1027. Just in case, I’m asking: do you know a friend called a salamander?
Encreed stopped walking and threw off the gauntlet he was originally wearing, which was tattered, torn, and reeked of burnt smell.
He considered putting on the one attached to his waist, but it didn’t fit at all. It was so big that it would have been too big even if he put it on his foot.
If you were going to give it to me, you should have at least gotten the measurements right.
I had indeed expected a great deal from the Balrog that had died by my hand. Of course, the Balrog was not a tailor; he had merely given me the equipment he had used just before his death, imbued with his remaining strength.
Encred needlessly reached into the gauntlet. Nothing happened. His hope that it might shrink on its own since it was infused with a spell vanished instantly.
It’s not working.
I had no choice but to walk with it dangling from my waist.
“Iterum? Since that comes after restoration, is it regeneration? Well, I suppose that’s what it means. The manifestation of spirit, and even the name Will that followed. The world has really changed a lot.”
Before I knew it, a phantom of Jitte appeared beside me and walked with me. I gained companions in the boring darkness.
And not just one, but two.
All you have to do is watch carefully.
Zion grumbled from the other side.
He had been walking for several more days. Ever since he survived wandering in the desert, he had always carried emergency rations.
This time was no different.
There was dried meat, ground grain flour, and even finger-sized chunks of preserved meat made by drying and crushing pork and lamb.
He had a considerable amount, but he wasn’t hungry. If he had to eat this again, he would starve to death in no time. After all, who knew how long he would be trapped here?
“I have never been trapped in a labyrinth myself, but since your body was dragged here after being etherealized, you won’t starve to death. Spirits do not live by eating, so the fact that your body was dragged into another dimension along with you is a unique occurrence in itself, though.”
Jitte Reduin. He is Lumen, the seeker of light, the one who observes and studies everything that exists in the world.
It was the same now. He gauged and explained what the darkness was that Enkrid had lost. This must be what a great boatman is.
“It’s all about just watching carefully, so what’s so hard about it? I knew it from the start.”
And this is Sion Bant.
Was his name the “Gangster Knight”?
“Hey, you had some disrespectful thoughts, didn’t you?”
Encred thought that if he added up all the days he had lived, he might be much older than Zion Bant.
“I can tell just by looking. I’ve been a boatman for quite a long time. My specialty was figuring out at a glance what the guys caught after me were thinking.”
Encred borrowed Sinar’s expression. He looked at Sion with such indifferent eyes and answered.
“What? What did you say? I was just thinking for a moment.”
“No, I heard everything.”
“Stop it, you pessimist.”
“Shut up, you worryer.”
The boatmen even gave each other nicknames. They suited each other quite well.
Encred encountered another monster with his rattling gauntlet strapped to him. It wasn’t always the case that he would face opponents who forced him to repeat today while burning his life away.
Bang!
Coo!
It was a monster with the head of a bull and a silver axe. It was a Minotaur. Its size was larger than any I had ever seen.
There were five of them, and they moved in perfect unison, as if they were quintuplets.
When one struck from above, another aimed for the legs; yet another intimidated from behind, using murderous intent as a weapon, while two others followed up with follow-up attacks from the left and right.
It was a relentless barrage of attacks with no room to breathe. Encred blocked the attack from the left by catching the axe falling from above with his blade and pushing it away, while kicking the blade of the one charging from the right. At the same time, he dodged the axe flying toward his shin while keeping his body parallel to the ground.
Every movement was as natural as if they were performing a pre-arranged sparring match.
Encred felt like a long-lost brother, the sixth to join the five pairs of Minotaurs.
“Where are the demons of the Demon Realm born? That has always been a question. The prevailing theory is that some cross over from another dimension, and others are born by grafting onto this land.”
In the meantime, a hallucination of Jitte appeared and chimed in, and Encred split the heads of two of the five bull heads.
He burrowed into one, thrust his sword upward from below, and pulled to split it apart; as the other charged at him thinking his back was exposed, he infused Will into his cloak to block him, then stepped his right foot outward and struck its head with a modified upper horizontal slash, almost like a light tap. That alone split the Minotaur’s skull.
The superiority of his skill, demonstrated in just two movements, was clear. Killing the remaining three was not that difficult.
