The Teleportation Labyrinth.
At first glance, it looked like nothing more than a cave.
There was nothing special about it.
Just a hole in the side of a cliff.
Spider monsters infested the surroundings, and webs blanketed the walls thickly, but that was all.
Even in a photograph, it probably wouldn't evoke any particular emotion.
But seeing it in person was different.
There was something about it that instantly screamed "labyrinth."
Something ominous.
And yet, something that stoked my curiosity.
Was every labyrinth wrapped in this kind of atmosphere?
"Well, Rudeus. We go as planned, got it?"
"Got it."
Paul clapped me on the shoulder, and I nodded.
We formed up exactly as we'd discussed the day before and stepped into the labyrinth.
It was my first time in a labyrinth, but I wasn't exactly bursting with excitement.
All I felt was the pressure of knowing I couldn't afford to make mistakes.
"Master, good fortune upon you."
"Everyone, please be careful."
Lilia, Vera, and Sera would ride back to town on horseback from here.
When large clans conquered a labyrinth, support personnel sometimes set up camp at the entrance.
Fortunately, Lapan was only a day's travel away—or half a day if we pushed it.
There was no need to camp out in front of the cave.
"Alright."
It was dark inside the cave, but not so dark that you couldn't see anything.
The interior gave off a faint glow, keeping things dimly lit.
Still, this level of darkness could easily prove fatal.
"I'll light us up."
"Go for it."
Right after entering, I used one of the spirit scrolls Nanahoshi had given me.
A brightly glowing spirit took flight and circled above our heads.
Geese activated a scroll of his own, just as I had.
He was serving as our scout, so he needed a separate light source from the rest of us.
We'd tested it the day before, and the scrolls worked for Geese and Paul too.
Naturally, I could sustain the light the longest since I could draw on more mana, but the actual mana consumption was supposedly minimal.
I'd been happy about the prospect of not having to carry a torch anymore.
Having a free hand really did make a difference.
The spirit's light was brighter than a torch, and it lasted longer on less mana.
If these became widely available, torches might disappear from the market entirely.
"Paul, your son sure brings along some handy things."
"Well, can't complain. Proud of the kid."
Paul puffed out his chest proudly, and Talhand gave an exasperated reply.
"You yourself don't seem much like a father worth being proud of."
"Cut it out. It already bugs me."
Paul's shoulders slumped with a sigh.
"Come on, let's move, yeah?"
Geese's words pushed us deeper into the cave.
---
First floor.
We walked through the ant-hill-like cavern.
White threads were strung thickly across the walls and ceiling, and beyond them, pale-blue teleportation circles glowed.
A light spirit with the brightness of a fluorescent lamp led the way ahead of us.
"Some of the magic circles don't glow, so we need to be careful, right?"
"That's right, Rudeus. Stay right in Geese's footsteps."
Geese was about ten paces ahead of us.
He wore special boots.
His footsteps left deep cross-shaped marks in the ground.
Iron plates shaped like crosses were bolted to the soles.
Of course, they weren't
magic-infused items.
They were born from an adventurer's ingenuity.
They served as anti-slip grips and clearly marked his footprints—a handy tool.
On this first floor, though, finding the teleportation circles was easy enough.
The monsters that appeared on the first floor were
Vizquilba Spiders.
The floor, however, was crawling with other spiders that the Vizquilba Spiders preyed on, plus small baby spiders that hadn't yet fully grown.
The sight would probably make anyone with arachnophobia pass out.
Amid the sea of spiders, there were patches of bare, empty space—spaces marked out in circles or squares. That was where the teleportation traps lurked.
If you hesitated to step on the spiders and instead set foot on one of those empty spots, you'd be teleported somewhere in the blink of an eye.
And so, we made our way forward, crunching baby spiders underfoot.
Not the most pleasant feeling, but it couldn't be helped.
Now, the Vizquilba Spiders—ranked at B-class—didn't show up in the corridors.
Occasionally one or two would be lurking about, but Geese would detect them and Paul would dispatch them immediately.
So far, I hadn't had my turn.
"Heh, well, this is a walk in the park."
Paul strode forward confidently, wielding two swords.
Two swords.
One was the blade he'd practically always carried at home—his beloved sword, no doubt.
It didn't seem to possess any extraordinary power, but the Vizquilba Spiders were split clean in half with a single blow.
More than the sharpness of the blade, it was Paul's technique.
The sword in his left hand was shaped like nothing I'd seen before.
Something akin to a short sword, perhaps.
Not short enough to call a dagger, not long enough to be a full-length sword.
A curved, double-edged blade with a handguard that nearly enveloped the hand, and a hole punched through the center—probably to prevent the cut surfaces from sticking together.
He didn't use this one much.
Paul basically fought with just his right-hand sword.
What was the left-hand sword for, then?
