“Ah!?”
The party’s expressions froze, and they hurried over to the edge of the platform and looked down. As they’d feared, the tidal wave of cockroaches was climbing their way up to them.
“Fuuuuuuck!”
“Mmm!? Draconic Thunder.”
“Get away from meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
“Nooooooooooooooo! Disintegrate, disintegrate, disintegrate!”
“Begone, foul creatures! Dragonbreath!”
Everyone’s hair stood on end, and they fired off their strongest attacks in a panic. Hajime unleashed a barrage of rockets from his Orkans, Yue summoned her Draconic Thunder, Shea fired off explosive slugs one after another, Kaori sent down a wave of disintegration, and Tio unleashed her malefic breath. Kouki and the others fired off their best long-range attacks as well. Everyone except Shizuku, who looked like she was about to faint.
Fortunately, their overpowered firepower was effective. Countless crimson flowers blossomed in the darkness below, rimmed with crackling electricity. The space in between was filled with pale blue ripples and beams of silver and black. The occasional white flash could be seen as well, bearing down like God’s wrath itself. It was a one-sided elimination. The amount of death and destruction Hajime and the others were unleashing was greater than that any army on earth could muster.
Unfortunately, their barrage barely put a dent in the ungodly number of cockroaches. The party’s best efforts didn’t even slow the black wave’s inexorable advance. It was like trying to fight the ocean. The cockroaches flew in perfect formation, fanning out to the right and left to cover any avenues of escape.
“Ugh! L-Let this be a holy ground that d-d-denies thine enemies passage— Hallowed Ground!” Suzu erected a barrier in tears.
The wave of cockroaches flew up above Hajime and the others, then, as if being pulled down by gravity, crashed into them as one solid mass. The party’s field of vision was filled with wriggling black bodies. Many of the cockroaches were squished on impact and left disgusting brown streaks as their bodies slid down the barrier. Those that survived crawled all around the barrier’s surface, seeking for a way in.
“I-I can’t—”
Disgusted beyond reason, Suzu fainted. Kouki rushed over to Suzu and grabbed her as she fell.
“Suzu, don’t fall asleep! If you fall asleep it’s all over for us!”
That was no exaggeration. If the party was swallowed up by that wave of cockroaches, they would no doubt be utterly broken mentally. No amount of ancient magic could wipe away the trauma of an event like that.
“Yue, we need a backup barrier.”
“Okay... I won’t let them break this one!” Yue deployed her own Hallowed Ground that overlapped with Suzu’s.
“It’s just one thing after another in this labyrinth...”
“Indeed. I see now why this labyrinth requires challengers to have cleared other ones first. It appears to be much more difficult than the rest.”
Though her expression was stiff, Tio was still able to calmly analyze their situation. Kaori, who was trembling in the back, screamed.
“L-L-Less analyzing and more killing!”
Shizuku turned to Kaori with a heartfelt smile and attempted to calm her best friend down. It was hard to believe she’d fainted just moments before.
“Kaori, don’t worry. Those things are just flecks of black sesame. You know, I really like black sesame pudding and black sesame rice. Black sesame rice with soy sauce is especially delicious.”
“Oh no, Shizuku-chan’s broken down!”
Shizuku’s eyes had indeed glazed over. Realizing they had no choice but to annihilate them all, Hajime rubbed his arms and opened up his Treasure Trove. Before he could pull anything out though, the cockroaches started to pull back. Confused, Hajime watched as they formed a sphere in the mid-air. A few of them split off and created a ring around the giant sphere. More split off and created a second ring around the first. From there, cockroaches started creating lines connecting the two rings to each other at various points. Hajime’s lips twitched as he watched them create geometric shapes within the rings one after another.
“Hey, are you serious...? Are they really making a magic circle?”
This isn’t good. Hajime’s instincts warned him it was dangerous to let the cockroaches finish. Hajime and the others fired an even fiercer barrage at the mass of cockroaches, but those not part of the magic circle threw themselves forward to block the attacks. They were literally meat shields. Hundreds of thousands of cockroaches dropped dead every second, yet the mass didn’t seem to be shrinking at all.
