TM-Chapter 40

Message Lost in the Labyrinth (2)

Although Yernil had gained a tremendous advantage, in reality, she was still slightly below the professors.

Since Message Transmission itself wouldn’t be disrupted, she might do better than the professors.

But professor-level wizards had their own special strengths, which were…

“Wizard’s Lantern.”

“Wise Guidance.”

“Swift Steps!”

“Transcribing Stenographer.”

They could slather on all sorts of magic from the very start like this.

Wizard’s Lantern is magic that summons a light that follows you and illuminates the surrounding darkness.

Wise Guidance helps you choose the direction closer to your destination at up to four crossroads.

Swift Steps makes your footsteps light, turning even the running of elderly people into something excellent.

Transcribing Stenographer is literally magic that summons a magic pen and transcribes human speech.

It means they want to save even the time of wielding a pen for Message Transmission.

“Wow…”

Yernil let out a sigh while watching Meldini’s party.

The ‘events’ encountered in the labyrinth must be resolved through Message Transmission.

However, besides that, any magic, skill, or technique could be used.

As long as it wasn’t a major rule violation like destroying the labyrinth walls, preventing other contestants from transmitting messages, or attacking other participants.

“Inside the labyrinth, each team can cooperate with or fight each other. You know this, everyone. There’s only one escape scroll.”

Edward put thirty wizards into a state of fighting each other and found it quite entertaining.

“What if another team grabs the escape scroll first? Then quickly write something like ‘steal the scroll’ in your message and send it.”

This was going to be quite a fierce game.

“Well then, let the game begin.”

We rushed into the first door of the giant labyrinth installed in Berten’s garden.

Not wizard, wizard, archer.

I switched to wizard, Izel to priest, and Yernil to rogue!

***

The ceiling was blocked.

The width of the passage between walls was about 3 meters.

And wall-mounted torches were installed every 5 meters front and back, burning brightly.

‘They’re all fake.’

When I tapped the wall, it made the distinctive thump thump sound of a hollow fake wall. It looked like it was solidly made of heavy bricks, but it was probably overlaid with illusion magic.

They’d done a good job imitating a labyrinth.

How much money did they spend making this?

“Caleb. I can’t hear any other teams at all.”

Yernil, who had been listening in all directions, said cautiously.

“That’s probably the case.”

Because other wizards would have used magic to hide their location.

In Abyss of the Labyrinth, the heavier the equipment a character wears, the more noise they make when moving.

Wizard robes aren’t loud, but they have to pour out incantations and have no talent for stealth, so they can’t help but be noisy.

So conversely, there are types of magic that suppress noise.

To explain it in game terms, these are spells that give advantage to stealth checks and prevent detection by enemies, and the ultimate magic of this type is…

“Silent Night.”

Izel said.

“Right now, half the other teams probably used that magic. Teams that don’t have it would have used noise suppression one or two levels lower.”

If that happens, even Yernil’s Sound Mapping can’t track them.

“Because everyone won’t want to reveal their position.”

“Then, what about us?”

Yernil asked.

She was startled and lowered her voice dramatically.

“Could other teams have heard me chattering just now…?”

Izel shook her head.

“We’re using noise suppression too.”

Let’s be honest.

Yernil not being affected by transmission disruption is good, but otherwise she’s useless.

Actually, I’m the same.

My labyrinth knowledge might be above professor level, but most of the magic I have is useless. For a while, anyway.

Therefore, we…

“Among the five magic I used, there’s noise suppression.”

We’re completely dependent on Izel. While other teams had senior wizards sharing what was needed among themselves, Izel used all five magic by herself.

‘Spurring Steps’ and ‘Mole Path Detection‘, ‘Wise Guidance’, ‘Starlight’, and finally ‘Owl’s Hunt.‘

“Among those, Owl’s Hunt was the noise suppression magic.”

The magic got its name because owls make absolutely no wing sounds when hunting.

Yernil’s face turned red because she saw Izel cast that magic right in front of her but didn’t know what it was.

I changed the subject.

“You don’t have a stenographer, do you?”

“No. If there’s something to transcribe, I can just have someone do it.”

I see.

Extremely large amounts of money are indistinguishable from magic. Damn.

Anyway, not having a stenographer is disappointing, but it’s good that we got plenty of other useful magic attached.

