Transfer Maze.
One of the most dangerous mazes around the maze city. Its danger comes not only from the transfer magic circles that can send people to unknown places randomly, but also because the inside of the transfer maze itself is full of dangers, filled with various dangerous and aggressive monsters.
The maze is said to have a total of six levels, each with increasing monster difficulty.
The higher you go, the more dangerous it is.
Paul and his group had previously conquered the third level using their own abilities. However, while looking for the path to the fourth level, they encountered a random transfer magic circle, which suddenly transported Roxy to an unknown location.
Having lost Roxy, the Water King level magician, the others dared not stay in the maze for long and immediately went back to find reinforcements.
However, most adventurers were too scared to help when they heard that they were going to conquer the transfer maze. Even with double the reward, no one agreed.
Fortunately, Shirou and Rudeus arrived in time, which gave Paul and the others the courage to carry out the rescue operation for Roxy.
"It's so dark in here."
Rudeus frowned at the environment in the cave, the overly dark environment was quite unfavorable for a magician like him who was weak in close combat.
"That is indeed a problem."
Shirou nodded. He himself could observe the surrounding environment with his Clairvoyance, and wouldn't be affected by the darkness at all, but the others besides him were in trouble.
Shirou then had Rudeus use fire magic to light up the path temporarily.
"Isn't that too much magic power?"
Geese couldn't help but speak up when he saw this. Others who didn't know Rudeus were also skeptical.
"Don't worry, his magic power won't be a problem."
Shirou shook his head. He knew just how ridiculous Rudeus's magic power was, having been shocked by it since he was a child.
With the light from the flames, the group's progress became a little safer.
Paul and Geese no longer had to hold torches in one hand.
After a long time, Rudeus's fire magic showed no sign of dissipating. Geese and the others had to admit that Rudeus's total magic power was quite frightening.
"Paul, your son is really amazing."
"Yes, he is one of my sons that I am proud of."
Seeing Paul proudly puffing out his chest, Talhand seemed a little unimpressed and chuckled, "But you yourself don't seem to be a father to be proud of."
"Even if it's the truth, don't say it out loud."
Paul sighed and his shoulders drooped powerlessly.
He was obviously still very concerned about not being as good as Shirou and Rudeus, and couldn't completely let it go.
…
The group continued to move forward, and soon arrived at the first level of the maze.
The walls and ceiling were covered with a large number of white spiderwebs. In the depths, a blue and white transfer magic circle could be seen emitting light. It was a classic maze environment.
"Everyone be careful, there are transfer magic circles everywhere here, and there are even occasionally invisible traps on the ground. Be especially careful!"
Paul warned, "Shirou, Rudeus, Elinalise, this is your first time in this maze, so try to follow our footsteps as much as possible."
"Okay."
Rudeus and Elinalise nodded.
Shirou, on the other hand, had a strange expression.
He quickly walked forward in front of everyone, and then, just as Paul and the others were about to scold him, he kicked away a stone, exposing the transfer magic circle underneath.
"This is…"
Paul and the others were shocked and didn't understand what had happened.
Shirou explained, "My right eye is a Mystic Eye. It seems to be able to detect unusual magic power flows, so I can see through traps directly."
"Mystic Eye?"
Shirou's words surprised everyone.
Since Ghislaine also had a magic eye that could see through magic power, Elinalise and the other former Black Wolf's Fang teammates quickly accepted this fact.
And although Paul had known for a long time that Shirou possessed Clairvoyance, he didn't expect it to come in handy at this time.
In any case, with Shirou's Clairvoyance, the team's speed increased again. Any traps hidden in the dark were seen through by Shirou in advance, and even the monsters in the dark couldn't escape his gaze.
"I think I know why you don't have confidence as a father, Paul."
Geese and the others revealed complicated expressions after witnessing this.
Shirou and Rudeus's abilities quickly came in handy in exploring the maze. If the two of them had been helping during the previous exploration, they probably would have already conquered the maze.
At this point, Paul had accepted reality and said excitedly, "Haha, after all, they are my sons!"
"You had nothing to do with it."
The former members of Black Wolf's Fang didn't give Paul any face, causing Paul to reveal a frustrated expression.
…
The exploration of the first level of the maze went very smoothly.
Since there were no dangerous monsters on the first level, mostly just magic spiders, even if they were in groups, their danger level was only B-rank.
