This time, we didn’t speed-walk, but jogged. Our pace now was beyond our earlier speed. I would switch to enemy detection when necessary, then choose the shortest route to avoid encounters.
“Wim! How is it looking?”
Though of course, we couldn’t avoid large enemies completely. Sixty paces ahead, now fifty-nine, fifty-eight…
“We can’t avoid an encounter!”
“What do we do?”
“We’ll pass by. I’ll draw its attention while you head right!”
“Got it!”
I put some distance between Simon and myself and took the lead.
There it was, a frog monster. It was a B-Class Frosch…actually, a new breed. It was three times the size of an adult man, and since both its hind legs were planted on the ground, it must be bracing for something. Its tongue was probably about to fly at me.
I held the hilt of my machete and prepared to unsheathe it. I locked eyes with the slits the frog had for pupils.
Here it comes.
It opened its mouth, which was covered in a black hide. I saw its peach-colored insides, and that’s when its tongue came shooting toward me like a dart.
Frog tongues were pure muscle, and too accurate to dodge. However, that didn’t make what I was about to do meaningless. I feigned sideways to redirect the its trajectory before leaping to my left. Having the tongue change direction forced it to slow down.
I waited until the time was right, then unsheathed my blade. I held it up toward the approaching tongue and supported the flat side with my other hand to prepare for the shock.
“Croaaaak!” The Frosch’s tongue was severed cleanly in half, and it let out a cry of pain shortly after. It seemed like it needed a moment to register the sting.
I was short on time, so I put my legs into motion and ran past its side to meet with Simon and the others. They were still running, so I kept my eyes trained ahead and cautiously called out to them, “I did it!”
“I knew you could, Wim!”
“Fweh heh heh… Thank you!”
My cheap trick had worked, and since it put me in a good mood, I eagerly accepted their praise. Things would have gotten dangerous if I had fought the Frosch for real.
The walls whizzed by us at dizzying speeds. Eventually, I realized our footsteps had started to sound different.
The Frosch had apparently been the final hurdle. The menacing walls beside us slowly began to give way, but more importantly, the “sky” began to spread out even further, making the space feel more open.
We had made it to the big open space. It had just been around the corner!
I felt something akin to how it must feel to stand and prepare to ascend up to the peak of a mountain. I knew that we were about to see something special.
We all ran until we were standing right next to each other. This prevented any fights about who would get to witness the view first.
I lowered my gaze. Should I enjoy the gradual change in surroundings, or wait to see it all at once? The first option seemed underwhelming to me, but I wondered what the others were thinking.
I felt the air around us change and lifted my head.
The view opened up instantly, with the room spreading out farther than I could see. This was no longer just a big, wide space, but a whole new land. At least, that’s what it felt like.
I felt free, and the limitless ceiling was why. It was hard to see here in the labyrinth, so I had been calling what was above us the “sky” for convenience’s sake. But now, it really did seem like a sky. The land before us was expansive, looking like the wastelands you would find back on the surface outside the labyrinth. Like a moonlit plain.
And I could feel water. There was a lake in the middle of this wasteland.
It was a poetic sight. Inside this secluded labyrinth, this area felt like a secret realm. As the first ones here, I was overwhelmed with a sense of accomplishment—or maybe conquest. It was moments like this that made being an abenteurer worth it.
For a while, all words seemed insensitive, so we simply reflected on the flood of emotion that filled our hearts.
“Wim.”
I grabbed Abel’s outstretched hand. “Thank you, Abel!”
“Oh, no. That’s my line. Thank you, and I mean it.”
Sharing this moment only made it feel even more special. I was certain we all thought the same. It even felt like we had forged new bonds.
“Look! There really is a lake. So, it wasn’t a river… Then is it a spring? It’ll be hard to find the source of the water considering how dark it is in here…”
“We need to report back first, Wim. Isn’t the lake smaller than we were expecting? It seems more like a pond.”
“Abel! Wim! We’re resuming the investigation! Let’s get a good look at this place!” Simon announced, kicking us back into gear.
We had assumed there would be an open space, but it was even bigger than we had been expecting. We had an hour, but that wasn’t enough time to explore the whole thing. At the center was a lake, though it seemed a bit too small to be called that. Just as Abel had pointed out, it was a large pond at most. The water was clear, meaning we could probably drink it.
“Simon. Um, what’s inside the lake?”
“Hmm… It’s not very deep, and there’s some small monsters on the bottom, but I doubt they’re hostile. There’s not much water either.”
I observed our surroundings. There were some monsters, but it seemed like they were just here for a drink. They weren’t hostile, and if they approached us, we would be able to run away.
“Don’t you think this makes for a perfect camping spot? There’s great visibility here, too.”
“You’re right. We could put a waypoint here.”
When picking a place to camp, the spot had to be visible and needed to have multiple escape routes. There were plenty of branching paths where we came from, as well as on the opposite side of the pond. If we positioned ourselves well, we wouldn’t be cornered.
There wasn’t enough water here for any traps, so it actually seemed safer for us to have everyone gather here as quickly as possible.
Ultimately, the advance unit concluded that this area was safe, and that the rest of our forces should proceed.
When everyone else had arrived, gasps of wonder echoed throughout the chamber. We immediately carried out a detailed investigation to ensure our immediate safety. We even found a gold vein, cinching that this large-scale survey had profit.
The whole group started to relax. I could even hear laughter around me.