V2Ch40-Cradle to Grave

As if from a great distance, Mina heard Cara yelling, followed by a clash of steel.

Mina had trouble focusing on anything besides the pain radiating from her abdomen. Her eyes clenched shut as she tried to assess what was happening to her body.

My baby! Are you okay?

There was a feeling in her abdomen that reminded Mina of a more intense version of period cramps. She thought she knew what that meant. Her mother had told her what to expect years ago. A very effective way of preventing any possibility of teen pregnancy.

No, no! Please not here! Ahh! I have to get out of this maze. Now now now…

A tortured scream penetrated through Mina’s mental haze. What the hell is happening?

As she forced her eyes open, there was a clatter of metal on the ground next to her.

Mina saw a bloodstained sword, and then Cara was there, in her line of sight, reaching around her.

“I’ve got you,” Cara said, breathing heavily. “We’re gonna get out of here!”

Mina rose, leaning heavily on Cara for support. The two women slowly stepped forward together. As she walked, Mina couldn’t avoid seeing the smears of blood and decapitated bodies on the ground.

Wow, she thought. God…

“I’m so sorry, Mina,” Cara mumbled.

“What?” Mina could barely get the word out, she was breathing so erratically.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you,” Cara said. “You guided me through the whole maze. All I had to do was keep you safe, and I couldn’t even do that.”

“Oh, don’t beat yourself up,” Mina croaked. “You’re great.”

“Ah, I have this!” Cara reached out to Mina with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around her shoulder. It was a Health Potion.

“Thank you,” Mina said, relieved. She grabbed the potion, yanked the stopper out with her teeth, and drank it almost in one gulp.

She coughed a few times, but she immediately felt a bit better. The intense cramp-like feeling in her abdomen was still there, though. And now that the pain was less than it had been, she noticed the liquid running down her legs. Her water had broken.

So, the baby’s coming, and there’s nothing that can stop it now. Well, I knew I couldn’t hold it in until I saw James again anyway.

She gritted her teeth in a forced smile. Welcome to the new world.

Cara and Mina struggled the next ten meters or so together. They reached the door in the side of the maze. It looked so plain. Just hard brown wood. Out of place in a fantastical setting.

Then again, the whole maze had been ugly gray stone.

The knob turned, and the two women stepped through.

[Congratulations! You are among the first to complete the maze!]

—

“Help! Helppppp!” Yulia screamed as she ran.

Paulo stayed a few feet behind her, deliberately making himself the more tempting target of the two of them.

This is all my fault, I know it. But we just took a wrong turn or two. Why is this happening?

Behind them ran several small humanoid figures with the heads and tails of bulls.

“Jump through the next opening you see!” Paulo shouted from behind her.

Thirty seconds later, Yulia was able to throw herself through a rectangular opening in the wall, into another passageway. Paulo jumped in after her. They both pressed themselves flat against the wall next to their point of entry.

There was a sound of stampeding footsteps behind them, as the minotaurs ran past the doorway and further down the passageway.

“Thank fucking God!” Paulo exhaled the words in a single breath. “They’re as stupid as normal bulls.”

“I guess so,” Yulia agreed shakily.

“Well, if they weren’t, we’d be dead.” He threw an accusing gaze at her. “I’m leading the way through the rest of the maze. I’ve had quite enough of your detours.”

I didn’t ask to lead the way before! Yulia wanted to say. You asked what direction I thought was best.

“Sure, okay,” she said instead. “Which w—”

He suddenly clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Shh!” Paulo hissed.

A snorting sound came from the opening behind them. Then a snout poked its way slowly through the opening.

“Jesus,” Paulo whispered.

The bull snout poked the rest of the way through the opening, and the minotaur’s eyes widened in a wild, angry glare. It let out a sound like a mixture of an angry cow and a monkey. Yulia couldn’t take her eyes away. She felt frozen as the minotaur stepped all the way through the gap and turned its full body to face her.

Then Paulo swung into view. He struck a single blow with his sword and pierced through the minotaur’s neck. The creature clapped its human hands over the cut to its neck. The wound gushed blood in thick, hot, highly pressurized spurts, some of which landed on Yulia’s face and neck.

“Oh my God,” Yulia whimpered. “Oh my God.” Little tear droplets gathered in the corners of her eyes. She perceived the salty-sour metallic taste of the minotaur blood that had found its way through her slightly parted lips.

“You okay?” Paulo asked.

I thought I was about to die.

“Ohh my God,” she said once more. Then she realized what he’d asked. She turned to face him. Paulo was still staring at the minotaur, which had fallen to its knees and was teetering from that position as if it was about to drop.

“You’d better take a step or two back, Yulia,” he said. Paulo managed to speak without inflection despite having just been in a life or death situation, and having just killed something that looked a lot like a naked human.

“Thanks,” she said quietly. She took a few steps back, and just as she did, the minotaur collapsed onto its face. The blood leaked out onto the ground where her feet had just been, and she stepped further back.

