Chapter 5: Running to the Bottom Floor

Chapter 5:
Running to the Bottom Floor

 

AS A RULE, slimes were slow, but there were exceptions. For example, the wall of ooze surging behind them. Mostly, though, slimes made their way through the world at a sticky crawl. They were exceedingly sluggish creatures.

Thus, when faced with a slime-filled labyrinth, painstakingly exterminating every slime one at a time probably wasn’t the best strategy. It would be better to simply outrun them or to clear them out all at once—if one had the firepower to do so. At least, Loren was beginning to think so.

He was, after all, going much faster now that they’d been separated from Ein’s party. Granted, this was largely because the wave of slimes behind him made moving any more slowly a non-option. He did still flag a bit every time he had to take evasive action—avoiding the tentacles of the ones trying to grab his ankles or dodging the slimes falling from the ceiling—and he always made sure to check corners with his torch before progressing. But even with all that, they were moving much faster.

“Mr. Loren, do you know where you’re going?” Lapis asked, glancing over her shoulder to gauge their distance from the flood.

“Nope.”

“As I thought…”

The accurate map they had received as proctors was already practically useless. Loren had dashed through a multitude of passages so fast that it was impossible to determine their current location. Once they lost track of their location, their surroundings were rendered into nothing but endless stretches of stone walls, floor, and ceiling, with no landmarks to give them an idea of where they might be.

On top of this, the school’s preferred method of navigating via the left wall had been rendered useless. This method only worked when you could be confident that you were touching the outer wall. It was currently impossible to tell which wall qualified as that.

They were profoundly lost.

“What do you think happened to them?” Loren asked as he ran.

For a moment, Lapis tilted her head, not quite understanding the question. She quickly realized and let out a deep sigh over his neck.

“Oi, stop. That’s ticklish,” Loren grumbled.

“My apologies. I have no interest in those children, nor do I think they will be of any help to us in our current straits.”

There was no guarantee that dodging down a side path had saved them. A portion of the flood might well have split off and followed them down it. Worse, they might have run into another horde of slimes lying in wait. For those reasons, Loren didn’t intend to attempt the same maneuver.

This was, however, not their most pressing predicament.

“More importantly, Mr. Loren, we’ve been running for a while now. Are you all right?”

Loren was weighed down by their equipment, his sword, and Lapis herself. This was a considerable amount, and Lapis clearly feared he would soon be exhausted.

“The battlefield isn’t that forgiving.”

The sound of his footsteps would occasionally change from hard thumps to wet splotches as he crushed slimes underfoot. If he slowed, the slimes he trampled would catch his feet, and if he went too fast, he would slip on their slimy bodies and topple, Lapis and all. But he was neither caught nor did he tumble, and his speed remained steady. Perhaps not every mercenary could move with such precision, but…

“There’s a saying: First to stop running, first to start croaking. The first thing we ever trained to do was run like hell. Even carrying equipment, supplies, and our comrades, if need be. Compared to that, you’re not heavy at all.”

“Yes, about that, Mr. Loren.”

Lapis was about to change the topic when her words were abruptly cut off with a yelp. They were both overtaken by a strange weightlessness, like they were floating. Lapis squirmed in a panic when she realized that Loren had dived headlong into a pitfall trap in their path.

Voluntarily diving into a trap was widely regarded as suicidal, but upon landing, Loren immediately started sprinting again. It seemed it hadn’t been designed to be a lethal fall but rather a trap that sent its victims to a lower, deadlier floor.

Lapis sagged against Loren’s back, relieved at this outcome, only to freeze again. She had no doubt realized that they were now on the eighth floor.

“You were saying?” Loren asked.

Loren realized that he had taken them into even greater danger, but he maintained his calm. He urged Lapis to return to whatever she had meant to say before the fall.

Unfortunately, the waterfall of slimes cascaded behind them.

Lapis beat Loren about the shoulders. “They’re still chasing, Mr. Loren!”

“I guess going to the next floor down wasn’t enough to shake them off.” He sighed, vexed.

As he picked up speed once again, Lapis brought her lips to his ear. “I was going to say that my arms and legs won’t move.”

