Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest Vol. 2 Read online

  Hajime reminisced about an anime from his homeland as he headed down the long hallway. Clunk. One of the tiles on the floor sunk a little as Hajime stepped on it. That was the first time the floor had done that. He looked down at his foot in confusion.

  Then, suddenly— Fssssssh! The sound of something slicing through the air suddenly filled the hallway as two circular saws appeared from either side of the wall. The one on the right was about neck height, while the one on the left was waist height. The two blades sped toward the party.

  “Everyone, dodge!” Hajime instantly matrix dove backward, narrowly dodging both blades. With how short Yue was, all she had to do was crouch to avoid both of them. Shea managed to weasel out of danger as well. They could hear Shea crying out in surprise as the blades sped past her. Since her cries didn’t sound pained, Hajime assumed she was safe.

  Shea had actually only just barely managed to dodge, and some of the fur on her rabbit ears had been shaved off... but it was no big deal.

  After the blades had passed Hajime and the others, they vanished into the walls as if they’d never existed. For a while, Hajime just stood there, warily waiting for a second wave. But none came. He let out a relieved sigh, then turned back to the others. As he did so, chills ran down his spine.

  Following his instincts, he grabbed Yue and Shea, then threw himself forward. Not even a second later, guillotine blades slammed into the floor where they’d been standing. They vibrated as they came down, slicing through the floor like it was butter.

  Sweating profusely, he stared at the blade that had fallen inches from his feet. Yue and Shea stiffened in fear as well.

  “They’re all physical traps. That’s why my Demon Eye can’t sense them.” He’d been so focused on magical traps that he’d failed to take into account the possibility of physical ones. Because the traps he’d encountered in his labyrinth excursions so far had all been magical, his eye could easily spot those. But relying too much on his eye was what had led him to lowering his guard. He’d put too much faith in his abilities.

  “Haah. I-I thought we were done for there. Wait, Hajime-san! Why didn’t you just stop them? You’ve got a metal arm!”

  “Those things are pretty sharp, you know? Even if it wouldn’t cut right through, I’m pretty sure they’d have damaged it pretty bad. I can’t use Diamond Skin here, remember?”

  “D-Damaged...? What’s more important to you, your equipment or my life?”

  “I mean, you got out alright, didn’t you? What’s the problem?”

  “Hey, don’t avoid the question! You wouldn’t really leave me to die, right? I’m more important, right? Right?” Shea clung to Hajime as she stubbornly pressed him for an answer. But Yue was the one who answered.

  “...Runny Rabbit. The only reason you almost died is because you lack training.”

  “R-Runny— You take that back, Yue-san! That’s too much, even for me!” And thus, another moniker was added to the “something something rabbit” series. Despite nearly dying twice in the few hours they’d been exploring, Shea was still quite lively. Her true strength was how sturdy she was. Though she’d probably complain if anyone told her that.

  Still, what Shea had said was true. Though he had chosen to dodge, Hajime could just as easily have blocked with his arm and gun. His coat was made of monster leather, so it would have served well in defending him. And if the blades pierced through all of that, he had metal plates protecting his vitals. Traps like this wouldn’t kill him easily.

  Even so, those blades had clearly been overkill for regular humans. Normal armor would have been cut clean in two with how fast they’d been vibrating. Unless it was something on the level of the armor Hajime had made with the ore he’d found in the abyss, any would-be explorer would have had to dodge.

  “Well, if this is as bad as it gets, then I should be alright.” Hajime ignored Shea and Yue’s usual arguing and muttered that to himself. No matter how strong the traps were, he was fine as long as they weren’t augmented by magic. And Yue had her automatic regeneration. So even if she got caught in one, she’d survive. Which meant... Shea was the only one whose life was in any serious danger. Whether she realized that or not, it was clear she was the most stressed out of everyone present.

  “Huh? Hajime-san, why are you giving me that pitying look?”

