Chapter 10: Mountain Demon Labyrinth Jamal-Mataha

【Previously, in the story!】

The lord of the fortress city of Zalfedahl was planning a war against the nomads of the south.

But with a threat known as the "World Eater" closing in, this was hardly the time to be fighting amongst ourselves.

We had to stop the war by appealing directly to the lord...!

It was then that we met a mysterious woman within the city, Tierra, who told us about the existence of the "Mountain Demon Labyrinth Jamal-Mataha."

Believing that clearing the labyrinth would allow us to meet the lord, we had recruited Tierra as a new member of our party and set out to conquer the labyrinth――!

　◆◆◆

I was making my way through the "Mountain Demon Labyrinth Jamal-Mataha" together with Rene and Tierra.

We had managed to find another entrance without too much trouble, which was great and all...

**『『『『GIAAAAAAA!!』』』』

"Whoa...! Again...!"

"They just... won't stop...!"

"I'll cut them down! You two fall back and focus on protecting yourselves!"

Tierra plunged into the swarm of pitch-black magical beasts, twin swords of blue and crimson in her hands.

『GYAU!』

"Ugh!"

"Rene!"

"I'll heal you! Kizuna, use your magic to hold the enemies back...!"

"Ah...! Right!"

Whenever we got injured, Tierra would heal us with recovery magic.

...And that was how things were going. She was carrying us every step of the way. Rene aside, I was nothing but dead weight for Tierra.

On top of that, Tierra was even handling the cooking and setting up our little base camps for when we needed to rest.

I wanted to be useful to her somehow, but I wasn't even used to fighting in the first place. And in a cramped, unusual environment like a labyrinth, there was practically nothing I could do to help.

"I can't cook properly in an environment like this. This is all I can make for now, but if you're okay with it..."

She took out some bread and what appeared to be dried meat. She sandwiched the meat between the bread, then pulled several seasonings from inside her clothes and whipped up three meals in no time at all. Did she really carry that many different seasonings around with her all the time...?

Incidentally, it was absolutely delicious. Rene was so stunned by the taste that she simply kept eating in silence. I completely understood how she felt.

The food at the café had been delicious too, of course, but Tierra's cooking had a distinctly homemade quality to it. I had no memories of it, but somehow, I felt like I'd eaten flavors like these every day once upon a time.

When I told her what I thought, Tierra...

"My cooking at full strength is nowhere near this simple. This is just a quick meal. Once we get back, I'll make you some "curry rice." If you're this happy over something this basic, you're probably going to cry."

She gave me a fearless little smile.

Curry rice. Somehow, that word sounded incredibly familiar. Tierra had managed to make food this good even inside a labyrinth, so I couldn't wait to taste the dish she spoke of with such confidence. Even Rene's eyes were practically sparkling.

However, the farther we advanced through the labyrinth, the more numerous the enemies became.

And at the time, I still hadn't properly understood what it meant to go on a life-or-death adventure.

My first labyrinth. Enemies pouring out everywhere. More than half of us were complete amateurs.

In an environment like that, the fact that relying entirely on one person was dangerously reckless should have been obvious.

It was during one of the many times we found ourselves surrounded by a group of enemies.

"Look out! Kizuna!"

"Huh?"

"Damn...!"

My reaction to the magical beast that suddenly leapt out from my blind spot was too slow, and my mind went completely blank.

And the next thing I saw was—

Bright red blood gushing from Tierra's abdomen, pierced straight through by the beast's claws.

　◆◇◆◇

We continued through the labyrinth, but our progress was slow.

Thinking about it, that was only natural. Kizuna and Rene had no experience clearing labyrinths... Well, more accurately, they might have had some, but they didn't remember it.

And I only had a little experience myself. Besides, there was no way the game had shown every single passage and trap exactly as they existed in reality.

There was no way we were going to breeze through a place under those circumstances.

When I checked the pocket watch I'd gotten from Liz-senpai, half a day had already passed since we entered the labyrinth.

And it looked like the labyrinth still had a long way to go.

We should probably eat something soon. Otherwise, there was a chance we'd run out of energy from hunger when we really needed it.

Cooking leisurely inside a narrow labyrinth filled with enemies like this would basically be suicide.

That said, after cooking every single day for the past five years, I wasn't about to compromise.

Using the food and seasonings I had on hand, I whipped up an improvised labyrinth meal.

The ingredients were bread, dried meat from lion-type magical beasts, and various seasonings. I'd put quite a bit of extra work into the lion-beast meat during the drying process, but that was about it. The bread was something I'd bought casually before entering the labyrinth, and we were seriously lacking vegetables.

Kizuna and Rene ate it happily enough, but...

There was nothing gratifying about them being happy over such a half-assed meal.

For now, once we got out of the labyrinth, I'd let them experience the culmination of my five years of cooking. My cooking had even made that Sword Saint girl admit defeat. They'd better savor every bite.

The exploration continued after that.

But it would be a stretch to call our progress smooth.

First of all, Rene was far less useful in combat than I'd imagined.

Using a giant scythe as a weapon inside ruins was nothing short of insanity. She kept smashing it into the walls.

And apparently she had no experience fighting as part of a group, because her teamwork was catastrophically bad.

In a game, you wouldn't question someone swinging a longsword around inside a narrow cave, but in an actual battle, it was way too impractical.

I used short twin swords, so I had no trouble fighting...

