by Shouji Gatou
《Make these a mirror of yourselves! Follow your hearts to the coffins of your choice, and receive in turn a weapon that shall slay the monsters ahead!》
The group stood for a moment, taken aback.
“Huh? Hold on... are you saying we each choose a coffin, and we get some kind of weapon from it, mii?”
“That would be the face-value interpretation...” Seiya said thoughtfully.
“Fire, wind, metal, earth, flowers, water, and lightning... interesting selection, fumo. Don’t these things usually use the five elements?”
“This is more like Ninja Captor.”
“Another ancient reference...”
《Follow your hearts to the coffins of your choice!》 the door cried again. They got the impression that he was trying to prod them along, so hesitantly, they each took their place in front of one of the coffins.
Seiya ended up in front of the central “Earth” coffin, while Isuzu ended up at “Water.”
Moffle took “Lightning” at the far end, while Macaron chose “Metal”... and, despite being the Fairy of Flowers, Tiramii’s own choice was “Fire.”
That left “Flowers” and “Wind” untaken, but with only five of them present, there were bound to be two left out.
《Now, take in hand your weapons of destiny!》 the door instructed.
The covers of the coffins slid off with a rumble. Inside of each was a weapon: Moffle’s “Lightning” produced a stun gun; Macaron’s “Metal” was a metal bat, and Tiramii’s “Fire” apparently represented Molotov cocktails.
“100,000 volts, eh? Quite a kick, fumo.”
“You can kill a man pretty easily with a metal bat, ron.”
“A Molotov cocktail can take out a whole squad of riot police, mii!”
They all seemed surprisingly pleased with their weapons.
“With all that buildup, I thought we’d be getting magic swords or something... Why do I feel like you’re about to be arrested for armed unlawful assembly?” Seiya thought out loud. It felt unsettling, like he was dealing with a crowd of delinquents.
“Fine words from a man holding a shovel, fumo.”
“Because I chose ‘Earth,’ I guess...” Seiya lamented. “Maybe I should have given it a little more thought.”
“Isuzu-chan! What’s your weapon, mii?”
“Well...” Isuzu, who had chosen “Water,” held up a palm-sized bottle with a scowl. “There seems to be some kind of fluid inside... there’s a label, too. ‘KY’? Is it some kind of potion, perhaps?”
“......” The mascots fell into sudden, hushed silence.
“Why did you go quiet?” Isuzu demanded to know. “Do you know what it is?”
“Um, er...”
“I don’t really get it, ron. I don’t know how that could be a weapon...”
“It could be a kind of weapon, depending on how you use it, mii...”
They commented evasively to each other.
“...? I don’t understand,” Isuzu objected.
“Well, Google it if you’re curious, ron...”
“What a trashy-ass labyrinth, mii...”
Seiya frowned, being just as in the dark as Isuzu was. “What are you all going on about? Is it poison? A healing potion? Just say it alr—” Before he could finish, he was cut off again.
The door in front of them began to yawn open while the stone coffins retracted into the floor. It seemed to be saying “Go forth!”
《Proceed now, adventurers! Let those weapons clear your path ahead!》 the door intoned. Beyond it were several branching flagstone passageways, as the maze continued far into the distance.
“What should we do, Kanie-kun?” Isuzu asked.
“How should I know?” he retorted. “But we don’t seem to have much of a choice... Let’s go.”
They couldn’t turn back now, after all. Still, Seiya couldn’t shake the nagging concern that they were walking into a situation that would require weapons.
Seiya and the others proceeded through the maze. Each fork in the road led to a lot of arguing about whether they should go left or right. Since they could never agree, they decided to follow Isuzu’s suggestion of letting a stick fall one way or the other to choose their path for them.
“It says right,” she announced.
“Right, then, fumo. Well, let’s get going, and make it snappy. I was hoping to catch the Giants game with a beer when I got home, fumo. Hurry, hurry.”
“Hey, don’t push me!” Seiya cried.
“I can’t really see where I’m walking, ron... ew, I just stepped in something gooey.”
“There’s also a weird smell, mii... Like squid or something...”
