Exploration

Just then, a tall, long-dead pine tree suddenly appeared ahead on the road.

This was probably the legendary pine tree that had been struck by lightning.

Lorenzo walked over and took a look.

The trunk was split down the middle, and charred marks ran all the way to its roots. Luckily, it was the only tree in the area. Otherwise, judging by the power of the lightning strike, a forest fire would have been unavoidable.

To the right of the pine, a narrow path could just be made out, leading deeper into the valley. The wind blew out of the valley, carrying the scent of damp earth and the smell left by something that had been rotting for a long time.

"Looks like the adventure is about to begin."

Frieren stood outside the valley and looked around as she spoke to Lorenzo.

"Speaking of which, are there any tricks to finding these labyrinths? Something like, 'To find the dragon and divine the gold, study the winding mountains; each winding range marks another pass'?"

Frieren glanced at him.

"What are you talking about?"

"A mnemonic for finding tombs."

"Labyrinths aren't the same as tombs."

"If enough people die in a labyrinth, it's much the same. Maybe there are even some weird monsters that turn dead people into things wrapped head to toe in bandages that hop around when they walk."

Frieren thought about it seriously.

"True."

There really were monsters like that? I was just saying whatever came to mind.

"But if you insist on calling it a trick, there is one."

"What is it?"

"Go to taverns adventurers frequent and ask them. And ask the old people in villages. They usually know where people have gone missing nearby, where strange sounds are often heard, or where obviously strange plants grow. There's usually a labyrinth in those places."

"That really is straightforward."

"It works, though."

There was no arguing with that.

After all, asking the local residents directly was obviously much easier than observing the stars and calculating directions.

Besides, the villagers in this world all seemed to have a strange habit.

Even when they knew there were ruins nearby that devoured adventurers, they rarely put up a "Danger ahead" sign near the entrance.

They had to wait until an adventurer from elsewhere asked about it before a look of realization appeared on their faces.

Oh, do you mean that cave no one's ever come back from after going inside?

As though it were just some inconsequential tourist attraction.

Then again, even if a warning sign really were put up, judging by what adventurers in this world were like, they would probably just put up another sign beside it saying "You can't keep me out," then walk right in without a care.

The two continued deeper into the valley along the overgrown path.

The farther in they went, the dimmer the light around them became.

The mountain walls on either side gradually closed in, and tall trees grew from cracks in the rock, their branches and leaves intertwining overhead.

The earth underfoot grew increasingly damp, even making an unpleasant, squelching sound when they stepped on it.

Lorenzo glanced down. Several bones were scattered in the dirt, though he couldn't tell whether they belonged to beasts or people.

"Feels like no one's been here in a long time."

"Someone has."

Frieren suddenly stopped. She crouched down and gently touched a mark on the ground that looked like a footprint. Its edges had collapsed, and a shallow layer of rainwater had pooled inside.

"Looks like other adventurers found this place before us."

Lorenzo corrected himself.

"On the bright side, maybe it was Demons."

Frieren turned her head slightly.

"Can you really call that a bright side?"

"Demons probably wouldn't be interested in grimoires and things like that. But if we do run into Demons, just kill them as quickly as possible. Don't listen to or believe anything they say. They can use human language, but language is only a tool they use to deceive humans. They don't feel fear when they beg for mercy, and they don't feel guilty when they apologize."

Frieren's tone was as flat as if she were discussing how to deal with weeds by the roadside. But judging by the Demons' reputation and how they did evil deeds as often as they ate slices of bread, calling them weeds was rather insulting to the reputation of weeds.

"I get what you mean."

Before long, the two reached the deepest part of the valley.

There was no path ahead. A moss-covered mountain wall stood before them, with thick vines hanging down from the top of the rock face.

At first glance, it seemed to be an ordinary dead end, but a closer look revealed an unnatural patch of shadow behind the vines.

Frieren extended her staff.

With a fluctuation of mana, the vines twined around the rock face were pulled aside as though by invisible hands.

The sight hidden behind them gradually came into view.

Lorenzo stared at the entrance for a while.

It was an enormous stone door set into the mountain wall. The carvings on it had long since been worn indistinct by time. He could barely make out several humanoid figures and some kind of black, winged monster that looked like a bat. This labyrinth wasn't built by some extraterrestrial visitors, was it? There aren't a bunch of those creatures' pupae buried down there, are there? Should I prepare some explosive magic beforehand? But this isn't a desert...

A narrow gap remained in the center of the stone door, and the rotten smell was slowly drifting out through it.

