小嫂子的味道

At a little distance from Zero was Xara, until now this floor had been the easiest for her since she was able to one-shot all the monsters with the help of her fire-type spells.

Even now, she was tossing the fireballs in the air and burning groups and groups of Ents all together. She was indeed exhausting her mana during this as nothing was free of cost in this world but these fireball spells used only so much amount of mana, and she was quite used to them too.

But she was now going to switch to a different spell as the numbers of Ents were piling up in front of her. Ents were naturally attracted toward the creature which dealt them the most damage as they thought of it as harmful and that it was best to get rid of it as soon as possible, hence they were getting attracted toward Xara as well.

She cleaned up the surrounding area with the fireballs and then stopped the incantation; rather, she started a new one. Holding her staff up in the air, she closed her eyes and chanted the magical words.

The gem at the top of her staff glowed yet again, and as soon as it did, she drew an arc with the staff in the direction of the Ents. As if a pencil writing on paper, the gem on the staff created a curved line in the middle of the air.

The arc burned and glowed in peach and emitted a number of flames; Xara stretched out her right hand and chanted the final piece aka the name of the spell, "Scorch!"

The burning arc of fire and energy moved at a speed almost equal to the speed of sound, cutting through the air as it clashed with a group of Ents and exploded upon collision. Tens of Ents burned and vanished from the fire it produced, while some were caught in the after-effect.

"Eat that you disgusting, worthless piece of wood!" she cursed as quite a bit of the Ents population vanished before her eyes.

Though she was probably taking out her frustration on the innocent Ents, Favian's hard times didn't seem to end anytime soon. Since his arrows weren't working on the Ents, he was now using them as knives and stabbing the monsters with them.

He was an archer indeed, but he did know some of the tricks for physical combat, and he'd learned them specifically for situations like this; he must be thankful to his past self right now.

There sure were problems and flaws in his techniques and he wasn't able to take out the monsters like a professional, but with Zero—or Ichigo, on his side he was doing better than before.

On the other hand, Spene's condition had also improved as he'd gotten used to the skin of the Ents and now knew how much force he had to apply behind his attacks to slice the tree monsters without facing much backlash; and since Zero was aiding Favian he had an amount of mental stress relieved too.

He stabbed the monsters, chopped off their heads, twisted and broke their branches, and ripped off their roots. He was taking down 3 to 4 Ents at the same time.

All in all, the condition of this party had fairly improved and if they went on like this then it won't be long before they clear out this floor and moved on to the next one.

However, one thing which they weren't aware of was that someone was watching them, all along from the time when they took the first step inside this labyrinth. This was known to none—not even Zero; that their every move was being observed with quiet curiosity.

***

"Haahh, it's over finally," Spene sighed as he slumped to the ground and relieved his body.

"This…was hard! These monsters were far stronger than those spiders," Favian expressed as he too sat beside Spene.

"Come on, it wasn't even that bad," the only one who was not stressed out by this was Xara; she came near us with the magic staff in her hand while she let out those words.

"Easy for you to say…with all that magic you've got, it's really easy to say," Spene contested and denied Xara's words as he kept taking deep breaths to provide his body with extra oxygen.

"But anyway, Ichigo, you performed well; better than I expected," Favian complimented as he looked at me.

"It was just what I learned for self-defense. It was only because you had my back that I was able to move so freely."

I was standing by the side of the wall—which was now safe since all the monsters were dead—and with me was Challes; after all, the first thing I did when I was done with the monsters was chain him up again.

I was honestly surprised that he survived; with his hands and legs tied, I didn't think he would be able to make it, but he still did. I kept an eye on him all the time, and that guy was seriously dodging most of the attacks that were aimed at him.

Doing that when you're not even able to move your limbs freely…well, there's a reason why I've kept him chained up. But it was not like he didn't get attacked at all; his cloak was torn from several places, indicating that he'd been hit.

"So should we move on now? To the next floor, I mean," asked Spene; the question was directed at me.

"Of course, that's what we came here for," I stated.

Hence, after resting for a while and restoring our strength, we ventured into the depths of this labyrinth again. The next floor was probably directly connected to this one, as a long and broad gallery leading into a dark passage.

There weren't any other ways to go, thus we entered the passage. Xara lit her fireballs to overcome the dark, and the adventurers took the formation again to protect me.

The next was the third floor; the floor from where this labyrinth will become a labyrinth for real.