Chapter 52: Underground Labyrinth (2)
The reason this guy was being like this, was because the protector had also been carrying the mana polluted by ‘Hostility’.
“But I wasn’t the one that borrowed your sword though.”
He replied back in a half-joking voice as the pair of crimson eyes flickered in a slightly fiercer manner.
“…That being has no faults.”
Despite the mental contamination, it did not forget its standing as a protector of the Green Dragon, but it had no such loyalty towards Yu Jitae. Raising up something that was lying next to itself, the protector pointed it at Yu Jitae.
“Do not ignore my words easily. Yu Jitae. Where, is my sword?”
Holding a broomstick while saying that wasn’t threatening in the slightest.
A contaminated soul would naturally return to its original state after some time. The Underground Labyrinth had a good environment for confining someone and calming them down, so he could place them there, and bring them back after the mental contamination vanished.
“Give me my sword!”
Crazily, the protector dashed in at him. Yu Jitae loaded his middle finger behind his thumb, and flicked his finger at the head of the approaching armour.
Kkaaang–!
The protector was flicked off and crashed into the wall. If the entire dorm itself wasn’t being protected by Bom’s alternate dimension, [Laws of Nature (S)], the protector would have broken through the walls and the floor and would have woken up on the first floor.
Through the helmet which had been dented in one hit, a pair of crimson eyes flashed. After falling head first onto the floor, the protector did not open its eyes for a long time.
“Huaak… hup! Uup!”
Around that point in time, Yeorum also finished completely suppressing Ha Saetbyul. Using the handcuffs given by Bom in the past, she tied her hands, and used a gum tape to block her mouth. Only then did Ha Saetbyul calm down, while shedding drops of tears.
“Huu. So damn annoying.”
Yeorum turned to him, with an expression that asked what he was planning to do.
It was simple.
Although the [Underground Labyrinth] was within the material world, it was at the same time connected with the [Abyss]. After bringing them to one place, Yu Jitae summoned the alternate dimension inside him into the real world.
[Shallows of the Abyss (S)]
A fissure was made out of thin air. Like the mouth of a greedy anglerfish, it widened up and prepared itself to devour something. Yu Jitae threw Ha Saetbyul and the protector into the abyss.
However, there was someone who would be left alone after the protector disappeared. Behind the slightly-opened door of Bom’s room, he could see Gyeoul tensed up. She must have been surprised by the commotion outside.
It wasn’t the best place to bring her to, but he couldn’t leave her behind alone either.
“Let’s go together.”
After hugging Gyeoul, he ordered something to the ‘hands’ and when he did, one of the hands flew to him and handed over a small container. Receiving that, the Regressor quietly entered the abyss.
***
A place completely painted in darkness. Ha Saetbyul and the protector were being carried by the hands of the abyss, while Yu Jitae and Yeorum walked in the air.
Gyeoul in his arms looked around in curiosity and soon her eyes stayed on the grey, translucent hands. She extended her short arms out in an attempt to grab them but the hands dodged Gyeoul’s reach.
She appeared dejected.
“So there was a hidden back door like this.”
Unlike Gyeoul, Yeorum was slightly more tense as she opened her mouth.
“Where are we going?”
“A hideout.”
“What’s in there? Is there a way to return these crazy idiots to normal?”
“Time will help. We’ll be just tying them up.”
“Interesting. Maybe the woman, yeah, but the cleaner is quite strong so how will you tie him up?”
[Underground Labyrinth]
It was a place made by a mighty, great mage of a different dimension in a distant past, and was a place that locked up a huge monster which had been made by accident. A place like that could even lock up a hatchling of a red dragon, who could not withstand boredom, for over ten years. It was because there were all sorts of devices inside the labyrinth, that could forcibly calm someone down, as well as mechanisms that could lock people up.
Hearing Yu Jitae’s concise explanation, Yeorum’s eyes flickered in interest.
“You should’ve told me earlier if there was a place like that.”
Why.
“It’s the best place for playing around, no?”
However, it wasn’t a place that could be used immediately.
Yu Jitae had found the underground labyrinth in his third round of regression, and had only started locking up the dragons in there from the fifth iteration. During the fourth iteration, his world ranking as a superhuman was 3rd, and there was an existence inside the labyrinth that had been slightly stronger than him back then.
“There’s a fairly strong guy there that needs to be chased out.”
“Strong?”
