Labyrinth (9)

Edited by: Kuro and Lille

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It took them two days to get through floor 21. They stayed by the stairway to camp, catch their breaths, and calm their aching muscles.

Once they were ready to go, they made their way through floors 22 to 29. It was quite simple. All they had to do was avoid, then dismantle traps, and battle monsters along the way. The floors weren't too complicated, and they took extra precautions with treasure chests and empty rooms. With Grey guiding them, they never got surrounded or injured by a trap.

When they got to floor 30, it was different from the other floors. It was one large room with stairs to the north and south sides of the room. Along the walls were murals telling a story, but there were no words. In the center, there was a giant monolith reaching the ceiling. There was glowing text on it but it was written in an ancient language.

"Can anyone read this text?" Andrea said as he stared at the giant monolith. His neck was starting to hurt from looking up.

Everyone gathered around the monolith and looked up.

No one knew the language but at least Grey had System 225!

Grey read out System 225's translation: "This is the labyrinth that holds the Holy Relic of the Heroes. There are eight Holy Relics. Each is scattered across the continent. This labyrinth houses the Hero's helmet. To find the helmet, one must reach out their hand and summon the light. If not, you will be trapped here forever."

For Grey, it finally made sense why no one made it out alive if they passed floor 30…

The writing was big so there wasn't a lot written on the monolith.

"The Holy Relics… It is said that the Hero is the only one who has been able to use them. I thought there was only a sword, shield, and breastplate. To think there's more of them…" Andrea mumbled to himself.

When he became a Hero, he was told that the past Heroes found three relics scattered across the continent, but they were extremely hard to find. At a minimum, being able to find one was already a blessing. Being able to find three of the relics made the Hero the strongest in history.

What they didn't tell him was that there were eight Holy Relics of the Heroes. If he found all eight of them, he would be the most powerful Hero in history.

The group decided to use floor 30 as a resting floor. There were no traps or monsters, so it didn't hurt to camp there for the night.

While everyone was resting, Grey decided to take a look at the murals that were painted around the whole room. Luckily, there was nothing along the floor or the ceiling. Grey walked around the room to see where the mural started. Eventually, he saw that it started to the left near the ascending staircase.

On this wall, there was a Hero with a blank face and wearing armor. It was hard to tell the gender of the person as those with a Hero occupation could be male or female. It seemed that the person was at the church, getting a blessing from the Gods.

On the next wall, it showed the Hero leaving on a journey and looking for the Holy Relics. There were no clues as to where the other relics were, but the Hero seemed to age bit by bit as they got a new relic. By the end of this wall, the Hero was decked out in full armor with a sword and shield.

On the two walls that had the descending stairs between them, the Hero found comrades who would help him on his journey. It was strange to see that the Hero got the relics first before getting comrades, but this was just a story. Anyway, the Hero's party consisted of the Hero, a tank, an assassin/thief, a mage, a healer, and another sword user. It was similar to the Hero's party right now.

On the right wall was the battle against the Demon King and his army. There were bodies of demons and humans falling to the ground, while the Hero and his party charged through. In the distance was the Demon King's castle.

Finally, the last part of the mural showed an epic battle where the Demon King got stabbed with the Hero's sword.

The most notable thing about the mural was that it replayed the same scenes over and over.

"I wonder if the other places with Holy Relics have this same mural…" Grey mumbled to himself. It was quite detailed so he wondered who had the time to make this and even paint it! How was it moving like that? He had a lot of questions…

It was unfortunate that they gave no clues for the locations of the other Holy Relics… According to Andrea, the relics moved every time they were found. There were no set patterns for finding them. They had to rely purely on chance, which was quite a nuisance.

Grey said to System 225, 'I wonder, how many relics Andrea will find?'

[*Chirp chirp* That's a good question. Because of his premature death, it is impossible to calculate. I am learning about this world as you go through it.]

That was true. System 255 was only given the world plot that the editor had created, not what the original author had created. This caused discrepancies between the world plot and the world Grey was in. He knew from the moment they escaped the labyrinth, that they were writing on blank pages in a book. Meaning, Grey was changing the fate of the Hero and his party.

Grey thought System 225 would give him a bonus mission of some sort but there wasn't any.

He hadn't been told about the completion of the last side mission, which was finding the secret of the labyrinth. They probably had to find the helmet first before completing the mission. Or was there something more to this labyrinth?

"What are you thinking about?" Reyner asked Grey who was staring at the last part of the mural in a daze.