“Glad you’re still with us,” Paulo said. He sounded amused.

Yulia looked back at Paulo and was a little disturbed to see he was grinning slightly, as if the struggle for survival they’d both barely made it through just then was one big joke.

“Now, how does this work?” Paulo muttered to himself. “Um, Loot?”

The body of the minotaur began to gently glow with a warm, colorless light. Around thirty seconds passed, then Yulia saw the body disappear, leaving in its place a hatchet with a black metal blade and a handle that was clearly animal bone. The weapon floated into Paulo’s empty left hand.

He looked at it, then looked into the air above it and smiled.

Yulia guessed he must be Identifying it.

“This is a lot better than my sword,” Paulo said. He switched the hatchet to his right hand and the sword to his left.

“That’s great,” Yulia said emotionlessly.

Paulo looked at her flatly. She returned the empty gaze.

I must look like a maniac, she thought. Paulo certainly did. Blood spattered his face and armor. The hatchet he wielded in his right hand and the bloody sword in his left did nothing to dispel that impression.

Then she saw a shape behind him.

“Paulo, look out!”

He managed to half turn, but he wasn’t fast enough to move out of the way. The minotaur’s horn gored him, emerging through the right side of his chest.

“Urgh!” He spat blood. Paulo’s hatchet clattered to the ground.

Acting on instinct, Yulia dove for the weapon, and she managed to grab it despite the slick trail of blood oozing from Paulo’s gore wound onto the handle.

“Help,” he uttered. He looked faint.

Yulia looked up and saw the minotaur was trying to pull its left horn free from Paulo’s right pectoral muscle. Paulo was fighting it, reaching back with his left arm and grabbing onto the beast’s head. He must have known that if the minotaur pulled out of the wound, he would bleed to death.

The minotaur was smaller and shorter than Paulo, though its musculature was impressive. The result of their struggle was that the horn slid slowly in and out of the hole, alternately allowing blood to flow more freely or stopping it up.

With blood loss, there was no way Paulo could win this struggle.

Yulia absorbed all of this information in only a few seconds, as she was scrambling for the hatchet, looking at the minotaur and Paulo, and getting back up.

Then she buried the hatchet in the minotaur’s arm.

Or she tried to. The hatchet barely grazed the minotaur. Its thick muscle and tough skin was difficult to slice. A thin trickle of blood flowed from the cut as Yulia pulled the hatchet back.

She took another swing. Another. What she lacked in strength, her toothpick-like arms made up for with persistence.

Finally, on the fifth swing, she heard a satisfying roar of pain from the minotaur. And she saw a flicker of white bone exposed through the arm wound.

The minotaur was paying attention to her now. Its eyes glared hatefully at her.

As it finally succeeded in pulling the barely conscious Paulo off of its horn, Yulia took a step back. She needed to run now, she knew.

Paulo knew it too.

“Run,” he mouthed, looking up at her from the pool of his own blood.

But she couldn’t just abandon him.

Yulia squared off with the minotaur. It wasn’t that scary. Right?

The beast charged, swinging its head wildly to try and catch her on the point of one of its horns. Yulia managed to duck underneath the wide-sweeping horns and slash at its lower body. She swung the hatchet blade up between the minotaur’s legs.

Despite how difficult it had been to cut into the minotaur before, this time, the hatchet sunk in easily, as if Yulia had located a weak spot on the beast’s body.

The minotaur let out a pained bovine groan and stumbled past Yulia to land on its hands and knees.

After a long moment of painful near-paralysis, it released a long, hissing breath and turned its head, fixing its evil stare on Yulia again. It started to push itself off of the ground.

Yulia found that she couldn’t move again. She felt weak in the knees. Somehow she knew that if she tried to run, she would just collapse in a heap on the floor. All the adrenaline that had helped her in the last minute or so seemed burned up.

Out of nowhere, Paulo leaped in, sword raised in both hands, and launched himself, swordpoint first, at the minotaur. At first, his body blocked Yulia from seeing what had happened. Then Paulo fell away from the beast, and the minotaur collapsed beside him in a pool of its own blood. Paulo’s sword stuck out of the place where its heart must be, reminiscent of a tombstone with its crossguard standing so straight.

[Baby Minotaur Lv. 5 killed. 10 exp gained, based on your contribution to the fight!]

“Heh. Got him.” Paulo chuckled quietly to himself. Yulia looked around and saw that Paulo seemed to have left most of his blood between where the minotaur had gored him and where he returned the favor.

“Paulo!” She knelt beside him, tears in her eyes.

“No need for that,” he said through tears of his own. “Look out for my brother, okay? He’s a good kid. I hope he won’t miss me too—”

Laying On Hands.

Paulo’s chest wound began to seal itself back up. Yulia was very glad she had practiced this Skill following Mina’s example. It seemed to work much more efficiently than it had when she used it in the last dungeon.

