They were quadrupedal beasts.
Their disproportionately long forelegs were bristling with razor-sharp claws, and the muscle mass in their limbs looked more than capable of shredding a human to ribbons with ease.
And it wasn’t just one or two of them—hundreds were stampeding toward us in a swarm.
They must have been lying in ambush roughly three hundred ters out. They burst out of the underbrush and imdiately charged at us with terrifying speed.
And as if on cue—
The Hunters returned fire.
A massive bear beastkin let out a roar, lifted a portable machine gun as thick as a woman’s waist with ease, and opened fire.
A portable machine gun.
Even I wasn’t sure if such a term made sense, but the bearkin’s size and strength made that absurd phrase completely valid.
Auto shotguns and automatic rifles lit up in bursts, and the beasts—one by one—began to drop...
Except they didn’t.
As their packmates fell, the charging beasts abruptly switched tactics. They began dodging, zigzagging unpredictably, slipping left and right in sudden bursts, evading with evasive maneuvers too erratic to track.
My eyes widened.
“What the hell—?”
“They’re using the mana stones inside their bodies to generate simple magical effects,” Lou explained dryly.
The distance they teleported wasn’t large.
Maybe two ters?
Compared to the magic used by the Tower mages, it was child’s play—barely worthy of being called magic at all.
But it was also clear they had spent centuries honing just this one technique.
Their evasive movents were shockingly fast and surgically precise.
But the Hunters? They didn’t flinch. They kept shooting, picking off the dodging beasts with terrifying accuracy.
Even as the monsters weaved and blinked left and right, out of sync with their forward montum, it was as if the Hunters already knew where they’d move next.
The three-hundred-ter gap rapidly shrank to less than a hundred ters.
The horde of hundreds was reduced to re dozens in monts.
But that remaining few dozen were now within striking range—dangerously close.
That’s when it happened.
The 10-gauge auto shotguns stepped up.
With a loud bark in Northern tongue, a thunderous sound rang out—heavier than the rifles or machine guns.
Shotguns.
The kind of guns I knew only from clay pigeon shooting, spraying pellets everywhere.
But these—
These shredded the beasts on contact, their torsos bursting apart in vivid, wet explosions.
“What the hell? Aren’t shotguns supposed to shoot buckshot?”
Priest Mathieu gave a dry chuckle.
“Those are 10-gauge slugs—made for large magical beasts. Pointed heads. At under 100 ters, they’ve got more than enough penetration.”
“Slugs?”
“Lead. A single chunk of solid lead inside the shell. You just fire that at the target, Saint.”
I wasn’t much of a gun nut, so this was the first I’d heard of shotguns that fired solid hunks of lead.
And it was the first ti I’d realized just how devastating they could be.
“Situation clear.”
“It’s over.”
The beasts had never stood a chance. They were cut down mid-dodge by the blizzard of lead from auto shotguns, machine guns, and rifles.
They didn’t call these people the best Hunters in the Labyrinth for nothing.
Anyone else—any average soldier with a gun—would’ve panicked and wasted ammo spraying wildly the mont the monsters started dodging. They’d have died in seconds.
After a quick reorganization, the Hunters drew massive machetes from their belts and moved in to gut the beasts, extracting mana stone fragnts from their corpses.
So Hunters imdiately slotted the stones into sockets on the chest pieces of their armor.
I watched the whole process with fascination.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
Mathieu explained.
“Mana stones aren’t just for beasts, you know. Each one contains a magical phenonon the beast refined for thousands of years in order to survive. Those ones we killed—called Tagors—have short-range teleportation.”
The priest tapped his chest.
“If you socket the mana stone into your armor, you can use the sa effect—at least until the stone’s mana runs out. It’s the sa principle as that psychic amplifier you’re wearing around your neck, Saint.”
[...That’s probably how I died, huh?]
Corn’s voice ca through with a shudder, laced with an eerie tone.
I tapped the pendant with my right hand, reassuring him.
“We’re moving again!”
Once the Tagor cleanup was complete, the expedition set off once more.
Even after a single skirmish, I was already sure.
This expedition team wasn’t just strong—they were a dream team. Every single one of them could take down high-risk magical beasts without breaking a sweat.
The only real wild card wasn’t the beasts.
It was the demon worshipers.
Lucifer’s followers.
Those bastards could show up from anywhere, in any form, at any ti.
****
Evening.
The expedition set up camp near the path down to the second floor of the Labyrinth.
Tents went up, fires were lit, and dinner was swiftly prepared.
All of it courtesy of Cecilia.
While eating, one thing beca abundantly clear—Ban was popular.
Hunter after Hunter ca up to talk with him.
Ban, for his part, welcod them with open laughter and a friendly attitude.
So even handed over their rifles with grumbles of dissatisfaction.
I watched from a distance as Ban deftly took out a basic toolkit, broke down the rifle, and began fiddling with the inner chanisms like a man possessed.
I couldn’t help but be curious.
“Ban. That rifle you’re fixing...”
