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Arc 4 | Chapter 146: Around and Around (Until You Lose Your Mind)

Arc 4 | Chapter 146: Around and Around (Until You Lose Your Mind)

Emilia was pretty sure she was going insane. Clearly, this was how Clarity got itself followers: by driving them insane by forcing them through labyrinths over and over and over and over, and she just wanted it to stop!

In hindsight, Honey had mentioned the holiday was tomorrow, but in Emilia’s defence, she had no idea when that message had been sent or what time of day it was. Now, she was sure the holiday was actually tomorrow. It was still tonight, and she was annoyed. She was especially annoyed that she hadn’t realized Yuka was capable of time manipulation, meaning they could make her go through this labyrinth over and over and over and over and time would only move by minutes.

It was some technique Yuka had picked up during their own labyrinth excursions, every Clarity combatant required to complete the labyrinth at least a dozen times before they were accepted into the war force.

War force. With each completion of the labyrinth—the one that had actually been hidden in that cavern, above the landing she and Vermilion had waited on—more information about the mission was given to her. Vermilion as well, although she had only needed to complete the labyrinth two times to reach the required dozen, Clarity having already forced her through ten labyrinths since swiping her off the street.

By the time Emilia emerged from her second round—bringing the number of labyrinths she had gone through to a respectable six—the Vermilion that she had briefly gotten to know and be friends with was gone. Sort of.

What remained was… disturbing. It was as though her personality had been wiped away, what remained was her and yet not. Everything about her felt wrong, like something had taken root within her, and when Emilia braved to mention that she didn’t like how they were being forced through the labyrinths, Vermilion had just smiled and told her it would be fine.

It would be fine.

It would be fine.

The will of Clarity was behind them, guiding their mission, their quest, their purpose.

Emilia was thoroughly creeped out, but the alternative to going through the labyrinth another six times was being killed—or trying to fight her way through the other five members of the group. She was strong, but even she didn’t like those odds, so back in she went.

At the very least, she’d gained more gifts—bringing her grand total of mystery gifts to three!—but while gaining gifts was great, they didn’t seem to be what the group were concerned with; breaking their minds seemed to be the point.

Emilia wasn’t letting her brain be broken, thanks.

It was just the how of it, that was the problem. Knowledge of what was happening might help her stay sane, she thought, but her mind couldn’t help but go back to her conversations about the effect of touching heartcores on the Risen Guard. These labyrinths… were dangerous, and as she was pushed into her third round, she wondered if they had always been that way. The stories she had heard from the kids hadn’t included any mention of heartcores corrupting minds, yet here they were, the Risen Guard balancing power with that corruption, Clarity seeking that corruption out.

Hopefully, V was okay. She had no idea if every visitor was being put through the same trial or not—how many people could possibly have time altering gifts, after all?—and she’d never had a chance to tell V about what she’d learned from Boundary. If something happened to him because she’d been more concerned with getting fucked last night than having a conversation…

Not that they hadn’t talked about anything! It was just that explaining the details of the magic system to the other visitor had seemed more worthwhile! Unsurprisingly, he’d even managed to use a little, although his lack of magic gems had severely limited what he could do.

“Fuck,” she hissed as she made her way through the labyrinth.

It was a strange labyrinth, being just a single maze that, while long, didn’t change between her visits. Even with her shit mental mapping, after repeating it a few times, Emilia moved through it with very few wrong turns. To the heartcore. Touch the heartcore. Pass out for a while. Wake up. Exit. Learn a few bits of information about Clarity and their mission. Back into the labyrinth. Repeat. Walk the maze. To the heartcore. Touch the heartcore—

Unless she didn't.

Technically… she didn’t think they could tell whether she’d actually touched the heartcore or not. So, what was stopping her from pretending to touch it? Pretending her mind was slowly opening up to manipulation by Clarity?

In theory, the exit door was stopping her. It hadn’t opened before, when they’d tried to leave that third labyrinth without traversing the lake to the heartcore. At the time, Emilia hadn’t been willing to try and force the doorway open. If something went wrong, the kids would suffer.

