# Chapter 106
Rite’s right arm twitched, then black scales emerged through the thick cloth. He easily broke the spear he had grabbed and thrust it into the gap in the armor of the nearest soldier.
Screech. The metal scraped, creating an unpleasant noise. He pulled out the spear that had barely penetrated and raised his arm high. With another forceful thrust, he pierced the gap below the neck. With a dull thud, the mace-wielding knight’s head rolled on the floor. The exposed surface was filled not with blood and bone, but with gears and wires.
After pushing away the headless body with his foot, the soldiers standing behind fell like dominoes. He snatched a sword from the hand of a fallen knight and looked at the remaining knights.
“The Emperor’s knights aren’t much after all.”
The teeth revealed between his sneering lips had already grown sharp. A soldier with a broken spear swung it again. Rite deflected it with a swing of his sword, tearing off both hands of the knight along with the spear. Having never held a sword before—only kitchen knives—his grip and stance were completely wrong. Brute strength was all Rite had.
Why isn’t magic working?
It was useless even when he recited the binding spell. Rite’s round eyes scanned the remaining soldiers. Before he could catch a brief moment of respite, a greatsword came flying at him. Rite used the greatsword as a stepping stone to leap up. Raising both hands above his head and putting his weight into it, he plunged the sword down, completely crushing the soldier’s head.
Abandoning the sword stuck in the armor, he seized the greatsword and threw it at an approaching soldier. With a loud crash, both sword and soldier hit the wall and collapsed. Rite’s right hand grabbed a soldier who hadn’t been hit by the sword.
Still gripping the large helmet, he smashed it against the floor. Once, twice, three times. Without time to check if the soldier had lost its fighting ability, he grabbed a sword scattered on the floor and stood up.
In that moment, he felt a sudden chill and quickly pulled his body back while raising his sword to block. With the sound of blades clashing, his wrist throbbed. The mechanical soldier who had approached silently pressed his blade against Rite’s, applying pressure. Though Rite thought he’d dodged, his skin stung. The sensation of blood flowing down his neck was vivid.
“Arden would freak out if he saw this.”
He kicked the soldier in the abdomen who had been holding his sword against Rite’s. With a heavy sound, the soldier flew back. Rite wiped the wound on his neck with the back of his left hand while readjusting his grip on the sword. There were still many soldiers left. This was just the entrance to the castle.
Rite’s eyes frantically scanned his surroundings. Facing them one by one would take all night. As he continued striking down the gaps in armor with his curved-tipped sword, he kept thinking. He needed a way to finish them all at once.
That’s when Rite noticed a flickering light. Looking up, he saw a large chandelier still swinging. That’s it. An unmistakable smile spread across his face.
He picked up the greatsword that had been crushing a soldier. Standing in place while fending off the soldiers, Rite suddenly leaped into the midst of them. When he was close enough, he threw the sword toward the ceiling with all his might.
The sword spun like a boomerang as it flew, but due to its heavy weight, it didn’t go as far as desired. It failed to cut the largest central cord, but severed two supporting cords. The chandelier swayed much more unstably than before.
Now it was a matter of timing. Rite crashed into the swordsman at the front with his whole body. He grabbed the fallen soldier’s head and tore it off. Various colored wires snapped. Taking the sword from the now immobile soldier, he looked up at the ceiling again. Unable to maintain balance, two more cords on the opposite side snapped. Three cords remained on the chandelier.
He rolled across the floor, squeezing between the soldiers’ legs. The soldiers formed a circle, surrounding Rite who had lowered his body. Though completely surrounded, Rite smiled confidently.
“It’s over, you piles of scrap metal.”
Rite threw the sword toward the chandelier again. The relatively lighter sword flew exactly where Rite wanted. It struck the thick cord at the center. The tightly wound rope began breaking bit by bit from where the sword had pierced. Rite rolled his body toward the inner corridor.
The crystals decorating the chandelier collided with each other, creating a clear sound. Light exploded as shattered fragments scattered throughout the corridor. Glittering crystals fell like snow. Sharp pieces scratched Rite’s face. Behind Rite, with a tremendous crash, the armored soldiers were crushed.
Rite rose to his feet, gasping for breath. Even in the dark corridor, the blood droplets on his pale cheeks were faintly visible. Looking back, he saw a heap of terribly mangled mechanical remains. From among them, he pulled out the most intact-looking sword. Weapons made for mechanical hands were crude and heavy. Rite was neither intoxicated with the joy of victory nor despairing at the thought of the numerous obstacles ahead. Only his footsteps echoed in the silent corridor. With each step, the sound of crushed crystals followed.