  “Hang in there, Shea...”

  “U-Uh, what? Where’d that come from? And why do I have such a bad feeling about this...” Shea rubbed her arms gingerly, clearly put off by Hajime’s uncharacteristic display of kindness. She kept a constant lookout for any more unpleasant surprises as they headed further down the passage.

  So far, they hadn’t encountered any monsters. It was possible there weren’t any in this labyrinth, but unfounded optimism usually led to an early grave. Chances were they’d jump out of nowhere, just like the traps.

  After a few more minutes, the path opened up into another room. This one had three different corridors leading out of it. After marking their location, Hajime picked the leftmost path, a staircase leading down.

  “Uuuu, I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Something bad always happens when my ears get all twitchy.” They were halfway down the staircase when Shea said that. Just as she’d said, her ears were standing on end and twitching slightly.

  “Hey, don’t jinx it. Someone always ends up stepping on a trap right after someone says that... See, look.”

  “I-It’s not my fault!”

  “Jinxer rabbit.”

  While they were talking, there was an ominous rumbling noise, and the staircase flattened out into a slide. It had been quite a steep staircase, so they wouldn’t easily be able to keep their footing. To make matters worse, slippery black liquid starting pouring out from tiny holes in the staircase.

  “Kuh, damn!” Hajime quickly transmuted the metal plates in his boots into spikes, along with the fingers on his artificial arm. Thanks to that, he was just barely able to keep his balance. Yue had leaped toward Hajime in the split second before she fell, so she was safely supported by him. She had correctly predicted that he would brace himself. The two had spent enough time together to be able to read each other’s moves.

  Unfortunately, the latest addition to their party wasn’t in such perfect sync. Shea had failed to predict Hajime would anchor himself.

  “Ugyaaaaah!?” Without anything to support her, she tumbled down the slide, hitting the back of her head on the ground. She let out a grunt of pain, and within seconds she was covered in whatever lubricant had sprung up. Gravity did its job, and she slid, crotch first, right into Hajime’s face.

  “Buh!?” The force of the impact dislodged his left arm from the wall he’d thrust it into, and he fell backward, his right hand still holding onto Yue. His foot spikes came out too, so he slid headfirst down the slide. Shea rode on top of him as they slid down.

  “You stupid, clumsy rabbit! Get off already!”

  “I’m shorry, but I can’t mobe.”

  They started sliding even faster. Hajime struggled to stop their movement with his spikes, but they were already too fast for them to do any good. Changing tracks, he then tried to transmute the staircase directly, but the mana dissipation was too strong and he couldn’t do it.

  Shea finally struggled to a sitting position. She was now riding Hajime like a horse.

  “Use Drucken’s stake to hold us in place somewhere!” Hajime yelled out. One of the tricks he’d added to Shea’s Drucken was a stake that could extend out from the hammer. He had wanted to give her a piercing weapon too, in case she needed it. A stake that large could still potentially stop their fall.

  “O-Okay, leave it to— Wait, Hajime-san! Look, the path!” Shea moved to grab Drucken, but then suddenly stopped.

  That was all she needed to say for Hajime to understand. This slide was trying to spit them out somewhere.

  “Yue!”

  “Okay!”

  Hajime called out to Yue. He didn’t need to say anything more, as she’d guesse
d his intentions.

  “Hang on tight, Shea!”

  “O-Okay!” Shea clung to Hajime.

  The slide came to an abrupt end, and for a moment they were all suspended in midair, weightless. Yue took advantage of that split second.

  “Updraft!” This was one of the most basic wind spells. It was normally used to increase one’s jumping power. Skilled practitioners could use it to emulate flight for a short period of time. But in this dungeon, magic was crippled. Even Yue could only keep them afloat for a scant few seconds.

  “More than good enough.” Hajime said triumphantly. Those few seconds were all he needed to examine his surroundings. Yue had done more than enough.