“Out of mana again?”

“No, our surroundings are abundant with mana. Too much so, I’d say.”

How did that work? Her limbs needed mana to function, so if there was a lot of mana, shouldn’t she have been all set? This didn’t seem right to Loren, though admittedly he was neither a magician nor a priest. “What do you mean?”

“Would you understand if I told you that the mana is so thick that they simply cannot function properly?”

It wasn’t like that laid out the fine details, but he got the gist. It was always possible to have too much of a good thing. Perhaps this was one of those times.

“Do you know exactly what’s wrong?” he asked.

“I don’t. But if you give me some time, I should be able to retune my limbs, somehow or another.”

“Time, eh?” Loren glanced back.

The tidal wave of slimes had fallen behind, but it was still in pursuit. It didn’t show any signs of slowing either. Whether Lapis had enough time would depend wholly on how far Loren was able to run.

“No one’s watching, in any case. So as long as my hands recover, I can blow some of those slimes away with magic,” Lapis said.

Loren cut her off. “Hold that thought.”

Before she could ask why, a human figure burst forward from a side path just ahead.

“Claes?!”

There was now a figure running parallel to Loren—Claes, holding a robed Ange in a bridal carry.

Between this arrival and the way the slime flood picked up momentum the second Claes joined them, Loren figured out what was up. “You were being chased too?!”

“What do we have here? Didn’t think I’d run into you! What a coincidence!” Claes called.

“Not a welcome one,” Loren groaned.

Evidently, Claes was in the midst of fleeing a problem identical to theirs. He’d emerged into a wider corridor only for his own slime flood to merge with theirs, and now they were all frantically racing in the same direction.

“What happened to your students?” Loren asked.

“I lost sight of them when that thing started chasing us. A slime fell on one of their heads on an upper floor, and we couldn’t save her.”

“Yeah, we ran into her. Her body was filled with slime—took one of our examinees by surprise. Better burn it next time, or you’ll leave your problems for somebody else.”

“We didn’t have time!”

Ange nodded in panicked agreement, even though she was practically petrified in Claes’s arms. That meant Claes wasn’t trying to shirk the blame—they’d probably had to dodge more slimes falling from above. His party had been so focused on getting away that they had been unable to burn the girl who’d been their tragic sacrifice.

Not that this meant they could write off the trouble it had caused the other party.

“We’ll come back to that later. Claes, do you know where we are?”

“I’m sorry to say that I’ve been concentrating on getting away. Do I look like I’m in any position to check a map?” Claes nodded to Ange in his arms.

“So we’re in the same boat.”

Loren had vaguely suspected this, but he couldn’t help but feel disappointed once it was spelled out to him. Considering that he was in the same situation, Claes probably felt the same way. He couldn’t really be angry at the kid.

“Meaning you’ve got no idea where we’re headed?” Claes asked.

“What, do you?”

“This bites—how do we shake that thing off?!”

The wall of slimes continued to chase them, maintaining a dangerously close distance, neither gaining on nor losing them. If they hadn’t met up with Claes, then their best bet would have been to have Lapis go ham with her magic once she regained control of her arms. But so long as other people could see her, she couldn’t do anything too drastic.

“In the first place, the labyrinth wasn’t like this when I took the exam!” Claes groaned.

“Then what happened?”

“Don’t ask me!”

“For now, we should head to the ninth floor,” Ange said. Her face was a little red, perhaps as she had her arms wrapped around Claes’s neck, but she spoke with confidence. “We’re safe if we can make it past the ninth-floor keeper. Labyrinth monsters can’t enter its area; it will be a sort of safe zone.”

“I see what you mean, Ange, but only the students have the key to get past it,” said Claes. “We can take a breather if we beat the keeper, but we’ll still be cornered by the slimes.”

“Wouldn’t that be the same even if we got to the tenth floor?” Loren asked.

“Well, the tenth floor houses Wolfe’s treasure hoard, but there’s also a transfer gate back to the surface.”

“Then what’s stopping anyone from stealing the treasure from it?” Loren asked. Can’t they just stuff their pockets and jump into the gate? Even if it’s guarded—

“The thing is, there’s a guardian in front of the gate, and the gate isn’t active by default. The gate will activate with no trouble if you haven’t taken anything, but if you have, you need to defeat the guardian to use it.”

