Chapter 38:
A Webbed Labyrinth

Special thanks to One Inch of Ash for helping with the future outline.

I unfurled one of the light scrolls, revealing an intricate pattern decorated with ornate curves and signatures. It wasn't terribly dark, but if anything attacked us with this visibility, someone might get a limb torn off. It was absolutely not because I was feeling a bit claustrophobic in the dreary atmosphere of the labyrinth.

"I'm going to light things up a little," I announced loudly enough for everyone to hear. We weren't in formation yet, but we were still a bit scattered.

"Good. Can't see a thing right now, so that'd be a big help," I heard Elinalise say.

I was pleasantly surprised when I took a closer look at the scroll and saw the twinkling ink that made up a magic circle on the surface of the parchment. I was more than interested in finding out what made these things tick, considering they were one of the things I'd yet to learn all about in this world. Plus, I just thought they were pretty awesome in general, which more likely than not was due to my hikikomori days.

Who wouldn't like to draw up their own magic circle? It should be every girl's dream.

Using just a bit of mana, I activated the scroll. Apparently, the mana necessary was so little that even a housewife could use it. That was probably the reason why it was such an in-demand item. But while almost anyone could activate one, the spirit's lifetime was completely dependent on how much mana the user held in their mana pool.

And of course, not to brag or anything, the title of largest mana pool belonged to none other than me. Thus, I was the best person for the job.

A ball of light sprung forth from the parchment, spinning around my body like a fairy before settling in a steady orbit around my head. The newfound light brightened up the place, revealing the appearance of the labyrinth. Judging from the massive wooden braces that hugged the walls, this place was something like an abandoned mineshaft. There were picks and all sorts of rubble on the ground, clearly remnants from the place's heyday. Rows of bone-white spiderwebs decorated the corners of the labyrinth, with some being so thick that they looked like a semi-transparent veil.

A spider den-type dungeon, maybe? A few beats after I had that thought, something told me that I was just jumping to conclusions way too fast. It wouldn't be the first time nor the last, so I decided to hold off on any ideas. Besides, any dark and moist place has spiders. That doesn't mean the whole place is infested with them.

Ares squeezed my hand to get my attention. "How does that even work…?" he remarked, marveling at the floating orb.

"I'd like to know the same thing," I replied. "I've got to learn about them once things have simmered down a little."

"They seem annoyingly complicated, but when has that ever stopped you," he quipped.

"Hehe," I giggled. "As opposed to the ridiculously simple swordsmanship you know so much about?" I teased.

"Simple? Why don't you take a crack at it, then?" he huffed.

"I think I'll stick with my magic, thank you very much," I replied.

"That's probably for the best," he said. After I shot him a look, he cleared his throat and said, "Uhm, I mean, I can't really see you with a sword."

That's just because you've never seen me with one!

"I could totally be a swordswoman!" I protested. "I've just never tried!"

"Or so you say…" he grinned, reaching up and ruffling my hair.

Oh… we're quite close right now, aren't we? I paused.

Something felt off, but what was it? I wasn't tired or anything, and I'd already had my time of the month. It was somewhere around my chest area, but I couldn't quite put a finger on it. And then, when Ares reached up his hand to yawn, I noticed it.

It's… my heart rate?

I swallowed a lump in my throat as I eyed our hands that were entwined together. Back in the early days, I usually avoided physical contact with Ares to avoid any unwanted… groping. But now? It was like he'd become a little self-aware about those things, at the very least. So, I didn't really mind it all that much now.

But how come I'm so conscious about it?

"Anyway, when's a monster gonna pop up?" Ares groaned, looking around.

I'll figure it out later. Should I really be worried about this stuff when my whole family's missing? The thought made my chest twinge, but I brushed it off. I mean, we were inside of a labyrinth right now. There's a time and place, right?

"clicklackscrutscrutscrut…"

As if to prove my point, a sickly and unpleasant crawling sound eerily rang in an undistinguishable direction. Everyone raised their guard, with Ares ripping his sword out of his sheath and the three magicians including me settling into a defensive stance.

"The two of yer," Talhand said, glancing at Ares and I. "You should keep those Demon Eyes of yours open, jus' in case."

I did as suggested, with faded mana signatures springing up in my vision. But for some reason, there was mana everywhere. It clouded anything that was more than a few feet away from me in a golden haze.

Is this what Lady Kishirika was going on about? She'd mentioned that her powers were especially weak in a labyrinth, which I knew was already filled to the brim with mana. Maybe Demon Eyes were sensitive to this type of thing, and I'd have to train a little harder to be able to filter out this sort of mana.

