“You’re kidding…?!”
The astonishing scene made Kanzis yelp. The greatest tool in his arsenal was vanishing before his eyes. Unlike a traditional summon, Kanzis’s Looter skill merely formed “darkness” using a corpse as a base. As a result, once he lost a beast like this, he could never recall it again. He had looted her, and now Kumara had just taken her back.
“Y-you…”
“If I was stronger, perhaps we could have tormented you more. But alas, it ends here.”
“W-wait…!!”
She had no more patience to listen to Kanzis’s nonsense. His pleas fell on deaf ears.
“Farewell.”
And with that final word, Kanzis’s life span came to a close. Kumara’s Nine-Tail Slash commenced, ripping through him from all directions, and he was cut to shreds and killed in a heartbeat.
This was Kumara, a woman with ravishing beauty and a ruthless, tough-as-nails will. While she may have longed for what she lost, she had no lingering regrets. Death, she understood, was death, something that could never be taken back. And that was exactly why she had to be sure nothing more was taken from her.
The Mystic Village was gone forever, but now Kumara had a home to return to. And in this moment, the most important thing was that she stepped up to keep from losing that as well.
“I wanted to give you all a chance at revenge… But you will have to forgive me.”
Still, the revenge was done. Her mother would never be revived, but now her dignity was. Kumara smiled. She was satisfied with this.
Someone was quietly meditating.
A streak of gold ran across his jet-black exoskeleton. A swordlike horn extending out of the center of his forehead shone a ruby red. The crimson compound eyes underneath it never shut; he continually took in information from his surroundings, processing it in his brain.
The exoskeleton was modified—more like tinkered with, really—by Rimuru, his master. That master’s own cells, along with a healthy dose of magisteel, had helped to reinforce the parts he’d lost; now they felt familiar to him, like they were always there. They had come to possess unparalleled performance, combining strength beyond diamonds with the flexibility of a living creature—one could call it adamantite or organic magisteel. It had become a suit of natural armor for him, easily Legend class.
But his strength didn’t issue from that exoskeleton. The real essence of his power came from his instincts, insatiable in their pursuit of battle. And now a new prey appeared before him.
Everything was going his way. He was the absolute monarch of this labyrinth—Zegion, the Insect Kaiser—and among the Dungeon’s most powerful guardians.
And now a thought crossed Zegion’s mind.
He believed that those who confirmed their desire to be here were qualified to fight him. That was why he sent the summons—his invitation into this dark space. Anyone who reached his floor was lucky indeed, for they could die with the dignity of a human being and the pride of the world’s strongest.
………
……
…
At the bottom of the stairs leading to Floor 80, there existed a room where people could rest. There was no door in the entryway; the room was wide open, in order to show there were no traps inside. And on the far end of it was a flashy, incredibly ornate door…which led to the boss chamber.
The dark vortex that Minitz walked into brought him to this very room. It was dimly lit, housing some comfortable chairs, a table with fruit and beverages, and a few other practical necessities.
Minitz wasn’t the first visitor. A few others had arrived before him. He gave them quick glances, trying to remember if he recognized them at all. Before he could do anything beyond that, a few people who were conversing in their chairs stood up.
“Major General Minitz! You’re still alive! I am from the twenty-sixth division of the Restructured Armor Corps—”
“Halt. This labyrinth is no place a buck private or noncommissioned officer could survive for very long. That much I know well enough already.”
Minitz raised a hand to stop the man from identifying himself. He knew the names and ranks of all the high-end officers by heart, but the three people before him were completely unfamiliar. That could only mean one thing.
Even over-A rankers would have their hands full surviving in here. No matter how many gathered together, they’d likely be helpless against the magic-born insect Minitz just encountered. Only a handful of human beings in history had broken through that wall, attaining literally superhuman abilities. Thus, although Minitz didn’t know this trio’s faces, he could guess who they were.
“Yes, sir! You’re certainly right. My name is Krishna, ranked seventeenth among the Imperial Guardians.”
“Bazan, ranked thirty-fifth.”
“And Reiha, ranked ninety-fourth.”
“Ah. So you’re with the Imperial Guardians, then? Infiltrated our army to monitor the operation, I assume?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m not sure how wise it is to give me such an honest answer, but very well. Right now, we need to talk about what’s past that door.”