Some kind of chuunibyou thing?
"...Seriously, what a show-off!"
Not that it mattered.
Every time he took one down, Paul glanced my way.
Annoying.
He probably wanted to look cool in front of me.
I knew fighting Dad was impressive, but I wished he'd stop being so careless.
"Paul! Watch where you're going!"
See? A reprimand flew in from Grandma Elinorize.
"It's fine! I've been through the first floor dozens of times. I'm not gonna slip up that easily."
"That kind of carelessness is what gets you killed!"
"I know, I know."
"Besides, you've been charging ahead this whole time! I'm supposed to be in front!"
"At the first floor, it doesn't really make a difference."
Elinorize and Paul started bickering.
Behind me, I heard Talhand sigh and mutter, "Well, here we go again."
"I don't mind about myself, but this is Rudeus's first time in a labyrinth. As an adult, set a proper example!"
"See, that's exactly why I was trying to ease the tension by making conversation!"
"Lies! The aura coming off you right now is just like when Zenith first joined your party—restless and unfocused!"
"Ouch, alright, I'll give you that one. But hey, you've gotten real sharp-tongued, haven't you?"
"Of course I have. Paul, you're practically my son. If he deserves scolding, so do you!"
At that, Paul let out a chuckle.
"What do you mean, your son? You've been around Rudeus so long you've started feeling paternal toward me too? Cut it out—if you say you're my mom, I'm gonna break out in hives."
"...Oh my. Rudeus, haven't you told him?"
"Told him what?"
"That Sylphie is my granddaughter. And since he married my granddaughter, that makes him my grandson as well. Which means Paul and Zenith—you two are practically my children too."
Paul's feet stopped.
He slowly turned toward me, then marched back.
Our formation broke, and the whole group halted.
"Wh-what's going on, Rudeus... Sylphie's her granddaughter? Elinorize is saying something crazy..."
Come to think of it, I hadn't mentioned it.
"Apparently, Rolz is Elinorize's child."
"Rolz? That guy never said a word about that!"
"Well, it seems they had a complicated past, and she kept Elinorize's existence hidden."
"Ah... I see... I can see how that'd be the case."
"More importantly, let's keep moving. And please, stay alert."
"R-right."
Paul answered in a somewhat dazed tone and returned to the front line, muttering under his breath.
"So it's true... Elinorize is connected to the family... seriously..."
The shock hit him pretty hard.
---
The first floor was easy.
Just as Paul said, he'd been through it countless times.
We walked the corridors with rest breaks in between, then broke through the great hall swarming with Vizquilba Spiders.
Clearing out large numbers of them was my job as the mage.
However, before we entered the first great hall, Talhand gave us several warnings.
"Listen. Don't use fire."
"Why not?"
"If you use fire, the room fills with poison gas. Especially as you go deeper, you need to be careful."
"...Can't an antidote cure it?"
"No, it can't."
The poison was probably carbon monoxide.
Using fire in an enclosed space would consume the oxygen, and eventually consciousness would start to fade.
This was no different even with magic.
"And attacking the ceiling is strictly forbidden. You know why."
"The cave could collapse."
"Exactly. And for the same reason, try not to use too much water either. Use ice wherever you can."
"Understood."
Using too much water would loosen the ground.
Well, a little would probably be fine—I had earth magic too.
But earth magic could inadvertently consume the soil inside the cave itself.
If you removed the support structures, there was a risk of collapse.
So, ice it was.
Following the recommendation was the safest bet.
And so, I selected the advanced water magic spell:
"Ice Lance Blizzard."
A spell that rained down a massive volley of ice lances.
I'd clear them out from the back first to avoid catching Paul and the others in the crossfire.
"Oh my, as expected of Roxy's student. Using the same spells as her, too..."
Talhand's murmur drifted from behind me.
So Roxy had also been a user of "Ice Lance Blizzard."
That made me a little happy.
"And without incantation, no less. I can see why Roxy boasts about you."
I puffed up a bit at Talhand's words as I annihilated the spiders.
We pressed on.
We broke through the webs and stepped on the teleportation circle beyond.
We walked down corridors, aimed for another web, and repeated the process about five times after entering the labyrinth.
Of course, each time we reached a circle, I carefully compared it against the book to check for any differences.
The circles on the first floor were all mapped to known destinations, but this was to verify the book's reliability.
Bidirectional teleportation.
Shape, color, features.
We confirmed every detail matched before proceeding.
It took about an hour to reach each circle.
Five times over—that made roughly five hours.
In the last room, there was a circle slightly larger and bluer than the ones we'd seen so far.
A deep blue circle indicated passage to the next floor.
The room at the end of the first floor was covered in webs.
Two circles sat side by side there.
They were nearly identical in shape—someone who didn't know better wouldn't be able to tell which was real.
