Chapter 15 - Damn Reincarnation

Bloodline Succession Ceremony

"Who got here first?"

Cyan's face twisted. Eugene's words sounded as though he were mocking him. Eugene had been the first to make it through the labyrinth and reach its center.

"Dezra got here first."

"She was running away!"

"Why was she running away?"

"That's..."

It was a question Cyan had no desire to answer. He had mistaken her blood-covered figure for a ghost and screamed. Embarrassed and angry, he had tried to teach her a lesson... Explaining that would mean first admitting that he had screamed because he was afraid of ghosts.

"... Dezra... insulted... me."

"You really love the word 'insult,' don't you?"

"When did I ever insult you, Master Cyan?"

Dezra cried out, looking aggrieved. She wouldn't have felt nearly so wronged if she had actually managed to ambush him as planned.

"You overreacted, Master Cyan. We only ran into each other along the way!"

"You scared me on purpose!"

"I did no such thing! Your scream scared me!"

"I... I didn't scream."

Cyan clenched his fists, his ears turning red.

"I just... I just shouted because I was angry. You were... That's right! Dezra, you were trying to ambush me!"

"... No, I wasn't."

"You hesitated! I saw your eyes darting around. You really were trying to ambush me, weren't you?! How dare you! How dare someone from a collateral branch try to attack me?!"

"Oh, for crying out loud! I said I wasn't!"

Flustered and indignant, Dezra yelled at him. Cyan's eyes widened at the outburst, which was much more in keeping with her true temperament.

"Why are you talking to me like that? I'm a child of the main family, and I'm a year older than you!"

"Because you keep insisting when I've told you I wasn't!"

"You're doing it again..."

"Enough."

Eugene had no desire to listen to any more of this childish argument. Nor was he particularly interested in the exact nature of the insult Cyan had suffered.

"Anyway. Dezra got here first."

"You were the first one here," Ciel said with a grin.

"That's right. I got here first."

"... What are you getting at?"

Dezra glanced at Eugene as she asked. After dinner with the family head, they had discussed joining forces to fight the boss monster. Did the fact that he was waiting here mean... he had tried to challenge it alone and failed?

"I'm letting you go first," Eugene said with a smile.

"... Go first?"

"I can beat that thing. But if I hurry up and kill it first, I'd feel sorry for you after all the trouble you went through to get here."

"What the hell did you just say?"

Cyan shouted furiously. This was unmistakably an insult. Dezra didn't shout as he did, but she too scowled and glared at Eugene.

And Ciel? She felt neither anger nor insult. She simply found the situation so funny and entertaining that her eyes sparkled with anticipation of what would happen next.

"Let's be fair and go in the order we arrived."

"Are you... seriously saying this? Did a monster hit you in the head a few times on the way here?"

"Nothing hit me. I'm perfectly fine."

Without getting up from his seat, Eugene looked up at Dezra.

"If you don't think you can win, you can give up. That's your choice."

Give up? Dezra's eyebrow twitched. She had gone through all that hardship to get here. Hearing him say he was letting her go first was ridiculous enough, but the suggestion that she give up made her even angrier.

"I'm not giving up!"

"It'll be tough on your own..."

Eugene smiled teasingly. Her shoulders trembling, Dezra turned toward the boss monster in the center.

Even from this distance, she could clearly see its huge, heavily muscled body. It was larger than the troll she had barely managed to get past. Its most distinctive feature was its head: a giant humanoid monster with the head of a bull.

A minotaur. The monster appeared in almost every story about labyrinths. But seeing one in person, it wasn't nearly as comical as the ones in fairy-tale books. Dezra gulped as she looked at its enormous horns.

'... Gargis. Why isn't that son of a bitch coming?'

The original plan had been for her and Gargis to join forces against the boss monster. But wherever he had gotten himself stuck, there was no sign of him coming. Dezra glanced at Eugene, just in case.

"I'm fighting after all of you have had your turns."

"... You've really gone mad, haven't you?"

Cyan had been listening to their exchange in utter disbelief. But now he could no longer hold back.

"You think you'll even get a turn?"

"I think I will."

"Cut the bullshit! You think I can't kill one lousy fucking cow?!"

"If you kill it, I'll call you my honored elder brother for the rest of my life."