“Whatever it is, it won’t matter if we can’t get there,” Ange said, bringing the matter to a close.

“In that case, I have an idea,” said Lapis. “Let’s head for the tenth floor.”

“What kind of idea’s going to help us here?”

“I cannot divulge it just yet. However, I will say that there’s a chance we’ll be saved. For now, let’s search for this ninth-floor keeper and think about how to infiltrate the tenth floor.”

Claes and Ange exchanged a brief glance but quickly nodded. They had seemingly concluded that they might as well go along with Lapis’s proposal, at least until someone had a better idea.

“Then first, we’ll have to plan a route to our destination.”

“Leave it to me,” said Claes. “I’ve been down here longer than you two. I think I should be able to figure something out.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Loren. “It’ll be a while before we can get away though.”

That made the other three look back. They sighed at the sight of the surging semi-transparent wall. Loren and Claes picked up the pace while Lapis and Ange held on tight, taking great care not to get in the way.

Whatever happened next, doing something about the flood of slimes was their top priority. No matter how trained or gifted they were, Loren and Claes were both human, and no human could outrun exhaustion.

Even if they could push on for long periods of time, eternity was a different matter. It was clear that they would eventually run out of strength and be swallowed by the slimes.

“Claes, go swing your sword at them. I’ll hold Ange for you.”

“Are you telling me to die?!”

“Don’t worry. You can do it.”

“Your baseless trust is shady as hell!”

Loren kept urging him forward—who knew, maybe he’d really pull it off. Unfortunately, Claes shut him down; even his Boost, which increased his strength and abilities, wasn’t powerful enough to deal with the sheer mass of these slimes.

“You’re surprisingly useless.”

“How could you expect anyone to handle that with a single sword?!”

Screaming only served to expend more stamina.

You’re just shortening the time until the slimes catch up, Loren thought. But he was self-aware enough to know he had been the instigator, so he kept his mouth shut.

On and on, they ran and ran, turning corner after corner. Once they’d run out of straight corridors, they noticed the slime flood had lessened somewhat. They dropped their running speed ever so slightly, and when they next looked back, the slime flood was nowhere to be seen.

“Are we saved?”

“Why? How? No, we should be glad we’re alive…”

It was too anticlimactic; they had been suddenly rescued from peril for no apparent reason. Claes looked back and forth, clearly afraid that this was only the start of something far worse. Loren couldn’t justify the outcome either. He readied himself to deal with whatever was coming.

Then Scena projected herself in his vision. <Don’t worry, Mister. I took care of them.>

She looked triumphant, as if hoping to be praised for her work. She had hardly explained a thing, but Loren congratulated her in his head and asked for the details.

<I’ve been using my energy drain on the slimes to weaken and kill them.>

Slimes were thoroughly simple life-forms, but when enough gathered in one place, they could pose a threat to even Loren or Claes—a threat they had, until just now, been experiencing firsthand. Individually, however, they were far less concerning.

Bit by bit, so Lapis wouldn’t notice, Scena had stolen the slimes’ life force, one after another. There had been so many to target that the effects of her efforts hadn’t been immediately apparent. On top of that, Scena had been so wary of Lapis that she had exercised far less power than she otherwise would have.

<I can’t use too much at a time. Ms. Lapis almost noticed me before.>

Neither Loren nor Scena had any idea what Lapis might do if she realized a Lifeless King’s astral body was anchored to him. Loren worried that, as a priest, she would feel obligated to eradicate it, though he could also see Lapis treating them as a curious specimen to study and experiment on.

It was entirely possible that she would do something else altogether, but there was no doubt in Loren’s mind that it would be nothing good. Both Loren and Scena therefore took great care not to attract undue attention.

Be careful, Loren reminded her as he tried to play off the situation. “Did they find something else to eat?”

“The only other thing down here is the examinees. We’d have to save them, then…” Claes said, setting Ange on the ground.

“You want to go back and attract the slimes’ attention again?” Loren asked.

