In the scorching corridor filled with reddish mist, a strange creature appeared in our field of view.
Several golden colored rods revolved rapidly around a square core floating in the air, stirring up a faint golden dust that ignited into a fierce fire. In the next moment, a high-pitched eerie roar echoed, and several fireballs flew towards us.
"[Doomstar Impact]!"
The fireballs grazed two iron beads in the air. Suddenly, the originally fist-sized beads emitted the sound of tiny components rotating, accompanied by magical fluctuations and steam bursting out, accelerating abruptly. The air pressure extinguished the fireballs, then instantly expanded to a hundred times their original size and crashed down.
Standing at 1.62 meters, with a blood-red tattoo on his bare upper body, a fully covered helmet emitting a muffled breath, the dwarf, Chuck Barlow, restored the two iron beads to their original fist-sized state, flying them back.
I watched the [Blaze]'s pulpy body gradually collapse, marveling at the attack displayed by the dwarf just now.
Indeed, not only Belle, but this guy is also powerful. I didn't expect steam-mixed magical techniques to have such miraculous applications.
"Tsk, tsk, what kind of creature is this? I have never heard of such a thing in this maze." The dwarf said.
"...An anomaly," Belle picked up the dropped item, the [Blaze Rod], glanced at it, and then threw it to me. "Goblin, the drop you wanted."
... Let me briefly explain the current situation.
When I was illuminated by a strange flash in the mine, when I came to my senses, I found myself in this fortress constructed of brown square bricks.
With the reddish mist and these brown bricks, at first, I thought I was seeing things, until [Blaze], the monster that specialized in throwing fireballs appeared just now. I understood that my guess was correct.
This is one of the two special worlds for players to explore in Minecraft, the Nether!
If it were just that, it would be fine, but this is a special terrain in the Nether, called the Nether Fortress!
However, it still differs from the game. Although the structure of this corridor is indeed made of Nether Fortress bricks, the layout is quite different— similar to the situation in the Labyrinth of Water at the beginning. It is speculated that the Labyrinth of Flame has been contaminated by the Nether Fortress.
... Nevertheless, so far in the past few hours, there have been no dangerous situations as imagined.
In this world, creatures originally from Minecraft will evolve without exception. However, the [Blazes] seen here only increased the number of fireball launches and slightly enhanced their power. Their level is around fifty, lower than when we were in the [Flowing Purgatory].
The attack method of the [Blaze] is nothing more than throwing fireballs, but its attacks are restricted in this narrow space. Plus, there haven't been swarms appearing so far, and the few that we encountered on the way here were not too difficult to deal with.
... Or maybe it's because the people around me now are too powerful.
Besides Belle, who is a [Vassal of The Light], there is another one, a young dwarf named Chuck Barlow.
I have a bit of an impression of him. In the [Sexy Orc tavern], he sat next to me and mocked my embarrassing situation a few times.
He is 1.62 meters tall, and I am 1.6 meters tall, meaning I am even shorter than a damn dwarf.
—Shorter than a goddamn dwarf!!!!!!
"Walson, my friend, you're not worried about your height, are you? Don't dwell on it too much. Among dwarves, I'm considered tall..." Chuck leaned in, lightly patting my shoulder.
I refrained from making unnecessary comments on the topic of height and simply raised a middle finger to him.
"No, I'm just worried about Grace and the others," I replied.
After being transported here, I was surprised to find that my [Party] had been forcibly disbanded for unknown reasons.
Communication magical items were ineffective. The [$Eye of the Night Cat$ Ring] didn't work, and the necklace Alice gave me was also useless.
I didn't understand this. Alice said this thing had a very large effective range and should work anywhere in the labyrinth. If I lost contact, Grace should have teleported to me immediately. So far, she hasn't appeared, which leads me to a few possibilities.
There is water vapor all around that affects her teleportation, well, that doesn't apply in the Nether Fortress. So it means that Grace encountered an unforeseen situation, which is impossible; her [Ender Pearl] is still safely in my hands. The third point... the only one left is that she can't teleport over for some reason.
For example... either she or I is teleported into another dimension.
Could it be that I really ended up in another world? I looked at the scrambled title on the map and couldn't confirm if this idea was true.
I don't know if they're in danger, injured, or how the situation is right now. It's a headache, but the current situation doesn't allow me to panic. I can only find a way to leave here.
Damn it, this kind of thing happened without even seeing the shadow of the labyrinth's bottom layer.
"Oooh! Showing off that you have four wives is too much! I misjudged you!" Chuck snorted, left me and walked to the front of the team to continue his role as a scout.
Four wives? Where did that come from...
By the way, the reason he's standing in front, aside from being a "warrior" (that's what he said), is that he can sharply detect the location of traps.
Unlike the [Flowing Purgatory], there are traps in this labyrinth. In the short distance we've traveled, there have been several ballistae and pitfalls over ten meters deep, all thanks to Chuck's keen observation.
...It went smoothly, but what I'm thinking about is something else.
In Minecraft, the danger level of the Nether Fortress is much higher than other blocks. In other words, the creatures that appear in the Nether Fortress are only increasing, not decreasing.
But so far, only the somewhat useless [Blazes] have appeared... Could it be that all those creatures are waiting for us behind?
"Eh? There's a treasure chest here! Let me check– Wow, a small piece of [Inferno Copper Ore] and– water! There's water!" Chuck suddenly exclaimed.
Hearing this, Belle quickly walked up, and I naturally followed silently.
I saw Chuck holding two water bottles. What was inside them was not something else but clean and clear pure water.
The environment here is extremely hot. Everyone has already left behind a lot of sweat on the way, and with the luggage lost during the teleportation, water magic is almost unusable here. The water bottles in the chest came in handy at this moment.
However, if we are in a real [Nether], there generally wouldn't be any water— So can it be inferred that we are still in the labyrinth now, and what happened is similar to the [Block Contamination] we encountered in the Labyrinth of Water?
"Only two small bottles...?" Belle's tone raised slightly, and her eyebrows raised.
The three of us looked at each other. Only two small bottles but three people, it's a bit awkward— Just kidding, I hold quite a lot of bottled water in my inventory.
"Both of you can drink; I have more on me." I took out another water bottle from my inventory.
<+>
Tn: If you want to see more chapter of this story, please join my Ko-fi, for $5, you can read all of the available chapter.
Ko-fi account: https://ko-fi.com/letsplayminecraft[1]
Latest Chapter In Ko-fi: Volume 7 Chapter 44: Tragic Ending[2]
Link to the latest chapter: https://ko-fi.com/post/Volume-7-Chapter-44-Tragic-Ending-W7W81CLEK8[3]
[1] https://ko-fi.com/letsplayminecraft
[2] https://ko-fi.com/post/Volume-7-Chapter-44-Tragic-Ending-W7W81CLEK8
[3] https://ko-fi.com/post/Volume-7-Chapter-44-Tragic-Ending-W7W81CLEK8