A small current of wave splashed against Hajime's left cheek.
"Ugh..."
Hajime groaned and turned over on the cracked rock platform.
His head throbbed painfully as a professional boxer used it for a speedball. The rest of his body felt like a truck rammed into him in full force.
Nonetheless, he was alive.
Eventually, Hajime picked himself up from the platform and looked around.
His surrounding was dark, leaving very little for his eyes to pick up even after they adapted to the dark.
From what he could make out, Hajime guessed he was stuck in the middle of a crevasse.
A colossal river rumbled from above, which must have taken him alongside the platform to the shore, where he woke up.
He stared blankly at the small platform, dully wondering how he wasn't smashed into a pulp when whatever force split it in half when his brain rang an alert.
"Kaori," He gasped. Ignoring the pulsating pain, he stumbled onto the wet, slippery shore and looked around.
"Kaori!? Shizuku!" He called, but no one answered.
Hajime's knee gave way, nearly smacking his injured head on the hard ground.
As Hajime fumbled on the ground, blood trickled down the side of his head and dotted the floor.
The sturdy ground swam under his fingers. Hajime suddenly retched before vomiting on the floor.
"...Concussion..."
He ran his hand over the especially throbbing area of his head. It was swollen and squishy. When Hajime looked back at his hand, it was covered with blood.
"This...isn't good..." Hajime muttered, trying to keep himself focused.
This wasn't the time to worry about others—he was dangerously close to dropping dead any second.
Hajime half crawled, and half walked his way to the platform. His sack, stuffed with magical artifacts and potions, was mostly empty. Most of the supplies inside was smashed to pieces.
Luckily, there was still a healing potion in tacked deep within the bag. Hajime pulled out the cork, pocketed it safely, then poured the magic fluid over his head wound.
Hajime sighed as a soft pillow seemed to cover his wound. He didn't dare touch the wound again, as it might open up again. He hoped this emergency treatment would be enough.
Now that his vision was clearer, Hajime took a look around the sight again. He had, indeed, fallen between a pair of tall cliff.
Hajime looked up to the ceiling, which was pitch black due to the lack of light source. From his point of view, either cliff stretched to infinity and beyond.
There was no way in hell he'd manage to scale to the top on the best of his condition, much less in a wounded state.
He dropped his gaze to the rushing river.
Could he perhaps climb up the current? He doubted it. Again, he wasn't strong enough to steer a boat against such a current.
Hajime gritted his teeth.
For the first time, he was frustrated that he was too weak.
First, the silver lady completely overpowered him, then after he dropped a few thousand feet, he couldn't find a way back up.
"Kaori...Shizuku..." He muttered again, but he assumed that the girls were stranded somewhere else on the other half of the rock platform.
They are most likely dead.
"Be quiet," He told himself.
Now that the imminent threat of death was averted, his body picked up on relatively trival details, such as how he was soaked from head to toe, and was shivering violently from the cold.
A magic scroll would have been helpful to start a fire, except the paper went missing. He had no choice but to use magic by himself.
"What I seek for is fire, the embodiment of the essence of life, which I call upon—[Flare]."
A fist-sized ball of fire lit up on the ground.
Hajime winced as his head ached again. Even using simple magic took a toll on him at the moment.
After roughly half an hour (Hajime had no way to tell time), Hajime stood back up.
His clothes were dry. His head wound was feeling much better. And most importantly, he had spotted another way out of the shore he washed up into.
The entrance was wide enough for him to squeeze through via crab walking, but it opened up like a cave soon enough.
Hajime stumbled through the dark maze. A part of him missed the shore; maybe if he waited long enough, someone might come to rescue him.
But at the same time, Hajime had long since grown out of expecting things to fix themselves while he stood by the wayside.
The path was bumpy and rough, but that also meant it had plenty of space to hide in case of an emergency.
It wasn't an uplifting thought, but if he was yet in the Labyrinth, monsters might attack him at any given chance.
Thankfully, no such thing happened until Hajime reached the other end of the cave.
"Whoa..."
Despite his dire situation, Hajime couldn't help but be amazed when he reached the clearing.
While the cave was just wide enough for him to walk through, the new set of hallway-isk avenues were at least 10 meters wide, and also very smooth.
Every few feet of those pathways had an orange gem providing light. Hajime recalled them being called Penetite— A type of mineral that glowed only in darkness.
