The dried leaves crunch as our sole meets it on the ground. The shallow trees brighten the forest west of the Elven Capital. Although it is a forest since it is one of the most regularly traveled routes, the forest is thin and the road is somewhat trailed already.

It was a pleasant walk together with the twins, Topaz, Mimi, and Daisy. I shouldn’t forget about the dumb bird resting on what, my head again.

It was a pleasant walk…if they are not here.

“How cold!~ Won’t you just look at me and say something?”

“Why would I?! Also, why are you walking with us?! No, no, no, you guys are clearly criminals!”

“Criminals? I don’t know what you are talking about. That’s a really heavy accusation.”

I hate how she is playing dumb about it!

Even when I confronted her earlier inside the guild master’s office, they denied everything. They don’t have any solid alibi but we ourselves don’t have any enough evidence to actually press that crime to them.

When I told them about the traps that caught us and many scouts from the elves, they denied it and told us that they are practicing their skills in setting up traps and we are just unfortunate enough to fall on them.

Even when I told them about our battles, they only told us that we are the one who attacked first. True, if you put it on a standpoint from their side, we are the one who fell on the trap and instigated the fight. But that’s with reason but any verbal arguments about our objective would fall on deaf ears.

They will say the same thing about the scouts and will deny any allegations.

I pressed about what I believed and told them that they are doing something that can endanger the elves if they don’t stop. Boss only replied by saying that they are adventurers and they don’t care about a spat between the two kingdoms.

They move independently and they are not affiliating themselves with any of the kingdoms. I can buy such a statement but I still have doubts that they aren’t associated with anyone.

Then I mentioned their moving and remodeling of the landscape of the forest in which they replied that they are practicing a new magic. However, at most, the forest is a property of the Elven Kingdom and what they did is an absolute vandalism.

I was able to corner them at that point but they proved that can pay any remuneration that the kingdom will put on their heads. Even if we accuse them that they are the Mad Maidens, they will just deny it and the whole incident would just drag.

In the first place, they are not the kingdom’s main objective.

Calling the guards and having them arrested on the spot would gain us nothing. The same scenario of denial even with meager eyewitness will happen.

Also, in my heart, I’d like to see Boss’ true objectives myself. It’s a very subjective feeling but I feel like I won’t be satisfied until I wrung every word out from Boss’ lips.

However, even if they are just walking beside us…

“Argh! Get away!!”

“Oh? Scary.”

“What do you want?! All of you!”

As I shouted at Boss, I pointed my finger at her companions while stomping my foot on the ground angrily. The people behind Boss wear a pale countenance as I glare at them. The rabbit girl with brown fluffy hair jerks her body and hid behind Boss.

“Umm…can we just calm down, okay? My name is Tryst. There are various circumstances but…”

“But what?!”

The girl who has a blond hair and scarlet irises named Tryst tried to say something, however, the girl in robe immediately covered her mouth.

“What are you doing?! We’re going to get our hole-in-one retirement plan and our daily drinking escapade for free revoke--! Ah!”

“What was that?! Hey! I just heard something!”

“Nothing! There’s nothing! You heard nothing!~”

She slipped!

She definitely slipped with her words!

Even Boss among them held her face with her hand and shakes her head in utter disappointment.

“Hey, can you girls please shut up for a moment? I had this stupid headache of a hangover because you forced me to drink yesterday in your drunken frenzy!”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“That’s right! Boss is still not allowed to drink yet!”

“It was you who forced me to drink, Eleanora!”

“No, it’s definitely Lu!”

The girl with a broadsword reacted with a panicking countenance.

“No, no, no! It was definitely Derria!”

The woman with a broadsword pointed at the girl with horns. The girl with horns immediately denied it by waving her hands in a flushed manner.

“You guys are the bad influence! I never ever drank a drop of alcohol in my whole life until I met you bastards! Especially you, Neffi! I didn’t know elves partake in such a drink too!”

“I definitely took a liking in drinking alcohol but that’s because I wanted to drown myself because I was rejected again and again because of my flat chest! You got a problem with that, huh?! Even if I am in love with drinking, you just can’t blame me that Boss got drunk!”

“You were so angry at Boss last night because despite being younger, she already has better boobs than you!”

“I-I did not!”

Are they some new type of idiots?

The passing adventurers are quite intrigued with their discussion but none in their group mind at all. Boss only furrows her brows at their verbal spat.

“You see, you girls, it doesn’t matter anymore who, let’s get going now, okay? Look, Aina is getting restless.”

“Boss, do we have some plan?”

“Hmm, come here you lot.”

Boss gathers everyone around and formed a circle. They started whispering among themselves and of course, they are keeping us out of it.

As their little conversation ended, Boss looks at me with firm eyes.

“What do you want?”

“…Look! It’s the Elven Queen!”

“Eh?!”

Boss shouted that the Elven Queen is just in our tail and in response we directed our sight towards the place where we came from.

I move my eyes from left to right and tried to squints my eyes for Lady Hinoki but she is nowhere to be. All I can see are adventurers walking in the same path as us. There are even adventurers who looked back because they heard Boss shouting but really, she is not there.

“Hey, what kind of game are you play--? Ah!”

Boss and her companions are already gone as we returned our sight to where they are supposed to be. As the confusion immediately settled in a split second, we look at the path towards the Labyrinth of Avalon and we saw Boss and her companions running at full speed.

