The train we were riding was never intended for passengers to begin with.
There hadn’t been ti to secure a high-class train, and coincidentally, the fastest way to head north was via a freight train.
As a result, the car I was in now offered an unbelievably uncomfortable ride.
Seeing constantly shifting around in my seat because of the discomfort, Mayor Lagot—sitting across from —offered a word.
“At this speed, we’ll arrive in half a day. Please bear with it a little longer.”
“I can manage just fine.”
It was uncomfortable, sure—but it’s not like I’d ever lived in luxury.
It was a ride one could endure with so patience.
What I was afraid I couldn’t endure had nothing to do with the train.
“Do you think we can safely make it down to the 7th floor of the Great Labyrinth, Mayor Lagot? The troops the Empire provided, unintentionally or not, barely number a hundred.”
Compared to what we’d originally planned, it was pathetically small.
Still, at least the Imperial Army had managed to send a hundred troops.
Since only the priests of the sects can break and prevent the Evil God’s curses, the Pantheon wasn’t able to send a single soldier.
So from where I stood, worry was inevitable.
To my voice, Mayor Lagot responded with a calm nod.
“With the Empire’s elite force of a hundred and several hundred well-trained Hunters moving together, descending to the 7th floor shouldn’t be too difficult. There have already been dozens of expedition attempts, so we have maps, and even a complete bestiary of the monsters inhabiting up to the 6th floor.”
Lagot furrowed his brow.
“If there’s a variable... it’s that we don’t have a complete map or bestiary for the 7th floor. And we don’t know how Lucifer’s followers will move.”
The fact that there’s a designated color of beacon just for demon followers was telling.
And that tone of his too...
Sothing about it made feel like Labyrinth City had been tornted by Lucifer’s cultists for a very long ti.
“Do Lucifer’s followers frequently appear in Labyrinth City?”
Lagot chuckled at that.
“The Great Labyrinth is enormous. Even after hundreds of years, we still haven’t mapped every passage and fork. So there are a significant number of unmonitored holes they can sneak through.”
Lagot mid a spider crawling up his body.
“So of the gaps we haven’t identified yet are being used by those arrogant bastards. We run into them often in the Labyrinth. We classify them as monsters and teach everyone to kill them on sight.”
It was a brutally aggressive thod, but undeniably effective.
“Do you light red beacons every ti you encounter them?”
Lagot shook his head.
“Not quite. The encounters are infrequent. We run into them dozens of tis a year, and if we lit a beacon every ti, there wouldn’t be any beacon towers left. Red beacons are only lit when more than a hundred of those demon-worshiping bastards start moving as a group.”
“Will we be able to reach the 7th floor of the Labyrinth before them?”
“I can’t guarantee that, Saint. The followers of Arrogance are known for capturing and controlling magical beasts. If they’re moving on a large scale enough to warrant a red beacon, chances are they’ve brought out a few of their hidden beasts.”
Lagot let out a sigh.
“There is nothing certain within the Great Labyrinth. I’m sorry I can’t give you a definitive answer.”
My fist clenched.
The Ketaratus, the soulless assassins from the Black Fortress...
If the priests of the Silent Order had mobilized, our chances would’ve been far better.
The East.
If the curse incident hadn’t broken out in the East, this all would’ve been much simpler.
No matter how I looked at it, the timing felt wrong.
It was like the Evil God and Hell had set up the board together, running a fixed ga.
The Evil God and Hell are mortal enemies.
But at the sa ti, they’re united by one shared belief—that the Pantheon must not grow any stronger.
So even if the two sides temporarily set aside their grudge and joined hands, it wouldn’t be surprising.
Still, even if Lucifer was already making moves toward Ponemkin, we couldn’t just sit back and watch.
The banner of the final hero, Karim’s expedition, had only been discovered recently.
Chances were, even Lucifer’s side had only just now realized where Ponemkin was.
Naturally, they’d want to retrieve him first, to stop the Pantheon from reclaiming another god—and prevent Asmodeus’s black wings from being purified.
That’s why they colluded with the Evil God to stir up chaos in the East, so I’d be forced to enter the Great Labyrinth alone.
It was highly likely they’d set a trap.
Goddamn it.
I was uneasy.
If this failed, it wouldn’t just be suffering—it could put all of humanity at risk.
I had to succeed.
So why was this gnawing anxiety only getting worse...?
“Saint!”
A voice suddenly rang out beside , snapping back to myself.
Before I knew it, I was biting my nails, chewing them to pieces, and my body was soaked in sweat.
Cecilia was looking at with concern.
Lagot watched silently for a mont, then nodded.
“I understand. Entering the Great Labyrinth is like throwing yourself into uncertainty. You don’t know what might happen, what beasts you’ll encounter, whether the paths have changed or if the terrain has shifted. But even so, Hunters enter the Labyrinth every day to make a living. And they co back alive.”
His tone was calm, matter-of-fact.
“There’s no guarantee of success. But let say this—we’ll form an expedition with the strongest Hunters in Labyrinth. Trust in them. And in the Empire’s strongest forces riding in the cars ahead and behind you, Saint. There’s no guarantee of success—but there’s no guarantee of failure either. Isn’t that right?”
Mayor Lagot smiled broadly.
And I couldn’t help but smile with him.
Yeah.
No need to get worked up so early.
I exhaled and nodded.
“I’ll get you so water. Please wait just a mont.”
Cecilia assisted well.
She retrieved water from sowhere and handed it to .
The cool liquid slid down my throat and into my body, and I felt just a bit more lucid.
“Thanks, Cecilia.”
