Chapter 435 : Starving the Hunger

"No way, how could it still be alive!?"

I refused to believe it. After everything we'd gone through, somehow this creature had lived? Did it start eating partway through its destruction? But if that were the case, it should have helped contain the blast, or was that too much for it to chew on?

I released the seal of slime around the area, allowing all the smoke and debris to clear thanks to a timely gust of wind from Sylvain. Right in the center of an absolute crater was the creature, huddled over and still in the process of digesting its meal, whether that was my aperture or explosion.

However, despite it still being "alive," its cursed energy levels had plummeted. In fact, its body appeared entirely vaporized, and what was maintaining some semblance of a physical form was all originating from its void-like stomach. The other wendigo all had pale and wispy ghostly limbs, but the Hollow Monarch was now entirely composed of whatever that pitch-black substance was.

"It's on the verge of death! We just need to finish it off!" I shouted to the rest of the group, informing them we were on the cusp of victory.

Everyone jumped into action, with Sylvester sending in his golems to delay the creature. The other monsters had all behaved frantically after their transformation into similar states, but this one almost seemed lethargic as it casually swiped with its arm at the approaching threats. Yet despite such a casual action, it tore through the unfortunate golem in its path in almost the exact same way it had devoured attacks previously.

Our entire group shuddered at that, as it could now consume while attacking, something it couldn't previously do. The only comfort was that its cursed energy hadn't been recovered from the attack and was still draining away as time passed. This must have been how it survived the attack: its body was destroyed, and it was forced into this cursed form, but it could keep eating and thus survive. There was probably a limit to what it could stomach, as evidenced by its extreme depletion from the explosion.

"I think we just need to survive until it runs out," Vee speculated to the group. "Now that it's in this state, we've basically won; we just need to finish our victory lap!"

What Vee suggested seemed reasonable, and it changed it from a damage race to a contest of survival. The Hollow Monarch's movements remained far more sluggish than normal, which was likely due to its current state of digesting. This likely meant we needed to avoid it while keeping it fed enough so it slowed down and became manageable, as I feared it would reach the frantic speed of the others.

Thus began our game of cat and mouse, with the Hollow Monarch lumbering after us as we spread out while throwing out attacks and minions to keep it occupied. Throughout this, I kept [Draining Aura] running while supplementing it with [Draining Ray] whenever possible.

In fact, I was casting so much [Death Magic] that it even leveled up during this encounter and granted me the fourth-level spell [Grave Resonance]. When I got it, I had hastily studied it, only to find it was useless in our current situation, as it only allowed you to empower undead by saturating them with additional necrotic Mana. Obviously, I had no plans to empower any undead, but its components had potential for other applications.

"Just die already!" Vee pleaded desperately.

Thanks to our bond, I could understand her suffering as she was actually in the early stages of starvation. The monster's new form had elevated its ability to inflict us with ravenous hunger, and Vee was hit the worst out of all of us. She had gone through all of our food, and unless she wanted to scarf down slime, she was out of options.

Her Mana was also depleting at a rapid pace, even when she wasn't casting a single spell, but that was easily solvable thanks to some impromptu [Mana Slime] "potions" being administered. At one point, Sylthaeryn even grew plants from seeds for Vee, but it did little to curb her ever-growing hunger.

To all of our relief, just when things were looking hopeless, I noticed the creature had finally bottomed out its reserves. The crunching stopped, and the creature froze, only then to be consumed by its own stomach as it sucked itself in. We all had to back away, as unlike its minions, this actually had some effect on its environment, and if we were caught in it, we might have been swallowed up.

The Hollow Monarch was defeated. Notifications pinged, but I had no time to look at them as the scenery around us began to twist and turn. Rather than relief, Vee and I shared a moment of dread as this felt far too familiar to the loop repeating.

"Fuuuu—" Vee began screeching, but was silenced when we all reappeared in a room.

Despite our earlier fear, we had not returned to the city's entrance; instead, we seemed to be in someone's study, with plenty of desks and all sorts of bits and bobs scattered about. We all glanced around curiously until we saw a small snow globe sitting on one of the desks, which drew us all in.

We crowded around it and watched as, before our eyes, various scenes were displayed within it at a greatly accelerated pace. A group of what appeared to be refugees settled in and slowly built a makeshift village. The residents were barely surviving in a barren, bleak climate until their leader, seemingly out of nowhere, brought forth a massive supply of meat.

From there, the village began to prosper and slowly became a town. Occasionally, it would receive visitors, who either stayed and joined the town or mysteriously vanished. Yet nobody asked questions, though, and it continued to grow undisturbed by anything.

Time in the snow globe seemed to flash by, as the town grew and grew. First, the fortifications, and then the castle began to take shape; it really looked like they were prospering. With seemingly endless food provided by their ruler, the people could focus on other pursuits, such as crafts, trades, and research.

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If not for our discoveries, this would have looked like a utopia, and maybe because of that, we noticed all the oddities piling up. The ruler never changed; despite what must have been decades passing, he never aged once. Perhaps to avoid suspicion, he isolated himself in the castle, letting his most trusted subjects take over most of the tasks as he continued his own pursuits.

Another thing we noticed was that, despite their outward appearance, the residents were changing. What was once a utopia, even if founded on lies, was now twisting into something else. People were growing aggressive and lashing out at one another; the previously kept secrets were slowly leaking into the public, and shockingly, nobody seemed to care.