'Someone artificially crafted this area...' Hajime thought, running his hand over the smooth texture of the wall, 'But who would do such a thing deep inside the Labyrinth?'
This area was not discovered before; otherwise he would have undoubtedly read about it beforehand.
The thought excited Hajime to a degree—He just discovered an unknown territory of the Labyrinth!
However, his excitement sizzled out when a growl echoed from one of the hallways.
Thankfully, while the walls were smoothed out, the environment itself was very much like the tunnel Hajime just walked through.
Hajime ducked behind a nearby boulder, just big enough to hide behind, as another growl sounded; this time, much closer.
He peeked out from the boulder and saw a wolf step out from the left hall.
It sniffed the air with a frown. Hajime prayed to the gods that the monster wouldn't be able to trace him by scent.
"Woof!"
Hajime clamped over his mouth to prevent himself from screaming.
The wolf's bark must have been a signal because soon, more wolves strolled out from the shadow.
Total of dozen wolves gathered around, then swiftly moved in a single pack back the way Hajime just walked through.
When the last wolf vanished into the tunnel, Hajime slumped down on the ground and sighed in relief.
"I have to move before those double tailed monsters return..."
The left side was obviously a no-go, which left him with two options: Front or Right.
After a split second of considering, Hajime picked the right. He jogged down the corridor, his ears on full alert in case some other monster lurked in the dark.
But what he found instead was something much more intimidating.
Hajime slowed down when he arrived at a dead-end.
"You've got to be kidding," he sighed.
Not only did he have to retrace his footstep, but there was a chance that he might come face-to-face with the wolf pack on the return trip.
But right when he was about to turn back, Hajime caught that the left wall was slightly different.
He carefully put a hand on the wall, and to his surprise, the heavy rock slightly slid to the right like a door.
"What the..."
Hajime put his eye up close to the small gap that opened in the wall. Inside, he saw a circular room that reeked with blood.
He suppressed the nauseating sickness climbing from the back of his throat and stepped back in horror.
The room was filled with bones and leather of the double tailed wolves and some other monsters Hajime didn't recognize.
In the middle of the cave, the remains of dozens of slaughtered monsters were gathered into something resembling a nest.
'This is a monster's cave!'
Hajime realized with a pang in his heart. He hobbled back, nearly tripping over his foot, and hurriedly retraced his steps.
Unfortunately, he was too panicked to remember the pack of wolves back at the crossroad.
"Grrrr…"
That is, until he ran right into them on the same road.
Hajime couldn't even gasp when he came face to face with the pack's leader.
His survival instincts firmly ordered that he stay completely still, under the logic that if he made any movement, the wolves would tear him apart.
But staying still didn't mean the wolves were automatically friendly to him.
The leading wolf stepped forth, keeping its ears and nose pricked up. It circled Hajime, checking if this new creature was a threat to his pack or not.
Before it made up its mind, however, the leader picked up a new sound.
Rrrrrr...
A deep, low rumbling growl of the one true ruler of the 10th floor of the Great Orcus Labyrinth.
The leader wolf yelped, warning its pack to flee, right before the air rippled.
Hajime blinked with confusion as two wolves suddenly grew three red strips around their body.
A second later, he realized with horror that those weren't simple strips.
It was blood spewing from the slash wound.
The two wolves crumpled into a pile of freshly cut meat. Other wolves scattered as the air rippled again.
The leader wolf barked once more and darted to the left corridor, inducing his pack to follow him to safety.
However, the heavy footsteps of the prime monster was already too close.
Hajime gathered his wits to will his legs out of paralyzation and hurried backwards as a pair of aquamarine eyes loomed out from the middle corridor.
"Rrrrr..."
A giant polar bear revealed itself from the shadows.
It was already taller than Hajime, even though it was on all fours—Hajime didn't want to imagine how big it would be while standing up.
The polar bear scanned the crossroad.
It was very irritated today.
Something was going to die by her hands.
"Rrraaagh! " It bellowed loudly.
That was when the leading wolf decided to strike.
Since they were discovered, it was impossible to escape the bear. Their best chance of survival was to hopefully scare it off.
"Woof!"
With a courageous bark, the leader pounced first. He spun the two tail, charging up electricity in his body and chomped on the nose of the bear.
Bzzzz!!
The Bear roared and reared up on its back legs, electricity sparking over its white skin.
The rest of the wolf pack followed the example of their leader, pouncing by twos and threes, and sunk their fangs in various parts of the Bear.
