They walked for quite a while.
“Ugh, it stinks.”
“Well, sorry about that. It’s not like I can change clothes or take a bath.”
The grumbling girl soon buried her head again and drifted off into sleep.
Hans thought that a monster shouldn’t get this exhausted, but maybe he needed to reconsider.
After all, Alje hadn’t just been walking—she had also healed him.
There is no power without a price.
Well, considering that she had brought a half-dead Hans back to his feet, he didn’t really mind playing the role of her legs in return.
Or rather, shouldn’t he be grateful that he could even feel this warmth and softness?
If only the damp, fishy-smelling sensation sinking into his back didn’t keep dragging him back to reality.
This place was an uncharted part of the labyrinth, littered with corpses, and the one he was carrying was a monster.
“Will we be able to get out…?”
Now that the lily-of-the-valley-scented girl had fallen asleep, worry crept in.
They had walked quite a distance, but there were no clues.
Even the witch’s arm Alje had found wasn’t exactly a lead—if anything, it was just a sign of danger.
The only thing they could be sure of was that this place was deeply connected to the Grand Witch.
But then again, even people outside the labyrinth knew that the labyrinth was created by the power of witches, so it wasn’t much of a revelation.
His mind dulled, and soon his body followed suit.
Eventually, Hans stopped walking and plopped down in a suitable spot.
“Hmm…?”
When he laid the girl down on the ground, she stirred slightly, as if waking from sleep.
Hans spoke in a gentle tone.
“There. I’m going to sleep too.”
“Hmm…”
Alje drifted back into sleep, breathing softly.
Hans gazed at her innocent, angelic face, but when a certain thought surfaced inside him, he quickly turned away.
It wasn’t like he had no experience with women.
Acting like a naive kid was ridiculous, yet at the same time, he understood.
Because this girl was truly… as beautiful as an angel descended to earth.
There was no comparing her to the so-called “angels” he had encountered in the labyrinth before.
As he felt his thoughts veering into dangerous territory, Hans slapped himself across the face.
Smack!
“Whew.”
Get a grip.
You’re a bastard, but at least you’re not so pathetic as to wag your tail at just anyone.
A bit of pain was always an effective way to clear the mind.
The problem was that the sharp sound had woken Alje up.
The girl, who had been tucked among the pile of corpses, groggily sat up.
“Hmm… Mister?”
“Did I wake you?”
“I heard a sound… Why is your cheek red?”
Maybe he had hit himself harder than expected.
“I was testing something. Whether this is a dream or not.”
“Heh, and? The result?”
Her half-lidded, drowsy smile was adorable.
But Hans had already built an unshakable fortress of rationality against such charm.
“Since you haven’t disappeared, it looks like this isn’t a dream.”
“Aw. So you wish meeting me was just a dream?”
“I just wish we had met somewhere else.”
Still only half-awake, Alje giggled lazily before lying back down.
“Well, yeah…”
She showed no hesitation, no attempt to hide her true thoughts.
“I wish… I had met you sooner… Yawn.”
With those words, she drifted back into sleep.
Hans stared at her for a moment before looking away.
There wasn’t a single ray of light in this place, yet distinguishing objects wasn’t difficult.
If anything, it would’ve been better if he couldn’t see certain things.
But it wasn’t surprising that nature wouldn’t function properly in a place touched by a witch’s hand.
Putting some distance between them, Hans lay down as well.
They had a long walk ahead once they woke up, so resting now was for the best.
‘…Would’ve been better.’
If they had met somewhere else, no matter how beautiful she was, he wouldn’t have even had to worry about it.
With that thought, he closed his eyes.
And yet, Hans didn’t realize one thing.
Unlike all the other times he had camped in the labyrinth, his hand hadn’t instinctively reached for his sword in his sleep.
For the first time in a long while, he had a peaceful night without dreams.
*
“Morning!”
“…There’s no sun. How do you know it’s morning?”
“Oh, come on, don’t sweat the small stuff!”
