Chapter 11 – Labyrinth Strategy 【3】

The third floor gives viewers an impression of ruins.

Walls and ceiling with fine cracks look like they’ll collapse at any moment, and bloodstains catch the eye here and there.

Not old stains, but vivid, fresh bloodstains.

Incidentally, no matter how much time passes, the bloodstains never solidify or change color, but that’s probably because this world is a ryona game world.

Looking beside me, Mel was overwhelmed by the atmosphere and frightened.

At this rate, if she sees the zombie-like and ghost-like monsters wandering this floor, I might witness the precious scene of a beautiful girl wetting herself while still alive.

I was hoping… no, thinking that, but the moment she saw a monster, she made a serious expression and taught me the monster’s name, abilities, and how to avoid them one after another.

Surprisingly, all the monster abilities she mentioned matched the monsters’ attack patterns, and the avoidance methods were exactly the same as the strategies I knew.

Furthermore, though she couldn’t execute it because her magic was sealed, she even told me methods for exterminating monsters with magic.

Hearing this, I had questions.

Mel’s world is a fantasy world where magic exists. Monsters apparently exist too.

But this should be a ryona game world created by programming.

In other words, all the monsters in this labyrinth are things someone imagined and designed.

But here’s the thing.

Is it possible that monsters that should have been created through someone’s imagination all precisely match monsters that actually exist in a fantasy world?

Suddenly, I felt like I was mistaken about something fundamental.

Actually, isn’t everything reversed?

In other words, rather than us having Hanako’s physical abilities because the ryona game’s playable character was Hanako, wasn’t it set to become Hanako’s physical abilities to prevent us from easily eliminating monsters if we could use magic or abilities?

I might be overthinking it, but long ago, I suffered a painful experience because I was bound by common sense.

I’ll remember this reasoning as one possibility.

There are other strange things too.

Yamada said he met a goddess.

However, when we stayed at the “Lake of Death” to treat my trauma, I discussed various things with Mel, and according to her, she obtained information about this labyrinth from an existence called a “Demon General,” not a goddess.

Her face was stained with hatred and regret, so I didn’t ask details, but does this mean the existence providing information differs for each world?

…

No good. Too little information to judge.

Well, there’s no point just thinking.

Let’s proceed through the labyrinth for now.

I explained in detail the effects of traps existing on the third floor to Mel and enjoyed her frightened appearance.

Then while avoiding various traps, we advanced through the corridor and obtained a potion.

Incidentally, Mel turned pale and trembled every time a trap appeared.

Understandable. The trap effects were that vicious.

Especially “My Beloved” can only be described as in bad taste.

Back to the story.

Having obtained the potion, we avoided patrolling monsters and traps, obtained the boss room key too, and eventually arrived at the boss room.

Before entering, I explained the boss patterns to Mel.

The third floor boss stage can be cleared by pressing switches that appear on the left and right walls five times.

In other words, unlike the first and second floors where you had to survive one minute in the boss room, the time until clearing depends on the player’s actions.

Switches appear as the boss approaches Hanako, and disappear to reappear on the opposite wall when the player presses them or when a certain time passes.

One important thing here is that you can’t stay in place waiting for the switch to reappear.

The boss arrives at the wall faster than the switch reappears, but if the boss touches Hanako while she’s on the wall side, a death scene occurs regardless of remaining HP.

In the end, to clear the boss stage, you must immediately dash to the opposite wall after pressing the first switch and press the next switch before it disappears.

Of course, you inevitably pass by the boss in the process, but fortunately, Hanako passing by the boss itself doesn’t trigger damage.

As long as you’re not cornered at the wall, the boss is just a sprite.

However, that’s in the game. In reality, the boss can’t be just a sprite.

In the game, “touching the boss while at the wall” is probably the same as “getting caught by the boss when cornered at the wall with no space to dodge” in reality.

Therefore, we must pass by the boss’s side before getting caught in an unavoidable situation.

The problem is the boss attacks.

In the original, touching the boss while moving is no problem, but naturally HP decreases when you receive attacks.

And after pressing the second switch, attack frequency increases and death scenes become more cruel.

Furthermore, after pressing the fourth switch, all subsequent attacks change to instant death patterns.

The death scenes at this time are extremely cruel.

I don’t want to understand the creator’s thinking and don’t intend to affirm it, but I must agree that the first floor boss’s killing method is the least cruel.

The third floor boss is the worst in a different sense from the second floor boss.

No, even so, there’s still no savior though.

Back to the story.