I peered over to Ares, whose eyepatch was flipped up against his hair and looked especially dark in this sort of lighting. He met my gaze for a moment and then flinched.

Hm? What's wrong with—

"Watch out!" he exclaimed, lunging forward and shoving me to the side. I landed on the harsh ground and managed to raise my chin just in time to see a pair of slick, purple mandibles gnashing where my head was just a second ago.

A spider! No, a monster! Damn it, both of them!

It screeched at Ares, baring its bloody fangs inside of its mouth. It scurried over to the corner where the ceiling met the wall and crawled down, spitting out a nearly clear stream of fluid at him. Its dull black color with its large, raised abdomen and long legs was extremely hard to look at.

Ares ducked away from the clear stream of what had to be poison spat by the creature and propelled himself forward from the force of getting up, drawing back both of his arms.

"Squarsk!"

He cleaved through the creature, cracking open its exoskeleton and slicing through its insides with one clean stroke. What remained of the unfortunate nightmare fuel, however, wasn't clean whatsoever.

"Too close," I exhaled in relief. Talhand walked over to the corpse and beckoned the others to come closer. "Thank you, Ares."

"Jeez. Are you sure you can handle being in here?" he shook his head with a disdainful yet half-joking sigh.

"What's with that look? It wasn't my fault, you know?" I grumbled.

It really wasn't! Not like I could particularly keep my eyes peeled when I was halfway blinded by this Eye. Well, if this has taught me anything, it's to not rely on a Demon Eye.

With that thought, the moment when Ares pushed me away was brought to my mind. Ares had flinched, without taking his eyes away from me. But what could've warranted that reaction? Sure, he could've caught sight of that spider-monster-thing, but he'd look up at it if that was true.

Did he use his Foresight? I hoped it was true, considering how much effort I'd put into making sure he knew how to use it. Maybe Ares was more skilled with that sort of thing than I'd thought. I knew he could pull it off, in any case. That's just who Ares is—he won't let anything stop him from stubbornly clinging to his progress.

"Ah, Lumina, are you alright?" Roxas rushed over to me, a meter and a half or so from the rest of the party.

"Thankfully. If it weren't for Ares, I might've kicked the bucket just then," I chuckled.

"Don't joke about that! That was serious, ya know?!" Roxas seemed genuinely concerned.

"It was just a slip-up. This Eye of mine didn't want to work properly down here, so I let my guard down. I'd be surprised if something like this happens again, so don't worry," I explained, hoping to reassure him at least a little.

"As long as you're aware…" he relented.

In the corner of my eye, I could see Ares glaring before he noticed me looking and turned away.

…There's definitely something going on. Call me crazy, but I could've sworn he was glaring at Roxas, not me. Whatever it was, I just hoped that it wouldn't distract them from the task at hand.

"We ought to take some of these mandibles back. They'll fetch us some decent cash if we do," Talhand huffed.

"That is, if they're still intact," I sheepishly said, trying my hardest not to look at the disfigured corpse drenched in the purple blood of its insides… blew it. Ah, it's fine. It wasn't as if I wasn't used to it by now, but, like any other normal person, I still didn't enjoy looking at death.

To my surprise, however, they weren't even so much as damaged. As harsh as Ares's attack looked, I figured that the actual split was pretty clean. I was still painfully under-informed about the inner workings of the North God Style—I mean, I knew the basics. Trip up your opponent with any means necessary, corner them, and adapt to any situation if the need arises. But aside from that? If you held me by gunpoint and asked me to name three North God Style techniques, that'd be my last day alive.

But what I did know is that it was incredibly powerful. Alek was so swift that no matter how hard I tried to examine his attacks against a monster, I just couldn't keep my eyes on him. Also, the fights usually ended in less than 5 seconds. I had no idea how Ares was learning anything from that guy, but I wasn't a swordswoman to begin with. Maybe one day, but I have way too much on my plate right now.

I feel like I'm repeating that same sentiment a lot lately.


The rest of the first floor went on without much of a hitch. We got into our formation which skyrocketed our efficiency. Alek's decision to place himself at the front of it was probably the best he could've made. Equipped with his own handicap as he couldn't use Kajakuto underground, he brandished a heavy silver greatsword that was infused with mana that wouldn't allow the material to break. He decimated any creature that came our way, and there were lots of them, at that. The only time anyone else really had to fight was when Alek was overwhelmed—in that case, it was really only just Ares helping and no one else due to lack of any concrete role—or when we were being attacked from behind.

