novelraw Chapter 141: Gary
Chapter 141: Gary
The demon guiding me looked like he'd rather be anywhere else. Considering that we were already in the Underworld that he called home, it was honestly impressive that I could make him feel this way.
His eyes kept darting to the side whenever I peeked at him.
He clearly wanted to run away but knew that it would be futile. After catching him for the fourth time, I began considering whether or not I should kill him and find a replacement.
But he was lucky. He was the first demon I found that could speak in the human tongue. According to him, he had learned it during demon school, even though the course was deemed a disgraceful thing to attend, because why would a demon ever need to be able to communicate with a human unless they were planning to betray their kind?
"Look," I said, tapping the page with the tip of Gon, "before you exhaust yourself to death with these useless dramatic sighs, just hurry up and get me to this squiggly line."
The demon squinted at the map that I had acquired inside the cave where I had to fight that large furnace.
"That," he said flatly with a heavy accent, "is not a squiggly line. That is the River of Boiling Regret."
Staring at the scroll, aka the map, once again, I shrugged.
"Yeah well, whoever drew this map has the artistic skill of someone smearing shit on a piece of paper and calling it art."
And yes, I'm being hypocritical. Even though I had screamed, "I'm busy! I don't want a goddamn quest! I want a treasure, plain and simple! Fawkkkkkkk!", I was currently on the quest.
The demon muttered something under his breath about typical human idiocy in his demonic tongue. Unlucky for him, I had someone with me who was able to translate what he said.
Naturally, I rewarded him with a "friendly" pat on the head and a promise to mail his horns back to his family if he kept complaining.
For the record, his name was something that sounded like Glor'vathrakh which was too long and too complex for me to repeat, so I shortened it to Gary.
Gary hated the fact that I did that
Whenever I called him Gary, he looked like he wanted to kill himself, which only motivated me to continue calling him "Gary".
The map itself had a short paragraph at the top written in an ancient language that even modern-day demons didn't use.
If it wasn't for the fact that Gary seemed to be a linguistic specialist, I probably would've been clueless about what it said for quite some time.
According to Gary, the paragraph stated that the map is a guide to an ancient labyrinth buried beneath the region of the Underworld, which was detailed on the map. The labyrinth was a prison built ages ago to contain a creature that demons apparently didn't feel like dealing with anymore.
What kind of creature would be awaiting me that even the evil and vile demons were tired of dealing with?
Of course after learning this, not only did I volunteer to continue on the quest, but I was more intrigued than ever.
Worst comes to worst, I use Gary as fodder to help me run away.
The trip to the destination felt like one of the worst road trips in history. The landscape was just jagged black stone that stretched endlessly in every direction, distant screams echoing through the air like background music, and the occasional puddle that hissed at you if you got too close.
"Human, you realize that whatever is inside this labyrinth, they were sealed there for a reason?" he asked.
Grinning, I replied, "Gary, if I told you about the kind of dangers that await me in the future, you would think that I was crazy. If I can't handle something like this, I might as well not leave my house and rot like a useless side villain."
Gary stared at me the way a man would stare at a girl who believed in Zodiac signs to the extent that the readings dictate their everyday life.
It took a few days but eventually, we reached the entrance.
Calling it a cave would be generous.
The walls looked like they had been carved out of something darker than stone. The black surface warped in a way that gave faint impressions resembling faces.
"Very charming," I muttered as one of the faces hissed when I poked it with my sword. "What is this?"
Gary sighed, "It's cursed basalt. It usually appears in places where evil lies."
"Evil? Even for demon standards?"
"We aren't evil," Gary frowned. "We just follow our nature, just like you humans do."
"I beg to differ."
Inside, the air was much warmer. I took off my cloak and tossed it over to Gary, having him hold it for me.
The labyrinth inside the cave stretched ahead through these twisting corridors; they were lit by the red crystals embedded in the walls, which faintly emitted light.
The paths branched out and the branches branched out even further.
It was like I was standing in a maze where, if I looked at it from above, it would resemble the structure of a tree.
"Love the aesthetic. Whoever was the architect, they had good taste," I scoffed.
Gary pointed at the ground, and I looked down to see what he was pointing at.
