Chapter 53: The 6th floor (5)

Chapter 53: The 6th floor
(5)

“Whooosh…”

From
the fallen Boss Minotaur’s severed head lying on the ground, a final
scream echoed.

The
[Darkness] that had consumed her flesh vanished without a trace due
to the Blessing of Radiance, and soon began to dissolve into
particles of light into the void.

-Tsk!

Something
landed at my feet.

It
was a shard of crystal, smooth and shiny, a minotaur soul stone.

Normally,
monsters leave behind a corpse when they die, but when they drop a
soul stone, their bodies disappear without a trace.

“Purrrrr!”

The
minotaurs were enraged as their leader’s head was blown off before
their eyes.

“Fireball!!!”

Kaaaaaah!

Just
in time, Lammel finished her chant and a giant fireball swept through
the minotaur horde.

It
was less powerful than Ellie’s flare, but it was enough to send them
rolling on the ground in agony as their flesh cooked.

The
savory smell of cooking meat wafted up.

I
opened another potion vial and popped it in my mouth. The fatigue
that had overtaken me after using the Blessing of Radiance was
forcibly restored.

“Let’s
taste the Labyrinth Mountain beef.”

The
slaughter was not yet finished.

***

Professor
Mankostil succeeded in rescuing the students and escorted explorers
who had fallen to the eighth level.

They
were lucky: the area they fell into was relatively uninhabited by
monsters.

The
escort explorers and teaching assistants decided to hold out for as
long as they could, waiting for the professor to rescue them, rather
than attempting to climb the floor on their own.

Thankfully,
Professor Mankostil was able to rescue them with minimal damage but
the damage was done.

“Please
bear with it a little longer. If there’s just a missing part, I can
reattach it.”

A
student lost an arm, a student broke a leg, etc. It meant that there
were already injured students.

It
was fortunate that none of the injured students were children of
nobles or powerful families, but it wasn’t the politics of the
situation that touched Professor Mankostil’s nerves.

He
could see the students’ faces contorted in pain, but he could also
see the explorers, who looked relatively unharmed.

Professor
Mankostil noticed that the explorers had generously applied potions
to their wounds.

“⋯Didn’t
you have any potions for the students? I thought we provided you with
enough supplies.”

“We
had no choice. It was the eighth floor, not the other way around. It
was two levels below our destination, and the students unwittingly
triggered a transference trap. We ran out of supplies much faster
than we expected.”

It
all made sense.

If
they wanted to last as long as possible in an emergency, it made
sense for the more experienced explorers to take more supplies.

And
the student who set the trap and the teaching assistant who failed to
supervise him were to blame for the deaths in the first place.

‘⋯I
understand that the escort explorers were trying
to do the best they could in a crisis situation⋯’

Professor
Mankostil had been an explorer in the past and knew how common sense
and moral the escorted explorers in front of him were.

There
were plenty of rotten explorers who would prioritize their own
survival to the extreme, even if it meant sacrificing a commission.

These
explorers were saints compared to those who were bad.

But
still.

‘It
is also true, I regret to say, that…’

Professor
Mankostil swallowed hard.

‘Yes.
Few explorers are willing to protect others to their own detriment.’

To
ask more of a junior explorer would be tantamount to bullying.

If
they wanted something more, they should have invited a mid- or
high-level explorer.

“We’ll
judge the success of the request later. Let’s go up to the sixth
floor.”

“Yes.”

After
saving the party and ascending to the seventh floor, Professor
Mankostil’s head pounded.

The
puppet’s communication function had been activated.

He
opened it, thinking it might have something to say.

–
Professor, help me, help me, help me!

-Boom.

The
communication was abruptly cut off.

Professor
Mankostil’s head went cold.

Something
untoward had happened.

“Pick
up the pace! Quickly!”

In
an instant, they were over the seventh floor and down to the sixth,
where Professor Mankostil landed near the center of the sixth floor,
protecting the injured students.

‘Blood?’