Before long, the cockroaches’ magic circle was complete. It spanned 15 meters in diameter and was glowing a dark red. The sphere it surrounded started pulsing, like a massive, disgusting egg about to hatch. The cockroaches on the outer shell of the cockroach egg were pushed outward and fell to their deaths.
And finally, the egg burst...
Finally, the egg burst, revealing a massive, three-meter long, giant cockroach. It didn’t look like the regular, oval-shaped cockroaches that were flying around either. No, it looked like some horrifying cross between a human and a cockroach.
Six spiked limbs jutted out from its torso. The limbs themselves were like that of a cockroach’s, but the very ends had fingers like they were human hands. Each of those fingers was a razor-sharp blade. The cockroach’s head was fitted with two pitch-black eyeballs and powerful mandibles. Three pairs of translucent wings sprouted from its back, and it had a tail near its waist. Considering how intimidating and blasphemous it looked, Hajime guessed that it was this floor’s final guardian.
“Gichichichichichi!”
It let out a revolting, inhuman scream, and wreathed itself in dark red mana. The cockroaches around it rearranged themselves and started creating another magic circle. It appeared the giant human-shaped one could control the others at will.
More cockroaches flew to the center of the magic circle and started creating multiple spheres. These were smaller than the ones that had created the human-shaped one, but they were still big enough that whatever came out of them would be trouble.
“Tch, like I’ll let— Wha!?”
“Mmm!?”
Hajime and Yue made to attack the cockroach swarm, but then stopped when they felt a vast torrent of mana at their feet. They both looked down, but at a glance, it seemed the platform they were on hadn’t changed at all. Hajime activated his Demon Eye and saw that another swarm of cockroaches had created another magic circle underneath the branches.
The other magic circle up in the sky was just a distraction to keep the party’s attention away from this one. And it had worked. Hajime only had time to curse before the magic circle beneath them activated. A pillar of dark crimson mana shot up from underneath the branches. It spiraled around them like a tornado, and Hajime was forced to cover his eyes from the intensity of its light. Then, there was a blinding crimson flash, and the entire room was filled with light.
After a few seconds, the light dispersed. Hajime looked down at himself and found he was unhurt.
“What on earth was that? Yue, are you—”
Upon seeing Yue, Hajime stopped mid-sentence, stunned. Was it because he’d been captivated by her, even in the middle of battle? No. The opposite, actually.
He was neither relieved at finding her safe, nor happy to see her. No, he was disgusted. Disgusted to the point that he was filled with hatred. For the first time in his life, Hajime felt that way toward Yue. And from the looks of it, Yue felt the same way. Her mouth was twisted into a faint snarl, and there was murder in her eyes.
“Yue.”
“Hajime...”
They both frowned in displeasure at the same time.
“I fucking hate you.”
“I wish I could kill you.”
Neither of them bothered to hide their disdain. At the same time, they drew their weapons. Hajime pointed Donner at Yue’s forehead, while she pointed a hand glowing with pale bl
ue flames at his chest.
Just barely, the two of them managed to stop themselves from firing. Something in their memories told them this situation was wrong. Had it not been for their instincts, they would likely have tried to kill each other.
“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing you two?” Shea interrupted their charged glaring contest with an angry yell. However, it wasn’t because she was trying to stop them from killing each other.
“The hell do you think you’re doing, playing around in the middle of a battle? I’ll murder you worms!” In fact, she seemed more than ready to join in herself. Her eyes held nothing but hatred. She tapped Drucken threateningly against her shoulder. If it wasn’t for the fact that they were in a life-and-death battle in the middle of a labyrinth, she would have attacked them already.
“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, worthless rabbit!”
“I’ll tear your ears off...”
Hajime felt a hatred for Shea nearly as great as his hatred for Yue. It appeared Yue felt the same way, as she was reaching threateningly for Shea’s ears.
However, they were all aware of the fact that they were in the middle of a battlefield. Inside a labyrinth no less. Hajime mentally berated himself for letting his feelings get the better of him and examined his surroundings.
