Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 10

by Hiro Ainana

  Lulu looked worried as she gazed at all the people with bandages or canes.

  “That’s true. There are probably only so many priests and mages available, and it’s not cheap to use magic potions regularly.”

  We had homemade magic potions that we could use whenever we wanted, plus Mia’s and my Recovery Magic, so we should be just fine.

  According to my AR, most of them were simply injured, but a few had alarming-looking statuses like Addicted [Demonic Potion].

  The phrase demonic potion sounded familiar to me.

  The elves in Bolenan Forest had said something about it being a forbidden medicine. There was a recipe in the elves’ secret archives, but because they warned against it, I never read it.

  In my opinion, dangerous drugs had no place in a fantasy world.

  “All right, let’s head to the gate!”

  “Mm. No dawdling.”

  I wanted to have a look around the guild, but because it was considerably crowded, I allowed the younger group to lead us toward the west gate that was connected to the labyrinth.

  There was a wall along the path to the west gate around three feet high, then stairs down a steep slope around the size of a school sports field. It somehow reminded me of an outdoor concert venue.

  The gate was all the way at the bottom of the stairs.

  From here, the steps would be almost six feet tall each, so we went to a narrow staircase near a street stall–lined path.

  This was the path most people used to head into the labyrinth. All kinds of sellers tried to call out to us as we walked by.

  “Sir Noble, do you have enough water and preserved foods? One meal only costs a single copper coin. How about it?”

  “Mr. Nobleman! How about a lantern and some goblin oil? Nice and cheap!”

  “Moron, a noble’s not gonna use such smelly oil. We’ve got normal beast oil over here, mister!”

  “You there, young nobleman, why not touch our Item Box for good luck before you level up? It’s one silver coin per person, but if you’re lucky, you or one of these lovely young ladies might pick up the ‘Item Box’ skill down the line!”

  Talk about noisy.

  A few of them did catch my interest, but if I talked to one of them, they’d all surround me. I just ignored them and kept walking.

  “Hey there, new explorer. Don’cha need a map of the labyrinth?”

  This time, a rather uncouth young man approached me with a map.

  I already had my menu’s map function, so I attempted to pass him by.

  “Wait a sec! Our map’s not like all those other maps, y’know! It’s got info I gathered from some garnet-badge explorers!”

  Without thinking, I stopped in place at the words garnet badge.

  If I remembered correctly, garnet badges were assigned only to fairly experienced explorers.

  I turned around to face the man.

  “How much?”

  “Three silver coins per map.”

  According to my “Estimation” skill, the market value for maps ranged from one to three large copper coins.

  Talk about highway robbery.

  “I’ll buy it for three large copper coins.”

  “C’mon—isn’t that an awfully low offer?”

  “Then I don’t need it.”

  “Wait a sec! I’ll sell it to you for that just this once!”

  When I started to walk away, the man hurriedly changed his tune.

  “We sell the most accurate maps in Labyrinth City. If this one comes in handy, make sure you buy your next one from us, too!”

  I exchanged the money for the map, which read Section #1 in messy handwriting across the top. The map itself was all just lines and strange symbols, so I had no idea what it meant.

  “How do you read it?”

  “The reading guide is one copper coin—”

  “That’s almost as much as what I paid for it already.”

  The man tried to milk more money out of me, but I convinced him to hand it over for free.

  “What’s this mark mean?”

  “It’s a sign stone.”

  According to the small man’s lengthy explanation, sign stones were left by early explorers in the old days to mark parts of the labyrinth they’d already explored. They were placed in the labyrinth at regular intervals and engraved with three pieces of information: section number, distance from the entrance, and serial number.

  On top of that, they had one more important feature.

  They would emit a red light if monsters were approaching and a blue light if humans were approaching. The man explained that it helped prevent explorers from attacking one another by mistake in the dark labyrinth.

  “But listen, mister. Just ’cause the sign stone’s glowing blue, that don’t mean you should let your guard down.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not all just explorers and salvagers in the labyrinth—there are also robbers known as plunderers who target explorers.”

  Now that he mentioned it, I did remember one of the elf teachers saying something similar in Bolenan Forest.

  “If those guys are coming, the sign stones’ll still glow blue.”

  I see. So if you let your guard down because you think it’s just other humans coming, they might jump you.

  “What’s the best thing to do if you’re attacked by these plunderers?”

  “That ain’t an easy question…”

  If they attacked you right off the bat, the man said, you could kill them or capture them and sell them as criminal slaves. However, if they pretended to be friendly, it would be difficult to distinguish them from ordinary explorers.

  As a result, unless the explorers you ran into were familiar faces, it was better to stay on your guard until you put distance between your party and theirs.

  “Good to know. Thank you.”

  Appearing satisfied, the man waved and looked around in search of a new customer.

  As soon as he found one and headed over, we were surrounded by some young kids in clothes too small for them. This was a pretty busy plaza, all right.

  Were they beggars, I wondered, or maybe vagrants?

  Curious, I inspected their detailed information and found that their professions read Bag Carrier.