Cyan hesitated at that. He could make this insolent bastard address him as his honored elder brother for the rest of his life. To the young Cyan, that offer was immensely appealing.

"... Don't go back on your word later."

"I won't."

After hearing Eugene's answer, Cyan plopped down. Slowly steadying his breathing, he circulated the mana within his body. Getting here had tired him considerably, so he wanted to recover as much mana as he could in the time available.

'A minotaur...'

This was Cyan's first time seeing one in person, too. But he had read countless accounts of minotaurs in the books he had devoured over the past few days. They had no particular weaknesses, but neither did they have any particular strengths.

Monstrous strength and tough hides. Those were only to be expected of a medium-to-large monster of that size. They didn't regenerate as powerfully as trolls, nor did they possess the absurd strength and aggression of ogres.

Moderate strength, moderate intelligence. In Cyan's eyes, the minotaur was a monster he could hunt without much difficulty.

Dezra felt differently. Trying to calm her pounding heart, she advanced hesitantly toward the center. Her hands trembled around her spear. She had killed plenty of monsters such as orcs, but she had never hunted anything quite that large.

'... They said minotaurs ranked above trolls as predators...'

That wasn't necessarily true. But it was certainly a monster on roughly the same level as a troll. Having slipped past the troll without defeating it, Dezra couldn't picture herself winning.

"... Yaaah!"

Still, she couldn't retreat after coming this far. Dezra shouted to drive away her fear, then charged at the minotaur with her spear.

The minotaur rose before Dezra could close the distance. It reacted unbelievably quickly for something so massive. Even the troll hadn't been that fast. Standing on two legs, it towered higher than the troll. It turned its head. The cattle Dezra knew had bright, cute eyes, but the minotaur's eyes held nothing but a sinister gleam.

The minotaur swung its hand. Screaming, Dezra thrust her spear.

CRACK!

The enormous hand broke her spear with ridiculous ease.

'You said it wouldn't break!'

Dezra's face contorted. The hand lifted high, then came down toward her head. That much, at least, she managed to react to. She leaped sideways to evade the attack, then swung her broken spear at the minotaur's flank.

THWACK!

She landed the blow, but striking from such an unbalanced stance left it with little force. Without so much as a cry of pain, the minotaur grabbed Dezra.

"Aaaagh!"

Huge fingers wrapped around her body. Dezra screamed and struggled desperately to escape. She was going to die! She knew it instinctively. This was really an illusion? Impossible! She squeezed her eyes shut.

But the minotaur did none of the terrible things Dezra imagined. It neither tightened its grip to crush her body nor slammed her into the ground. Instead, it tossed her toward the entrance leading into the central chamber.

CRASH!

Too terrified to break her fall, Dezra sprawled on the floor, groaning in pain. Her whole body ached from being thrown so far and landing hard. It felt as though several bones had broken.

"You lost, so stay back."

"It hurts...!"

"Of course it hurts."

"Why did it just throw her and stop?"

Ciel looked bewildered. Not that she had wanted to witness such a gruesome sight, but however she looked at it, the minotaur's behavior hadn't been very monster-like.

"Because it isn't a real monster," Eugene answered casually.

"There's no reason for it to insist on killing us. The fight was already decided the moment it caught her."

There was no need to give young children needless trauma. Having watched the whole thing, Cyan stood up with a relaxed smile.

"Hmph. You should have known your place instead of charging in. Did you seriously think you could kill a minotaur?"

Unable to answer, Dezra cradled her aching body and groaned. Cyan sneered as he walked past her.

"Idiot! Just sit here and watch closely. I'll show you that the blood of the main family is on an entirely different level from collateral branches like you!"

Even Cyan thought that had sounded splendid. Naturally, those words had been aimed largely at Eugene as well. But Eugene only kept grinning, apparently finding something terribly amusing.

'... Bastard. Does he really think I can't kill one fucking cow?'

Cyan drew his sword with a flourish and focused his mind on it. Mana surged within his body and flowed into the blade.

"... Sword aura...!"

Dezra was astonished. A faint light wreathed Cyan's sword. It was unmistakably sword aura, something that could only be manifested after training one's mana to a certain level. Dezra knew very well how powerful that light was: a blade of mana that cut through everything it touched. Sometimes her father would coat his spear in sword aura and show her how it could pierce a huge lump of iron as though it were tofu.