He
frowned at the strong smell of blood that immediately wafted in.

“What,
are we on the sixth floor? This smells like a minotaur?”

“Minotaur?
That’s a 7th floor monster! How can a 7th floor monster be on the 6th
floor?!”

“I
don’t know, but the smell is pretty strong. Is it an unusual
creature?”

The
words of the escorting explorer with the Scent Discrimination
Blessing caused everyone to adjust their guard.

Sure
enough, something had happened on the sixth floor.

“I
smell a scent coming from the center.”

Up
until this point, the party had stuck to the method of gathering in
the center and then moving forward again.

“⋯No
way.”

The
smell of thick blood and gore mixed with the smell of a monster that
shouldn’t be on the sixth floor. Even the direction the smell was
coming from.

It
was all too easy to predict what had happened.

‘No!
No way!’

In
an instant, Professor Mankostil’s mind flashed through the worst-case
scenarios: the wiping out of the escort party, the annihilation of
the students.

The
voice of the student who had lost contact with him, begging
desperately for help, echoed in his head.

‘Please
don’t. Please let my assumptions be wrong!’

Flying
at full speed, Prof. Mankostil entered the center of the floor, ready
to strike.

Along
with the thick smell of blood, the Professor’s eyes caught sight of
something.

‘Bodies?’

A
pile of bodies.

They
were not human but minotaur bodies.

“Kyo,
Professor, Professor is here!”

Students
and teaching assistants looked at him with relief.

Contrary
to their horrifying expectations, they were unharmed.

‘With
so many minotaurs, how can they be unscathed?’

The
question was quickly answered. A loud voice echoed through the
center.

“There
are two Soul Stones!”

“You’re
crazy, Balkan! You’re the best!”

A
dwarf with an eye patch and a cow girl with an arm patch.

“Kiyakho!
We’re rich now!”

“The
goddess was watching over us!!!”

“Grrrr!”

A
harpy vomiting blood, and the escorting explorers, including cat girl
and lizard girl.

“Ah,
ouch. Ouch. It hurts, now put me down!”

They
were tending to a man in a blood-soaked helmet, covered in wounds.

***

“You’ve
been through a lot, Mr. Balkan.”

The
excited party members finish rinsing, rubbing their throbbing limbs
and drinking potions.

After
being briefed by his assistants and Academy students, a smiling
Professor Mankostil approached me.

“From
the sounds of it, something untoward happened, but thanks to the
sacrifice of Mr. Balkan’s party, it seems to have worked out well.
And thanks to you, all the students are safe.”

Yeah.
They should be. Everyone was in the barrier except us.

I
nodded, feeling like I was technically a temporary member of the
party, but I wasn’t in the mood for a correction.

“You
don’t have to bend over like that, I’m an escort.”

It
was a bit overwhelming to have an elderly man bend down to thank me,
and I tried to brush it off with a blank stare.

Instead,
Prof. Mankostil just smiled even wider in admiration.

“Haha.
It’s great that you not only have the skills, but also the
responsibility and humility to do your job. When I was your age…”

And
then he began to rattle off his life story.

It
was dressed up with all sorts of colorful words and metaphors, but it
went something like this.

“When
I was younger, there were so many fucking explorers, huh? So I
studied to be a professor instead of a fucking explorer, huh? Even
now, there’s a lot of shit without romance, but you guys are kind of
cool. You’re talented. Keep it up. And thanks for saving the
students. I know it was hard because they’re a bunch of wusses”.

The
unfamiliar academy professor exuded the familiar aura of an
old-fashioned laborer.

At
first, he was a little mean, but when he saw that I was doing a good
job, he suddenly treated me well, as if he was worried that I might
escape.

“Haha⋯
yes⋯”

I
felt like I was going to lose my mind listening to them even though
my body was hurting like hell here and there.

But
he wasn’t just any ordinary person, this was a chance to make a
connection with an academy professor.

I
tried to stay awake and focus on the professor’s words.

