WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Mordor

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◈ Surviving the Frozen Dark Fantasy as a Genius Mage ◈

Chapter 71: The Third Floor's Initiation Is Quite a Spectacle

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The Emerald Forest.

The Pig Den.

The Plaster Banquet Hall.

Those were the regions found on the third floor.

We camped before the portals. Two were open: a blue portal that returned to another region or city on the second floor, and a red portal that led to the next floor.

"We'll rest until six in the morning, then enter after we Memorize our spells."

Unlike the second floor, which we'd traveled back and forth through countless times, this would be our first time on the third floor.

I might be a veteran player, but this was reality. We had to be as careful as possible.

"What spells are you going to Memorize?"

The most troublesome parts of exploring the Labyrinth were the regions with their varied environments, the monsters, and the randomness of the portals.

To reduce the risk, I needed to Memorize versatile spells, or spells useful in all three regions.

'The Emerald Forest puts me at a disadvantage, but Daisy is with us, so that's not a problem.'

'The Pig Den and Plaster Banquet Hall are the issue...'

Lightning worked well against Aberrants but was completely useless in one of the regions.

[Faint Light][4] [Electric Spark][4] [Ice Spike][5]

[Frost Burst][3] [Magic Missile][3] [Arcane Barrier][2]

[Lightning Arrow][2] [Rising Water Jet][3] [Mystic Dimensional Gate][2]

[Ice Spear][3] [Charge][2] [Water Mist][3] [Arcane Firefly][2]

[Chain Lightning][2] [Ice Weapon][2] [Arcane Doppelganger][2]

Since I'd leveled up last time, I could Memorize a total of eight spells.

I considered the spells I had before beginning the process.

'No matter how I look at it, I should focus on Frost.'

I chose Chain Lightning, Ice Spike, Water Mist, Arcane Barrier, Rising Water Jet, Ice Spear, Arcane Doppelganger, and Frost Burst.

I included Chain Lightning and the two Arcane spells just in case.

'It's a shame I have so few memorization slots.'

Eight was already impressive, but it'd be nice if I could fit in a few more.

"Ian, are you done?"

Elena's voice reached me as I closed my eyes and focused.

It wasn't her usual playful tone. Her voice was low.

Sensing something was wrong, I asked, "What's going on?"

"Some bastards are coming this way. Five sets of footsteps."

"They're probably headed for the next floor."

I opened my eyes.

Past the Burning City and my wary companions, a five-person party was approaching.

"Hey, if you're not going in, why don't you get out of the way?"

Portals sometimes disappeared after a while, but anyone could use them before then.

'Judging by their equipment and bearing, they're experienced.'

One mage, one thief, one archer, and two vanguards.

The thief had a protruding tail, so they were a beastman.

"We're going in now."

As I stood, the eyepatched beastman thief snickered.

"Really? Then hurry up and go in, will you? I've been waiting so long I'm starting to yawn."

Something about them rubbed me the wrong way.

...

Keeping our guard up, we held hands and entered the portal to the third floor.

Fortunately, nothing happened.

The problem began after we arrived.

Thud!

Ah, fuck.

* * *

My vision filled with red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet before everything went black.

The next moment, the sensation of floating vanished, and solid ground pressed against my feet.

Rows of imposing plaster statues over two meters tall stood neatly around us.

Horses, queens, and even medieval knights carrying swords and shields.

"Rock-type monsters... It's the Plaster Banquet Hall!"

Hans gripped his crossbow tightly, scanned the surroundings with sharp eyes, and shouted.

We had been transported to the Plaster Banquet Hall, a place where stone monsters and plaster statues appeared.

The problem was that this wasn't an ordinary field.

We stood atop what looked like a massive chessboard of black and white tiles.

Fuck, this place?

"What's this? Golems?"

"Don't move carelessly! It could be a trap!"

"Eh."

Too late.

Elena's foot stepped onto a black tile.

The instant her foot touched it, ominous mana spread through the black-and-white grid beneath us.

Rumble!

At the same time, the motionless plaster pieces, pawns, knights, rooks, bishops, and queens, creaked as they turned toward us. Light flashed in their eyes.

Several Expedition Party members' corpses had been impaled on their weapons like skewers, shriveled dry.

"Aah!"

Elena and Gimlius threw themselves aside in alarm.

Two pawn statues, one from the white side and one from the black, charged at them with their spears thrust forward.

Whoosh!

They were quicker and more destructive than expected.

The air itself screamed from the force of their swings.

