Labyrinth, Second Floor (1)
“Uru…?”
“Urrrk?”
Amidst the dense foliage, cries of confusion echoed. Frogs with camouflaged heads blinked their eyes in bewilderment. They had never seen humans soar so high before. Humans were supposed to be creatures that stumbled clumsily on two legs, easy prey that fell with a single blow.
“Urrrr?”
These creatures, possessing a rather advanced cognitive system, were more puzzled than frightened. And so, their last chance to flee slipped away.
Thud—
High above, the warrior’s body twisted in mid-air. Ripples spread from his feet as if he were stepping on the sky.
Urrrrr…
A thunderous sound, resonating from beyond the realm of thought, vibrated through his arms and hands. It was a sense of liberation he hadn’t felt in ages. With eyes gleaming with magical light, Dalen looked down at the ground, a broad smile on his lips.
Ssssss—
A haze began at his shoulders, running down his arms, growing stronger and transforming into a whirlwind.
Boom!
A roar and flash erupted from the tip of his sword, merging with the energy of destruction to become a single beam of light. And then—
Flash!
A bolt of lightning struck the dry night sky.
Crack!
A storm erupted in the midst of the thicket. It was a tempest of soft flesh, sharp teeth, hard bone fragments, and scattered leaves mixed with blood and entrails. The frogmen, their shadows reversed by the blinding flash, were torn apart by the ensuing storm.
Urrrrr!
Gurrrk!
Cries of confusion reverberated through the foliage. The retreating frogmen seemed to make the forest itself recede. In the center of it all, amidst a swampy pit littered with black blood and entrails, Dalen dusted himself off and gripped his sword firmly. The hunt had begun.
Swish!
The holy sword gleamed. A head floated into the air. The frog head, unaware of the attack, didn’t even realize it had been severed from its body. Before the head hit the ground, Dalen swung his sword twice more, passing by the headless body.
Slash!
The sword cut from left to right, scattering dozens of clawed limbs into the air.
Crunch—
With another step, he reversed the trajectory, spilling entrails and split heads. The holy sword moved without pause, slicing from left to right, top to bottom, diagonally upward, and piercing through chests. It was like a dance, a dance of death that scattered black blood and entrails, summoning the demise of the creatures.
The first lightning strike had torn apart dozens of frogmen, and the ensuing brief dance had sent an equal number of frog heads rolling into the swamp. It was only then that the frogmen regained their senses.
Urrrrrr!
A cry of retaliation echoed. It was not a hunt, but a call to drive out the predator invading their territory. Retreating meant abandoning their eggs and nests. They couldn’t flee just because a mere hundred or so had died.
Snap!
A frog’s maw suddenly emerged from the underbrush. There was no noticeable presence, no usual croaking. Amidst the constant echo of the frogmen’s unique wails, the real threat approached silently. A fist-sized tooth aimed for the warrior’s neck, its sharp tip glistening with venom.
Dalen didn’t turn around. He merely moved his lips slightly and flicked the fingers of his left hand, which held the sword.
Crack!
In the next moment, a hand axe, surrounded by blue electricity, lodged itself in the gaping maw.
Urrrrk!
Zap!
The electrified axe split the skull and emerged. Inside the gaping skull, charred brain matter and cerebral fluid fell out. The hand axe, as if it had a will of its own, began to scour the underbrush, sweeping around Dalen. The frogmen’s screams followed the flashing trajectory. Dalen moved again, slicing through the frogmen injured by the axe and splitting the heads of those shocked into paralysis.
Black blood and entrails covered the underbrush. The splattering blood rendered their camouflage almost meaningless. By then, the special forces had also regained their composure and reformed their ranks. Sasha Taran, the enforcer, shouted.
“Special forces! Form a circle!”
At her command, the agents swiftly rearranged their formation. From the scattered formation post-teleportation, it took only a dozen seconds to establish a three-layered firing line in a circle. As they moved, their loaded rifles aimed in all directions. The sights were set on the camouflaged frogmen’s heads.
“First line, fire!”
Rat-a-tat-tat!
The muzzles flared, and the frogmen fell under the hail of lead. As the first line reloaded, the second and third lines unleashed their own volleys. As the frogmen pushed through the rain of bullets, Bjorn’s grenades flew into the gaps, as if waiting for the moment.
“Heh heh! Take this!”
Boom! Boom!
The blast pressure crushed skin, and shrapnel shattered bone and muscle. The frogmen were swept away by the grenade explosions, toppling like dominoes. Their ranks, already in tatters from three rounds of volleys, couldn’t withstand the additional grenade barrage.
“Fire!”
Rat-a-tat-tat!
After a swift reload, another rain of bullets poured down. Alternating between rifles and pistols, the special forces skillfully minimized the gaps in their barrage. Any unavoidable gaps were filled by Bjorn’s fire support, and the frogmen’s corpses piled up like barricades around the group. Meanwhile, in the midst of the frogmen’s ranks, twice as many bodies were piling up.
Even the dominant tribe of the southern swamp of the first floor had its limits in numbers.
Urrrrr!
Warrk! Urrrrrk!
Eventually, the frogmen, hesitating and retreating one by one, turned and fled. They had even abandoned their camouflage and resorted to a reckless charge, but it was futile. The primitive claymores Bjorn had quickly set around the formation unleashed hundreds of lead pellets in their faces, thwarting their final assault.