One thing that all of the monsters held in common was that they were some sort of arachnid or insectoid creature. And it meant that, like I'd believed, it was some sort of spider-themed dungeon. Stuff like that in my past life was a lot easier to deal with. You'd equip a character with fire-type skills to incinerate all of the inhabitants and be done with it. But reality was a lot different.

Putting aside the obvious 'no using big fire spells underground or else you'll release carbon monoxide' thing, the monsters were a lot more creepy than I could've imagined. I'd seen tons of spider-like monsters in the one year spent on the Demon Continent, but this was different. This was practically a giant complex that served as a nest for the damn things. The twists and turns of the whole place made me feel a sense of uneasiness—not to mention the fact that being attacked directly from behind was very possible.

We found no magic equipment which, while unfortunate, was expected. This place was a lot more low-key than a lot of the other dungeons around Zant Port, after all. Magical items were almost always borne from the equipment left by adventurers that perished inside of labyrinths.

The entire first floor had a linear height save for some open cave clearings, so it made it easy to find out when we found the steep stairway to the next floor.

Almost instantly we noticed a change in the air down there. It was a lot chillier, but it was somewhat bearable. I noticed Ares shivering a few times, but it wasn't like he'd freeze to death or anything.

"Skrtskritskrtcrtilcritl…"

There it was. That noise again. At this point, I had the source of the skittling and crawling pinned down, thanks in part to Alek's expertise in labyrinth raiding. They were called Ambushers.

Ambushers were a type of spider monster that looked like a bacteriophage with long, crooked legs that served as their way of getting around. The purpose of having such legs was to eerily contort them to an angle that looked biologically impossible—allowing them to crawl with their large abdomen to the ceiling and crowd around dark corners where they could spring forward maw and mandibles first to any unsuspecting adventurer.

Ambushers were usually docile unless anything crossed into their single eye's line of sight—which happened to almost always be only pointing downward directly where they were planted on the ceiling. This left them vulnerable to attacks on their abdomen, one of which would practically instakill the things. But, there was something else to them.

They often hunted in sparse packs. If an Ambusher was attacked or failed to instantly kill their prey, they'd spit out a bit of odorless poison at their opponent. This poison had two uses: one, to attempt to immobilize the prey, and two, to alert any nearby ambushers that there was prey nearby. This meant that the once-docile creatures that nested on the ceilings would instantly aggro and crawl near any nearby life. Talk about tedious. Ares was doused in a bit of the poison at the very start of the expedition, so now we were an Ambusher magnet. Ares didn't do anything wrong, but it was just a little unfortunate.

"Skritskrrrrskritrrrriii…"

Hey, hey, hey, wait. That's not an Ambusher.

Up ahead, I noticed Ares and Alek stilling, as if they were looking at something up ahead. I lightly tapped Roxas's shoulder to get his attention. He looked at me, his eyebrow slightly arched.

"That's not an Ambusher, right?" I asked.

"Hey, it's a Steel Webber nest!" Alek called from the front of the formation. Steel Webbers? What a bother…

Steel Webbers were especially time-consuming to deal with. Alek had briefed me about them before, but this was the first time I'd ever seen them or their nest. They were tiny little bugs, just about the size of my thumb. But like any other spider, they made webs and nests. What specifically stood out about them was that their webs were as tough as nails.

The easiest way to get around this was to go into any adjacent hallways and try to progress from there. But in this case, it was a single passageway with no way out but the way we came. Maybe there would be other entrances to the second floor, but I honestly didn't like the idea of having to spend another half hour to find something like that.

"How the hell are we gonna get past somethin' like this?" Talhand mused to himself loudly.

"I've got this," Ares said confidently. He grinned and entered a stance, drawing one foot back the way you'd do an Asuran curtsy, and brought up his sword to his chest. He was facing sideways, his elbow just about where his chin was. Then, bathed in the ethereal glow of the light spirits, lunged forward and brought his sword down over his head with both hands, slamming right into the web.

It was by all means a beautiful swing that would've cut through practically anything else. But, this time around, his sword struck with a sharp clang like the way solid metal would react to getting struck and even made the sword rebound slightly before Ares halted the momentum.

"Huh? Just what is this?" Ares examined his sword, gliding his fingers along the side before stopping. "It even chipped my sword!" He looked bewildered—and frankly, so was I.

"Steel Webber string is some of the strongest materials in nature. It would take a considerable amount of power to cut through it, something that would probably collapse the wooden braces and cause a cave-in," Alek explained, pressing a hand to his forehead and leaning on his silver greatsword.

"That's… annoying," Roxas commented.

