Ambush

After another day of driving Alex and his group finally arrived in Horlad, only to find the atmosphere seeming tense as they walked into the adventurer guild. The only thing out of place though was Alex carrying Myuu as she hummed happily. Though it seemed as if the adventurers wanted to try and show Alex who was boss when they saw him walk in with an entourage of women and even a child, a single look from Grayfia was enough to pour cold water on them, as many of them had already tasted her fury the last time they were in town. Alex ignored this and approached the receptionist before saying,

"We're checking in regarding a request involving this child, and would like a couple rooms for the night." The receptionist started taking Alex's information down, but when he handed her his status plate she freaked out and said,

"Gold rank?! I'm sorry but I need to get the branch head!" And hurried back without saying anything else to Alex and his group.

"What was that about?" Hajime muttered as he tried to imagine what was wrong since so many people seemed stressed. It only took a moment before she returned however and said,

"There is an emergency situation going on and the branch head would like to talk to you about it, please follow me." Alex nodded and handed Myuu off to Grayfia before saying,

"The rest of you take Myuu and get us a room since we're already planning to stay the night, Hajime, Kuroka, and Anne lets go see what they want." Hajime had a hardened expression, as he already imagined that whatever the emergency situation was the fact they were looking for high ranked adventurers meant that his cheat-like classmates were unavailable, or they were the ones who needed help to begin with. The receptionist gave them instructions on which room to go to while she stayed and helped Grayfia make the room arrangements. They went to the designated room, but the moment Hajime opened the door he found himself facing one of his classmates, and muttered,

"Endou?" Which caused the boy in question to look up as he heard what he realized was a familiar voice. Unable to recognize the white haired boy with an eyepatch as his own classmate, Endou asked,

"Have we met? No that can't be because I don't recognize you, which if that's the case there's no way you'd recognize me who not even the automatic doors at the convenience store would see three out of five times." Hajime sighed at Endou's remark and answered while sliding over his own status plate,

"So it did fail to recognize you that much huh?" Once again hearing what seemed like a familiar voice, as well as him knowing what the automatic doors he was referring to were, Endou briefly looked down at the status plate before standing up suddenly and seizing Hajime by the shoulders with an expression of disbelief on his face,

"Hajime! Is that really you?! Yours not a ghost that came back to haunt us are you?" He demanded while Hajime made an annoyed expression. He shrugged off Endou's hands and said,

"Yes it's me, and no I'm not a ghost. I survived falling and after a little help climbed out of the abyss on my own." Though Alex had given him the god water that saved his life and allowed him to start gaining strength, Hajime considered the fact that he made through the labyrinth by himself his own achievement, which Alex never tried to correct since he knew Hajime would have lived even without his help. Endou didn't seem to know what to do with this information, before he suddenly recalled what he had been discussing with the branch head a moment before and pleaded,

"Please help me save everyone, at this rate they're going to die!" At his request Hajime's eyes sharpened and he demanded,

"What do you mean? Start from the beginning." It took a moment, but with the branch heads help they settled Endou down and got him to start explaining what had happened in the labyrinth.

Once they reached the 90th floor they encountered a solitary demon race woman who had amazingly tried to recruit them instead of fighting. Kouki had refused her invitation however and prepared to fight her along with his comrades, with which they vastly outnumbered her, or so they thought. Apparently the demon race woman had several monsters that had borrowed an ability from one and could seemingly turn invisible, meaning they were quickly made aware that they were the ones outnumbered instead.

Though the enemies were strong they had managed to fight back, but then when Kouki tried to attack the woman and end the battle yet more monsters had made themselves known with chimeras, four eyed wolves, cats with tentacles, ogre-like monsters called brutals, and even a large turtle-like monster that was able to 'eat' energy from spells to turn into a laser attack. The worst part was that there was also a two headed white crow that was capable of using healing magic, so unless they killed their opponents immediately the fight would be never ending. Finally Kouki was forced to use his high power light magic attacks coupled with his 'Limit Break' active to create an escape route for them after the demon woman used the high ranking magic 'Final Prison', which would turn those it touched to stone.

With a path for retreat created, Kouki and them swiftly fled the hopeless battle and returned to the 89th floor where they holed up and used earth magic to hide themselves as they rested. Then because of how thin his shadow was Endou alone was selected to return to where the Knights were waiting at a teleportation circle, clear back on the 70th floor. What had been awaiting Endou however was only death, as the demon race woman had gone straight to where the teleportation circle was to head them off and killed the Knights there as they forced him to use the circle to flee to the 30th floor, as yet another monster managed to follow him through the magic circle and slaughtered the knights that were stationed there as well. As of this moment Endou was the only one of nearly thirty people to have returned from the labyrinth exploration. Having been caught up on the situation Hajime demanded,

"And Kaori, what about her?" Endou blanked for a moment before quickly explaining,

"She's safe, in fact if it wasn't for her we wouldn't have lasted long enough to fight back. She should still be down with the rest of them!" With Hajime asking about Kaori, Endou hoped that it meant that he'd join him in returning to the labyrinth to save everyone, even as just his support. Endou then looked at Alex, Anne, and Kuroka as if wondering now who they were and if they'd help as well, which Hajime noticed and said before any of them could introduce themselves,

"That's pretty much my new boss Alex, and a couple members of his harem, Anne and Kuroka." Hajime then also looked at Alex as well since even though he doubted he'd need help to deal with the demon woman or monsters, he knew that chances of succeeding would be higher with Alex's assistance. As if knowing what Hajime was thinking Alex said,

"Of course I'll help, after all I said help you reunite with your little girlfriend before." Hajime sighed in minor relief without refuting Alex's words while Endou looked at them incredulously, as he obviously knew who Alex was referring to as Hajime's 'little girlfriend', since pretty much everyone knew how Kaori felt about Hajime by this point after he fell. Alex stood and said,

"We'll head out immediately after letting the others know what's going on, and I'll take both of you Anne and Kuroka for healing and to counter the demon woman's magic." Though Alex was confident in his ability to resist minor mind control magic and poison, he wasn't sure about petrifaction so he wanted Kuroka to come along just in case. The girls nodded at his words, both eager to go and finally meet a member of the infamous demon race for the first time. Endou however wasn't sure what to think of these three people helping, as he assumed that while Hajime may have gotten stronger he was still below him in strength, and as a 'cheat-like' existence in this world he wasn't sure if they'd actually be of help. He didn't say anything though as if nothing else they'd be useful for support, especially since Alex mentioned Anne was a healer. What Endou didn't know at the time however was that for the next several hours he'd be forced to face the fact that he was the most useless one in their group.

After letting the other girls know what they were doing, Alex and the others teleported straight to the 90th floor with the help of the magic circles they left on their first trip through. The first thing that was apparent as they magically appeared was the massive amount of aura coming from the floor above them, right before it disappeared.