She, who was hearing the word ‘strong’ from Yu Jitae for the first time, showed interest.
“Is he stronger than that bastard?”
Yeorum thought of her sworn enemy, Javier Karma*. To her, he was the strongest being excluding Yu Jitae but the existence inside the underground labyrinth was stronger than that Javier.
“Fuck. My heart’s going crazy. Can I fight once?”
“You’ll get smashed though.”
“No shit, of course.”
Slightly offended by his words, she murmured to herself before asking.
“By the way, what’s the guy’s name?”
A stateless person, who was at the same time one of the thirty superhumans, that possessed an ‘Unlimited Dungeon Raid Qualification Privilege’, the so-called ‘Dungeon Free Pass’. He was also one of the Five Transcendents that were viewed as the five strongest people in the history of Earth.
With a world ranking of 2,
His alias was BM.
“What a strange name. BM huh. Who would win if you two fight?”
“Me.”
Yeorum smiled with a “Hnn”, seemingly intrigued.
“Are you going to kill him?”
In the fifth and the sixth iterations, Yu Jitae had killed BM. It was to take the underground labyrinth from him – it had been BM’s territory, and he was a plunderer.
“Who knows…”
But now that he had vowed to live a normal life, Yu Jitae changed his line of thought. Besides, all he needed was one innermost room in the interior of the labyrinth.
“I’ll try talking to him.”
“Un. And what if that doesn’t work?”
The Regressor didn’t reply.
Before long, an entrance of a small fissure appeared from the ends of the abyss.
***
When they entered the fissure, darkness welcomed them. The ceiling had a murky colour and there were no lights on the wall, while the air felt cold.
A roughly 3-metre-tall wall was standing before them. Two pattern-less walls spread across and formed a maze.
“That’s very low though?”
Yeorum approached the wall of the maze and jumped up. When she did, the walls magically matched itself with Yeorum’s line of sight. After letting out a “Uh? What the fuck?”, she tried climbing up but it was the same. The walls continued growing taller as she reached further up.
As she recklessly climbed up, the wall continued growing higher and reached several hundred metres in height.
In frustration, she took out a sword artifact from her alternate dimension storage and stabbed the wall with it. A slight chip came off of the wall, but it was far too lacking before its thickness, and even that small hole on the wall disappeared and became smooth again after a short period of time.
After several more attempts, she gave up and shouted at Yu Jitae, who appeared like a small bean due to being a few hundred metres away from her.
– Can I shoot a breath at ittt?
Even that wouldn’t work.
“Stop messing around and come back down.”
When Yeorum came down, the wall became lower again.
Due to this structure, the people entering or leaving the maze had no choice but to obediently follow the path. Besides, the inner walls of the maze periodically changed by themselves, so putting one hand on a wall while walking down would not work either.
However, it was not a problem for the Regressor.
[Shapeless Sword (SS)]
Killing intent gathered to one place and turned into a sharp invisible blade. After drawing a circle on the wall, he kicked it and created a hole.
Yeorum was slightly surprised as she had personally experienced the formidability of the wall herself. Although she had known that he was strong, he had never shown off his power before her and after seeing that being unraveled for the first time, her eyes shone.
But during that, her eyes met with Gyeoul’s, who was looking past Yu Jitae’s shoulder from his embrace. When Gyeoul smiled, Yeorum moved her eyes away and grumbled.
“Nothing much…”
Like that, they continued on forward while breaking through the walls. Since the hole on the wall matched Yu Jitae’s own height and size, it was wide enough for others to follow in. The wall only returned to its undamaged state after they all went through it.
After going through twenty or so walls, a wide plaza appeared before them. Due to the vastness of the plaza, the darkness covered the wall on the other side of the area.
Grrghh…
A low growl crept up from beneath. Three large beasts, the size of cars, walked out from the darkness. They looked just like lions, but had bigger fangs, and a goat’s head was on top of their heads. A snake replaced its tails and wings protruded out from their backs.
He was at the right place. Those were chimeras made personally by BM, and as if to prove that, an insignia symbolising the fact that they were ‘made by BM’ was drawn on the goat horns.
“I am looking for your owner.”
As soon as his words came to an end, the chimeras dashed up and attacked him. They were the guardians of this place, and had fierce animosity against uninvited guests.
