Chapter 153: Return to the Labyrinth of Claws and Fangs, Part 3

As my consciousness slowly awakened, I found myself lying on a hard floor.

However, only my head felt strangely soft. I reached my hand toward my own head.

“Hyah!”

Startled by the cute voice, I opened my eyes and saw Ashera giving me a lap pillow… which means, where did I touch just now?

Ashera was blushing crimson, holding down my arm and head. It’s not what you think. It was an accident. I didn’t do it on purpose. Please believe me.

I was making excuses in my mind, but Ashera didn’t do anything in particular.

When I slowly got up, I saw that the Minotaurs had been piled up in one place. It looked like the room from before.

The smell of blood and guts was overwhelming, making me feel sick.

“Why are we in a place like this? Let’s move.”

When I spoke, Ms. Naga answered me.

“I’d like to do that if I could.”

I couldn’t understand the true meaning of Naga’s words and looked around.

There’s nothing… there doesn’t seem to be an exit…

“Have we been trapped?”

“It seems so.”

I noticed that El was sleeping.

“El…”

“He was cutting the walls with ultra-vibrations, but he ran out of magic power and lost consciousness.”

“Even El couldn’t cut it?”

“The one Elphas-kun was cutting is right there.”

In the direction Naga pointed, the walls of the labyrinth bore deep slash marks.

I stood up and touched the gash.

It looked like ordinary rock. I took out a knife and tried scraping it, but the deeper parts of the wall didn’t seem cuttable at all.

“I’ll try using the area sonar. If there are places where magic can pass through, we might be able to break through.”

“!! Please!”

It seemed El hadn’t used the area sonar.

For this room, a range of 50 meters should be enough. I stood in the center of the room and tried the area sonar.

I concentrated my awareness, searching for a place where magic might leak out.

Magic passed through. We were surrounded by walls on all sides, but the right wall alone allowed magic to pass through normally.

“Naga, this wall over here… magic can pass through it.”

At my words, everyone except the sleeping El was surprised, and Ashera moved closer to the wall.

She wrapped her right hand in wind magic, raised it, and struck with all her strength.

With a tremendous explosion, a large hole opened in the wall.

“As expected! Amazing, Ashera!”

While Ms. Naga was praising Ashera, the large hole slowly but automatically repaired itself.

“Ashera, widen the hole.”

“Understood.”

With another magical punch, the large hole opened even wider than before, but Ashera seemed off.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s hardened…”

The air, which had loosened slightly, immediately became tense.

“Get out immediately! Aldo-kun, Elphas-kun, please. Rafina, in the worst case, you can throw away everything except the food; just get the rickshaw outside. Ashera-san, secure the hole.”

We hurriedly jumped out from the hole Ashera had opened.

When I tried using the local sonar, the wall had become so impermeable to magic that it was no different from the surrounding walls.

After barely escaping, I asked Ms. Naga about it.

“Naga, if we had failed to escape, would we have been trapped and died?”

“I wonder. At the moment the hole was closing, I saw Minotaurs emerging from the walls.”

“Minotaurs…”

“Perhaps if we annihilate all the Minotaurs, we might be able to break the wall just once.”

“Is there really a trap like that?”

“I’ve never heard of it. People hardly ever fall into teleportation traps in the first place… or maybe…”

“I see.”

Somehow, I was able to experience the teleportation trap and reach the 9th floor.

If you look at it in isolation, everything seems to be going smoothly, but this feels like a fight on the edge.

The toughness of the Minotaurs exceeded my expectations. Being trapped in the room was also unexpected.

While I was unconscious, just thinking about Mom and the others having a fire to keep warm gives me chills.

Sticking out from the wall, of all things, were some dead branches.

Maybe I had underestimated the labyrinth a little. I have to stay alert.

By Ms. Naga’s decision, we would camp here for the night.

I started preparing an early dinner. At times like this, it’s better to eat something warm. Cold food in times like this just makes your spirits sink.

I skewered frankfurters and roasted enough for everyone over the fire. I made a soup from dried vegetables and salted dried meat, and placed bowls of dark bread and jam in front of everyone.

“This isn’t really labyrinth food, is it?”

Mom murmured as she stuffed her mouth with dark bread full of jam.

“Yeah, that’s true. Speaking of which, do you remember when we first went into the labyrinth?”

“With Girus and the others, right? There’s no way I could forget…”

Since Mom and Naga started telling old stories, I spoke to Ashera sitting next to me.

“Ashera, you really helped me earlier.”

“Aldo, you were the one who did your best. I could only take down two.”

“But you retired because you ran out of magic, right?”

“You had a cute sleeping face.”

A sleeping face… it’s a bit embarrassing, but… I had something I wanted to ask Ashera.

“Ashera, how much magic does a magic fist use?”

“Hmm, that’s difficult.”

“Difficult?”

“The more magic you put into it, the stronger it becomes.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you tell me the maximum power?”

“…”

“What’s the matter?”

“…My arms will probably explode too, but I think I can channel a good portion of my magic into it.”

“!! Absolutely not!!!”

At my excessively loud voice, even my normally calm mother and the others stared at me.