“We were just discussing our possibilities now, sir.”
“Good, good.”
Minitz pressed them more, as if it was only natural his prediction was correct. He wasn’t exactly a fan of this unwelcome surveillance in his force, but survival was job one right now. Rank or position didn’t matter here; strength did. Instead of questioning why Krishna and his band were here, Minitz decided to concentrate on more fruitful topics of discussion.
“So what happened to everybody else?”
“Well, sir, we were all sent to the floor where the wight king was reported to be.”
Krishna answered for the trio. Minitz raised an eyebrow, asking him to go on.
“There were ninety-six of us in all—our commanders were taken away from us—and we were forced to do battle against the king of the undead. I’m…afraid we’re the only survivors.”
“Unbelievable,” Minitz spat. “Our groups were all one-man armies, capable of making sound decisions in battle without direct orders. Even if they weren’t quite as talented as you, they were the best the Empire had to offer!”
This hundred-odd group had been tasked with rescuing the rest of the imperial forces. Even the rank and fileers among them were over-A menaces, so they could be prepared for anything that happened down there. The ferocity of Minitz’s tone showed just how hard their deaths were to swallow.
“He was a fearsome monster king, sir. And the undead knight guarding him was an elite-class swordfighter,” said Krishna.
“Apart from us three, they killed everyone on that floor. If you want to criticize us for not revealing our identities earlier, I don’t have any defense for that. But we’re talking about an undead dragon, an undead sword master, and the king of the dead himself. It’s a miracle even we survived, sir.”
Bazan interrupted Krishna and Minitz’s conversation. His speech was tinged with anger; this whole experience seemed to be a regretful disappointment to him, and it was clear he meant every word he said.
“You’re being rude to the major general, Bazan.”
“But, Reiha…”
“No, no, I don’t mind. This is a dangerous labyrinth. We need to work together to survive, regardless of rank.”
So Minitz offered them his full cooperation. If this trio was all Imperial Guardians, he couldn’t have asked for better assistance. Now was no time for bickering.
“I’d be overjoyed to take the offer, sir.”
Krishna knew Major General Minitz of the Armored Division well. That wasn’t a surprise, given his position in the Imperial Guardians, and there was no reason for him to turn down the offer. All four of them silently nodded. Whatever happened after they left this labyrinth, they could think about when that time came. That was the common understanding they now had.
“So how did you get here, sir?” Krishna asked Minitz.
“I had to face off against a swarm of army wasps.”
“Army wasps…!”
The quintessential lethal monster. So dangerous that they weren’t even well-known among the general public, since the army took action so quickly to quash any that were discovered. Any hapless citizen who did come to see one usually lost their life as a result, so the army wasps remained largely off peoples’ radars.
“You took on such a dangerous foe by yourself, sir?”
“I haven’t seen any other colleagues since I came in here. In my case, after I defeated the army wasps and the queen magic-born who led them, I heard this voice calling me over…and the next thing I knew, I was here.”
“Ah, I see…”
Krishna was deeply impressed by Minitz’s casual explanation. If a queen wasp had been transformed into a magic-born, its power was beyond all imagination—equivalent to a low-end demon lord, in all likelihood. Taking out such an opponent, along with her entire army of monster insects… It was a clear show of strength, and it did a great deal to relieve the trio’s anxieties. Krishna was too nervous to notice until now, but Minitz was wounded all up and down his body, the large hole in his chest providing ample evidence of how fierce the battle was.
“Are you all right?” Reiha asked.
“You’re asking that now?” Minitz laughed. “I had potions with me. I’ll get my stamina back once I rest a bit longer. But what route did you guys take to get here?”
Minitz still had the initiative here. They were all treating each other as equals for the moment, but the sheer force of personality from him still made Krishna’s team follow his lead.
Under his guidance, they all shared whatever information they knew with each other. Putting it together, they found that the labyrinth likely had an amorphous, transformable structure. This reality was so different from their prior intelligence that they had virtually no baseline to work with. They were essentially groping their way through the labyrinth’s passages, and their future wasn’t looking too bright.
