Tale of Discovery

"Hey, how are you holding up?" I question the vampire resting in my arms, "You won't just die suddenly, right?"

Hearing this, Aletia slowly opens her eyes and gazes at me strangely.

"What?" I ask.

She doesn't bother to respond as she simply closes her eyes once again.

Alright...

Hah~ I suppose my question was an odd one, and I did ask it abruptly.

Currently, I am exploring an extended cave network that I arrived in through the stairs.

After I stepped down the stairs, I stopped for a brief duration to look for some clothes in my inventory. Not for myself, but for my new vampire companion.

It took me some time, but I did manage to find some normal getup that fit her size.

Like hell it is normal... No matter how you look at it, this is a middle-school uniform - although one with a few tweaks. For instance, the skirt is short - much shorter than any school dressing code would allow normally.

Seriously, why is this even in my inventory? Even with Satoru's excuse for the clothing in there, it's still a little odd...

That aside, after all this while of exploring the cave, I have yet to encounter any monster. This is more concerning than anything, after all, if this is still the same labyrinth, then there should be monsters to hinder my movement.

Right now, it feels like I am walking right toward some 'boss' type of monster.

--

How much longer am I going to walk for? This cave system is way too long.

And the most vexing thing is that I still haven't chanced upon any monsters yet.

Should I just give up on the labyrinth and return to Nazarick? But then what about the adventurers and Opilio? Wouldn't a direct return to Nazarick ruin my purpose for visiting the village in the first place?

As I ruminate over whether to use <Gate> or not, the ground a few hundred meters away from me cracks.

Alarmed, I focus my gaze on the cracks while trying to sense any monsters that could be beneath.

The next moment, the ground practically explodes as a giant creature slowly emerges from underneath the rubble.

A quick look at the creature and I notice a few things. First, it's huge. Its size is enough to block the sight of everything behind it.

Second, it appears to be some form of 'demonic' being, judging by its terrifically sharp teeth and the two thick horns protruding from its head.

Its body is bulky and a solid black color with dark mist escaping from barely visible pores all over its torso.

The most surprising thing about this creature isn't its appearance, but the aura it's releasing.

Without a doubt, this thing is one of the strongest beings I've come across, excluding Codes.

"Sorry, but you need to get down for a moment," I say while keeping my gaze on the monster as I step to the side and set Aletia down.

Following this, I waste no time in stepping away from Aletia and casting <Greater Magic Shield> on her.

After taking a glance at the thin dome of green energy that forms around her, I raise my arm at the monster that has begun slowly moving in my direction and cast <Fireball>.

As usual, a small ball of flame combusts in front of my palm before launching right at the monster's enormous head.

As I expected, the fireball does little to no damage as it explodes on contact with the monster. Appearing to be completely unaffected, the monster continues to march toward me.

I guess this is a chance for me to try some of my higher-tiered spells.

<Maximize Magic - Hell Flame>

For some reason, AI's voice didn't resound in my head upon casting spells like before, but I set that matter aside as I focus on the tiny blue flame that has appeared in front of the tip of my finger.

All of a sudden, the flame moves at a moderate speed in the direction of the monster.

Perhaps not fearing it, the monster doesn't bother to dodge the small flame, but happens to be a fatal mistake on its part; as the moment the flame contacts its body, it doesn't take a split-second to completely engulf it in fiery blue flames.

This time, the monster reacts the way it is supposed to as it raises its giant arms and strikes the cave walls in pain.

A few seconds later, the monster's figure disappears and the flame slowly becomes smaller until nothing is left other than bits of ash on the ground.

So that is the power of a seventh-tier offensive spell, huh?

According to the information I have in my head concerning my spells, the spell on its own is rather lethal. Add to that the effect of Maximize Magic, and it becomes all the more powerful.

Yet - The monster was able to take its power on for a few seconds. Even if it couldn't handle it in the end and died, the fact that it held on for so long goes to show just how high its endurance and vitality were.

Just what was that monster? Unfortunately, I didn't have a mental connection with Satoru established, for he could've recognized the monster.

