The bottom of the moat I bravely jumped into.
I made a satisfactory landing using the Crest, and the scenery that exceeded my imagination made smirk.
From afar, I heard a sharp scream.
“Kyaaa! Help ! Is anyone here?!”
It was the voice of a woman being chased by a giant geared golem.
It seed she didn’t spot as she ran in the wrong direction. The geared golem thudded after her.
The ground was so soft it was almost like sludge, leaving large footprints behind.
“Haaa! Please! Please don’t co! Save !!!”
A voice urgent with the unique fear of soone whose life is in danger. But, how should I put it? It’s just a feeling, but…
The voice pleading for help doesn’t sound all that urgent. It’s not right to weigh a person’s life on a re hunch, but there’s a deeper unease rising.
For now, I decided to hide behind the large body of a sprawled-out doll nearby and observe the situation.
Even if she can’t completely shake it off, it seems like there’s still so room to keep running.
While hiding and sipping on a mana potion for a mont, Lydia and Benny soon land from the sky near .
Unlike , who landed lightly with the power of the Crest of Aerial Leap after free-falling, they ca with various gear and spread Shadow like a parachute.
The female adventurer, who had been running around aimlessly, spotted us and started running in our direction.
“Help ! I’ll do anything as a reward! We’re fellow adventurers, aren’t we?”
Of course, the building-sized geared golem also began to charge at us.
Bringing monsters while asking for help is one of the acts strictly forbidden by the Guild.
If you pass on monsters like that, it could lead to a bigger accident, and it could be exploited to kill other adventurers without dirtying your own hands and loot them.
Of course, to soone facing death, such regulations would be trivial…
But that’s just her situation. At a glance, isn’t it the strongest-looking monster in the area?
Originally, the right choice would be to distance ourselves without helping. Even if we do help, it should be after securing a proper retreat.
However, our situation is a bit different. Lydia and Benny are high-ranking adventurers who are beyond the reach of 3rd-Floor monsters.
So, if they want to help, they can help as much as they want.
Lydia, gripping her greatsword, asked with her usual calm expression.
“Jonah. What should we do?”
“…Well.”
But how should I say it? The closer that adventurer got, the stronger this strange unease grew.
There wasn’t much ti to think. With the distance closing in, I decided to make the most conservative choice.
In other words, I decided to follow my instincts’ warning to avoid any loss.
“Let’s keep our distance, Miss Lydia. It’s hard to explain, but sothing feels off, and I don’t want to get involved rashly.”
“…Okay.”
As soon as I said it, I regretted it.
While Benny and I might be okay with it, Lydia is fundantally a righteous person.
Telling such a Lydia to leave an adventurer who still has so leeway but is asking for help…
It might be hard to tell from the short answer and suppressed emotions just now, but Lydia might be angry now. She might be disappointed in .
Swallowing that unease, I cautiously turned around and there was…
Lydia with a faint smile, as if she was proud.
I found myself with my mouth agape. Before I could say anything, Lydia tousled my hair lightly.
Swish swish.
“Jonah. You said sothing felt off, right?”
“Yes? Ah, yes.”
“That feeling just now. Don’t forget and rember it. It’ll be really useful on the 3rd Floor.”
With that, Lydia grabbed a greatsword and dashed out.
“What?!”
Could she have gone to rescue her alone? Lydia wouldn’t have any problems, but her expression and words just now are concerning.
Instead of scolding , it seed like she was praising …
While I was tilting my head in confusion, Benny had already reverted Shadow to its original form and stood beside .
“Watch closely, Jonah. You seem to have so idea of what kind of monsters are on the 3rd Floor, but it seems you haven’t fully understood.”
“Huh?”
As I tilted my head, Lydia’s greatsword was drawn.
The greatsword, wrapped in a fiery aura, swung with such force that it seed it would shatter and cleave through anything in its path…and it was aid at the adventurer who had been screaming for help since earlier.
Boom!
“Uh.”
The adventurer was buried in the dust without even a chance to scream. The soft ground overturned once and then settled.
And a beat later, an exclamation of shock escaped my mouth.
“Miss Lydia?!”
No, I said to quietly leave the place, not to kill. Why didn’t Benny stop her?
While my gaze wandered around aimlessly. Benny poked my shoulder.
