Chapter 104: Maze (4)

Finding the way in the Labyrinth is simple.

Using the sound of the heartbeat of the God of Earth coming from the ground and the number of the last Safe Zone passed, you measure your current location and direction.

Then, you look at the map and head in the desired direction.

Well. It sounds simple but actually doing it is difficult. But I have a skill called Hesitation-Free Pathfinding.

Due to its low grade of 2-stars, there is a restriction that I need to know my location and destination accurately, but as a skill obtained through gacha, it has never let me down once activated.

However, no matter how much I walk, the passage never ends.

“Something is strange.”

“Isn’t this the way we came?”

We walked for a long time. By now, we should have reached a Safe Zone…

“Benny. You said it seemed like the path we just came from? I can’t distinguish since all the corridors look the same to me. Is there a special way to see it?”

“There’s nothing like that. Look at the floor ahead.”

“…It’s just the floor?”

“No. If you look closely, there’s pink hair lying there. It’s strange for your hair, Jonah, to be on a path we haven’t even gone down yet.”

“…?”

“Of course, I’m not saying this based on just that one thing. At first, I thought it was a coincidence or I saw it wrong. But feeling uneasy, I kept paying attention as we walked, and saw hair roughly every 3,500 steps. Plus, we haven’t encountered any monsters during that time.”

“Oh my.”

I couldn’t help but ask, unable to hide my astonishment.

“Benny…how did you know the hair on the floor was pink, or that it was mine?”

“Well…”

“Have you been closely observing my hair all this time?!”

“Ehh?”

She shouted while stepping back and pretending to cover herself.

“Pervert! Hair fetishist! I can’t believe it! I trusted you because you are friends with Ellie and Miss Lydia…!”

“Th-that’s not it?!”

“Not it?! If it isn’t, how could you so easily find a hair that fell on the floor and identify whose hair it is? You must have been observing closely all along!”

“Listen to me! High-level adventurers not only have enhanced physical abilities but also incredibly sharp senses!”

“With such heightened senses, you must have inspected my hair! It’s so obvious! You must have thought about licking my hair all over! Or rubbing your face on the top of my head! Or using it as a tissue!”

“I didn’t?! How do you even come up with such thoughts! Aren’t you the biggest pervert here?!”

“Eek! Anyway, everyone knows you’re a pervert, so now you say we should enjoy it together… No! I don’t want to! Don’t do this! I have Ellie, you know.”

“I never said anything like that!”

“B-but there’s only Benny here, and no one will come to help me. Sigh. Fine. If Benny wants it, then just a little…”

“I’m going crazy….”

Benny eventually gave up, sighing deeply. Alright. Teasing Benny for today ends here. Thanks to that, my slightly shaken mental state is back.

I relaxed my startled expression and smiled as I walked back to Benny’s side.

“Anyway, I understand that we’re trapped here. Is there a way out?”

“…Could it be that you’re also one of those types with a loose screw? There are especially a lot of crazy women among adventurers.”

Benny asked as if in disbelief. I lifted her lips with my index finger, making her smile.

“Haha! I was joking. What if we’re stuck here forever? Then we should try something naughty before we starve to death.”

“Please, never joke again!”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Why? It’s so fun!”

“You must have found it fun! I was really troubled, thinking you were truly scared of me.”

“Come on. Then I’ll make it fun for you too, Benny!”

I moved behind Benny and started massaging her shoulders as if gripping them. Her small shoulders were more tensed up than expected.

Squeeze, squeeze.

“Hi-ya!”

“Actually, what I said earlier wasn’t entirely untrue. I realized that this passage is repeating, and I understand that we are trapped.”

With the Pathfinding skill, there was no way we would have taken the wrong way.

But if the path was correct yet kept repeating, it made sense.

After all, we were on the right path, just unable to reach the destination.

Continuing to knead Benny’s now docile shoulders like kneading dough, I spoke further.

Squeeze, squeeze.

“Hiii-yaa…”

“That’s what I’m saying after understanding the situation. If possible, I’ll think about escaping, but if that’s impossible…well. Whether I like it or not, I’ll have to live here with Benny until we starve to death, right?”