[Heads/Tails]

A coin appeared above Gimlius's head.

As I prepared a spell, I tossed the coin.

'Heads!'

[Heads]

"Argh!"

The coin came through.

Gimlius sharply ducked and rolled across the floor, avoiding the pawn's attack.

Elena, an elf, dodged nimbly without the coin's help.

"You bastards!"

The two of them pulled out an axe and hammer, weapons effective against golem-type monsters, and struck the creatures. Only small dents appeared.

"Damn it! They're hard as hell!"

Gimlius's expression darkened as his grip tingled from the impact.

[Frost Burst]

[Ice Spike]

I fired the spells at the pawn near Elena.

Fortunately, it seemed relatively weak against magic. It froze solid under Frost Burst, cracked from Ice Spike, then shattered beneath Elena's hammer.

Crash!

"Nice, Ian!"

That confirmed it.

'Monsters combined with a trap.'

'They're stronger than the ordinary monsters found in this region.'

I couldn't kill all these things with magic alone.

We had to use the rules.

I quickly examined the terrain.

Our party stood in the center of the black and white sides.

Thankfully, perhaps to maintain balance, not every square was packed with pieces.

After the pawns moved, the plaster statues simply stood in place and watched us.

Just as I expected...

"Listen carefully! Every time we move once, they move once too! They can't attack unless they follow their set movement patterns! It's like a game of chess!"

"Chess? What's that?"

Chess was originally entertainment for nobles.

My companions, who came from the lower classes of this primitive medieval world, had no reason to know its rules.

'The king is all the way in the back, so we don't need to worry about it yet.'

In the end, they had no choice but to rely on the advice of a cultured modern man like me.

"Knights jump in an L shape when they attack, and rooks can move in a straight line horizontally or vertically! Bishops move diagonally! Pawns move forward one square and attack diagonally! Queens can move in any direction, so watch out!"

I explained the characteristics of each piece.

"Eek? Wh-what?"

"Why is it so complicated?!"

"I understand!"

"Got it!"

Everyone except Gimlius and Elena understood.

I wanted to explain it in greater detail to those two blockheads, but...

Tick. Tock.

A timer glowed on the king's scepter.

The thirty seconds had already reached zero.

It was a timed challenge.

Neigh-hehehehe!

At the same time, the stone horse's head whinnied as though it were alive.

A white knight in the rear leaped over the other pieces.

A rook slid forward carrying a massive greatsword, taking the place of the destroyed black pawn.

Rumble!

"Hans, two squares to the left! Daisy, one square diagonally to the right!"

Whenever one of us moved onto another tile, the enemy pieces reacted as well.

Each of us had one turn.

The black and white sides each had one turn too.

'When one player moves to another square, an enemy acts once.'

'If we stay in place and only attack or cast spells, the enemy won't move.'

'But they're too tough for normal attacks to work.'

In that case...

Having made my decision, I summoned my newly learned Arcane Doppelganger onto an empty tile.

A white knight and a black pawn immediately charged toward the spot where my double stood, collided, and began fighting each other.

Bang!

The stone greatsword swung viciously, smashing the knight's horse-shaped head to pieces, while the knight's spear pierced the pawn's neck.

The corpses of Expedition Party members hanging from their weapons were crushed as the two chess pieces broke apart and collapsed.

Elena grinned excitedly at the sight.

"Crazy! They're fighting each other?!"

"Black and white are enemies! We can use the rules to make them shield us or destroy each other!"

Without knowing the rules, we'd be forced into an unfair fight or end up like the earlier victims.

But once you knew the rules, a way through appeared.

'Even when the Labyrinth seems impossible, there's always a tiny clue.'

This time, a black rook and a white bishop moved with their eyes flashing.

"Elena, one square right from where you're facing! Daisy, stay where you are! Gimlius, diagonally left!"

"Got it!"

"Okay!"

The party stepped onto their tiles according to my orders.

The black and white chess golems moved along their paths until they faced each other.

Bam!

The black rook's hammer and the white bishop's mace slammed into each other.

Leaving the scattering fragments behind, I carefully assessed the situation again.

This time, the pawns from both sides moved.

Thud! Thump!

Had this cunning Labyrinth trap already learned?

The pieces were now moving one square at a time, pressing in on us.

'Then...'

[Frost Burst]

[Ice Spear]

Creating an opening.

I cast my spells and removed one of the pawns pressuring us.

Crash!

The other pieces in the back began moving again.

Following my orders, the party used their individual strengths to tear through the chessboard.