I tried having her switch to a dagger once, but she was even less useful with a weapon she wasn't accustomed to. So I immediately had her switch back to the scythe. Well, fighting with a long-reach weapon and a short weapon are completely different things, after all...

And then there was Kizuna. He was beyond hopeless. His magic was reasonably powerful, presumably because he had received it from "that thing," but... he was hopelessly inexperienced when it came to actual combat. His lack of experience was just too severe.

Seriously, aren't there way too many enemies? This is the first dungeon! Is it really supposed to be this difficult!?

Did "that thing" seriously think Kizuna could clear this place at this difficulty?

Did its supposedly brilliant calculations really conclude that Kizuna and Rene alone could clear it?

...Huh?

"That thing" probably made its calculations based on just Rene and Kizuna, right?

Could it be that I'm the reason?

...I looked at Kizuna desperately swinging a sword he wasn't used to and firing off magic.

...Then I looked at Rene swinging her scythe as if she'd never heard of teamwork in her life.

Yeah. Right. Right, right? So that's what happened, huh? I'm relatively pretty damn strong, and the ruins' system detected me, aren't I?

My perception had become completely numb because every original character I'd fought so far had been some absurd monster like the Sword Saint girl, the Adventure King, or the Black Knight. Every last one of them could annihilate me instantly without even letting me get a hand or foot in. Those broken freaks!

The Black Knight. Yes, the Black Knight.

Damn it. Once I remember him, my blood starts boiling. Even in the middle of a fight, the humiliation from back then comes rushing back.

Yeah, that was about a year ago――

――――

"I'm Tierra! I'm not an evil spirit, okay?"

"Enough talk."

"Eep!"

――――

He didn't even listen to me, knocked me to the ground in an instant, tied me up like a sausage, and interrogated me for several hours. Even though I'd done nothing wrong! I'd done nothing wrong! (It's important, so I'll say it twice.) ...Seriously!

Ahh, just remembering it pisses me off, Black Knight. Next time I see him, I'll kill... Yeah, right. As if I could. That bastard is absurdly strong.

I've decided. Someday, if we end up on the same side with the protagonist-kun's group, I'll make his food extra spicy. Of course, I don't want to waste ingredients, so I'll search for the perfect balance where it's delicious... but insanely spicy! Kuhahahaha! I'll make that smug face of his twist in agony!

...And. My thoughts got sidetracked.

The fact that I can fight while thinking about completely unrelated things like this shows just how accustomed I've become to combat.

Well, to put it simply... apparently, I'm pretty damn strong...!

Come to think of it, I might actually feel like I'm having a little bit of my power siphoned away...?

Earth-sama is behind me, so my supply of power itself is abundant.

My output was garbage, so normally that just meant I was a garbage fighter with a lot of stamina, but this time was different.

Don't tell me... I've become an infinite fuel tank supplying power to the ruins themselves...!?

The fuel tank was so damn huge that I didn't even notice it was being drained! What a blunder...! An absolutely catastrophic blunder...!

Even these eyes of Tierra couldn't see it coming!!

But nevertheless! If I couldn't improvise to this extent, there was no way I could ever become number one!

I might as well take full advantage of this situation!

Let's see. Why don't I deliberately ease up on protecting Kizuna and put him in a tight spot?

And then, I'll protect him at the very last second and get injured...!

I can heal him with recovery magic even if he gets hurt. Isn't this perfect?

"Look out! Kizuna!"

"Huh?"

"Damn...!"

The instincts I'd inherited as a conceptual spirit, along with Earth-sama's will, had become considerably weaker and more docile ever since Kizuna's problematic statement a little while ago. It would probably take quite some time before they recovered.

If it were the normal "Tierra As," getting in the protagonist-kun's way would have been difficult because there would have been too much opposition.

But the current me could do it easily...!

While shielding Kizuna, I cut down the magical beast that had leapt out.

"U-Um, Tierra..."

"You mustn't let your guard down. Save your apologies and gratitude until we've made it back alive. Or was your resolve really so fragile that something this minor could break it?"

I forcibly cut off Kizuna, who was about to burst from all the emotions running through him—worry, guilt, gratitude, fear, and everything else.

Then I showed my understanding of the ideal he'd expressed and gave him a push forward. To understand and support him even when I didn't agree, and to correct his course when necessary... As a devoted woman from his past, wasn't this absolutely perfect?

Besides. There was one more thing.

He had denied the very reason for "my" existence so completely and directly.

If that was the case, then I wouldn't allow him to break so easily.

At the very least, show me that your ideal... your resolve... was worth that much. Otherwise, someone who cared about you would have sacrificed everything for nothing.

"Then, for now, let's keep looking ahead. It's all right. I'm surprisingly accustomed to rough situations. A wound like this is nothing."

I said that while healing the wound. Damn, I screwed up. It's pretty deep. Full recovery is going to take some time. For now, I'll settle for emergency treatment and focus on healing it properly once we're out of the ruins.

My goal was to return to my original world while saving my little sister and achieving an ultra-happy ending. Everything else was secondary or even tertiary.

But the "thoughts of someone" and the "will of the star" that formed this body had been with me all this time. I had feelings too. I could at least give those feelings some salvation. Of course, if they got in the way of my goal, I'd cut those feelings down without hesitation!

And so, while helping the protagonist-kun regain his resolve, we continued through the ruins.

Then, after several hours of advancing through one battle after another,

we finally—

reached the deepest part of the ruins.

Haaah... There's a boss battle from here, isn't there...? What a pain...