Labyrinth City had changed.

Decisively, and without a single omen.

Paleuze let out a breath, burdened by a fatigue that clung to him like clotted mud. Exploration within the labyrinth meant overnight expeditions, or battles that stretched on through day and night. He had never intended to act tough, but he had taken pride in his ability to keep moving for an entire day if he paced himself properly.

Now even that confidence was crumbling.

Though the fighting had only begun roughly an hour ago, his legs felt as heavy as if trapped in a swamp, and his arms moved as though the blood had drained from them. When he lowered his face toward his hands, the sword slick with blood asserted its presence. Corpses lay exposed along the paved street, among them the ghoul Paleuze himself had just cut down.

Ghouls were monsters he had fought before in the labyrinth. But when those monsters wore familiar faces, his body stiffened with tension, and his thoughts faltered.

Adventurers he used to greet in passing, even the innkeeper who had raspily called out to customers… all had become undead and now lunged at him. There was no time to grieve. Paleuze swung his blade upward from a low stance. The outstretched arm bent limply from the elbow joint.

What had once been the innkeeper continued its charge regardless.

Paleuze lowered his head and slipped past its flank. The ghoul, its forearm useless, struck at his back as though merely brushing against him. Pivoting sharply on one foot, Paleuze swept his sword horizontally. The blade entered at the nape of the neck, severed the spinal cord, and the ghoul collapsed as though stumbling.

Without pause, the next undead slashed toward him.

This one was troublesome. It retained the skills it had possessed as an adventurer in life. Paleuze caught the strike on the flat of his blade, and the ghoul attempted to overpower him. At that moment, two spears thrust in from either side, skewering the ghoul.

“Got it pinned down!”

“Hurry up and finish it!”

The ghoul, impaled at its flank and neck like wedges hammered into place, shook violently to escape its iron restraints, battering the shafts with its sword. Before Paleuze could step in, Dona charged forward and brought down her War Hammer. The head traced an arc before caving in the ghoul’s skull.

Dona did not avert her eyes from the corpse.

Paleuze gripped her shoulder and guided her gaze away.

“Well done, Dona. You saved me.”

His younger companions were unprepared for the sudden chaos, and so their spirits wavered. On a battlefield where footing itself was uncertain, this was the greatest consideration the still inexperienced Paleuze could offer.

“We’ve cleared this area too.”

Summoned at the facilities attached to the labyrinth, Paleuze’s party had been ordered to secure the city gate in joint operation with the garrison. The total number of undead was far fewer than initially reported, and the armed faction that had breached the gate was nowhere to be seen. They had feared ambushes and traps, but in the end, it amounted to nothing.

A whistle signaling assembly echoed through the air.

Casting his eyes over ravaged shops and houses collapsed from within, Paleuze returned to the gathering point. The unit that had assembled was noticeably smaller than before.

Though Paleuze’s party had returned without casualties, not everyone had been so fortunate.

Biting the inside of his cheek and forcing his thoughts into order, Paleuze led his companions toward the 100-man commander. They needed to report losses and the status of their assigned district.

Fortunately, they found him quickly. He stood with several soldiers, glaring down at the ground.

The words that had nearly escaped Paleuze’s throat caught there, blocked by the corpse lying at their feet.

“…Faust… sir.”

The former guild instructor of the Adventurers’ Guild, the man later exposed as a manhunter with a bounty placed upon his head by the guild, was now dead.

His throat was torn open. Deep cross-shaped slashes marked his torso. Parts of his limbs were scorched black, carbonized. He must have been involved in this upheaval as well.

A traitor to Labyrinth City. A detestable criminal. And yet, Paleuze could not wholly bring himself to hate him. Memories surfaced of being thrown to the ground during drills as a rookie. Much of the foundation of his swordsmanship and footwork had come from Faust. Overwhelmed by conflicting emotions, Paleuze could only stand frozen.

Meanwhile, the 100-man commander began to heap scorn upon the dead.

“This bastard was behind the attack. A moldy remnant of the Gundor Family. A relic left behind by the times that’s torn this city apart!!”

Spitting on the corpse, the commander kicked it. No one stopped him, yet no one joined him either. Paleuze, too, could do nothing but watch.