“What the hell’s going on in here anyway? Because we faced off against the boss of Floor 60 from the briefing, didn’t we? Why didn’t the demon lord Rimuru have us enter this labyrinth from the first floor?” Bazan demanded.
It would have taken much more time to navigate this maze then. If he just wanted them to exhaust themselves, Bazan reasoned, that would’ve been the best way.
“Simple,” Minitz replied. “You heard the rumors about this place, I’m sure. If you have the bracelet on in here, you can come back to life if you die. But what if that applied to the monsters as well?”
“Ah…”
Bazan just groaned in reply, Krishna and Reiha bitterly mulling over Minitz’s words.
“Instead of making us eat up time working our way down, they’d be able to eliminate more of our forces by letting great masses of us in at once…?”
“And once you’re in, you can’t get out. It’s virtually lining us up to be cut down, isn’t it?”
Minitz nodded. “That was the sort of confidence he had in this labyrinth’s strengths in wartime, of course. I had suggested to Lord Caligulio that we should address this, but he replied that we could just occupy whatever space the dead monsters were sent to for revival and kill them again. It seemed reasonable enough at the time, so I had to back down.”
It was a bitter pill to swallow, but looking back, that was a crucial error of judgment—one that made the Empire deploy more than half a million soldiers. Sending troops right in, one squadron after another, was the most foolish approach they could have taken. And it never would have happened if they hadn’t misjudged the demon lord Rimuru and the abilities of those who served him.
“So were you able to find any other survivors?” Minitz asked the trio.
“Well…”
That alone told the whole story. As of right now, they could only assume that they were the sole ones left alive.
“It’s not that I can’t believe it—I don’t want to believe it,” said Bazan. “If we ever make it back to the surface alive, we’ll have to retreat ASAP.”
“It’ll enrage His Majesty, no doubt, but we’re left with no other choice,” agreed Krishna.
Nobody disagreed with that conclusion. With that decided, they had to start addressing the current situation.
“By the way, what’s going on with this room?”
“We didn’t detect any poison or whatnot in the food and drink here,” Reiha told Minitz. “I’m not about to accept charity from the enemy, but it seems clear they meant to extend us a helping hand.”
“And that door… Push or pull, it won’t budge a bit, but do you see the numbers on top of it? Before you showed up, we were just talking about how it looked like a countdown to us.”
Beyond the door on the other side of the room, there seemed to be a thick, unspeakably evil presence wafting through the cracks. And just as Bazan noted, there was indeed a number above it. It was clearly marking time, and currently it read 200. That likely meant the door would open in just under three and a half hours—shockingly, the exact amount of time Minitz thought he needed to regain his full strength. Minitz let out a weary sigh. That couldn’t have been by chance.
“It looks like the enemy wants us to fight when we’re in tip-top shape,” he said. “I don’t know if they’ll give us a fair fight, exactly, but they want us to heal, at least.”
“Are they going to make us take the challenge one by one, or a couple of us at once, or what?” Reiha wondered aloud.
“Either way, they sure must be confident of their own strength,” said Krishna.
“Pretty cocky move to make against a major general and the killers of a wight king,” added Bazan.
“Well, let’s take the offer. Kanzis will be here before long, I imagine, and the more time we can buy, the better.”
“Fair enough,” said Krishna. “And the more forces we have, the better, too. If Lord Kanzis is joining us, maybe we’ll find a way out of this labyrinth after all.”
“Right. And we have seven keys in our possession so far. I’m sure you have one of these, too, don’t you, sir?” Reiha mentioned as she took out a medallion with ten crystals embedded in it. Seven of them were currently glowing. The medallion must have been the key that allowed access to the king of the labyrinth.
“Of course. We need to beat the Ten Marvels to access their king. By the time we came in, four of their keys were already ours.”
“Yes. And it seems not just the wight king, but his bodyguard as well—they both counted as Marvels,” said Krishna.
“They did? Then if Kanzis wins his battle, we’ll have eight by the time we challenge this floor and at least nine afterward. Kind of a pale shadow of a hope at the moment, but at least it’s a way forward.”
If they could get a ticket back to the surface right now, all of them swore they’d never venture back in. That’s how horrible this labyrinth was. But that wish wasn’t about to come true. Unless they beat whatever was ahead, they were never getting out of this place alive. They had prepared for this the moment they went in, which now felt like a whole lifetime ago.
