Being Hunted
by Afuhfuihgs
After grasping the situation, Raellan gathered everyone in one place. Everyone had been feeling something was off about the hourglasses that wouldn’t disappear above their heads even as time passed, so gathering them was instantaneous.
“It seems a monster has disguised itself as someone among us.”
At Raellan’s words, everyone turned their heads towards the people around them. Stroking his chin, Raellan quietly asked.
“Is anyone injured?”
Everyone shook their heads, and without hesitation, Raellan raised his staff and pointed at the people.
“You, you, and those two morons with the dumb looks next to him.”
Raellan’s staff pointed down a path.
“Get out of the area.”
If a monster doesn’t exist within the area, the hourglass disappears. In other words, even if one was disguised and hiding among us, we could find the culprit by sending them outside the area. No one was unaware that refusing to leave the area here would mark them as the culprit.
The people pointed out by Raellan had uneasy faces, but they didn’t refuse and went outside the area. Everyone watched their figures from the boundary of the area, but seeing that the hourglass didn’t disappear, Raellan pointed out another person and had them switch.
He repeated that several times, but the hourglass above their heads didn’t disappear until the turn of the first people who had gone out came around again. Everyone was flustered that there wasn’t a monster among us and looked at Raellan.
“What’s going on? I did as you said, but wasn’t there supposed to be no monster among us?”
At Derok’s question, Raellan tapped his temple with his staff and said to everyone.
“Everyone, stay still here. Only Lily and I will move to solve this problem.”
“Stay still here? You’re telling us to just watch while our heads could explode?”
As Derok growled, the adventurers’ eyes gleamed as if in agreement. Then, as if it were natural, Raellan aimed his staff at Derok’s forehead.
“If you move, I’ll think you’re a monster and kill you.”
“…Cocky bastard.”
Derok acted like he would charge at any moment, but in reality, he was subtly looking at my reaction and stayed still. It seemed the memory of the spear blade touching his shoulder had made him better at controlling his anger. As the Guild Master, who had been acting like he would charge at any moment, didn’t move, the experienced adventurers also quickly just glared with their eyes and stayed still.
“First, let’s get rid of the corpses in the labyrinth. A monster might be parasitizing inside the corpses.”
At Raellan’s words, I skillfully used spatial telekinesis to blow all the corpses outside the area. Just in case, I included all the severed arms and legs as well.
Raellan, who had been quietly watching that scene, gave a satisfied smile.
“Indeed, a Transcender is different. You’ve become easier to handle.”
But the hourglass above our heads still hadn’t disappeared. I could feel people getting anxious because half the sand had already fallen.
“Not a corpse. Not a person. Then there’s only one answer.”
Raellan turned his body and slowly observed the people, then fixed his gaze on someone. That person was the man next to Derok. Raellan slowly lowered his gaze, looking at the shield placed next to his leg, and asked.
“Is that shield yours?”
“…Yes.”
“Then did you take the shield with you when you went outside the area earlier?”
At Raellan’s question, the man’s eyes widened. After hesitating, the man looked around at the others and said.
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t think there was a need to bring the shield…”
As the man trailed off, Raellan’s eyes gleamed. But suddenly, Derok cut in.
“Foolish. You’ve got the wrong idea.”
When Raellan narrowed his eyes and glared, Derok raised one corner of his mouth and said.
“That shield was obtained by Keron on the 3rd floor. So he had the shield even in the previous wave. But there was no hourglass above our heads then. In other words, there’s no way the shield could be a monster-“
Tung-!
Kueeeek-!
“….”
“….”
At the same time as the shield that had fallen outside the area made a sound as if it were alive, the hourglass above our heads disappeared.
If the shield was really a monster, it seemed like it would be over with a simple confirmation without needing to make a fuss… I moved the shield outside the area with spatial magic. The result was that Raellan’s idea was correct.
“…Everyone, return to your positions. I won’t say any more.”
Raellan said without even giving Derok a glance. The others also silently returned to their positions for Derok’s sake, but the person in question seemed to have a hard time accepting it despite the clear evidence.
“How could a shield become a monster? There was nothing wrong with it even when we went through two waves.”
At Derok’s words, Raellan sighed.
