X
In an instant, all the surrounding residents turned to dust.
“It’s quiet now.”
Lorelai remarked.
Indeed, aside from the footsteps of the four travelers, no other sound could be heard.
“I didn’t hear that. How long did you say it would take?”
Hay asked Stan again.
“Usually, you can find the exit within an hour. If I were alone, I could find it in less than five minutes.”
Stan finished his unspoken thought. Lorelai, hearing this, let out a small laugh.
“That’s a lie. A few years ago, when we returned from Arcavia, he griped endlessly about it taking five hours.”
“Why are you bringing up old stories? That was because we unluckily ran into a monster, I tell you.”
Stan retorted.
Kaaaaaah—
No sooner had he spoken than the cry of a beast echoed from afar.
It was less a cry and more a monstrous roar.
“There are monsters here too?”
Renki asked, hunching his shoulders.
“There are five of them, all very frightening and powerful.”
Stan exaggerated, seemingly trying to intimidate them.
Unfortunately, thirteen-year-old Renki was not easily scared. Instead, his eyes sparkled with curiosity.
“How strong are they? Stronger than Master?”
“Do you honestly think they’d be stronger than me?”
“I heard they are strong. They’re not just ordinary monsters; they can’t even be killed.”
Lorelai offered.
Stan, who had been swaggering, shot Lorelai a sidelong glance, but she didn’t even look his way.
“If they’re not ordinary monsters, then what are they?”
“They are guardians created by the mages of the Old Magic Kingdom to protect their magical lands from demons. Unlike monsters born from magic, these are chimeras crafted with powerfully processed magic stones as their hearts.”
This time, it was Hay who answered, not Stan or Lorelai.
Stan arched his dark eyebrows high.
“How do you know that? People outside Arcavia don’t usually know such things.”
“Unlike ordinary people, I’m a spirit user, aren’t I? My master told me when I was young.”
“Ah, right. The fairies would certainly know about the Mirror Labyrinth.”
Stan easily accepted this, shrugging his shoulders.
“Then you must also know that this labyrinth was originally the land of the Magic Kingdom, correct?”
Stan inquired. Hay nodded.
“You told *me* you didn’t know much about the Mirror Labyrinth, though.”
Renki grumbled. He was referring to when he had asked about the Mirror Labyrinth and Arcavia while packing to move to Stan’s house.
“It’s true. I don’t know much.”
Hellheim had never been one to thoroughly teach anything, so Hay genuinely knew little about the Mirror Labyrinth.
Otherwise, why would he have been asking Stan all those questions just now?
“Then, aside from that, what else do you know, Mr. Styles?”
Lorelai asked. Hay shrugged.
“Only that the collapse of the Old Magic Kingdom is connected to these guardians, and their names.”
That, and the reason Arcavia had specifically chosen this place as the passageway to their own lands.
“The guardians have names too?”
Renki asked. At that moment, Stan stopped walking and turned to face the three of them.
“Hey! Don’t say those names here.”
His face was stern, devoid of any humor.
Of course, Hay had no intention of speaking their names.
To Renki, who looked puzzled, Lorelai crinkled her nose and explained, “If you call out the names of the monsters in the Mirror Labyrinth, they will come. Just as a spirit user summons a contracted spirit by calling its name, they say these monsters will eerily hear their names from anywhere in this vast Mirror Labyrinth and rush toward you.”
Renki gasped softly and nodded.
He even shivered, imagining unknown monsters, comparable to archmages, rushing towards them in a flurry.
“What if we accidentally run into one?”
“Unless you call their names, it’s highly unlikely you’ll run into one by chance. In the past hundred years, only three people, including myself, have encountered a monster while traversing the Mirror Labyrinth.”
“But what if we *do* run into one?”
“Then you need to find the exit and flee as fast as you can. So, pay attention and follow closely. Especially when you get close to the exit, never let your guard down. You’ll get lost the moment you’re distracted.”
Stan said indifferently. He resumed walking.
A breeze swept from behind them. His neck felt clammy, and a sense of foreboding settled over him.
Hay watched Stan’s red head and fidgeted with his staff.
Stan had lied about one thing. As far as Hay knew, there were not five, but six guardians in the Mirror Labyrinth.
‘I’ve fought all the monsters in the labyrinth, but there’s one out of the six that I haven’t fought yet. And even I wouldn’t want to run into that one.’
Hellheim had said so.
‘That one is the main culprit behind the destruction of the Old Magic Kingdom.’
****
How much had they walked?
It felt like a considerable time had passed since they started walking after arriving at the labyrinth. Renki subtly massaged his legs, clearly tired, and Lorelai yawned.
Having departed from the Demonic estate deep in the night, it was understandable that everyone was exhausted.
Stan, who hadn’t slept properly for several days, also looked quite haggard. Hay, too, was equally fatigued, having not rested properly since his morning training.
They were following the magical compass that had appeared beneath Stan’s feet, yet there was no telling when the exit would appear.
“How much further do we have to go?”
“It should be appearing soon.”
Stan replied calmly to Lorelai’s question.
They were just passing a waterfall.
Renki, intrigued, fixed his gaze on the waterfall. Mist rose from the cascading water, which churned with white foam.
“I can’t hear the sound of the water.”
True to his words, not a single sound of rushing water could be heard.
Nor could anything be felt from the mist that touched their skin.
It was as if they were watching a scene from a silent, black-and-white film.
“Ah!”
Renki, who had been walking while watching the waterfall, bumped into Stan’s back. Stan had suddenly stopped.
“Damn it.”
