Genius Engineer in the Labyrinth - Chapter 64
Only Noblemtl
Cave ruins (3)
The newly revealed passage led downward. There were uphill and downhill paths on a single floor, but this was the first time there had been such a drastic change.
As Alan was observing the strange phenomenon, Taylor tapped him on the shoulder and took the lead.
“I have to go hiking later, but it’s too early to be surprised.”
“Are you talking about the primeval forest?”
“Yes. It’s nature itself. The continent must have looked like that before human civilization arrived.”
A new darkness greeted Alan as he exited the passage. The atmosphere downstairs was completely different from that of the upstairs library.
First, a straight passageway unfolded before my eyes, and on both sides, rooms were lined up, divided by dark rock walls. The dividing line between the rooms and the passageway was a rusty iron bar.
“Is this a prison? There was a library above, but why is there a place like this below the temple of knowledge?”
“They are both treasure troves of knowledge.”
“yes?”
“In the library, through books, in prison, through torture. There is a saying that if you ask a question, you know the answer.”
“Does this mean that the water spirit hears the words people say without thinking?”
“I don’t know?”
Taylor’s eyes widened, and he pretended to grab something with his right hand and shake it up and down. He put all his effort into his acting.
“Ouch, oh my.”
“···?”
“You don’t know this. You’re surprisingly naive. I feel a strange sense of guilt when I try to explain it.”
Even as he said that, the descriptions that followed were vivid. The prisoner’s desperate attempts to breathe were ruined by the beat as he dipped his face in and out of the water, or he was woken up by being put back in the water when he passed out.
After hearing the explanation, Alan spoke calmly.
“Do you really need to do that? You can just use a Brainer-type summoner or take apart a brain expansion device and read it. If your mind is tortured to death, you won’t be able to answer properly, and you might even give false information out of resentment.”
“You’re trying to go one step further than me. Anyway, don’t try to understand the labyrinth with common sense. It’s a place where if you open the bathroom door, a meadow might spread out.”
The conversation between the two people echoed back into the rooms next to each other, as if a ghost was whispering in my ear.
As I was moving forward, checking each cell, I heard a sound from far away. A high, ripping, bursting sound. It was a scream.
Alan and Taylor looked at each other and raised their weapons. There was no way the Collector would crawl into a place like this and quietly explore.
I kept my mouth shut and slowly walked towards the place where the screams were coming from. The prison was in the shape of the letter ‘ㅡ’, so I only had to pay attention to the front.
Along with the tension, my senses also became more acute. The air felt much colder, my pulse was much louder, and my footsteps were also louder.
Crunch!
It was a small, but unignorable sound.
As Alan lowered his head, the headlamp illuminated the blood-red water. The strange fleshy mass was crushed by the walker, spewing out a foul liquid.
“frontal.”
At Taylor’s words, Alan looked forward. The prison was covered in pulsating flesh. If the roots of the tree were replaced with blood vessels, this would be what it would look like.
Alan, who was moving forward more cautiously than before and looking around, discovered something in the prison for the first time.
“Look to the right.”
The person was covered in flesh.
Taylor opened the broken iron door and went inside. He used the pipe on the cart to remove the flesh covering the man. At the same time, a foul smell spread throughout the room.
The victim was not a human, but an underground man. His skin was thick and pale, a distinct difference from that of the explorer.
Taylor shook his head as he examined the half-melted underground man.
“Wrong. There’s no internal organs. It’s a wonder he’s still alive. Collector, I have no idea what the hell that bastard did.”
“That would be black magic. It’s a game of life, using flesh and soul as materials. The deeper you get into it, the more you’ll see people as pieces of meat, not people.”
It wasn’t just black magicians. Such experiments are probably still being carried out in secret laboratories of some magic tower, some corporation, and some country.
Alan didn’t think it was just the Novak Clinic. The world was big, and there were just as many strange and evil people in it.
