* * *
Guest Heroes from the Empire were added to the temporary party one after another.
Fortunately, none of them had any bad history with me—Setanta—from the previous run.
“It’s a curse from those Ailant bastards……! They must have cursed the Empire!”
“H-Hey. Keep your voice down……!”
“Why? Am I wrong? They’re the only ones capable of opening an entrance to hell filled with such sinister energy!”
Q-Quiet……. That man who killed the monster earlier is also from Ailant……!
However, since my origins had been exposed during the brief conversation earlier, quite a few soldiers were whispering among themselves and openly expressing their disgust.
‘I can’t exactly live without ever speaking. This is troublesome.’
Even when people spoke the same language, their accents differed depending on where they came from.
And hiding that difference while pretending otherwise was harder than I had expected…….
“Your name was Setanta, correct? With so many terrible things happening lately, you must have been through quite a lot.”
“…….”
“But please put your mind at ease! I, James, do not discriminate against people based on where they were born!”
“Ah, yes.”
The Imperial Knight who had introduced himself as James was unusually friendly toward me.
He probably believed that he needed me if he wanted to escape this Labyrinth.
‘Still, something about him feels off…….’
In an environment like this, attaching yourself to the strongest person around was only natural.
Even so, his behavior felt strangely ‘unlike an Imperial Knight,’ which bothered me.
‘And James? Why does this bastard have to be named James too?’
James had also been the name of the leader of that R Grade trio who had immediately swung an axe at me in an attempt to kill me.
My mood abruptly soured.
“Mr. Setanta, have you perhaps seen any suspicious Ailant people recently?”
“…….”
“Those bastards who spread the red vapor throughout the capital and carried out the bombing……! This unidentified Labyrinth may very well be their doing too!”
“…….”
“Ah, I am not suspecting you, Mr. Setanta. I merely wish to track down the criminal activities committed by certain extremist Ailant individuals-.”
“Thank you for trusting me. I have something to discuss with my companions, so I’ll excuse myself.”
I pushed James away as he continued clinging to me and returned to my party.
It was not only because of the uncomfortable subject of conversation or his ominous name.
「Find those who participated in the attack on the Underground City and take revenge!」
……There was no way this Quest had appeared without any context.
In other words, one of the people here had participated in the attack on the Underground City.
‘But I don’t know which of those Imperial Knights was involved. None of them are saying which Knight Order they belong to.’
The 7th Imperial Knight Order.
Those were the bastards responsible for the massacre in the Underground City.
……Could they be hiding their affiliation because they were afraid of retaliation?
Because they had realized we were Ailant?
I suddenly turned my head toward Aileen.
Her pale-violet eyes had been following the blue cloaks for some time now.
Like a predator watching its prey.
Relentlessly…….
‘……She’ll be all right, won’t she?’
At least the Intermittent Madness Trait had not appeared.
I would still need to watch out for any unexpected incidents from now on.
“We should get moving.”
“Y-Yes, of course!”
“Right! We were just thinking it was about time to leave as well!”
The moment I gathered my weapons and stood up, everyone hesitantly rose after me.
Then the Imperial soldiers turned their gazes toward me, almost as though they were waiting for an order from their superior.
‘Is it because of the display of force when we first met?’
Perhaps this was the reversal of relationships brought about by an environment where everyone’s survival was constantly under threat.
It felt extremely strange.
.
.
.
How long had we been walking?
“By the way…… Mr. Setanta. Are we really taking that half-dead young man with us?”
“Hmm?”
James came up beside me and whispered quietly.
I followed his gaze and saw Hecate struggling as she supported Achilles.
They had barely been making any progress for quite some time.
“Leave them alone. They’ll manage.”
“No, Mr. Setanta. We need to get out of here as quickly as possible! Some of the soldiers’ Mutations have already progressed considerably.”
James grew increasingly worked up, even accompanying his words with exaggerated gestures.
Perhaps because their base specs were so low, the bodies of quite a few Imperial soldiers had already begun twisting in various places.
“We cannot all die here just to save some foreigner from the Rom Federation who came here to earn a few coins!”
“……Didn’t you say earlier that you don’t discriminate based on where someone was born?”
“Mr. Setanta, that is not what I mean! Look at them. One is useless baggage who cannot even move on his own, and the other is a powerless woman.”
“…….”
“Those parasites will eventually drag all of us down!”
James, an N Grade Imperial Knight with a dirt-brown border, began passionately arguing that the gleaming SSR Heroes should be deleted.
‘What the hell is he talking about?’
I was so dumbfounded that I could not even speak.
This was basically like saying…….
‘We need to keep the natural one-stars alive, so let’s dismantle the six-star characters?’
And every last one of these people belonged to the Empire.
They were not even on my side.
……And a powerless woman?
That was an extremely valuable Hidden Route-exclusive SSR Hero.
‘Didn’t the setting guide say that unlike the liberal Rom Federation, Imperial citizens valued tradition, remained loyal to their nation, and placed great importance on etiquette……?’
Looking at it now, that might have simply been a roundabout way of saying, ‘Their mindset is outdated and vaguely fascistic.’
“Mr. Setanta! We must abandon those useless parasites immediately and find a way for the rest of us to survive!”
“…….”
I stared silently at James as he spewed all kinds of outrageous nonsense with a perfectly kind-looking face.
