* * *
“Horse thief! Horse thief-!”
I could hear someone in the distance loudly asserting ownership of the horse, but I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead and continued riding.
Stopping now would accomplish nothing.
If I died, it was over.
This damned roguelike game did not even have a save-and-load function!
“GRRRRRR-!”
SLASH!
Still gripping the reins, I swung the Hero’s Longsword and cut down the monsters rushing toward me.
The motion made me sway violently.
I nearly lost my balance.
NEIGH, NEIGH…….
Because of its relatively small build, the white horse seemed to be struggling under the weight of all three of us.
Its breathing was ragged, and foam bubbled around its mouth.
‘Just a little more. Hold on just a little longer……!’
The city gate was getting closer.
If we could just keep going a little farther!
“You ungrateful bastards-!”
“……?!”
CLOP, CLOP!
Apparently, she had found another horse and chased after us.
Hecate pulled up right beside me, her black hair whipping behind her as she raised her middle finger at me.
Achilles was slumped over behind her, looking half-dead.
“Get off right now! You horse thieves!”
“We had no choice! It was an emergency! I’ll pay you properly later!”
“You think you can sell a ×ing friend for money?!”
“I understand that this horse is an important companion to you! But considering the circumstances……!”
“× off!”
Hecate then proceeded to unleash a stream of curses so vile they could hardly be repeated aloud.
Strangely enough, though, not a single one of them was a slur against Ailant.
“You × ×××ing ××s! Get off my pony right now, you ungrateful ××ing ××s who repay kindness with betrayal-!”
“We’ll return the horse once we’re outside the capital! The gate is almost……!”
If she attacked us while we were riding, we would be in serious trouble, so I kept trying to calm her down with words as we galloped for dozens of seconds.
‘Please!’
And finally—
……DING!
[Hidden Route progress increased!]
We had successfully escaped the capital!
[Hidden Route Progress: 6.4%]
-『Escape the Capital While Evading the Imperial Army』 (Complete)
But then—
‘……?’
Something was wrong.
“Got you, you damn horse thief!”
“…….”
“You miserable…… Huh? W-Wait, what is that? Why is everything ahead of us so red……?”
The moment we crossed the city gate, an endless expanse of crimson earth greeted us.
SQUELCH!
……It was even heaving up and down as though it were pulsing.
It looked as though every region surrounding the Imperial capital had been swallowed by the territory of the Red Labyrinth.
‘This has never happened even once in all the time I played this game.’
The corruption had spread this far?
Then where were we supposed to escape to-?
But before I could even finish that thought—
“Uh…… Uh, what the hell is that……?”
“…….”
“H-Hey, horse thief. That thing…… you can see it too, right?”
SQUELCH!
A maw from hell surged high above us like a wave of blood.
GULP!
And swallowed us whole in an instant.
.
.
.
[Entering the Labyrinth.]
[Warning! - The dungeon environment is excessively harsh for your current level.]
[Calculating disparity…….]
…….
…….
[Special Assessment: High-Difficulty Dungeon]
[Estimated Survival Probability: 12.73%]
[TIP - Final rewards are greatly increased in High-Difficulty Dungeons!]
* * *
The Labyrinth had swallowed us.
I had not intended to enter and clear it in the slightest.
[Special Modifier - The probability of obtaining rare rewards is greatly increased!]
“Ha…….”
‘So the difficulty is insane, but at least the rewards are guaranteed to be good?’
Fine.
Since I was already here, I might as well clear the damned thing.
Holding my throbbing head, I pushed myself upright.
A red floor.
Red walls.
A red ceiling.
An overwhelmingly crimson space that looked as though it could drive a person insane filled my vision.
[Warning! - If your Resistance falls below a certain threshold, Mutation will begin!]
“L-Lord Setanta…… what in the world is this place……?”
“It’s a kind of underground dungeon. We’ll have to find a way out.”
I checked on the others as they looked around in shock.
Fortunately, they were all top-tier Heroes, so their base Resistance seemed high enough to prevent Mutation.
‘So this is why they gave me SSR Heroes who normally wouldn’t be recruitable until the middle of the game this early. It was because the difficulty was completely insane.’
I pressed a hand to my forehead as another headache began throbbing through my skull.
“P-P-P-Pony…….”
A tearful voice came from beside me.
When I turned, I saw both horses collapsed on the ground.
‘One is already dead, and the white one is still alive, but…….’
The small white horse that had carried the three of us was convulsing while repeatedly coughing up bloody foam.
Its rib cage had begun protruding through its chest in an unnatural shape.
It seemed that its transformation into a monster had already begun.
“Sniff…….”
Hecate pulled a Curse Resistance Potion from her clothes and poured it into the horse’s mouth.
It had no noticeable effect.
She sniffled for a while.
Then she drew a thin dagger and ended the horse’s suffering.
‘……Right. The setting was that unless they were at least Divine Beast-class, ordinary animals couldn’t be brought into a Labyrinth.’
Human-wave tactics using large numbers of low-grade soldiers were impossible as well.
Why?
Because their Resistance was so low that they would all transform into monsters inside the Labyrinth.
That was why, even in the original game, Labyrinths were always cleared by small elite parties led by the Hero.
『S-S-S-Setantaaaa……! What in the world is happening?!』
SQUEEEEEAK!
Just then, the Hero-rat sprang upright and poked his head out, looking around frantically.
“Charles? Hmm? You want me to put you down?”
When I set the struggling little creature on the ground, Charles stepped onto the crimson floor and began sniffing around.
Fortunately, perhaps because his true essence was still that of the Hero, he seemed to have complete immunity to Mutation.
