小嫂子的味道

It was like teleporting, albeit the fact that I don\'t know what teleportation feels like. After crossing the white light, I along with Req entered an entirely new area.

It was a medium-sized boxed room. Vines and plants grew on the walls and floor made of cobblestone, and above the stone floor was a carpet of thick dust. The room was closed from all sides and didn\'t have a light source, yet strangely the room was illuminated from every corner.

"What do you mean by \'infant\'? Was that not a grown-up klauth?"

I usually refrain from asking someone questions and revealing that I don\'t know that particular piece of information—it makes me vulnerable, but since Req was my property and I needed this info on the klauth, I asked her outright.

From today onwards she will be staying with me at all times till the time I die or the Requiem sword is broken, there are no chances of her betraying me. Though I\'ll not believe it wholeheartedly.

"I meant what I said. That klauth was a newborn, I can tell by looking at him. He was a thousand or so years old from what I could tell, so he was probably caged by them when I was sealed," she shrugged and explained while looking around the room, touching walls and the floors as if searching for something.

Kloths were beasts that existed in loli_pop\'s novel, and according to the information that he gave in his chapters, they were a species of ancient dragons who ruled the earth since the time humanity was taking birth, but then for some reason, they went extinct. Yeah, that is all I know.

"What\'s the age of an adult klauth?"

"Hmm, that\'s a good question. It can be somewhere around a million years, but I don\'t know. Even back in my time when I was not sealed in this stinky labyrinth—and that was around 1500 years ago I think—Kloths were an endangered species. No one saw them, nor did they try to. And as for me, the oldest I\'ve seen aged four hundred thousand years. But that is also nothing but a guess, since I can\'t tell their exact age just by looking."

All this information was crucial, hence I wasted no time and recorded every detail in my mind. The thing about Kloth\'s was interesting enough in itself, but if anything, I just came to know that this world\'s history stretched back a million years.

I didn\'t know this, of course, because loli_pop never explained it. I had told him multiple times to write about the history of his world as it will improve world building, but he never listened to me.

The result was a messed-up world with out-of-the-box facts and history whenever there was a need for it. There was no defined history and past of his world, he just created them when the situation asked for it.

"Here it is," Req mumbled and stopped before a specific part of the floor. I pointed my gaze at the same spot as she blew and cleared the dust from there. At first, it was nothing unusual, however after staring attentively I noticed that the ground was elevated in a square shape—it was a button.

Without a thought that it might very well be a trap, she gently pressed it down with her foot, and it slid underground. There was dead silence for a while, she glanced at me and I thought about removing her feet from the button but then decided otherwise.

If that was a trap, then it was already too late.

The room shook and grumbled rapidly, gravel fell from the ceiling along with loads of dust. Something moved, it was a part of the right wall. First, a rectangular shape area was outlined as the dust was blown off from the corners, then the rectangle piece of wall drifted backward for a while before shifting to the side and the opening of a cave came into sight.

I stood still with my guard up and waited for a while, Req moved nonetheless and glanced inside the cave that had just been opened up. When I was sure that this didn\'t trigger a trap of some sort, I walked over to her and took a look inside.

Neither of us ventured inside, but the view was clear from here. It was a vast cave with many shining blue crystals stemming from the rocks, at the same time there were some fantasy creatures I\'d never thought I would see here.

Slimes.

There was a group of sky blue colored slimes in the cave, or rather, even calling it a group might be small. The whole cave, as far as I could see, was stashed with slimes.

"Uh, this is the wrong one," Req shrugged in disappointment and began searching for \'what-she-was-searching\' again.

I thought about going in and examining the slimes, but they refrained from doing so. I didn\'t have time, even if we were out of the labyrinth, I still wanted to get back to the academy as soon as possible. Wait for a second!

"Are we out of the labyrinth or not?" I asked hurriedly as I turned toward Req. I had no plans of turning into a sword, after all.

"Relax, I can no longer sense the seal weighing above me, so this is probably a different place. And I had been here before I was sealed…that\'s how I know there should be a way out, somewhere around...here!"

She stepped onto a similar button without any thought too. The room this time didn\'t grumble or roar. With the silence and delicacy of a young maiden, a door opened up on the wall beside the one on which the cave had opened.

This time there was no way leading to the darkness or a cave, but stone-carved stairs leading upward toward the sunlight. Not much thinking was required, this was the way out. I could feel the heat in the light coming down the stairs, and this heat was similar to that of the sun.

"Let\'s go," said Req, pointing at the stairs with a smile.

We came up from the stairs and out from the underground structures—or should I say from another dimension. Anyway, I was now out in the light and breathing fresh air.

I won\'t lie here, it felt good.

I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath to relax and refresh my lungs. I wanted to just rest for a bit. Maybe that is why my legs stumbled upon themselves. Maybe that is why darkness washed over me for a while. Perhaps that is why I lost consciousness for a while. Maybe that is why…

***

I opened my eyes hurriedly, almost on instinct; as if I\'d fallen asleep in the middle of a battleground. But there was no such thing and above my eyes, I saw the clear, blue sky that spread endlessly in all directions.

Clouds floated slowly in the air with the company of birds. Then I noticed something else. I was not lying on the ground. The surface below my head was not rock hard, but soft like an expensive pillow, warm like the gentle breeze of spring.

I was not the protagonist of an ecchi anime, so it didn\'t take me much longer to know the reason for all this. I was lying with my head in Req\'s lap.

It was only confirmed when I saw her face blocking the way between my eyes and the sky. Maybe she\'d noticed that I was now awake. Her hair fell on the sides, covering her face and casting a shadow on me. Then I realized that she was playing with my hair too—not exactly patting, but fiddling with it.

I exhaled and then got up and sat individually. Seeing my reaction, the smile she had on her face vanished.

"You should at least have panicked a bit. I mean, you were lying on the lap of a beautiful girl such as me. There is no way you can come out of that unscathed," she complained.

"That\'s not my problem. Now, this is a bit of advice; you won\'t get the reaction you\'re expecting from me, so you should stop trying. It will be nothing but a waste of time," after that I stood up, stretched my arms, and got ready to move.

"For how long I was out?"

"Five to ten minutes."

"I see."

It\'s not much, but not in the affordable zone either.

"Come on, we\'re heading back," I commanded as I looked around the area. Judging by the location, I can say that we are directly on the opposite side of the labyrinth from where we entered. Going back won\'t be a problem.

***

"Sigh. That was tiresome," I let out a breath as I slumped on the bed in the room I\'d booked in the inn.

I was back in Gannett town. The first thing I did was buy myself a new hooded cloak, so I can hide my face. Then I went to the medic shops and bought a bunch of healing potions. I\'d planned to buy the most expensive ones since they are the best in terms of quality, but unfortunately, they were not available here. Hence, I had to work with the average ones.

I also bought some medicines that were not potions—herbs and pills. Considering the shape my body was in, I needed a lot of medication.