  For some reason, many of them were small-statured girls.

  “Mr. Noble, please hire me.”

  “Hire me—I’ll work for two copper coins a day.”

  “I’ll take one copper coin a day!”

  “Hey, don’t try to steal my customer!”

  “If you’ll feed me, I don’t need any money. I’ll do anything!”

  The young girls clamored around me.

  If Hayato the Hero was here, he would probably be shouting, No touching, Satou! One of the girls tried to grab my sleeve, but Liza gently pushed her back.

  “Step away, please.”

  When Liza glared at them, the girls backed away a little, but they didn’t stop their sales pitches.

  I didn’t want to be harsh and drive them away, but they were all only level 1 or 2, far too weak for us to bring them into the labyrinth.

  Soon, I heard a tummy growl from among the little girls.

  Perhaps sensing a kindred spirit, Tama and Pochi looked up at me pleadingly.

  I couldn’t just leave them like this.

  Looking around, I saw a young woman selling manju buns start zipping in my direction. That was convenient.

  “Care for a labyrinth manju? They’re just a copper coin each, and they’ll fill your belly.”

  This was a popular food in Labyrinth City. It was made with potato flour on the outside and red bean paste, potato, and beans on the inside.

  It reminded me more of a grilled manju than the classic steamed kind.

  They were pretty big, so they should keep a child full for a while.

  “Ooh, labyrinth manju!”

  “This is my first meal in aaages.”

  “Mm, what a treat!”

&nb
sp; “We’ll work hard for you, mister!”

  Accepting the labyrinth manju, the young girls started chowing down earnestly.

  Their enthusiasm piqued my interest enough for me to buy several for my group to try them, too.

  …Gross.

  It was so bad, it could almost compete with the awful gabo fruit dishes I’d eaten in Seiryuu City.

  If these girls considered such a gross food a “treat,” I was a little worried about how they ate normally.

  “It tingles, sir.”

  Pochi stuck out her tongue and made a strange face.

  Eating the dark-red mixture of potatoes, beans, and who knows what else was in the filling seemed to cause a mild paralysis effect.

  I guess in Labyrinth City, you had to watch for traps even in the food you bought on the street…

  “Satou, turn the pretty on.”

  This was a fairly long sentence for Mia, but I didn’t know what she meant.

  “Pretty?”

  “Spirit light.”

  She seemed to want me to release my spirit light, which I normally kept suppressed.

  Just to be safe, I used “Search Entire Map” to make sure there was no one in the city with the “Spirit Vision” skill.

  My spirit light was pretty unique and eye-catching, so I had to be careful.

  Just as I was about to do as she said, I realized what Mia was getting at and turned on my “Miasma Vision.”

  Yikes.

  Most of the food being sold along this street had mold-like black miasma clinging to it.

  It wasn’t particularly dense, which must be why Mia figured my spirit light could fend it off.

  Mia didn’t have “Miasma Vision,” but spirits wouldn’t approach anywhere with lots of miasma, so she must have noticed that something was strange here.

  “Pretty,” Mia said in awe, gazing at my spirit light.

  I’d unleashed only a small amount, but it was enough to thin out all the miasma on the street as well as on the labyrinth manju in my hand—not even a speck remained.

  “What happened?” Arisa asked, curious.

  I explained to her about the miasma.

  Most likely, the food being sold here contained monster meat that hadn’t been purified.

  That would explain why nearly one in five people had miasma poisoning here.

  “This still tastes gross, though.”

  Arisa was right: Even with the miasma banished, the labyrinth manju was still disgusting.

  I didn’t want to eat it, but I didn’t want to throw it out. Just as I was wondering what to do, I noticed a child staring at the manju in my hand, so I gladly passed it off. One man’s trash was another man’s treasure, I supposed.

  “All right, let’s head into the labyrinth.”

  I left the little girls behind and walked toward the west gate.

  For some reason, the kids tried to follow us, but I told them we couldn’t take them with us and that they had to stay put.

  “It looks like the little girls want to join your party. What will you do?”

  “Oh, be quiet.”

  Arisa was imitating a system message from some RPG, but I ignored her.

  As the west gates closed behind us, the group of kids looked sad to be left behind, but I hardened my heart and refused to turn back.

  March of Death

  Satou here. In online multiplayer games, the act of leading a group of monsters over to other players is called a “train.” It’s a huge pain, so nobody likes a player who does it.

  “Ooh! Now, this is how a labyrinth entrance is supposed to be!”

  “Mm.”

  Once we passed through the west gate, there was a staircase leading about fifteen feet down, ending in a tall, wide semiunderground tunnel large enough for a four-ton truck to drive through.

  Tama and Pochi silently shifted closer to me, possibly remembering their time in the Seiryuu City labyrinth.

  They were looking around alertly at all times, their usual carefree demeanors gone.

  This seemed to affect the other girls, who also started to look more serious.

  It’s not good to worry too much, but this level of caution was probably fine.

  Latticed windows near the ceiling let in some light—not enough that you could read a book easily but enough that you could walk without a torch or lantern.

