[102]
A sharp sarcasm could be felt in the exaggeratedly giggling voice.
The man who failed in his hurried attempt to stand on two legs retreated on his buttocks until he was leaning against the wall. Red stains formed along his path.
Blood.
His chest heaved roughly, and only sounds like “heek, hik” escaped from his mouth.
It seemed he wanted to scream something, but he had lost his ability to speak from the shock.
“How annoying. Stop blocking the way.”
The two people in the hallway grumbled as they lifted the bloodied man and moved him.
All that remained was the blood on the floor.
“I’m going to hear about this again,” the woman irritably scratched the back of her head.
“It’s such a pain to clean blood when it seeps between the tiles.”
The eyes of the grumbling person turned toward Yuri and Chris.
“And what’s that? It’s not time to receive new beasts.”
“He’s a competitor,” Yuri answered flatly.
Judging by what the woman was saying, she seemed to be in charge of this practice arena.
“A competitor?”
“Believe it or not, he’s an Esper.”
Her mouth fell open.
“Wait, you put a leash on a person?”
It was a rather absurd comment to make in this situation.
“You just tossed aside a beaten human. I think this is plenty humane by comparison.”
“Compare what’s comparable. That was a dropout.”
She snorted.
“Fine. And this is my collateral.”
“Ah. So that’s your relationship. Well, I suppose I can understand.”
The woman, examining Chris who had become a wolf with an intrigued gaze, muttered, “This is going to be interesting… You’ve managed to catch quite a specimen.”
“The Guide is bound to me, so what could an Esper possibly do?”
When Yuri sneered, the practice match supervisor nodded.
“True. They say Espers from the ‘outside’ are helplessly dependent on their Guides.”
The outside.
Yuri mulled over that word.
Quite a meaningful statement, wasn’t it? The very act of drawing a line, as if here and the outside world were different.
‘It was good to come in.’
This illegal fighting arena was where he had arrived after piecing together various clues.
And judging by the suspicious smell already in the air, he’d been lucky.
“Come in. Do you have the agreement?”
The woman pulled out glasses from inside her clothes.
She cursed when she saw that one lens was broken.
Yuri pretended not to hear and handed over the agreement that Chris had stamped with his foot earlier.
“Here it is.”
“Wolf? How lame. I didn’t expect such a lack of effort. And what’s our debtor’s name?”
“John Doe.”
Yuri answered in a flat, monotone voice with hardly any inflection.
“Hmm?”
“John Doe.”
The woman sighed.
“With the owner’s naming skills like that, no wonder this handsome wolf is called Wolf. A cool name is one of the elements that draws crowds.”
“It’s interesting that you casually threw away that guy earlier, but think we’ll pass right through.”
The woman answered Yuri’s question without hesitation.
“Every competitor in this business has passed through my eyes. I know how to tell what’s real and what’s fake.”
The gaze that looked at them through the broken lens was quite serious.
“Well, I’m about eighty percent right.”
The woman shrugged, instantly dissolving her serious demeanor.
“What’s the content of the practice match?”
“You just need to pass through a short maze. Now, come inside.”
The interior was more spacious than it appeared from the outside.
The entire floor below had been transformed into a maze. Crude wooden boxes or metal cages were placed in various corners of the intricately winding paths.
And at the finish point, there was a crudely made gold crown. The paint was peeling, revealing the metal underneath in places.
The reason for setting up the maze below was obvious.
It was designed so that the process of navigating through the maze could be observed from the upper floor via a metal walkway.
In essence, this floor was for the examiners.
“The descent is over there.”
The supervisor gestured toward the elevator with her chin.
The elevator, which was open on all four sides with just a floor connected to pulleys, didn’t look very safe.
But what caught their attention even more was the metal structure hanging right beside it.
Something like a giant pair of tongs was dangling from the ceiling. Its tip slightly glistened with a red color.
‘Flesh and… blood?’
Chris was already staring in that direction with his fur standing on end.
The smell of death emanated from it.
“What is that?”
When Yuri posed the question, the supervisor answered.
“Oh. It’s used to pull up failed participants.”
“So you at least give them a proper burial?”
“Of course not. If corpses get stuck in the traps, we can’t reuse them.”
It was quite a deranged rationale.
When Yuri finished his cursory inspection, the woman asked with a rather proud tone, “What do you think? Impressive, right?”
“Let’s just say it’s memorable. I am worried my collateral might get damaged before the actual competition.”
It was a pointed response.
Since this wasn’t the first time Yuri had responded this way, the supervisor just shrugged.
“There are no lethal traps.”
“Those look like attack dogs.”