  With both girls still clinging to him, Hajime pointed his artificial arm at the ceiling. He poured a little mana into it, and with a pneumatic hiss, a wire with an anchor attached shot out of his wrist. It embedded itself in the ceiling, and held fast.

  Hajime let out a sigh of relief when he saw the anchor wasn’t coming loose. All three of them dangled there, held by a single thin wire. They risked a glance at what lay below them, and instantly regretted it.

  Slither... Hiss... Clack... Fwoosh... Slither... There was a pit of scorpions directly underneath them. They were only around ten centimeters long. The scorpion Hajime had faced in Orcus’ labyrinth was probably more dangerous, but seeing so many of them crawling around was more mentally damaging. Goosebumps rose on his arms as he realized a single wire was all that separated him from scorpion hell.

  “......” Everyone fell silent. No one wanted to think about what awaited below, so they all pointedly looked at the ceiling. As they did so, they realized letters were forming on it. They already knew what to expect, but they read the message anyway.

  —Those scorpion’s stings aren’t poisonous, but they will paralyze you. I hope you enjoy sleeping with my cute little babies for a while, Buhaha—

  She must have made the linrock that held the message especially dense, as it glowed brighter than its surroundings. Anyone who fell in would be doomed to lie there, paralyzed, as scorpions scuttled across their prone bodies. They’d desperately try to stretch their hand out to the ceiling only to find those words.

  “......” The silence continued, but for a different reason this time. Everyone was desperately trying not to snap at Miledi’s taunting.

  “Hajime, over there.”

  “Hm?”

  Noticing something, Yue pointed to a spot below her. There was a little tunnel there.

  “A tunnel... What do you think we should do? We can climb back up, or we can see what’s down there.”

  “I-I’m fine with whatever you decide, Hajime-san. All I ever do is make things worse for us, so...”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll punish you properly for that when we get out of here.”

  “Now I am worried! Couldn’t you have just left it at ‘don’t worry’!?”

  “How impudent. Your punishment’s been doubled.”

  “You too, Yue-san!? Man, I won’t be able to catch a break even after we finish with this place.”

  Hajime and Yue were as merciless as always.

  “Haah, if only you could use your future sight to show us where to go.”

  “Umm, I’m still not that good with it yet. I have been practicing, but...”

  Future sight was the only special magic Shea could use. It allowed her to see one of the potential futures that might unfold. But because of how much mana it took, she could only use it once a day. And because her strength was dependent on her body strengthening, without any mana she was just a worthless rabbit. She had been practicing when they had time, lowering the amount of mana it took little by little, but... she still had a long way to go before she mastered the technique.

  “Well, no point in complaining about what we don’t have. I’d rather keep pressing forward, so let’s check the tunnel.”

  “Okay.”

  “Works for me.”

  Hajime fired another anchor from his arm, and tarzaned his way over to the tunnel.

  The tunnel, like the rest of the labyrinth, was illuminated by linrock. It didn’t seem to branch off as far as they could tell and continued straight forward. The fact that there wasn’t even a single turn was suspicious. Or perhaps Miledi’s constant harassment had just made them all paranoid.

  Warily, the group made their way down the passage. They went on for a few hundred meters without incident. The utter uniformity of the tunnel made it hard to gauge distance accurately. Everything was so eerily unchanging that they started to wonder if they were just walking in place.

  Just as they were starting to grow suspicious, there was a change in the monotony, as if the cavern had anticipated their worries. There was a spacious room up ahead. The group relaxed a little, hurriedly rushing into the room... only to hear the familiar sound of another trap activating.

  “What is it this time... Oh, the ceiling.”

  “Shea.”

  “Y-You got it!”

  Everyone looked up at the ceiling and saw that it was slowly coming down on them. It was cliche, as far as traps went, but as their magic was practically sealed, it was quite an effective one.

