Chapter 9. Day 322 — The Labyrinth (1)
[Name: Sisyphus
Race: Human
Strength: 107 (+52)
▶ Check Training Status
Vitality: 88 (+41)
Skills
Endure
Grip
Headbutt
Goal: Push the boulder to the summit]
[Warning: Physical transformation has occurred due to the rapid increase in Strength.]
[The right shinbone is lengthening to withstand the tension of the gastrocnemius muscle.]
“Whoa.”
Since yesterday, I had been nearly losing Wilson strangely often.
“I almost fell again.”
Something felt off with my balance.
Had I pushed myself too hard after finally getting meat?
“This isn’t the time to complain about being weak.”
I didn’t want to rest just because my condition felt strange.
In this space, all injuries were healed automatically, so if something was wrong, the problem was clearly with my mental strength.
Since I had just broken through the desert section of Floor 4, I decided to let Wilson rest for a while and return to the altar.
“Hu, hu, hu.”
Yeah.
All I needed to do was exercise.
[Warning: Physical transformation has occurred.]
“Much better. It really was just my imagination.”
I felt like my field of vision had gotten slightly higher, but that had to be my imagination.
It was getting close to a year since I had been trapped in this prison.
I had some confidence in my mental strength, but if someone asked me whether I was still mentally sound, I couldn’t confidently say yes.
“Keek-keek.”
For some reason, I had also started talking to myself more often.
I was desperately trying to suppress the anxiety that kept creeping up inside me.
I wonder if anything has happened back home.
I was worried about the family I had left behind as well.
My eldest brother, Salmoneus, was quick-witted, so perhaps he had taken over the duties of lord while I was gone.
My younger siblings all had their own exceptional strengths, so they would probably be doing fine.
Still, there was no telling when monsters might attack.
The youngest, Canace, was still very young.
Alcyone usually took good care of her.
“Worrying about it here won’t accomplish anything.”
I had to escape this prison as quickly as possible.
That was the most important thing I needed to prioritize right now.
🙂
“I’m back, Wilson.”
Just looking at his face made me feel much more at ease.
I think having Wilson around was the only thing keeping me sane.
“Hey, I saw the water deer back there again on the way up. I guess it respawns if you aren’t looking at it. Weird, huh?”
🙂
“Yeah. Let’s eat it together next time. For now, let’s try breaking through Floor 5.”
[You have entered Floor 5, Labyrinth Zone.]
Rumble.
Together with Wilson, I entered a new slope.
This area had another strange structure.
It wasn’t particularly difficult to climb, and there were no obstacles.
Instead, there were numerous paths that split into two.
“Why did they make it like this?”
There had to be some meaning behind it…
For now, at the first fork, I pushed Wilson up the right path.
“Nothing happened.”
At the next fork, I pushed Wilson to the right again.
And then—
“What just happened?”
I was back at the starting point of Floor 5 with Wilson.
“It’s a puzzle.”
A memory-based puzzle wasn’t particularly difficult.
I figured that after a few attempts, I should be able to get through it.
So I pushed Wilson to the right again.
“Uh…”
I was back at the starting point.
“Does the correct path keep changing?”
Floor 5 was an infuriating, malicious luck-based section.
There were ten forks in total, meaning the odds of passing through were 1 in 2¹⁰—roughly one in a thousand.
I carefully examined the paths, wondering if there was some clue that would tell me which way to go.
But there was nothing.
It was pure luck.
“For crying out loud…”
Anxiety began rising through my chest.
It would take an enormous amount of time just to clear Floor 5.
And even if I managed to clear it, if I dropped Wilson somewhere above, I would have to spend just as much time starting over.
By the law of large numbers, with a one-in-a-thousand chance, the probability of clearing this section within a thousand attempts was only around 60 percent.
If I was unlucky, I might not get through even after ten thousand attempts.
The thought of potentially wasting years here already seemed overwhelming.
“I need to find another way.”
Suddenly, I remembered something that had happened a year ago.
Back then, I had also needed to overcome a sort of labyrinth using an unconventional method.
It was when I first met Hades.
“Big brother, wake up! It’s morning! If you don’t get up, I’m going to draw all over your face!”
“Mmm… mornin’…”
Even though I took my afternoon naps religiously, I had never been a late sleeper.
Since I was young, it had been part of my daily routine for my younger sister Alcyone, who was two years younger than me, to wake me up as soon as the sun rose.