"Hm… How about we…" Elinalise began. "No, never mind."
As they tried thinking of a solution, I walked toward the web. A few Steel Webbers were navigating their webs, going about life without a care in the world. A few were even still spinning webs as if the whole structure wasn't just assaulted by an attack that could probably cut a boulder in half. As I eyed one spider contributing to the massive web, something clicked in my head.

This counts as a monster byproduct, right?

Monster byproducts were one of the most frustrating things back in the Demon Continent—primarily monster carcasses. Alek had told us that it was necessary to burn up all byproducts lest we attract even more monsters—Or worse yet, create zombies. But it would always create such an awful stench that I couldn't stand. I'd do practically anything to avoid doing it, but it would always bite me back in the ass. Let's just say that on one particular night when we were sleeping out in a tent, I went outside to get a breath of fresh air and was met with the fucking zombie apocalypse .

Digressions aside—I found a way around having to deal with doing all of that. And it was the simplest thing, too. Curse Magic—Rot.

I'd previously thought that Rot was limited to organic things, but that was purely because I'd never tested it out. But as it turns out, it works on any monster byproduct, which made my life so much easier.

And now? Not only do we have a way through, but I have a chance to show off never-before-seen magic to my teacher. I'd been sitting on the sidelines practically the whole time, it was quite the lucky break.

"Stand back, please," I announced. If I wanted to decompose this entire web, it would have to be a pretty wide-area version of the spell. In that case, someone might get caught in the crossfire. Not that I knew it would affect any living person; I hadn't tried it out for obvious reasons.

"What are you up to, Mina?" Elinalise asked, walking up to me and placing a hand on my shoulder.

"I'm going to try something out, but it might be dangerous. Please stand back, Miss Elinalise," I requested.

"Interesting… just don't go overboard, okay?" she said.

"I won't," I reassured.

I pointed Tailwind Zephyr at the web and began channeling mana into both it and my Demon Eye. I needed to gauge exactly how much mana I was using, just so I didn't do anything dumb like overloading my staff with it.

"Woah, woah, woah, Lumina! What are you doing? You might cause a cave-in!" Roxas called out.

"This? It'll go through wood and rock without doing a single thing," I replied, my eyes trained on the webs directly in front of me and nothing else. I forcefully pushed a thick flow of mana through my veins, causing my breath to hitch involuntarily.

"Just what are you getting at—?"

Normally, the effects of any Curse Magic spell were completely invisible. But with my newly acquired Demon Eye, I could visualize it well. And with that, a violent flare of copper-colored light glowered intensely on the webs. Within a second, the string began deteriorating, turning a pale green tint until collapsing altogether.

I whipped around and beamed at the rest of the party. For a moment, it was silent, with nothing else but the scurrying of the Steel Webbers right behind me. Then, the floodgates broke.

"Huh? Mind explainin' what that was jus' now, girl?"

"Amazing work! I had no idea a spell like that even existed!"

"Eh? I mean, I knew you could do that, but not in this way…"

"Looks like I was right to have my expectations this high. Did you come up with that yourself? Surely I'd have known if it was an existing spell already…"

Three guesses as to who said what. The one who hadn't said anything looked at me with a subtle smirk on his face, as if to say, good going! I returned the gesture and peered behind me just in case.

"I'm still not completely sure how it works, but I guess you could say that I… invented it?" I tried to explain, walking forward and over the remains of the Steel Webber nest.

"You invented a spell?" Elinalise asked, walking in tandem with me.

"Ah… ehehehe," I chuckled nervously. I could answer a few base-level questions, but once someone wanted an in-depth explanation, I'd have to come up with something. Seeing as how I used memories from my past life to come up with the spells, I had no way of genuinely explaining without sounding like a lunatic. Plus, I didn't want to tell anyone about my past life to begin with, so it was a no-go.

"Well, we've still got a ways to go, so if you have any questions…" I yapped on and on until I noticed both Ares and Alek's eyes trained on something behind me, their faces concerned.

I flippantly checked over my shoulder and felt my blood run cold after I laid eyes on what was behind me.

"Hey, hey… seriously?" I said in a quavering voice. The first impression I got almost instantly was that whatever the thing was, it was undead. It wore a giant skull with a maw hanging wide open and full of jagged and serrated teeth. It had six eye sockets that connected the pale, bony white skull to the fleshy and veiny flesh underneath. And, its nightmarish characteristics didn't end there. It had a downward pointed thorax, one that arched way above the head and ended in a massive, scorpion-like fang. This thing was probably attracted to the massive wave of mana I'd released to tear down

"What the fuck is this thing?" I asked, backing away. It growled at me, taking a sudden step forward and thrashing its tongue inside its gaping jaw.

