Chapter 49 - Kizuna's Story and Escaping the Labyrinth

Chapter 49 – Kizuna's Story and Escaping the Labyrinth

Author's Note: I have something special planned for chapter 50.

"A game?"

"At first, I thought I was in that game world, but my sisters never showed up. Eventually, I realized this as a different world. The game was called Second Life Project, which was a simulator game where you got to live a second life online. They liked to say that a day on the outside is equivalent to a few years on the inside."

This sounded like Ren's Brave Star Online. A VRMMO, like Sword Art Online.

"Please continue."

"So anyways, Game 1 let anybody who wanted to play in the game, but you needed to win a lottery to play game 2. My sister was admitted, so the three of us were able to join. However, everyone has to start the game together and end it together. The game has a schedule that everybody must commit to."

What was this? Some sort of low-budget sci-fi movie?

"So, I thought I was joining that game. After I was summoned, they started explaining a ton of stuff. I thought I was in a tutorial. They summoned me to defeat the Dragon Emperor, the ruler of the monsters."

"Sounds like a retro RPG to me." Naofumi contributed.

"That's what I thought. It wasn't like the kind of game that was on the website."

"So, what happened?" Naofumi and I asked.

"I went on a few adventures. I took a journey by boat. One day an ominous wind was blowing, and a ghost ship appeared. Glass and her friends helped me solve the mystery of the ship, and it disappeared. We ended up shipwrecking, and I was alone in these foreign lands. I was captured and thrown into this labyrinth. I already knew what kind of place this was, so I was furious that I was stuck in here. To be honest, I thought I'd be here until the day I die."

"Man, that's got to suck."

"I know, right? I used to count the days as they went by, but after I hit a year I gave up."

"How old are you, anyway?" Naofumi inquired.

"Me? I'm eighteen."

"Ha!" Naofumi mocked. "You're kind of an old loli-baba!"

"I know I look young for my age, okay? I'm an otaku, so what?"

"That's fine," I consoled. "I have otaku tendencies as well, and I'm a law student."

"Do you want some equipment? The equipment you all have don't seem to have any effect here, so they'll be mostly useless against any of the stronger monsters."

"Sure. Thanks!"

She handed me a set of wooden armor, some light clothing, and some swords.

"None of us can use swords, since we're the Bow and Shield Heroes. How about you give the stuff to Rishia?"

Rishia took the stuff from Kizuna and equipped them.

"Naofumi. I guess you can't do direct damage, huh."

"Correct. I can only use a shield."

"I have much more versatility. I can literally use anything that shoots a projectile, be it bows, cannons, guns, ballistae, anything that comes to the mind that can be shot I can use."

"That's cool. I'm the hunting hero, which means I can transform my weapons into all sorts of, you guessed it, hunting tools. Tuna knife, bows, slings, spears and stuff."

"No fair!" I jokingly quipped. "I'm the bow hero! Why can you use bows too!"

"Well, I can't attack other people. I can't hurt people at all. I am limited to attacking monsters, as Naofumi is limited to defending himself. However, I'm very effective when it comes to fighting monsters."

We had an awkward pause as we were processing all the information that we had just received from each other. Since we were all trapped on this island, we had no choice but to cooperate.

"Let's go look around. I've been cleaning this place out periodically, so there shouldn't be anything too strong out there. Don't go too deep, or you'll run into something rough."

"I'll head out on my own. Heroes can't level next to each other, so I'll be better off elsewhere."

"What a shame. Well, I get you. Meet back at the fort in a bit."

"Rishia. You should go with Naofumi and Kizuna."

"Fueee! I want to stay with you, Satoshi!"

I patted the girl on her head.

"You'll be fine, Rishia. You need to learn the essentials with Kizuna."

"Okay." Rishia slumped her head, and then headed off to join Kizuna and Naofumi in the distance.

Doing a lap around the island, I killed a few more monsters with my bow, including large green rats called kappas. There were hordes of them, so it was practically free XP. I didn't use the Melromarc musket for the sole reason that it had a lethargically slow reload time, which is useless in grinding sessions. After a few hours, I had reached the higher level 20s. Most of those levels came from sniping creatures that were swimming around in the ocean, since those generally provided more XP back in Cal Mira. The same proved true here.

Cutting down a tree, I used my craftsmanship skills to quickly carve a canoe. Apparently, according to the master craftsmen back in the Arcian Confederation, my craftsmanship skills were second to none. They were so fast, accurate and high quality that it shocked all of the engineers and blacksmiths that had seen me perform my craft. That certainly made drawing blueprints easier.

I sailed into the ocean, sniping even more creatures until I had reached the low 30s.

Crap. I had been out far too late. I should've been back hours ago.

I paddled the canoe along the coastline until I had returned to the fort. I briskly tied the canoe to a wooden post and started looking for the three. I didn't find them at first, but upon further searching I found them examining a barrier near the labyrinth.

"Satoshi! You're finally here! We were so worried about you!"

"Satoshi!" Rishia jumped and nearly tackled me to the ground. "You're safe!"