The only thing left for them to do was push on.
So Minitz and his newfound comrades rested as they awaited Kanzis’s arrival. If they wanted to improve their chances, they needed to ease their fatigue as much as possible. Nobody touched the refreshments on the table, whether it was safe or not. They all snacked on their energy bars instead, replenishing their stamina for what might be the last time. This was now a matter of survival.
When three minutes remained on the countdown, Minitz stood up. He checked his medallion, only to find there were no newly glowing crystals on it. His shoulders drooped.
“…I fear Kanzis might have lost.”
They couldn’t wait any longer. Reinforcements were not coming. Minitz abandoned the naive expectation that any would. Calmly assessing the situation, he gave precise instructions to his teammates.
“Right. It’s time. Let’s finish up prep.”
The Imperial Guardians silently nodded back. Taking out their pendants, they each chanted a short password.
“““Release!”””
Without missing a beat, torrents of light surged out of each pendant, and the trio was armed and ready. They numbered three Imperial Guardians, alongside Major General Minitz of the Armored Division. There might have been only four of them, but right then, they were the absolute best the Empire had.
With this lineup, reaching the end of the labyrinth wasn’t a dream. That was what everyone there had to believe.
So the fateful moment arrived. The countdown progressed all the way down to zero, and when it did, the door before them opened.
Everyone was ready for this. Without further hesitation, they went through the doorway, throwing themselves into the all-or-nothing battle for survival.
………
……
…
Beyond the door was profound darkness, a place of pure black where no light shone. Reiha hurriedly activated Floor-wide Light, an elemental magic useful for illuminating one’s surroundings. What it revealed made the entire group gasp.
They were in a vast wasteland piled high with the corpses of imperial soldiers. At the very top of the tallest pile, a single monster was sitting cross-legged in meditation. It was Zegion. He wasn’t seated directly on the dead but instead was floating ever so slightly in the air, proving that he was highly trained in the magic arts.
“Welcome, brave fellows.”
The voice was low but clear. Every word he uttered seemed to swell into an overpowering presence. Now Minitz was convinced. This monster was the one who coaxed him here. It had to be the demon lord Rimuru himself.
He couldn’t help but ask.
“Are you…the demon lord Rimuru?”
The briefing he read through said Rimuru was a slime by species. But so what? If he was a slime, he could change into any form he wanted. And more than that, this monster was emitting an absolutely overwhelming amount of energy—Lord’s Ambition, they called it. This, he thought, was all the proof he needed that this was a demon lord before him.
But the question was met with a scathing rejection.
“You dare mistake…the likes of myself…for Sir Rimuru, the greatest of demon lords…?”
“What?”
Furious rage filled the space. The seething reply made Minitz realize he just committed a terrible mistake.
“My name is Zegion. I am merely one of the Ten Dungeon Marvels, nothing more. And all of you ignorant, wriggling fools deserve nothing but death.”
His words were plain, but his burning rage was palpable.
“There is only one way for you to survive—by beating me. Throw your very lives into this fight and resist me with every fiber of your being!”
That was a pretty arrogant thing to say in front of the Empire’s greatest champions. But there was not a hint of condescension in his voice. As Minitz and his team realized, Zegion was simply stating the truth as he knew it—and the only way to prove him wrong was to show him their might, just as he said.
“Time to go all out,” Minitz told the three Imperial Guardians.
“Yes, sir.”
“Mm-hmm.”
And so the mayhem began.
Damn. Really?
That was my true, unvarnished impression.
Benimaru and I were staring at the big screen in utter amazement. The scenes shown on it a moment ago, from inside the labyrinth, were now black…and that indicated that the last of the imperial troops inside were dead. The battle was over…but the enormity of what we just witnessed had left us all momentarily speechless.
“Dude… He’s stronger than you, yeah?”
That was the only thing I could begin with.
Benimaru scowled, perhaps a bit unwilling to admit it. “There is a…small chance…that is possible.”
Wow. He looked super crestfallen. He followed that up with a barely whispered “But I strictly mean that there’s a nonzero chance, you see,” but—c’mon, man, just admit it. Be a little honest.
