Free Web NovelChapter 13: Labyrinth of Zelda
As the brilliant green light dimmed, Rian opened his eyes to find himself standing in an entirely new world.
When most people imagined Holy power, they pictured golden radiance, a blessing raining down from the heavens above.
And honestly, it wasn’t their fault for thinking so.
If anything, it was Holy Magic’s own doing, it simply looked that majestic.
「Holy Magic」 carried an ethereal grace, which was nothing like the dark and gloomy, oppressive weight of 「Dark Magic」.
But even so, the sight before him was something else entirely.
It was a creeping, eerie scene and admittedly the very thing Rian liked most.
Scattered across the ground lay dark and yellowish bones, countless of them, bleached and dried over time.
At the far end was an entrance itself, which was a colossal skull.
It was a real one as large as a house.
Rian recognized the shape of it at one glance.
’...Valgaroth?’
The Demon Lord of Wrath, the King of all Demons, that damned overgrown lizard he and Jeanne had struck down together in their previous life.
It looked exactly like him, the very same gigantic dragon skull.
But no.... It wasn’t Valgaroth.
"...Heh."
Rian couldn’t help the light chuckle that escaped him at the sight.
No one would have ever guessed that a holy sword like the 「Archon Blade of Zelda」 lay hidden in a place such as this, alongside such a marvelous view.
Crack... Crack... Crack...
With every step he took toward the skull-shaped entrance, the bones beneath his feet crunched like eggshells underfoot.
Various insects came crawling out from within them.
His feet came to a stop right before the dragon skull’s open jaw.
"Let’s see..."
There were a few things he needed to confirm before leaving.
"...This really does look like Valgaroth from afar."
The skull’s structure was identical to that damned lizard, which meant the two had to have belonged to the same bloodline.
And that made Rian wonder, just who could have possibly killed a thing like this?
Clearly, Zelda had wielded immense power. So it’s possible that this is what she is doing.
In the previous timeline, Rian remembered how hard it was to deal with a dragon for him and even for Jeanne.
They had to work days to just bring down one.
Not many dragons still drew breath these days, but those that did had long since been dealt with, either by the Seven Demon Lords, or by the Two Empires.
Which made this skull right here...
Rian’s eyes traced the massive ridges of bone, the sharp curve of the jaw and those hollow sockets, each large enough to crawl through.
’...An intact dragon skull, having the ancient bloodline of a demon king, preserved for centuries here.’
His fingers twitched at his side.
’...This would make a magnificent specimen.’
The bone structure alone would take him months to properly study.
And not to forget the mana channels of a Dragon running through it, whether the soul-residue of a dragon still lingered inside it, and if it did, whether one could theoretically reanimate it into an undead—
Rian caught himself.
"No, no."
He exhaled slowly, and turned his face away from the skull.
He hadn’t come here for a skull, he had come for the Blade.
Peeking one last time at the skull, Rian wondered.
’...Though, I think it would fit in the eastern wing.’
He’d just have to widen the doorway to fit it in, obviously.
"Oh, and the floor would need reinforcing."
Surely his Mother and especially father would ask questions, and Lilly would scream just at the sight of it, and then half the servants would resign on the spot.
Rian considered this decision.
’...Completely manageable.’
He was, unfortunately already calculating how much mana a 「Shadow Blink」 would cost to move something the size of a house.
’Alright, I need to focus.’
He tore his gaze away and stepped through the open jaw.
Rian looked around, hands inside his coat, acting like a random passerby.
Almost a thousand years ago.
Zelda’s Labyrinth had already stood here, it was an ancient thing that existed long before the Dark Empire ever came into being.
The records of what came before of how the world had looked prior to the founding of the two Empires had all but vanished.
What that lost Era had been like remained a mystery to all scholars across the globe.
And just like them, Rian held a keen interest in it as well.
He’d always believed that the relics of that lost Era and anything belonging to it, were far, far more advanced than what the world knew today.
Zelda was the only name he had ever heard from his previous timeline, and even that had come to him from the mouths of three separate Demon Lords.
So there had to be something more to it.
Because of that, Rian had begun to investigate her, digging into who Zelda had been to begin with.
So every single time, before he struck down a Demon Lord, he would ask them about Zelda. Of who she was and what relation she bore to the demons.
And each and every time, the very instant her name left his lips, even the Demon Lords themselves fell utterly silent.
Jeanne, even though she was a regressor, had never really discussed who Zelda was.
Drip... drip... drip...
As Rian walked down the darkened path with careful, measured steps, he noticed something.
The skulls and bones had thinned out.
’...I’ll need to check how old these bones are.’
That way, he could determine which era these dead had belonged to. Because judging by the sheer heap of skulls and bones behind him, it was clear that a great many had tried to enter this place before him.
Rian ran the deduction through his head.
It was the Holy Magic emitting from the Sacred Mark that had activated the gateway and brought him here.
If that was the case... then wouldn’t it be possible that every last one of these dead men had once been bearers of the Sacred Holy Mark themselves, or men who came here along sode the Holy Mark bearer and got killed?
Then again, it sounded ridiculous the moment he thought it.
Why hadn’t only Jeanne got her hands on the Blade?
There were far too many bodies here. And judging by the state of the bones, some of them looked to be several centuries old.
’...Is it possible that a Holy Mark bearer is meant to come to this place?’
"...Shit. What is going on here?"
He couldn’t think straight.
Something was missing here, some major piece of the puzzle had slipped right through his deduction, and he couldn’t yet see the shape of the hole it left behind.
’This place needs to be studied.’
Rian had made up his mind.
He would uncover the full truth of this Labyrinth.
Because he could feel it deep in his gut, that this place had something to do with the Holy Mark and with the Demon Lords.