I had to move, I had to act before that thing could rip me apart in any way it wanted. I didn't even have time to look back at what the rest of my party was doing before I raised my staff and shot a Paralysis spell at it.

It roared at me, with its massive legs quivering but unable to move. This thing looked extremely sturdy and, judging from its exoskeleton, might even be able to tank a direct hit from Ares. From here, I usually dealt with heavily-guarded enemies with Rot if it were below A-rank, but that presented a few issues here; the most prominent of which was that Rot did not affect undead monsters. In this case, I had to improvise. Because I had no idea how much longer Paralysis would hold up on something of this caliber. And that's when I had a stroke of genius.

"Frost Nova!"

A beat. An expanding point of frigid blue focused directly at the creature shot out, spraying it and covering it in water droplets completely. Then, in an instant, the temperature dropped to below freezing, coating each exposed crevice of the creature's exoskeleton in ice.

"Alek!" I yelled.

"Got it!" He exclaimed, rushing past me with a devilish smirk on his face and his silver greatsword in both his hands. I needed a blunt impact, and Alek's fighting style and weapon choice were perfect for that.

Alek grunted as he swung, twisting his entire body gracefully to maximize the damage—a measure of how absurdly refined his technique was. The icy exoskeleton shattered on impact, spewing fragments of crystal outwards. Dark purple blood and ichor spurted out, staining the wall and dyeing it with a mix of black blood and ice. It slumped to the ground, lifeless.

Haah… that was quicker than I thought. I might need to take a breather after this, it took me wayy too off-guard.

"You've got great reflexes," Alek acknowledged, nodding. I smiled at him and flippantly waved him off.

"I've got nothing on you, Alek," I spoke.

Ares walked over and bumped my shoulder. "You did great, but I've got a feeling this isn't over just yet."

"Hm? What do you mean?" I asked.

He nodded his head toward a passageway where the blue glow of the light spirits couldn't quite reach. It took me a moment to catch on, but multiple multi-legged figures were stalking us from the shadows. A distant rumble echoed, driving his point home. I sighed and gripped my staff.

"Let's get back into formation, shall we?" I spoke.

No breather for me? How unfair. Looks like that nest was more than just an obstacle. A bad omen, more like.


The second floor of the Labyrinth was a lot more complex. A single branch tunnel would lead often to as many as seven different dead ends, which was, needless to say, extremely time-consuming. There were B-rank monsters all over the place, and occasional passageways that were blocked by Steel Webbers. While I could easily tear them down, my spell would emit so much mana that it alerted a horde of monsters every single time. So, we either had to take the risk or keep on moving. For the most part, we took the former.

On that topic, I had to come up with a story as to how I discovered Curse Magic. You might ask why I was keeping the actual reason secret, but it's simple. I wouldn't have pulled it off without my memories of being a NEET with a micro-fixation of biology. I felt bad about lying—I preferred not to most of the time, it made things easier—but I had my reasons. Maybe I'd tell someone in this world about my past life one day, but I wasn't sure. My number one choice was probably Alek since that guy knew how to keep a secret, and he was more of an authority figure than anything. But if I ever decided to get hitched… maybe I'd feel pressured by the weight of lying to them for so long and tell them.

Random tangents aside, I took a page out of Light's book and came up with some… believable bullshit. Since I'd likened Curse Magic to the opposite of Detoxification Magic before, it was the easiest thing I could go with. I told them that I was experimenting with medicinal herbs back when I was helping Zenith with her clinic and that I'd been inspired by the magic my mother used but hadn't discovered the incantations yet. Thus, hypothetical-me tried to reverse engineer the spell and ended up with Rot.

I aimed for something that was believable and in the scope of my abilities for that time. After all, I had to have some credibility, what with me learning incantationless magic and becoming a Saint-class mage at five. If they didn't believe me, they didn't express it.

As for Paralysis… I just deflected the questions. I owed at least Roxas an explanation, so I made a mental note to tell him something later.

What Roxas and Alek had pointed out was that, extremely unusually, the vast majority of the creatures here were undead. Zombie spiders, how lovely. That was a combination that I wasn't expecting, but it did make the labyrinth feel more like a unique experience—Even if most of the monsters were dreadful. And they all had matching names, too. Shriekers, Masked Scorpions, Sightless Crawlers, and Intherian Stingers were all very cute names.

Pssh. As if .

On the bright side, we managed to collect a few magical items. They weren't anything like legendary-class artifacts, but they would still go for a decent amount of cash, or so I was told by the resident labyrinth divers with black, blue, blonde, and brown hair respectively.

I thought some of them were interesting, so I wrote some little blurbs about them in my journal.