“Keh-heh-heh-heh-heh… I attempted to fight Zegion myself. He has a fearsome sense for battle, a built-in advantage over demon opponents, and resistance to nearly all base-level magic. He truly is Sir Veldora’s disciple prodigy. I might have even lost myself if I wasn’t paying attention. You are not truly defeated until you admit defeat, after all.”
Diablo was smiling, taking the “I didn’t lose, we were just practicing!” approach with Zegion. But this really wasn’t a laughing matter for me. That was the case for Razul, too, wasn’t it? High-end insect types seemed to be kind of the natural enemies of demons, and I’d say Zegion was among the most powerful who ever existed. (I should note that Testarossa and her fellow demonesses also challenged Zegion in the past, and they hadn’t won against him yet, either. Diablo just loved seeing Testarossa frustrate herself against the dude, I’m sure.)
But hey, if those three could fight evenly against Zegion, that still made them pretty damn extraordinary. After seeing the fight I just did, that was the only conclusion I could make. But let’s take a quick look back.
………
……
…
The battle in the labyrinth ended largely as expected. Earning those two otherworlder defectors was a nice bonus, and Kumara had notched a truly laudable victory over in her domain. Pity about what happened to Adalmann’s crew and Apito, but—well, given who they got paired with, that was the luck of the draw sometimes.
By the way, it turned out someone was calling all these strong dudes to gather in his chamber, even giving them time to fully heal themselves before the battle. Yep, that was Zegion. Anyone in the labyrinth he saw as worthy enough, he used Control Space to all but drag them over to him. Pretty amazing senses on that guy. He must’ve been observing every battle in the labyrinth as he was meditating down there, and he didn’t make a move until each one was over, gathering only the strongest survivors over to him.
It was just the craziest thing to do. If he lost after this, he’d look like the biggest dumbass in the world, and I was sure it’d get brought up at the next Dungeon Marvels meeting. Nobody complained about it, though. Losers don’t get the right to complain, maybe… But more than that, everyone recognized that Zegion had the strength to back up this act. We also had word that Veldora even gave it his personal stamp of approval— “Let him do as he pleases,” he had said.
From Benimaru’s and my point of view, the focus really should have been on setting the stage for a sure win. If he let the enemy heal itself, then lost because of some miscue…
…Well, that was my worry, but now there were only four foes left in the whole labyrinth. Now I wondered if I was ruining my demon lord rep by micromanaging and complaining about insignificant matters.
By this point, I had long decided to indulge Zegion’s selfishness. Besides, he was helping us gather a ton of useful battle data. I also wanted to see how he acted once he got real serious in battle, so I just let him do as he pleased.
The result was an absolute steamrollering. In a word, it was overwhelming.
Bazan, the brawler who fended off that death dragon single-handedly, was the first to act. From his initial blow, he struck Zegion with his full power, a sword strike that seemed to shatter the earth itself. But Zegion batted the blow away with his left hand, deliberately trying to avoid impeding his opponent’s motion. The gentle push on his sword threw Bazan off-balance, keeping him from launching into a combination strike.
Zegion wasn’t about to miss that opportunity. At once, he advanced straight up to the guy, planted his right leg down, and drove his right fist into his opponent’s armor. I didn’t even want to know how much power was in that fist, really… And the results indicated that it was as hard as a Legend-class weapon. The shining armor was shattered, and with that, Bazan’s life was forfeit.
This all happened less than three seconds after battle began.
Losing a teammate that suddenly must’ve been too difficult to parse at once. Reiha, the wizard, just stood there blankly, and it was pretty clear what would happen if she acted like that around Zegion. If anything, she had it good, getting to die without any pain or fear. A single chop of her adversary’s bare hand was all it took to cleave her in two.
Seeing her collapse to the ground, Krishna—the winner over Alberto—screamed in horror.
“Ah, aaaahhhhhhhhhh!! You killed Reiha! Die, you monster! Dimension Cutter!!”
His anger pouring into his fighting will, Krishna unleashed the skill at near-divine speed. Dimension Cutter was a slashing move, one that could slice through any defense—even across dimensions. Without a spatial-control skill like my Dominate Space, it’d be impossible to counter. It was all but unstoppable, a true “sure kill” if there ever was one in battle.
