could think of only two reasons why a trap wouldn’t activate. First: the trigger mechanisms had failed. Second: someone had disabled them before they passed through. If it was the former, that meant there really was something wrong with the labyrinth. If it was the latter, perhaps they should have been thanking Parmè’s party—or the earlier intervention of a third party.

“We can write off the flippant kid.”

“I agree. He doesn’t seem like the scheming type.”

However, the remaining three remained under suspicion. Loren couldn’t say if the culprit was plotting something or just cheating, but presumably one of them had information that only a proctor was supposed to know.

“Does the exam end on the fifth floor?” Loren asked.

“No, it’s concluded only once they discover the stairs to the sixth floor. The rest is left up to the examinees’ discretion.”

“I see. Hey, you lot,” Loren called out to the party.

This was less than acceptable behavior for a proctor, but Loren knew it was necessary and that Lapis would turn a blind eye.

“What is it?” Ein doubtfully replied. Despite his large build, crew cut, and generally rugged appearance, his fighting style had long since made clear that he wasn’t aggressive by nature. He did best in either a supportive or defensive role.

“If you find the stairs, the exam’s over, right?”

“Yes, well, for what it’s worth.”

“In that case, would you be willing to withdraw here?”

Loren proposed this seemingly out of nowhere. A look of surprise crossed Ein’s face, and Cloud charged forward in his stead. “Hey, you old bastard, the hell are you—”

“Haven’t any of you noticed? You only encountered monsters once during your entire final exam. Apart from that, you haven’t had to deal with a single trap. Isn’t something strange happening here?”

Cloud lost his initial momentum at these words, and Ein looked away.

While no one wanted to look a gift horse in the mouth, it seemed they had indeed realized something in this stank. They had likely wondered if there was any point in passing this exam at all.

There’s still hope for them yet, Loren thought, only for Al to butt in.

“That doesn’t make sense! This examination was prepared by the school. If something wasn’t working as intended, someone from the academy would have canceled it before it even began.”

“H-he’s right! We were allowed to enter the labyrinth. We’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about!” Cloud declared, having regained a bit of steam.

Loren scratched his head. “This ain’t about being embarrassed. Some errors are found in advance, others after the fact. Don’t you think something’s clearly wrong if the labyrinth isn’t functioning as intended?”

“It could have been set to this level!”

Loren didn’t know if the labyrinth’s difficulty could be lowered for the exam. The labyrinth was controlled by the school, so perhaps it was possible. However, if the school had really done that, it could no longer be called a training academy. It would only be a production plant for corpses.

“Why would they lower the difficulty for students who are about to become adventurers?”

“Well…” Cloud struggled to find the words.

Al stepped in to help him. “Why, it’s possible the school is showing some consideration, boosting our confidence by making sure our exploration is a success.”

“Th-that’s right! Maybe—”

“If you accept that, then the teachers are all unfathomable idiots,” said Loren.

Success was definitely one way to inspire confidence. Loren knew that, and he’d seen it play out time and again in his company when the old hands would scheme up a way to impart confidence and courage to the new recruits.

But Loren had seen how tricky this could be. The second the curtain was pulled back, those who had been deceived lost everything they’d gained. If you carried on in this way, you couldn’t ever let those involved realize what had really happened. No mean feat when you had to keep the difficulty of a manufactured problem just low enough to guarantee success. You couldn’t get away with half-baked measures.

Moreover, their current situation was so blatantly manufactured that it was all but instantly meaningless in the confidence-boosting department.

“Then what do you want us to do?!” Cloud snapped.

“I told you. Turn back. Report the labyrinth’s abnormalities to the headmaster. You’ll have to retake the exam, but that’s better than passing like this.”

“Don’t screw with me! You want us to fail after coming this far?!”

“I ain’t screwing around, kid. I’m serious. And if we’re talking about passing, you guys have already failed in my eyes. If I let you walk out of here adventurers, you’d be sleeping in the dirt in less than a year.”

Cloud was once again at a loss for words.

“That’s merely your opinion,” Al said, sticking up for him again. “The future is known only to the gods. You are no god, and I find it hard to believe you can see our future.”

“I can make a pretty good guess.”

“Then it’s entirely possible you’ve guessed incorrectly.”

