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Last Embryo Volume 2 Chapter 6 Part 2

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

「It has really been a while since we last saw each other, Lord Tokuteru. I am glad to see you in such a good health.」

The one who descended towards them from the whirlwinds-covered sky was their old acquaintance, Gryphon, a type of a chimera with the upper body of an eagle and the lower half of a lion. He was dashing through the air as if he was running on atmosphere itself by moving its legs like he was running on the ground, and once he landed in front of them, he respectfully bowed down his beaked head.

Tokuteru signaled him with his hand that it was okay for him to abandon such a formal manner of speech, and then proceeded to inquire about his situation in a more detail.

「So you were the one Izayoi was talking about all this time? Hahaha, now I see! Certainly, as a Gryphon you’d certainly have a lot of advantage from coming to Greece. But I have to say that it is incredibly careless of you to be using your original form here in the Outer World… or perhaps was there something that forced you to use it?」

Tokuteru’s gaze turned incredibly sharp as he inspected Gryphon’s lower body. Looking at him closely enough, one of his hind legs appeared to be broken.

「Yes, as much as I am ashamed to admit it, something has happened indeed. It was right after I confirmed that the place best suited for opening of the Astral Gate that would connect this place with Little Garden was in the palace’s throne room. Before I even noticed it I was attacked by an unknown enemy, which resulted in my current handicapped condition. If you intend to go to the throne room, then please do be careful. Whoever that mysterious enemy is, they are truly skilled in the art of combat.」

When he finished speaking, Gryphon sat down, visibly tired. Izayoi rushed towards him in a hurry, but Pritt beat him to the punch and gently placed her hand on his injury.

「This is a terrible wound. The bone is broken so much that simply walking must be causing him immense pain.」

「Pritt, can you take care of him? After all he’s done for us we can’t just leave him like that.」

「I am truly sorry for showing you such a shameful side of me.」

Gryphon bowed his head down in apology once again. Looking at that with a grim expression, Izayoi walked over to him and said while putting his hand on his shoulder:

「I’m sorry, Gry. If only I arrived here sooner without relying on modern methods of transportation, then maybe you wouldn’t have been harmed like that.」

「Stop saying such absurd things. The desire to come here no matter what was mine and mine alone, so you can’t blame yourself for my own insufficient judgement, you hear me?」

「Yeah, I guess you’re right. Besides, thanks to you we will be able to avoid walking into a trap ourselves, and that alone is more than I could have ever asked of you. So you can wait here and rest assured, I’m going to pay them back one hundred thousand fold for what they have done to you! Yahahahaha!!!」

Izayoi laughed confidently as he walked past Gry the Gryphon, who returned a bid, satisfied smile at him. If he was still able to do that despite receiving such a terrible injury then there wasn’t any need for worrying. The only thing that Izayoi should be thinking about right now was to repay the debt he had with him thanks to him getting injured like that while checking things out for him.

「Well then, I guess this is going to be a goodbye for us, Pritt. I’ll leave him in your care for now, but do not worry, I will come back to pick him up immediately after I give the Queen a piece of my mind or two after I’ll come back to Little Garden.」

「Please do so. And…. Whatever you do, do not be careless, both of you.」

After being seen off by Pritt, Izayoi and Tokuteru made their way to the throne room.

As one of the greatest ruins of the Bronze Age, the Knossos Palace had a relatively complicated structure, almost as if it was specifically made in such a way to prepare those who wanted to challenge the Labyrinth for what they should be expecting. When Tokuteru and Izayoi arrived at the place that could be called the world’s oldest throne room, they momentarily noticed that something in there was feeling extremely off. Tokuteru went and drew a pattern representing his divinity in the air, and it caused a crack visible to the naked eye to appear in the empty space right before them. Compared to the time when he connected the Outer World to Little Garden in his shrine back in Shibamata Taishakuten, this one was much bigger and appeared much more easily.

With something like that this close to the center of the island, it might have actually been a stroke of luck that the island has been deserted for some time. This palace was one of the biggest tourist attractions of Crete, so if people kept visiting here, there was no telling how many of them would have ended up getting spirited away by whatever was at the other side of the barrier.

Exchanging only the briefest of glances and nodding at each other, Tokuteru and Izayoi jumped into the tear in reality that appeared before them without a second of hesitation. As they did, their fields of vision have been filled with waves of all the colors of the rainbow flashing right beside them like an aurora that could not be blocked even when they tried to close their eyes and forcefully keep them shut. Just when the sensation enveloping their entire bodies was starting to become unbearable, their view suddenly cleared up.

Neither of them was surprised when they materialized at a point that was roughly 4000 meters in the air and simply entrusted their bodies to the freefall as the continued to rapidly descent. Since it was something that both Tokuteru and Izayoi experienced a number of times before, there was nothing surprising about it to them now. As they were being shaken in all directions by the cold wind, they surveyed the surrounding landscape that was sprawling out beside beneath them.

The place they have been summoned to was a giant Labyrinth stretching all the way to the line of the horizon. It was divided by its white walls into various sections that differ is scale, from the tight alleyways to vast open plazas.

Landing near the alter that looked to be the Labyrinth’s center, the two of them raised giant clouds of dust as the sprawled themselves on the ground. Any normal human who would have suffered a fall like that without any means of breaking it at all would have been dead on the spot, which just goes to show how abnormal they were to be completely uninjured.

When all of the dust clouds finally settled and the could inspect the surroundings of the altar, they immediately understood where it was that that they have landed.

「Ahh, now I see. It looks like we have entered the Labyrinth right at the destination, Tokuteru.」

「That certainly seems to be the case here. I take it that the altar itself must be the gateway then?」

They looked at the throne at the center of the altar. No matter how you looked at it, it looked exactly the same as the oldest throne in the world made entirely out of stone that they saw back at the Knossos Palace just a few minutes ago back on Crete. Originally, that would have probably been the mechanism that would have transported Homura back to the Outer World after he would have cleared the Game. Izayoi laughed, shaking his head from one side to another.

「Man, I give up! I never would have even expected this to be a gateway allowing for the return to the Outer World from Little Garden’s side! With that, I wouldn’t have been able to return even if I have cleared the Game myself, right?」

「Well, thinking about it normally, that’s how it would be, since usually going back to Little Garden’s side should be impossible without something acting as the key.」

「I see, I see. Well, that certainly sucks major ass, but I guess there’s no use thinking about it now, especially since I have the ones responsible for this farce right within my grasp, so settling the score should be a piece of cake now!」

Saying those words boldly without even trying to conceal his open hostility, Izayoi glared at the altar with murderous intent.