Anyway, the important thing now was that this place was made by a collector. And Alan knew from experience.
“Fire knows the answer.”
“Are you just repeating what I said? What the f–k… What’s that smell….”
The flames from Alan’s staff burned the flesh. Taylor, terrified by the foul smell, covered his nose and retreated.
The flamethrower, consisting of [Flame], [High Temperature], and [Spray], had a stronger output than when burning the Warlock’s blood, so the blood vessels occupying the prison quickly shrank.
“Don’t you smell?”
“I’m okay thanks to the mask.”
“I should tell my sister to buy it too.”
“I said it was handmade and not for sale. But you’re my sister? I called you Yohwa the last time we met.”
“He’s older than me, so isn’t that an appropriate title? If you keep calling him ‘nim,’ he’ll feel distant.”
It meant that Taylor was the only one calling him that without mutual consent. It wasn’t a swear word, and the title wasn’t the important issue, so Alan ignored it.
The flamethrower’s powerful firepower made the prison cleaning very fast. The stench also got worse as the air became warmer. Of course, only Taylor was impressed.
As the flames spewed out like the dragon’s breath brightly illuminated the surroundings, the distant parts became covered in darkness. In that darkness, Alan witnessed a faint glimmer.
The flames disappeared in an instant, leaving only the tip of the burning staff glowing red. Alan used it to point to the end of the passage.
“Do you see the iron gate?”
“Yeah. There must be something in there.”
“Could the collector have left something behind?”
“A warlock is a wizard. A strict race would never do that. You probably took all the important items, but you shouldn’t let your guard down. You can tell the difference between us and him without me saying anything, right?”
Alan nodded. The water that people sprinkle on their lawns would be like a flood to small insects.
Taylor, who was in the lead, opened the iron door slightly. When there was no response from inside, he opened it wide this time.
In the corner of the large room, which resembled a sports field, were experimental tools that the collector had probably left behind. In the center of the room, around the stone coffin, there was a bizarre structure made of flesh and bone.
Taylor aimed his shotgun at the figure lying face down next to him.
“who···.”
Pong pong pong!
Before Taylor could finish speaking, the distinctive firing sound of a rocket launcher was heard behind him.
Kwarrung!
The sound was cute, but the power was not so great. The magic bullet created a lightning bolt. Taylor asked Alan, looking at the artificial skin that suddenly turned red and the words ‘Caution against burns’ that appeared in one corner of her vision. She kept her gaze fixed straight ahead.
“I have to check who it is.”
“He had the same mark on his head as the warlock who fought Master François.”
Skin as white as flour, hair shaved close, appearance that is difficult to distinguish between men and women, and a forehead with visible suture marks.
Alan’s eyes remembered that moment, and the prone doll showed a high degree of agreement.
“Oh, you said it was tough like a cockroach?”
The black magician raised his body at the same time. His joints were bent in various directions, as if he had been defeated by the sudden surprise attack.
Alan fired his bullet again, but this time it was blocked by a black shield.
The upper half of the warlock’s body was fully raised, facing Alan, and his face was facing back. He grabbed his head with both hands and turned it 180 degrees with a loud snapping sound.
“Ugh···.”
It looked like a slave left behind by the collector during his withdrawal. It looked unfinished, but it couldn’t be ignored since he instinctively used black magic.
The bastard pointed a pointed finger at Alan. Five black projectiles the size of arrows shot out in an instant.
The vanguard was Taylor’s. He took down two with his shotgun and two with his mana sword. The last remaining one was taken care of by a leopard that had been loitering near Allen, who jumped up and killed it.
Alan’s body had also been thrown back. Previously, his body had been unable to keep up with the reflexes and brain signals, but with the help of the reinforced exoskeleton, his reaction time was reduced considerably.
Meanwhile, Taylor was rushing towards the warlock. Alan watched him and fired a bullet.