Then it went further: whether to stave off their nature or to seek more resources, the people took up arms and began attacking their closest neighbors. It started small, a village wiped off the map, but it kept escalating further as the people's hunger grew.

However, they eventually bit off more than they could chew and were found out. Not only were they forced to retreat from their path of conquest, but they had a retaliatory army at their heels. The city was besieged while the people were locked up in their dark den, they began to change again.

One by one, the people shed their humanity, if they even had it to begin with, and became monsters. It seemed that once it started, it was unstoppable, like a chain reaction: whether they wanted to or not, the entire city was forced to turn. Yet most shockingly of all was the leader, still hidden in his castle basement. As his subjects twisted, his own power seemed to grow. Yes, he fed on the festering darkness within them, and when it was finally unleashed, he developed tremendously.

The twisted monsters fought back to defend their now depraved home like cornered animals, and it looked like they were going to succeed, until something entirely unexpected happened. Throughout this, the emperor continued his own machinations and grew ever more powerful, no matter how dark or beyond his reach. The only way to describe it was that he was approaching something never thought possible, and that had crossed a final line.

The details were left obscured, possibly to prevent anyone from being stupid enough to reenact this, but enough to serve as a warning. Out of nowhere, he was smited from the heavens, a column of divine retribution striking him and his castle and casting him from the shadows. Yet despite the vague interpretation, I felt like I had a good idea what happened.

He grew so hungry for more that he stole from the plate of the gods…

"The gods don't like anyone interrupting their harvests," Keldenar's words echoed back to me.

That seemed to be the end of what the snow globe wanted to show us, except I swore I caught one final glimpse of a scene. It was just a flash, and it was already gone, and it depicted the ruler, now in the form of the Hollow Monarch, chained up and enslaved.

Is he the Labyrinth Master? Or more accurately, the Labyrinth Slave?

I felt like I was on the right track, yet for some reason I didn't want to voice my theory out loud, as if it were some unspoken taboo. I wasn't sure if my personas or Vee had reached a similar conclusion and were also forced into silence, but we awkwardly glanced at one another.

"So… What now?" Vee asked.

<Challenge complete. Select your one reward.>

All of us jumped at the sudden interruption, clearly still a bit on edge after everything we'd been through. The room around us twisted again, elongating into a hallway lined with various treasures. Even without a verbal instruction, it was clear that the further you walked down the path, the better the treasure, as there was a notable increase in quality.

Once again, the decision was thrust upon me as none of my personas had any idea what to choose, except this time they were joined by Vee, who just wanted to get home and eat. Thankfully, her starvation was no longer progressing, but she was still left famished.

I quickly ran to the end of the hallway, wanting to see what the best available treasure was. I ran past plenty of weapons, trinkets, and other useful-looking items. Honestly, the only thing that might have given me pause was a slime core or an item with one inside, but I never saw anything like that. What I did notice was that several sections were clearly missing items, with nothing new taking their place, likely from previous challengers.

While I ran, I noticed nearly invisible barriers at various intervals, yet they did not hinder me in the slightest. I pointed this out to the rest of the group, and Vee suggested it could be some kind of evaluation of our performance: the better we did, the farther we could progress down the hall.

With Vee's idea seeming to line up with what I was seeing, especially with a notable jump in quality of items right past each barrier, I began to worry that something tantalizing would be just out of reach. I silently prayed that we had done just enough to get the best reward as I reached the final barrier. I took a breath and stepped forward, once again passing without any issue and barely hiding my excitement.

As for the final rewards on offer, they were encased in three glass cases to prevent touching, and I imagined that simply opening the case finalized your decision whether you liked it or not. As for the contents of the ornate glass cases, they were three ancient-looking tomes of varying sizes, and when I read their labels, I gasped in surprise.

"Research Notes on Compressed Space, Applications for Cursed Energy and Introspections on Time… Damn it, I want all three of them!"

Vee sighed. "Sorry, Syl, maybe you can get the others next time?"

That would've been the ideal outcome, but I recalled Keldenar saying that the gods tried to prevent anyone from repeatedly clearing the same labyrinth in order to spread more seeds for the next harvest. If I wanted to challenge this again, I would need to bring in enough new people to satisfy them.

Interestingly enough, it looked like these three items were the only things at the end here, unless this table once held something other than the books, meaning Keldenar himself hadn't reached this point. I contained my desire to gloat, but was curious what we did differently from him.

Guess I'll have to ask, and try not to rub it in his face too much.

Now the question was: which reward did I pick now? The labels on the cases were the first hint, but more could be gleaned from examining them. For example, the tome on "Applications for Cursed Energy" was the largest of the three, indicating that it had the most robust knowledge, while "Introspections on Time" was the smallest by far.

I quickly ruled out the book on cursed energy as I didn't really see a need for it, not to mention its ominous subject matter. Yet when I looked at the remaining two, I was stumped. If not for Vee's condition, I would have debated with myself longer, but in the interest of getting out of here as soon as possible and leaning toward caution, I selected the one on compressed space.

It had more information and was something that I could actually use, while the other was more like my greedy want. Heck, maybe the warning this place seemed to be trying to convey rubbed off on me, and that was why I selected the safer option, at least for now…