Magical Leather Breastplate - Literally just glows. Helpful for labyrinth diving, I guess. But if you were caught wearing it, you'd definitely not qualify as being stylish.

Magical Sheathe - Covers a sword with a thin layer of poison. Would be useful if the poison did anything other than make the skin numb… or if it fit any sword that wasn't a rapier. Yes, I tested the poison. No, I didn't listen to Roxas and Ares telling me it was a bad idea. No, I don't regret a thing.

Magical Gauntlets - Allows the user to pump mana inside to eject a tiny amount of flame. Basically a magical lighter, which is the most useful one yet. If you threw me into the Canadian wilderness with a hatchet and this item, I might be able to live for a whole summer.

Magical Eyepatch - An eyepatch with the 'Emblem of the Sword God.' This thing's a coral color and can make your opponent fall into a temporary illusion. When Ares put it on to try it against me, he'd become oddly blurry. It was like my eyes didn't want to focus on him, for some reason. When I told him that, Ares snatched it right up and replaced his current eyepatch with this one, stating that it was perfect for him. Hm. Guess we won't be selling that.

That was most of what we got from the second floor. We were fully stocked up on monster materials since some monsters had some valuable stuff attached. For example, that monster that attacked me right after I tore down that nest—a Masked Scorpion, so somehow not a spider—had a stinger that could fetch us up to three silver coins a piece. And we had at least ten of them from being ambushed by the damn things.

Anyway, I was getting tired of going around in circles.

"How much longer are we going to be in this place?" Ares groaned. Looks like I'm not the only one.

"I thought you were chomping at the bit tryin' to go with us," Talhand jeered. "Labyrinth diving ain't easy, kid."

"I'm not complaining or anything…"

"You're definitely complaining," I teased.

"Shut it," he pouted.

Sometimes I forgot I was talking to a fourteen-year-old. Even if I was technically the older one here, he was surprisingly more mature at times. Though, he did still have his moments. But after all, he was a kid just like I was. Who was I to judge him for it?

Ares was a genuinely decent person. He was a lot more committed than I was, that's for sure. There wasn't a day that passed that I didn't see him practicing with his sword—and as a result, his body became noticeably toned. That was always a plus. But the boy was fun to talk to, fun to be around, and fun to screw around with. And he was easy to tease, what with his prideful personality and sense of humor. So, tease I did.

"It feels a little off here. Is that just me?" I heard Elinalise say.

"Now that you mention it…" I trailed off. There was definitely something strange, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

As we walked forward, that feeling of uneasiness only rose. It grew like a pit in my stomach, as if I was having a bad premonition. And finally, we entered into a wide open cavern. It was where the sensation was at its worst, and it became plain to see where it was coming from.

"This is the entrance to the last floor," Alek stated. The mineshaft continued into the stairwell, but it was noticeably more decrepit. It was as if the slightest spell on the wall could collapse the whole thing.

"Let's regroup a little," Alek announced. "We've got a little room to breathe here, so I'd rather not go in head first."

I silently agreed with that. We'd been inside the labyrinth for upwards of 3 hours now, so I understood the toll it took on the rest of the members. Especially on Ares and I, considering we'd never tried something like this before. Even I was starting to feel the effects of not knowing what was in the dark up ahead. Not that I was scared. I'd done tons of things more scary than this, so this was nothing to me.

Then, something warm brushed my hand.

"AAh!" I startled. I whipped around to see Ares standing behind me, backing off with his hands up. "S-Sorry. I'm just a little jumpy, maybe," I said.

No biggie. Like I said, practically nothing.

"You're not the only one. This place kind of sucks in that department. Let's say I've never been the biggest spider lover," he admitted. Me too. Unfortunately, me too.

Alek took off his backpack and rummaged through it. He brought out our packaged food that we'd brought just in case and handed one to everyone. As always, the food was pressure-cooked by yours truly. I've never had a single regret about making one for the party, and they were pretty easy to destroy and reassemble whenever. With it, I could finally live out my schoolgirl fantasy of being the dependable cook wherever the need arose. Too bad I was missing a traditional Japanese home, a stove, and three children.

You know, I'm starting to see why that fantasy stayed a fantasy. Just a little.

As we munched on our food in the middle of the cave-like clearing, I let my mind wander a little. This kind of feels like whenever a bunch of people get together around a campfire and chat it out. And then I got an idea.

I cast a quick spell and created three decently large cylinders, placing them into a triangle shape. Since we were in a wide, open space, carbon monoxide poisoning wasn't much of an issue. So, I made a rudimentary campfire in the middle.

