Project GB is an official initiative by Re:Library.

“HIIHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!”
“BUFU, BUHI, BUHIBUHI!!”
“MMEEEEEEEEEEEEHH!!”
“KYUKYU-KYUI!!”

Roars echoed through the cavern as grotesque beasts—partially resembling octopuses—slithered down from side tunnels and the ceiling. But on closer inspection, each one had a different horrifying feature: a horse’s severed head, a pig’s head, a sheep’s head, and one even resembled the bald head of a man (or something similar). Each of these heads sat atop a mass about the size of a barrel, sprouting long, wiggling tentacles like something out of a retro Martian sci-fi.

In response, battle cries rang out from our group, and the high-pitched shrieks of magical blasts slicing through the air echoed through the narrow cave.

“Come on, come on! I wanna speak to the manager! Call your landlady!”
“Rapid, Rapid, Rapid! Enough already!”
“Hey! You homicidal maid and rabid demon mutt—your attacks are way too sloppy! You’re leaving stragglers! And the backlash is going to bring the whole cave down, take it easy! Why you—Earth Javelin!”

“Hiyaaaaaaah!!”
“Kyuiiiiiiii!?!”

For the record, that ear-splitting shriek was from Coppelia, who was swinging her morning star like a windmill. Then came Regulus, his voice ringing out as he unleashed shockwaves fueled by absurd levels of magical energy, scattering enemies in random directions. Meanwhile, Cestlavie, mindful of the cave environment, calmly used earth magic—crushing or impaling the abominations with stone walls and spears of rock.

Blood sprayed without pause. Skulls shattered. The walls and ceiling of the cave trembled with ominous cracks, sounding off with tones that should never be heard in a cave, no matter how haunted.

Thanks to the Light spell illuminating the entire tunnel, we could see everything vividly, whether we wanted to or not. The ones screaming like innocent maidens upon witnessing this carnage were—of course—not me… but Colin and his mouse partner Algernon, as you probably guessed.

To help him avoid tripping in the dim cave, I’d kindly amped up the brightness of Light to something like broad daylight and said, “See? Bright, right?” But apparently, that backfired.

The severed-head-tentacle-monsters slithered out en masse, filling the tunnel. Faced with such graphic, R-rated scenes of adult-grade violence unfolding just meters away, poor Colin and Algernon—both average, untrained civilians—were visibly losing their sanity, as plain as day.

“Haha… once I get out of this cave, I’m gonna marry Maria Lou… I’ll even finish that ‘Ultimate Recipe’… and reconcile with my estranged potter father…”

Colin was murmuring nonsense as he detached from reality. His sudden confessions about his life piqued my curiosity, but if possible, I’d appreciate it if he could not start laying down death flags right next to me.

I, too, consider myself a sensible and morally grounded individual, unlike the other three, who were indiscriminately obliterating everything in sight. So before attacking the shrieking horrors, I tried talking to them first.

Fun fact: octopi are actually highly intelligent, on par with dogs in some ways.

However, in this case, the grotesque, wriggling bald-head—er, wastebeast—showed absolutely zero signs of being willing to communicate. It just slithered and bit at anything near it. So I abandoned all hopes of diplomacy and settled for practical retaliation.

…Not that I was judging it by appearances! It’s not like I was put off by the way it slithered, or how its design triggered an instinctive “nope” response. Just clearing that up.

Anyway, while Colin and Algernon stood paralyzed, I nimbly dodged stray guts and weird fluids splattering from exploding monsters—careful not to soil my shrine maiden robes—and focused on support. I coordinated with elemental spirits and used a mix of spirit arts and magic to help the frontliners avoid traps and enemies.

“Cestlavie, there’s a pitfall trap right by your foot. And Regulus, there’s a faint magical reaction just up to your right—be careful.”
“Got it. I’ll seal it with an Earth spell.”
“Looks like it’s a trap created with sigil magic. Understood.”
“And Coppelia—trap and monster locations are: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Up, Down, Up, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B+A!!”
“Oooooh! Sounds like an invincibility cheat!”

Motivated by my concise directions, the group continued its push. However, we’d only covered about 200 mertes from the fork so far. It might be time for a short break soon—between fighting traps and monsters nonstop, there hadn’t been a single pause.

“You’re all doing great. According to my readings, we’re just ten mertes away from the chamber with the golem. Let’s prep before we reach it. —Oh, Colin, there’s something on your shoulder… Ah, it’s a shattered monster eyeball. A horse’s, maybe?”
“HOGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHH!!”

I picked it off and showed it to him casually, at which point Colin reeled back and nearly fainted. But then he noticed the heaps of monster guts underfoot and somehow pulled himself together.

“Are you all right? If it’s too much, you could still turn back, you know.”
“N-no… I-it’s not the traps or monsters that scare me. It’s more like… those three over there who show no mercy… and you, Shrine Maiden Princess… a stunning beauty radiating divinity while casually scooping out horse eyes in the middle of a battlefield drenched in entrails…! That’s the terrifying part…!”
“?”

Colin mumbled with a pale face and slowly edged away from me. He was probably nearing full psychological collapse from the stress.

Pretending not to notice, I turned my gaze back to my now-berserk comrades. At this pace, we’d probably finish the sweep in another minute or so.

All things considered, things were going relatively smoothly so far. And it didn’t look like Colin was going to betray us either, despite my earlier suspicions. Good, good.

“Oh my? The crack in the ceiling Coppelia broke is spreading rapidly… ah, the gnomes are warning me that if we stay here, we’ll definitely be buried alive.”

“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”

I instinctively grabbed Colin by the collar—he was undergoing a complete mental breakdown along with the hallway—and dashed toward the safe zone the gnomes had indicated: a small room further ahead in the direction we were going.

I quickly glanced to the side and confirmed that Coppelia and Cestlavie, both experienced in this kind of chaos, along with Sechs and Regulus—who had started running by pure instinct—were keeping up without delay.

“HIiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!?!?”

Leaving behind Colin’s scream echoing with a Doppler effect, we fled from the collapsing passageway.

♢♦♢♦♢

“Dearie me, what a flimsy corridor that was. To think it collapsed just from a maid and some plebs brushing against it.”

Coppelia let out a dramatic sigh and shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly as if to say “good grief,” catching her breath in front of the heavy door at the end of the hallway where we’d fled.

“Haa, haa… W-what part of that was just a brush, huh?! That was clearly more destruction than actual fighting! Way more! Come on, are you stupid?! You’re all stupid, aren’t you?! Honestly, you should’ve just been crushed under those falling rocks!!”

As soon as we reached the safe zone, Collin collapsed onto the floor in exhaustion, then sat up and shouted, his frustration spilling out like a tantrum.

“Ha ha ha. A rock or two is nothing. If I go full power mode, I can send them flying out of the atmosphere.”

Coppelia brushed off Colin’s outburst with the literal steel of her nerves. Honestly, it’s terrifying how she might actually have the kind of occult powers to do something like that.

“But as they say, ‘Turn misfortune into fortune,’ or ‘Put a lid on the smelly stuff’—all the traps and wastebeasts probably got wiped out along with the collapse, so Que Será, Será¹. Thanks to that, we’ve got nothing left to worry about behind us!”

Well, yes, there’s nothing behind us anymore, that’s for sure—but…

“—Which means our way back is completely gone, too.”