Chapter 97: Chapter 97: Five Years Later…

5th Act The World Tree

Translator: ShiroiKaze/Soyokaze Translations

Five years have passed since our battle, and defeat, against Demon Lord Masayoshi.

Thanks to the golem transport network’s expansion, the conquering of the labyrinth has steadily progressed, and is currently up to floor 402.

When you consider that it was up to floor 232 after several hundred years before, 170 floors of progress in just five years is a miraculous achievement.

The Demon Lord and crew have left those top runners in the dust, and are supposedly wandering around floor 950 right now.

They only come back down to the city once every few months at this point.

We have also left those top runners in the dust, and are past floor 900.

But we’re still returning to town once a month.

That’s because floor 500 and 800 (504 and 812 to be precise) had cave-like openings that we noticed, and found we could freely travel through.

As for how we could climb that high up… That was the biggest problem, but over the months and years that problem was easily solved.

That’s because Yig had his first molting, and ended up growing into a huge 10 meter long dragon.

He lets us ride three at a time on his back, and carries us up to the shortcut.

The only thing is, that huge body of his would just get in the way inside the labyrinth, so he couldn’t enter with us anymore, but…

Now he’s built himself a cave on the outskirts of the town, and is living there.

At first the townspeople fell into a panic, but now they’re used to him. He’s being treated just like a guardian deity.

One reason our conquering has progressed is because Marielle has joined us, stabilizing our party’s battle power.

And following in her participation, Marle has also stepped into the labyrinth conquering scene, which has been big.

“I can’t go home and abandon my friends,” is what she said.

She was shaking and crying… But even so, she pressed on. She really is a strong girl.

As a result of the rapid growth from the labyrinth, and the use of the “Dragon’s Blood,” she’s had a sudden increase in her abilities, and now has abilities comparable to Mister Bhav of Forest Bear.

So with our problem of being fatally shorthanded solved, plus Marle’s trap searching abilities, we were able to progress in our exploration more continuously without returning to town.

And we ourselves have also changed significantly since then.

~*~

“Whew, so once we climb this cliff, next is the boss then?”

Alec skillfully climbed the huge difference in height and, while supporting himself with his left hand, sent a rope down for us.

Yeah, one of the huge benefits of having Marielle join us was this.

Alec now has both of his arms. By using her regenerative magic, she successfully managed to restore his left arm.

Thanks to that, he no longer has to rely solely on one battle style, and can now freely switch between all sorts of swordplay.

His abilities are at a level where Haster doesn’t even serve as practice anymore.

“A cliff inside the labyrinth is just… How can I say this… It’s like the labyrinth is messing with us.”

Haster spoke while climbing the rope, with me on his back.

Equipped on his arms are claws made from beast fangs.

He’s made a complete shift from swords to a focus on hand-to-hand fighting.

“Ain’t a huge surprise considerin’ the scale of it all though.”

Miss Levy is easily climbing the wall without using the rope.

At her waist are two brand new short swords.

We found them near floor 700 of this labyrinth.

They’re some real gems, [Enchanted] with water and fire attributes. I added my own [Enchantments] on top of that, powering them up to the equivalent of items made from dragon materials.

“M-M-M-Marle, don’t drop me… Please, please don’t drop me, will you?!”

“You’re heavy! Don’t move around so much, Mary!”

“How rude, calling me heavy!”

Just like me, Marielle isn’t the athletic type, so she’s being carried up by Marle.

Those two have gotten a lot closer since then, and call each other “Marle,” and “Mary” very familiarly.

Their matching leather armor is a pleasant sight.

That leather armor was made from Yig’s molted hide.

As is to be expected from Fafnir’s descendant, the defensive power of that leather is nothing to scoff at.

While more solid than standard metal armor, it’s more flexible than a robe.

Now I’ll explain the equipment we’ve obtained up to this point.

First, Haster’s claws, the “Beast King’s Claws”.

I think we got these somewhere around floor 600.

They’re light, sturdy, and don’t inhibit hand movements. For a magician like him, they’re probably the most suitable arms he could hope for.

Ripping into the enemy’s flesh, digging in and throwing them, then with their posture broken, hitting them with magic. This has become his golden pattern.

Next is Miss Levy’s dual swords, “Cthugha” and “Hydra”.

At the use of a command word, Cthugha becomes clad in fire, and Hydra in freezing air.

There aren’t many opponents against whom both of them are effective attribute-wise, but there also aren’t many against whom they’re both ineffective. They’ve become a reliable part of our fighting power.

By the way, said wielder of these swords calls them “Guren” and “Kuurubo”.

Weren’t there people with those names on a certain baseball team? That’s in my original world though.

And then there’s Alec’s great sword, “Gram”. We obtained this around when we passed floor 900.

Its blade is much thinner than Sentinel’s, but it is a sword of comparably great length.