A truly bizarre spectacle was playing out before him. Tio and Kaori were glaring daggers at Yue and Shea. And to his surprise, Hajime found he abhorred the two of them too. So much so that he contemplating assassinating them in the middle of the fight.
There was something incredibly odd going on here. Hajime couldn’t remember ever hating anyone in his party before. In fact, he distinctly remembered coming to trust each of them implicitly after all the trials they’d overcome together. And yet, just recalling those memories filled him with hate. Just as Hajime’s anger was about to boil over, he heard a passionate voice behind him.
“H-Hey, what do you guys think you’re doing!? I won’t let you lay a finger on Nagumo!”
Kouki, of all people, had rushed to Hajime’s defense. Yue and the others glared at him. For whatever reason, Kouki was looking at Hajime with something akin to worship in his eyes.
Hajime looked away, disgusted. However, he didn’t feel any inexplicable hate or love for Kouki. That knowledge helped him calm down a little, and examine his irrational feelings more carefully.
Fortunately, Yue and Suzu’s barriers were still active. Otherwise, they would have been swallowed up by the swarm of cockroaches while they were still bickering. But while the group was arguing, the human-shaped cockroach continued to organize the others into spheres and magic circles, creating more miniature versions of itself. While the human-shaped one was horrific because of its exaggerated features, the miniature ones were disgusting to look at because their appearance was a cross between the human-shaped one and normal cockroaches.
They were best categorized as half-human-shaped. And the human-shaped boss was mass-producing them with unbelievable speed. If the human-shaped one was their king, then these half-human-shaped ones were its knights and the tiny regular ones foot soldiers.
Regardless, the primary reason Hajime and the others were able to argue like this at all was that Suzu and Yue’s barriers were keeping them safe. However, that might not remain the case once the human-shaped cockroach began attacking in earnest. Hajime forced his hate-filled brain to think, and finally, he realized what the source of everyone’s inexplicable feelings was. Going by how everyone was acting, he was certain his guess was correct.
“Looks like that last spell reversed our feelings on everything. And these reversed feelings are as strong as their original counterparts.”
“Yeah... It pisses me off that I agree with you... but that seems likely.”
Yue nodded with a frown. The other girls all agreed as well, displeasure oozing from every pore.
“I understand now. This trial is a test to see if we can overcome our reversed emotions through the strength of the bonds we’ve forged, or failing that, continue to place our trust in each other despite our mutual dislike... This is quite the nasty ordeal. Especially since the stronger your bonds are, the greater the hatred you’ll feel when those feelings are reversed. Worst of all though...”
Tio trailed off and turned toward the half-human-shaped cockroaches swarming outside the barrier, her face slightly flushed. Hajime and the others followed her gaze and found themselves at a loss for words. Kaori was the first to break the silence.
“They’re beautiful...” she whispered, her eyes glistening.
And therein lay the problem. These black devils that they normally detested more than anything was their enemy. But right now, all Hajime and the others could think about was how lovely they appeared to be. Naturally, they still distinctly remembered trying to eradicate the swarm. But their feelings regarding these monsters had been reversed too. The fact that Hajime felt as if he actually liked these cockroaches was proof enough that his theory was correct.
Not only would their coordination be hampered by their mutual hatred for each other, but they would also unconsciously hold back against enemies they’d suddenly come to love. At the very least, that was likely Haltina’s aim. That would explain why they’d picked cockroaches to serve as the challengers’ enemy too; there was no other creature so universally hated. While the party bickered amongst themselves, they would slowly be drowned under a sea of cockroaches or ripped apart by the human-shaped and half-human-shaped elites. For any normal party, this trial would be a death sentence. However, Hajime and his comrades were anything but normal.
“Yeah, they’re beautiful alright. I can’t believe we were trying to so hard to kill these cute things a second ago.”
“I love how they scuttle around on their little wriggly legs. And their shells are so impressive.”
Hajime and Yue smiled as they stared at the massive cockroach boss and the swarm surrounding it. The human-shaped cockroach looked, if anything, even more lovely to their eyes than its underlings. Right now, everyone present felt these creatures were cuter than any puppy or kitten. They could feel a desire to protect the adorable critters welling up within them. Who could possibly harm them when their eyes seemed to be pleading for mercy? And so—
“I could stare at them forever... Alright, time to kill them.”