“Oh,” Paulo said, as his wound slowly closed. “I forgot you could do that.”

“This is pretty awkward,” she said. “But you were very sweet. And I’ll look out for Jose anyway.” She smiled, blushing slightly.

“Yeah,” he said drily. “You and me both.” He pushed himself up into a sitting position. “You know, you’re good people, Yulia. I might have been a little rude before. I’ll try to be nicer, for what it’s worth.” He looked suddenly uncomfortable, as if he’d just been caught walking around naked. “Anyway, let’s get the hell out of here before more of those stupid beasts show up!”

[Healer leveled up!]

[System-Boosted Human leveled up!]

[Sufficient experience accrued! Laying On Hands leveled up!]

“Seems like you can handle them,” Yulia said encouragingly, ignoring the System alerts. “But I definitely don’t want to test that out any more.”

“I don’t know about whether I really can handle them,” Paulo replied. “I don’t know if you noticed, but when I killed that one, the System said it was a Baby Minotaur. Based on how high these ceilings are, I’m guessing the Mama and the Papa Minotaur are not so small and cuddly.” He smiled weakly and shrugged. “I think if we meet those, we’re fucked.”

Yulia nodded. “Let’s just find a place to hide for the next few hours.”

Paulo looked down at the ground for a moment, as if wrestling with whether to accept that. Then he nodded too.

In a tone of self-loathing, he added, “I guess I’m too weak to do anything else.”

Paulo Looted the other Baby Minotaur, and the two of them slipped through another opening into a passageway where they had not encountered a minotaur. They made their way back to the starting point and waited there for the next few hours. The timer finally ticked down all the way to zero.

[00:00:00]

[Congratulations! You survived the maze, despite wandering off in the wrong direction and encountering Baby Minotaurs! Due to the success of others in your group, you are among the winners!]

A sack of food dropped next to them.

Oh, that’s nice, Yulia thought, sighing with relief. I guess Mina had a much better time than we did.

[Our condolences to those who knew the groups that encountered the Minotaur Patriarch! Since they did not survive, the rations that would have been awarded to the winners among them will instead be distributed to their teammates, per our usual protocol.]

Oh. I hope none of our team members ran into the Minotaur Patriarch.

—

“You did it!” Adelaide said, holding up the baby so that Mina could see him.

“Thank you for your help,” Mina croaked. She cleared her throat. “Ah hem. Can I have my baby?”

“Of course you can!” Adelaide exclaimed. “What should I call this little fellow, by the way?”

She reached over and held the baby out to Mina.

“Hm,” Mina said. “My husband and I actually had a few different ideas for a name that we were kicking around. We didn’t agree on the best one. But he’s not here, and we’re not going to call the baby ‘you there’ until I get to reunite with him. The baby’s name will be James Robard, Jr.”

“Mm hm,” Adelaide said with a knowing look. “You miss your hubby, so you’re letting him win on the baby name?”

“No. I miss him, but he wanted to name the baby for his father. I just thought, wherever he is, my James is fighting. He’s doing whatever he has to do to get back to us. I wanted to give the baby a name that would remind him what he’s fighting for.” She grinned sheepishly. “I know it probably doesn’t make much sense to you.”

“Nope! I’m not married, and when I find the right person, I’m not naming a baby ‘Junior’. No judgment on your choice, though! You want some alone time with the baby?”

Mina nodded. “Could you tell Cara to come in if she’s outside, though? Just for a minute. I want to thank her, too, for everything she did.”

“Sure thing,” Adelaide said. She smiled and stepped outside of Mina’s room, where she, Cara, and Jose had brought Mina after they returned to their starting point at the inn.

Mina lay staring at her baby and cuddling with him for a few minutes, until Adelaide poked her head back.

“Looks like Cara’s stepped out,” Adelaide said. “I’ll tell her you asked for her when she comes back, though, okay?”

“Please do,” Mina said, eyes flickering up to Adelaide before they returned to being fixed on her son.

Adelaide smiled in Mina’s peripheral vision.

“There is one other person who I thought might want to say hello, though. She just got back from the maze. Seems like we still haven’t lost anyone from our team, by the way!”

Mina’s eyes lit up. “Please send her in.”

Yulia stepped in from behind Adelaide at the sound of Mina’s response.

“The baby came early,” Yulia said immediately.

Yulia sat down next to Mina. She stroked the baby’s hair and chubby cheeks, and she kissed him until he made a wriggling motion that looked like a feeble attempt to escape.

Then Yulia just sat staring at the baby, a mix of joy and something that looked like shellshock on her face. Mina could tell at a glance that Yulia had much more on her mind than what little she’d said. And tomorrow, they would probably have new deadly threats to worry about.

But for now, the two of them basked in the warmth of the newborn.

Despite all odds, Mina had successfully brought her baby safely into the world.