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“What did you eat to survive?”

“Yeah. I mean, proper plants probably didn’t grow in that underground maze. I’m kind of curious.”

Asterios hesitated a bit before answering.

“In the maze, moss and mushrooms grew, and I lived off those.”

“Moss and mushrooms?”

“Yeah. They grow well in dark places, so I filled my stomach with them. There were a few places with stagnant water, so I drank from those.”

Moss and mushrooms? Could it be the ones I gave to the Dwarves? But why are they here? Did the Dwarves gift them or something?

Stagnant water, huh? If he drank that, he could’ve gotten a stomachache…

Well, surviving somehow was the priority anyway.

“Still, that wasn’t all I ate. Sometimes I rescued other people and received food.”

“Other people? Adventurers, you mean?”

“Yeah. I helped people who got into trouble because of monsters.”

Hmm… So he roamed the maze saving folks in danger. What a good kid.

Good thing he didn’t resort to cannibalism like his name suggests.

“However, it wasn’t like I always had moss and mushrooms… When there was no food, I ate monsters.”

“Monsters?”

Well… Monster meat is technically meat, so it wouldn’t be too bad to eat…

But if he ate corrupted meat stacked with magical energy, his body could change like the monsters’.

If that happened… who knows? A Minotaur monster might really be born.

“Just a second, excuse me.”

I lifted my hand to touch Asterios’s head, pouring out magical energy to inspect the magic piling up inside him.

With a considerable amount of magic stored in his body, his physique had changed quite a bit. It’s probably why, despite being young, he’s bigger and stronger than adults… The magic in his body must have altered his physique.

He seems to maintain his reason for now, but if I hadn’t come in time… he might have transformed into a monster from the maze.

So…

“Your health doesn’t seem to be very good.”

“Really? I’ve never felt weak.”

“Stop eating monster meat from now on. It’s not good for your body. If you’d eaten more, you could’ve become feral like them.”

At my words, Asterios’s expression turned a bit horrified.

“I don’t want that. I don’t want to become a monster.”

“Well, it’s not like I can revert your body back to its original state in one go, but if you don’t eat monster meat moving forward, you can maintain your current state.”

I can recover the magical energy inside Asterios, but if I tried to remove the magic that has seeped into his bones and muscles, his whole body would end up full of tiny holes… and he’d die pretty quickly.

It is possible to recover while regenerating his body at the same time, but that sounds like a hassle. I might manage it, but for an average human, it would be impossible.

Hmm… I can heal him, but it feels annoying, so I’ll just leave it for now. As long as he doesn’t eat monster meat anymore, he can maintain his condition.

It’s not like his life is at stake, and thanks to the magical alteration of his physique, he’s grown incredibly strong.

So, I’ll just leave it.

“From now on, no more eating monsters, alright?”

“Yeah. Got it.”

With Asterios, who listens well, I started walking towards the exit of the maze.

Sure, there were holes I made while rushing straight to Asterios from the entrance, but the holes weren’t very large, making it a bit tight for him to pass through.

Actually, it felt kind of tight for me too… It seemed like the walls were closing in on their own.

It’s almost like the walls of this maze are alive.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

The Infinite Maze.

One of the world’s seven forbidden areas, discovered beneath the ruins of a palace once called Minoa.

Unlike the other seven forbidden areas of the world, which are strictly off-limits to almost everyone, the Infinite Maze can be accessed by an average adventurer, given they possess sufficient rank and follow legal procedures.

Unlike other forbidden areas that are heavily restricted with only a handful allowed in, the conditions for entering the Infinite Maze are comparatively loose, and the required rank is lower.

In a way, the Infinite Maze might be the perfect training ground for inexperienced adventurers to build their skills and develop into proper adventurers.

…

However, the Infinite Maze is notoriously perplexing, unlike any other dungeon, with its most significant feature being the uselessness of maps.

A path that was there yesterday might be a dead end today, and rooms might suddenly appear in places that were empty. It’s a so-called living maze, changing every day.

Because all walls, excluding entrances and exits of each layer, move randomly every day, maps become utterly meaningless.

At least one fortunate aspect is that, thanks to the blessings of the maze’s guardian deity, the stairs between each layer and a bit of space do not change and are safe from other monsters.

Without such divine protection, adventurers who ventured into the Infinite Maze would face starvation due to a lack of regular supplies.

Another issue tied to the frequently changing walls is that the size of each layer keeps increasing.