“After the city’s pacified, this body will be displayed. Don’t damage the face, it’ll serve as an example!! This farce will be over soon enough. Reinforcements from the border have arrived. We’ll join the suppression of the old royal castle and wipe out the remaining enemies completely!!”

As he issued further orders, the 100-man commander rallied the soldiers and adventurers to raise morale. Even as Paleuze listened, his gaze was drawn once more to Faust’s corpse. He thought he saw the scorched fingers twitch.

“H-Hey… didn’t it just move?”

Shaken, Paleuze’s words came out incomplete. Leek frowned.

“Huh? What?”

“Faust’s… corpse.”

Suspecting fatigue had deceived him, Paleuze rubbed his eyelids. When he opened them again, the charred dead man was standing. Leek and Dona, at his sides, forgot to breathe.

“Behind youuuu!!”

At Paleuze’s desperate scream, the 100-man commander spun and slashed in one motion, an impressively sharp reaction. But the carbonized arm shot forward, seized the commander’s neck, and crushed it like spun sugar.

Faust let out a roar.

“Sti-ll… not… over… yet!!”

His entire body was burned, parts carbonized. His torn neck bent unnaturally, unsupported. No human could possibly live like that. As soldiers rushed him, Faust’s skin split apart as though molting. From within emerged something pitch black.

“U-Undead Knight?!” one soldier cried.

A monster born after death. Among the higher undead, the Undead Knight was spoken of as especially troublesome because it retained much of the skill it possessed in life.

The spear fused to its arm swung carelessly. The upper half of a charging soldier vanished.

“Ooo… end… no… time… let… me… see… your… trai-ning… Adven-turer!!”

Its voice no longer even resembled language. The Undead Knight gave its first cry. A soldier seized an opening and thrust a spear from behind. An adventurer drove a sword into its flank. The glossy black surface deflected the blades as though it wore heavy armor.

A black streak flashed. It was the spear.

A soldier was hurled into the air like a leaf. An adventurer’s chest was pierced clean through.

A torrent of overwhelming power.

Paleuze’s face twisted.

Soldiers and adventurers alike were trampled. Spears locked against it snapped unilaterally. Arrows were swatted from the air. Paleuze, standing close, could not remain uninvolved.

A soldier before him was nailed to the ground by a downward sweep of the spear.

Speechless, Paleuze instinctively dropped his hips and raised his sword above his head in a firm guard. An instant later, a dull shock ran through his entire body.

The spearhead meant for his skull grazed overhead. His hands went numb from the impact, and his sword spun irregularly away behind him.

“Don’t let i—!”

“Paleuze, move!”

His party members struck at the Undead Knight to shield him, but it did not so much as waver.

“Don’t! Fall back!!” Paleuze shouted.

The black streak rushed toward them.

As though to deny any attempt at deflection, the Undead Knight’s black spear swept horizontally.

Paleuze crossed his arms and stood firm, at least determined to shield his comrades. Yet the impact he braced for never came.

Instead, a thunderous clang rang out, the roar of mana-infused iron grinding against iron.

An axe bit into the unstoppable spear.

“Gahh! Samn that hurts!! What kind of monster is this?!”

A thick, liquor-burned voice boomed beside him.

A dwarf, one of the main forces of the expedition party dispatched to the labyrinth from one of the Three Great Powers, the Aleynard Forest Alliance, had saved Paleuze’s party.

“That spear and that stench! It’s Faust!!”

The expedition’s sole Beastkin shouted the monster’s identity.

“Hmph, I can tell from the spearwork!!” the dwarf snorted.

“Whatever twisted ambition you had… to fall so low as to become a monster.”

The Undead Knight assumed a familiar stance.

Once, when Faust had still been human and serving as a guild instructor, he had shown this very stance seriously, just once, at Leek’s insistence.

Though its form had changed, Paleuze could not mistake it.

“Seems he’s not just some fool swinging a stick.”

“Heh. That makes him worth smashing.”

One dwarf rolled his rock-like shoulders. Another clapped palm and fist together.

“Prepare yourselves. We’re hunting an Undead Knight!!”

Raising a mana-infused axe high, his thick beard swaying, the dwarf issued the challenge.

The Undead Knight swung its spear in response.

And so, the second act of a deadly battle began.

Translator – Lyxxna