They are quite far away now…

“We got tricked by the oldest trick in the history.”

“Isn’t this your fault though?”

“Why blame me?! I don’t know why but they are definitely racing to get to the Labyrinth! We should also run!”

“I see! If they manage to defeat any magical beast that we may fight and disarm traps that we may practice with, this exploration would be a waste!”

“Y-Yeah! That’s what I was about to say too!”

Daisy’s idea might be a much better reason why those girls immediately dashed off to leave us in the dust!

Well, I can’t have that!

In my mark, everyone also rushes.

Casablanca brings out her crescent blade and uses her gravity to float so she can avoid running and colliding with the walking adventurers. Hibiscus also brought out her soul weapon which is a weird cube and fed it to a big wolf and runs.

Mimi manifested her bony wings and carries Topaz by the waist with her and they flew while Daisy started running through the crowd of people guided by her senses and…

Fast…

Daisy’s feet are so light and her reaction was like instantaneous. Unlike before, she has now a more refined movement.

Is it because she trained Ki under Tzari?

As for me, I created several plated barriers in midair and started stepping on them and jump around like a rabbit. Since this is the most efficient way for me to bypass the crowd but of course, I have to expend some magical energy.

We easily attracted attention but I don’t mind that.

From afar, I can already see Boss’ group and they’ve just entered the zone where the gate of the labyrinth is. Near the gate are several kiosk and other shops were erected and the gates of the labyrinth itself have a post.

It must be where you show your identification and possibly your permit.

It is not an exaggeration to say that we’ve arrived shortly after Boss’ party entered the gate. Also, we should have noticed earlier but the labyrinth is a standing tower up to the seventh floor.

Its exterior is obsidian in color and seems made out of the hardest stone. It stands straight from the edge of the ground up to the sky. I can roughly tell that it’s three to four kilometers in radius so it’ll be quite hard to explore it.

Everyone arrived at the front of the labyrinth and the first thing to come to us is…

“Hey, lil miss, want to buy a set of camping tools?! We also got a map and dried food in reserved!”

“I…uhh…”

“Come on, young’uns! This is all for sale! Potions? Drinkables?! Buy it here!”

“We already have camping tools stashed in my dimensional storage, thank you. Also, our map is issued by the royalties of the capital and as for dried foods…that’s unhealthy so no thanks.”

“Yikes, so you are special adventurers, ei?”

“Ah, whatever! We’re in a rush!”

“But our maps are updated and have a lot of marks to point at treasures!”

“Stop pushing me that kind of scam! If it has a pinpointed treasure, wouldn’t it be better to get the treasure yourself?!”

“H-Hey, l-lower your voice.”

We left the man in tatters as adventurers started throwing glances of pity to him. He must have thought that we are an easy catch since we are just children. Even if it is me months ago, that kind of simple and shit trick won’t work.

Then again, I got tricked by Boss. That rascal is a sly fox…

We went for the entrance of the Labyrinth and showed our permit issued by the Adventurer’s Guild and the man in the post let us entered without much distraction, although the person himself was kind of staring in wonder on our group.

As we entered, it was not directly the labyrinth itself but a large hall that looks like the real meeting area of the adventurers. There’s a flock of them inside that talks with each other, some argue with each other, and some are resting.

The difficulty of the labyrinth is around E-rank and so, that’s what we assumed that all of the people here are E-ranks. It was noticeable because of their gears. However, Boss’ party is composed of A-ranks and I can’t think of any reason why would they go in this labyrinth.

Unless what Daisy speculated earlier might be the real reason, I’m going to flip a table.

We proceeded towards the staircase that depicts the entrance towards the labyrinth itself. There wasn’t anyone who tried to stop us. In fact, I don’t think someone like that will be here in a low-level labyrinth.

As soon as we got to the starting floor of the labyrinth, I can feel the blood draining from my face at the spectacle.

I look behind me and the others have the same complex countenance.

“Umm…do you guys think we’ll be fine like this?”

I asked and they replied by shaking their heads sideways. Even Topaz was a little reluctant to answer but she also shook her head along with the others.

The first thing we saw is a new stair going half a meter below and on the place where we are standing, the sight of the complex grid of structure-like maze with a lot of doors and entryway laid down. I do have an estimation of how large this place is but it will be too hard to explore it like this.

“Can’t we just fly over this maze?!”

Mimi asked as she sprouted an annoyed countenance while puffing her cheeks.

“Don’t be ridiculous. There are a lot of stalagmites on the ceiling, magical beasts abound, and according to my source, the way out of this labyrinth is hidden in one of the closed rooms.”

“Why do people like this kind of complicated maze anyway?!”

“It’s for the thrill. What else can you think of a reason?!”

I bluntly answered her question.

Also, a map is actually useless in this labyrinth as the place itself modifies into another interior periodically. It was something that Lady Hinoki told me and the map that I was talking about earlier is just a fluke.

The Labyrinth itself seems to be alive or someone is doing a duty of altering the place with magic.

Since we are going to be a hindrance to other adventurers who are coming today, we decided to move on and stick together.

All we have to do is do a little mapping so we won’t get lost. After that…fight off some monster and speaking of monster, we immediately encountered one.

A slime…

“Careful! That slime isn’t that deadly but its acidic body can still melt your clothes!”

It is an ero-slime indeed.

And it stands up to two meters so that’s a little troublesome.