  From the hallway, it would have looked like the room had suddenly vanished and been replaced with a wall. That was how fast the ceiling had fallen. The hallway they had come from was now a dead end.

  Silence filled the room.

  It seemed impossible that Hajime and the others had managed to avoid being crushed to death. The silence made it seem even more likely they were gone.

  However, something happened a few minutes later. Red sparks began flying off the wall opposite the one Hajime and the others had come in from. And after that, a hole large enough for a person to crawl through appeared. From within, Hajime, Yue, and Shea all clambered out.

  “Haah... Haah... Th-That was close.”

  “Yeah. Would’ve been annoying if we got crushed back there.”

  “It would’ve been a lot more than just ‘annoying.’ Normally, you’d die if you got crushed by that, you know?”

  There’d been nowhere to run to, and they wouldn’t have made it to the hallway on the far side in time, so Hajime and Shea had held up the ceiling for just a few seconds while Hajime transmuted a hole directly above them.

  Because of the unique properties of the labyrinth, he’d been forced to work four times slower, with his range reduced to only one meter around him. Worst of all, the whole ordeal had taken far more mana than it should have. They’d all huddled together in the small space he’d crafted for them while he slowly transmuted a path out. To think I’d have to dig through the walls again like this... I haven’t felt such humiliation since I first fell into the abyss. He expressed his displeasure with a string of curses.

  “God fucking dammit. I can’t believe I’ve been reduced to this again. Worse, my high speed mana regeneration isn’t even working. Hell, my mana’s not recovering at all.” Next to him, Yue took out a small vial from her pocket, then offered it to Hajime with a smile.

  “How about a mana potion, then?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  “Does anything ever faze you two?”

  Hajime loosened up a little, then leaned tiredly against the wall. He could replenish some of his mana with the reserves he’d stored in in his magic stones, but he wanted to keep them for when he really needed them. A mana potion was probably the better option.

  Smiling at their little skit, Hajime took the vial and downed it in one gulp. It tasted like an energy drink. While the potion only restored a fraction of the mana one of his stones could, and at a much slower pace, it had the added benefit of curing his fatigue. Revitalized, Hajime stood back up, ready to beat this stupid dungeon.

  However, before they’d taken even a few steps, more vexatious words popped up on the ceiling.

  —Pupupu! You’re starting to panic, how lame—

  Miledi Reisen had spared no effort in making sure she annoyed her visitors at ev
ery turn.

  “W-We are not panicking! Not at all! And we’re not lame!” Shea followed Hajime’s line of sight up to the annoying letters floating on the ceiling and snarled back at them. Her hatred for Miledi had already begun to consume her. She couldn’t help but react to every single sentence they found floating around the labyrinth. Had Miledi still been alive, she would surely be chortling with glee at having found such easy prey.

  “Whatever, let’s just go. Don’t let every little word get you riled up.”

  “That’s just playing into her hands.”

  “Ugh, fine.”

  The passageways and rooms they discovered from that point on were all booby trapped. One room fired poison arrows at them from every direction, another had a pitfall filled with acid, and yet another had turned into a whirlpool of sand with a worm-like monster waiting for them at the center. Without fail, each room would have something snarky written on the walls or ceiling after they cleared it. Everyone was stressed beyond belief.

  Nevertheless, they cleared trap after trap, until they finally found themselves in a passageway larger than any other they’d seen up to that point. It was six to seven meters wide, had quite a steep slant to it, and curved to the right. It was like a spiral slide descending into the depths.

  Everyone tensed up. After all, the passageway just screamed “trap.”

  As they descended, they found their instincts had been right on the mark. The ever familiar clunk that heralded some hidden switch activating echoed between the walls. Due to his experiences, Hajime was convinced that regardless of whether they tripped the switch in any given room, the trap would activate anyway. So what’s the point of having a damn switch in the first place!? But he knew yelling that aloud would only invite more ridicule from Miledi, so with herculean effort, he kept his mouth shut.