Just then... With a loud snicker-snack, a blade flew out of the wall. It swept sideways in a flash at just about Seiya’s head height.
“!!” Like a reaper’s scythe, the blade cut an arc for Macaron and Tiramii. It grazed the tops of their heads, then disappeared into the wall again.
“Wow...”
Had they been human height, they would have been decapitated. The whole group stood there, dumbstruck at the sudden event. Macaron and Tiramii were staring, jaws dropped, from where they were now sitting on the floor.
“Wh-What... was that?” Seiya whispered weakly.
Moffle carefully investigated the wall. “Seems to be a trap, fumo. One rigged to go off when you stepped on a certain flagstone.”
“I know that!” Seiya said. “But that... that could have killed them!”
“Yeah. It was a real close shave, fumo.” Moffle’s voice remained calm.
It was said that trained soldiers better kept their calm in direct proportion to the urgency of their situation, and Seiya was seeing a live demonstration of that now. If only he weren’t a super-deformed rodent mascot...
“Moffu... we’ll need to proceed with caution, fumo. ...Tiramii?”
“M-Mii?”
“You’re our point man, fumo. Keep an eye out for traps. The minute you see one, warn us and disarm it.”
“O-Okay. I’ll do my best, mii.”
“Macaron, you’re our tail gunner. Watch our backs, fumo.”
“...Got it, ron.”
“Isuzu, you stay in the middle, fumo. Guard the load.”
“Yes sir, General, sir.” Isuzu pulled out her musket, grabbed Seiya’s shoulder and pulled him towards her.
While a little disoriented over Moffle’s sudden turn for the militant, Seiya found the presence of mind to object. “Hold on a minute, now. Set up ranks if you want to, but what did you mean by ‘the load’? Was that supposed to be a reference to me?”
“Stop whining and do what I tell you, fumo,” Moffle grumbled in annoyance.
“No, I won’t let that one slide! The brilliant, omni-talented, handsome Kanie Seiya will not be referred to as ‘the load’! Especially not by a weird, surly rodent like you!”
“Geh... ‘weird rodent,’ fumo? I’m trying to keep you safe because we need you to run the park, fumo! Even though you’re a smart-aleck brat!”
“I can keep myself safe! I’m just sick of you always looking down on—” Seiya took a step forward in anger, then heard something clack beneath his foot. “Er... was that a clack?”
Somewhere out of sight, mechanisms began roaring to life. A large machine had activated in the dark of the tunnel beyond.
“Did you step on something, mii? Kanie-kun, did you step on something, mii?!”
“W-Well, I... might have, but I—”
A rumble echoed through the corridor. The whole group cringed. Then, out of the tunnel from which they had come, a huge boulder started rolling towards them, on a path to crush them all.
“Thank goodness, ron! It’s an adventure story! See?”
“Now’s not the time!” Seiya bellowed.
“Run, fumo!”
“W-Wahh! Waaaah!”
All they did for the next few minutes was scream. There was no attempt at a formation; the five of them just ran and ran, mindlessly. And, in their
retreat from the massive pursuing boulder, they triggered switch after switch.
Swarms of arrows shot out from the wall.
“Miiii!”
Holes opened up in the floor.
“Rooooon!”
The ceiling crashed down upon them.
“Moffu! Mooooooffu!”
There was no sense of coordination or teamwork. They all just ran, dodged, flailed, and avoided the various traps with truly miraculous timing.
“Kanie-kun. I would recommend that we stop for a time,” Isuzu said to Seiya, who was jumping and ducking to avoid the many traps assailing him.
“Stand still?! Don’t be ridiculous! How are we supposed to stand still when there are traps all aro—what?!”
A buzzsaw made a beeline for Isuzu and Seiya. After just barely dodging, Seiya staggered, then ended up falling into the wall behind him. That triggered a giant spiked ball that roared through the air right for him.
“Gwaaah!” There was nothing he could do. It was going to hit him. Cringing, Seiya resigned himself to his fate. But just before the ball struck, Isuzu jumped in from the side and knocked Seiya out of the way.