“Ha. Pitiful.”
The air began to twist around him.
Hang on. Wasn’t this Distortion Field? Like, part of the Absolute Defense tools offered by Uriel, Lord of Vows?! Whenever I used Absolute Defense, I always seemed to blow it for some reason, but Zegion apparently mastered it.
“Sir Rimuru granted me this technique,” he told the shocked Krishna, “and it renders all attacks futile!”
Um, I don’t remember teaching him that…?
…
That was you, Raphael?
And Zegion’s Dominate Space ability had gone way beyond unique-skill territory. It’s just as good as mine by now. No wonder he could fight toe to toe (maybe even better) with Veldora if it was strictly a martial arts contest. I could certainly see how he could block Krishna’s strike with it.
So it felt like Krishna’s team was pretty much doomed by now, but:
“Krishna, listen!”
The fancily dressed dude with them—Minitz, I think his name was—called for Krishna.
“This is a foe beyond anything we’ve seen before. I’ll slow him down, so do everything you can to finish him off!”
Apparently he hadn’t given up on winning yet. I’ll have to admit, as an enemy, he was a decent one.
Now Minitz was raining his power down upon Zegion. We already knew about the unique skill Minitz had—Apito’s defeat wasn’t in vain at all. He had Oppressor, which let him mess around with localized gravitational force, and he wanted to use it to focus gravity on Zegion and restrain him.
But alas, it didn’t work on Zegion. All he had to do was warp the space around him to manipulate the flow of gravity the way he wanted it. It kind of surprised me—I never thought about using it that way.
Like, since when was Zegion so freakishly strong? That question in my mind was growing bigger and bigger. Also, why the heck was Raphael even able to teach stuff to Zegion?
Understood. You may have perhaps forgotten, Master, but you have given him part of your own body. Subsequently, you are now connected by a soul corridor.
Oh, right. He was about to die, and when I saved him, I did give him part of my body, didn’t I? But wouldn’t that apply to Apito, too?
Understood. The difference lies in latent talent. The subject Zegion’s physical specifications are beyond any measure, and thus I was able to give him a full super optimization to my satisfaction. As a result, he has acquired abilities similar to you, Master.
The job it did on Apito was amazing enough, but that still didn’t satisfy Raphael, I guess. It was happy enough with the job it did on Zegion, and honestly, it was a little hard to fully grasp what that meant.
And what the hell’s a full super optimization? Did he turn him into a superhero or something? This was all so new to me. So Zegion was basically a little masterpiece put together by Raphael in its spare time? Looking at it that way, no wonder he had turned into such a freak of nature.
That’s Raphael for you—always taking everything to extremes. It’s done it again, this time behind my back. Now, in Zegion, we had a battle-focused magic-born with the ideal fighting form, further honed via Veldora’s intense training. There was no way any ordinary person could ever take him on.
And as expected:
“Dimension Ray!”
Zegion opened up his right hand and carelessly swung his arm down. That’s all it took to cut through the local dimension—or space itself, I suppose. This was another phenomenon you had no chance of resisting without the ability to manipulate the space around you.
The two imperial fighters immediately reacted, but that alone wouldn’t help them. Krishna tried to cancel it out with another Dimension Cutter, but it failed, and he was cut in half. The difference in sheer muscle was bleedingly (pardon the pun) obvious.
As for Minitz, he set up a jamming force field around himself to try to block the dimensional slash… But that, too, was just pointless struggling. Against twisting, slicing dimensional space, virtually no physical ability or phenomenon could do much of anything. The look of surprise on his face was really hard to describe, but if I had to, I’d say it was the face of someone who just tasted defeat for the first time in his whole life. So he set off for the afterlife, likely not even given the time to admit defeat.
………
……
…
So less than a minute after battle began, all the challengers were dead. And well, that concluded my lecture on how incredibly goddamn strong Zegion was. The leaps and bounds Kumara made surprised me enough, but that was nothing compared to our insect friend here. For all I know, he might even outclass me by now.
Like…oh, man. I think he’s starting to overstep the bounds of life itself or something. He’s become a truly transcendent being, hasn’t he? Stronger than even Hinata when she’s fighting for real. By my calculations, even Apito could rank up there with Carillon or Frey strengthwise, but I don’t think Apito could last three minutes with Zegion. The moment he got serious, the fight would end instantly. It’s hardly even a fight with him, even. It’s just a one-sided massacre.