The youngest, Canace, seemed to think it looked fun, so she would jump into my bed with Alcyone every morning.
Since this was an era without alarm clocks, it was actually convenient for me personally.
Though it was a little annoying.
“Alcyone, you’re going to be an adult soon. How long are you planning to keep coming into my room? You’re setting a bad example for Canace.”
“If you woke up properly, I wouldn’t have to come in.”
“We invented a cultural practice called knocking. If you keep acting so recklessly, you’ll never get married.”
“Then you can take responsibility for me. I couldn’t get married because I was busy taking care of you. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?”
“Let’s not even go there.”
“Hehe. Hurry up and get dressed.”
Alcyone had followed me around since she was young.
After I became lord, she stuck by my side as though she were my secretary.
She had also helped raise Canace when she was still a baby, and she had been a tremendous help.
That day was the day we had to clean up after the summer festival.
It was also the tenth day since Thanatos had arrived.
We had to hurry.
“…Ah.”
Perhaps because I had woken up at a different time than usual, I unexpectedly ran into her in the hallway of the estate.
Clea was staring silently at me and Alcyone standing together.
“H-Hello, Sister…”
Clea ignored Alcyone’s greeting.
She bit her lower lip and quickened her pace as she walked past us.
“…Phew.”
Perhaps the sudden awkward encounter had made her nervous, because Alcyone let out a sigh.
“You’re pretty polite. When you were younger, you used to bully Clea.”
“What are you talking about? I have enough sense to know better now. I only hated her when I was young because I thought Sister was going to marry you…”
“But you’re engaged now.”
“No, that’s different! How could I say something mean to Sister now…? She probably doesn’t even want to be in our house.”
She had a point.
Is there really no way to break a vow made to a god?
When I entered the reception room, Thanatos was sitting in a chair, swinging her short legs while sipping mint tea.
“A letter has arrived from the Underworld.”
“Did the god of the Underworld send it?”
“Ha-ha! He finally bowed his head before my might.”
Apparently, the situation had snowballed from Thanatos’s strike to the point that operations in the Underworld had completely ground to a halt.
As a result, Hades had agreed to negotiate unconditionally.
Who would have thought that Hades would come crawling to us like this?
At least now, Hades wouldn’t be able to manipulate the ledger or interfere with our territory anymore.
Tana really was something.
“I shall be leaving now. We shall meet again someday, when your lifespan finally comes to an end. Wise human Sisyphus, go forth and live a life without regrets!”
And so, I saw Tana off as she departed.
At the time, I thought that this mysterious experience of entertaining a god would be my last.
—BOOOOM!!
That expectation was shattered less than ten seconds later.
The impact of a meteor striking the ground shook everything.
As the thick cloud of dust cleared, I found myself suspended in the air, someone gripping me by the collar.
“I demand an answer, human! Did you kidnap the Grim Reaper?!”
A giant who appeared to be nearly three meters tall.
He was a muscular man clad from head to toe in ornate armor.
His long, wild hair and beard, which had clearly gone untouched for a long time, radiated an almost savage masculinity.
The mana overflowing from his eyes and forming a brilliant gaze told me just how powerful he was.
“It’s Sisyphus!”
Tana immediately sensed the attack and swung her scythe to rescue me.
But the man blocked it with one hand and grabbed Tana by the collar as well, lifting her off the ground.
The difference in power was overwhelming.
I had an instinctive feeling that there was absolutely no reasoning with this man.
“So you’re here too, Grim Reaper. I saved you. Be grateful!”
“Release that barbaric hand at once! What business could you possibly have with me, Ares?!”
Ares.
The god who had attacked me.
A man who could easily be called the strongest warrior in Olympus.
The god of war.
“We’ll discuss it on the way!”
Ares leaped into the air in an instant, carrying both Tana and me.
—Big brother!
Alcyone’s voice grew distant.
I quickly lost consciousness.
“Are you out of your mind, Ares? This is an affair of the Underworld. Not only did you interfere without permission, you brought a living human here. There is a rule that the living must not cross the River Styx!”
“I don’t know anything about such rules! People suddenly stopped dying on the battlefield. One day passed, then two, and by the tenth day, people were still walking around even after being stabbed through the heart with spears. Does that make any sense? Since Uncle just sat there doing nothing, I brought the Grim Reaper myself. You should be thanking me!”
When I opened my eyes again, I was in a gloomy, damp palace.