“Get a grip. Watch until the very end.”
“The end? What more is there to see…huh?”
Mid-sentence, my eyes widened involuntarily. The outco before was that unexpected.
Just monts ago, the golem that seed to chase the adventurer to death was now shielding her.
Ultimately, unable to withstand Lydia’s blow, its arm was torn off, and its side was ripped open.
Beyond that, the adventurer who was pleading for us to save them was now dead.
It seed her head was accurately struck by Lydia’s greatsword.
As the greatsword was slowly drawn out, the limp head seed to be montarily lifted, then it fell, revealing the cut surface.
“Huh?”
There was no red blood or sticky brain matter flowing out.
Only small, delicate gears and sothing tangled with blackened lubricant tumbled out.
Staring at this in disbelief, Benny’s fingers prodded , urging.
“Go. You have to take a closer look.”
“What? Yes…right. I should.”
Nodding, I approached, still in a bit of a daze. It’s been a while since I’ve been this surprised in the Labyrinth.
Thus, as the giant geared golem collapsed and the doll, thought to be an adventurer, crumbled, I approached the knight standing stiffly upright. Lydia greeted .
“How about it, Jonah? Surprised?”
“…Yeah. It was beyond surprising, I thought I was hallucinating.”
“To that extent?”
“Yes, to that extent. Miss Lydia harming innocent people…”
“Ah-ha?”
Only then did Lydia, understanding why I was surprised, take a step back with a slightly pleased expression.
“It’s a monster that doesn’t have anything valuable except the Magic Stone in its heart. You can poke around a bit and take a look.”
“Does the monster have a na?”
“Yeah. Gear Doppelganger. That’s its na.”
“Doppelganger?”
“Strictly speaking, it’s different from that doppelganger. Instead of transforming into soone else, it wears the corpse of a dead person. If anything, it’s more like a hermit crab.”
“There truly are all sorts of monsters.”
No matter how skilled I am, I don’t set up every monster’s background. That’s why there are quite a few monsters I don’t really know about… The Gear Doppelganger might be one of them.
Still, after observing it closely from various angles, I got a rough idea of what it’s like.
The shell I saw. In other words, the appearance and voice are probably those of an adventurer who once died on this land.
Even though the head was split, the hair was soft, and the cheeks were tender. In this aspect, it seed almost like a real person.
However, the pupils were unfocused, and the complexion was excessively pale.
If there’s one peculiar point, it’s that the equipnt it wore was far different in design from the latest trends I’ve seen recently at the Cradle Trading Company.
Just from this, it really looked like a person who had died, but…
Black viscous liquid writhed as if reaching out from the split head, and the embedded gears kept spinning aninglessly.
A scene that instinctively arouses disgust. Shaking my head, I asked Benny.
“Benny, you know about Gear Doppelgangers, right? Do you know how they mimic?”
“There’s no need to think hard. You saw the Human Golem on the way, didn’t you, Jonah? Originally, shedding a body of flesh and blood to beco a machine is a kind of blessing from the God of Machinery. This is impossible without understanding both sides.”
“That’s true.”
One cannot modify what they do not know.
“So, even if we don’t know the detailed principles, making a corpse move again using sothing like these gears isn’t too difficult for the God of Machinery.”
“The important thing isn’t how such a monster can exist, but why such a form of monster exists, right?”
“Exactly. To get straight to the point, the God of Machinery never created such an entity. The na ‘Gear Doppelganger’ was originally sothing entirely different.”
“Huh?”
Benny continued the explanation, spreading her flat chest wide towards as I tilted my head.
“At the end of the War of the Fallen Gods, when imnse powers caused unforeseen problems, we called it a disaster. And the Labyrinth is a place to seal such disasters.”
“No way?”
“That expectation is correct. The Gear Doppelganger was originally a disaster rampaging elsewhere, but it was incorporated into the Labyrinth and transford in the domain of the God of Machinery.”
“…I see.”
I nodded, but it was sothing I simply couldn’t comprehend.
The reason being… All disasters were firmly set to be sealed in places distinct from the general field.
So it must be one of three things.
Either my setting was wrong for the first ti, and the Labyrinth had not been fully researched leading to a misunderstanding…
or soone deceived everyone with a certain purpose in mind.
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