Conquering the Labyrinth with a Trash-Tier Trait - Chapter 23

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 23
Thud-thud-thud-thud.
Whoosh.
“Huff. Huff.”
Ignoring the beasts and sprinting forward recklessly, the distance between me and the Orc Riders didn’t narrow any further.
The fact that I deliberately chose the roughest terrain, leaping over jagged rocks and broken ground, likely played a role.
On a normal mountain path, the wolves should have been faster, but in that moment when the Volante Movement Technique—enhanced even by the aid of a Wind Spirit—reached its absolute limit.
The system’s voice rang out once more.
[Volante Movement Technique has leveled up.]
In just a short span of time, the Volante Movement Technique had already leveled up twice.
After that point, I finally began to pull away from the Orc Riders, little by little.
‘This should do nicely.’
Tap.
The moment I crested the ridge and spotted a tall tree jutting up from a dense thicket, I drove straight for it, unfurled my Concealment Cloak, and channeled my Mana into it.
Whoosh.
As my Mana spread outward and the Concealment Cloak clung to the tree.
Through the semi-transparent fabric, I could make out the world beyond—hazy, but visible.
‘Please. Just pass by.’
The moment that prayer left my mind.
The Orc Riders appeared.
“Kura!”
Grrrowl.
The moment I heard the Orcs’ cries and saw the wolves sniffing.
I realized my mistake.
‘The scent. Damn it.’
I hurriedly moved the Wind Spirit to keep the scent from spreading outward.
But with no way to gauge whether it would work, cold sweat began trickling down my back.
‘Come on!’
Fortunately, the emergency measure seemed to take hold.
Sniff. Sniff?
The wolves that had drawn close tilted their heads in confusion, then padded past without stopping.
‘Phew.’
Terrified my pounding heartbeat might be heard by the enemy, I remained perfectly still—not even a finger twitching.
“Krookcha!”
I watched the Orcs turn around with irritated expressions.
‘Yes. Yes. Just a little more.’
I couldn’t let them return the way they’d come.
Not with Bartus and the others in danger back there.
The instant the Orc Riders began moving to head back down the path they’d ascended.
The back of the head of the rearmost Orc in their single-file line came into view.
‘Now!’
Whoosh.
Click.
I folded the Concealment Cloak in one fluid motion and launched myself upward.
“Kuh?”
The moment the Orc Rider turned to look back at that small sound.
My spear, trembling with tremendous force, drove straight through its throat.
Gushhhhh.
‘Got it!’
In that same instant, I planted my foot on the wolf’s back and launched myself backward.
“Krowcha!!”
Clang!
As the Orcs’ furious roars erupted, my feet—wrapped in the Wind Spirit’s essence—were already on my fifth stride away.
Clang! Clang!
And so the deadly game of tag began anew.
Thud-thud-thud.
Clang!
Though some distance had opened between us, they still seemed to consider themselves in active combat, so no experience notification sounded.
It wasn’t the moment to worry about such trivial matters anyway.
‘Can I pull it off one more time?’
The thought crossed my mind even as I ran, but there was no choice in the matter.
All I could do was find another suitable position and try again.
As I resolved this and sprinted like a madman.
“Shriek!”
I saw the orcs cry out again.
I flinched and turned. My eyes went wide.
‘No. Why!?’
Beyond the orcs, down the ridge, I could see Bartus and his brothers approaching.
Bartus at the front, longsword in hand—when had he drawn that?—with his younger brothers flanking him, each summoning a fire spirit.
They seemed to be advancing under cover of the brush, but there was no way they’d escape notice.
And on the far side, beyond where even the brothers could see, I made out the main force of the Detachment closing in nearby.
“Shriek!”
The orcish riders began charging toward the brothers.
Needless to say, they had no chance against mounted orcs.
But I couldn’t just let them die.
“Damn it!”
I understood.
In that instant, I reversed course and charged toward the orcish riders.
