Chapter Volume 1, 24: Lord of Underground Labyrinth?

Volume 1, Chapter 24: Lord of Underground Labyrinth⑩

Titan pounced at Lambert, going straight for the kill.

Titan’s personal weapons, the glove 『Dragon’s Enchanted Metal Claws』, tore through the air. As it shredded by, a sonic boom resounded in its wake.　As Lambert skillfully dodged to the left, Titan followed through with a quick punch with his other hand. However, Lambert simply stabbed his great sword into the floor to block that attack.

The impact of their exchange created a water pillar.

Titan spun his body, using the spray of water to shroud his figure from Lambert. Using the centrifugal force of his spin, he attacked again, but Lambert just as easily dodged that too.

Titan’s glove struck the floor, and in that moment, he used the recoil to retreat, creating some distance between him and Lambert. A wide smile formed on his face.

「GAHAHAHA! It seems your rustic armor isn’t hindering your movement at all. Now I’m getting more and more excited. Let’s enjoy this fight to the fullest!」

Titan leaped up immediately.

Seeing that, the other 『Dragon’s Enchanted Metal』 adventurers, who blocked Fiona and Co. revealed vicious sneers.

「That man is done for. Despite what he said before, it seems Titan-sama wants to finish him off immediately.」

Fiona’s gaze was fixated on the fight between Lambert and Titan while her hand quietly rested on the hilt of her sword.

Titan kicked the wall behind him in the midst of his jump, propelling himself straight toward Lambert from above.

He was basically a human cannon right now.

Titan pulled back his hands and punched towards Lambert at a terrifying speed.

The impact of Titan colliding dispersed the water beneath his feet; everything crashed off to the side, leaving an empty area around them.

Titan spun his body in mid-air right in front of Lambert, flipping around to Lambert’s side and punching with his right fist.

Lambert didn’t even try to defend against Titan’s signature move. Thus, Titan’s punch connected with Lambert’s flank without meeting any kind of resistance.

Titan landed right behind Lambert.

Upon seeing the impact, Fiona worriedly looked at Lambert, forgetting the enemies who were in front of her.

「Lambert-san!」

He reacted to her shout, and Fiona heaved a sigh of relief.

Even the other adventurers, who were blocking Fiona and Co.’s path, were fixated on Titan’s fight, in no hurry to kill them.

「HAHAHAHA, YOU’RE NOT BAD AT ALL! THIS 『Dragon’s Enchanted Metal Claws』 IS MY PERSONAL WEAPON. IT SPECIALIZES IN ARMOR DESTRUCTION, AND YET IT FAILED TO DESTROY YOUR ARMOR! YOU REALLY ARE AN INTERESTING FELLA!!」

They moved toward each other to clash again, and Titan aimed for Lambert’s great sword.

To counter him, Lambert adeptly swung his sword. It neared Titan’s glove, preventing his enemy’s attack to gain more momentum.

「You insist THOSE THINGS in your hands are dragon’s claws, and yet you do not even have any resemblance to a dragon.」

「Eh?」

Titan’s brow furrowed as soon as he heard those words.

「You think you can rile me up with such cheap provocation?! What a boring bastard, even though it’s been a really long time since I found someone who could clash head-on with me. Oh whatever, shall we continue then? Till death, of course.」

Titan readied himself as he pulled his right arm to fix his stance.

But then, without any notice, his right arm dropped with a thud.

A moment later, he felt a piercing pain from his right arm…

「E… EH?」

In that moment, he discovered that his prized glove had been smashed to pieces.

Its fragments scattered around, floating on the surface of the water.

One could see a line of blood trickling down from the back of Titan’s right hand, which hung limply due to his now dislocated elbow.

「AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH?!」

Titan fell to his knees as he wallowed in pain.

His blood mixed with the water, slowly diluting and turning a translucent shade of red.

「I-IMPOSSIBLE! IT’S MADE FROM AN ALLOY WITH PLENTY OF ORGAN! THIS IS, THIS IS…!」

「You should choose a lighter weapon if you can’t even use that glove properly.」

Lambert advised bluntly as he slowly lowered his great sword.

The sword struck the floor, causing a loud boom as it collided.

That sound made it clear that his great sword was far heavier than Titan’s gloves.

「LEAVE THOSE BRATS! KILL HIIIM!!」

Titan howled, a blue vein popping on his forehead.

The other four 『Dragon’s Enchanted Metal』 members who blocked the entrance of the room sprung toward Lambert at once, completely disregarding Fiona and co.’s existence.

Titan, whose expression had changed one of rage, stood up slowly as his gaze locked on Lambert.

「You’re better than I thought. You might be a monster, but there’s nothing you can do against five of us!」

Cradle shouted those words while charging at Lambert, but Fiona blocked his path.

「GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY, YOU USELESS WOMAN!」

Cradle thrust his sword, aiming for Fiona’s throat, but he rolled away in a hurry when he heard the sound of splashing water from behind.

Lloyd’s sword aimed right for Cradle’s back, and Cradle was barely able to dodge by springing up immediately, also dodging Fiona’s sword that came at him from the front.

「Do you think the two of you can beat me?!」

Lily, who was shielded by Cradle’s blindspot, shot a fireball at the enraged Cradle.

Cradle barely dodged the fireball with a jump, glaring at Lily in the middle of his jump.

「It’s not just two. It’s the three of us…」

「We won’t give you any chance to fight back…!」

「URAAAAAAAAAA!」

Lloyd raised his arm, as he slashed at Cradle who was still midair from his jump.

Cradle parried Lloyd sword, jumping again by using Lloyd’s face as a foothold.

「HAAAAAAA!」

This time, it was an attack from Fiona.

Legs stretched out after kicking Lloyd, Cradle missed his landing, fumbling to react to Fiona’s attack.

Though Cradle managed to dodge at the last minute, Fiona’s sword grazed his cheek, leaving behind a long line of blood…

Cradle touched his face, his face became even more vicious after confirming the wound on his cheek.

「He-Hehehe… You’ve done it. A~h, you still can run if you escape now, you know.」

Lloyd raised his sword, readying his stance, yet his body trembled in fear as soon as Cradle released his killing intent.

「Lambert-san! We’ll try to hold back one of them!」

Fiona shouted at Lambert while pointing her sword toward Cradle.

Numbers could have an overwhelming advantage in battle.

On top of being able to attack their opponent from their blind spot, going up against overwhelming numbers was really troublesome.

No matter how powerful one was, it was not as if one could have eyes on every inch of them. Everyone had a blindspot, but the probability of revealing one’s blindspot became exponentially larger as one faced against even larger odds.

Fiona and Co. who expected that even the extremely powerful Lambert would have a hard time facing several first-rate adventurers, were trying to detain one of the five, thus decreasing Lambert’s burden.

「I won’t chase after you if you choose to escape you know… but I don’t mind if you guys really want to die.」

Cradle decided to aim at Fiona first.

As long as he could get rid of one of them, it would be easier for him to kill the rest.

「TAKE THIS, AND THIS, AND THIS!」

「GUUH!」

Cradle’s attacks were mainly focused on Fiona, yet he was still able to parry Lloyd once in a while. At the same time, he used Fiona’s body as a shield to protect himself from Lily’s magic.

Despite his rotten personality, he lived up to his claim as one of the strongest five in the guild.

Fiona was simply no match for him.

「AN OPENING!」

After a series of attacks, Cradle used his free hand to punch into Fiona’s abdomen.

Cradle’s hand landed squarely on Fiona’s gut…

「GAHA!」

The pain caused Fiona to drop the sword in her one hand while her other clutched her abdomen.

「FIONAAA!」

「HAHAHA, WHERE’S YOUR BRAVERY FROM BEFORE?」

Cradle bent down to dodge Lloyd’s attack, slashing with his sword to cut Fiona’s arm.

But then, an armored figure appeared between them.

「… EH?!」

That armored figure crashed into Cradle, impacting right on his face.

It might have been just a simple collision between two people, but the one who crashed against Cradle wore full-plated armor that covered his entire body.

Cradle’s lightweight sword broke as soon as it struck against the heaviest enchanted armor, Organ. The collision also dislocated his shoulder.

Cradle’s body was blown back like a twig, arching through the air in a perfect parabola and landing headfirst on the floor. The water erupted in a loud splash.

「I told you to run as soon as I created a gap, right?」

「L-Lambert-san! Those fou-…!」

When Fiona looked at the place where Lambert should have been engaged in fierce combat against the members of 『Dragon’s Enchanted Metal』, she saw what was left of Guild Master Titan, whose left arm had been lopped off by Lambert. She had no idea whether Titan still had his life or not since his body was frigid and he wore dumbfounded look on his face, standing still in the center of a pile of mangled corpses.

Titan, in his arrogance, thought that it was by mere coincidence that Lambert managed to pulverize his right glove, but Lambert stopped playing around and easily lopped off Titan’s left arm along with his glove as soon as Fiona attacked Cradle.

When she looked at the corpse of the other three, her mouth hung agape. Lambert had gone for one-shot, precision kills,, finishing them off in the shortest amount of time.

「… Thanks to you guys holding him back, I was able to kill the rest faster than I expected.」

「Y-You’re welcome…」

Though Fiona was left dumbfounded seeing the tragic state of their supposed to be hunters, she pulled herself together when Lambert called out her name.

She replied appropriately, though now she was convinced that their help was unnecessary.

「We… Really got no turn at all.」

Lloyd muttered.