Sometimes we destroyed them. Other times, we avoided them according to the rules.

"Aaaah!"

Elena threw herself at the opposing queen and clung to it.

Booom!

The queens brought each other down, and the last remaining king collapsed on its own.

"Whew."

The battle was over.

* * *

The shattered plaster statues scattered dust, and the strange light shining from the chessboard vanished.

Covered in dust, we sat on the ground to catch our breath.

"Haaah... That was exhausting..."

Elena gulped from her waterskin, took off her helmet, then poured water over her sweat-soaked blond hair and brushed it back.

"That scared the life out of me. If you hadn't explained it, Ian, I'd have been turned into flattened dwarf jerky!"

Gimlius stared fearfully at the broken chess-piece golems.

"I feel the same. I've never heard of anything like this..."

I explained it to the puzzled Hans.

"It probably wasn't a mechanism people knew about that well."

The Labyrinth was vast, and there were too many variables.

'Most people caught in this trap probably died, while survivors were reluctant to share information.'

"So we happened to get caught in that fucking thing?"

Elena was ignorant, but she occasionally had a sharpness that caught me off guard.

I scratched my head at our miserable first step onto the third floor, then nodded.

"That's about right."

"As expected of a special trap, it didn't drop any Mana Stones."

And there were no Mana Stones either.

"Eeh?! Then did we go through all that for nothing?"

But hadn't someone said that joy came after hardship?

At that moment, Daisy pointed somewhere.

"Everyone, look over there!"

The center of the chessboard rumbled as it descended, then rose again.

A crystal gleaming with brilliant light rested on top.

Holy shit, that's...?!

Something far more valuable than a Mana Stone had appeared.

"It's a Grace Stone!"

"A Grace Stone?!"

Everyone turned toward it at my words.

Grace Stones were byproducts of Dimensional Guardians encountered in outer dimensions through Secret Dungeons, but on extremely rare occasions, they could also be obtained while exploring the Labyrinth like this.

It was one of the Labyrinth's mysteries.

A reward after a fucking awful trial.

"Aaaaah! Yessss!"

"Hahahaha! This is incredible! I knew bad luck and good luck always followed when we traveled with you, Ian!"

I couldn't agree with Gimlius's final statement, but I clenched my fist and cheered as well.

Yes!!!

A Grace Stone on our very first exploration of the third floor? This feels good.

Then a problem appeared.

Tap tap tap tap!

A party rushed toward us from the opposite side with terrifying momentum.

"Hey! We found that Grace Stone first!"

"Don't touch it!"

Unfortunately, they were the unpleasant bastards we'd met on the second floor before entering the third.

"Those bastards?"

"Huh? You lot?"

Ignoring their nonsense, I shouted.

"Hans!!!"

Quick-witted Hans immediately threw his grappling hook and snatched up the Grace Stone.

"Fuck!"

The beastman thief from the other party had leaped forward at tremendous speed and reached out a hand, but Hans got it by the narrowest margin.

"I have it, Ian!"

"..."

I took the Grace Stone from Hans and considered it for a moment.

"Elena! Bite it!"

‘No, fucking eat it!’

"Wha...? What are you suddenly talki... Ghk! Mm!"

I immediately shoved it into Elena's mouth.

Gulp.

Elena's eyes turned unfocused, as though she were reading the memories contained in the Grace Stone.

"Huh..."

"You fucking bastards!"

"We told you we found it first!"

The beastman party, now close by, exploded in anger.

"Enough. Everyone calm down."

The eyepatched beastman thief, who appeared to be their leader, stopped the others and spoke to me.

"Hey, you took what belongs to us, so you need to pay the price. We demand goods or money equal to the value of that Grace Stone."

It was complete bullshit.

I snorted.

"Cut the crap. We got this Grace Stone by hunting the monsters and clearing the trap."

"Got proof?"

"The monster corpses beside us are proof. If you want, I'll show you a recording. I have a recording orb."

Y-you had one of those?

Oh?

My companions looked at me that way.

Of course, it was a lie.

I'd already figured it out from their expressions and the atmosphere they gave off.

"..."

The beastman party suddenly fell silent, their faces so blank it was chilling.

I smiled at them.

"How about we be honest?"

I drew mana into the hand hidden beneath my robe.

Crackle!

Crackling electricity swirled in my palm.

"If you're going to make an excuse, make it convincing, you fucking Marauder bastards."

I'd wondered why things had been so quiet lately.

"Come at me."

I'd roast them to a crisp with electricity.

Footnotes:

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