“Over here, you bastards!”
I shouted as I ran and even hurled a stone I’d picked up, but they didn’t react.
‘Louder!’
“Over here, you wretched bastards!!”
With my voice magnified by the wind spirit, finally they responded.
But there was mockery in the glance they threw back.
They understood what I was doing and were taunting me in return.
‘Damn them!’
I gave up the theatrics and poured strength into my legs to catch up.
In the meantime, I saw Bartus register shock as the orcish riders approached.
‘No!’
Desperate, I didn’t think about the consequences—I channeled all my mana into nothing but speed.
Whoosh.
In that moment, I naturally found myself focusing on the flow as the wind spirit aided my movement.
Then it struck me—the mana flow resembled the pattern of the Volante Movement Technique, which pursued extreme lightness.
‘Like this?’
And the instant I adjusted my mana flow to match.
[Volante Movement Technique Level increased.]
[Volante Movement Technique Level…….]
[Volante Movement Technique…….]
‘Gasp!’
As the technique’s level surged, my body accelerated sharply.
From that moment, the distance between me and the orcish riders began to close rapidly.
“Shriek?”
The orcish riders, who had been charging ahead with eyes forward, reversed course once more.
Clang!
I understood.
The riderless wolf that came at me first I simply evaded by dropping my stance to an extreme crouch, and it shot past.
Right behind it appeared an orcish rider and his wolf.
Startled, both rider and beast hesitated simultaneously.
‘Now!’
I drove forward with my spear, and the weapon plunged straight into the mouth of the wolf bearing the orc.
Squelch.
The moment the stricken wolf’s eyes went dark.
“Shriek!”
A massive steel axe came crashing down from above.
At the same time, behind me, the claws of the wolf I’d evaded swept down—clearly visible to my spirits’ senses.
Boom.
I detonated the fire spirit into the eyes of the wolf behind me.
Rumble.
Using the earth spirit to shake the falling wolf, I threw the orc’s balance slightly off.
Crunch.
I summoned a water spirit to blind the orc’s eyes with blood.
Whoosh.
Dodging its wild axe swing, I drew my spear again and thrust forward.
“Shriek!”
The orc shook off the water spirit with a shout and planted its feet firmly on the ground—and at that precise moment.
My spear drove straight for its neck with perfect timing, but.
The orc’s eyes went wide. It lunged forward at an angle and swung its axe again.
Crash.
‘Damn!’
I sidestepped the lethal thrust aimed at my neck, closed the distance, and countered with a killing blow of my own.
It was the Elite Monster’s riposte—and it was devastatingly fast.
‘Cursed thing!’
There was nowhere to retreat, so my only choice was to press forward.
Crack.
I twisted slightly aside, cleared past the orc in front of me, and leaped.
Another Orc Rider charging from behind bore down with a vicious grin, axe raised high.
‘Hell!’
Crash.
With nowhere left to dodge, I met it head-on.
I wrenched my body and drove the spear point forward with all my strength, trying to avoid the worst of the blow.
I succeeded halfway.
Squelch.
Crunch.
“Gah…?”
I hadn’t expected it to charge in for a mutual kill like that.
My spear buried itself in the neck of the rearmost Orc Rider, but.
In that same instant, a terrible sensation shot through my right shoulder.
A cold, biting ache as if the chill were drilling straight through my shoulder toward my heart.
I ignored it and forced my body to turn.
The spirit had alerted me to the axe strike of another orc swinging from behind me.
Crash.
I dodged that attack and tried to swing my spear.
But the spear wouldn’t move as I willed it.
No—more precisely, my arm wouldn’t move. My right arm.
Only then did I feel the blood streaming from my shoulder and see my arm hanging limp.
A half-beat too late, I swung with only my left arm.
Whoosh.
The strike should have missed cleanly.
But a strong wind caught my spear, guiding it straight into the orc’s neck.
Squelch.
Bang! Bang!