The third floor boss looks like a robed human, but only darkness is visible inside the hood, and since everything from the top of the head to toes is hidden by the robe, I don’t know if it’s really human.

The boss holds a whip in one hand and a staff in the other, riding on a certain machine, but that machine and staff are extremely in bad taste.

First, regarding the machine the boss rides, it’s composed of a guillotine, iron maiden, rusty wooden horse, electric chair, and coffin.

On the other hand, severed living heads dangle in a row from the staff. According to the creator, those living heads are the boss’s collection.

The bodies of the heads’ owners were already torn apart by the machine the boss rides and placed in coffins, and due to this labyrinth’s characteristic where you don’t die even when dead, they become the boss’s collection and suffer eternally… according to the setting.

Incidentally, those heads frequently groan in pain, but I don’t understand how they can do that without lungs or vocal cords.

I might understand if I actually got my head cut off by the boss and dangled from the staff, but I absolutely don’t want that.

I digressed.

Until pressing the second switch, the boss attacks Hanako using only the whip.

There are two whipping patterns.

The first is striking in a straight line.

This has fast activation speed and long reach so you can’t avoid it even by running, but you can dodge by crouching.

Of course, even crawling won’t get you hit by this pattern.

The second pattern is striking downward from above.

This has short reach but can’t be avoided by crouching or crawling.

In the end, you must move outside the attack range, but walking won’t dodge in time, so there’s no method other than running.

You can predict which pattern is coming from the boss’s preliminary motion.

Therefore, for skilled players, dodging is no problem.

The damage isn’t very large either.

Both deal equal damage to Hanako, and with full HP you can withstand five hits.

However, when Hanako’s HP is full, the whipping pattern is completely random, but when it drops below half and she can’t run, the whipping pattern always changes to the second pattern.

And if you keep getting whipped until HP reaches zero, a death scene occurs.

Its content is as follows:

First, Hanako is guillotined and her head is cut off.

The severed head is displayed on the staff and watches the boss whip her own body until it’s tattered.

In this scene’s case, all BGM and sound effects disappear, and only the whip’s striking sound and Hanako’s screams can be heard.

Apparently this is consideration to let players enjoy Hanako’s severed head’s screams with each whipping.

Truly an insane scene, but surprisingly, compared to other death scenes, this is still relatively better.

“Really…?”

Mel looked up at me with a face like she was dying.

Her frightened face sends shivers through me.

However, I’m definitely not providing her with exaggerated information to enjoy that.

This scene’s cruelty really is the lowest.

After pressing the second switch, from that point the boss’s whipping frequency increases and a pattern where chains entangle from the iron maiden is added.

Since chains target the feet, you can’t avoid them by crouching or crawling.

When the iron maiden glows, you must immediately run outside the attack range.

If you touch the chains, Hanako is bound by chains all over her body and becomes unable to act for a while, continuously receiving damage.

In this case, you can escape by rapidly pressing directional keys, but whipping and chains work on completely separate processes.

In other words, getting continuously whipped while bound by chains unable to do anything, or getting bound by chains after getting whipped while running away, happens quite often.

And if HP reaches zero while bound by chains, Hanako is placed inside the iron maiden.

The iron maiden’s interior has countless needles, but there are no needles from the neck to the top of the head.

After being placed inside the iron maiden, Hanako is subjected to the iron maiden hundreds of times and her entire body becomes tattered.

What’s vicious here is that the iron maiden’s needle positions change with each torture of Hanako.

When everything finishes, an uninjured head severed from the body and a body turned into a blood clot emerge.

From only the head being uninjured, the boss’s obsession with living heads can be glimpsed.

On the other hand, if you’re whipped to zero HP at this point, instead of the guillotine you’re placed on a sharp-angled wooden horse and whipped while something like candle wax is poured on your nipples, back, thighs, and lightly-haired private parts—a somewhat SM-like death scene occurs.

But even a normal wooden horse should be incredibly painful, yet on top of this wooden horse a thick needle is stabbed.

Since that needle is heavily rusted, tetanus is concerning.

Furthermore, the true identity of the candle-like something is apparently an iron rod, but iron’s melting point is about 1535°C.

Definitely not something that should be poured on humans.

Thus Hanako’s body becomes in a terrible state, and the head is guillotined and hung from the staff.

However, this is still relatively good.

The moment you press the fourth switch, all the boss’s patterns change to instant death patterns.

From this point, whether it’s the iron maiden or whip, once caught you’re placed in the electric chair.