According to investigations by the Adventurers’ Guild managing the Infinite Maze, it expands by about 30 square meters every year, so its dangers are not to be underestimated compared to other seven forbidden areas.

One might think that if it keeps growing, eventually all underground would turn into a maze, but investigations suggest that the Infinite Maze exists in a space separate from this world, so there’s no need to worry.

The guildmaster of the Adventurers’ Guild back then tried to stabilize the maze by increasing the number of entrances to allow more people in, but regardless of how much they excavated the land around the Infinite Maze, they could not create another entrance.

It was almost as if the entire maze was its own world, with only the entrance overlapping with this one.

…

Inside the ever-expanding Infinite Maze, monsters kept appearing. The deeper you go, the stronger the monsters become.

The Adventurers’ Guild keeps a careful watch over the Infinite Maze, sending numerous adventurers inside to weed out the monsters.

This is to prevent any disasters where the monsters filling the infinite maze could burst out into the world outside.

– A guide for adventurers exploring the world.

Chapter of the Seven Forbidden Areas.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

So here we were, Asterios and I, arriving at the entrance of the maze.

I took a light step onto the maze’s stairs, but Asterios seemed to hesitate, not moving at all.

“Why the long face? Are you not planning to leave?”

Asterios seemed like he wanted to say something but shut his mouth again.

He looked incredibly hesitant, almost scared.

He’s probably afraid of his father, the king of Minoa.

“I…”

After hesitating for a while, Asterios finally opened his mouth.

“Is it okay to go out from here?”

Though the face behind the skull mask resembling a cow is hidden, I can sense his emotions through the glimpse of his eyes.

Fear. Terror. And curiosity.

“Why was I born?”

“Why, you ask…”

“Why was I born looking like this, with these horns? If I hadn’t been born like this, you and mother wouldn’t have had to fight.”

Words denying his life. Words of regret. Words filled with fear.

His father, the king, denied him as a son.

His mother, the queen, treated him as such but couldn’t oppose the king’s wishes.

Thus, Asterios, raised between them… must have lost his confidence in himself.

Had he been born a normal human, he would have lived happily as a prince.

But due to the beastman body inherited through genetics, this young child, who can’t even be called a prince…

“Is there any meaning to my birth?”

A lamenting phrase. A self-curse. Words tortured as if he held no significance.

Words that imply his life has no meaning.

To Asterios, who was murmuring such things, I said.

“Life, existence itself carries meaning.”

There’s no such thing as a being born carrying some significance or purpose. I can’t say that absolutely doesn’t exist, but at least most lives don’t.

Life is simply birthed from love, with the new life conceived, and the process of childbirth involves enduring pain while waiting for the child, a result of affection.

The process of such birth carries no purpose.

Thus, existence itself has its inherent meaning.

“Even if you seek the meaning of being born, you wouldn’t find it. It doesn’t exist to begin with.”

“But… the Goddess of Dragons said every life has a reason for being born…”

The Goddess of Dragons?

Hmm, if she’s referring to the Goddess of Life… does she mean the fragment I created separately?

Seems she’s been working hard, but it sounds like her perspective might differ from mine.

Has she changed a bit after working for 300 years on her own…?

I should make some time to check in on that later.

“While I can’t say anything about the meaning of being born, living with purpose is a different story.”

When it comes to living with meaning, you can choose based on your pure will and not someone else’s decision.

So…

“Is there something you wish to do?”

I asked Asterios, who was frozen at the stairs.

“Something I wish to do?”

“Yeah. Something you want to do, something you desire. Just name one thing you genuinely want, it can be anything.”

After pondering for a moment, Asterios replied.

“I want to see the world…”

“The world?”

“Yeah. I couldn’t leave the palace when I was little, and after entering the maze, I’ve never seen the outside world. I want to see it.”

A world travel, huh? Not bad at all.

“I want to see the great forest of the Elpeu and the tallest mountain where the Dwarves live. I want to travel the world and see many places.”

A wish from a child who grew up locked away. A wish from someone who hasn’t experienced freedom.

If I didn’t grant such a wish, I wouldn’t be fit to be an adult, right?

Therefore…

“Let’s travel together.”

Since we’re at it, I’ll find some kids that suit the zodiac signs too.

Next, I think I’ll go for a tiger. Tigers. Indian tigers. Siberian tigers. Saber-toothed tigers. Anything would do. They should be in the East, right?

So it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a travel companion heading that way.

 

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