  Beyond the latticed windows, we could occasionally see the feet of patrolling soldiers.

  According to my map, this place was called the Path of Death and was technically not part of the labyrinth.

  The corridor turned a corner about a hundred feet away, so we couldn’t see the entrance to the labyrinth proper. There was a sliding iron gate near the corner that could be closed in case of emergencies.

  Between this and the patrolling soldiers, they had certainly taken plenty of measures against escaping monsters.

  Hmm?

  I saw on my radar that four explorers were approaching from ahead of us.

  Their levels were pretty low, around 7 to 9—no, if an average knight was level 10, I supposed that might make them mid-level explorers.

  One of them appeared to be severely wounded.

  “Someone’s comiiing?”

  “I smell blood, sir.”

  Tama and Pochi were the first to notice the explorer group’s approach.

  Before long, we saw them round the corner.

  “Nana, protect Arisa and Lulu,” Liza ordered immediately.

  “Understood.”

  What about Mia? I wondered, but then I saw that Liza was moving in front of Mia herself.

  “I’m Jejeh of Red Ice! But if you wanna fight, it’ll have to be some other time. We’ve got a major injury here!”

  The young man in the lead waved at us as he shouted. “Red Ice” seemed to be his party’s name.

  I couldn’t see the injured person’s face from here, but his armor was broken, and the shirt wrapped around the wound was dripping with blood.

  “Yikes, that looks really bad…”

  “Master?”

  Arisa and Lulu trembled at the sight.

  They’d seen all kinds of robbers and pirates get injured, but what with the darkness and general atmosphere of this place, maybe they were projecting onto the injured party this time.

  “Satou?”

  Mia looked at me for permission to use Healing Magic, but I held up a hand to stop her.

  “My name is Satou, a new explorer. Please use this medicine if you like.”

  With that, I pulled out two watered-down magic potions from my Garage Bag.

  At their level, this should be more than enough.

  “Sorry, but we don’t have any money on hand. We can pay you once our leader catches up with us from sellin’ the cores. Is it too much to ask to let us use that medicine in advance?”

  “No, go right ahead.”

  I wasn’t planning on charging them in the first place, so I just nodded and gave the vials to Jejeh.

  “Huh? Are these magic potions?”

  “Yes, that’s right. More importantly, you’d better have your friend drink them right away.”

  “Right. We owe ya one.”

  The first vial restored nearly 60 percent of the injured person’s health. I couldn’t see because of the fabric wrapped around it, but the wound had probably closed.

  “…Ahhh, I feel better already. Thank you, young man,” the explorer said in a husky voice as Jejeh steadied him on his feet.

  He tried to stand up on his own, but the blood loss sent him falling back into Jejeh’s arms. These low-grade potions didn’t restore lost blood. Only resting for a while would fix that.

  “Well, we’ll be on our way.”

  “W-wait a minute. We haven’t paid you yet…”

  “It was a gift from someone else. Please don’t worry about it. Until we meet again, if fate wills it so.”

  We couldn’t stand around doing nothing, so I ushered my group down the hall.

  From behind
me, Jejeh warned, “There’s a rogue soldier mantis roaming in section 4-1. Make sure you keep your distance!” I thanked him with a wave of my hand.

  After seeing that gruesome injury, Lulu and Mia looked pale.

  Arisa had lost some of her enthusiasm, too, but not as much as the others.

  “Would you rather call it quits for today, you two?”

  “N-no, I’m all right.”

  “’Mfine.”

  The two of them were obviously putting on brave faces, so I held their hands as we walked through the hall.

  If they didn’t feel better by the time we reached the entrance to the labyrinth, I decided we would turn back there.

  Before long, though, they started smiling again. I guess I was worried for nothing. Maybe it was holding their hands that cheered them up.

  “We’re heeere?”

  “It’s a gate with a scary face, sir.”

  “Is that the gate into the labyrinth?”

  “Probably.”

  At the end of the path was a large open room, with a fifteen-foot-tall door looming directly ahead.

  The door was made of some mysterious jet-black metal, with a red ogre face carved into the surface.

  There were several levels of steps in front of the gate, with a stone counter set in front.

  On the other side of the counter were several explorers’ guild staff, plus four high-level guards, including a magic user.

  At the counter was a young man who appeared to be an explorer, having some kind of dispute with a female guild employee about the price of the cores he was selling.

  “Is that the leader of the people we ran into before?”

  “Looks that way.”

  Examining our surroundings, I saw children of various races sitting in a corner on the other side of the room from the counter.

  They were all wearing simple, shabby clothing, none of them with any weapons or armor.

  According to the detailed information from my AR, these kids were bag carriers, all level 3 or below.

  Unlike the friendly kids we’d met outside, though, these ones didn’t try to approach us.

  “Kiiids?”

  “Lots of children, sir.”

  “Mrrr?”

  Pochi, Tama, and Mia tilted their heads in bewilderment.

  The obviously unplanned move was in such perfect unison that I couldn’t help smiling. Arisa looked annoyed that she hadn’t gotten in on the action.