Oh well, I will just ask him some other time.

Suddenly, I remember about Aletia who is resting against a cave wall.

Turning my head to face look at her, I notice that she is looking at me with an odd glint in her eyes.

"Is something wrong?" I ask as I approach her.

"What was that?" she asks back.

"The monster or the magic?"

"Magic…?"

"What, don't tell me you have never seen magic spells before," I say in a dubious tone.

"I have. But that magic… It's different."

"Oh? I assume you can cast magic, so care to show me a spell of yours?"

"Can't. Too tired."

"Too bad," I say dismissively as I lift her body before looking in the direction of the hole formed by the monster.

Just as I am about to take a step toward it, the cave trembles much more intensely than ever before as bright light emerges from the hole a few meters away.

The next thing I know, my vision is blinded for a second before it returns, but upon focusing my sight, I realize that I have once again been forcefully teleported.

"Help!" a desperate voice resounds all over the place.

Quickly turning to face the source of the voice, I witness the adventurer I 'dueled' getting stabbed in the throat by a skeleton.

His body falls to the ground with a thud, lining up with the corpse of one of the three adventurer girls - the one with the witch hat.

Ignoring the dead adbenturers, I look around at where I am. Simply put, I am in a vast enclosed space. A quick glance at what's closing this place off, and I can tell that I am still underground.

What's odd is that the place that I am in is a graveyard.

Though half of the graves are empty and there are just about as many skeletons all over the place.

As I take a proper look around, I find something in the distance - a barrier of golden light that's separating a horde of skeletons from three individuals.

Shit. If I were to approach them as is, they wouldn't be able to recognize me and would most likely take me as another enemy.

Then again, this vampire in my arms has seen my current appearance only and is not aware that I can change into a 'human'.

Well, whatever.

Changing my profile from Overlord to Origo, I walk toward the trapped humans.

It takes only a moment for my appearance to completely change, and thankfully, the clothes I put on previously appear once again.

Naturally, Aletia immediately notices the change in me as she slowly opens her eyes, only for them to abruptly widen marginally the moment she sees my current appearance.

"It's just a simple Illusory spell," I casually say while continuing to walk toward the skeletons.

One of the skeletons in the distance notices me, after which do a few others, but instead of attacking me, the skeletons simply move to the side as if avoiding me.

A few seconds later, there are no skeletons left in front of the holy barrier, with the closest skeleton being at least ten meters away from me.

Ignoring the horde of skeletons behind me, I look at the humans behind the barrier, and as expected, they're the rest of the party that ventured into the forest with me.

Opilio is sitting on the ground with widened eyes, while the girl with no weapon is sitting with her back to the grave while pressing her hands on a wound on her thigh.

The only one standing is the girl that gave off the holy vibe while holding her staff in front of her. It's obvious that the source of the holy barrier is none other than her.

"You can release the barrier now," I state loudly, in case the barrier dissuades voices from outside.

The blond-haired girl immediately does so as she falls to her knee and prevents herself from falling by holding on to the staff.

Walking over, I cast a glance at each one of them before facing Opilio and asking, "What happened?"

--

Apparently, similar to how it went for me, they were all teleported away. However, they only encountered weak monsters, well, relative to what I faced, but for them, they weren't so weak.

Each one of them was in a different area, but after exploring the labyrinth and running away from anything they couldn't handle, they ended up in this graveyard through teleportation devices.

Opilio managed to remain relatively unharmed due to having some experience in dealing with monsters, while the girl with holy aura made use of her limited spells, with the barrier from just a while ago being the last spell she could cast for today.

As for the girl with no weapon, she was able to handle herself for the most part, only until she reached the graveyard, where she got swarmed by quite a few skeletons.

Oddly enough, all of them ended up in the graveyard at the same time, so those closest were able to group and get the protection of the holy barrier, while the other two…

"Mr. Vincent, what's going on with the monsters? Why did they stop attacking us?" asks Opilio while casting a curious glance at Aletia, who is still resting within my arms.

"I don't know," I respond, "But that doesn't mean we should just let them be."