Claes had looked about to take off that very instant, and he appeared pretty displeased by Loren’s disagreement. He nevertheless seemed to see the sense in Loren’s words, and he stayed where he was.

“Then what?” he asked.

“First off, we need to know where we are. You said you’d know if we walked around a bit, right?”

“All right, we’ll start with that.”

As a proctor, Claes had been supplied with a map. He unfurled it and walked forward, with Loren following behind. There was nothing wrong with Ange’s body—she hadn’t been carried due to injury—so once the threat was gone, she could walk on her own feet. Lapis, however, couldn’t exactly explain the cause of her own situation and remained on Loren’s back.

“Was your priest injured?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m here because I like it.” Lapis dismissed Claes’s concern.

Loren helplessly smiled as if to back up her claim. For whatever reason, this made Ange glare at Claes enviously—perhaps because of all they’d heard about Claes being rather frivolous with women.

Claes forced a smile, picking up the pace to avoid her eyes.

A short while later, he stuck his finger on a point on the map. “We’re right here.”

Claes identified it so fast that Loren had some misgivings. While he had indeed told Claes to figure out their location, he hadn’t assumed it would be easy, or even possible. However, after taking a few turns using Claes’s indication as their basis, it soon became clear that he was right. Loren stared at him with honest-to-goodness amazement.

“It’s nothing special,” Claes insisted. “I came down here all the time as a student.”

“This is the first time I’ve ever been glad to be working with you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment, was it?”

Point being that, in Loren’s eyes, Claes apparently hadn’t done anything particularly compliment-worthy before.

In any case, so long as they knew their location, the map would show them the way to the stairs. They no longer had to worry about getting lost.

It wasn’t as if the missing examinees didn’t weigh on their minds, but they knew they would risk far more by searching for them. For now, their best bet was to return to the surface and explain the situation to the headmaster. They started off toward the stairs.

Or so they were just about to, when Claes came to a sudden stop. He cupped his hand over his ear and focused. Ange didn’t seem to know what he was doing, but Loren and Lapis had picked up the sounds as well.

“Did you hear that?” Claes asked.

“Sounds like a person…” Loren muttered. “We’re the only people who are supposed to be down here, right?”

“Yeah, so if it’s a human, it’s probably a student. So…”

“You want to check on ’em, right? Got it, you focus on the map.”

Claes was fundamentally a good person. He grew angry at everything that even looked like wrongdoing, and he couldn’t bear to be cruel to those who adored him. Of course, he was a bit faithless as a man, given his willingness to lay hands on his adorers, but as long as Ange handled that somehow or another, he would one day become quite the individual.

Though Claes wanted to escape the labyrinth as soon as the rest of them, having heard a voice that might potentially belong to a student, he couldn’t abandon them.

“You’re a lifesaver,” he said to Loren as they went. “I had my hands full as it was, just protecting Ange.”

“I can barely manage myself and Lapis. Don’t expect too much.”

“Still, if you and I work together, we should be able to recover one or two more.”

“Oi, that still means you intend to abandon the other five or six.”

“Yes, well…”

Claes mulled over Loren’s words, but even as the one who’d said it, Loren was beginning to think it was inevitable that a few of the kids would be left behind. He would help any students he could, but he didn’t see the reason in risking his own life to save them.

“We’ll get back to the rest. First, let’s check on this one…”

It was difficult work, tracking the origin of a sound in the labyrinth. Any noise bounced endlessly off the walls. Moreover, the whole place had been structured to function as a maze. There was no telling when a sound came from a crack beyond a wall or from another direction entirely.

Even so, they moved forward, relying on the fragmentary sobs, and somehow or another, they managed to pin down the source. In the end, they found a girl, up to her armpits in a transparent wall, half in tears as she struggled to break free. Her blonde ringlets were in disarray, and tentacles were reaching toward her, attempting to pull what was left of her exposed body into the wall.

While she struggled as much as she could, with nothing to grab on to, her efforts were ultimately futile. Slowly, inevitably, she would eventually be pulled in.

“Parmè!”

Parmè’s resigned face, sloppy with tears and snot, lit up the moment Claes called to her. But she quickly shook her head. “You can’t, Claes! Forget about me and run!”