“Yes, Saint? Speak freely.”
“Isn’t it a bit too much like a bolt-action for sothing they call an automatic rifle?”
Ban burst into laughter.
“It is a bolt-action rifle. But with an external gas piston. When fired, the piston kicks back and cycles the bolt automatically. It’s semi-auto. Reliable enough to use in the field, but prone to jamming all the sa.”
Once he finished, he handed the rifle back to the Hunter and wiped the grease off his hands.
“We call it an automatic rifle, but it’s really not. My grandson is working on a true automatic. Cleaner, more reliable. Once it’s finished, it’ll revolutionize Labyrinth exploration.”
“John must be quite the gunsmith.”
“He’s a genius, Saint. Absolute genius. He ca up with the external gas piston idea himself, slapped it on a common bolt-action, and made it fire automatically. That’s my boy. The only problem...”
Ban stirred the fire with the jungle machete hanging from his belt, adjusting the logs.
“My son—John’s father—died on an expedition. Since then, John’s grown to hate everything about our mission. All the talk about heroes and sacred duty. He said he’d never set foot in the Labyrinth. Swore he’d just be a gunsmith till the day he died. I should’ve lectured him—but I couldn’t. I had no arms. I couldn’t even speak.”
The fire crackled softly.
For so reason, the flas had a way of softening the mood.
I looked at Ban in silence.
“Why go through all this just to reach the 7th floor? No one believed you. You sacrificed your body and your life. Why push yourself this far?”
The descendants of Hero Karim.
But without the iconic blue eyes that were supposed to define him.
The Hero Order never accepted them. The Hunters of the Labyrinth respected them as gunsmiths and warriors, but never as holy heirs.
No one believed them. Not even they had any proof. It would’ve made more sense to doubt themselves.
And yet, Ban’s family had kept pushing—three hundred years—just to get proof.
“To be honest... it sounds stupid.”
“It doesn’t, really. I’m just curious. What drove you all to keep going in the face of rejection?”
Ban tapped his chest.
“You figure it out when you grow up in this family. Sothing just starts boiling in your chest. A compulsion, maybe. And that feeling always leads to the sa conclusion.”
“What’s that?”
“That we have to save the world. That we carry a great duty. It’s hard to explain, but... that’s how it’s always been. Even those who resisted—once they got old enough, they all gave their lives for the mission.”
Ban let out a hearty laugh.
“To take up a sacred cause and lay down your life without complaint—that’s what it ans to be a Hero, isn’t it?”
His laugh made laugh, too.
“We’ll recover Lord Ponemkin. That’ll save the world, Ban.”
“Of course. That’s what my family’s lived for these past 300 years.”
As he finished speaking, more Hunters ca over to chat with Ban.
With admiration.
And concern.
Ban kept waving them off with a grin.
I couldn’t understand his Northern dialect, but his tone said it all: I may be old, but I’m not useless.
Even that much made it clear what kind of life Ban had lived.
Dinner ended.
The first day in the Great Labyrinth passed—smoothly, all things considered.
No injuries. No losses.
The Hunters trounced the low-tier beasts on the first floor and protected the expedition perfectly.
I entered my assigned tent.
“Rest well, Saint. We’ll keep watch.”
“Thank you. I’m counting on you.”
The Golden Company and Ban had taken turns guarding my tent.
I lay down on the cot and pulled the blanket over .
With no wounded, there was nothing for to do.
[If only every day could be like today.]
“I hear you, Corn. I really do. Let’s just make it down to the 7th floor with no incidents. Please, just one peaceful trip...”
[I don’t know. I’ve got a bad feeling. Days that go this smoothly... they never end well.]
“What? You scared, O legendary virgin Corn, who impregnated dozens of mares in his pri?”
Even at the joke, Corn didn’t laugh.
[Just get so sleep. I don’t need rest anyway—I’m a psychic amplifier. I’ll keep watch. If anything happens, I’ll wake you imdiately.]
“Thanks. I’m counting on you.”
After a full day of marching, my body was exhausted.
I drifted off quickly.
But I didn’t even get a full hour of sleep before I had to wake up.
[They’re coming!! From every direction!! Enemies!! ENEMIES!!]
Corn’s psychic scream wasn’t just for .
“AMBUSH! GET READY!”
The Golden Company outside my tent had heard it too and were already shouting orders.
Not even five seconds later—
“YOU FUCKING DEMON-WORSHIPPING BASTARDS!!”
Ban’s thick, raspy voice rang out in a roar, and his auto shotgun roared with it.
I rushed outside to check the situation.
“IN THE SKY! FLARES!!”
Sothing was launched upward, and then it blood into light.
And we saw them—humanoid figures mounted atop beasts that looked like wyverns, aiming sniper rifles down at us.
Their chests bore the unmistakable insignia of Arrogance.
“START ANTI-AIR FIRE!!”
Their bullets fired.
And the Golden Company and the Hunters fired back—
All in the sa breath.
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