For an adventurer team with an average strength of S-rank, or even far exceeding S-rank, it wasn't a problem at all.
And the most dangerous transfer magic circle traps had been seen through by Shirou in advance, so the group's actions naturally didn't have any pauses. They quickly arrived at the depths of the first level of the maze.
"Everyone, keep up with me!"
Paul rushed forward excitedly.
He seemed to be trying to prove his strength as a father, holding two swords and constantly standing at the very front to fight the monsters.
Through Paul's actions, Shirou judged that Paul's strength had improved greatly compared to the time in the Milis Holy Country. His North God Style had clearly reached the Saint level. Although the Water God Style and Sword God Style hadn't broken through, they had far surpassed the level of ordinary Advanced ranks.
The current Paul might even be able to withstand a while against some King-level opponents.
It could be said that the search party was able to explore the maze to the third level in one go thanks to Paul's great effort.
"How is it? My swordsmanship is not worse than yours, Shirou!"
Paul said excitedly after killing all the monsters in one breath, his eyes constantly glancing at Shirou and Rudeus.
"Father is so strong!"
Rudeus praised Paul from the bottom of his heart.
Although he himself had greatly improved in magic, his swordsmanship hadn't improved in a long time, so seeing Paul's actions, he naturally thought that he was very powerful.
Shirou also complimented Paul a few times, he also thought that Paul had improved a lot over the years.
"Heh… hehehehe…"
Hearing the praise from his two sons, the corners of Paul's mouth almost touched the sky.
It wasn't until Elinalise couldn't stand it anymore and gave him a punch that Paul finally came back to his senses and focused his attention on the battle.
After arriving at the depths of the maze, the group stepped onto a transfer magic circle.
After transferring, they found the next transfer magic circle.
This step was repeated as many as five times.
The group then successfully passed through the first level and arrived at the second level area.
When they arrived here, Geese specially reminded Rudeus, saying, "Listen carefully, you can't use fire magic here."
"Why?"
"If you use fire, the room will be full of toxic gas, especially as the levels get deeper, you have to pay special attention."
"I see."
Rudeus nodded.
As a modern person, he knew very well that lighting a fire in a closed room would cause the air to be filled with carbon monoxide. Even if you weren't poisoned, you would die from lack of oxygen.
In addition, Geese also reminded them of many things, such as not attacking the ceiling, which could cause it to collapse, not using too much water magic, which could cause the ground to loosen, and being careful not to hit the pillars of the cave when attacking, which could cause a cave-in, and so on…
Hearing these words, Shirou and Rudeus revealed admiring expressions, deeply realizing that he was indeed a veteran adventurer with very rich experience.
So next, Rudeus would often use water-attribute ice magic in battle, Advanced magic - Ice Lance Blizzard.
With this kind of magic, he could quickly clear out the small fry monsters.
Although the monsters on the second level were obviously stronger than those on the first level, they absolutely couldn't stop the attacks of Advanced magic.
Seeing Rudeus's chantless magic, everyone praised him.
Because of Rudeus's excellent performance, Shirou still didn't have a chance to take action, but he didn't care and followed the group forward.
After completing the conquest of the second level, Geese suggested resting here first to conserve energy, and also to repair the equipment and weapons.
Shirou hadn't taken action at all, so he didn't have any equipment to repair.
He used Clairvoyance to observe the surrounding environment to prevent any monsters from attacking.
While observing the surrounding environment, Shirou accidentally discovered some strange traces, like things left behind after some weapon had smashed monsters on the ground.
Generally speaking, monsters are quickly absorbed by the maze after being killed, used to replenish the energy of the entire maze, so if there are monster remnants on the ground, it means that the battle took place not long ago.
There was no way that Paul and the others could have killed the monsters here not long ago.
As for Roxy, who was trapped in the maze, she was said to be on the third level and couldn't have run to the second level to hunt monsters.
Then the answer was obviously only one -
There are other adventurer teams conquering the transfer maze!
Shirou immediately told Paul and the others this information.
Paul was surprised and said suspiciously, "I haven't heard of any other teams wanting to conquer the transfer maze, and if they were going to conquer it, why wouldn't they cooperate with us? We wouldn't even need the reward."
"Maybe they don't know about your situation?"
"That's possible, but not very likely, because we announced loudly from the beginning that we were going to conquer the transfer maze."
