Jayr POV - Tortus, Reisen Ge- 2013

  I rest the Tactical Arms Sword Form on my shoulder, imitating the stahat Guts from Berserk usually takes, and look at the monsters surrounding us, there are mainly two kinds of monsters here, one group is made up of some kind of giant two-headed tyrannosaurus, while the other, are some giant winged mohat are simir in appearao a wyvern.

  Seeing that, there aren't any hidden surprises, I stop waiting, and make my move, and with a burst of speed, I move to the closest one and take a vertical swing with my huge swords, which easily cuts the monster in half like it was made of butter resulting ih without resistance, and at the same time, splits the ground in front of me apart, raising a cloud of dust, that covers my figure.

  Pulling out the sword from the ground, I look at it and think, 'Okay, the sword is still fine, not even a scrat it... And while it is heavy it isn't unmanageable for someone like me... This is good...', and while thinking that, the sound of the monster's halves falling on the ground echoes in the yon, and I notice that the monsters froze in pable to uand what exactly happened.

  Seeing the dumbfounded monsters, a small smile appears on my face as I think 'It's the right time to try the gimmick...', and under my and, the sword splits open revealing the Gatling gun hidden in the middle, and pressing the trigger on the handle, I start to fire in the dire of the giant wyvern-like monster.

  And the r sound of the Gatling gun, and of the bullet as they cut a straight lihrough the air, drowhe dying howls of the monster, as they are ripped apart by the shower of bullets.

  At st, one monster couldn't hold the tension anymore as out a roar while shing out, and soon the remaining giant two-headed t-rexes, start to rush toward Eri and me, but before they could get even closer, I push another button on the handle, and the Tactical Arms, transforms once again, this time taking the Sword Arm Form, splitting apart and being two separate smaller bdes, and urging my Mana to enhance my body stats I rush at the monsters with them.

  What happened couldn't even be called a fight, it was a sughter-fest, the monsters couldn't even take oep in any dire before their head got cut off, or their bodies cut in half, and soon, the monsters' corpses littered the view for as far as the eye could see, and only five minutes had passed.

  Putting the Tactical Arms bato the S.T., I look at the mountain of corpses in the surrounding, and say "Well... The test is for sure successful... But...', and at the same time, Eri approaches me from behind with small steps and asks, "What's wrong?", and scratg the bay head I reply, "Well... I was having so much fun, that I fot to test the Magic Bullet mode of the Gatling gun... And before I k, all the monsters are dead...".

  Eri looks at me and says "Baka... In this pce, you 't evehem... Remember... In the Reisen Ge, you 't use external magic, it gets dispersed... You just reminded me of that a while ago!", and that is totally true, I was having so much fun that I fot about that, and as I scratch my cheek, I try to ge the subject, "So... What do you want to do now? Do we quickly move toward the Labyrinth or do you want to the settlement a?".

  Hearing my questiohinks about it for a moment before replying, "It is better that we quickly head to the Labyrinth... The sooner we get all the Age of Gods Magics, the sooner I meet your parents and give them their grandchildren...", I nod and say "Right...", then I realize what she means and yell "Wait! We are too young for that! You are 17 and I'm 16! It's way too early!!".

  She looks at me with a deadpan expression and says, "Really? With all the times you came inside me, and with those quantities, I'm pretty sure that I'm already pregnant by now... After all, you have never used any kind of prote... So I thought that you wao knock me up... Not that I mind...", but soon I expin to her that I prevent unwanted pregnancies using my o, which upset her a little and she started to demand that I stop that a nature run its course, luckily after a little of bad forth I'm able to vince her to wait a little more, at least for now.

  Then I quickly bring out the Mana pass and think about everything I remember about the Reise Labyrinth the closest oo our position, and the moment, the needle starts to spin around, then it stops to point in a precise dire.

  The Reisen Ge is prised of, in a sewo cliffs that extend straight from the east to the west of the ti, there are hardly any bypasses, therefore by advang along one of the cliffsides would eventually lead us to the Sea of Trees rue without getting lost.

  And because we didn't have to worry about losing our way, we carefully searched for the entrance of the dungeon following the Mana pass, while casually traveling on the Magic Powered Bike I made, while Eri gs to my back, while still being chased by the monsters, but ohey get to close, Eri releases her army from the ring and then we simply have to wait for a little for her Undead Puppets to rip them apart and collect their bones, before tinuing on our journey, and only stop the night as we go in my S.T. to rest.

  The journey tinues like this for almost two days, when finally, on the night of the 2nd day, we finally reach our destination.

  Standing in front of us is a huge monolith that leans on the ravine's wall, and a space be seeween the monolith and the wall, we look at each other before nodding, and move into the crevice between the rocks, and wheer the wall's side, I see that it has a hollow interior, and it is wider than I expected.