"Satoshi." Naofumi orated. "We might know a way out."

"Tell me more about it. Let's head back to the fort and get some sleep. We'll discuss this on the way there."

I plopped myself down inside one of the shacks. The tent could barely fit Kizuna and Rishia, but since the former was so small, she could just barely squeeze herself in.

Kizuna, Naofumi and Rishia's conjectures were that since monsters could exit the labyrinth, but the heroes couldn't enter, there must be a way to escape. There were a few more key details, but that was the gist of it. I tried to get as much sleep as possible that night in order to be fully prepared for our upcoming daring escape.

Kizuna led us to a small room in the labyrinthine structure.

We ran into a few monsters along the way, who I wasn't sure I was able to defeat, but Kizuna took care of the majority of them. The room was small, with a few seats and a small altar, similar to a small, rustic church.

A large suit of armor walked back and forth on patrol, creating large clanking sounds.

"As far as I know, this is the smallest room in the labyrinth."

Naofumi pointed to some broken stained-glass panels.

"Can you see outside through that?"

"I think I saw some dark clouds and a forested area. The spaces aren't connected naturally, so you can't actually reach that place. I think we are underground judging from the look of the walls and the floor."

Naofumi handed Kizuna a BioPlant seed, different from the variety used in the Confederation as far as I could tell. She added it to her weapon, unlocking a skill. The BioPlant seed I originally gave to the Confederation had been modified for better stability and more yields by some Montereiran scientists.

"It's really interesting. Does it work like a shikigami?"

"I don't know if it'll work, but there's no harm in trying."

"Hey, let me throw the BioPlant seed. I was a quarterback in high school, so my aim is impeccable."

"Alright. Here you go."

I aimed for the back of the room, throwing the BioPlant seed with a beautiful spiral. It landed on the ground near the altar and began to take root.

The suit of armor noticed us and started clattering in our direction, but we slid out of the archway before it caught us. According to Kizuna, the monsters couldn't follow us through the archways.

"Did you do it, Satoshi?"

"Yeah. It took root and began growing really fast. Wait, what's happening?"

A BioPlant shot right through the suit of armor and began sprouting inside it. It seemed like it was controlling the suit of armor.

"Naofumi. What are those seeds doing?"

"They're making monsters."

The suit was struggling to retain its control over itself, but the plant was causing it to make strange movements.

"Enough with that. We have to go now!" I commanded.

"You're right. Let's go!"

We ran through the archway and found the church nearly exploding due to the BioPlant. The BioPlant was swirling like a tornado, and the whole place was shaking like a volcanic explosion.

"Don't look back! Keep charging ahead!"

Strange black clouds began to suck in the walls of the room, and everything except for the BioPlant started to disappear. Kizuna was slicing the vines of the BioPlant while we all frantically followed her.

"There's a hole! Let's go through it!"

"Okay, Kizuna! Rishia, be ready to jump!"

As we all dove through the rapidly shrinking hole, the scenery around us changed in an instant, similar to my bow's teleportation skill.

"Oh crap this is high. Naofumi, use Air Strike Shield!"

"I'm already ahead of you. Air Strike Shield!"

The shield wasn't very big, but it was barely enough to fit the four of us. Rishia barely clung on to the edge of the shield.

"Hate to break it to you guys, but the shield won't last very long."

"I guess there's no choice but to try. Rishia, cling on to the front of my body."

Saying that, I skydived off of the shield. I tugged on the string of my backpack, revealing a decent sized parachute. We slowly descended but we didn't have that soft of a landing.

Ouch!

"Rishia, you're so heavy!"

When we landed, I didn't orient us correctly, so Rishia had lost her grasp at the last second and fell on top of me as soon as I touched the ground. Naofumi and Kizuna were already on the ground.

"Naofumi, how did you two manage to land?" I asked as I stuffed the parachute back into my very handy backpack.

"We almost hit the ground, but Kizuna used her fishing rod and hooked us onto the roof of that shrine over there."

"Wow, that's lucky. Looks like we all made it safely, though. About that BioPlant over there, we should probably destroy it as soon as possible. Let's use my Arcian weed killer, which is the best in the world."

"I also have some," Naofumi said. "Since yours won't be enough."

After we ran in circles around the BioPlant, splashing it with controlled amounts of weed killer, the BioPlant shriveled up and died.

"This is totally a different world!" Kizuna hopped in joy. "We were successful!"

"So where are we?"

We were next to a shrine enclosed with a low wall. The entrance of the shrine itself seemed to be locked, and we weren't able to see inside. The walls seemed to be made of wood, and the gate was closed tightly.

"How are we going to get over that wall?"

"No problem. I have a solution."

I took a compressed rope out of my bag and swung it over the wall.

"Despite appearances, this thin rope has the strength of multiple thick ropes. It has been used by Arcians for generations to scale mountains."

We all climbed over the wall and tossed our heavy equipment over the ledge. After hopping down from the wall, we cautiously left the labyrinth behind.

Chapter 50 out soon! Be prepared for some changes!