Almost There

The scenery had changed, but the transformed monsters had undergone a shift in ability as well, not just appearance.

Their armor wasn't the only thing affected. The Knight Zombies' swords were stained crimson, and red droplets sprayed out whenever they swung.

The instant those droplets touched Azu's right arm, searing pain tore through her.

Her focus broke for just a moment, and in that opening she left herself exposed.

A Slime pounced without hesitation.

Azu reacted a beat too late, but Elza swatted the Slime aside with her mace, narrowly averting disaster.

The Slime went tumbling through the air, its core still intact.

"That's a curse."

Elza said this as she chanted something and sprinkled holy water over the wound on Azu's right arm.

With a hiss, the mark vanished and the pain faded.

"Given the name Hill of Lament, it would seem the real trial begins here."

Alexia said this while blasting the airborne Slime with fire magic.

Indeed, the monsters of this place were lamenting.

What they lamented, no one could say, but their grief was being channeled into murderous intent against humans.

"That really helped."

When Azu said this, Elza nodded emphatically.

"A heavy warrior might be able to handle this, but we need to dodge. It really hurts when it hits."

No matter how good the quality, cloth-level armor could be penetrated.

You'd need thick metal or something similar to block it.

"Our party's whole thing is mobility. I figure Master avoided heavy warriors because they're expensive to equip."

Come to think of it, when Azu had been bought, there had been a brawny warrior right next to her in the lineup, but Azu was the one chosen.

Perhaps equipping that warrior properly would have cost more than giving Azu slightly ambitious gear.

That was the reasoning behind her being purchased, so she had no complaints.

Enemies still remained.

Azu stepped forward to draw the Knight Zombie's attention.

But it must have judged Elza to be the greater threat, because it ignored Azu entirely and charged straight at her.

Despite wearing heavy armor, it sprinted at full speed.

This was what made Undead so terrifying.

They would run themselves to pieces just to go all out.

Azu tried to intercept with her sword, but the blade glanced off the armor.

If it had been coming straight at her that would be one thing, but being ignored entirely made interference much harder.

She targeted its legs and activated the Sealed Sword Grungaus's power, caving in a large section of armor.

But it merely switched to a grotesque, lurching gait and didn't stop.

"You—!"

Azu tried to press the attack, but the Knight Zombie at full sprint pulled away from her.

Elza blessed herself, hurled a small vial of holy water at the Knight Zombie, then gripped her mace in both hands.

"Payback for what you did to Azu-chan!"

She wound up with a huge swing and drove the mace into the thrown vial.

The glass vial shattered to pieces, raining down on the Knight Zombie along with the holy water.

An unavoidable spray of shard-laced holy water assailed the Knight Zombie.

"—!"

After a voiceless scream, the Knight Zombie's legs finally stopped.

The crimson-marked areas seemed to react to holy water especially strongly.

The creature thrashed wildly, frantic to get the holy water off its armor.

With its feet rooted, all that remained was to finish it off.

Alexia's battle-axe blazed, its edge glowing red with heat from her fire magic.

She brought it down on the Knight Zombie's head in one devastating blow.

There was a dull crunch, and the Knight Zombie went still.

Its skull was completely crushed. It was down.

When Alexia lifted her axe free, the body fell backward and dissolved into nothing.

Kazusa darted out the moment the coast was clear and scooped up the drop.

"The enemies are tougher, but the drops have gotten a little different too."

She held up a shard of mithril between her fingers.

"This one has mana in it. I've heard that the higher-rank the monster, the better the drops."

No one present could accurately appraise its value.

Alexia had the most refined eye, and Kazusa saw plenty of items in her line of work, but even they could only roughly gauge which pieces were worth more than others.

Still, their buyer was Yohane, so it didn't matter.

He could assess value himself, and for anything outside his expertise, he had connections to specialists.

If they hadn't been slaves and had been adventuring as this team on their own, they probably would have gotten ripped off. The thought crossed Azu's mind.

The summit—or what they assumed to be the summit—was shrouded in fog. Even from this close, they couldn't see through it.

But the labyrinth's master was almost certainly there.

Every time they drew closer, there was a palpable sense of something dreadful.

It was on an entirely different level from the other monsters.

At any rate, they still had reserves, so they needed to at least reach the edge of the fog.

They hadn't encountered another Black Knight Zombie since, so perhaps it had been a special monster after all.

"How much holy water do we have left?"

"We used a fair bit. About fifteen left."

"That's a bit low."

Holy water was essential for stopping enemies in their tracks, as they'd just seen.

She wanted to avoid situations that called for it, but she knew full well there were no guarantees in the labyrinth.

From what they could see, a few more fights would bring them to the fog line.

"Let's keep going. If we burn through too much holy water, we'll cut our losses and descend."

"Got it. If we found a water source, I could make more."

"Making holy water from a water source would be too costly in mana."

"Yeah. And the water in this labyrinth is way too contaminated to use."

They'd seen the occasional stream, but using water from inside a labyrinth was out of the question.

There was no telling what was in it.

Purification could solve the problem, but Elza's reserves weren't infinite either.

Drinking water they could manage, so that would remain an emergency measure.

They lured distant Knight Zombies in by throwing stones, pinned them down with Azu, then let Alexia and Elza handle the killing blow.

It was the safe approach, and it conserved their resources.

Hardly glamorous combat, but safety came first.

There was one incident where a Slime latched onto Kazusa's foot, but she got off with a minor burn.

They used holy water to treat it.

"Sorry, I wasn't paying enough attention."

"That one probably spawned right under your feet. Not much you can do about that."

"That's exactly why we keep reserves. Don't worry about it."

"Yeah. Thanks."

They were almost there, almost to where the fog began.

Beneath the crimson sky, the dense fog was a vision straight out of a demon's domain.