In the process, Encred became more accustomed to the technique of using Will.
If you put Will in the cloak to replace the iron armor.
It is more efficient than wrapping it around the body. It is a technique made possible because it is a cloak made of thread specially woven by a fairy. In any case, Will’s usefulness has clearly increased.
Even if it isn’t a high-quality weapon, as long as you adjust its use, you can simply transfer Will anywhere.
Come to think of it, it was a technique Rem was already proficient at. After all, he would infuse the bullets used for his sling with magical power through transference and throw them.
Transfers and maintains.
He quickly got the hang of it. After all, there was an endless supply of targets for practice.
It was the perfect environment to wear people down to death, but Encred enjoyed it.
Why practice so much when all you have to do is watch well?
It was a remark Zion often made. Jitte repeatedly praised him while ignoring the pessimist’s words.
“That’s a good attitude. If we had met while you were alive, I would have taken you along as my attendant.”
“Who takes whom as an attendant? I told you, just looking after them is enough. You can’t even do that, really.”
“Was you always this whiny?”
Jitte is a tree.
“Uh, what, so what? Whining? Hey, I just gave the correct answer.”
Sion whined like a seven-year-old rather than a boatman. In any case, Encred continued walking while listening to the duet between the spoiled brat and the inquisitive knight. Aside from the monsters, it was relentlessly dark.
Even when a monster appeared, it was usually just a solitary presence in the pitch-black darkness.
Was it a relief that the ground wasn’t slushy like mud or that his ankles sank deep into the sand?
He didn’t know. Even though he was told his body was half spirit, that wasn’t a concept he honestly fully understood.
As he walked, he suddenly felt heat. Along with the stifling heat, the texture of the ground felt through his boots changed. The ground beneath his feet became slushy. After that, it began to rain.
It wasn’t just rain. It was rain made of flames that brightly illuminated the darkness. If it were a spell, he would have cut it away, but he couldn’t feel the slightest flow of magic.
The falling streams of flame stretched out long. There were countless numbers. His thoughts accelerated, and the surrounding environment came into view in an instant.
Red water flowed here and there, and where he stood was the starting point of a terrain that was gradually turning into an uphill slope.
Several large and small rocks were visible, each riddled with holes and in the process of melting. In this situation, rain of fire poured down from above.
Gaaah-
A sound echoed, the kind one would expect to hear during a natural disaster—like a thunderbolt or a raging wind.
An intimidating pressure, one possessing a force comparable to a dragon’s incantation, crushed his entire body.
Naturally, Encred instantly deflected it with his Will of Refusal.
He moved behind a suitable rock to take cover in the ensuing rain of flames. The streaks of fire fell diagonally from the distance, not from the sky.
Encred saw a mountain erupting with streams of bright red lava, and a bird perched atop it.
Even from this vantage point, it was a bird larger than an ordinary fortress, and it was a creature encased in flames from head to toe. There was
not even the smell of burnt metal; instead, it was a mixture of the distinctive scent of melting iron in a forge, sulfur, a faint stench of blood, and the smell of rusted metal.
Intuitively, it simply smelled like the fire of burning everything.
Rumble!
In the meantime, a bolt of fire struck. It was a bolt of lightning five times larger than the one a witch had shown in front of the thorny fortress wall of the Demon Realm long ago.
Bang!
It tore through the air and burst the earth. Lava shot in all directions, and explosions occurred as the ground burst one after another.
Due to the rocks that exploded amidst the storm, stone fragments hurled around.
The cloak stretched to wrap around his entire body, and he placed Will inside it. A rock shielded him right above his head.
Although it was not the right thing to say in a situation like this, Encred’s mouth moved on its own due to an irresistible urge.
“Zion, do I just need to look closely at this too?”
The being that caused all these phenomena exists atop the mountaintop. It is a bird and a phenomenon made of fire.
An otherworldly being, whose power the wizard borrows, had been entangled in the labyrinth and was expressing its rage.
Even if the entire Knights Order came, not just a single knight, it would be difficult to guarantee a victory. Sagong Sion opened his mouth.
“This is, um.”
“Yes.”
Encreed showed an attentive attitude in the midst of it all. They say he only needs to watch, but his talent is real. Couldn’t he see something he hasn’t seen even at this very moment?