On the seating part of this chair are two rod-shaped objects thicker than mine and one slightly thinner rod-shaped object, and Hanako is made to sit on top of them.

At this time, the thick objects enter the anus and vaginal opening respectively, while the thin object enters the urethral opening.

They don’t look like they could possibly fit, but they forcibly make them fit by tearing the openings.

That alone is cruel, but the subsequent development is even more serious.

I can’t explain it to Mel. She was already crying just from the explanation up to here.

“I-I can’t believe it… The creator who made this world, is he really sane? Can he function in daily life? How are we supposed to clear this… If we get caught even once…”

Ah, Mel said the same thing as Eri.

From faint memories, my cute kouhai’s face and voice resurface.

While feeling nostalgia and immersing myself in memories with Eri, I suddenly felt a gaze.

Bringing my consciousness back to reality and looking in that direction, there was Mel with teary eyes and sharp eyes staring at my face.

“What’s wrong?”

“…What are you thinking about?”

“Ah, long ago my cute kouhai said the same thing as Mel.”

“C-Cute kouhai?”

“Yeah.”

How is Eri doing?

Was the club president safely rescued?

While thinking about Eri and the club president, I felt Mel’s gaze again.

Coming to my senses and looking at Mel, she fidgeted while asking with an anxious expression.

“Um… did Sugar like that person?”

“? Yeah, but why suddenly?”

“N-No, it’s nothing, nothing at all.”

Mel’s face, which had been looking up at me anxiously, darkened a bit.

Looking down, she murmured “…But still, I knew it. So you did have someone.”

Though her voice was small, I heard it clearly.

Does “had someone” refer to “someone you liked”?

And is this reaction jealousy and disappointment?

If so, I feel bad for her, but I’m very happy.

Of course I like Eri, but that’s “like” for a cute kouhai.

It’s completely different from “like” for Mel—that is, “love.”

However, Mel seems to have misunderstood somehow.

“Is that kouhai the same one Sugar mentioned at the lake before? The one who caused you to be transferred here…”

“Well, yeah.”

When I answered, she looked like she’d burst into tears any moment.

This is bad.

Her jealousy is cute and makes me happy, but I don’t want to be misunderstood.

Furthermore, being mean and making her cry is inexcusable.

I want her tears to be only on the bed.

To clear up the misunderstanding, I whispered sweetly into Mel’s ear, “I like you too, Mel, you know?”

Then, “Fweh!?” she screamed and her face turned bright red. Cute.

I wanted to tease her more, so I whispered, “I really like you, Mel.”

“H-Hauuu…”

Ah, steam started coming out of Mel’s head.

It’s common in manga and anime, but to think it happens in reality too.

Is this also the labyrinth’s effect? Or is it because she’s from another world?

Wait. Come to think of it, Mel was from another world. And she was a mage.

Is romance with her, an otherworlder and mage, ordinary?

…Isn’t it not ordinary?

This is bad. Is my love ending here?

What brought my consciousness back to reality while thinking such things was Mel’s scolding voice.

“Y-You’re unfaithful! Having someone you like but saying li-li-like to another woman…! I might misunderstand! N-Not that I would though!”

“Ah, you seem to be misunderstanding something, but to me she’s just a kouhai, you know? The person I like most right now is you, Mel.”

“A-Awawa”

The amount of steam increased.

Mel looks up at me with an expectant expression.

Yeah, this upward glance is irresistible.

“I-Is that as your lifesaver? Or…”

“Or?”

“N-No, nothing! Forget what I just said!”

Mel tries her best to deflect while burying her face in my chest and hiding her expression.

What is this cute creature? Ah, she was an angel.

I immediately accepted that and asked myself again.

Is my love ending here?

The answer came the moment I asked.

No, that can’t be!

Think about it, me.

International marriage isn’t rare nowadays either.

But that wasn’t ordinary from the start either. It just became ordinary.

Thinking about it that way, interdimensional marriage might also become ordinary like international marriage by the time I marry Mel.

Lately there seem to be tons of Japanese people transferring to other worlds.

And a mage? So what.

Mages exist in my world too. For example, men who remain virgins until age 30.

Right, there’s no problem.

Concluding that, I looked at Mel.

I can’t confirm her expression since her face is buried in my chest, but her ears are bright red.

Seeing that made me want to confess right now.

However, I barely restrained myself since I didn’t know what she blamed herself for.

If she had a lover or someone equivalent who died because of her and she blames herself for it, even if I confess now I won’t get a positive answer.

And more than anything, there’s no mood.