In that interval, sparks erupted from the faces of two wolves rushing in from either side.
The earth rose up beneath them, roots and soil entangling their legs.
I hadn’t done either—my mana was nearly depleted.
“Haaah!”
I wrung every last ounce of strength from my body and swung the spear with my left arm.
Attack Power +9. I had never been more grateful for the enhancement on Edeline’s Long Spear.
Thud.
Squelch.
The thrust was imprecise, but thanks to the wind spirit guiding the blade, I managed to finish off the wolves as well.
[Three Orc Warriors and three Giant Wolves defeated.]
[Contribution Rate: 70%]
[Large amount of Experience Points gained.]
[Level increased.]
[Obtained 1 Level-Up Point.]
My Level had jumped twice in a matter of moments—something that hadn’t happened at all on floors three and four—but right now, the pain outweighed any joy.
“Ungh…”
The instant I thought it was over, a horrific wave of agony washed through my shattered, mangled shoulder.
It was a critical wound that would have put an ordinary person into shock, if not killed them outright.
And yet.
“Char! The medicine I gave you!”
At the sound of Bartus’s voice, now close at hand, I realized he’d slipped something into my coat earlier.
The moment I reached into my pocket, I found a vial filled with crimson liquid.
‘A Potion!?’
Without hesitation, I tore at the stopper with my teeth and swallowed the contents whole.
Gulp, gulp.
The cool, refreshing liquid slid down my throat, and the instant it reached my stomach—
Crack-crack-crack.
“Ugh!?”
A sharp, searing pain suddenly erupted from my shattered shoulder.
Crack-crack-crack.
Hiss-hiss-hiss.
I glanced down and watched in disbelief as my shoulder—torn and bloodied, armor caved inward—began to knit itself back together before my eyes.
‘How… incredible.’
Standing before this impossible sight, something beyond words stirred within me—a miracle no modern medicine could ever explain.
“Char!”
“Master Char!”
“Are you all right!?”
Bartus and the children rushed to my side.
My first thought was to demand why they hadn’t fled, but since their presence had saved my life, I could only manage a grateful smile.
“Yes… yes, I’m fine. I’m all right.”
Now my body bore witness to the truth of it.
‘There’s no way I can clear this alone.’
I’d nearly died just taking down three Orc Riders.
‘Even if I somehow lured the others and managed to pick them off one by one, it wouldn’t change anything.’
Grash, the captain of the Detachment, was clearly operating on an entirely different level from the common Orc warriors.
Even at a conservative estimate, he seemed stronger than that Mine Boss from the second floor.
‘Should I just settle for the ordinary Quest?’
That didn’t look promising either.
From what I’d observed earlier, the Detachment would soon overtake this mountain, and the window to escape had long since closed.
‘What do I do…?’
As I racked my brain—
“Char, I saw Goblins earlier. If we just push through the Goblin lines, couldn’t we get out?”
At Bartus’s words, spoken with sudden enthusiasm, inspiration struck like lightning.
Of course, I had no intention of actually adopting his insane tactic of brute-forcing through.
But still.
‘Goblins. Paralysis Poison.’
The moment I thought of the Goblin warriors swarming the Detachment and the special weapon they typically carried, a good idea took shape.
“All right, you lot—move carefully and quietly. Not a sound.”
“Got it!”
“Keep your voices down.”
“…Okay.”
“And extinguish the fire spirit.”
“…Understood.”
Bartus and his brothers were certainly my responsibility, but they were far from helpless children.
In some ways, they wielded spirits far better than I did.
So then.
“We’ll use Guerrilla Warfare. We’ll cut down all the Goblins first.”
“We get to fight too?”
“…Yes. I need your help.”
“Yes!”
“All right! I can do this!”
“Your voice!”
“Oh…”
Watching these thoughtless children, I could only sigh again—
‘But maybe… just maybe it could work.’
At that thought, hope kindled anew within me.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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