Watch carefully.
Zion spoke in a mumbled tone. His voice was so quiet that you had to strain to hear it.
Are you watching carefully?
Encred repeated it. His tone was questioning, rising at the end of his sentence.
“You have to avoid it. Figure out the rest yourself. Do I have to tell you everything?”
“Is that it?”
Sion suddenly pulled his robe over his head and spoke.
Why go to such trouble when you are going to be trapped in today anyway?
Encreed burst out laughing. The funny thing is, he ended up becoming close with the boatman here. That last remark was the boatman’s declaration of surrender. He was running away while bringing back the attitude he had when he was pessimistic.
“It’s not the time to laugh, but hey, laughing is good.”
Jitte spoke.
Enkrid knows that staring intently at something won’t solve anything. So he thought.
What should I do?
There is no way back. Even if there were, I wouldn’t take it, but this labyrinth offered no other path than to fight and kill the monsters I encountered.
To put it simply, if the path I’ve walked so far is a passageway, this place is a room where the door locks automatically upon entry.
Though it is too big and hot to be called a room.
But could I really kill something like that? It’s not doubt; it’s a estimation. To estimate is an expression of the resolve to attempt it.
Shall I make it explode with waves?
All sorts of thoughts swirled in his mind. Encred simplified every thought and arranged them in order. Zion’s words—that one just needs to look closely—were true in some respects. Observe and think. Estimate and measure.
First, climb the mountain.
Even now, the air is so thick that it is difficult to breathe. Along with the smell of sulfur, the odor—which is strong enough to be called a metallic, burning smell—is caused by the burning of even the air necessary for breathing.
Hold your breath and hang in there.
Encreed poked his head out and surveyed the area outside the rock. The lightning hadn’t struck in succession. There were gaps. He could use those.
He spotted holes here and there, or a few spots where he could at least breathe.
A route formed in his mind. Lost in thought, Encreed’s eyes sparkled.
Yeah, you’re watching closely right now.
Sion muttered inside his robe. His words about seeing well must have carried a great deal of meaning.
Still, he understood. What he meant by seeing was everything necessary for thinking and acting.
Sion was simply worse at speaking than Rem. Of course, Rem would have felt quite wronged if she had heard that.
“Hey, Captain. What are you doing? Are you comparing me to a boatman who acts like a seven-year-old kid who’s wasted his years, constantly telling me to just watch?”
Encred leaned back and caught his breath. Seeing him lost in thought, Zion muttered again.
“You’re having disrespectful thoughts again, aren’t you?”
Anyway, the observation skills are good.
Think and think again. The answer is there.
Jitte spoke. Encrid turned and jumped forward. The rain of flames thinned slightly as the lightning struck.
It wasn’t really falling in dense streaks like rain.
Well then, whatever.
See and dodge. Is it even possible to see and dodge thousands of arrows?
Encred ran, blocking and deflecting with the blade of his sword anything he absolutely could not avoid today.
He narrowed the space by leaping forward. He stepped onto a boulder jutting out above the path leading upward.
Normally, a hole would have been torn in the sole of his boot, but he endured by protecting himself with Willow and maintaining his balance with his soles.
If he stepped on lava, those boots, which were barely holding up now, would burn up. The floor was already wobbly enough.
Even though this was an object that Eitri had worked on.
As he ran, Encred felt an ominous premonition. In an instant, everything in the world slowed down. His thoughts accelerated much faster than usual as he perceived his surroundings.
The moment everything he saw as a mere dot came to a halt, a single red streak flashed in a zigzag pattern above his head and approached.
bang!
The spot where Encred had stood was deeply gouged. Encred did not die because he threw himself at the jolt of his instinct.
Instead, his right boot was completely burned.
“again.”
Encred muttered and ran again. He dodged lightning five more times after that.
Every moment of climbing the mountain was a feat of acrobatics. As he ran and jumped higher, another host greeted him in addition to the Firebird. It was a ball of fire that had no eyes, nose, or mouth, but walked on all fours and took the form of a beast. There were a total of three of them, and they were larger than an average bear.
“Just in case, I’m asking: do you know a friend named Salamander?”
Needless to say, he was not someone with whom one could have a conversation. Encred showed off the skills he had become accustomed to while wandering through the labyrinth.