I can’t accept confessing without thinking after such a conversation in such a place.

Confessions should be romantic.

Let’s not rush, and gradually advance my relationship with her.

And I’ll confess after clearing the labyrinth.

…Wait, is this a death flag?

No, it’s fine. Death flags don’t exist in reality.

Death doesn’t come because you raised a flag.

It comes suddenly and unreasonably.

Now then, let’s prepare to tackle the boss stage.

I stroked Mel’s head and asked her a favor.

“Hey, Mel. Sorry but I’m going to push you, so could you lie down for a bit?”

“Suddenly asking me to lie down, what are you planning? D-Don’t tell me…!”

I don’t know what she’s thinking, but Mel’s face looked like it would explode.

This is already in humidifier territory.

I want one supplied just to our place.

Wait. Could this possibly become a proposal?

If I propose so tastelessly in such a place with no mood, a slap won’t be enough.

Speaking of tasteless proposals, a line someone thought of long ago comes to mind.

Let’s see, what was it… I think someone named “Rei” said something like:

“In the programming world, only ‘zero’ and ‘one’ exist. I want you to become my ‘one.'”

At that time, I begged him who asked my opinion, “Please absolutely never use that.”

It had been a while since I got that serious.

While tracing past memories, my consciousness was brought back to reality by Mel’s tense voice.

“H-Here…?”

“Huh? You noticed? Then this is quick. Okay, here I go.”

“W-Wait! Even if the boss is dangerous and there’s a high possibility of dying, to do such a thing for that reason… Of course I also thought maybe before suffering such terrible things, I should with Sugar… but my heart’s not ready yet… Kyah!”

I laid Mel down who was speaking rapidly and started massaging from her calves, gradually moving to her thighs.

She said various things like “W-Wait! This is too sudden no matter what!” and “H-Hauuu… In a place like this…” and “B-Be a little gentler…” and “E-Even there!?” but when I slid my hand inside her thighs and started massaging her inner thighs, she covered her face with both hands and said in a small voice, “I-It’s my first time…”

She seemed to be misunderstanding something, but since it was interesting, I just left it alone.

When I moved my hand that had been massaging her inner thigh away and went back to massaging her calves, she finally noticed something was different.

“U-Um, Sugar…?”

“What’s wrong?”

“What are you doing right now…?”

“What do you mean… I’m massaging your legs.”

“Huh?”

“No, it’d be terrible if your legs froze up from fear when entering the boss room. I thought I’d loosen them up beforehand. Ah, of course there’s also the meaning of remembering this sensation and bringing out your strength.”

In that instant, Mel’s face became redder than a tomato.

I asked with a grin.

“Wait, what did you think it was?”

“N-Nothing in particular…”

“Ah, by the way Mel, you know this?”

“Wh-wh-wh-what!?”

Mel’s voice is becoming cat-like. Cute.

I brought my lips close to her ear and whispered.

“This labyrinth has a penalty where you die if you stay in the same place without moving for a long time.”

“S-So what. You said that before.”

“So, acts that require staying in the same place continuously can’t be done.”

“!!”

She finally seemed to realize what I was saying.

She looked at me with teary eyes from embarrassment.

“P-Pervert…! What are you saying!”

“Huh? Did I say something weird?”

“U-Ugh…”

Ah, she’s about to cry. I need to comfort her.

“Ahaha. Sorry sorry. Mel misunderstanding was so cute I couldn’t help teasing you.”

“Hau!?”

“Cute. You’re cute, Mel.”

“Fwa…”

I wanted to tease Mel a bit more, but she looked like she’d die if I went further, so I reluctantly stopped here.

I had her get up to avoid dying and moved slightly to the side, then had her lie down again and continued massaging her legs.

Even if strength left her legs, since it’s Hanako’s body she won’t sit down I think, but she can get into crouching or crawling positions.

…Like me that day.

If that happens, it won’t match the switch height, so I want to do what I can beforehand just in case.

Well, there’s also the reason that I wanted to touch Mel’s thighs and inner thighs though.

“Are you not nervous anymore?”

“Yeah. I’m not, but… ah, did you do that on purpose to remove my tension?”

“No, that earlier was just because it was fun.”

Ah, she lightly hit me.

But since there was no force at all, my HP didn’t drop.

Come to think of it, can players attack each other?

And if possible, how much does HP decrease?

I was a bit curious, but decided not to verify.

There’s no way I could seriously attack Mel, and I didn’t want to be seriously attacked by Mel either.

In the first place, does a situation where players attack each other even exist in this labyrinth?