We’re lucky to have a 5th-tier wizard with us.

“Let’s go.”

The moment I started leading the group.

“No. Wait a moment.”

Izel grabbed me.

Our orders split from the start.

***

“The core of this game is the message slips.”

Izel started persuading me.

“With only fifteen limited slips, we have to solve events and fight other parties when we meet them.”

“I know.”

“It would be good if other parties get ahead and fight each other, consuming their slips. So let’s move a little slowly?”

“No.”

I disagree.

The reason is that all other teams are probably thinking the same thing.

“Rather, we should run now.”

The labyrinth we entered was a circular labyrinth about 500 meters in diameter. Each team entered through one of ten entrances around the perimeter.

So considering fairness, the escape scroll would be at the center of this circle.

And the number of events each team encounters in the process would probably be similar too. Under the premise of searching for the shortest route.

Therefore, rather than when other parties are cautiously sneaking around watching each other, we should boldly sprint at full speed, smash through events, and find the shortest path to rush to the center.

That’s actually the way to save message slips. If we dawdle and miss the timing, we’ll encounter other wizard parties.

It’s like a kind of psychological game.

But wizards are cautious and rarely make the first move.

“…”

Izel thought for a moment and nodded.

“That makes sense.”

Fortunately, she’s not being stubborn.

“But I still oppose it.”

No, cancel what I just said.

“Why do you oppose it?”

“We can explore crossroads a few times with magic like Wise Guidance, but it won’t last long anyway. We might take a wrong path and enter another party’s route.”

“…”

“If we consume our message slips clearing other parties’ events for them, that loss will snowball. And there’s no guarantee we can easily solve the events we encounter. Unless we can significantly speed up and distance ourselves from other teams, I oppose getting ahead.”

How should I put this.

At times like this, I want to do a Bing Ming Out.

I’m a Turn-Based Master, you know. I’m confident I can solve most events, so let’s just go.

I want to say that.

“Let’s decide by majority vote.”

Sorry, but I don’t have time to persuade you indirectly, Izel.

“How about it, Yernil?”

I dumped the choice on Yernil.

Yernil was extremely flustered and didn’t know what to do, but…

“Tsk.”

Eventually Izel gave up.

“Then of course she’ll say to do what you want. Fine, let’s go then. I don’t care if we lose the game.”

The three of them began proceeding at tremendous speed.

It felt like sprinting at full power from the start of a marathon.

***

‘What the…?’

About 10 minutes later.

Izel Berten was quite flustered as she encountered unexpected situations one after another.

‘This kind of progression is possible?’

Caleb.

She’d heard here and there that this wizard had an exceptional mind, but still, this was…

“I’ll use just one message slip.”

He’s using it when no event has even occurred!

“As you can see, the theme around here is a battlefield. There are tons of corpses created as illusions – people who died from being stabbed by swords or spears.”

He doesn’t slow his pace.

He maximizes the effect of ‘Spurring Steps’ and walks at tremendous speed while instantly analyzing, calculating, and judging the surroundings.

“But it’s strange. Many people have had their armor removed. If corpse scavengers like kobolds had touched them, they would have mutilated the corpses, but that’s not the case. And if raiders had tried to pick up valuables from the corpses to sell, they would have taken the armor to sell it. Not strip it off with difficulty and then abandon it.”

And that judgment is accurate.

“It’s a banshee. Banshees do laundry with bloodstained clothes. They can’t wash steel armor so they discarded it, and what they tried to take was the bloodstained undergarments inside. They stripped off the armor to get those.”

“…”

“So let’s write a message around here. We’ll use a deception strategy to pass through. Banshees don’t touch young children.”

Caleb stopped and took out a slip to write quickly.

[Caleb uses his ‘Illusion Magic: Mass Disguise’ to transform the party members’ appearance into children. Until passing through the banshee’s domain.]

Five illusion judgment boxes appeared before our eyes, and when he used Message Transmission magic, that slip…

[Great Success!]

Slipped into the great success box.

[You quietly passed through the banshee’s domain without any conflict! Not only that, you also acquired a bottle of banshee tears!]

The surrounding illusions all disappeared, and the banshee’s wailing stopped.

An additional card also dropped.