  Then the hing that catches my attention is the wall, on it, there is a splendid regur signboard that is engraved with cuts in the wall, and there are characters carved there that are clearly from a female hand that says "Please e in! Into Miledi Reisen's thrilling Great Labyrinth?".

  After a long pause, Eri excims "... What is this!? Something about these characters rubs me off..." thearts to study our surrounding and asks "Are you sure this is the right pce? Where is the entrance?", and pointing at the Mana pass I reply "Yes, it is the right pce... Let's just say that the one who made this Labyrinth has quite a peculiar personality... And the entrance is right in front of us...".

  And holding Eri's hand, I move close to the wall and start to lightly tap in some random pces, until I hit the hollow part of the wall, and the part of the wall that I touched gees a strange sound, and suddenly rotates, like a door meism inside a ninja's house, sending us to the other side.

  The inside of the Labyrinth is pitch bck, and only the sound of the door as it rotates back to its former position be heard, but the moment, the sounds of something ing flying at us resounds, and I immediately use my seo discover what they are.

  They are arrows, around 20 arrows, flying our way to remove any intruders that entered, so I quickly summon my Tactical Arms in its Sword Form, and move in front of Eri, then pce my sword in front of me and use it as a shield, and soon the sounds of metal knog metal be heard, and once all of them are dealt with and sileurn in this pce, the surrounding walls begin to shine, illuminating our surroundings.

  I take a g the ground in front of me ahat there are exactly 20 arrows, jet bck arrows made of metal that didn't refley light scattered on the ground, then I look at the rest of the area.

  The area we found ourselves in is a room with a length of 10 meters in every dire, and straight ahead, a passage into the interior appears, in addition, there is a lithograph ihe room with words with the same characters as the signboard carved on it. "Did you get scared? Hey, did this scare you? Then you're a kid, Niya Niya! Or, were you injured? Or did someone die? … … bufu...".

  I notice that Eri is looking at the words in silehen she says "I see... So the one who made this Labyrinth is trying to irritate the challengers... It is quite well thought out... Also, the "Niya Niya" and "bufu-" parts are carved with certain emphasis as if to provoke the challengers further, especially, if someone in their party truly died, then surely the survivor would curse the heaven... Quite a fmboyant style... Apparently, the Reise Labyrinth will be a difficult p a different way than the Orcus Great Labyrinth...".

  Hearing that, I nod and say "Yup... This is a pce full of traps and nasty messages to mess with you... Moreover, magi't be used at all because the strength of magic disiion is far strohan ihe ravine... For you who is specialized in magic, this pce is especially difficult... You still use your puppets, but they 't use their special magics, and you 't use your spells to support them basically crippling yhting potential... In fact, even I'm affected by it... Only body strengthening be safely used and so it bees the most important magi this Great Labyrinth".

  After saying that, we tinue our advao the passage, and find ourselves in a certain vast space.

  Ihere are staircases and passages, and the passageway that tinues from the entrance is a mess without any regurity, it was as if this pce was made by casually bining lego blocks.

  The staircase from the first floor is ected to a passage ohird floor, and the passage ohird flradually bees a slope that ects to the first floor's passageway, in trast, the staircase that is erected on the sed floor is ected to nothing but wall, it was truly a mess.

  Seeing that, I fall on my knee and shout aggrieved toward the heavens, "Staircases!! Again my nemesis makes its appearance! Why!? I thought I left the endless staircase behind when I left my Universe!!", at the same time, I feel Eri patting my back as she says, "There... There...", then after shouting out my grievances, I get up like nothing happened and say "As expected of a Labyrinth made by a rotten person... This mess is an expression of her mind's tents".

  Then Eri says, "I don't uand what you feel but don't let this get you, anyway let's just move on... The faster we clear this Labyrinth, the faster we are out of it...", then she looks around and says, "Well then, how should we advanow?", I look around a out a sigh then I say, "There's no other method... For now, let's advance while marking and mapping the way...", and Eri nods and says, "Un…"

  Mapping is the basic thing for expl a byrinth, but what I mean by "marking" is to use a special magic called Trag, this special magic operates by leaving a "mark" made of magical power on the pces that I touch.

  When the "mark" is used on living things, I'm able to track where they moved, in the case of this pce, I pn to put my "mark" on a nearby wall and make it visible to Eri, and because the magic power is applied directly, the disiio take effect so we don't have to worry about that.

  I immediately put a "mark" on side of the passageway at the pce to the entrand tio advahe passageway is two meters wide and made from tless blocks that look like bricks, and because the walls emit a faint light, there is no problem with our vision, looking at the walls, I think, 'Well, not that being in total darkness is an invenience... After all, I gained Night Vision special magi the monsters... And even if I didn't have that, I use my other seo move around...'.