“I may not be as capable as the Princesses, or Lady Kanya and Lady Erfa, but I’ll do my best. We will overco this, Saint.”
A girl younger than was comforting .
At her words, I took a deep breath and showed no further signs of anxiety.
[Let’s say it’s fifty-fifty. We just have to tilt the scale in our favor, right?]
Just like Corn said.
I—
I just had to make this expedition a success.
And while I steeled myself—
Rugged, treacherous mountains began appearing through the window.
Labyrinth City was drawing near.
****
“This is the border city of Arad. The railway ends here. From this point on, you’ll need to travel by vehicle.”
With the engineer’s announcent, the train ca to a halt.
As the Golden Company, Cecilia, and I disembarked, a group of trucks was already waiting for us in the border city of Arad, as if they had anticipated our arrival.
The Empire’s northernmost region.
This place was also known as the last area on the continent where magic could still be used.
Naturally, the vehicles that would take us further north from here didn’t run on magical engines.
“Karya tu! Limonera kru tanhut!”
Mayor Lagot suddenly shouted sothing incomprehensible.
He whirled his finger in the air and yelled, and imdiately, people who looked like Hunters from Labyrinth—who had been waiting in the city—approached the trucks with iron rods. They shoved them into the engines and began cranking them like mad.
A rattling sound echoed out, and soon, black smoke I recognized began to billow from the backs of the trucks.
“These are gasoline-powered trucks. The mana here in the north is too thin, so it’s hard to use magic engines. That’s why they mostly use gasoline engines instead.”
Cecilia offered the explanation.
“Please board, Saint! We even pre-ward a special seat just for you!”
Mayor Lagot called out to .
I carefully made my way to the truck’s front seat and sat down.
On either side of sat soldiers from the Golden Company, and in the driver’s seat—
Sat a vampire, with an unnervingly pale expression.
“It’s an honor to be of service, Saint. My Imperial tongue is a little rough, so if I ss it up, I ask for your understanding.”
After offering a polite greeting, the vampire was promptly inford that all necessary equipnt had been loaded. He then mumbled sothing incomprehensible in the northern dialect, and with a few precise motions of the clutch and gear, the truck began to move.
Several trucks like that departed from the border city of Arad, making their way toward Labyrinth City.
And ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) the closer we got to Labyrinth—
The more I understood why Dumbperor Nero was called Dumbperor.
[He kept a war going for three years in terrain like this where even the roads are broken off? Yeah, now I get why they called him dumb.]
Beyond the treacherous cliffs and the roads carved into the mountains, there were checkpoints fitted with machine gun nests.
If you severed the roads and opened fire from those checkpoints, there’d be absolutely nothing the attackers could do. They’d be sitting ducks.
An environnt where the defenders held an overwhelming advantage.
That was the region of the Great Labyrinth.
After about an hour of bumping and jolting along nauseatingly rugged roads—
“We have arrived, Saint.”
With the vampire driver’s clumsy Imperial speech, the truck crested a towering hill—
And a spectacular sight opened before us.
A massive hole yawned like a giant open mouth.
And around that hole, encircling it, a city had been built.
A city perched in the heart of a rugged yet breathtakingly beautiful mountain range.
Labyrinth City.
For a brief mont, the majestic and strangely beautiful scenery stole my gaze.
And the truck ca to a stop.
“Please disembark, Saint. Welco to Labyrinth City.”
Mayor Lagot himself ca to greet . As I stepped off the truck, cold, refreshing air flooded into my lungs.
One glance around was enough to tell —this city was nothing like the Empire.
“Kemo-shi kartadan imorja! Marja imo!!”
Even the language in the air was different.
Roughly half the people walking around were human. The other half were demi-humans.
Vampires.
Werewolves.
Beastkin.
And...
“Dwarves?”
“They’re the native inhabitants of this area. Every single one of the roads carved into these cliffs was built by the hands of dwarven craftsn, Saint.”
Dwarves.
There were dwarves here.
If soone took a screenshot of this place, it would look like sothing straight out of a textbook fantasy ga.
Hunters making a living by hunting monsters and extracting mana stones from them.
Buildings that looked like guild halls.
Dwarven blacksmiths swinging hamrs, crafting sothing.
And beastkin, vampires, and werewolves mingling in the streets.
It matched the image I had in my head almost perfectly—
Except for one thing.
The dwarf blacksmith wasn’t hamring a sword.
He was hamring a gun barrel.
The Hunters walking around the streets weren’t equipped with swords and shields.
They were ard with pistols, shotguns, and rifles.
At the general stores, instead of arrows and potions, there were bullets of various calibers and types displayed for sale alongside potions.
Guns.
Guns.
Everywhere I looked—guns.
While I stood there, dumbfounded, staring at this city filled not with magic and fantasy but with the stench of gunpowder and gasoline—
“Let’s move. The best Hunters from each guild are waiting in the central hall. There, we’ll distribute gear for the Golden Company troops and conduct a brief mission briefing. It’s only a five-minute walk from here.”
Following Mayor Lagot’s guidance, we began walking toward the central hall.
And when we arrived—
“Those people... they’re Hunters, right?”
“They are. The best Hunters in all of Labyrinth.”
“What are those... guns?”
“Portable dium machine guns that fire 12.7mm rounds. 10-gauge auto shotguns. Assault rifles that fire 7.62x63mm ammo. All of them use armor-piercing bullets embedded with pieces of monster bone. That’s the level you need to pierce a beast’s hide.”
It occurred to that maybe—
Just maybe—
Our chances of success on this expedition were a little higher than I thought.
Hundreds of Hunters packed into the central hall, equipped with firepower that could, quite literally, grind a dragon into paste.
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