Upon closer inspection, he was bleeding from his nose.
It seemed to be from fatigue.
“You drank a healing potion before we left. Are you still tired?”
Lorelai clicked her tongue, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket and offering it. Stan roughly pinched his nose.
Seeing this, Hay stepped closer and instantly conjured a sphere of healing water.
“Drink this.”
“I don’t need it.”
“It seems you haven’t been sleeping. If you collapse here, we won’t be able to leave. Just drink it.”
Stan glared at Hay, displeased, but since it was true, he accepted and drank it silently. Perhaps because of it, his nosebleed stopped almost immediately.
“Is it because it’s spring water? It’s quite effective, isn’t it?”
Stan twitched an eyebrow and started walking again.
After passing the waterfall and walking for a considerable time, they reached the edge of a precipice.
A river flowed far below. Stan stopped at the very edge.
“There’s no path.”
Renki said, glancing down the cliff. There was no visible path to descend either.
“What’s there to worry about? We can fly.”
Stan grabbed the handle of Lorelai’s wheelchair. Hay extended a hand to Renki.
Renki adjusted the strap of his bag, which had slipped down his shoulder, and took Hay’s wrist.
“We’re going down there?”
Lorelai asked, her voice trembling.
“Yep.”
Stan mercilessly pushed Lorelai’s wheelchair off the precipice.
Lorelai squeezed her eyes shut, gripping the armrests of her chair tightly.
The wheelchair, propelled into the air, did not plummet.
“Follow closely. As I said before, don’t fall more than three paces behind.”
Stan instructed, suspended in the air with Lorelai.
Then, they plummeted downward.
“This is falling!”
Lorelai shrieked.
Hay, gripping Renki’s wrist, also launched himself off the edge almost simultaneously.
Utilizing
“Master.”
At Renki’s call, Hay merely turned his eyes to look at him.
He was staring at the cliff face.
“The wall is staring at us.”
‘What nonsense is he talking about?’
Hay frowned and followed Renki’s gaze.
Hundreds of glassy eyes were embedded in the cliff. All of them were tracking the four travelers. A shiver instantly ran down his spine.
The name of one of the labyrinth’s guardians, which Hellheim had told him about, flashed through his mind.
A rock lizard, the size of a fortress, with 362 glassy eyes made of magic stones.
Belgadon.
“Stan!”
As Hay shouted, the wall moved.
The guardian, clinging to the long cliff, rose to its feet.
With its movement, a section of the cliff crumbled, and its camouflage faded, revealing a mottled pattern of dark and light shades.
“Damn it, speed up!”
Stan yelled. Hay stomped on the air, increasing their descent speed.
At that moment, Belgadon’s tail whipped towards them. Specifically, it was aimed at Hay and Renki.
Hay deployed
*CRASH!*
However, the shield shattered uselessly.
Just as the tail was about to strike them, a red barrier unfurled directly in front of them.
*THUD!*
Even so, the shockwave transferred through the barrier.
Moreover, Belgadon’s tail was not the only one.
*BOOM!*
The second attack cracked Stan’s barrier. Hay gritted his teeth.
As soon as the distance between them and Stan threatened to widen, Hay accelerated, descending in parallel. The river was now directly before them.
“Mr. Styles! Are you alright?!”
Lorelai called out. There was no time to answer. Belgadon pursued them up the cliff with terrifying speed, opening its maw towards the four.
Hay turned towards Belgadon and conjured a colossal, harpoon-sized
“Nix, Nora.”
*CRUNCH—*
At Hay’s call, a giant black wolf erupted from the cliff, biting Belgadon’s nape. Nix, rising from the river, also swiftly coiled around its body, constricting it.
Despite Nix and Nora’s unusual size, they seemed tiny compared to the monster.
“Styles, forward!”
Just before hitting the river, Stan and Hay simultaneously pushed off, launching themselves straight ahead. Immediately after, Nix dragged the monster into the river.
A colossal spray of water erupted behind them.
“I found the exit! Speed up!”
At Stan’s words, Hay looked up.
At the end of the river, a silver light shimmered.
The light, initially no bigger than a speck of dust, grew larger as they approached, becoming a portal large enough to swallow all four of them with room to spare.
Only a few seconds of distance remained.
[“Dodge!”]
At Nix’s shout, Stan and Hay split to either side.
By a hair’s breadth, the colossal lizard burst from the water’s surface.
Belgadon had Nora clamped in its maw.
[“You ugly thing! Let go of me!”]
Nora thrashed, creating dozens of spears from its body and embedding them into Belgadon’s throat.
*CRACKLE!*
Yet, it easily shattered Nora’s body.
With that, Nora’s summoning was broken.
“Insane.”
Hay slid across the water’s surface, launching
It was useless, as expected.
Nix roared, flinging its body onto the water. Its massive form tilted, striking the surface.
The river created towering waves that engulfed Hay and Renki.
Simultaneously, an unknown explosion occurred.
The shockwave slammed into both of them, and Nix, seemingly caught in it, also had its summoning abruptly cut off.
While being swept away by the strong current, Hay felt a sudden emptiness in his left hand.
‘Damn it!’
It was the hand that had been holding Renki.
Hay immediately used the power of wind to create a whirlwind, launching himself out of the water.
“Cough, cough!”
He spat out the water he had swallowed and looked up.
Just as he was about to summon a spirit to find Renki, he looked around at the changed scenery.
The river was gone.
The monster was gone.
The dizzying cliff they had just jumped from, and the dense forest, were also gone.
“…This is utterly fucked.”
He stood alone in a desolate, gray city.
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