However, after the initial shock passed by, the Polar Bear merely snarled in annoyance.
None of the wolves could pierce her thick hide, which meant their electricity didn't do much damage.
With a roar of fury, it slammed into the side of the corridor, crushing three wolves dangling at her left side.
She swiped with her left front leg, slicing another two clinging at her other front leg.
The leading wolf howled and chomped down on the neck harder, making the polar bear flinch with a tingling sensation of pain.
However, she swatted the wolf away with a swipe of her paw.
She couldn't dare to use her magic [Gale Claw], since it might damage her throat, but the blow was enough to send the wolf sprawling on the ground with a nasty Crack!
"...!"
That nasty sound jolted Hajime awake from his stooper, his mind previiusly had shut down from the uncomprehenisble amount of gore and violence panning in front of him.
The bear was continuing its massacre, slaughtering the wolves hanging onto its body.
He couldn't go into the right corridor; not only was it dead-end, but he estimated that the besr belonged to this bear. Nor could he return to the river, as it was a dead-end as well.
That left only one option. And he didn't have any time to contemplate.
Hajime threw all caution to the wind and darted to the left corridor.
For a heart-exploding two seconds, he could almost feel the bear's aquamarine eyes following him.
Then, he nearly tripped and rolled into the left corridor as the last wolf let out a final yelp as it got decapitated.
Hajime was far from safe.
Raaarrrrg!!!
"Aaaahhh!!!"
Hajime screamed as he ran as fast as he can muster, feeling the heavy thumpings of the predator behind him.
"What do you want from me!?" He shouted in desperation.
He had no idea why the bear was chasing him. Did it think he was a threat? Or maybe it decided that he'll make a delicious snack after a 12 pack of wolves to feast on.
Whatever the case was, Hajime ran for his life, not caring if he looked hideous during the process; screaming and flailing his limbs around.
Suddenly, the air rippled.
"Agh—"
Hajime stumbled, suddenly feeling unbalanced around the right side. He fell spectacularly on his face, scraping it against the rocky corridor.
"Agh, gah, haaa...!?"
Even before he could pick himself up, Hajime whimpered from the rapidly expanding pain around his right knee.
Despite the pain, Hajime could feel the bear's foot steps pouncing closer. From the dark shadows, the cold, aquamarine eyes were locked on him.
"N, noooo!!!"
Hajime screamed in despair and scrambled up to his feet—
—only to tilt sideways and slump against the wall.
And Hajime finally realized what was wrong with him.
"M, m, my leg!" He shouted in horror.
Through the blurry vision obscured by blood, sweat and tears, Hajime could make out that only one of his legs were intact.
His right leg was missing below the knee, making a pool of thick dark-red blood even as he stared at it with disbelief.
"Hagh, gaaa..."
Just realizing what happened to him boosted the pain reception by quite a lot. Hajime scowled and whimpered, tried to stand up, but failed.
The bear was close. Hajime's hyper-activated brain alerted that he only had a few seconds left.
In the most dire situation, Hajime's mind gravitate toward the specific skill he had been honing for weeks.
"[T-t-t, transmute!]"
Hajime fumbled at the wall against his back as he shouted. As soon as he felt space open up, he kicked at the ground for his life.
Rraaarr!
"[T-t-t, transmute! Transmute! Transmuteee!!! ]"
Hajime crawled into the hole he dug, the terrified mind fixated on the sight of the bear snarling and growling as it tried to swipe at Hajime with her magic.
It carved in a foot deep into the wall before deciding Hajime wasn't worth it anymore. After a final snarl, the bear turned around and sulked away.
Hajime slumped on the rough floor, panting as if he ran a marathon and back.
As the immident danger vanished, his body started to report on all the damage he currently had.
Hajime clawed at the tiny wall, supressing the urge to cry or scream in pain only because he feared it might attract another monster.
'It hurts,' His thought, 'It hurts, it hurts it hurtsithurtsithurts—'
Oh, shut up.
Hajime clenched his jaw. A swoop of red mana engulfed him, and the immense pain seemed to subside just enough to retain his sanity.
Hajime slumped to the floor, now feeling nauseous due to blood lose. Still, he recognized the voice; it was the same voice that contacted him before he fell down the abyss.
"W, who are you...?" He croaked.
The voice giggled.
That's not a pressing matter, is it?
I promised you power, in exchange for a small catch.