“Do you think I could do that?!”

“I’m already done for. The slime has gotten this far—there’s no escape for me. It’s begun to digest me already… If you must offer me any last compassion, burn us together!”

“That’s…”

When a slime had eaten too much for a victim to be saved, burning them together was a mercy. It was far better than letting them suffer the pains of being melted alive until they ultimately died of suffocation. But Claes lacked the resolve to set her alight when she was still conscious and lucid.

“If you won’t do that for me, then please leave me. I don’t want you to see the slime swallow me whole.” Parmè wailed and pleaded, presumably picturing her own unsightly demise.

Unfortunately, Claes, being who he was, couldn’t willingly leave her to her fate. He stepped forward, hoping to pull her out, but the transparent slime wall reached its feelers toward him too.

“Ugh, I can’t even get close.”

“Oi, Claes, look after Lapis for me,” said Loren.

Even if Lapis couldn’t move properly, he suspected she was still able to stand. He lowered Lapis, handed her the torch, and tapped Claes on the shoulder—then strode over to the wall in which Parmè was lodged.

Naturally, the feelers reached out to him as they had with Claes, but Loren let them grab him, not even attempting to dodge. He stretched, reached—and grabbed Parmè by the scruff of her neck as she stared at him in a daze.

“Eh? Umm, sir…?”

“Hup!” Pouring all his strength into his arms, Loren forcefully tore the girl free. He heard ripping and tearing as he did, but he paid the sounds no mind as he tossed Parmè’s body behind him, toward Claes. With the same calm, he tore the slime feelers off his arms one by one and returned to the group.

“I knew you had to be strong, swinging that huge sword around…but you really are unbelievable,” said Claes.

“Anyone could do that if they trained hard enough.”

Claes shook his head as if to say, Yeah, I don’t think so.

Loren had to wonder if he had the right of it.

Either way, Claes was utterly relieved to have one student saved, even as Parmè let out a shrill cry, falling to her knees.

Their heads snapped toward her. What they saw was Parmè collapsed on the floor, using both hands to conceal her chest, her face bright red and teary. She was more than half-naked—she was barely wearing anything at all.

Claes and Loren turned back to the wall, where they saw the torn scraps of Parmè’s ruined clothes and undergarments swaying in the slime, and they finally understood what had happened.

“So that’s where that ripping sound came from…”

“Well, they were almost completely dissolved, so of course they wouldn’t hold up.”

Then they turned to their female counterparts.

As if to say “nope!” Lapis shoved the lit torch at Loren while Ange chucked her staff at Claes. Claes took the staff to the face, falling to his knees, while Loren just barely managed to catch the torch. Dutifully turning their backs to the three women, they began to burn down the wall.

Although she had been saved, Parmè sobbed and covered her face for a while more. It took a bit of consoling from Ange and Lapis, but she eventually regained her composure.

During that time, Claes raised his face again to see if she was all right, only to be silenced by Ange’s tightly clenched fist. Loren meekly devoted himself to the monotonous work of burning the slime with the light of the torch.

Once Parmè was stable, Ange produced a light blanket from her bags and wrapped it around her. Lapis checked her chemical burns and wounds. Knowing she had been trapped by a creature composed of strong acid, Lapis had been prepared to treat serious injuries. However, while Parmè’s burns weren’t light enough to be optimistic, neither were they serious enough to warrant pessimism.

“There’s nothing too serious, but the burns extend over nearly her entire body. Mr. Loren, may I use a Heal on her?” Lapis asked. She had determined that the injuries would definitely leave scars if left alone. She clearly found the thought of letting such a young girl be so dreadfully scarred rather pitiful, and Loren readily nodded.

“Go ahead, I don’t care.”

“Are you sure?”

For adventurers in a labyrinth—any adventurers at all, really—it was no exaggeration to say that a priest’s Heal blessing could be a matter of life and death. Given that, Claes seemed hesitant about this decision to use one of its limited uses on Parmè.

“Yeah, it’s probably a bad move from a combat perspective,” Loren agreed.