Why did I even put someone so powerful in the labyrinth? Because aren’t his talents kinda going to waste down there? …But then again, this is a secret weapon, isn’t it? Something I could never afford to unleash to the open world.
Still, though… I knew there were lots of powerful people hiding out around the world, and I didn’t think I let my guard down at all…but I had no idea there was so much off-the-charts strength right under my nose the whole time. Like, I always thought they looked pretty strong, but this was far beyond my imagination. Truly, there’s no fathoming the mysteries of the world.
But enough about that. We’ve got other things to reflect on right now, don’t we?
Thanks to this, I learned the hard way that leaving things up to Raphael can result in some pretty zany nonsense. Now wasn’t the time to whine and moan about a little hard work. We were gonna need to have a long talk later to see if it had done anything else I ought to know about.
Still, even with those thoughts in mind, I was relieved that the battle in the labyrinth ended without major incident.
And so out of the more than seven hundred thousand troops who participated in the ground invasion, we had finished taking care of five hundred thirty thousand.
This was practically genocide, I know, but for me, all it meant was that I had gained over half a million souls. That meant seven hundred seventy thousand in total, and that meant I could now evolve seven of my top officials. Once the remaining ground battles were wrapped up, I’d need to consider who to give the nod to.
And as for that ground battle, we weren’t letting our guard down yet.
“Now the imperial force numbers less than two hundred thousand troops. That’s a pretty big army, but it seems tiny compared to before, huh?”
“Indeed. Two days have passed since their final deployment into the labyrinth, but no moves since then. We don’t see any signs that they’re ready to send any more down. Of course, if the enemy commander keeps prodding the labyrinth after all this, he’d have to be beyond incompetent.”
Benimaru was right, I suppose. With all the strength they lost, I doubted they’d be kicking any more soldiers through the labyrinth gate. Now it was our turn to confront them instead.
Without any over-A rankers on their side, the enemy force was nowhere near the juggernaut it used to be. It was a big army, yes, but we could probably take them on easily. I thought we could anyway, but—ah, there was always something to worry about.
“So now what? The other side’s still got us beat in numbers and quality, right? If we hit them with the Second Army Corps, that’s going to cost us casualties no matter what, won’t it?”
We could just hole up in here and wait for them to run out of food. That could earn us victory unscathed. With the food stores we have in the labyrinth, we could duke it out for another year. Cultivation was possible to some extent down there as well, and if push came to shove, we could always ask Ramiris to give us more farmland. That would be the firm, cautious approach, I think.
“Well, we’ve already cut off the enemy’s supply lines,” said Benimaru. “Strategically speaking, we’ve got the upper hand. Now that we’ve come this far, it’s really more cleanup duty than anything—”
“Hmph! As you said earlier, you’re not going to let the invaders leave alive, then?” Shion cut in. “That’s just what I hoped to hear from you, Benimaru! What valor!”
Shion’s interruption made Benimaru snicker. Apparently, she was right.
“No, it is best not to let the Empire harbor any more useless ambitions. It’s all the more reason why we need to kill all the intruders.”
Benimaru was starting to sound like Raphael now. Annihilating the majority of the imperial army wasn’t enough to satisfy him; he was committed to killing every single one of them without prejudice, just as originally planned. He’s so merciless, isn’t he? And at this point, I saw no reason to oppose him.
But… I mean, I was ready for that. I was sure the Empire’s subjects would hate me for all this, even if just out of spite. I just hoped it didn’t give us a bad rap with the Western Nations…
Report. I have a suggestion I would like to test.
Sounded like Raphael had a plan of its own. The fact that it didn’t just tell me about it first thing let me know that maybe my friend wasn’t too confident it would work.
Is this something we could do right now, then?
Negative. It will require time and preparation, so it is better to attempt after the war is over.
Okay.
Certainly, I didn’t want to start any more wacky experiments during wartime. I didn’t know what Raphael wanted to do, but either way, I was the one who’d have to execute it. We could talk about it later.
I turned my attention back to Benimaru. I had accepted his proposal to kill them all, but my only other important request was that there be no casualties on our side.