“Who
the hell is this guy? What’s taking so long to talk to the professor
one-on-one?”

“Apparently,
a freaky minotaur came down from the seventh floor to the sixth
floor, and that guy took it all out, and none of the students got
hurt.”

“What
kind of crazy shit is that? Floor shifts? Minotaurs? You expect me to
believe that?”

“Believe
it or not, there’s a Minotaur corpse over there. See, there are axe
marks on the neck. He had an axe at his waist. How common is it to
find an explorer wielding an axe?”

“Hmm.
If that’s real, I’m kind of curious.”

The
escort explorers and students who started to gather one by one were
still chattering away as they watched me and the professor.

The
gazes of the explorers, who were usually busy drooling and checking
out my body, gradually changed.

They
looked at me like a skilled rookie, or someone equivalent to that.

“I…
my uterus is fluttering⋯
I think I’m about to ovulate⋯”

“I’ve
never been protected by a man before. I can’t believe there’s a male
like that. I want to fuck him, no, I want to be fucked.”

“I
don’t know his face, but a man who protects me like that might not be
bad⋯”

When
I first came to the central area, the students who were afraid were
also muttering strange things.

“Hey,
you guys, follow me for a second.”

Ellie
disappeared into the distance, dragging the girls, who were rubbing
their thighs together in annoyance.

Magic
was imbued in Ellie’s hands as she reappeared. What could possibly
have happened in the brief moment she was gone?

“⋯⋯”

Ellie
made eye contact with me and turned away, pressing her hat back on
her head in frustration.

Her
floppy elf ears flicked.

“Anyway,
what I wanted to say to you, Mr. Balkan, is this.”

The
professor’s words, as boring as the headmaster’s pep talk, seemed to
be coming to an end. I turned my attention back to Professor
Mankostil.

The
professor offered me a rather strange proposition.

***

Joy
Hog’s party and the students who had fallen from the eighth floor and
sustained near-disabling injuries would be allowed to recover in the
healing waters of the fountain on the fifth floor and then return to
the sixth floor.

For
the next week, we stayed on the sixth floor, waiting for the students
to finish investigating the situation.

“Ellie,
what the hell is this thing doing?”

“⋯Are
you confident you’ll understand if I explain?”

“No.”

“Well,
people usually don’t. I’ll summarize it for you later when I write
the report.”

“Can
you summarize it in three lines?”

“How
can I summarize this in three lines⋯⋯⋯But
I’ll try.”

I
had no idea what I was doing, so I just did what Ellie told me to do.

I
stared at Ellie as she stood there, holding a monster corpse or
waving her hands in the air, trying to manipulate magic.

As
we stayed together and talked a little, I felt my relationship with
Ellie gradually returning to normal.

But
the fundamental misunderstanding remained. I held my breath, waiting
for my chance.

And
today, it came.

One
student and one escort explorer out of the group will stand guard,
totaling two sentries.

And
today, it’s Ellie and mine’s turn.

We’ve
had this opportunity once before, but Ellie didn’t even bother to
look at me, and I ended the day awkwardly chatting away.

Ta-da-da-da-da

I
turned to face Ellie across the campfire we’d built to keep warm.

She
was a beautiful elf girl with red hair and red eyes.

At
the same time, Diana Ordia’s foster daughter.

“⋯Mister.
I, uh, have a question.”

She
spoke first. This was a first for me on this trip to the Labyrinth,
as I had always spoken first.

I
nodded, pleased to see her.

“Sure.
Go ahead. You can ask me anything.”

“⋯Anything?”

“Uhhhhhhhh.”

What
the heck is she going to ask me?

I
swallowed hard and waited for Ellie’s red lips to open.

“⋯You’re⋯”

Ellie
fiddled with her fingers nervously for a long moment, then glanced
over at me and asked cautiously.

“You’re…my
stepfather, I mean… my dad…right…?”

“⋯What?”

What
the hell do you mean, Ellie?