Two thin black lines trailed behind us. I stepped forward and the line followed me. When I stepped back, the line reeled back.
"What's this?" I asked.
Gary shrugged before letting out a hum. "Mmm… I'm not exactly sure, but I think that this might be to help guide us back the way that we came."
"Ahh. Just like the thread that Theseus used in the myth."
"Who's Theseus?"
"Nobody you need to know," I said. "Now it would only be fitting if there's a Minotaur at the end of the labyrinth waiting for me."
If the shitty god wrote this then it would be, but since this was a creation of the universe itself, I wasn't sure if it would be this predictable.
How did Theseus kill the Minotaur again? Wasn't it just brute strength?
It was a small chance that the final boss would be a Minotaur, but there was no harm in preparing for it on the off chance that it was.
The first trap triggered about ten steps further into the labyrinth.
Since I had no thief accompanying me, I was unable to disarm it or even notice it beforehand.
Stone plates shifted beneath my foot and suddenly, spikes shot out from the walls.
As I easily avoided the spikes, I could hear Gary yawning. "Really?" he said. "What kind of security is this? How is it supposed to kill nosy people like that bastard if it's going to be this simple and weak?"
He said all of that in demon tongue.
Thonk!
I gave him another pat on the head.
When would he realize that I could understand what he was saying?
The thud of my sword against his skull made Gary flinch more than the trap had.
"What's that for?" he asked, confused about my actions.
"First rule inside a dungeon or labyrinth," I said casually while stepping over the last spike that slowly retracted back into the ground, "you don't talk about how easy something is. That usually leads to the difficulty level rising to a level that you won't be able to deal with."
"I didn't say anything though!" he lied as he rubbed the spot where I had smacked him.
"...I know. Just warning you, just in case you say something stupid later," I replied, not exposing his lies.
He grumbled something under his breath about how unfair it was.
The corridor ahead forked into three paths immediately after that. Left. Right. Or straight.
All three looked the same and I said, "Well… guess we have no choice but to pick one and hope for the best. What do you think?"
Gary didn't respond.
Are you giving me the silent treatment because I whacked you in the head? Did he forget what our relationship is?
I raised my sword and he flinched.
Clearing his throat, he responded, "I agree. I have nothing to help you here."
I ended up picking the middle path. Why the middle?
Because my intuition says that it is the correct path. How much did I trust my intuition at the moment? About 33 percent.
Half a minute into the path, the floor suddenly disappeared.
"Nice one," I uttered as I dropped straight down. I could've stabbed my sword into the side of the wall to stop my descent, but I was curious where I would end up.
Behind me, Gary was screaming.
Falling through darkness for about eight seconds, we landed inside a pit of what looked suspiciously like bones. Lots of bones.
Gary groaned as he pulled himself up from the pile.
"This," he said bitterly, "is why I said it was a bad idea to explore this labyrinth. I told you we shouldn't have come here."
Why is he talking to me like we are friends and that the labyrinth was brought up during a casual conversation and not me forcing it out of him with a blade to his neck?
Brushing dust off my shirt, I said, "It's too late. We're here, so might as well make the most out of it."
As something shifted in the shadows, Gary moved so fast to position himself behind me that I began to wonder if I had misjudged his speed and strength.
The bones around us began to move.
Gary froze behind me.
"...Human."
"Yes?"
"The bones are moving."
"I see that."
A skeleton hand crawled out of the pile. Then another. And another.
Within seconds, we were surrounded by half-rotted skeleton creatures that dragged themselves to the surface.
Gary let out a sigh of relief. "Just skeletons? Hah! Give us something harder."
Thonk!
"What did I tell you earlier not to say?" I sighed.
"...Oops. Forgot."
The first skeleton lunged and Gon traveled from my side to my front in a flash. The blade separated the skeleton into multiple pieces in the blink of an eye.
Gary stomped on one and crushed its spine. Then he dug his horns into the skull of another and used the backward motion of his head to disconnect the skull from the rest of the body.
A minute later, the pit was quiet as the bones stopped moving and all of the skeletons were dealt with.
Let's just hope that this idiot didn't raise any unnecessary flags.