[Banshee Tears ※Throwable]

▶When thrown at an enemy, the bottle breaks and a banshee’s scream erupts. This sound stuns enemies exposed to it.

“Let’s go.”

And he increased the movement speed again.

The insane preemptive Message Transmission attacks continued afterward too.

“It’s hot. I’m gradually feeling heat. A magma forge?”

“…”

“Magma sludge, elementals, steel devourers…?”

Suddenly alert, Izel approached Caleb’s side and said.

“It could be a fire giant.”

“No. The room is too small for a giant to live in. Of course, there’s a possibility that wizard Edward designed it wrong.”

“…”

“If we consider all the possibilities like that, there’s no end. But it’s probably most likely a steel devourer. Because…”

Caleb swept the floor with his hand. Black powder made of illusion came off.

“There’s iron powder. This is what a steel devourer spilled while eating iron chunks. Izel. Please write that we’re throwing explosives from the party supplies. Without lighting them.”

“But…”

“Yernil, save your slips. Since Yernil has no possibility of transmission disruption, she should prepare for possible situations in the latter half. It’s better if she has at least two more slips than us.”

“…”

“I used one earlier, so now it’s Izel’s turn. Izel. Let’s blow up the steel devourer. Don’t stop walking. We need to go faster than other teams.”

[It seems there’s a steel devourer. Throw explosives forward without lighting them.]

As soon as she wrote the message on the slip, judgment boxes appeared again.

“Message Transmission.”

And the message Izel transmitted was once again…

[Great Success!]

Kwaang!

With an explosion echoing from about 10 meters ahead, the steel devourer’s body made of illusion shattered into pieces and fell thud thud thud.

A reply and a card fluttered down from the sky.

[You lured the steel devourer to bite the explosives and blew it up! You successfully defeated the steel devourer without any damage.]

[You acquired a ‘Knight’s Two-Handed Sword’ that the steel devourer had saved as a late-night snack.]

“The two-handed sword is useless to us. I’m a wizard, Izel is a priest, and Yernil is a rogue. Let’s just keep it for now and continue.”

“…”

Izel felt like something in this labyrinth had broken.

This game isn’t supposed to be played this way.

The normal way to proceed would be ‘fighting the steel devourer’.

Three players would each use message slips once, writing things like ‘fire ice spikes’ or ‘deploy guardian’s shield to block flame breath’.

‘What is this even…?’

This is abnormal.

‘This doesn’t make sense.’

Enver had said so.

That he had a tremendous level of possessor knowledge.

But…

‘That’s not the issue!’

Professors could also recognize banshees or steel devourers if they analyzed the surrounding circumstances to this degree.

The problem isn’t the deductive reasoning ability to infer from circumstances itself, but the observation skills, the speed of coming up with solutions, judgment, and self-confidence.

This is like…

Watching a genius who instantly solves spot-the-difference quizzes rat-a-tat-tat.

Caleb was literally proceeding with ghostly efficiency.

‘How is this possible?’

5th-tier wizard Izel couldn’t even imitate it.

Even if he hadn’t received possessor knowledge but was a real possessor, this wouldn’t be possible!

***

Too easy.

Edward, sir.

Honestly speaking, it’s somewhat disappointing.

At this level, you wouldn’t even qualify as a veteran in our neighborhood. In terms of difficulty, it’s below Absolute Strategy?

You were blatantly obvious when teasing Yernil too, and the event puzzles scattered in the labyrinth also have all the clues written out in the open.

I was nervous thinking something might come up like the ‘true-false logic puzzles’ or ‘trap switch sequence puzzles’ that appear when exploring routes in high-difficulty labyrinth depths.

Those professional low-blood-pressure treatment puzzles.

“…”

It seems Izel is somewhat flustered by this pace, while Yernil isn’t even surprised since she doesn’t know better.

Then around now…

“Izel.”

Shall we have a little conversation while walking? We should have put quite a distance between us and other wizard parties.

“Do you know anything about otherworld possessors by any chance?”

“What?”

“For example.”

Let me dangle some strong bait.

“Like Professor Enver.”

“…”

She’s the complete opposite of Yernil in everything, but they have one thing in common.

Her expression is transparent.

“Wh-what… Are you saying…?”

Izel’s face turned ashen like Yernil’s earlier.

As if she’d really seen a ghost.