Grey was brought back to reality. Reyner was looking at him with a smile on his face. Hm, no matter how many times Grey looked, his husband was always handsome. It truly wasn't fair.

"I think that this labyrinth has more to it than we know, but I could be wrong." Though his gut was rarely wrong, there were still times when he was wrong.

After looking at the murals, Grey went back to the group and told them what he saw. This made everyone else want to have a look for themselves. They felt that maybe they would each pick up on something the others hadn't.

Grey especially wanted Andrea to do this because he was the Hero of this generation. Maybe the mural would show something only the Hero would be able to see.

"I understand, I will take a look," Andrea said and walked over to the mural.

Felicia was next to him and she didn't see anything different from what Grey said, but Andrea was a different story.

"The Gods… No, but that doesn't make sense." Andrea closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. His head was aching like something was splitting his brain apart.

Andrea suddenly shouted, "That's not me! That's not… Urgh!"

"Andrea, Andrea?! Are you okay? What happened?" Felicia grabbed onto him to make sure he didn't fall, but Andrea was a bit too heavy for her.

They were looking at the mural but Andrea suddenly started screaming and shouting. It happened very fast and it gave them no time to relax. Reyner and Grey rushed over to help Felicia stabilize Andrea. Grey touched Andrea's head and noticed he had a fever. He tried to use healing magic but it wasn't easing the pain. It didn't do anything for Andrea, but at least it didn't hurt him.

Grey questioned, "Felicia, did he say what he saw?"

Felicia truthfully answered, "Not really. He mentioned the Gods and then began to shout that it wasn't 'him' but that was it."

"We may have to wait for him to wake up…"

According to System 225, it took two days for Andrea's fever to go down and the pain to subside.

*****

When Andrea woke up, his mouth was so dry he couldn't help but cough. His stomach also growled because they couldn't feed him anything but water for two days.

"Here, drink some water." Felicia handed him a cup of water she quickly made.

Grey also handed him a light soup he made. It used dried meat but it still tasted good.

After Andrea finished drinking and eating, he finally got the energy to talk about what happened to him.

The first thing he said was, "Being the Hero is not what I thought it would be like."

"Being the Hero is like a curse. All the past Heroes are the same soul, just in different bodies. It's a 'curse' from the Gods."

"Why have they been cursed?" Grey questioned intrigued. He didn't know that there were other curses, especially ones created by the Gods themselves. It was strange to hear the Gods cursing their favorite "children."

"The Saint that the Gods had chosen fell in love with the Fallen God, Zolous the God of Death, a thousand years ago. Zolous became a Fallen God because he protested against the Chief God who had created him. Since then, the Gods have cursed the soul of the Saint and the Fallen God to continuously reincarnate until their soul wears away and disappears. They do this by making the Saint the Hero who must defeat the Demon King, or the former Fallen God."

The room was very silent. Even Grey was a bit shocked by the depth of this Hero and Demon King scenario. To punish two people who had fallen in love. He understood that they were angry at a Fallen God, but still. Love changes people. He didn't know what happened in that timeline, but he wanted to hope that they were just two people in love and not trying to take over the world.

"The Gods believe that Zolous tricked their Saint into falling in love with him. They did everything to make it so that the Saint would come to hate him, but her love for him was too strong. In the end, they were both cursed to fight and kill each other."

They all knew since the Hero and Demon King were still here, the two were still fighting, hurting each other's souls even if they didn't want to.

"The Holy Relics that the Hero wields are actually made from the bones of the first Demon King and Hero."

"What the fuck…" Genji mumbled to himself as he closed his eyes. He was holding his head because the information was too much for him to process.

The Gods of this world were more morbid than Grey and System 225 could imagine. To take their comrade (Zolous) and their beloved Saint, turn their bones into Holy Relics, and even let the Hero use them to defeat their loved one? What kind of torture was this? It was terrible!

Grey couldn't imagine something like this happening to him and God System. If it did, he would probably turn around and kill the Gods who made this happen.

He wanted to help Andrea and the Demon King, but he didn't get any hidden missions to help them… So was that it? Was this all he could do for them?

Grey and System 225 were foreign entities that could get kicked out if they didn't follow the rules of the world. They could also get targeted by the Gods if they crossed the line. Even if he did help them without the mission, he knew he would risk not only his life but his soul battling against the Gods of this world.

His top priority was saving not only the other Systems and Hosts, but also saving and being with God System.

This was the first time he realized that he was helpless. Maybe one day, another Host and System could save the soul of the Saint and Zolous.