小嫂子的味道

I stopped to confirm the situation for the final time, the ground was a mess of blood, fire, and molten rocks. Xara's spell that she'd been using to enhance her power was now over, and without it, she was pretty much useless and a dead weight.

Spene, on the other hand, was fighting an already lost battle; no matter how hard he tried to win, he will lose in the end. That was a given fact.

He can't escape, either, since the gates to leave the third floor of the labyrinth were closed off. The only other way to leave this section, the passageways from where the goblins came, were also going to get shut off soon since the second and last wave of the monsters had already passed, and now they will close automatically.

'Yep, there's no way for them to survive.'

With that set in stone, I turned around, pulled Challes from his chain, and walked inside the passageway.

As I walked a few steps forward, I heard a rumbling sound coming from behind, the ground shook and dust fell from the ceiling. There was no need to look back, this was the gates of the passageways closing off.

When they were completely shut, the tunnel turned pitch black. Yet, there was a sense of comfort about it.

"You left them to die, just like that?" the one to voice the question was Challes, he asked as he walked behind me.

"And? Is there any problem with that?"

"I told you not to involve other people in this…you even supported the idea."

"I did, but that was a thing of the past. I said I won't involve them as long as they won't meddle themselves. It was their mistake to come and accept a quest that looked so suspicious. But I said before, didn't I? That some people will accept it because of greed, the same was the case with them."

"You're wrong! They accept it because they saw your name on it!" he screamed, there was anger in his voice.

"That doesn't make any difference. If anything, they were naive for trusting a person they'd met only for a few hours or so."

"... I can't believe you. One person died because of you, and the other two could die at any moment! Just because you activated a trap deliberately!"

"That was important. And… I don't remember permitting you to speak up to me."

I used my elemental magic and affected the chains that were tying him up. His handcuffs and leg cuffs decreased in size, they first tightened but then didn't stop just after that. In less than a few seconds they were so tight that a scream left Challes's mouth and his skin released blood from where the cuffs were.

He didn't say anything after that, but I could tell that he was angry and pissed off. He was gritting his teeth and had a severe look on his face, his way of walking and body language had also changed.

But he was right in a way, it was me who activated the trap that led the goblins into the floor, but that was a thing I'd decided even before entering the labyrinth. It was important, after all.

***

A few moments ago.

During the time Favian was fighting with the orc, as he struggled and tried to kill it, I was also there. I was the one who had given Favian the dagger to use, so my being there was only reasonable.

But instead of fighting or providing Favian with aid, I kept a good distance from all the monsters by sticking close to the end walls of the floor.

Since I was not attacking any of the monsters and the other three—Xara, Spene, and Favian were doing that in my stead, the monsters were also not attracted to me, and therefore I was able to move around freely.

All this time I had been standing at the side doing nothing, but the wait time was over as the pieces were in the right places. While under the shadow of the wall, I moved forward swiftly without being noticed by anyone else.

After taking around ten to fifteen steps, I stopped in front of a boulder. It was around the size of a human, and it was a few meters away from the entrance to the floor.

Moving close to it, I looked around for a bit at the ground. Fortunately, there were no monsters here as all of them were already occupied by the adventurers, it was only me and Challes.

A minute or so later, I found what I'd been looking for.

Down on the ground, covered in lots of dust and gravel, a slightly elevated piece of rock was visible; it was ground that was elevated above the level of the rest of the surface. The part of the ground that was above was in the perfect shape of a square, or maybe you could call it a cuboid also because it was 3d.

I stared at it for a while and then looked over in Favian's direction.

He was in the right place, in the perfect west according to the cardinal directions. It took me a bit of trouble to lead him there, he was going off track because of that orc he was facing, hence I had to offer him my dagger and bring him to the right place.

And there was no way he could be anywhere else. After all, that's where the gates were going to open.

I lifted my foot and gilded them over the elevated floor and was about to step on it when Challes stopped me. "It can be a trap, and I think you know that," he said from behind.

I ignored him and set my foot on the ground, the squarish piece of rock slid underground like a button in its socket as I pressed it with my foot. I heard some technical sounds coming from below, as if metal parts were moving in like a machine.

Then the whole floor shook, first the gates that connected this floor to the rest of the labyrinth were closed off. A while later, the gates that released the goblins were opened in four cardinal directions.

***

That was about it, the goblins poured in, and you know the rest.

Favian's death was important. It was a major factor to enrage Xara, so she can go berserk and attract all the goblins toward herself, giving me a clear way to move around and escape.

As for why I did this, well, there are reasons.

First, this trap that I'd just activated was one that Leon activated by "mistake" and thus had to fight the goblins before going to the next floor, well, that is the story if I ignore the past that loli_pop just wanted to increase the word count, so he forced the incident into the story.

And why did I step on it, knowing it would open a trap? Because I wanted to open the trap. Later after killing all the goblins Leon finds that the way the goblins had come from was leading somewhere and his system, which was also guiding him through the ways of the labyrinth, tells him that this passageway leads directly to the fifth and final floor.

He goes on and turns out that the passageway was a direct shortcut to the final floor. The goblins were spawned there since there was a lair in the passageway, but if you avoided that, it was a neat and safe way as you skipped the whole fourth floor. But this again was just the cover story, in reality, loli_pop had gotten bored while writing the labyrinth part and wanted to end it quickly, therefore this trap was just a plot device—these are secret things you know by editing other authors' works and helping them with their story.

Anyway, his being lazy and getting bored gave me an easy way to climb up the labyrinth. He was a good-for-nothing author and I still hate him as much as I used to, but some of his doings were proving beneficial for me.

For example, the idea to trigger the trap in a way that Favian gets injured so Xara can go berserk, then use her as a distraction to attract the goblins and escape through the passageways, had occurred to me when Spene mentioned to me that Favian and Xara were secretly in love with each other.

It was advantageous knowing about the relationship between them, else I would have to abandon this plan and have to take the long route that went through the fourth floor.

By going through this passageway, I can reach the final floor in around half an hour without facing any monsters. Favian's death was something I'd not expected—I mean it, I hadn't expected him to be so weak to die by a couple of goblins.

'Thinking back to it now, I was indirectly the reason for his death, wasn't I?' I reflected internally as I walked through the passageway.

It was true, while I'd not kill him with my own hands, his death was the result of the actions I took and the things I did.

'But well,' I said internally as I wandered in the darkness, '...it's not this is the first time.'