Even now, he was hugging Gyeoul with one of his arms. To ensure she couldn’t see it, he placed his hand on top of the small head and softly pressed her head down into his chest. While Gyeoul’s head was digging into Yu Jitae’s chest, the chimeras finished approaching him and faced their fangs at his head.
Yu Jitae reached forth with his right hand and grabbed its large tooth. The lion’s body which was the same as a car immediately came to a stop as if there was a steel wall before it. At the same time, its head was tilted to a side.
When he twisted his wrist, the fangs that could crush steel fractured and broke miserably. Meanwhile, other chimeras aimed for Yu Jitae, but after kicking one of them away, he slowly raised his hand back up.
[Shapeless Sword (SS)]
Sharp blades weren’t good, because the chimeras wouldn’t be usable anymore.
Thus, he gathered killing intent into a lump and while standing still like a statue, he swung the killing intent at the approaching monsters. When he lifted it up in a diagonal motion, the ‘Shapeless Club’ crushed one of their chins.
He smashed it down on another beast. With a thud, the goat’s head planted above the lion’s head was shattered into dust.
Even with one of the heads gone, they could still move, but the small skirmish just then was enough for them to realise that their opponent wasn’t someone they could deal with.
Grrrrghhh–!
One of the chimeras growled loudly while two other chimeras staggered their way and stood in front of Yu Jitae. They opened their large mouths wide open, as their cheeks cracked up. Then, they immediately rammed their teeth into the ground of the maze, and their body started turning into an ashen grey colour.
It was similar to petrification, but on themselves.
At the same time, several thousand silver strings came shooting out from under their wings and covered the area between the walls of the labyrinth. Those sharp strings could gouge out one’s skin and bones, and with that, they were trying to keep him here.
Until that point in time, Yeorum was staring blankly at Yu Jitae, and finally opened her mouth after the strings stopped.
“Ah… you know, should I burn those strings off with fire?”
“No. Just follow me.”
Yu Jitae waved his hand at the silver strings, as if those were mere cobwebs, and they powerlessly fell. But after walking deeper in, they reached a point where the strings were so dense that it appeared like a white wall.
[Eradication (S)]
An authority that scorched the source itself – like how it burned corpses into nothingness, the black flames rose up and devoured all the strings.
A small head that had been trembling faintly was slowly raised up at Yu Jitae.
“Were you surprised?”
Gyeoul slowly nodded her head.
He caressed the child’s head.
“Sorry. We’re almost there now.”
He walked forward without stopping.
***
In front of the labyrinth’s inner room, at a place referred to by ‘workshop’, there were hundreds of large glass containers. Some of them were incubators while some of them were pipes leading onto different areas. Inside, there were body parts of beasts as well as organisms.
Following several hundred pipes, liquids travelled up and down while they bubbled in certain areas. Within that workshop where unidentifiable tissues were hanging down from the ceiling, a chimera scientist raised his head up from a cluster of documents.
“A visitor huh…”
A tall height and a slender body, with an unkempt beard – the man was wearing a pair of sunglasses which matched his hollow eyes.
The man’s name was BM.
Letting out a deep yawn, BM extended his hand out. There were dozens of empty bottles of alcohol rolling on his table, and every one of them had over 50% alcohol content.
After opening a new bottle of vodka, he chugged it from the bottle. He then gave another relaxed yawn before thinking of heading off somewhere.
“They’re already here. How impatient…”
Someone was approaching him from the other side of the labyrinth’s exit.
The man had a tall height, wide shoulders and a cloudy pair of eyes. Despite his short and tidy hair, an ominous feeling reached BM the moment his eyes met with the man’s. He was walking to him while carrying a head.
Although the man was alone, BM could also sense several presences outside the workshop.
“What’s the matter. And who are you.”
Leaning on one of his legs, BM stared at the infiltrator before having another sip of the alcohol.
That was when the man threw the head towards him. What came bouncing its way at BM was the head of the strongest guardian he had made, the ogre-type chimera.
“It’s been cut clean. You can stick it back on.”
“…You’re right. Thanks for the consideration I guess. By the way, did you come here knowing who I am?”
“Of course.”
BM’s lips curved into a crescent, as if it was laughable. After going through several metamorphoses, everything including his appearance, voice and identity changed and was different from his true, main body. And among his acquaintances, there was not a single person that knew of the labyrinth here.
“Who am I then?”
But in the following instant,
“BM.”
His eyes twitched.
“Or, Jung Bongman.”
His face was painted in agitation.