From the conversation I overheard, I realized that this was the Underworld and that the person Ares was complaining to was Hades, the ruler of the realm beneath the earth.
I immediately sensed that I was in serious trouble if I didn’t keep my wits about me.
“Leave at once. The Underworld is not a place for the living to casually set foot in.”
“Just solve the problem already! The world above is a complete mess!”
Ares stomped away, and Tana and I faced Hades.
“You ignorant fool, Hades. Why would you lure in someone as violent as the god of war?”
“…I didn’t anticipate this either. Forget Ares’s rudeness, Thanatos.”
In short, this entire incident had happened because of Hades’s incompetence.
Thanatos’s soul-collecting duties might have been small in scale, but they were extremely important to the Underworld as a whole.
Without Tana, the souls whose order of fate had become tangled up caused the Underworld’s entire system to grind to a halt.
And Hades claimed he had never expected things to turn out this way.
Apparently, when two enormous bulls suddenly fell on his head, he had been so furious that he had considered firing Tana.
That was why it had taken him ten days to send a reply.
Hades had completely surrendered to Tana.
He promised not only to stop manipulating the ledger, but also to share authority with Tana and correct the problems caused by his mismanagement.
After finishing his explanation, he grabbed his helmet as though he had a headache.
“A matter that should have ended in the Underworld has now spread all over the place. If Ares finds out, the other gods of Olympus will learn about this incident as well.”
“That’s your fault, Hades.”
“……”
Hades looked displeased.
He didn’t acknowledge his own mistakes at all, continuing to act as though everything had simply been the result of bad luck.
And this guy is the king of the Underworld?
He wasn’t even acting like a grown man.
I should live as long as possible and come here as late as I can.
That was what I decided.
“The human who came with you appears to have been brought here by Ares without permission. The living have no business being in the Underworld. Go back.”
I had quietly listened to the conversation.
I bowed respectfully and was about to leave.
“But human, what is your name?”
“My name is Sisyphus.”
“Sisyphus. Are you Sisyphus, the lord of Corinth?”
“…Yes.”
A bad feeling ran down my spine.
The light beneath Hades’s helmet had suddenly become sharp.
“I have heard your name from Hermes. He said there was a man who dared to trouble the gods with his strange and crafty schemes.”
Apparently, Hermes had spread another bizarre slander about me.
“…Hmm.”
He looked back and forth between Tana and me.
“You cannot return to the surface.”
“What?”
“Hades, what kind of nonsense is this all of a sudden? Sisyphus is nowhere near the point where he should descend into the Underworld. Send him back immediately!”
“…Normally, people in this situation can return through the cave of Acheron, but the passage happens to be flooded. There is no way out.”
As Hades said this, the corners of his mouth lifted.
He was clearly being malicious.
He had been humiliated by Ares and exposed as incompetent by Tana, so now he needed someone to take his anger out on.
And he had chosen me simply because I was Alcyone’s brother.
How utterly selfish.
After receiving his baseless hostility several times already, I wasn’t even surprised anymore.
Stay calm.
I simply thought of my younger sisters back home and began searching for a way out.
“Don’t worry, Sisyphus.”
Tana hopped behind me and gently patted my head.
“No matter what happens, I shall make sure you return home.”
“Tana-nim.”
“Hades, you know perfectly well that having a living human in the Underworld will bring nothing good to this realm. Stop playing around.”
“The only exit is to swim upstream through the River Styx. If you can swim your way back, go ahead and try. But the moment a living human touches the water, they lose all their memories.”
The River Styx, the river of forgetfulness flowing through the Underworld, was famous.
Because Ares had dragged me here, I now had to cross it if I wanted to return safely.
Tana clicked her tongue.
Even she seemed to think Hades’s malicious trick was incredibly petty.
“Tana-nim, may I borrow your ear for a moment?”
“Hm? What is it?”
I immediately asked Tana for a favor.
“Oh? It should be possible, but…”
Afterward, I bid Hades farewell, turned around, and began walking toward the violently rushing river.
I didn’t want to spend even one more second in this unpleasant place.
“What a foolish human. You haven’t experienced the terror of the Underworld yet. Even if you cross that river with your bare body, you’ll become a fool and won’t even remember why you crossed it.”
Hades laughed as he mocked me.
Without hesitation, I stepped into the river.
And then—
“How… how is this possible?!”
Hades’s helmet shook in shock.