  While advang in the long passageway, lost in thought, suddenly, a sound came out of one of the blocks that I just stepped on, and that block sank into the floor due to my weight, and at that moment, the sound of gliding bdes resounds, and in the space between blocks on the wall, giant saw-toothed bdes e out rotating at high speed while vibrating.

  The bdes approach us at height of the neck from the right, while the one from the left wall is at the height of the waist, and I quickly shout "Get down!!!, and at the same time, and dodge it by leaning my back just like the protagonist from the Matrix, while Eri, who is small in the first pce, only o squat down to evade the lethal bdes.

  The two bdes that are filled with murderous i and malice were uo do anything to us and quickly disappear into the walls, but I'm still vigint about a possible sed wave and focus my seo the maximum while watg my surroundings.

  And soon feel something quickly ing from above, so I grab Eri and quickly dash out, and soon after, tless bdes fall onto the pce where we were just like a guillotine, and cut the ground as if it was made of butter, and as expected, they are rotating at high speed and vibrating just like the bdes from before.

  Eri looks at the bdes that dropped just a few timeters ahead with cold sweat and says, "That long pause after the first attack was nasty... I just thought that we were safe when all of a sudden you pulled me and those bdes fell from above... Truly a devious trap...", I let out a ugh and say, "Well, against normal humans those are pretty deadly... But I could easily take them on if I put on my Cloth... And even if wounded, I simply return to my S.T. and use my o to heal... So if this is the level of danger, we still are pretty safe...".

  After that, we tio advance while being wary of traps, but at the same time, my mind wanders once again, 'Even now, we haven't seen even one monster...', but soon we exit the passageway and rea open space, where the roads are split into three ihe room.

  So, I quickly put down another "mark", then we chose the leftmost passage that leads to a staircase that goes down, and while taking a few steps down, I say, "I do not want to raise a fg here, but siairs are my nemesis, I got a bad feeling about them now...", and Eri quickly replies "Really what do you have against stairs... It is impossible that they are the source of all...", but then a clig sound is heard and Eri excims, "Oh e on...!?".

  And soon after that sound resounded, suddenly the stair steps disappear, and as it is a siderably ined staircase, and with the disappearance of the steps it bee a steep slope, moreover, a tar-like slippery liquid begin to overflow from the tless small holes on its surface.

  And I didn't have the time to do anything before we start to slide down this steep slope, while slipping, our speed bee faster and faster, and while holding Eri, I do not have the time t out my Tactical Arms to try to stop our fall, but I clearly feel that we are getting close to the end, so I shout, "Eri! Hold on tight!!", and she quickly nods, and hold tightly on my body.

  Finally, we reach the end of the slope and we are thrown in the air, and in that one moment, in which we are floating, I pull out my Tactical Arms, tie a rope around the handle and throw it at the ceiling, pierg the wall fixing us in pd stopping our fall.

  Hanging on the rope tied to the Tactical Arms, I let out a sigh of relief, when all of the sudden, I feel Eri slightly shivering, and ask "What's wrong?", and in a shaking voice she replies "B... Below..."

  And I finally take note of the strange sounds ing from below and look down to see the source of this sound.

  Those sounds e from a lot of scorpions wriggling around, their length is around 10 timeters, which gives a psychological feeling of disgust, and looking at them I think, 'If I didn't halt our fall with the anchor, we would have dived into a sea of scorpions...', and that realization made me feel goosebumps all over my body.

  At the same time, we stop looking below and start to look at the ceiling, then, somehow the lights that the wall emit makes us notice a new message that is f on the ceiling, and I iently read it out loud, "These guys don't have lethal poison. But, you'll be paralyzed. Please be satisfied by lying with these cute children, pugya—!!", then I ent, "Maybe she purposely set up these luminous ores there, so that these messages stand out in the dim space... And so that those who fell here would surely, with scorpions wriggling around their body, desperately try to move, and try to reach out to heaven... Then, they'd discover it... Those pyful words"

  Hearing that, once again, Eri falls into silence for a few seds before she says, "I'm starting to like her cruelty... Maybe if she were still alive I would have asked her some advi how to deal with...", but I try to ignore what she is saying and focus on our surroundings.

  And notiething in a particur pce below us, there is ay tunnel, and so I say, "There is a tuhere... What should we do? Are we going to climb up to our previous location or are we going over there? What do you think?", and Eri focuses ba our situation and shaking her head she says, "I will follow Jayr's decision. I have been nothing but a burden after all...".