Of course, I had no intention of getting swept away, so I replaced the explosive grenade with a nullifying grenade. It was a grenade with [Weakness], [Explosion], and [Concentration] drawn on it, which had previously made holes in the shield.
A hole was also blown through the warlock’s shield. Taylor thrust the shotgun barrel inward.
Bang bang bang bang!
As expected of an automatic shotgun, bullets poured inside as he held down the trigger. The body of the warlock, hit by the magically charged lead bullets, was crushed to a paste.
As I tried to restore the shield, Allen’s magic bullet flew in again. And then Taylor’s shot followed.
The bastard continued to crack his fingers. The knitted magic created a certain structure, sucking in external magic and transforming it into magic.
Crack!
The pillars of flesh and bone near the warlock twisted. The surface rippled and several thick tentacles emerged. Crimson whips swept across Taylor’s body.
However, the experienced warrior was prepared for the attack from the moment the pillars began to tremble. The body that activated the Reflex Accel left an afterimage and dodged the disgusting tentacles. Sometimes, he jumped high and stepped on the ceiling.
“You son of a bitch!”
Taylor, standing upside down on the ceiling, showed his teeth.
The whip passed him and extended behind him. The rear guard, perhaps annoyed, pretended to aim for Taylor and attacked Allen.
Taylor retreated after directly hitting the flesh pillar with the [Air Blast] built into Evie, killing the momentum of the whip.
“Are you okay? We’re all going to die like this. Should we back off for now?”
“It’s still doable.”
Taylor didn’t find it convincing.
The grenade launcher bent violently, the rune pen split in two and rolled across the floor, blood streaming from the fingers that had been holding it.
Exploration was important to Taylor, but Alan’s safety was a priority.
“The bleeding is too severe!”
“Please give me just a moment.”
Taylor pulled out his Mana Sword, startled by the sound of the wind cutting through it. The tentacles, wounded by the materialized magic, bled.
Alan had no intention of stopping the bleeding from his finger. Taylor’s concern was exaggerated, especially when he was injured.
‘It’s hard to fix the Rune Pen now…’
Alan instead stared at his fingers. His own blood, to be precise.
The magic circuit drawn with metal and magic stone powder contained in the cartridge of the Rune Pen had good durability. This was a natural result since it was metal.
If you ask if the magic circuit is drawn only with metal, that is not the case.
Blood contains a lot of magical power, and it is even compatible with the body to produce it. The downside is that the more blood you drain, the worse your body becomes, and the circuit cannot be maintained for long.
‘Then let’s use it for one-time use.’
As it happened, the caterpillar box was right next to me. I rolled the wheels around and tried hard to avoid the magic.
Although he felt like he was more agile than her, Alan reached out without saying a word. The drawers opened one after another and spiders jumped out.
I drew runes with blood on the backs of the spiders that climbed onto my palms one by one. [Fire] and [Explosion]. Due to time constraints, I only combined up to two and lined them up.
“Are we there yet?!”
Taylor’s urgent voice burst out. The exploration suit was torn in places, and oil and liquid magic leaked out from the damaged magicware.
“It’s over.”
Alan lined up the spiders and cast his gaze forward. At first glance, the warlock’s defenses were intact, but Alan felt that the density of magical energy in the air had dropped drastically.
‘I guess that means he was dragged in for restoration and attack.’
It worked. Then I will crush you in one breath with greater firepower. The blood-curdled index finger pointed at the warlock.
At the same time, the spiders were surrounded by flames. The children who had turned into fire spiders crawled across the floor and ceiling without fail and flew towards the warlock.
Boom!
Even before the flames from the first explosion had subsided, they simultaneously leaped toward the warlock as if they had made a promise.
Kwarrung!
Taylor, who had come closer without me noticing, used the boxes and cart as a barrier to avoid the flickering red tongue.
“I’m going to die like this.”
“it’s okay.”
Alan gestured to the leopard, causing it to open its snout. It fired a beam of light at the warlock, who was dimly visible in the undiminished flames.
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