Chapter 191 - Bifron (1)

Day eleven in the Labyrinth, 7 a.m.

After seeing the three off outside the rupture, we returned to the forest.

And then...

“Hey, how about we eat something first, nyah?”

“That would be best.”

Only then did we notice our empty stomachs, so we gathered to cook a meal. But human nature being what it is, a full stomach brings on drowsiness.

“... Let's sleep today and do it tomorrow.”

Suddenly feeling our exhaustion, we set up camp and fell asleep practically all at once.

After all, we hadn't simply pulled an all-nighter. We'd drained ourselves mentally playing mafia in the third chapter, fought a team-on-team PK battle, and followed that up with the doppelgänger boss fight.

SNOOOORE!

Sleep overwhelmed me the moment I closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, an entire day had passed.

[07 : 12]

I'd gone to sleep after eight in the morning, but when I checked my watch, the hour hand had moved back an hour.

Meaning I'd slept nearly twenty-four hours.

“Oh, you're awake?”

“... Why didn't you wake me?”

“We only just woke up ourselves.”

So it wasn't out of consideration for me.

I took out my canteen and gave my face a quick wash, then caught a delicious smell nearby.

“If you're awake, come get your bowl out and sit down, nyah. Oh, wake Aynar and bring her over first, nyah. She gets up pretty easily when you're the one waking her, doesn't she, nyah?”

After waking Aynar, we all ate together, then wandered the forest collecting what we could.

“Don't just follow along. Keep an eye on the ground. Each root of this is worth ten thousand Stones.”

Medicinal herbs that grew wild in Doppelgänger Forest.

“Mr. Jandel.”

CRASH!

Sealed Fragments of Evil, which had a chance to drop when we destroyed the now-useless Sealing Stones.

“How much are these worth?”

“About a million Stones each, I believe.”

“I see. I'll buy the first five we find.”

Of the seven fragments we ultimately obtained, I consumed five. Any more than that would have no effect.

「The character has consumed a ‘Sealed Fragment of Evil.’」

「Mana resistance permanently increases by +1.」

As for the remaining two, I had Misha buy and consume them.

“Huh? Me, nyah?”

“You've made plenty of money anyway. Don't be stingy.”

“No, it's not the money, nyah...”

Misha glanced at Aynar with a somewhat apologetic look.

Honestly, as an explorer, she could stand to be a little more selfish. The Essences Aynar would be consuming later came with plenty of mana resistance anyway, so it made sense for Misha to have them.

Besides, it wasn't as though she wasn't paying.

“Whew. But no matter how much we search, I can't find it.”

“We can spare a day or so. Let's keep looking.”

There were no monsters, but the forest was so vast that an entire day passed just searching for it.

Still, we spent the following day combing the whole forest once more and finally found what we'd been looking for.

“Everyone, cover your ears... No, just stand well back. I'll pull it out.”

A mandragora, one of the ingredients for an elixir.

Raven protected herself with magic and pulled it out of the ground, completing everything there was to do in Doppelgänger Forest.

But...

“I'm really sorry, but could you spare a little more time? I'd like to look around some more.”

“Why?”

“Purely personal curiosity.”

At Raven's request, we decided to stay a little longer.

Surprisingly, no one objected.

“True, Complete Analysis of Ruptures II, was it, nyah? Even the person who wrote that book can't know everything, nyah!”

“With any luck, we might discover something else.”

There was a glimmer of hopeful anticipation in my teammates' eyes.

Personally, I thought the chances of another hidden piece existing that I didn't know about—and of us finding it now—were next to nonexistent, but...

'At least she's asking nicely.'

When we'd first met in Blood-Tinted Castle, she hadn't even apologized. She'd simply ordered the dwarf and me around, making us help with her research.

“Then where do you want to start?”

“The cave we started in.”

From Shadow Cave, the first chapter, all the way to the boss room, the Usurper's Hideout, we searched thoroughly without missing a spot...

In other words, we smashed everything suspicious.

As expected, there were no hidden rooms or items. In the process, however, we encountered countless questions.

“Why iron bars, of all things?”

“Wasn't it because we had to wait for all the other teams to enter?”

“Then it would make more sense to simply synchronize the timing. Like when we enter and leave the Labyrinth.”

Why did Doppelgänger Forest begin with us trapped behind iron bars?

What was the [Sacrifice's Journal] we'd obtained at the altar, and why use the word ‘sacrifice’?