“This is a labyrinth. Anything can happen. In the first place, you said you got the shield from the labyrinth, right? A monster in the shape of a shield could have awakened due to the labyrinth’s power, or it could have simply turned the shield into a monster. Do you really think that’s important right now?”
As Raellan shook his head as if he were pathetic, Derok kept running his hand over his face, then sighed and turned his head towards me.
“…Sorry.”
It was an apology that felt strongly like it was only directed at me, not Raellan. Before Raellan could laugh at it, Derok quickly turned his body and returned to where he had been.
***
When we were blocking the 10th wave, an adventurer said with a flustered voice.
“…The monsters aren’t coming into the area?”
The adventurer, who was narrowing his eyes and looking into the darkness, had the helmet he was wearing on his head blown off by something that flew at him. He felt dizzy, but the adventurer skillfully checked what had attacked his helmet first. It was an ordinary pebble that could be commonly seen. The adventurer, seeing that the helmet that had fallen on the floor was crushed, shouted loudly.
“Sling… It’s a sling! The monster used a sling-“
Thwack――!
A pebble hit the back of the adventurer’s head, who was alerting his comrades of the danger, and burst his head open. Everyone was flustered by the pebbles that started flying threateningly from an unseen place and hid their bodies. Ogres had used crossbows, but there were only two of them. Even then, they were shooting crossbows where they could be seen, and their heads were immediately pierced by me, so they weren’t very threatening.
But the monster using the sling now wasn’t thinking of coming into the area at all, and was cunningly hiding in the darkness and shooting pebbles. It was acting as if it were gathering prey in one place and safely clearing them out.
Unlike wizards who could create cover, the adventurers had to hide their bodies behind the wall, avoiding the pebbles that could fly from anywhere. Because of that, monsters entered the area where they couldn’t secure a view. As the hourglass floated above his head, the adventurer, realizing that a monster had entered the area he was in charge of, requested my help.
“A monster has entered this side! Shit, I can’t clear it out because of the pebbles!”
I was about to secure a view using spatial magic, but I quickly moved my head to avoid the pebble that had come out of the dimensional entrance. It was as if it had been waiting for me to use spatial magic. If that’s the case, then all I had to do was adjust the angle of the exit so that the pebble couldn’t attack me in reverse.
I used spatial magic as close to the maze wall as possible to secure a view. I immediately checked what the monster that had crossed the area was. It’s a goblin. But it was completely different from ordinary goblins. It had applied something black to its skin to hide its body in the darkness, and it was holding a shield made by gathering what appeared to be monster bones.
Furthermore, the goblin was cleverly placing only one foot on the edge of the area and hiding behind the shield. The black goblin’s goal wasn’t to kill us with their own hands like other monsters. It was planning to invade the area and hunt us all at once using the hourglass.
I immediately used spatial magic to pierce the head of the goblin hiding behind the shield, and I shouted with magic power so that everyone could hear.
“The monsters are hunting us! They’re acting like adventurers!”
The goblin’s actions were similar to the actions of adventurers who had entered a dungeon. It’s not necessary to kill all the monsters in a stage-type dungeon. The goal is to safely break through the stage. There were even cases where they didn’t kill the monsters at all and used tricks to break through the stage.
The black goblin, like an experienced adventurer, was trying to kill us by not fighting us head-on and waiting with only one foot in the area. In other words, it means that the enemy knows that we die if we don’t defend the area.
Thwack thwack-!
Along with the sound of something bursting in succession, an adventurer shouted.
“It’s oil! They’re shooting bottles filled with oil!”
Whether the oil had caught fire, the path where the voice was heard started to become brighter than other places. Another hourglass floated above our heads. The goblin had lit a fire to block our approach and had once again placed one foot in the area.
As I was about to use spatial magic to support that side immediately, I heard a sound like something exploding behind me.
Kwaaaang―――!
“Kuwaaaaaak―――!”
What appeared, breaking down the barricade behind us, was a troll with a size so huge that it filled the passage alone. I also saw an adventurer who had given up on defending the area and was running away from his position towards me.
“Hwek! T, Troll!!!”
“Kuaaaaak―――!”
“….”
Realizing that the situation was getting worse and worse, I decided not to hold back any more. I took out a box that Ember had packed from the spatial warehouse. That box was… a box full of magic stone bombs, scraped together even the ones that were going to be used for the Northern Barrier.
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