『There’s no way such an overwhelmingly evil aura should already be flowing everywhere! The first Labyrinth only just appeared!』
“Right? I’m losing my mind over it too. Anyway, it’s dangerous, so get back inside, Charles.”
I picked the Hero up again and stuffed him back into the pocket beside my Belt-Fastened Storage Pouch.
As I started to rise—
“……?”
Hecate was staring at me with utterly vacant eyes.
“Did you…… just talk to a rat……?”
With tears still pooled in her eyes, she spoke as though she could not believe what she was seeing.
“You got someone else’s horse killed, and instead of even apologizing, you’ve lost your mind and started doing this……?”
“Ah, Charles is a special magical rat, so he can talk to me.”
“…….”
“He was originally human. Look, the rest of my party can testify-.”
“Ha…… How did I end up in this mess because of some ungrateful, delinquent horse thief? And now he’s insane too…….”
[Hecate’s Trust toward you has decreased significantly!]
‘Huh?’
I was somewhat taken aback by the Trust decrease message floating before my eyes.
‘This is the first time I’ve dropped someone’s Trust this much outside of Imperial citizens…….’
Hecate no longer even looked in my direction.
She turned away, wiped at her tears, and walked over to Achilles, who was sprawled motionless on the ground.
Then she poured a potion over his mangled ankle.
However, he already seemed to be suffering from Potion Poisoning, so it did not have much effect on him either.
“We just fell into some bizarre place. At least you get up, you bastard-…….”
“Ugh, my head is ringing. Stop talking, Hecate.”
“Sniff, sob…….”
One useless SSR with a ruined ankle.
One person who now absolutely hated me.
One prospective lunatic on the verge of snapping.
And one Mage who would be unable to cast magic for the foreseeable future…….
Our party was a complete disaster waiting to happen.
‘Damn it. We need to kill the boss inside the Labyrinth before we can return to the surface.’
Should I try clearing it by myself somehow?
But the state of this Labyrinth was far too suspicious.
One wrong move and I could easily die.
‘More importantly, there are too many variables.’
Everything inside a Labyrinth was arranged randomly, just like a roguelike.
So if you wanted to clear a high-grade dungeon with a low-spec party?
Player control mattered, of course.
But first…….
You needed ‘expendable pawns.’
For disabling traps.
Detecting danger.
Drawing the boss’s aggro…….
They had countless possible uses.
But I could hardly turn living humans into chunks of meat.
……Unless they happened to be pieces of garbage who had done something bad enough to deserve death.
[Warning! - Multiple Heroes who may be hostile toward you are approaching!]
‘Hmm?’
At that moment, the floor of the Labyrinth began to tremble.
The vibrations sounded as though a large group of people were running toward us from the corridor ahead.
“SKREEEEEE-!”
Then a monster’s shriek pierced my ears.
Among the Imperial soldiers rushing toward us, I spotted a thick-bodied monster shaped like a spider.
“People! There are people……!”
“You there, move aside at once! Don’t block the path!”
“…….”
The first monster already?
SWISH-.
I immediately drew my spear.
Then I aimed its point directly at the charging spider’s head.
“It’s useless! No matter how much we slashed it with our swords, we couldn’t leave even a scratch……!”
CRUNCH!
My spear thrust straight ahead and pierced through the spider’s head.
“Uh…… Huh……?”
“Whaaaaaaaaaat?!”
The Imperial soldiers froze in place, mouths hanging open as every pair of eyes turned toward me.
“SKREE, SKREE-!”
‘Its head has been pierced and it’s still moving?’
BOOOOM!
I slammed the spider, still impaled on my spear, straight into the ground.
CRACK!
The sound of its exoskeleton breaking rang out.
“SKREE, SKREEEEE…….”
‘It’s still alive?’
WHOOSH-!
I lifted the spear into the air again with the spider still skewered on it.
BOOOOM!
Then smashed it into the ground once more.
BOOM! BANG!
……BOOOOM!
After several more consecutive slams, green blood finally splattered everywhere.
“SKREEE, SKREEEEEE…….”
The spider monster trembled violently.
Then its eight legs went limp, and it finally became still.
“I-It’s dead.”
“The spider is dead…….”
Flick.
I swung my spear to shake off the spider’s bodily fluids.
Then I glanced over the Imperial soldiers sprawled across the floor, panting for breath, and scanned them.
The interior of the Labyrinth was dim, which made it difficult to inspect them properly at a glance.
‘……Quite a few of them are already undergoing Mutation. Their estimated Grades are almost all N Grade.’
I narrowed my eyes and examined them one by one, searching for anyone who might have had bad blood with Setanta in my previous run.
‘Huh? Those uniforms…….’
My gaze stopped in one place.
Far behind the Imperial soldiers…….
A group of silver-armored knights wearing blue cloaks.
DING!
[Emergency Quest Triggered!]
“Thank you……! I am James, a member of the Imperial Knights!”
A kindly looking man dropped to one knee before me.
A deep-blue cloak hung from his shoulders.
“…….”
I stared blankly at the Quest window floating before my eyes.
◈Emergency Quest◈
【An Eye for an Eye, a Tooth for a Tooth】
-Find those who participated in the attack on the Underground City and take revenge!
◆ Quest Success Reward: Acquire 1 Player Point
……A revenge Quest?
Find someone who participated in the attack on the Underground City and take revenge?
“I swear I will repay this kindness! May I ask the name of our benefactor?”
“…….”
“I am James! On the honor of an Imperial Knight, I swear that I will repay this debt!”
[TIP - Once the Labyrinth disappears, no evidence of any crime committed within it will remain.]
……DING!
[Find the butcher who ravaged your compatriots, and give him hell!]
* * *