“Do you think I’m wrong?”

“At the very least, I don’t think anyone asked for your advice.”

Once an examinee accused Loren of infringing on their test experience, there was nothing more he could do. Worst-case scenario, they would report him to the school for interfering in the exam, and he would be burdened with a heavy penalty.

Loren had been unable to help himself from offering critical advice, uncalled for as it was, but perhaps he had stuck his nose where it didn’t belong. Not that he particularly cared.

Of the party, only Phem seemed a bit divided, while Cloud and Ein firmly clung to Al’s defenses.

Loren shrugged. “I see, my bad. I can be a busybody.”

Once Loren backed off, the party immediately headed back down the labyrinth corridor ahead. Ein seemed a bit anxious, while Cloud had a grim look in his eyes, and Al looked as if he had already forgotten the debate.

As Loren slowly trailed after them, Lapis commended his efforts. “At least you tried, Mr. Loren.”

“Sorry about that. It’s all my fault if this ruins our job assessment.”

“Oh, no, not at all. I already had a vague feeling that this quest would be another failure regardless.”

Another failure. Loren’s face darkened.

Since becoming an adventurer, Loren’s success rate had been achingly low—rather, the only quest he’d ever succeeded had involved herb gathering, and the others had, to a one, ended in failure. If this quest was yet another failure, he wouldn’t be paid, and his reputation would continue on its downward spiral. Those rumors that he was a gigolo leeching off of Lapis would become even more credible.

“I’m not in any position to worry about others, am I?” Loren laughed in self-derision.

<You can do it, Mister,> Scena cheered in a corner of his mind.

“It won’t be your fault that we fail, though,” said Lapis.

“Say what you want, but the results speak for themselves. It doesn’t matter as long as it’s treated as a failure.” Loren’s shoulders drooped.

Lapis, meanwhile, was beginning to wonder if Loren was the one in need of a success to boost his confidence. For some reason, whenever Loren took on a job, quests that didn’t sound so difficult suddenly turned into unbelievable ordeals.

Unfortunately, she was certain he would know instantly if she orchestrated a simple task that he would be sure to overcome—and what if that job also exploded and ended in failure? He would lose even more confidence.

In that case, Lapis thought as she walked beside him, rather than taking simple jobs, we should just take whatever jobs we want. If they happen to fail, I’ll just find whatever reason I can to say it isn’t Mr. Loren’s fault and console him that way. Why, that sounds most effective!

“I do think the adventurers’ guild has a high opinion of you, though,” she noted. “I’m the one who turns in our quest forms, and each time, they look at me as if in wonder that we’re still alive.”

“That just makes this even worse…” Loren mumbled. “It means I don’t know when to quit. At best I have enough luck to escape my problems.”

“That’s a skill in and of itself—though if I say that, we’d have to accept that these students not running into monsters comes down to luck as well.”

“If it’s a skill to have the kind of rotten luck that makes me pull the short straw with every single quest, then I—”

“Ah, let’s stop there, Mr. Loren. Nothing good will come of this sort of ruminating.”

While Lapis’s face remained calm, she was internally panicking, desperate to put a stop to this train of thought. She’d thought she could lift Loren’s spirits by offering cheerful topics, but she hadn’t realized just how powerful Loren’s negativity could be. Once his thoughts slanted in that direction, he would see any and everything in a negative light, and it became difficult to offer any assistance.

“More importantly, we must focus on the matter at hand. Do you think they will be satisfied with finding the stairs to the sixth floor?”

“Not happening. They said they were headed to the bottom.”

“Then do you think the sixth floor will be just as devoid of monsters as the previous ones?”

Loren had no answer to that question. Given all they’d been through, it wouldn’t have been strange if the rest of the labyrinth was more of the same. However, something was obviously bothering him. “I don’t know, but…I’m thinking there’s a reason this floor is the pass line. A reason why they don’t force students to go any farther.”

“You may be right… Oh. We’re almost at the stairs. Now, then, their reactions will no doubt be a sight to behold.”

Lapis blinked up at him; Loren was eyeing her as if she’d said something rather villainous.

Meanwhile, Ein’s party finally spotted the stairs to the sixth floor, and their cheers echoed through the labyrinth halls.