Parmè had lost all her equipment; she could no longer be counted as a combatant, and worse, she was practically a hindrance. Loren could see why someone would question the choice to treat wounds that didn’t seem to pose a threat to her life.

“She’s planning to become an adventurer too. I’m sure she has the resolve to bear scars,” muttered Claes.

“Maybe so. But it’s fine.” Loren placed a hand on his shoulder as if to say “Don’t think so hard about it.”

Claes let it go.

Nearby, Lapis readied herself to deploy her blessing. “O god of knowledge, would it kill you to sift through some of that stupidly expansive knowledge base of yours to pick out an appropriate method for treating this girl?”

“That’s not a real prayer, is it?!”

“Prayers have no definitive form,” Lapis said matter-of-factly as she touched Parmè’s body.

The blessing quickly took effect, healing the parts of Parmè’s body that had been eaten away by the slime. In fact, Parmè’s skin was even beginning to look healthier than it had before.

“Is it just me, or was that prayer more effective than nearly any I’ve seen before?” Ange muttered, sweat beading her brow. It was as if she was struggling to comprehend what she was witnessing.

“Salvation comes to those who believe,” Lapis intoned.

“So what’s the actual story?” Claes asked, but it wasn’t as if Loren had the answer.

“Like I know. Don’t ask me,” he grumbled. Maybe it’s because demons pack more punch in general.

At the same time, he couldn’t guarantee that the way Lapis worded her prayer had nothing to do with it.

“We can think about that later,” he said. “Now that Ringlets can move, we should get going. Not a single good thing will come of loitering around here.”

“I’m…sorry for the trouble.” Parmè hung her head. She had lost her arrogance from before.

However, that excess humility wouldn’t be good for morale. Loren tried to offset it with a joke. “Are you gonna parade around naked with a blanket?”

“I-I must graciously accept what I’ve been given.”

He had expected her to snap back, but she simply went along with it. If anything, her face reddened again. Loren was starting to fear he’d made it even worse when Lapis deftly sent him a lifeboat.

“Ange and I could at least offer some undergarments.”

“It’s an emergency, after all. I’ll give you whatever fits.”

Adventurers tended to pack as lightly as possible. They were expected to be in the field for long periods of time, and when sent off to hunt or explore, they generally carried only the bare essentials. All the same, even adventurers knew to pack spare undergarments, and Lapis and Ange were no exception.

Some might have wondered why anyone would waste the space, but an adventurer’s job generally entailed injury or mucking through filth. Sullied undergarments could worsen wounds or lead to illness. Those in the trade had learned this by experience.

While they often didn’t have the space to pack full changes of clothes, it was common sense to at least have replacements for the cloth that most directly touched one’s body.

“I have a spare set of boots you can borrow too,” said Ange.

Magicians didn’t have much in the way of heavy equipment, so they were often able to carry more supplies. This was true for Ange, who had packed boots, expecting her current pair might be ruined by a trap.

“For the top…mine will be a bit too loose. Ms. Ange’s look just right for you.”

“Grr…”

“As for the bottom…hmm? Ms. Ange’s will slip right off of you. There’s no helping it. You can have some of mine.”

“This doesn’t make any sense!”

“And on top of that… Mr. Loren, lend me a shirt.”

“You got it.”

Given Parmè’s height, Loren’s shirts were long enough to reach around halfway down her thighs. She wore a blanket over that, and when Lapis handed her a torch, she even had a role to play while she couldn’t participate in combat.

Parmè lowered her head. “I really am grateful to all of you. I will find some way to repay you…”

“Leave it for when we’re on the surface. We still don’t know if we’ll make it.” Loren tried to sound as businesslike as possible. If he gave her hope and they failed, that would make the subsequent despair even worse for her. He didn’t know what lay ahead of them, and he couldn’t let her assume she was safe.

“Parmè, do you know what happened to your peers?”

“I’m sorry, Claes. I had my hands full getting away. By the time I realized it, a slime had caught me. I don’t know where the others are.”

For a moment, Claes looked disappointed, but he swiftly regained his calm. Parmè was scrunching herself up apologetically, and he patted her on the head to reassure her.