“What’s wrong, Al?”

Mother asked with a puzzled expression.

I tried talking about the magic fist, intending to have Mother also drill it into Ashera not to overdo it.

However, Mother seemed to have already heard about it, and without being particularly surprised, she started speaking calmly.

“Al. I understand very well your desire not to see Ashera get hurt. But, you see, you can also understand the sense of security a weapon gives you when your life might be at risk, can’t you?”

“That is… yes…”

“It’s true that it’s not something to use lightly, but I also think that outright denying it without consideration is wrong.”

“…”

“Also, if you improve your skill in magic control, you should be able to manage without sacrificing your arm. You should train.”

Whether it’s my ultra-vibration or Ashera’s magic fist, in the end, it’s probably impossible to do anything without improving our skill in magic control.

I let out a sigh and stared at Ashera.

“In the end, we’re still lacking in training. Both you and I.”

Ashera gave a nod.

Taking a pause in the conversation and looking to the side, I saw that El was waking up.

“Good morning, El.”

“Good morning, Elphas.”

“…Good morning, Brother. Sister Ashera.”

El probably didn’t understand the situation yet, but first, he needed something to eat.

“El, we have a frankfurter, soup, and black bread. Which jam do you want?”

“Then, I’ll have orange jam.”

I understand.

While handing him the Oren jam, I explained to El the series of events that happened while he was asleep.

“A range sonar, huh? I didn’t notice it at all.”

“It can’t be helped. I also forgot to use sonar on the Minotaur.”

“That situation was unavoidable.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

After the conversation settled down, El asked about the teleportation trap.

“So, Brother, do you think teleportation will work?”

Ashera, Mom, and Naga all looked at me with interest.

“Well… I have magic power, so I might as well give it a try.”

I first activated my magic and gathered it onto the palm of my hand. I imagined a hole of magic like the one from the teleportation trap…

After I had closed my eyes for a while and concentrated on the image of the black hole, Ashera poked me in the side.

When I slowly opened my eyes, a black hole made of magical power was on the palm of my hand.

What is this… I did imagine a hole like this, but… it feels kind of dangerous.

I absolutely do not want to put my hand in it.

I stopped Ashera from trying to poke it.

“Ashera, it might be dangerous, so don’t touch it.”

There’s no point in just standing around, so I tried putting the skewer that had a frankfurter on it into the hole.

The skewer was sucked into the hole and disappeared.

What the hell is this… I feel like I’ve created some dangerous magic…

Since it was so dangerous, I immediately made the hole disappear.

“Something was sucked into the hole and disappeared. It might be a bit of a dangerous magic.”

It seemed Ashera could see even the subtle details of magic, and she was trying, on her own, to mimic me and make a black hole in her palm.

“Ashera, be careful.”

“Yeah. I’m fine. If it gets dangerous, I’ll erase it immediately.”

While I was talking to Ashera, El was looking at me with sparkling eyes.

“Got it. Let’s do the magic resonance.”

“Yes!”

After holding hands and finishing the magic resonance, El immediately created a black hole in his palm.

The moment a hole about the same size as the one I made appeared, something leapt out of the hole.

El instantly deflected that something with a hand chop. When I looked at the ground cautiously, I saw that the skewer of the frankfurter I had put in the hole earlier had fallen there.

Wait a minute…

If the skewer came out from El’s hole, there are two possible explanations.

The first is a pattern where if you open a hole in the space of this location and put something in it, anyone who comes to this place can pull it out.

The second case is the pattern where my hole and El’s hole are connected.

In the first case, if there is something you want to hide, you could perfectly conceal it.

As for the second case, I can’t immediately make a judgment. Assuming distance can be ignored, if El and I are together, we can transport things over long distances at zero cost.

“Well… this is quite different from what I expected, but this is an excellent and highly useful technique in its own right.”

“Al, that is…”

“Let’s do a little experiment. El, I’ll go a short distance away and insert a skewer into the hole, so please wait.”

“Understood.”

Just to be safe, I also asked Ashera to come along.

“Ashera, it’s a bit risky for me to go alone, so could you come with me?”

“Got it.”

About 15 minutes away from the camp, I tried putting a skewer into a hole. On the way, there was a Minotaur, so I used sonar three times, got a rough idea of it, and then had Ashera take it down with her magic fists.

“Ashera, shall we head back?”

“Yeah.”

Even against a Minotaur, Ashera’s combat power hasn’t changed at all… I can only see a future where I’m completely under her thumb.

It also took about 15 minutes to return to the camp.

“El, try making a hole.”

El gathered magical energy in his palm and started making a hole, and just like earlier, a skewer came out from the hole.

“””””…”””””

None of us could find words to say anything.

I suddenly realized that today El had been asleep, so he hadn’t eaten any of the honey pickles yet.

As if trying to escape from reality, I took out today’s jar of honey, pulled out the cork, and placed it in front of everyone.

Normally, everyone would be clamoring and fighting over it, but today, everyone started eating in an orderly fashion, taking turns.

While eating the orange honey, I vowed in my heart that I absolutely must keep this technique a secret.