CH 5

(Akira POV)

“…”

The woman with the bloody hatchet remains in a downcast position, not moving an inch from where she was at the beginning.

[This is bad! Akira! You have to escape to your original world right now!]

“What are you talking about…”

[Just do it!]

Despite this, Ys instructs me to run in a trembling voice and sounds as if they are terrified—no, not as if they are—but undeniably terrified.

“I get…”

When I hear “that” voice, I feel something unusual in it and try to follow Ys’s words and start to scramble towards the open door.

But right before I do, the woman looks up and I see “that”.

“Myonna react garuka ragomi lebara ambit gotonto.”

What I have viewed are the woman’s eyes.

“Ah…”

The woman’s eyes are sparkling like gold.

However, what I sense from its brilliance is not golden divinity or radiance.

What I perceive in her eyes is only a hint of disaster, as if her ultimate mission would be to distort everything in the world and drive it haywire.

And then I am made to grasp it.

“Mankara fimeiru hetra nsushita kakore de hamain dosousa fukyoka.”

“Ah, ah…”

[What are you doing! You must move quickly! Before ‘that’ makes a move! Hurry!]

This is the adversary of the Gods that created the “Maze” and the “Monsters” in it.

This is the one whom Ys demanded that I vanquish.

“Dangaso reyorimo.”

“Ugh…”

[Don’t you get it? The present you can’t win by any means!]

But at the same time, I am compelled to understand that I can’t prevail over “that,” even if the heavens and the earth were turned upside down.

On the contrary, with my present state, even if I merely approach that existence, I will be subjected to melt down and be sacrificed to increase their power.

“My legs… won’t move…”

[Damn!? So this is what’s going on!]

“Sono rusogon tokisuki nimode runyo nataike.”

But I can’t escape. “That” won’t let me escape.

Even though I should be able to go back to my original world by taking only one step backward, it seems as though my legs have been converted into a heavy lead.

In the midst of all this, the woman slowly begins to move, flashing her teeth like a predator, uttering words that my ears cannot comprehend.

“Nanyori mosonoba stogawa gareiji wo kaun.”

[I will send you as much power as I can too! So move! You must move, Akira! Otherwise, this is where it all ends!]

The woman pulls out several thin sheets of metal with some sort of emblem on them from her pocket while Ys chastises me in my head. It appears that each piece of metal contains far more power than what I had just unleashed on the frog.

“Ugh… arghhhhhh!!”

I then lift my feet off the ground with as much force as I can muster, bringing my arms in front of my head in preparation for the woman’s attack, while flying backwards in a half-crouching manner.

Furthermore, along with my movement, Ys also does something to me, and I can feel something like an invisible membrane being stretched over my epidermis.

“Kyon ni yudai subeshiji hihanan shinguda.”

“Ugh!?”

The woman’s hand is momentarily scratched away as I fly backward, and something is sent flying at such a speed that not even my dynamic vision, which ought to have been adequate to see the frog’s harpoon halt, can see it. As if the membrane that Ys should have put up did not exist from the beginning, it breaks through the membrane, and the metals that the woman has been holding until a moment ago… penetrates into my body.

As the metals sear into various parts of my body, my body has crossed the line that separates the “Maze” from my original world, where my entire body is enveloped in light.

———–

“Gahaha…”

[Hey! Pull yourself together! Be firm! Ishi…]

When the light eventually ceases, my vision is met with a reflection of a sky covered in gray clouds, and I feel the freezing rain pouring down on my wounded body.

In my head is the voice of Ys, and in my ears is the sound of water, while I sense someone approaching, and the pain renders me unconscious.

■■■■■

(Third person POV)

“I guess I failed to finish him off… Well, forget it; there is a 50/50 chance that he will survive with that wound.”

The woman in the “Maze,” with a bloody hatchet in her hand, mutters a few words about the man she just wounded.

“More crucially, the location of this ‘Maze’ has been exposed. It has barely grown at all, so I suppose I should consider disposing of it.”

A marker-like object is pulled out of the woman’s pocket and she uses it to draw intricate patterns in the air.

“ーーー”

She then touches the pattern and forces it to dissolve into the air while producing an unusual, high-pitched sound that is inaudible to human ears.

“So what do you want?”

“Oh, you noticed?”

With two exceptions, the items in the “Maze” lose their original shapes and dissolve after the patterns have entirely vanished, as though to go along with the melting.

The two exceptions… are a woman dressed in a sappanwood-colored military uniform and a black sphere with a red and blue light source and a crescent-shaped mouth.

“I ask what your business is.”

“Let’s terminate the conversation by stating that it would be challenging for me to cooperate in the future beyond the provision of information as I have received a little bit of glare. I’ll send the money to you as well, then.”

“Is that what this is about? What nonsense. I don’t expect you to be an instrument of war in the first place.”

“Right, well, I’ll leave you alone.”

The sphere progressively fades away as if to indicate that their business is over before ultimately dissipating as if it had never been there. Eventually, the space itself melts away, leaving only the woman and the sphere in the empty void.

“Now, the next ‘Maze’ is…”

The woman follows suit and without any warning at all, she too, vanishes from the place.