Lorenzo narrowed his eyes slightly.

"No matter how you look at it, this doesn't seem like a place meant to welcome adventurers."

Frieren stood beside him, looking up at the reliefs on the stone door.

"Labyrinths weren't built to welcome adventurers in the first place."

"True enough."

Frieren held her staff horizontally in front of her and gave the stone door a gentle push. The door, which had been sealed for who knew how many years, slowly moved inward.

A great deal of dust fell from above the doorframe, and Lorenzo instinctively stepped back.

But Frieren didn't, so nearly all the dust landed on her hair and shoulders.

Her long white hair was instantly covered in a pale gray layer.

"..."

Lorenzo looked at her.

Frieren looked down at herself.

"What is it?"

"Nothing."

Lorenzo looked away.

If he laughed out loud now, something truly terrible would definitely happen.

Once the stone door was fully open, a stone staircase leading downward appeared before them.

The staircase was narrow, with the rock walls on either side leaving barely enough room for one person to pass. The rotten smell grew stronger, too. Blackish moss grew in the cracks between the stones, tiny droplets of water clinging to its surface. It had to be said that, rotten smell aside, the air quality here was quite good.

Lorenzo raised his hand.

A soft white orb of light rose from his palm and slowly floated ahead of them.

After they followed the light down a few dozen steps, the passage gradually grew wider.

A rectangular stone chamber appeared ahead. Several thick pillars stood in rows along its sides, and the walls were still carved with images of those winged monsters, though the reliefs here were better preserved than the ones outside.

The monsters seemed to be crawling out of some kind of oval objects. They spread their wings, surrounding humans who knelt prostrate on the ground.

The humans raised their hands, offering them one infant-shaped thing after another.

Judging by the look of it, this was probably something to do with sacrifices again. It really was rather dull. Whenever he encountered something with this kind of horror element, there were always sacrifices involved. They either sacrificed children or kidnapped ordinary people to sacrifice. It was just bloodier and more violent, and he was getting tired of seeing it.

Several sets of remains lay scattered in the center of the stone chamber. Judging by their state of decay, they probably hadn't been dead for very long.

Damaged leather armor, rusty longswords, and backpacks dropped on the ground...

Without a doubt, these were the adventurers who had entered the labyrinth earlier. Luckily, they weren't some archaeological team from decades ago.

Lorenzo approached one of the corpses. It was already badly decomposed, but there were no obvious wounds on its chest, and its bones were mostly intact.

"They weren't killed by a sharp weapon."

Lorenzo covered his nose as he spoke.

"There's no obvious mana residue inside the body, either."

Frieren crouched beside another corpse and used her staff to push its collar aside. Several small black protrusions were growing from the side of its neck.

At first glance, they looked like the shoots of some kind of plant.

"Parasitic monsters."

Frieren spoke.

"After entering a human body, they absorb the host's mana and nutrients until the host dies."

Lorenzo stared at the black protrusions for a while.

"Do they keep growing after the host dies?"

"Yes, and once they mature, they crawl out of the corpse."

Lorenzo slowly stood up.

"I think we should move farther away now."

No sooner had he spoken than—

A faint sound suddenly came from the corpse's abdomen.

With a crack, it sounded as though something had broken through its ribs from the inside.

The next moment, the long-dead corpse suddenly arched its body. Damn it, it hasn't really turned into a "zongzi," has it? I was only talking earlier.

The skin on the abdomens of the corpses rapidly swelled, and then a pitch-black claw pierced its way out.

Thick fluid ran down the wound as a black monster no bigger than a puppy struggled out from inside the corpse.

It had no eyes, but a pair of membranous wings that had yet to fully unfurl grew from its back, exactly like the creatures in the reliefs on the stone door.

The monster opened its mouth and let out a piercing sound like a baby's cry.

Along with the sound, bones began cracking in rapid succession from every direction, and every corpse on the ground began to tremble slightly.

Faint crawling sounds also came from behind the walls, above the pillars, and even from deep within the staircase they had come down.

Frieren raised her staff.

Dozens of lights of mana spread out behind her, illuminating the darkness high above the stone chamber.

Only then did Lorenzo finally see clearly that dozens of oval black cocoons were hanging upside down in a dense cluster from the vaulted ceiling overhead.

Some of them had already split open.

One after another, monsters with thin wings clung beside the openings and slowly poked their heads out, watching the two below in silence with their mouths open.

Adventure, adventure—the farther you ventured, the greater the danger.

There was a reason for that saying.