“Sento?!”
They’d managed to avoid a direct hit as a result, but one of the spikes had caught her jacket and thrown her roughly forward, sending her tumbling helplessly along the stone floor.
“......” She was rolling right for a newly opened pitfall. Without any chance to stop herself—or even enough time to scream—Isuzu fell into the hole.
“Sento?!”
The hole covered over. A new rain of arrows fired off at him. Seiya tried jumping at the floor where she had fallen, but Moffle grabbed him and dragged him back.
“Let me go!” Seiya yelled. “Sento is...”
“Save it!” Moffle told him.
“She fell! I need to help—”
“What we need to do is run, fumo!” Seiya was dragged away by Moffle.
Once things had finally settled a bit, they were able to notice that there were three of them where there had been five before. Seiya, Moffle, and Tiramii were the only ones left.
“When did we lose Macaron, mii?” Tiramii asked, panting for breath.
“They’ve really got us on the ropes, fumo. I don’t even know which way we came from...” Moffle spat.
“Sento...” Seiya had done nothing but whisper her name. When the spiked ball trap had targeted him, Isuzu had put herself at risk to push Seiya out of the way. Then, because of that, she had—
“Let’s save our worries for next week, fumo,” Moffle said. “Our first priority is getting out of this maze. Once we call for help, we can use heavy equipment to tear the place apart, fumo.”
“I know that. I know that, but...” Seiya whispered, despairingly.
Meanwhile, Tiramii was looking around. “There don’t seem to be any traps here, mii. I think we’re getting closer to the center of the maze.”
“What makes you say that, fumo?”
“I’ve got a bead on the thought process of whoever designed the maze, mii. I think he wants to keep maintenance and hard work to a minimum. That’s why none of the traps were things like poison gas or bombs that would take a long time to reset, mii.”
“Hrm...” Typically, Tiramii did nothing but spout idiocy, but for once, he seemed to be in his element. Seiya was starting to believe that he could have been a safe-cracker, at one time.
“They set up big, flashy traps in the outer maze for purposes of shock and awe, mii. You use automatic traps to thin out the weakest of the herd, but for those they can’t stop...” Tiramii hummed, scowling, and tilted his head. “...they’ll stop using traps, and come to finish them personally.”
“Personally?” Seiya asked.
Just then, the sound of howling voices began to echo through the maze. The hallway where they were taking a breather—actually, it was more like a large chamber than a hallway—was soon filled with orcs.
Orcs... That was the only way Seiya could describe them: savage-looking demihumans with the heads of pigs and the bodies of men. Wearing leather armor and holding clubs and cleavers, they looked as if they’d stepped straight out of an RPG. They glared venomously at Seiya’s group, drooling and twitching their pig noses.
“Looks like it’s monster-bashing time, mii. See those menacing stances? They’re not in any mood for a parlay, mii.”
“Well, it stands to reason. It’s a dungeon, fumo. This comes with the territory...”
Moffle and Tiramii both readied their weapons.
“How can you be so calm?!” Seiya screamed. “They’re here to kill us! And it’s three of us against a horde of them!”
“Still, we gotta do it, mii.”
“Save your yellow-bellied comments for later, fumo!”
“Ngh...”
As each mascot spoke, he entered a battle stance. Then, before Seiya could argue with Moffle, the orcs raised their weapons and fell on them, spittle flying. The battle began.
“Incoming!” Moffle leaped out in front with a war cry. Using light steps and punches, he laid out the orcs. Two, three, four—one after another, they fell.
“Take this, mii!” Tiramii threw a Molotov cocktail. The flames spread immediately, sending the orcs into chaos. Then, while they were routed, Tiramii delivered a series of finishing blows from behind. If this were an MMO, he’d be a DPS attacker.
“Damn it! How did we end up in this situation?” Seiya shouted, as he used his shovel to smash at the enemies that Moffle and Tiramii had scattered.
“Oh-ho. Not bad at all, fumo,” Moffle hummed as he finished a KO of another enemy set.
“And you’re pretty relaxed for a rat!” Seiya returned the compliment. “Also, didn’t you have a stun gun?!”