Right in front of one of the circles, a stone with a large circle carved into it had been placed.
This was the marker Geese had left during a previous visit to indicate the correct one.
I confirmed it against the book, made sure there was no mistake, and stepped onto the circle.
Second floor.
---
Second floor.
From here on, giant steel caterpillars called Iron Crawlers began to crawl across the ground.
The small spiders on the floor were gone, and the webs had thinned dramatically.
Bare earthen ground was exposed.
The Iron Crawlers were roughly a meter tall and two meters long, giving them a bulky, squat appearance.
The closest image would be the Ohmu from Nausicaä.
True to their appearance, they were tough and resilient.
And despite their looks, they were fast.
Rather than caterpillars, they reminded me more of centipedes in terms of speed.
The Vizquilba Spiders and the Iron Crawlers appeared to be allies—the Iron Crawlers served as shields while the spiders shot sticky threads from behind.
If you got tangled in those threads, you'd be trampled under the Iron Crawlers, which probably weighed around a ton.
The Iron Crawlers were hard—even Paul couldn't take one down in a single strike.
Needless to say, neither could Elinorize.
That was where I came in.
I could cast two spells simultaneously.
While pelting the Vizquilba Spiders in the back with "Ice Lance Blizzard," I picked off the Iron Crawlers one by one with stone bullets—the ones Paul and Elinorize had drawn in.
The Iron Crawlers were tough enough to deflect ordinary stone bullets, but that hardly mattered to me.
My rounds pierced right through.
That said, being insects, if you didn't hit the right spot, they wouldn't die instantly—they'd thrash and flail in a frenzy.
"Well, I guess there's nothing for me to do."
As I worked busily, Talhand grumbled from behind, sounding bored.
He was staying close to me as a reserve, in case things went south.
But thanks to the three of us up front being extremely cautious—Geese included—we hadn't run into any such crisis.
So for now, Talhand had nothing to do.
But that was fine.
It was actually reassuring to know we had reserves moving forward.
The Vizquilba Spiders launched their sticky threads at me.
I'd always thought tarantulas didn't build webs, but these must be a different breed.
Threads occasionally flew my way, but since I had my Magic Eyes active, none hit me.
Even if they had, they lacked any real offensive power, and I could just burn them off with fire magic, so it wasn't an issue.
"Ugh, damn it..."
"Ew, it's so sticky!"
The front-line fighters, however, couldn't dodge everything.
Paul and Elinorize were both plastered with threads.
"Here, don't waste too much of it, alright?"
I could have burned the threads off myself, but Geese had a liquid that dissolved them. We diluted it with water and used that instead.
Apparently it was a special chemical from the Begaritto Continent. Harmless to the human body.
Harmless, maybe, but Elinorize grumbled that it irritated her skin.
It really was like detergent.
Maybe I'd bring some back and use it for washing dishes.
"Alright, let's take a break here."
After the fight.
At Geese's word, we sat down.
Talhand and Elinorize took up watch.
Paul sat down and immediately removed his armor and sword belt, wiping off the monster fluids that clung to the surface.
He'd finish an equipment check in the span of a short rest.
His practiced hands made it clear Paul was a pro in this field.
"What's wrong? Rudeus, you should hurry up too."
"Oh, right."
Paul gave me a slightly stern look, and I began checking my own gear.
That said, I'd been firing spells from the rear, so there wasn't much to inspect.
Still.
Paul was quiet.
On the first floor, he'd been asking "How was that?" after every rest break.
But now, deep into the second floor, the seriousness had kicked in.
Dad was getting cool.
"Tch, it's caked on there."
Paul muttered as he scrubbed at some fluid or other on his armor with a cloth.
"Why not try the stuff Geese used earlier?"
"That's for dissolving threads, isn't it?"
But even as he said that, Paul dabbed some of the chemical onto his cloth and scrubbed vigorously.
The result was a startlingly clean surface.
Well, not clean-white—the armor wasn't white to begin with.
"Oh, it comes right off. Thanks."
"No problem."
It really was detergent.
Maybe I'd buy a bunch and bring it home—Sylphie might like that.
Ideally, it'd be great if they could produce it over there, too.
Once Paul had the grime off, he donned his armor again, drew his sword, and walked over toward Elinorize.
I was about to swap places with Talhand when Geese called out to me.
"Senpai, don't worry about the lookout."
"Is that okay?"
"It's fine. The old man's not doing anything anyway.
More importantly, I wanted to get your opinion on what's ahead."
"Do we need to include Dad in this?"
"Nah. You've got a better head on your shoulders than him."
Geese said something fairly rude as he pulled a book and a map from his luggage.
Two maps spread out before us.
One was neatly charted, the other was still a work in progress.
"We're almost at the third floor. The spot where Roxy got separated was... here.
If we're lucky, Roxy might still be in the area—assuming the book is correct."