Elinalise and Roxas chuckled. "I have to get used to you doing stuff like this," Roxas said.

"You're full of surprises, aren't you, Mina?" Elinalise said, taking a seat on one of the logs—or rather, stone cylinders.

"Just wanted to liven up the place a little," I quipped. Everyone else sat down to discuss the topic on hand.

"This food's… munch… fantastic!" Elinalise commented.

"Heheh." Hearing that from her is terribly rewarding.

"Now that we've gotten a chance to rest, I've got to give credit to Roxas for being so prepared. I doubt I would have ever stumbled upon the light spirit scrolls without your help," Alek thanked him.

Roxas grinned. "You mustn't give me so much credit, Alek. I'd have ended up on the brink of death if it wasn't for your skills and Lumina's recovery magic."

"You're a humble man. There aren't many out there who can confidently accept the praise of others without growing prideful," Alek said. There was a hint of self-deprecation in his voice. Perhaps it came from his own pride that'd continued to get in his way during our one-year journey in the Demon Continent.

"Thank you," Roxas said. You can take praise from him but not from me? The injustice!

After a few moments of eating in silence, Roxas spoke up.

"I take it that everyone has a good gauge of what everyone else is capable of," Roxas said, looking at Ares, Alek, and I. "It might take us a bit to actually polish our teamwork since you three have already become accustomed to working in a three-person party."

He was making sense. The three of us tended to work better with a smaller party, which was practically a given after operating under those conditions for so long. But if we ever planned to become a successful party, we had to get more experience.

On the other hand, I'd been keeping a somewhat close eye on Roxas's group. Talhand usually stayed back and attacked from a distance, only using his bludgeon-type weapon when something directly jumped out at him from the shadows. Otherwise, he was a pretty capable mage that I could trust my back with if it ever came to it. Though, he seemed thoroughly uninterested in being chatty with anyone other than Alek. The two talked like old friends, even though their personalities couldn't be any more different. Maybe Talhand just respected Alek thanks to his godlike strength, which wouldn't be so far-fetched.

From the looks of it, Elinalise and Talhand weren't exactly on the best of terms. But even still, they worked together flawlessly. Elinalise could perfectly deflect any attack that came his way and weave it into a counter that would probably qualify for the Women's Gymnastics gold medal for the Olympics. It was like they'd worked out their differences without exchanging a single word. Yet, they instantly reverted to their banter in between fights. From what insults Talhand had hurled at her, Elinalise was apparently a dangerous woman who could easily lower a man's guard and slither into their most vulnerable states and strike.

So what I got out of that was that she was rather resourceful and efficient. So that's where the thief member was. Hiding in plain sight all this time. Oh, what a talented Big Sister.

And finally, Roxas's fighting style was a lot different than whatever my mind could've expected. He used his staff like a pistol, using mostly earth and wind magic to take out his opponents. Even his lower-tier magic like Stone Cannon or Wind Cutlass packed one hell of a punch. And that was with him still using incantations to cast all of his magic.

My teacher was still just as impressive as the day we'd parted. Even more so than before—he'd grown significantly. In that way, we were the same.

"We've got two options here. We can either go back and take a bit of a rest, sell the stuff we've gotten, and come back later, or we keep pushing forward," Alek said, interrupting my thoughts.

"Hm…"

We could do either, in all honesty. I was not a fan of leaving things half-finished, but maybe this specific circumstance called for it. Besides, it's not like I'd be leaving it to collect dust like so many of my other projects—ahem, my figures—we could come back as soon as tomorrow. Plus, if we went any deeper, it would only make the way out more taxing. We didn't know what type of creatures would be down there, anyway. So, maybe taking a rain check for now was the way to go here.

"How about we vote on it?" Elinalise suggested.

"I don't see why not," I agreed. I put up a confident tone, but in truth, I was only agreeing so I could see what the general consensus was.

"In that case, I think we should keep on going," Elinalise said.

"...I've got to disagree with yer. The kid's restless, an' people like that slip up," he said, clearly referring to Ares's earlier musings. "For integrity's sake, we oughta come back later,"

"There's no way I'm backing out now," Ares furrowed his eyebrows, a glower of commitment in his eyes. "It'd be a major pain in the ass to have to trek all the way out and back."

He's sure made his opinion clear. Never a dull moment with this guy, I tell you.

"I get what you're saying, Ares, but we have a breadcrumb trail that we can follow to the dot next time. It won't be as difficult getting here as it was on our way here," Roxas explained. "So I think we should catch up on some rest back at the surface and come back."