With nearly half of the attacking frogmen dead and the rest fleeing, Dalen wiped the blood and entrails from his holy sword with a cloth. Sasha Taran approached him with a sigh.
“I’m sorry. My judgment was rash. The labyrinth is not a place to be taken lightly.”
She bowed her head deeply. Without Dalen and Bjorn, it wouldn’t have been surprising if they had been wiped out. Despite equipping skilled marksmen with the latest weapons and preparing with proven strategies and prior knowledge, the labyrinth, a realm where monsters formed their own ecosystem, could turn even the elite forces into a heap of corpses in an instant.
“Now I understand why you demanded such a high fee. Once the mission is complete and we return home, I’ll ensure your requests are fulfilled as quickly as possible.”
“Very well.”
Dalen sheathed his sword and stood up. He felt good, having stretched his body after a long time. The frogmen had provided more experience points than he expected. Monsters raised in the unique environment of the labyrinth were indeed stronger and tougher than those on the continent. This meant more experience points, a welcome development for Dalen, who had been struggling to level up recently.
“Are the preparations complete?”
“The equipment check is done. After a brief rest, we can move…”
“Rest later.”
Dalen said, retrieving his axe from a frog head and securing it at his waist.
“We need to catch up with the advance party. I’ve been paid to guide you, so I must do my job.”
“But the fatigue from the battle…”
“You can sleep later tonight. Let’s move out now.”
With that, Dalen began to walk. Sasha, who had hired him as a guide, paled at his words.
At the southern edge of the first floor of the labyrinth, the entrance to the next level was a gentle cave starting from a hill in the middle of the swamp. It was a massive cave, large enough for sixty people to enter at once without feeling cramped. The labyrinth, a world with its own ecosystem separate from the surface continent, naturally housed various native creatures within such caves. And it went without saying that these native creatures were monsters capable of devouring humans as mere snacks.
Screeech!
A giant centipede lunged with its venomous fangs. Instead of flesh, a hand axe was lodged between its fangs.
Screech—! Screech—!
A swarm of bats with tentacle-like appendages swooped down, their hunger for human flesh met with bullets and axes.
Giant beetles the size of large dogs shot poisonous darts.
Ground spiders with twenty shaggy legs ensnared their prey.
Water serpents lay in wait in the cave’s pools, while slate-colored slimes dropped stalactites to crush their victims’ heads.
The first level of the labyrinth was a chaotic battleground of monsters vying for dominance, but the descent to the second level was a hell beyond comparison.
Without Dalen’s timely advice and assistance, the special task force might have been wiped out in a single day.
Two days passed in the pitch-black darkness where you couldn’t see an inch ahead.
“The losses to the advance team… might be worse than we thought.”
On the second night in the labyrinth, Sasha Taran murmured absentmindedly by the campfire, set up in the burrow of a beetle the size of a house.
Dalen paused from eating the leftover stew to look at her.
Her fingers nervously picked at her lips, her eyes wandering in the void.
It was a face he hadn’t seen during the day as they traversed the cave. She likely couldn’t show weakness in front of her subordinates.
Now, with everyone but Dalen and Bjorn asleep, she could finally let her guard down.
“It might not be that bad. At least a third of them should have survived.”
Dalen swallowed his stew and spoke. A little reassurance seemed in order.
Even a task force officer is human, and bottled-up negative emotions eventually explode.
Sasha looked at him, bewildered by his unexpected response, and Dalen added calmly, “They had a good guide with them.”
“You mean the informant from the Crow’s Nest? I heard you’ve dealt with them a few times, but I also heard they have no experience in the labyrinth.”
“But who knows the labyrinth better than an informant from the Labyrinth City?”
And their personal combat skills are on par with most explorers. He left the last part unsaid.
Not much was known about Sienna, the informant from the Crow’s Nest. Her identity as the Feathered Witch was known, but little else about her origins or background.
Her combat abilities were equally mysterious, though it was vaguely known she could expertly handle a five-shot crossbow and deal with unruly mercenaries in taverns.
Sasha still seemed unsure, but Dalen’s reassurance had some effect, as her expression relaxed slightly.
At that moment, a dwarf who had been quietly sipping his drink chimed in.
“So, what’s the plan once we reach the second level? Even if we’re lucky and reach the entrance quickly, Sienna and the advance team are still about ten days ahead.”
“I’ve been worried about that too. I heard the second level is a vast desert. Without a shortcut, how will we catch up to the advance team…?”
Dalen scratched his chin and silently extended his hand to Bjorn.
The dwarf hesitated for a moment before reluctantly handing over the bottle.
After taking a swig of the strong liquor, Dalen chuckled and gave his answer.
“We’ll catch a ride.”
“A ride?”
“Actually, this time, it might be more like catching a bus.”
Bjorn raised an eyebrow, puzzled. Dalen just smiled and took another drink.
Back when this entire continent and labyrinth were just pixels on a screen, Dalen often used local transportation in the second level, just as he had on the first.
Seeing Sasha’s eyes tremble again at his plan, Dalen thought it was a relief that Lucia, the blonde paladin prone to motion sickness, wasn’t part of this journey.