“Yeah... They really are wonderful... Okay, let’s kill them.”
Hajime took Schlagen, his anti-material rifle, and fired. Yue cast the spatial magic Void Fissure. Two powerful attacks ripped through the swarm of cockroaches. Hajime’s piercing bullet shredded its way through everything in its path, whether that was Yue and Suzu’s barriers, or the thousands of cockroaches and hundreds of half-humanoid cockroaches protecting his target, the human-shaped boss.
“Gah!?” The human-shaped cockroach screamed and retreated. It fled at full-speed, sparing no thoughts for defense. Unfortunately, Hajime’s railgun-accelerated shots traveled too fast to dodge. He unleashed a barrage that devastated the human-shaped cockroach’s left half.
Schlagen’s bullets had so much force behind them that they went through even branches and trees in their path and embedded themselves in the cavern’s walls. A second later, the air blurred and warped. This was no vibration caused by a speeding bullet. No, space itself was shaking.
As Yue’s and Suzu’s barriers disappeared, the cockroaches flooded toward the party. However, no matter what direction they came from, they were instantly murdered and their corpses flung away. Shockwaves of spatial magic battered cockroaches in waves, obliterating the tiny ones, and crushing the half-human-shaped ones beyond recognition.
“Huh? What? What’s happening?”
Suzu looked around, confused. She couldn’t understand why her own comrades had destroyed her barrier, but then she noticed the enemies around her had all been destroyed. There was nothing black in sight, save for Tio’s clothes. Unfortunately, Hajime and Yue had only destroyed the cockroaches around them. There were stil
l countless more climbing up the walls or scuttling around on the floor below. But that didn’t bother Hajime or Yue one bit.
“This is so sad. If only they weren’t our enemies, we wouldn’t have to kill them.”
“Truly, a shame...”
No matter how cute they looked. No matter how lovable they were. No matter how much they didn’t want to kill them. No matter how much they wanted to be their friends. It didn’t change the fact that these cockroaches were Hajime and Yue’s enemies. And the only thing that awaited their enemies was death. There was no room for sympathy or mercy.
Hajime’s eyes glinted with a murderous light and his lips curled up in a fearless smile. On the other hand, Yue’s gaze turned as cold as ice. She looked like a true vampire queen.
“Hey, pipsqueak. That big one’s mine. Don’t get in my way.”
“Who do you think you are? That prey is mine. Get in my way and I kill you.”
The two glared at each other, then simultaneously turned away with a “Hmph!” Hajime bent his legs in preparation for a jump while Yue floated into the sky. Another tidal wave of black bugs had risen up and was bearing down on the two of them. The human-shaped cockroach was at its center, trying to repair the damage Hajime had caused.
Shea, Kaori, and Tio called out to Hajime. But he wasn’t in any mood to listen. The only reply they got was a loud thud as Hajime leaped off the platform of branches. The wooden supports creaked and groaned, and a tiny crater remained at his leaping point.
Hajime had already turned into a speeding bullet by the time Shizuku and Suzu squealed in surprise. The wave of cockroaches rose up to swallow Hajime like one giant, wriggling maw. Hajime responded by wreathing himself in Diamond Skin and Lightning Field, causing him to glow crimson and emit sparks. At the same time, he deployed all seven of his Cross Bits. They whirled around him at high speed, firing their explosive slugs incessantly.
The roar of cannon fire filled Hajime’s ears and the slugs punched a series of holes into the great black mass. However, they weren’t enough to stop the wave’s advance. They didn’t need to, though. Any cockroaches that managed to latch on to Hajime were incinerated by his Lightning Field or repelled by his Diamond Skin and the speed of his flight. The wall of cockroaches didn’t even slow him down. The ripples of his Aerodynamic platforms resembled the passage of a skipping stone as he shot through the air. The human-shaped cockroach recoiled in surprise and attempted to escape from Hajime’s path.
Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest Vol. 8 Page 19