I'd taken the opportunity to explain Kishirika's Demon Eye to the rest of the party. Considering that not even Alek or Ares knew much about it, this was long overdue. I'd gotten the thing just about over two weeks ago by now. In any case, what Roxas said was the main gist of how we planned to retrace our steps and put our little expedition on hold—I could guide everyone else by using the mana traces we'd left behind. Even if it was a little hard when some signatures piled atop each other and the mana fog—or so I called it—obscured some of my vision. It was a lot better than stumbling around in the dark like we'd done before.

"C'mon, we're sitting next to the entrance of the last floor. If we go in, beat up the boss, and get that magic crystal, we're basically set for the next week. I don't want to make this a regular routine, either," Ares argued. I noticed him particularly eyeing me expectedly, as if to say, back me up here!

"And what of you, Alek?" I asked, avoiding his gaze.

"In either case, I'm fine with it," Alek refused rather quickly. "Why don't you go ahead and cast your vote, Lumina?"

Argh. It's like he shifted all of the attention to me deliberately. A party of six doesn't usually have a tiebreaker, so I was operating under that. I wasn't expecting to be shoved into the limelight like this!

I glanced at my party member's faces and was met with a sense of pressure to answer according to their wishes. My throat dried up, and it felt like I wouldn't be able to even croak out any answer at all.

"I-I think…"

I should go with Roxas, right? Err, rather, his decision to go back to the hotel. But… something feels off. Last floor means harsher monsters, right? Roxas had said that I'd grown, but to what extent does he think I have? I mean, it's not like I could show off Tornado down here, but there's got to be more stuff I can show him. Maybe I should…?

I felt my racing mind come to a halt as I locked eyes with Ares. He had his hand at his side, eyes fixed onto mine, and lips curved slightly upward. Just eagerly awaiting my response. With that, I began to ground myself a little.

Why was I so worked up about answering, anyway?

Roxas's group wasn't going to jeer at me because I didn't go along with them. Neither was Ares going to secretly loathe me for such an insignificant thing, even if he and Elinalise were the only ones who'd voted to go deeper.

For the longest time, I had to live around people who never truly meant what they said. The number of times I overheard my parents or siblings talking about me when they thought I couldn't hear them was crippling. I'd surrounded myself with extremely negative people—girls whose entire lifestyle was to make fun of other people. Surely even they were saying unpleasant things behind my back. Maybe that's why I was so worried about displeasing my party. Would they show their disappointment on their faces?

But I realized that it was pointless to think that way. I'd only end up going in circles. In the here in now, Ares just wanted to fight monsters, plain and simple. There were no ulterior motives in his words, no secret double meaning that I had to overthink about. It was just him being him, like he'd always been.

At that moment, I realized something: There was beauty in simplicity.

"Let's keep on going."


Author's Notes:

Hey! Thank you for being patient in waiting for this chapter. It took way longer than expected, and that's partially due to the chapter content and size. I tried to maintain the same level of quality throughout, but let me know in the comments below if you see anything wrong with it. Quality control is important for a story this long, as demonstrated by some of the longer works in this fandom. Regardless, enjoy my longest chapter yet.

Lots of little stuff in this chapter, and I just loved the slow pace of this chapter compared to what will happen in the next. Stay tuned for that, by the way. I've got an awesome concept for the boss monster that I hope you'll love.

Anyways, something to mention that I'd forgotten in the last chapter: Beta Orionis, author of Tanya's Reincarnation (Basically, for y'all Youjo Senki fans, is Tanya being reincarnated into Norn) and I have collaborated to bring you a special omake on his work. We present to you Lumina Greyrat x Tanya's Reincarnation! (On Ch5 of his work) Please go check his work out and support him, he deserves all of it for the help he's provided me in the process of writing Lumi.

It's titled, "Mushoku Tensei: Tanya's Reincarnnation Vol 1" Note that it is rated mature, so you'll have to go to filters and manually include that in your search to find it. Hope you enjoy!

Massive shoutout to Aqwariate on X (same user) for the stunning artwork for Chapter 27. I've posted it on Ao3 for the current readers since it was only just recently finished. He did it completely free of charge, so I can't thank him enough! Unfortunately, you cannot upload images to FFN, so it's going to have to be AO3 exclusive. Sorry folks, I wish this injustice didn't have to happen.

Anyway, I'm just glad to be getting back into the groove of things. Since the last chapter's release date didn't go so well, I'm just going to ask y'all to expect it sometime between now and Valentine's Day. Chapter Title is: What Emerges from the Dewdrops (have fun with making something out of that)

You guys are the most wonderful micro-fanbase I could've asked for, and your support and comments mean so much to me. Thank you.