The sharpness of the blade is also much higher, and it’s made of much more stable material too.

With Alec’s physical strength he can use it one-handed, and his attack power has increased. He could be considered even more of a front-liner now.

There’s also the healing magic amplifying staff called “Branch of the World Tree,” the stealth and detection enhancing circlet, “Owl’s Eye,” and a whole bunch of other stuff.

As for why all these items weren’t taken by the Demon Lord’s group ahead of us… Apparently our taking out the lycanthropes was effective.

They must have been the scouts in their party.

The traveling pace of the Demon Lord’s group in one year took a massive hit after that battle.

Traps are dealt with by the Demon Lord trampling over them. That type of searching method shouldn’t be doing much for increasing their speed.

As a result, important and valuable items cleverly hidden by the labyrinth were almost entirely overlooked by them.

Thanks to that, we in the late pack have been able to expect some delicious things.

After they’ve run through springing all the traps, we’ve been able to recover the treasure and have a comparatively safe search as we progress.

“Well, thanks to them being even more of muscle-bound idiots than we could have hoped, we’ve been able to get this far with with ease.”

“Starting to feel a little gratified?”

“Just a little bit.”

“I still haven’t forgotten my grudge against them for stealing Sentinel.”

“Is that the only thing, Sir Alec?”

Marle pouted and puffed out her cheeks.

She’s gotten some curves over these five years… Yeah, I’m totally not jealous at all, okay?!

As she is now, that act of puffing out her cheeks at him is, how should I say this… It’s foul play.

“I would hope that you are not forgetting our objective either, Marle?”

The one saying that, Marielle is… In a word, “explosive”. She’s dynamite.

Yeah, when Marle said she was heavy earlier, she wasn’t necessarily wrong.

With all that extra size on her, she would unmistakably be heavy.

I feel like Haster has been ogling her lately, so I’m worried he might make a mistake if I don’t deal with him appropriately.

“Of course, regarding Miss Alma… I won’t forget. Ever.”

“Yes, we shall have our revenge on him together.”

“Yeah.”

Precisely because they’re together is why Marielle is able to pursue her vengeance without going crazy.

Thanks to their simple friendship being upgraded to the best of friends.

“How far ahead were Masayoshi and them again?”

“Around 30 floors is it? Well, with [Sonar] and Marle here, we should be able to catch up to them soon enough if they’re that close.”

But then we have each of the strata bosses to consider.

As is to be expected, the bosses after floor 900 are strong. They aren’t quite in the same class as Fafnir, but it would be perfectly normal for a comparable dragon to appear.

We may have gotten stronger, but we still can’t thoughtlessly step into their territory.

“I wonder what the boss is here?”

“I ain’t got a clue at this point.”

“There have been nothing but dragon-like things lately; I really hope this one is more normal.”

“Can’t really hit flying enemies with a sword, after all.”

Well, if it keeps its distance, then I’ll just target it with some long-range bombardment of course.

With Marielle’s [Barrier] magic, along with mine and Haster’s [Heat Strike] or [Wind Dust], we can practically shut the enemy out.

Once we get past here, floor 920 is cleared. Only 80 more floors left.

“Okay, let’s get ready. Let’s be careful since we don’t know what the enemy is. Close quarters or long distance, flying or grounded, physical attacks or magic attacks; you know how we should deal with each of these, yeah?”

“Yes, okay on that front.”

I go over a number of simulations in my mind. My role is to respond to a variety of enemies, and set the stage for the battle.

“Do we have enough antidotes, paralysis removal, petrification removal, and other medicines?”

“Let’s see… Yep, no problem, Mister Haster.”

Marle takes a look through the bags.

She may have powered up significantly, but she’s not strong enough to be part of our fighting power.

So she has the role of running around the battlefield using medicines, potions, and the like, almost like a battlefield medic.

Her high detection skills are exactly why we can trust her with these important potions. If she’s taking care of healing, then Marielle can act in a wider variety of situations.

“How about you, Marielle? Do you still have enough magic power?”

“Being carried by Marle made things quite relaxed for me, so I am in perfect condition.”

“You’re seriously heavy, Mary.”

“I am not heavy!”

The burden on Marielle was greatly reduced by the addition of Marle.

We’ve been able to economize well following this pattern so far.

“Levy, make sure you figure out its attributes.”

“Just leave that right to me!”

With her effective use of two attributes, she can deal with many more enemies than Alec, with his complete devotion to physical attacks.

Due to that high versatility, probing the enemy has become her most important position.

Well, I follow-up with “Appraisal” too, of course.

“Alright, we can make a trip back once we fight this. Don’t space out just because it’s the last one!”

“Right!”

After firing ourselves up, we proceeded into the boss room.

—And we killed it.

Goodnight, Mister Efreet.