Looking back, since she saved me, we obtained potions and keys at maximum speed and came this far.

And the last people other than us that I confirmed entered the second floor boss room was thousands of years ago, though not precisely.

But this labyrinth still hasn’t been cleared.

Thinking about it, probably no players other than us exist beyond this floor.

And there’s no way Mel and I would seriously try to kill each other.

Therefore, verification is unnecessary.

Concluding that, I asked Mel while massaging her legs.

“Hey, Mel. Aren’t you forgetting one thing?”

“What?”

“Sure, it’s super difficult for Hanako to clear the third floor uninjured, but we have an advantage over Hanako, right?”

“Advantage…?”

“There’s two of us, right?”

“Ah…!”

Mel’s eyes widened. She seemed to notice after all.

I looked into her eyes while proposing mischievously.

“So let’s finish in five seconds. The boss’s visual is certainly scary I think, but there’s no need to fear. We can clear in an instant, and I’m with you too. But if your legs feel like they’ll lose strength, remember the sensation of my hands.”

“Yeah… okay.”

I removed my hands from Mel’s legs.

For her honor, I’ll keep silent about her looking at my hands with regret while breathing slightly hot breaths.

◆　◆　◆

We entered the boss room and ran to opposite sides.

Then when we arrived at opposite sides, the boss appeared in the center of the room.

“Hiii”

Mel let out a small scream. Well, understandable.

The machine composed of guillotine, iron maiden, rusty wooden horse, electric chair, and coffin was more intimidating than seeing it in the game, and severed living heads of people I felt I’d seen somewhere before and people I’d never seen dangled in a row from the staff the boss held in one hand.

As per the setting, they didn’t die even when dead, frequently leaking groans of pain.

Yeah, this will become new trauma.

Without prior knowledge, I might have fainted or wet myself.

No, I can’t faint though.

The boss first recognized Mel.

It began approaching Mel while resonating machine-characteristic driving sounds.

Worried, I looked at Mel, and she was on the verge of panic seeing the boss approaching her.

This is bad.

I pressed the switch that appeared on the wall before me with the boss’s movement.

Then the boss’s target changed to me.

Seems like the algorithm targets whoever pressed the switch, not continuing to target one target.

This helps.

It reduces the fear and burden Mel feels.

I glared at the approaching boss while shouting loudly to prevent Mel from panicking.

“Now, Mel! Press the switch!”

The topic changes slightly, but Hanako’s screams and shrieks have different fonts.

Normal dialogue font size is 18 pt, but screams and shrieks’ font size is 28 pt.

In other words, Hanako’s voice when screaming or shrieking is very loud.

Louder than even the currently resonating machine driving sound.

And my physical abilities are the same as Hanako’s.

My voice surpassed the boss’s machine sound and reached Mel.

“Y-Yeah!”

Perhaps because I massaged her legs, Mel is still standing.

As she pressed the switch, a switch appeared before my eyes.

I immediately pressed it.

Thus, when Mel and I pressed switches five times combined, the boss disappeared without doing anything.

◆　◆　◆

After the boss disappeared, strength left Mel’s legs and she fell into a position with both knees and hands on the ground.

I extended my hand to her and asked if she was okay.

Then she grasped my hand, stood up, and hugged me like that.

Then burying her face in my chest, she cried while saying something.

Since pronunciation was broken, I couldn’t hear well what she was saying, but I felt like she was saying she was scared.

Well, that’s natural.

Just having that thing appear is already horror, and if it approached targeting you, it wouldn’t be strange to be traumatized.

Even though I’d played the original and already knew the content, I was still very scared.

I hugged her trembling tightly and gently comforted her.

“You did well, Mel. Thanks to you we survived. Without Mel, I couldn’t have cleared here. Thank you so much, Mel. That thing already disappeared, so calm down, okay?”

I hugged and comforted Mel for a bit, then started walking to avoid the penalty.

Since Mel wouldn’t separate at all, I walked while holding her.

My hole-filled sailor uniform became covered in tears, snot, and drool, but I didn’t feel bad.

Angel saliva has demand, or rather, this is a legendary-class item.

“Mel, the atmosphere here is bad, so let’s go to the next floor? I’ll keep holding you there.”

“Okay…”

Mel obediently follows me without resistance.

Well, there’s no embarrassment about hugging anymore at this point.

At that green lake, she hugged me tightly every time I suffered, so we both got used to it.

Anyway, thus we cleared the third floor and descended to the fourth floor.

And we couldn’t move for a while.