Having said that, I proceed to set Aletia down against a grave before turning to face the direction the monsters are swarming.

"Stay here," I state before dashing forth toward the closest skeleton.

The skeleton is unable to react at all as I effortlessly throw a jab at its torso, smashing it, before reaching my hand out to the short-sword it was carrying and taking it.

Surprisingly, the other skeletons nearby notice me and my actions but display no signs of hostility at all as they simply stand where they are.

Nevertheless, that doesn't stop me from moving on to my next target and vertically slash its body in half.

---

After a minute or perhaps less, I manage to take down all the skeletons in the place. There were quite a few of them, but none of them so much resisted, so it was a relatively quick process.

One thing I noticed while destroying the skeletons was that the more I killed, the more it felt like there was a form of connection between me and the skeletons.

In the end, I even managed to sense the 'feelings' of one of them - something which it shouldn't have had in the first place.

But what's even more surprising was the fact that the feelings were that of respect and reverence, even when I was a moment away from killing it.

Now, the feelings weren't anywhere nearly as overwhelming as that of the Floor Guardians, but they were there.

This gave rise to a few questions within my mind - Could the skeletons know of my other profile? Did seeing me in that form for a moment did that to them? Why did the connection grow the more skeletons I destroyed?

Unfortunately, I won't be getting the answer to any of those questions right now, since all the skeletons are you now, dead-dead. What is an undead that died…? Ugh, it doesn't matter much anyway.

"Mr. Vincent," Opilio's voice reaches my ears from behind me.

Turning around, I find him walking over while lending his shoulder to the injured girl, while the golden-haired girl follows behind.

"I was looking for a way to get out of here," I state.

"Did you find any?" the man immediately asks in a hopeful tone.

"Not yet," I respond, causing his expression to sink.

"Where is Al- the girl I carried here?" I ask before using senses to locate her, only to find her exactly where I left her.

"She said that she wouldn't move if you don't carry her," Opilio says while giving me a strange look.

"How princess-like of her," I mutter nonchalantly.

Hm?

I suddenly sense something small emerge from the ground a short distance away.

Turning to look at the object floating in the air, I see a red crystal the size of a finger.

It remains afloat for a few seconds before suddenly breaking, directly after which a portal appears in its place and expands to a size just enough for an adult human to go through.

"Is that the exit?" Opilio asks suspiciously.

"Only one way to find out," I reply before leaping into the air and landing in front of Aletia.

"Come on, princess," I state jokingly before crouching and sliding my arms underneath her.

After this, I get up while carrying her light body before sprinting toward the newly-formed portal and coming to a stop right in front of it.

"Are you really going to walk into it?" Opilio asks doubtfully as he moves closer.

Instead of replying to his words, I simply walk through the portal.

My vision darkens for a brief moment before the light shines once again. Instead of another location in the labyrinth, the portal brought me right back to the surface.

From the looks of it, I am standing at where the formation was in the beginning, but it's not here now.

A few moments later, three figures seemingly appear out of thin air behind me.

"We're back," Opilio mutters in a relieved tone.

"We should head back to the village," I state as I begin walking in the direction we arrived here from previously.

"R-Right," Opilio quickly mutters as he begins moving while continuing to support the injured girl.

As we continue to walk through the forest, the golden-haired girl carrying the staff gets closer and closer to me - until she's right beside me.

"Uhm… Thank you," she says after a while of remaining silent.

"For?" I ask.

"Saving us," she replies before her expression turns downcast, most likely as a result of remembering her now-dead fellow adventurers.

"It's fine," I state, "Are you tired?"

She hums in confirmation.

Silence ensues once more, with the only sound in the place being that of the numerous insects in the forest and the chirping of birds.

"Priestess," a low voice reaches my ears.

"Hm?" I utter as I turn my head to face the girl who is now looking down while walking.

"You're a priestess?" I ask, to which she nods a few times.

"And you're name?" I ask, but she remains silent.

"In that case, I will call you Little Priestess," I say, hoping to use the same method I used with Aletia against her, but surprisingly, the girl nods, indicating that she is fine with that.

The heck…