After wandering together for several days, they had grown much closer than Hans had initially expected.
Alje had never been particularly wary of people, but casually approaching someone and naturally walking shoulder to shoulder with them were two different things.
“Well, since we just woke up, that means it’s morning now!”
“I woke up a while ago, though.”
Even Hans himself was surprised by how much he had let down his guard.
Despite having seen mimic monsters reveal their mouths and swallow massive creatures like three-armed giants whole…“…It hurts.”
“Mmff grmmph…!”
Hans found himself absentmindedly letting Alje nibble on his finger.
A small protrusion had even emerged from the corner of the girl’s lips.
Still, the sensation of her tiny teeth gently chewing and coating his skin with saliva wasn’t all that unpleasant.
“You really have no sense of romance, old man.
“Hmph, I bet when you were little, you never believed in fairy tales and always questioned everything your mother told you.”
“What are you talking about? That’s not true at all.”
“Oh? What’s this? Were you actually a naive little kid back then?”
Hans shook his head lightly and answered.“
I didn’t have a mother to tell me stories.
“I was a street orphan.”
“It’s fine! I’m the same! Never even seen my mother once!”
“…Wait.“
“Just now, you said…”
Hans was about to call her out on it, but he swallowed his words and changed the subject.
“Anyway, are you hungry?”
“Huh? How’d you know?”
“Your mouth.”
Along with the still-unhealed hole in her chest, the small protrusion on her lips was another clear sign that she was a monster.
It could easily be mistaken for a pimple or some other blemish, but it exuded an unnatural presence.
Of course, since she was a mimic monster, she could perfectly mimic human form.
Maybe because she was still young, her hunger was harder to control.
“Now that you mention it… I guess it’s time to eat?”
“I’m good. I don’t have much of an appetite.”
After days of surviving on monster meat and washing it down with blood, anyone who still had an appetite would be something far worse than a monster.
Of course, that “something far worse” had quite the ravenous appetite, being in her growth phase.
“Cover your ears, old man.”
Rather than suddenly screaming at full volume, she was now considerate enough to give a warning first.
Touched by her growth, Hans stuffed his ears with makeshift earplugs.
They were made from roughly cut monster hide.
Who would’ve thought these would end up being more useful than his dull, worn-out sword?
And then, a near-violent soundwave struck him.
“ …..! ”
It was almost baffling that, despite its sheer volume, there was no echo.
Hans, who had wisely distanced himself, only removed the earplugs once Alje had closed her mouth.
Now, they just had to wait.
Some dumb prey would surely be startled by the noise and wander right into Alje’s mouth.
“…Hmm.”
Normally, whenever she let out a scream like that, a three-armed giant, a square worm, or some other edible monster would crawl in.
But this time, even after a long wait, nothing showed up.
Had the monsters learned to avoid that sound?
Or…”Are we the only living things in this vast space?”
Hans really hoped that wasn’t the case.
The sheer number of corpses piled up around them was far too great for even a witch to have manually gathered them all.
Which meant there had to be some kind of passage constantly bringing in new bodies, just like how Hans and Alje had ended up here.
The first three-armed giant they encountered had been emaciated, likely having wandered for a long time.
But later monsters seemed relatively fresh, as if they had only recently fallen into this place.
Maybe the space was just so ridiculously vast that even Alje’s voice couldn’t reach the other creatures.
“Ahh, I’m so hungry~”
Alje’s voice was still carefree, merely grumbling.
But the tiny protrusion on her lips was growing—so subtly that she hadn’t even noticed it herself.
Hans, on the other hand, was far more sensitive to the changes in others than to his own.
“…Are you really hungry? Do you think you can’t hold out much longer?”
“Hmm? Nah, it’s not that bad. What, do you have some food hidden somewhere?”
Her playful smile was lighthearted.
But Hans… couldn’t bring himself to smile.
Because he did have food.
Something he couldn’t eat himself.
But something Alje could.