Me, the Weakest Member of the Hero’s Party? I’m the Villain Though? - Chapter 75

Having reached a conclusion, I stepped forward without hesitation. Seeing me head deeper into the dungeon, Elonen asked,

“You’re going to find and destroy the life vessel?”

“That’s the fastest way to help Kyle and Gerard.”

Elonen looked like he wanted to stop me from throwing myself into danger, but in the end, he was persuaded. He followed after me with an uneasy expression and warned me again and again.

“Then please never leave the range of this blessing. If you’re left poisoned for too long, you’ll die.”

I etched Elonen’s frightening warning into my heart and kept walking. Naturally, Derek followed behind as well.

I considered shaking him off, but staying with Elonen seemed safer than risking poison from the smoke, so I let him be.

“We defeated the lich before, right? Back then, who found the life vessel?”

“It was the same then. While Gerard and Kyle were fighting, Kakaros and I found and destroyed the life vessel. We need to find the altar.”

Kakaros’s absence felt all the more significant now.

The lich’s dungeon was shaped like a maze, and if you lost focus even briefly, you’d lose your way. If he were here, he would have found the life vessel’s location in an instant.

“Which way should we go?”

Eventually, Elonen and I stopped at a fork in the path and pondered seriously.

“Hm, instead of wandering around, should we just keep going left no matter what?”

I remembered hearing that when trapped in a maze like this, you should keep going in one direction without fail. Elonen and Derek agreed with my idea.

But no matter how long we walked, the altar with the life vessel never appeared.

“Didn’t we pass through this place earlier?”

How much time had passed since we started wandering through the dungeon?

Walking endlessly down narrow, blocked paths, my sense of time and space began to feel warped. It felt like we were looping through the same paths over and over.

“It’s huge inside. And I don’t even see the mine. Something feels off…”

Derek muttered while looking around. Most likely, not all the paths we’d walked were real, and there was a high chance they were traps created by magic.

“It feels like there’s some kind of magic forcing us to get lost.”

“Then what do we do? Do we just keep wandering like this forever?”

Derek complained. I told him not to follow us. I was just starting to regret bringing him along when Elonen stopped walking.

“The smoke is flowing.”

“What?”

I stopped as well and observed the smoke closely. The deep green smoke really was flowing in a single direction, just as Elonen said.

“That means the air is moving.”

“You’re right. Let’s go.”

With Elonen in the lead, we began moving against the flow of the smoke.

“Look. The smoke is coming from the wall.”

I stopped in front of the wall and said so. It looked as if the smoke was seeping straight through the wall.

Derek stared at it for a moment, then suddenly pressed his hand against the wall. The hand that should have been blocked passed straight through without resistance.

“…It’s a fake wall.”

Without anyone needing to say it first, we passed through the wall and went inside.

“That’s why we couldn’t help but get lost.”

Now that we’d seen through the trap, there was no reason to keep wandering.

Before long, we arrived at the familiar doors of an altar.

“The altar is in here.”

I said it with certainty, then quickly added, worried Elonen might find it strange that I knew.

“I just have a feeling.”

Elonen, perhaps tense himself, nodded with a resolute look, without showing any suspicion.

“Then shall we open the door? I’ll go first.”

As Elonen stepped forward, Derek blocked him. Gripping his sword, he turned to look at me.

“I’ll go first, so follow behind me.”

What was with that show-off act? For a kid, he was surprisingly brave. Thinking that Elonen was here so things would work out somehow, I followed him into the altar.

As the heavy doors slid open, I saw candles lighting up inside. Just as expected, it was a familiar sight.

“It really is an altar.”

Derek muttered while looking around. What we needed to find was the life vessel the lich had hidden.

“Elonen, where did you find the life vessel last time?”

I turned to Elonen, who had experience destroying one, and asked. He was scanning the altar with a thoughtful expression.

“Hmm… It was inside that statue.”

Elonen pointed to the massive statue standing against the wall opposite the door. Its overwhelming size was enough to make me feel slightly intimidated.

“How did you break that?”

“Kakaros transformed into a monster and broke it.”

I scratched my temple and looked up at the statue. Kakaros wasn’t here now, so we had to solve this ourselves.