Paul frowned, unable to understand the current situation.
The only possibility seemed to be that the other adventurer team came to the maze city and went straight into the maze, so they didn't know about Paul and his group, or they weren't interested in teaming up with Paul and his group at all and planned to solve the maze on their own.
Since there were too many possibilities, Paul couldn't figure it out and simply stopped caring.
Shirou had a strange feeling about this, because he remembered the young adventurer who said that he would conquer the transfer maze alone before.
But he couldn't believe it, because conquering the maze alone was too difficult in every way.
And when these monsters were killed, they were almost completely turned into powder, which meant that the means of killing the monsters might have been magic attacks.
A magician conquering the maze alone?
It was impossible to think about it.
Because it was too bizarre, Shirou didn't think about it too much.
…
They went deep into the maze to the third level.
Everyone's expressions became serious.
Because if Roxy was still alive, she would most likely be on this level, and the number of transfer magic circles on this level was quite large, so they could encounter danger at any time and be transferred to an unfamiliar place.
Fortunately, Shirou's Clairvoyance could determine the location of all the magic circles, so he warned everyone in advance where to go and where there was danger.
But the problem still existed, which was that the group couldn't find Roxy's location.
The transfer maze was so large that even a large-scale search would take days and nights. In that case, Roxy basically had no chance of survival.
"Isn't there any convenient magic that can be used to find people?"
Elinalise couldn't help but look at Rudeus.
Rudeus shook his head helplessly, obviously not knowing this type of magic.
Just as everyone was at a loss, Shirou calmed himself down and began to focus his attention extremely.
"Shirou, what are you doing…"
Paul was stunned when he saw Shirou's actions, and then suddenly exclaimed, "That's right, Shirou, you have Clairvoyance, you can see Roxy's location!"
"Yes."
Shirou nodded.
During this time, he had been studying the ability of Clairvoyance, trying to develop advanced methods of using Clairvoyance.
After all, this was a Mystic Eye that the Demon Emperor had given him, and the effect was definitely not just to observe things in distant places.
If he carefully developed and researched it, he might be able to unlock some special uses.
Therefore, Shirou had been studying the skills of Clairvoyance since he obtained it, and had been looking for related information at the Magic University.
As time went on, although he hadn't developed a new function for Clairvoyance, he had basically completely mastered its original functions, and it wasn't difficult to find people within a certain range.
"…"
As Shirou focused his attention more and more, many scenes of the entire transfer maze began to appear in his eyes.
From monsters to traps to the endless darkness…
Everything appeared before Shirou's eyes.
It was also until this moment that Shirou realized that there were many monsters that had been killed inside the transfer maze, and they were all killed in the same way as before, crushed into powder.
Because he was on the third level, Shirou instinctively thought that this was done by Roxy, and kept searching along the places where the monsters died, and soon found a familiar blue-haired figure.
However, Roxy's condition didn't look very good. She was surrounded by a large number of monsters and was in mortal danger every minute and every second.
"!!!"
Shirou didn't have time to think more in an instant, and didn't even have time to explain the situation. He directly strode forward and rushed in Roxy's direction.
Before entering the maze, Shirou had taken off the armor that the Sword God had given him.
Facing such an important task, Shirou couldn't wear any armor to restrict himself, so he chose to release the armor and put all his strength into this operation.
Shirou had been unwilling to attack up to this point because they hadn't encountered any strong enemies.
Now that he had found Roxy's location and confirmed that she was in a very critical situation, Shirou finally released his full power!
"Whoosh!"
Shirou's figure was like a flash of lightning, moving quickly through the narrow maze.
Paul and the others only chased for a while before realizing that they couldn't keep up with Shirou's pace at all.
This made Paul and the others reveal shocked expressions.
"Hey hey, Paul, your son's speed is really off… If I'm not mistaken, how is that a little like Ghislaine from before?"
Tarhand from the Mine Tribe said blankly.
Paul himself was also dumbfounded.
Because if he wasn't mistaken, Shirou's speed just now was infinitely close to Ghislaine, a former member of the Black Wolf's Fang team.
However, Ghislaine's Shirou was a true Sword God Style King-level, a proper Sword King.
Doesn't that mean that Shirou is already a Sword King now?
For a time, Paul couldn't even feel the bitterness of being surpassed by his son. All that was left in him was resignation to the overly ridiculous reality.
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