Why had the copies turned into imperial soldiers after we completed the third chapter?

Actually, what even was this ‘empire’ in the first place?

“Thinking about it now, that's a shame too. They could speak, even if they weren't very articulate, right? We might have learned something if we'd captured one...”

The whole team discussed the questions Raven raised, but we couldn't come up with a proper answer to a single one.

And so our exploration of the rupture ended there.

“I'm sorry, everyone. You've wasted two whole days because of me.”

“Don't apologize. You're our team's mage, aren't you? It was a reasonable request. We were the ones who agreed to the search.”

“That's right, nyah. Besides, I enjoyed it—it felt like we were really exploring, nyah. Right, Aynar?”

“Huh? I was bored.”

“Please, read the room, nyah. Will you, nyah?”

Aynar looked crestfallen at the rebuke from Misha, whom she'd recently begun following around like an older sister.

Watching them, Raven chuckled.

“Thank you, everyone. Though, now that I think about it, I suppose I don't really need to apologize. Selling just one mandragora root will easily cover several days' worth of hunting, right?”

“Our mage is finally back to normal.”

“Back to normal? Mr. Urigfried, what's that supposed to mean?”

Mister Bear dodged the question with a shrug. Raven merely gave him a suspicious look without pressing further.

「You have entered the fourth floor: Sky Tower.」

On the afternoon of day fourteen, we returned to the Labyrinth through the boss room's portal and resumed our exploration. It took us about six days to reach the fifth floor.

Then, following our original plan, we took the Hellfire Rift route and focused on finding Millar Rodents while pretending to devote ourselves to hunting.

Oh, and once we found the black moss, everything after that was smooth sailing. I didn't even have to suggest using detection magic first.

Having tasted success on our previous expedition, Raven cast a detection spell every five minutes throughout this one.

“... Nothing again.”

As a result, we managed to hunt three Millar Rodents in total, but all three were duds.

Granted, that was actually the norm. There was only a twenty percent chance of spellbend succeeding and leaving a Millar Rodent's corpse behind.

'Looks like it's not happening this time.'

With five days left until the Labyrinth closed, we stopped going out of our way to find Millar Rodents.

Even if we got in, we'd have to come out before accomplishing much.

Tsk. Now that I'd obtained the Orb of Fire, I'd planned to tackle an area I hadn't been able to reach before.

「You have defeated a Stoneburn. EXP +4」

「You have defeated a Fire Revenant. EXP +2」

「You have defeated a Red Mud. EXP +3」

「You have defeated a Hell Flame. EXP +5」

Still, the hunting itself wasn't bad.

It was the sole upside to the failed campaign against Noark. With over ninety percent of the clans that had occupied the fields gone, the entire fifth floor was teeming with monsters.

Of course, this wouldn't last long. In a few months, some clans would have recovered their losses, and quite a few hadn't entered at all because of the unstable situation.

More time passed like that.

「The character is being transported to Raphdonia.」

The day of our return dawned.

* * *

Sunlight wrapped warmly around my skin.

As always, I stood dazed for a moment, savoring that comforting warmth. Looking around, I spotted explorers here and there doing much the same.

'All right, let's get going.'

I headed to the checkpoint for our rank and found my teammates already there.

All except one.

“Avman isn't here yet, I see.”

“Oh, there he comes now. With someone else.”

It baffled me every time I saw it.

Sure, the plaza was huge, but how could anyone get lost here?

“Haha, the line isn't very long this time, is it?”

“I think that's because fewer explorers entered the Labyrinth this time, not because you got here early.”

“Ahem. Did I say otherwise?”

Anyway, we all joined the line, and our turn came quickly.

Our earnings from exchanging magic crystals were much lower than before.

“That comes to 7.08 million Stones.”

Split five ways, that was 1.41 million Stones each.

Almost four times less than our previous earnings. But it couldn't be helped.

We hadn't managed to enter the Otherworld, and Doppelgänger Forest, where we'd spent so much time, was inherently a poor source of magic crystals.

“Is that everything, then?”

“Yes. Thank you for your hard work again.”

Since we hadn't made some absurd amount, the clerk didn't give us any suspicious looks either.

But just as we finished the exchange and were about to leave...

“Ah, please wait a moment!”

Huh?

“... Is there a problem?”

The clerk hastily stopped us, then rattled off a question.

“Team Apple Naraq, and its leader, Bjorn Jandel. Is that correct?”

“Yes. Why?”

