Finding your way in the labyrinth is simple.
You measure your current position and direction based on the heartbeat of the Earth God that resonates from the ground and the last number of the safe zone you passed.
Then you just look at the map and head in the desired direction.
Well, it sounds simple in theory, but actually doing it might be tricky. However, I have the Pathfinding Skill that never lets me hesitate.
Thanks to its low rank of level 2, I have to know exactly where my position is and where I want to go, but as a skill I got from Gacha, it has never disappointed me once it’s activated.
But for some reason, no matter how far I walk, the passage never seems to end.
“Something feels off.”
“Isn’t this the way we just came?”
After walking for a while, by now we should have run into a safe zone, but…
“Benny, you just said this looks like the path we’ve already been on, right? They all look the same to me. Is there a way to tell them apart?”
“There’s no secret. Look at the floor up ahead.”
“…It’s just the floor, though?”
“No, if you look closely, there’s pink hair lying there. It’s strange that your hair, Jonah, would be on a path we haven’t even taken yet.”
“Huh?”
“Of course, I’m not just saying it based on that alone. At first, I thought it was a coincidence or maybe I misjudged, but after feeling a sense of discomfort and keeping an eye on it while walking, I noticed hair about every 3,500 steps. Plus, we haven’t encountered any monsters during that time.”
“Oh my.”
I couldn’t help but ask again, hiding my shock.
“Benny… how did you know that the hair on the floor was pink, or that it was mine?”
“Well…”
“Were you paying close attention to my hair all along?!”
“Eh?”
Benny backed away, pretending to shield herself.
“Pervert! Hair fetishist! I can’t believe this! I trusted you because you were friends with Ellie and Lydia!”
“That’s not it?!”
“You say it’s not?! Then how can you easily find hair on the floor and recognize whose hair it is so quickly? You must have been observing it all the time!”
“Just listen to me! High-ranking adventurers have heightened senses on top of physical abilities!”
“So you meticulously examined my hair with your heightened senses, obviously! You probably wanted to lick my hair or rub your face on my head, right?! Or use it like a tissue!”
“I didn’t think that?! How the hell did that come to your mind?! You’re the real pervert here!”
“Eek! Since we both know you’re a pervert, I can’t help but end up enjoying this… No! I won’t! Don’t do this! I have Ellie!”
“I never suggested anything!”
“B-but there’s only you here, and no one will come to help me. Sigh. Fine, if you want, maybe just a little…”
“I feel like I’m going to lose my mind…”
Benny, after stuttering and finally giving up, let out a deep sigh. Good. The teasing of Benny ends here. Thanks to that, my briefly shaken mental state was restored.
With a relieved expression, I flashed a smile and moved back next to Benny.
“Anyway, we know we’re stuck here now. Is there a way out?”
“…Are you also one of those whose screws are loose? I’ve seen a lot of crazy adventurers lately.”
Benny asked, as if she found it ridiculous. I lifted her chin with my finger, making her smile.
“Haha! Just kidding! But if we’re stuck here forever, we’d better try some naughty stuff before we starve to death!”
“Please don’t ever joke like that again!”
“Why not? It’s funny, isn’t it?”
“Only you thought it was funny! I was worried if you really were scared of me!”
“Aw, then I’ll make sure to make you laugh too!”
I moved behind Benny and started massaging her shoulders. Her little shoulders felt much tenser than I expected.
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Ahh!”
“Some of what I said earlier wasn’t entirely false. I understand that the passage is repeating, and I get that we’re trapped.”
Even with the Pathfinding Skill, there’s no way I could have taken a wrong turn.
But it makes sense if the path is straight, yet it keeps repeating.
After all, aren’t we following the correct path? It’s just that we can’t reach our destination.
Continuing to knead Benny’s shoulders, which had turned limp like a cat caught by the scruff of its neck, I added to the conversation.
Squeeze, squeeze.
“Geez….”
“Now that I understand the situation, I want to find a way out, but if that’s impossible… well, I guess I’ll just have to live here with Benny, like it or not, until we starve.”
“My muscles have completely loosened…!”
“But since you dislike it this much, we’ll have to find a way out somehow!”
“……”
Benny, now completely limp and looking like a blob, had nothing to say.
Watching her, the real Slime Shadow beside me quietly reached out with a tentacle.
It seemed like it wanted a massage too, so I gave it one, but… unlike Benny, it didn’t feel tense at all. In fact, did it even have muscles?
Maybe it just liked the physical contact, as it purred happily.
As time passed, I lost track of how long we were goofing off, rolling around on the Shadow.
Finally, Benny, who had been sitting on the floor exuding a faint magical light, began to calm down.
The incantations she had been mumbling non-stop and the overwhelming magical aura that contrasted with her small frame were all gone.
Now what remained was the tiny witch Benny, who for some reason was wearing lewd clothes.
As I sat on the tentacle shaped like a chair, it reached out to Benny.
Benny, looking extremely worn out, turned to me.
“Did it go well?”
“…I think we’re really in big trouble.”
“Huh?”
“It’s both of us.”
“???”
“A mad magician came to the second floor, severed the passage with 7th-circle Spatial Magic, and not only connected both ends but also fixed it strongly with a power!”
“So… we can’t get out?”
“Not entirely. It’s just really hard. This isn’t just some spatial distortion we stumbled into; it’s a trap specifically made to… well, to trap me here.”
“Not me, but Benny?”
“Yep.”
Lately, I was starting to feel like a target for someone, and I thought maybe it was One Who Devours the Twilight, but apparently not this time.
Benny grit her shark-like teeth and continued speaking.
“Only one person can perform such spatial magic in Pangrave, and the power I sense here is one I’ve encountered before.”
“Who the heck is it….”
“The Elder of the Mage Tower, Morgana Deathweaver. I suspect the power wasn’t hers, but amplified from a relic.”
“That’s a name I haven’t heard before. Do you have some sort of grudge against her?”
“Of course not. It’s just that she needs me for her twisted fantasy. Until now, she approached me asking for help with her research, but all of it was so outlandish that I declined. Now it seems she’s looking to make me her test subject.”
Benny exclaimed, clenching her fists tightly as if to bear her frustration.
“Her annoying research subject is immortality. She wants to study me since I don’t age.”
“Oh.”
Hearing Benny’s words reminded me of the bait I had laid down regarding the Mage Tower.
The keyword there was failed immortality.
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