“Claes…” Parmè’s cheeks flushed.

Ange angrily cleared her throat.

Loren had been absentmindedly watching this when Lapis came up beside him, holding the labyrinth map.

“Feeling a bit wistful?” she asked.

“You gotta be kidding me. That stuff’s just not for me. Don’t see what’s so good about it anyway.”

“That sounds like you, Mr. Loren. Incidentally, will we be heading straight for the ninth-floor keeper?”

Reuniting with Parmè had been an unforeseen complication. While they now had someone they needed to protect, Loren didn’t think it would impact their search too greatly. In fact, if anything, they were in an even bigger hurry to get to the surface, though they would still likely have to defeat the tenth floor’s guardian.

“Claes, Ange, you two protect Parmè. Lapis and I will deal with the enemies.”

“That’s not—no, you have a point,” Claes conceded. “Got it, leave her to us.”

First, they would need to find the keeper that guarded the exit from the ninth floor. Loren declared that he would handle it alone. Claes put up another brief objection, but after thinking it over, he relented.

He’s become pretty perceptive, Loren thought as he lined up with Lapis, who was slowly regaining control of her limbs, and walked at the fore.

 

“So, here we are…”

Not long after they rescued Parmè, they reached their destination. The only enemies they encountered along the way were slimes, and as they dodged and burned them, the party reached the location on the map where the keeper was said to be. Nothing awaited them there save for a motionless stone doll, both its hands and knees pressed against the floor.

It would have been taller than Loren if it were standing, but something must have happened. It showed no external signs of injury, yet neither did it show any signs of moving.

“Is this supposed to be the keeper?” Loren asked Claes, seeing as he’d been here before.

Claes nodded. “It’s a stone golem that the school made. But I didn’t expect it to be out of service.”

“Is it strong?” Loren asked, wanting to be sure.

Claes, with his knowledge of this specific labyrinth, and Lapis, with her abundant knowledge about everything in general, nodded at practically the same time.

“It’s weaker than a metal golem, but a stone golem is still a formidable foe. It’s no easy task to put one out of commission.”

“Good news for us, though. The question is: Who did it?”

They were about to enter the tenth floor without fighting anything to get there. However, someone must have done this to the golem, and whoever it was couldn’t have turned back here, satisfied with their handiwork. It was very likely they had gone on to the tenth floor. In that case, it was highly possible that their party would run into them.

“There’s barely a scratch on its surface.” Claes inspected the golem. “I recall it having a self-repair function. If someone managed to do enough damage to knock it out, it shouldn’t still look this good.”

“Then how’d they take it out?”

Even magic would have left burn marks or caused fragments to fleck off.

“If they went at it fair and square, there’s a blessing that causes damage without inflicting wounds,” said Claes.

“Are you talking about Force? That’s one of the few offensive blessings.” While Lapis half-confirmed his hypothesis, she shook her head. “Force is pure impact, and it rarely leaves wounds. However, it’s only an elementary blessing, and its output is feeble. Do you think a parlor trick like that could take out a stone golem?”

“Maybe not…”

“It might have worked if it were performed by a high-ranking priest. But why would a high-ranking priest be here? And why did they defeat the keeper?”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

They had too little information and no basis on which to make any decisions.

“What if it wasn’t fair and square?” Lapis asked Claes. “What means could they use?”

“I’d hate to think this was it, but the golem does have an abort key—it’s a password that changes every month… Naturally, the professors know it. Perhaps someone could have bought it off one of them.”

That would be a clear instance of cheating, hence why Claes would have preferred to dismiss the possibility. However, given the evidence before them, they needed to take it into consideration.

“Whatever it is, we have to go down and see,” said Loren.

“You’re not wrong about that.”

“Then let’s get going. Everyone, be prepared. Don’t let yourself be surprised, no matter what comes out.”

Beyond the unmoving stone golem, there was a door in the stone wall. Knowing it had to be the entrance to the tenth floor, Loren sent a signal to Lapis. She approached, turned the door’s knobs, pushed, then pulled, but it was all to no avail.

Having confirmed it was tightly sealed, Lapis placed her palm on the surface and muttered something under her breath.