“... I'm afraid you'll need to wait here a moment. That includes the teammates accompanying you.”

No grim-faced guards came over to tie me up like last time, but it was enough to tell me something was wrong.

Had our team's mage sensed the same thing?

“Excuse me, shouldn't you explain what's going on first?”

Raven spoke sharply on my behalf while I felt on the verge of a PTSD episode.

And then...

“Inspector, are these the ones?”

“Ah, yes, yes! They are!”

A knight entered the checkpoint.

Raven's face froze.

“... What's Mozlan doing here?”

Mozlan.

An enforcement agency composed entirely of knights of noble birth, notorious for all sorts of things.

“Bjorn.”

Misha, who'd once seen Dwalki arrested right before her eyes, was trembling too.

Surprisingly, however, the knight was friendly.

At least compared to the overbearing bastards I'd seen back then.

“A pleasure. I'm Elmeras, of Mozlan's enforcement division.”

He did speak with the casual air of a superior, but that was typical of nobles, so it was only to be expected. By their standards, this was positively mild.

More importantly, wasn't he even offering a friendly handshake?

At the very least, that meant he wasn't particularly hostile toward us.

“... I am Bjorn, son of Jandel.”

I returned his handshake, inwardly sighing with relief.

Still, my unease hadn't vanished completely. Why had the inspector stopped us, and what did Mozlan want with us?

“Hello.”

“Hmm, and who might you be, young lady?”

“I'm Allua Raven of the Altemion School. I'd like to hear why you've come looking for us, Sir Elmeras.”

The knight smiled as he answered Raven's question.

“There's only one reason an inspector would detain explorers. A warrant has been issued for you.”

The news was a bolt from the blue.

“What? What do you...”

“Don't be so alarmed. Judging by the disciplinary measures, it doesn't seem particularly serious.”

“No, more importantly, what is it for?”

The knight answered with a broad grin.

“Using an Ability within the city. And entering the Labyrinth without authorization, in defiance of the administrators' instructions.”

Oh, that...

Raven and the rest of us all shut our mouths. So much had happened in the Labyrinth that we'd completely forgotten.

I'd thought it would end with a fine anyway.

“I don't understand. Wouldn't a fine be the usual punishment for something like that?”

Without meaning to, I sounded a little argumentative.

No matter how I looked at it, there was no reason to issue a warrant, much less involve Mozlan.

So what was going on?

“Given the circumstances, you understand. Rather than a simple misdemeanor, this could be interpreted as defying the royal family's orders.”

Right. So that was it.

I had a rough grasp of the situation now. From the look of things, so did Raven.

“... You want to keep the explorers on a tight leash.”

“Why try to hide anything from a mage? You're right. It's only been a day, but word about you is already spreading among the explorers.”

“About us?”

“They're saying they should've just charged in instead of following instructions, and that they feel like fools for waiting. Those above decided that if this ended with a mere fine, something similar would happen again.”

Simply put, making an example of someone.

Punish one person to put the fear into a hundred others.

“If control over the explorers loosens now, it could lead to something far worse. I hope you understand.”

I thought I understood why they'd chosen me, too.

I'd made something of a name for myself, and my unauthorized entry had become a hot topic. They must have figured word would spread easily.

“So what's going to happen to us?”

When I cut straight to the point, the knight corrected one thing before answering.

“To be precise, not all of you. Just you.”

I was the only one being punished. The rest, he said, would get off with fines.

Apparently, the circumstances suggested they'd simply been dragged into it, and since the punishment was for show anyway, there was no need for everyone to suffer.

“Ohhh, reasonable! Yes, that's reasonable!!”

Seeing Aynar so delighted hurt my heart.

Raven wasn't stepping forward to protest the injustice either, and Mister Bear was busy feeling relieved that his wife wouldn't beat him.

Was I really the only one who would speak up for me?

Just as that distrustful thought was circling my head...

“Excuse me, Sir Knight, nyah? If it's just for show anyway, could I take that punishment instead, nyah?”

Misha alone stepped forward for my sake.

“What are you talking about?”

I chuckled and nudged Misha back.

I appreciated the thought, but there was no way that would work. Strictly speaking, I was the main culprit in this incident anyway.

Besides, from what he was saying, the punishment didn't sound all that severe...

“It's fine. I'll take responsibility. So go on, tell me. What's going to happen to me now?”

The knight tossed out his answer as though it were nothing.

“Just spend twenty days in Bifron.”

It was a fixed-term sentence of exile.