5-10. Maze of Trazayuya (1/2)

5-10. Maze of Trazayuya

Satou's here. When I was in grade school, I love the free time to play during the school athletic festival.

When I became an adult, I occasionally went to fitness clubs to move my body, but in this world, I wonder if there are facilities that provide you place to safely forge your body?

◇

Right now I am falling.

I had prepared myself for the enemies when the door beside the throne was opening, but instead, the one who came out was a beautiful woman who looked exactly like the woman who was caring for Mia.

Right when I was distracted with that, they activated the true mechanism to reject me out of the master room.

The entire floor disappeared. To make the entire room into a pitfall, even a death trap has its limit. No, the trap discovery skill didn't activate so it might have been an impromptu trap.

I don't think that I'd die even at the current falling speed but I'd hate it if I'm sunk deeply into the ground without any mean to get out.

Maybe I should stick some things on the wall to decrease this speed, like often seen in manga.

I take out a sledgehammer from the Storage and kick it strongly, the reaction force makes me collide with the wall on the opposite side. The wall is soft and smooth, there is no place for gripping.

I take out a great black iron sword from the storage and stab it into the wall. With a screeching sounds, my falling speed gradually decreases. My wrist hurts a little.

After I reached a certain speed, the great sword, seemingly hit its limit, breaks.

I fell into a water body on the bottom of the hole before I could take out another great sword.

I experienced only little shock since I arranged my feet to make my fall straight

I sunk considerably deep but since the velocity was quite reduced, I didn't hit the bottom.

While swimming up to get to the water surface, I execute [All Map Exploration] magic.

The map displays [Maze of Trazayuya].

The maze consists of 20 levels with each having 500 meters diameter. It's pretty small compared to the labyrinth in the labyrinth city. According to the book that I've read, there are at least 200 floors that has been explored there, with more to come. Furthermore, each floor is several kilometers wide, so this one is quite obviously smaller.

Moreover, most passages are systemically perpendicular. It's exactly a maze. While the demon's labyrinth felt kind of biological, this maze feels systematic or rather, artificially made.

I finally get my face out of the water.

The place that I've fallen into is blocked off by stone walls. I could see a few mosses growing on the stone walls. According to the map, the 20th level is 300 meter above.

Looks like this level is modeled like the outside.

....No, I cannot deceive myself.

I really want to save Mia as soon as possible but I'm curious with that Trazayuya room too. It might be just a simple intuition, but I feel like I must go there.

I apologize to Mia in my heart and begin dashing to the hidden door.

It's hard to swim because of my clothes. Particularly my boots, it's hard to kick the water because of it.

Since no one sees me, I put my clothes inside the storage. I discovered that I could directly put what I wear into the storage.

◇

The hidden door is protected by the same kind of riddle from the labyrinth of demon on Seryuu city but thanks to DeRiddle skill, I easily get through it.

The hidden door is letting out moldy smells. The walls and the floors aren't made of stones but resin-like materials.

This looks like someone's research room. It's fully equipped with dining room, bathroom and bedroom. From the accumulated dust, the magician (Zen) have probably never come to this room.

I'm fascinated with the tub on the bathroom, but this isn't a situation where I could casually take a bath.

There are many books and memo in this research lab. I don't know how many yeas has passed for the books, but most books beside the magic books have deteriorated really badly so I put them inside the menu to read from there.

I already have a guess it from the maze's name, but it's said that the creator of this maze is called Trazayuya. He is an elf. Moreover, it seems that he's from the same hometown as Mia.

All the books are written in elf language. If I didn't get the language from the red helmet, I wouldn't be able to read them at all.

There are some places where the inks are blurred, but I could roughly read it. It seems that this maze was made by Trayazuya-shi and the elves for the sake of ”Safety”, mimicking the labyrinth's function.

The memo tells about the guy's anguish, or rather, his over-protectiveness for his tribe.

'We, the elves, have weak attachment to life. When faced with desperate situation, we don't struggle much compared to other tribes. Because of this, a lot of our younger generations died in the labyrinth. This maze is made as an absolute necessity for when the elves need to flee from dangers to safety.'

Others details are like, how the maze has something called Maze Core not unlike Labyrinth Core, although it cannot grow up like a labyrinth, but it sucks up magic power from its surrounding and refines it into magic cores just like a labyrinth.

And then I found some disturbing words.

'The facilities to make artificial monsters by inserting magic cores into existing creatures on cultivation tanks have been completed.'

Are monsters originally normal creatures?

Certainly the monsters that I've fought up until now are all looking like deformed normal creatures. Since Wagahai-kun was a demon, that particular one is probably entirely different.

After thinking about that, I feel a bit reluctance in drinking potions which are made from magic cores.

Let's get back on track. I'll think about that later.

Trazayuya-shi has made three prototyping facilities. A facility to cultivate monsters. A facility that produce golems. And a facility to create dolls that would serve people.

However, since he earned the cooperation from the rat-men community nearby, he abandoned the last one.

Suddenly, I'm interested with what the monsters who live here are eating. I wonder if they cannibalize each other or if there are feeder monsters being produced?

Even after the maze was completed, the other elves didn't come here.

There is one thing at the end of his note.

'No one would forget my failure in just 100 years. My life will soon end. This maze will be sealed until my countrymen need it in the future. I believe that the day where the elves lead the world once again will come--- Trazayuya Bornean.'