Rite walked through the darkness toward the light.
* * *
Arden was exhausted. This fatigue wasn’t due to the traps. Having two people meant a clear division of labor. Seirios handled the physical attacks from the traps and the occasional knights they encountered, while Arden took care of the traps themselves. The problem was Seirios.
Most of the traps were solved by entering the correct answer to an equation. Being designed by an engineer, it was predictable, and for Arden, who was also an engineer, the problems were welcomingly easy. However, Arden had neither paper nor pen and had to solve everything mentally. He didn’t want to ask Seirios for paper or a pen, as the man seemed too busy and might try to destroy the deactivation device if Arden interrupted him.
He struggled through with mental calculations, but Arden was only human. Eventually, he made a calculation error, and when the trap didn’t disarm, Seirios quietly approached. Fearing he might smash the machinery, Arden desperately begged for one more chance.
As a result, Arden ended up writing equations on the floor with a dagger instead of paper and pen, accompanied by an unpleasant sound. Though he eventually got the right answer, Arden was in a foul mood. It felt somewhat humiliating.
“Wow. That wasn’t much of a challenge, right?”
“I’m not sure which part gave you that impression.”
Unlike Arden, Seirios was simply cheerful. Come to think of it, Seirios had never threatened, intimidated, or used physical force against Arden, but Arden was quite tense, facing a type of person he’d never encountered before. He’d never met someone so quick to use his hands and so impossible to reason with.
Is everyone who wields a sword like this? Arden remained wary of Seirios, captured by this new prejudice.
They had already cleared all the instant-death traps on the first floor, and now they were finishing up the second floor. After working on the machines for hours, Arden’s forehead was drenched in sweat. The temperature throughout the castle was high, and Seirios had long since thrown off his jacket. The continuous operation of the machines generated considerable heat.
“How many are left?”
“Three. Not much more.”
“If I’d known it would take this long, I would’ve at least gotten a kiss from Eden before coming.”
Arden didn’t respond and looked around the room. He had no energy to reply to such meaningless remarks. The traps in this labyrinth were eerily obsessive.
Labyrinths were typically designed so that once entered, one could never leave. This was natural given that the purpose of a labyrinth was to confuse and trap intruders. But this castle was different from ordinary labyrinths. It wasn’t a device to keep Rite captive. The Emperor was at the center of the labyrinth.
No one could leave without confronting the traps. There was no clever solution to escape the labyrinth, and someone had to wield a sword to turn off the traps. This place was the Emperor’s prison, created to protect himself. To protect himself, the Emperor had created bars and imprisoned himself.
Arden frowned as he recalled the traps they had passed. Whatever it took, they had to do it. Arden stopped thinking and examined the map. According to the map, it seemed to be in one of the two rooms ahead. He scrutinized the ambiguous red X and the doors, unsure which room it indicated.
“What are you doing? Is it here? Should I break it?”
“No, no.”
The impatient Seirios approached with his sword drawn. Arden hastily opened the nearest door. It was a familiar place to him—the Engineering Commander’s room. He’d often been called there and scolded during his active service.
Opening the door revealed a messy interior. Has someone new taken over? Recalling the meticulously clean interior of the past, Arden looked around. The bookshelf filling an entire wall and the desk remained the same, but books and documents were scattered messily.
“There doesn’t seem to be… any trap here.”
“We don’t know yet. Commander, would you mind checking the next room? I’m not sure if this X refers to this room or the next.”
“Sure.”
Seirios willingly agreed and left the room. With the sound of the door closing, Arden was left alone. Though a bit messy, the basic structure remained the same, naturally making Arden recall the past.
He had struggled diligently among those from powerful backgrounds. The castle was always full of conflict. Sometimes the conflicts were visible, but more often they weren’t. The power struggle between the anti-Emperor faction nobles who opposed the current Emperor and the nobles who still supported the Emperor was unavoidable even for engineers.
If only I’d kept quiet and just done my job. How annoying I must have been.
Arden approached the bookshelf, recalling his past self. He was checking if there was any machinery hidden inside the bookshelf. His hands, which had been carefully removing two or three books at a time and setting them down neatly, gradually became rougher, and eventually, he began tossing books carelessly onto the floor.
After clearing all the books from the first bookshelf, he pushed it to check the wall behind, but found nothing. Looking down at the increasingly cluttered floor, he roughly cleared it with his foot. The second bookshelf contained more document files than books. Arden, who had been pulling them out randomly and throwing them, stopped at one document in the third row.
[Project ─ ─ ─ ─ ─]