“But is that even possible without anyone dying?”
“If we in your officer corps come out to battle, Sir Rimuru, I’m sure of it.”
Confident as ever. And Diablo, Shion, and even the typically calm Geld were nodding eagerly at Benimaru’s assessment.
“Okay, so what exactly will you guys do?”
Benimaru began explaining.
“First, Sir Rimuru, we cannot leave you unguarded.”
Everyone nodded their agreement.
“Do you have to be that careful? I mean, we killed everyone in the labyrinth except for Lucius and Raymond.”
We were still treating them as prisoners of war for now. They didn’t seem likely to betray us, so we didn’t throw them in jail or anything. They were on standby on Floor 60 just in case, kept under Gadora’s supervision; he had been showing them the battles on each floor of the labyrinth to help stave off their boredom. That included recordings of the two of them as well, but what amazed them the most was how each of the labyrinth guardians fought.
“You see now? You were smart to join my side, weren’t you?”
“You were, right? You oughtta be grateful.”
“…At least thank him for giving you three meals a day.”
“Hey, c’mon, guys. We went down the same road they did, remember. We should know how they both feel.”
Gadora and Shinji’s gang were all helping prop up their spirits, even. I didn’t think we needed to worry about anything with them.
Now I wondered if any imperial forces snuck into our capital city before the war began.
“Soei, were there any intruders in town?”
“We’ve already taken care of them.”
Yeah, I’m sure there were—but if that was the answer Soei had, the problem was already in the distant past.
Report. We have successfully eliminated every single person who entered the labyrinth. Only one individual, the subject Krishna, was confirmed to have used a Resurrection Bracelet, but since he is currently outside the labyrinth, he will no longer pose a problem.
Oh, so Krishna survived? He was a pretty strong dude, sure, but if Raphael had already kept tabs on him, I had nothing to worry about.
“Yeah, well, I guess the labyrinth’s safe now, so I suppose I can relax a little bit, huh? Besides, those Imperial Guardians like Kanzis and Minitz—people in their class would be stronger than me before I became demon lord, right? From what Chloe told me, I hadn’t evolved into one in her time line, so it wouldn’t be a shock at all if they killed me, would it?”
In that scenario, Diablo wouldn’t be there for me, either—I hadn’t summoned him by then—and Veldora wasn’t fully revived, so even folks like Zegion would be their pre-evolved selves. In terms of war power, we’d be way weaker than we were now—it wasn’t even a comparison. If the Empire attacked us in that situation, it wouldn’t be strange at all if we were too helpless to resist and I kicked it.
…That is not possible.
No, I really think it is, y’know?
Like, I get how much of a sore loser you are, Raphael, but that’s a really petulant thing to say. Besides, you were still just the Great Sage back then.
…
Heh. You lost that debate, huh? My first win in a while.
Not that there’s a winner and a loser in this kind of argument, but still.
“Yes… Perhaps you’re right, Sir Rimuru.”
Benimaru agreed, although he didn’t seem to like it much. But Shion refused to accept it.
“No! There was no possible way you could be defeated!”
There was, actually. History proves me right. Well, that history anyway. We’re on a different one now, but with someone like Shion, trying to debate theoretical time lines is an exercise in futility.
Giving up on that fool’s errand, I got us back on topic.
“…Well, there’s no point debating it now. The key takeaway here is that the Empire had a lot of strong dudes in it. They might still have a bunch left, too, so we’re all gonna have to remain careful. And I appreciate your wish to keep me guarded, but I don’t want you guys getting hurt because of it.”
The labyrinth seemed more than safe enough by this point. And when it came to the ground war, I thought the sooner we put that behind us, the better. That was why I said that, but my phrasing had a lot more power than I thought.
“Keh-heh-heh-heh-heh… If that’s what you say, Sir Rimuru, then I will gladly go out to fight as well. Allow me to end this battle in a single instant!”
“No trying for a head start, Diablo! I’m not going to give up this opportunity to have Sir Rimuru see my treasured troops in action for the first time!”
“Please, my lord, wait! Testa and Ult have been given chances to shine, but I haven’t been given anything yet. That’s so mean! Please, deploy me as well while you’re at it!”