Chapter 47 : Labyrinth (47)

“But… you seemed close with that witch, didn’t you?”

There was hesitation laced throughout Alje’s words.

Even someone as oblivious as her couldn’t possibly believe that the two could be described as simply “close.”

Hans didn’t bother to remind the girl, who was deliberately looking away, of reality.

“A group and an individual are two different things.”

Hans hated witches.

But in the city of witches, everyone already bowed their heads and made compromises to survive.

Those who couldn’t contain their hatred had already charged at the witches—only to become corpses.

The best they could do was vent their anger on Ojojos—their wild counterparts, at least.

If people could control their emotions with reason, then making exceptions wasn’t all that strange.

“Gretel was…”

Hans recalled the past.

Not for long—just briefly.

“She was… different from the other witches.”

“Different?”

“She could’ve killed me, but she didn’t.”

Their relationship began with something as trivial as that.

Like a passerby who sees a dried-up earthworm on the road but chooses to move it to damp soil instead of stepping on it.

Who would have thought that such a meaningless act of kindness would become the most precious connection between them?

However, Hans didn’t bother explaining all of that to Alje.

“So, I don’t hate Gretel.”

“Because she saved your life. Mm-hmm. That’s all, right?”

“Enough nonsense. We’re in the labyrinth—focus.”

Even veteran seekers could meet their end here if they let their guard down.

Although no monsters were currently around—at least, none that could slip past Alje’s senses.

Actually, Hans’s danger perception was quite keen as well.

His survival instincts were among the best of humanity.

With those sharp instincts, he could feel the gaze fixed on his back as he hastened his steps.

“Hans, just one last thing.”

“Say it.”

“…Monsters are the same as witches, aren’t they?”

Hans remained silent before giving a vague answer.

“I told you—groups and individuals are different.”

Hating monsters was only natural.

Some monsters might think it unfair to be hated just for being what they were.

But could the same logic that applied to witches also apply to monsters?

People had always counted monsters in numbers, not names.

*

“We’ve arrived.”

The long expedition—or rather, one that wasn’t actually long but felt that way due to all the commotion—was finally nearing its end.

They had moved from the wastelands back into the forest, then into another swamp.

Unlike the previous swamp, where even the monsters seemed eerily silent, this one teemed with life and energy.

Which meant an infuriating amount of bugs.

Not exactly monsters, but creatures far too venomous to be called ordinary insects—mosquitoes, for example.

“Ugh.”

“Sorry, Alje. Just bear with it a little longer.”

Hans held a bundle of tightly wound witchgrass, burning it slowly like a torch.

The thick smoke sent the insects scattering, but it also seemed to be affecting Alje, whose usual bright expression was now faintly scrunched up in discomfort.

It wasn’t pleasant for Hans either.

But dealing with the stench was better than suffering mosquito bites, itching all over, or worse—dying of swamp fever.

“You wouldn’t be affected even if they bit you. If it’s too much, you can move a little—”

“No!”

Hans flinched at her sharp response.

“I can endure it. If I go too far away, I won’t be able to protect you!”

“Hah. I’m not that weak, you know.”

“Still!”

Smaller monsters couldn’t withstand the stench of witchgrass, but medium to large ones could endure it—though not completely unaffected.

Just like Alje.

But… nothing was happening.

Was being by his side really worth enduring the stench of witchgrass?

“…Do as you please.”

Still, Alje’s usual cheerful air had turned slightly tense, so Hans stopped trying to persuade her.

The swamp here wasn’t particularly deep.

More precisely, solid ground and soft ground coexisted in strange, narrow patches, resembling the pockmarked surface of a person’s skin.

It seemed unnatural, but labyrinths were always like that.

An ordinary person wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the two, but Hans skillfully stepped only on the firm ground, using his keen eye.

And Alje walked on the soft ground as if it were solid.

“…”

There was no point in asking why her feet didn’t sink.

Of course, if Hans asked, Alje would kindly explain, but he was willing to bet his own wrist that, no matter how much he learned, he would never be able to imitate that skill.

Naturally, their walking speeds differed, but Alje never complained and diligently adjusted her pace to match his.

After walking for a while, they finally arrived at a cliff in the middle of the swamp.

Or rather, it wasn’t quite high enough to be called a cliff, but the presence of a wall-like structure in the center of a swamp was undeniably strange.

A waterfall of mud trickled down, collecting in a hollow below.

“Ogaksa… Hm, do I need to explain it?”

“Explain it!”

She already seemed to know, though.

The flow of the “waterfall” was so slow that calling it that felt like an

exaggeration, but Hans still stopped at a safe distance, just in case.

It wouldn’t do to misstep and fall.

Looking down, he could see an unnaturally deep pit in the middle of the swamp.

Inside, strange formations jutted out—somewhere between stalagmites and mushrooms—squirming restlessly.

Each mass had five protrusions, vaguely resembling a crown.

That was the horn of the Ogaksa.

“Ogaksa are snakes. Horned snakes that live in groups.”

Anyone familiar with snakes would know how absurd that statement was.

But monsters were always like that.

The fact that they lived in confined colonies made them somewhat similar to execution bugs in their larval stage, but the key difference was that Ogaksa were far from easy prey.

If one recklessly stepped into their nest as they might in an execution bug colony, they would meet a gruesome fate.

The creatures were small, but they struck with the speed of an arrow and the force of a hammer.

“The usual way to deal with them is to break their horns from a distance with ranged attacks…”

The horns of an Ogaksa held a special power.

Despite their small size, they boasted monstrous physical abilities, but losing their horns rendered them helpless.

Since it was an obvious weak point, the horns were relatively sturdy, though not as tough as an execution bug’s shell.

However, their objective wasn’t simply to hunt Ogaksa but to collect their horns intact.

The easiest method wasn’t an option.

“So, what do we do in this situation?”

“There isn’t always a second-best option after the best one.”

Of course, even breaking their horns was no easy task.

What was considered the “best” method was really just the least terrible one.

Hans supposed he should be grateful it wasn’t the worst.

He began rummaging through his supplies.

A whip, and several specially sealed glass bottles.

“Since we have these, I’ll need your help.”

“Okay! What do I do?”

“Just hold these.”

Handing Alje the bottles, Hans took up his whip.

It had five separate strands, each tipped with a small looped knot—bearing a certain resemblance to the snakes below.

He swung it through the air.

The sharp crack tore through the silence like a piercing scream.

“If I get bitten, help me out.”

“What? Wait, Hans—!”

The Ogaksa, who had ignored the murmuring of people, reacted instantly to the whip’s shrill, cutting sound.

Their thick, protective horns and sensitivity to high-pitched noises were all because of their predator-prey relationship with the three-blooded hawk… But theory wasn’t important right now.

Hans was a hunter.

Hunters only needed to remember results.

“Hisss!”

“Hiss!”

And the result was that these creatures reacted hysterically to such sounds.

They were far more dangerous than execution bugs.

The moment the noise reached them, they sprang into action, launching themselves with an eerie wail akin to an arrow slicing through the air.

Despite their tiny bodies, the force behind their leap seemed to defy gravity, as if they were flying horizontally before abruptly shifting their trajectory to dive toward Hans like a rain of arrows.

Some of them even took a quick measure of Hans’s body and the amount of flesh on him before deciding to retreat back into the pit—perhaps calculating that there wasn’t enough food to go around.

“Hans!”

Like a coordinated military assault, the swarm’s attack targeted a single life.

For these tiny soldiers, even a single human body was enough for a feast.