  I shake my head and say "Do not worry about it... But, rather thaurning, it feels better to advance, so let's go to the tunnel", and she simply nods and mutters "... Un", and so I pull out another rope and tie it around the handle of the Tactical Arms, then I ge it in its Sword Arm Form, and pull out one of the bdes before shooting at another point of the ceiling and start to move just like Tarzan until we safely reach the tunnel.

  Then we advan the passageway that is lit by luminous ores while still being vigint about any other unpleasant traps that might appear.

  And soon, while walking through the passage, the rap makes its appearance, all of the sudden, the ceiling of the passage starts moving, dropping down with the clear i of crushing us, so I quickly pick up Eri, and once agaihe Body Reinfort Magic to enhance my speed and rush out of the passage as fast as possible.

  But the passage is too vast to make it out of it in time, and Eri, who notices the same, says "Don't worry, I'll take care of it... You keep going!", and from her ring she summons, dozen of giant Undead Puppets, that use their back to support the ceiling slowing it down for enough time to allow us to get out of this passage safe and sound.

  And oside of the passage, we again discover the Labyrinth Creator's taunting message, "Pupu—, in a hurry~?, how uncou~th", and say "This time it is a shorter one, and not so impactful...", and Eri adds "But I uand the feeling of those who risk their lives in the Labyrinth only to be stantly tau every deadly trap... Nice job...".

  Afterward, we tio advan the passage and reach other rooms with other traps waiting, poisoned arrows came from every dire, a sulfuric acid-like liquid that melts anything that ehe pitfall, there was also a room where the floor turned into something like an Antlio, with worm-like monsters in the ter of the room, also the tauntiences lots of them.

  So many of them that, even if I never was in any kind of lethal danger, I started to get annoyed by it, while Eri ht said that she grew bored and chose to go into my S.T. to rest and to call her only when I'm done.

  After that, I pass through all of the traps and arrive at the biggest passage I have seen until now, its width is around 6-7 meters, It gradually bees a slope that bends to the right, 'It is probably a passage that desded in a spiral shape... And why the hell I'm getting some Indiana Jones vibes here?', and after moving for a while, that weird feeling proved to be right.

  An unpleasant sound of a meism is heard, and immediately, I realize that I didn't step on or push any kind of switches, and think, 'Of course, Miledi Reisen is watg and trolling the trap...', then I hear something ing, it is the sound of something heavy rolling down.

  In silence I look overhead but 't see anything because the slope is curved, while at the same time, the strange noise bees louder, then, a giant boulder as big as the passage rolls down from the curve, the rock is in the form of a big ball, it is a pletely standard trap, I let out a sigh and mutter, "Surely after I desperately run away from it, some kind of sentence would be there waiting for me..."

  But I do not run, instead, I agaihe Body Reinfort Magid take the good old Pankratio fighting stand watch the approag, r big ball, and feel my lips transf into a fierce smile, "I still remember my Granpa's lessons, sometimes the correswer for a problem is pure violence..."

  I gather all the energy on my foot and ohe ball is close enough, I release a fierce spartan kick, while at the same time, I equip part of my Cloth on my foot.

  And the moment, a loud sound of something beiroyed emerges when my foot meets the big ball, my attack crushes the big ball at the ter when they collide, and it is cracked all over, stopping the big ball in pce, but it doesn't end here, with a roar, my kick produces even more power, that exceeds the big ball's durability by a lot, and it crumbles with a thundering sound that be heard resounding all over the passage as the ball scatters into tiny pieces.

  But soon after I do not stop to admire my work, knowing very well that Miledi could simply unleash another deadly trap after the first one failed, so I unequip the piey Cloth, and start to run, and just in time, as I ow hear the sounds of ahing rolling down the slope, but at the same time, I hear a low sizzling sound, like some kind of acid that melts the rock's surface, and calmly think, 'Another nasty trap...'.

  But luckily I have quite a lot of advantages, and in the distance, I clearly see the end of the passage, apparently, it is quite a big and wide space, however, what I see is a little strange, 'I 't see the floor of the room... Another surprise...', and seeing that, I again pull out the Tactical Arms, in Sword Arm Form, and tie it to some ropes, so that I use the same trick as before.

  And as I reach the exit, all I see is a sharp slope, and still cautious, I slid down desding on the exit, then, as expected another nasty surprise waits for me, right uhe exit there is a pool filled with an obviously dangerous liquid, and I immediately shot out the bde and use it as an anchor while also pulling my up to be as close to the ceiling as possible, and soon after, a metallic ball that scatters around dissolution liquids dashed out below me, and falls into the pool before my eyes, it sinks with 'blub blub,' sounds while raising some toxic smoke rises.

  After that, I move like a pendulum using the anchor, then nd on the ground after jumping over the pool of dissolution liquid, while humming the theme of a certain famous archeologist.

  Odyin