“Hmph, stun gun? That’s a women’s self-defense weapon, fumo. You think that can beat my right hook?”
“I... I see...” Seiya answered weakly.
“Bring it on, mii! Eat Molotov cocktails, mii! Today’s the day that you die, mii!” Tiramii shouted, but while the lines might sound brave coming from anyone else, there was something off-putting about hearing them shouted by a plush mascot modeled after an adorable toy dog.
They fought and they fought, but the enemies kept coming. At first it was just the orcs, but soon, it was more and more powerful monsters: trolls and golems; slimes and ropers. It was all so—
“It’s all so retro and insanely hard!” Seiya wailed.
Seiya’s arms were getting tired from swinging the shovel around. The roper, not about to ignore an opening from the exhausted young man, fell on him immediately with its tentacles. Moffle managed to punch the monster out just in time with a straight right punch, narrowly avoiding a tentacle fetish scene.
“Tentacle play on a man? Who would enjoy that, fumo?!”
“But we’d have a field day if Isuzu-chan were here, mii... Imagine her bound up by a roper, shouting ‘nooooo~~~’...”
“But this situation...” Seiya observed with exhaustion. “It seems a little bit like a pile-on, doesn’t it?”
“More are coming, fumo!”
Now, they faced new kinds of enemies: bird-like wyverns that looked like giant ostriches; white eyeless wyverns that used lightning attacks; and even swift wyverns that looked like giant black cats.
This was bad. It was authoritatively bad.
“Run!” Tiramii bleated. “If we fight these guys too long and they end up doing an illustration of this—”
“Withdraw! Withdraw, fumo!”
They ran, senseless, out of the area.
After falling into the pit trap, Sento Isuzu slid down a slope that jerked her back and forth in the dark before depositing her in some random room. Her consciousness was blurry.
She’d knocked Seiya out of the way so abruptly. Was he okay? In a chaotic scene like that, it’s hard to know if I made the right decision. I hope he’s well... what will we do if anything’s happened to him? He’s important to the park, and important to m—
&n
bsp; “Ugh...”
While she lay there in a daze, she sensed a large number of somethings entering the room. They surrounded Isuzu, whispering to each other.
“A human! It’s been so long, mogu...”
“Wait, mogu. She’s from Maple Land...”
“Wherever she’s from, we can’t just let her go...”
She felt herself being placed on something like a stretcher and moved. The shadows of crooked shapes could be seen projected onto the walls of the maze. About the size of children, the things whispered to each other in words she couldn’t quite make out as they carried her along.
She drifted out of consciousness again. She must have been out for about fifteen minutes, because when she woke up, she was lying on a bare-bones bed.
“Where am I?” she asked.
It appeared to be a small, dark room with walls of stone and a door of sturdy iron bars. She was in a prison.
“Isuzu-chan? Are you awake now, ron?” She looked up to see Macaron sitting nearby, his back up against the prison wall. “I fell into a pit trap too, ron. Looks like they brought me here while I was unconscious.”
“They?” she inquired. “They who?”
“Don’t know, ron. They were small, looked like moles... I think there were at least five of them. I’ve never seen anything like them in the AmaBri cast.”
“They didn’t seem to be Maple Land subjects.” She sat up in bed and shook her head. She wasn’t injured badly—just a little bruised—but she desperately wanted a shower. The cell was dusty and reeked of mold; it made her nauseous.
“It’s an underground maze that’s gone untouched for over ten years,” she commented. “Why would anybody be living here?”
“Good question. It’s clear that some magical realm had to create this maze dungeon... but we’re under the second park, ron.” As he spoke, Macaron pulled a cigarette out of nowhere and lit it with a Zippo. His brand was Marlboro, as usual.
“...Could you at least ask me before you smoke?” Isuzu objected.
“Oh, excuse me, little miss. May I smoke, ron?”
“No,” she replied shortly.
“Ahh. I’m sorry to offend you, ron.” But, despite his apology, Macaron kept smoking. He seemed to have no intention of putting out his cigarette whatsoever.