“Th-the muscles have loosened…!”

“But since Benny dislikes it so much, there’s no choice. Let’s find a way to get out of here somehow!”

“……”

Benny, already slumped like a slime, said nothing.

Next to her, the real slime, Shadow, who had been watching Benny, quietly extended a tentacle to me.

It seemed like it wanted a massage too, so I did, but…it didn’t have knotted muscles like Benny, so it didn’t really mean much. I mean, does it even have muscles in the first place?

However, Shadow seemed to just like the physical contact, purring and making a contented noise.

After a brief moment, Benny got up, rotating her shoulders and opening her eyes wide.

“I feel refreshed… No, wait. What’s important now is this space.”

“Yes. Do you have any clues? There didn’t seem to be such a trap on the second floor.”

“Right. This isn’t a trap from the second floor. Maybe it is, but it’s much more likely that it’s the work of someone else.”

“Someone else?”

“I don’t know that much. But what is certain is that it’s either a high-level mage who specializes in space or barriers, or an adventurer with special powers.”

“Oh! Then how do we dismantle it?”

“First, we need to find out if it’s Magic or Power. If it’s Magic, we can dismantle it through reverse engineering. If it’s Power, we’ll have to force our way through.”

“Ah-ha? I understand! So, it’s Benny’s turn to step up, right? What should I do?”

“…Cheer?”

“Gasp! I was thinking of doing naughty things if we can’t escape from here, but are you saying I should do something naughty as a reward if we succeed in escaping?! Vanitas Benibeni…scary kid!”

“I’m not a kid! And just treating me to the Fairy and Silver Coin is enough?! For now, you’re a distraction, so go play with Shadow over there!”

Benny made shooing noises with her mouth and waved her hand.

Looking at Shadow, who was receiving a tentacle massage from me, as if not understanding anything, I asked,

“Shall we play by ourselves?”

-Grrr.

I didn’t quite understand, but it seemed to mean yes.

How many times had we rolled around and played on top of Shadow?

Benny, who had been emitting a faint magical glow while sitting on the floor, finally began to calm down.

The ceaselessly muttering incantations, and the overwhelming sense of power from the small frame, all vanished.

Now, the only thing left was Benny, the familiar baby witch who inexplicably wore lewd clothes.

Sitting on a tentacle transformed into a chair, Shadow stretched and moved me in front of Benny.

I asked Benny, who looked utterly exhausted.

“Benny? Did it go well?”

“…I think we’re in big trouble.”

“What?”

“It was both.”

“…???”

“Some crazy mage came to the second floor, severed the passage with a 7th-circle Spatial Magic, and even connected the ends, then fixed it strongly with Power!”

“Uh…so, we can’t get out?”

“It’s not that. It’s just incredibly difficult. This isn’t a case of us getting unlucky and falling into a space distortion, but rather a trap designed from the start to imprison us…specifically me.”

“Not us, but you, Benny?”

“Yes.”

Lately, there have been many people targeting me, so I thought it might be The One Who Devours the Twilight again, but it seems different this time.

Benny ground her shark-like sharp teeth and continued.

“There is only one person in Pangrave who can wield Spatial Magic to this extent, and the Power felt from the fixed point is a force I’ve encountered before.”

“Who on earth could it be…?”

“The Elder of the Magic Tower, Morgana Deathweaver. The Power is probably amplified by a relic, not her own.”

“It’s a name I’ve never heard before. Does she have a grudge against you, Benny?”

“There’s no way. It’s just that I’m needed for her ambition. Until now, she approached me asking for help with her research, but the contents were all so bizarre that I refused… Now, it seems like she wants to use me as a test subject.”

Benny, clenching her fist tightly, spoke as if spitting her words out.

“That wretched woman’s research topic is immortality. That’s why she wants to study me, who does not age.”

“Ah.”

Listening to Benny’s words, I suddenly remembered the hint I had scattered in the Magic Tower.

The keyword was ‘failed immortality’.