As expected, men named James could not be trusted.
“We need to leave those foreigners behind right now and continue with only our own people……!”
“So what you’re saying, Sir James, is that we should abandon the useless deadweight and move on without them. Is that correct?”
“Oh, exactly! You understand perfectly!”
“Then shouldn’t you start by cutting the throats of those Imperial soldiers over there who are already undergoing Mutation?”
The moment I said that, silence fell.
[Multiple individuals are now wary of you.]
Ah.
Their true colors came out immediately.
“You lowly Ailant bastard……! How dare you utter something so horrific!”
“Sir James! Why are you groveling before that man?! We can escape this Labyrinth perfectly well on our own!”
“…….”
I could see James sweating nervously as he searched for something to say.
I glanced behind me.
Hecate was staring in my direction with tears pooled in her eyes.
Achilles seemed to have lost consciousness, perhaps because poison had spread through his body, and was now being dragged along the floor.
He was so heavily built that Hecate seemed to struggle just to take a single step while supporting him by herself.
‘Does that new character have a low Strength stat? Maybe she’s an Agility-focused Hero.’
……Perhaps this was about the right time to help her and recover some of the Trust I had lost earlier.
‘But it would be better to keep both of my hands free in case something unexpected happens.’
What should I do?
As I briefly considered my options—
“Give him to me. I shall carry him.”
“……!”
Aileen suddenly took Achilles from Hecate and hoisted him onto her back.
“Thank you for helping us earlier. As for the apple you gave me…… although it broke before I could eat it.”
When I glanced at her, her expression had softened considerably compared to before.
Fortunately, it seemed the Intermittent Madness Trait would fade away without manifesting after all.
“Thank…… Thank you, waaaah.”
Hecate’s tearful thanks were the last words spoken before our silent march resumed.
Aileen actually walked more steadily while carrying the heavily built Achilles than Rian did while stumbling along with his feet occasionally tangling beneath him.
‘She lifts him like he weighs nothing.’
Then again, even though Aileen was a balanced-type Hero, her Strength stat was fairly high.
If I entrusted the rest of the party to her like this in the future, it would make it much easier for me to act independently.
STEP, STEP-.
We continued walking for quite some time.
The Imperial soldiers occasionally glanced toward me and my companions while whispering among themselves behind us.
However…….
[You have reached a Sealed Door.]
“The door…… The door is locked!”
“There’s an incredibly sturdy lock on it! No matter how many times we strike it, it doesn’t even get scratched! We need to find the key immediately!”
[TIP – To open a locked room, you must find the appropriate key-.]
“Everyone, move aside.”
……CRACK!
CLANG!
[The Sealed Door has been unlocked.]
“There. Let’s keep moving.”
“W-What just happened……?”
“That lock didn’t even have a scratch after my attack…… yet he broke it so easily…….”
After I put on a little show by twisting the lock apart with my bare hands, everyone tucked their tails between their legs and quieted down on their own.
‘This should make things easier for a while.’
We continued onward through the silence without any further arguments.
Eventually—
CREAK, CREAK-.
The first trap section appeared.
* * *
‘A classic type with arrow holes on both walls.’
The standard ways to deal with an arrow trap were as follows.
If the party has high Agility: Evade the arrows with quick movements and pass through.
If you have heavy armor: Deflect the arrows with shields and armor while advancing.
If you have a high-firepower magic damage dealer: Destroy the entire trap from a distance with overwhelming firepower and pass through.
‘We have too many injured people, so option one is out.’
Then could we block the arrows with shields?
But considering even the Hero-rat had been horrified by the condition of this Labyrinth earlier, I was honestly worried…….
[The trap has been activated!]
“AAAAAAAGH!”
A scream suddenly rang out.
Wondering what had happened, I turned to look.
An Imperial soldier was standing there wailing miserably while holding a shield with an arrow embedded in it.
Blood dripped steadily from beneath the deeply lodged arrow.
‘The arrow…… went through the shield?’
He had probably extended his shield into the trap as a test, only for the arrow to pierce straight through it.
‘The trap difficulty is insane. These arrows will probably punch through armor too.’
Was it not practically a universal rule that the Chapter 1 Labyrinth was supposed to be little more than a tutorial?
No matter how I looked at it, this was not an early-game Labyrinth.
‘Then what about destroying the entire trap with overwhelming firepower?’
I was a close-range burst-damage dealer, so that was out.
Rian could not use magic for the time being.
As for Aileen…… until she drew Claíomh Solais like she did in the original game, she probably lacked enough firepower.
Was there some other method?
“It’s an arrow trap! I once heard that traps of this type require time to reload!”
Just then, one of the blue-cloaked knights stepped forward and began shouting.
“It appears that it does not activate without detecting a living creature! If someone charges through at the front and triggers it, everyone following behind should be able to pass safely!”
“…….”
In other words, if we used someone as a human shield and exhausted the trap’s arrows, the rest of us could pass through relatively safely.
……But would anyone volunteer to charge into certain death?
I stared at the knight skeptically.
“For that reason! I propose that we place the dying foreigner at the front and use him to break through!”
“What?”
Once again, an N Grade knight with a dirt-brown border pointed at the brilliant SSR Heroes.
Then he began arguing that people like them should be ‘used as expendable pawns for traps.’
* * *