"Right."
According to the book, teleportation traps only sent you elsewhere within the same floor.
Even if they were random warps, stepping on one wouldn't drop you straight in front of the bottom-floor boss.
Roxy had warped on the third floor.
The book said that stepping on the wrong circle would send you straight to a Monster House.
Whether her circle was random or one-way, I couldn't say.
Either way, if she was still alive, the chances of her being on the third floor were high.
Of course, she might have gotten lucky and made it back to the second or first floor.
But Roxy had traversed both of those floors multiple times.
If someone of her caliber had made it back to the second floor on her own, she'd probably have exited the labyrinth by now.
She wouldn't have gone down to the fourth floor.
"You don't happen to have any handy exploration magic, do you?"
"No, I'm afraid not."
I thought about whether any of my current spells could be applied in some way, but nothing came to mind immediately.
"Senpai, just off the top of your head—where do you think Roxy is?"
"That's hard to say..."
"In this labyrinth, we can't just walk the right wall and smash everything in our path. When it comes to searching, you need that kind of intuition too."
"Then... somewhere around here, maybe?"
I pointed vaguely at a blank spot on the map.
"From where she was teleported, we'll head east. Let's search from that direction."
That was pretty arbitrary.
I felt like it would've been more efficient to stick to the right wall and sweep methodically.
But none of us here could do any kind of scientific analysis.
Either way, the only option was to search the areas we hadn't covered.
"Honestly, without Roxy, we wouldn't have made it past the second floor.
We owe that to you, Senpai. Those Iron Crawlers are a real pain."
"I imagine."
The monsters here had poor compatibility with Talhand's elemental specialty.
Paul, our main fighter, was also hampered by the threads and couldn't perform adequately at the front.
Vera was unreliable as a frontliner, and Elinorize couldn't fill the gap as well as Roxy had.
To get through here, you needed someone who could wield ice or fire magic.
Without Roxy, it would've been a miracle to push through.
Rather, the fact that we'd managed to get back after losing her was impressive in itself.
"I was trying to figure something out, but there just aren't many mages around here.
And there's not a single soul with the guts to take on a teleportation labyrinth."
Geese had apparently been trying to find a solution of his own.
Now that I thought about it, he'd been trying to recruit someone from the guild when we arrived.
It hadn't gone well, from what I could tell.
"Geese, sorry for all the trouble you've gone through."
"Heh, don't worry about it. Besides, you said a newbie was fine, right? When someone uses formal language with me, my back starts to itch."
"...Alright, fine, newbie. I'll introduce you to a cute female monkey later—how about you pick the lice off my back while you're at it."
"Oh, nice! There's no red-light district out here in the middle of nowhere. Wait—who are you calling a monkey?!"
There was plenty more I wanted to talk about with Geese, but I'd save it for later.
I went over the planned route with him.
The map Geese had made was remarkably easy to read.
But while the first floor was thoroughly documented, the second floor had several gaps.
What if Roxy or Zenith happened to be in one of those uncharted areas?
The thought made me uneasy, but the third floor came first.
We'd start searching from the most likely area, not necessarily the nearest one.
"Geese, where exactly are we now?"
Elinorize butted in.
Geese answered by pointing to the spot on the map.
"About here."
"So the second floor is almost done, isn't it?"
"Yeah, but spiders and caterpillars are still showing up."
"A labyrinth that changes its monster composition midway—how troublesome."
"Tell me about it."
Elinorize brushed her hair back with a sigh.
Even her prized curls had gone somewhat limp.
"Oh, by the way—Geese, why do you call Rudeus 'senpai'?"
"Heh heh heh. It's a long story—something that happened at the Doldia tribe's prison."
"The Doldia prison? Is that what Ghirene mentioned before? What does that have to do with anything?"
"I'll tell you all about it when we get back."
Geese grinned and cut the conversation short.
The Doldia tribe's prison—now that brought back memories.
Back then, I'd been a real free spirit.
I couldn't pull off those moves anymore.
Well, actually, I still could in bed.
I had enough composure left to crack jokes like that, at least.
---
And then, we reached the third floor.
It had taken about ten hours.
Remarkably fast.
"I thought it would take several days to get through."
"Not when you've got a map."
Paul overheard my idle murmur.
There was a natural difference between fumbling your way forward and navigating with a map.
There were no more baby spiders on the floor.
Occasionally, sticky threads clung to the walls, but the sense of living creatures had thinned.
In its place, something ominous seemed to drift from the depths of the dark cave.
This was where the real challenge began.
First priority: find Roxy.
"..."
The moment I thought that, I caught a whiff of something familiar.
No—this wasn't my imagination.
It was Roxy's scent. Roxy's presence.
There was no way I was mistaken.
I felt my heart stir.
She was there.
I was certain of Roxy was there.