“Beasts hungry for blood.”
The woman spoke with an ecstatic tone.
“If you turn in that direction, the door will open with a bang! And then it’ll be a many-against-one battle.”
“Some paths look clear.”
“In games like this, luck is an important factor, isn’t it?”
The supervisor retorted smoothly. Yuri got the impression that there was more hidden than visible from her tone.
Yuri bent down and detached the chain from the collar.
“Go.”
Making a whining sound, Chris looked at them and headed toward the elevator.
“It’s obedient.”
The woman whistled and approached the elevator to operate it.
A metal gate came down, separating the wolf from the two people.
Yuri, standing on the other side, looked at Chris quietly before speaking.
“If you do well this time, I might let you hear your Guide’s voice.”
Chris unconsciously moved toward the metal gate.
The wolf’s eyes stared intently at Yuri.
And then the descent began.
The metal gate opened, and Chris stood at the starting point of the maze.
He had roughly perceived the structure of the maze from above. It didn’t seem like they had enough budget to change it completely.
‘But I’m surely not the only one who can memorize the path.’
The woman didn’t say anything about easily passing through if you were smart. She said you needed to be lucky.
The real issue would be the traps hidden throughout.
It would be helpful if he could use telekinesis, but if someone was watching from above, using his powers carelessly could make them notice something off.
There were more constraints than expected.
But still.
‘This seems fun.’
Chris was rather excited.
Yuri watched Chris from above with the supervisor. The wolf, extending his legs cautiously, picked up speed from the start.
“He’s fast.”
The woman muttered.
“But can he maintain that speed?”
As if her words were a trigger, a section of the floor exploded. It was as if a bomb had been buried.
Chris, who had smelled the gunpowder even before the floor burst, lightly jumped to avoid the smoke and debris, clearing the wall.
“Impressive jumping ability.”
“He’s an Esper after all.”
“If he’s not careful, he might jump all the way up here to bite our necks.”
“Is that so?”
“Aren’t you afraid?”
“If he did that, he’d never see his Guide again.”
Yuri leaned against the railing with a knowing smile. The supervisor made a queasy face.
“You’re really living on the edge.”
“It’s hard to find other stimulation in life.”
After crossing a wall once, Chris started moving along the top of it.
Yuri slightly furrowed his brow and asked, “It seems easier than I expected. At this rate, the maze will end quickly.”
The supervisor chuckled.
“We’ll see.”
As if her words were prophetic, sharp harpoons shot up from the wall just as Chris was about to step on it.
The menacing rusty blades could have pierced through his belly. If impaled there, one would have to worry about not just the penetration wound but also tetanus.
Chris skillfully deflected the first harpoon and used its rebound to land on the floor.
The problem was that a pack of attack dogs was waiting in that section.
The moment the weight of the challenger was felt in the passage, a cage that had been tightly closed on the opposite side opened, and dogs dripping with saliva rushed out.
It was a situation where one should either stop or flee. But Chris instead leaped toward them.
“Grrrr! Arf!”
Even though they were attack dogs, the difference in size was incomparable. Despite their numbers, some dogs were seen retreating as Chris charged at them.
Chris headed straight for the leader of the pack without hesitation.
The one that looked the most ferocious and largest.
And before the dog could react, he bit its neck and slammed it to the ground.
Only after the fallen dog whimpered, lowering its tail to the ground, did Chris move on.
The dogs, scattered from the collision with the wolf, whined.
“Ah, this won’t do. Maybe we should starve them more.”
Chris’s sensitive hearing picked up the supervisor’s grumbling from the upper floor.
It was an unpleasant space in many ways.
Chris moved to the next passage.
Click.
As he stepped on the floor, an ominous sound was heard.
The previously intact wall opened, and flames spurted out from right behind him. Chris kicked the ground.
The wolf’s silver fur just barely escaped the flames by a hair’s breadth.
But it wasn’t a close call.
‘Rather, it feels like… he’s minimizing his movements.’
The supervisor, leaning against the metal railing on the upper floor while observing below, thought.
Despite his large size, the wolf displayed nimble yet elegant movements.
He advanced without hesitation and avoided all the traps. Even those accidentally triggered were escaped with a good sense. It was quite impressive.
“This one… could sell well.”
The supervisor licked her lips.
Finally, at the end of the maze, Chris was in front of the symbol of clearance.
Chris, who had approached while being wary of traps until the end, took the cheap crown in his mouth, and fireworks erupted from both sides.
Chris, who had been tense, almost reacted instinctively.
But it was a kind of celebratory firework, and it didn’t catch onto his body.
“Bravo!”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