I'm here to uphold my part of the deal; but then, you'll have to uphold yours.
"I lost a fucking leg," Hajime growled, "How are you going to make you stronger?"
A small portion of him was surprised that a curse word came up so naturally to his mouth. But then again, he used to have two legs as well.
Oh, please. I can fix that up easily.
The voice seemed to scoff.
Have some sleep while I get you all better, will you? You'll be a new man when you wake up.
Hajime wanted to protest some more, but he was too worn out both physically and mentally to keep on arguing with an disembodied voice.
For all he knew, it might all be in his head.
As Hajime let the overwhelming sense of sleep crash over him, the last thing he saw was the walls and the ceiling glowing with red mana.
Kaori found it irritating whenever people would ask her why she chose Hajime for a boyfriend, when she could easily get a much better person for a couple.
They had no idea why she took interest, and eventually fell for him. And if she was allowed to, she'd explain it to everyone at the top of her voice.
Unfortunately, that was impossible.
Kaori's first interaction with Hajime was through a piece of paper.
Her father worked at a fairly well-known publishing company, and his job was to go through mountains of drafts and lovecalls sent by "Aspiring Writers".
Kaori asked why her father always used quotation marks whenever he used the phrase "Aspiring Writers".
Her father laughed, and handed her one of the drafts to her, "Why don't you read one of these and find out yourself?"
Kaori was at the brink of graduating elementary school at that point, yet the short story she read was very poorly made.
With her nose scrunched in disapprovement, she checked the front page to see who wrote this atrocious literature.
"Hajime...Nagumo?" She read, and her frown deepened with confusion, "Wasn't he one of the writers you were excited to seal a deal with, papa?"
"Thankfully, no," Her father said, "That would be Shuu Nagumo. An amazing writer, but sadly, it seems the gift didn't trickle down to his son."
"I see..." Kaori looked at the name again.
'Did he apply as a writer because his father was one? If so, that's very pathetic...and sad.'
She returned the draft to her father and went back to her room.
Needless to say, Hajime's application was disqualified.
Back then, Kaori didn't think too deeply about the whole event much. If he had given up then, Kaori would have frogot the name 'Hajime Nagumo'.
However, the boy applied the next time.
And again.
And again.
Her father found each attempt more irritating, as none of the attempts were worthy of publishing, so it only meant one more parchment he had to work through.
But the continuous attempts planted a small curiosity about this 'Hajime Nagumo' into Karoi's mind.
She asked her father if she could read through the drafts after he was done with it. Then, she would read through the various stories 'Hajime Nagumo' would write.
Some were bad, worse than his prdvious work, even.
Sometimes, Kaori couldn't get through the first page before disregarding it as a waste of time and paper.
But on other times, she found herself getting hooked. She read through the entire draft, and was bumbed when she reached the end, knowing that she will never know the rest of the story.
And most importantly, it was enjoyable watching how this unknown kid improved his skill with each attempt.
There were some backsteps here and there, but she could see how hard he worked on each and every attempt.
Before she knew, Kaori was anticipating the day her father would return with a pile of papers, eagerly awaiting the draft of her favorite author.
But those days didn't last.
During her middle-scholarship, a crisis struck her father's publishing company.
Thankfully, her family managed to make it through without too much trouble apart from moving their home elsewhere, but the Nagumo Family wasn't so lucky.
Through various legal shenanigans, they were forced to bear a huge debt, and they ran away from their home without leaving a trace.
Kaori was very disappointed by the outcome, but she always remembered Hajime, and his unending attempts.
She liked that aspect of him the most.
...ori...
The aspect that wasn't shared with all the fancy boys around her, not even Kouki.
"Kaori!"
"Wha—?!"
Kaori woke with a start.
She instinctively tried sat up and nearly clashed her forehead with someone else, who had been looking down on her with concern.
Luckily, said person had supreme reflex and back off just enough to avoid collision, then as soon as Kaori was up, tackled her with a tight hug.
"Shizuku..." Kaori muttered, returning the hug all the same.
Shizuku nodded, "You were knocked out for so long, I thought..."
Kaori felt her friend tremble, so she tightened her embrace and pat her on the back with a warm smile.
"I'm fine, Shizuku. I..."
However, the warm sensation she felt vanished quikcly as her memory caught up.
"Where is Hajime?" She asked.
Shizuku tensed in her arms. Kaori tried to pull away to look around, but Shizuku kept a firm grip around her waist.