["Once you return from the Bloodline Succession Ceremony, train hard, and you too will be able to manifest this sword aura."]

Manifesting sword aura required at least ten years of mana training. Yet Cyan, who was only a year older than her, could already do it. That fact filled Dezra with despair.

"... Heh heh!"

Cyan relished Dezra's astonishment. With the mana he possessed, he couldn't maintain his sword aura for long. But slicing that slow, stupid fucking cow to death wouldn't take very long.

He strode confidently toward the minotaur.

"... Huh?"

But after only a few steps, Cyan stopped.

The mana forming his sword aura was dispersing. Flustered, he looked down at his sword. He concentrated again, trying to sustain the aura, but no matter how he circulated his mana, he couldn't stop it from dissipating.

"Wh-what's going on?"

Eugene watched Cyan with mischief in his eyes. Discovering that he could already manifest sword aura had been unexpected, but that very ability made this all the more entertaining.

On the walls surrounding the central chamber was a magic circle so faint that it could only be seen with careful concentration. Eugene remembered its design. Various details had changed... but its fundamental framework remained the same.

It was a magic circle that blocked mana within a certain area. Three hundred years ago, Senya had used that circle to neutralize numerous demonfolk mages.

'To think he'd even put a magic circle like that in the center.'

Since the children of the collateral branches hadn't trained their mana, the magic circle targeted only the children of the main family.

'He said he'd judge our aptitude, not the purity of our blood.'

That was what Gilead had said. Children of the collateral branches could never defeat those of the main family. But what if they couldn't use mana? At a loss, Cyan backed away uncertainly. The minotaur stood motionless, watching him.

'Wh-what the hell? Why can't I produce sword aura? I've still got plenty of mana...'

"Cyan?"

Ciel called to him, and his shoulders flinched at her voice. Could he defeat the minotaur without sword aura? Cyan gulped. The mana inside his body wasn't dispersing. He could still maintain his physical speed and agility.

Could he do it?

"If you think you'll lose, just come back. Don't be stubborn and get your ass beaten for nothing."

Eugene spoke with a snicker. That voice! Cyan bit his lip hard. There was no retreat. If he went back now, saying he couldn't do it...

"Yaaah!"

Cyan shouted loudly and charged at the minotaur. Once again, it moved only after its challenger charged. Although Cyan couldn't manifest sword aura, he moved incomparably faster than Dezra.

The minotaur swung its hand. Cyan easily dodged it and darted in close, then swung his sword with all his strength.

SLASH!

Cyan's sword cut across the minotaur. But it left only a shallow wound in its hide. Enduring the ache in his wrist, he swung furiously.

Cyan put up quite a fight. He ducked and weaved through the minotaur's attacks, slashing and thrusting. But his sword strikes failed to cut it properly. The creature was incomparably tougher than any monster he had encountered so far.

'Th-the legs. I have to go for its legs.'

He struggled for breath. Inflicting shallow wounds wasn't getting him any closer to bringing it down. He needed a decisive attack. First of all, it was too big. So he had to force it to its knees... His thoughts wouldn't connect properly. Its hand! Cyan hastily ducked. Advancing in that low stance, he thrust his sword at the minotaur's knee.

CRACK!

The angle of his thrust was wrong. Instead of piercing the minotaur's joint as he had intended, Cyan's sword struck the hard bone of its knee and snapped. Despair flooded his eyes at the sight.

'You said it wouldn't break!'

The moment his sword broke, Cyan blamed Lovellian just as Dezra had. What followed was the same, too. The minotaur's enormous hand caught Cyan and threw him toward the entrance.

"Hah!"

At least Cyan attempted to break his fall. But he had been thrown so far, and his body was so exhausted, that he couldn't do it properly. He writhed, clutching his throbbing back.

"Uuugh...!"

"You lost too."

Eugene snickered as he taunted Cyan. Unable to answer, Cyan could only bite his lip.

"I'm not fighting," Ciel declared immediately.

"It's because of that, right?"

'Oh...'

Ciel pointed at the magic circle drawn on the wall. She did seem to have a sharper eye than her brother.

"I wouldn't know."

Eugene smiled and stood. Ciel looked at her brother with a mixture of worry and amusement, then turned to Eugene.

"Can you win?"

"Won't know until I try."

With that answer, Eugene walked toward the minotaur.