Kaori looked around the best she could. They were sitting near a deep cliff, with half of the platform perched at the edge dangerously.
A horrifying suspicion started to grow in Kaori's head. She shook her head to get rid of it, and looked into Shizuku's eyes.
"Shizuku, what happened? Where is Hajime?" She asked more urgently, trying her best to ignore the tears in her friend's eyes.
Shizuku reluctantly let Kaori go, wiped her eyes, then explained what happened.
"We fell through dozens of floors," Shizuku recited, "It was too dark, and we were too fast to evacuate to a floor. I tried to grab both of you, but..."
"So you let Hajime go?!" Kaori raised her voice.
"I had to choose between the two! Kaori, I had no choice—" Shizuku tried to explain, but Kaori was too agitated to listen to reason.
"How can you let him fall down the abyss?!"
"I didn't want to!" Shizuku screeched back. The steadfast swordsman sank to her knees and buried her face in them.
"I didn't want...anything bad to happen to anyone," Shizuku mumbled in tears, "...why is it always happening around me?"
Kaori's anger subsided at the sight of her best friend crying into her lap.
"Shizuku..." Kaori sat beside her friend and put her arms around the trembling shoulders, "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to blame you for what happened. I got carried away..."
Shizuku wiped the tears away, "I really tried to save both of you...I really tried..."
"Yes, I understand. I'm sorry."
The two girls shared a firm hug.
After they pull apart, Kaori looked down over the cliff. It dropped so deep that she couldn't see the actual floor.
Shizuku peered over Kaori's shoulder with a devastated expression. No one could survive a fall that deep, which meant that Hajime was most likely...
"...He is alive down there."
"What?" Shizuku asked, slightly alarmed. Did Kaori actually loose her mind?
However, when Kaori turned to face her, there were no signs of visible insanity or mad desperation.
"I don't want to think that he..." Kaori swallowed the word, "...at least, until there is proof...I believe Hajime would've managed to survive."
Kaori winced as she ranted on about the possibilty of Hajime's survival. Even to her, her claim sounded unrealistic and deranged.
And yet, she wanted to believe that Hajime was still alove. He had to be alive.
Shizuku, hearing all of this, was silent for a long time. Her fingers ran across the sword strapped to her side.
Finally, she said, "There is a way down aside from the cliff."
Kaori immediately perked up, "Really? Where?"
Despite her better judgment, Shizuku led her friend down a narrow path until they arrived in front of a massive door.
The gate was 20ft tall and was made of filthy black metal that neither of them recognized. A sentence was inscribed at the top, which read:
[The Great Orcus Labyrinth]
[Warning: One way Entrance!]
"...I though we were in the Orcus Labyrinth," Kaori muttered, "What's this gate doing here?"
"I don't know," Shizuku replied, "But if we assume that this is the true entrance of the Labyrinth, then there would be 100 floors below us."
"And Hajime might be in one of them!" Kaori exclaimed.
Shizuku nodded. She couldn't bear to point out that Hajime barely had a chance of survival on the upper 20th floor on his own, much less somewhere deeper.
Kaori immediately went for the door, but Shizuku blocked her path before she reached it.
"Kaori, listen to me first." Shizuku said, "If we go inside, we would be throwing our chance to get resuced ourselves.
I don't know what kind of Labyrinth this one will be, but if it is anything like the maze we went through, the monsters would be much stronger than anythinf we've faced before."
Kaori hesitated for a moment.
However, her mind didn't waver.
"I'm going," She said firmly, then added, "...Shizuku, you don't have to feel obligated to come with me. If you think this is futile, you can try to find a way up."
Shizuku smiled, faintly.
"...I just told you, I don't want to lose anyone else in my life. There is no way I'm letting you go off alone, Kaori."
And she stepped aside.
Kaori put her body against the left door, and Shizuku stuck to the right.
"Shall we?"
"Yes."
They pushed the door at the same time.
The gate of the True Orcus Labyrinth creaked and groaned as it slowly opened, welcoming the two new challengers in years.
A/N:
Man, I'm really trying to keep this from being a monthly release, especially since none of my chapters are long or something, but yet again, procrastination takes a win.
Sorry for that.
As usual, I welcome any questions or suggestions for the story! I'm not saying they'll be 100% included, but I like to know what you guys think.
And I think that's all!
I hope you all had a fun time reading, and I'll see you all in the next chapter!