Now, she was alone and totally down to fuck with the door. Plus, she was pretty sure she could force it open with a gift she hadn’t had back then.

Regardless of how different the world of the raid and the labyrinths were, seemingly separate in a way she definitely didn’t understand, Emilia was also pretty fucking sure it ran on the same magic system—at least when wasn’t altering the world to make the skill system of the real-world work, anyways. The point was, she’d seen them, arrays peeking out at her inside the maze, affecting this function or that, and while at first glance the doorways themselves didn’t have arrays etched into them, on closer inspection, they did have arrays.

The arrays weren’t normal, but they were there, the same way they were in all magic objects—including items created by the blood curse. Neither the arrays winding through blood items nor the one managing the door were visible, instead vibrating and circulating energy inside the object, much like the power of Conrad’s summoning array had existed under his skin, the scar over his skin meaningless and simply the method for applying it.

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The arrays inside items were more difficult to analyze, and Emilia was forced to feel it out, her energy working to burn the pattern through the surface of the door. It hurt, her core shaking with effort, while her body screamed as magic from the array backlashed into her.

In the end, she was able to erase the portion of the array locking her inside until she touched the heartcore, although it had fucking hurt, and she’d needed to pass out for a bit. Then, nothing was stopping her, and she left without touching the heartcore.

No one seemed to notice she stopped touching them, too distracted doing stars knew what. They didn’t even notice was when she took a little too long to step into the labyrinth after her fourth round: she’d been trying her hardest to impose upon her smart little wisp of energy that it needed to find V before she sent it off. Would it find him? Warn him? Even if it tried, was her energy something he even could understand? And even if he did, it wasn’t like he could disable the arrays—not unless he could do so with his core, which she didn’t rule out—but maybe he could heed her warning and…

And what? Die? That was really the only option she saw for keeping him safe. What a terrible end—one the man might try to avoid, hoping his skills would be enough to keep his mind safe.

None of that mattered—the fact that V might not understand or might disregard her message didn’t matter. She had to try, especially since there was no saying how long the effects of whatever the heartcores were doing would last.

Anything goes. Even if the manipulation of the heartcores reached into the real-world, there was little they could do against the platform maintainer who had allowed it to happen. Try to shut down the platform? Perhaps, but that would mean destroying this world—possibly all the world’s managed by the people who had allowed something like this to happen. Which was the thing! This shouldn’t have been possible!

As much as Emilia didn’t think Halen’s company, Hail, was doing the right thing, allowing their system to be used to create raids, she also wouldn’t have thought them stupid enough to have left the ability to manipulate their heroes’ minds to this extent within in the system! The platform maintainer or creator could have hacked that in, but something told Emilia they hadn’t.

This had been allowed—purposeful or not—by Hail, and she had really fucking big concerns for how far-reaching this manipulation was.

How many people were coming out of raids, thinking they’d just been traumatized or changed by their time inside it, only for it to be something more insidious? Some worm wiggling through their heads and doing stars knew what to their personality? To their ability to think for themselves? To their ability to resist manipulation?

What other terrible things could the system be planting into unsuspecting heads?

The most annoying thing was the one person who might be able to get answers for her didn’t even work for Hail anymore, and while Helix would still have contacts there, he was unreachable until the end of the season, his new job leaving any message he received open to prying eyes until his contract ended.

Stupid man and his stupid, ill thought out job.

⸂Hello again, Emilia. Welcome back.⸃

Sparkling stars above and shimmering rocks below. How was it that this group was becoming creepier and creepier each time she came out? It would only last a few moments, as though something else—something terrifying inside them—were watching her, assessing.

Yuka cocked their head, the thing inside them watching her as she exited the labyrinth for the last time. Emilia wondered if it could tell something about her that wasn’t quite right. She didn’t think so—she didn’t think whatever the heartcores planted inside its victims was capable of sussing out imposters. It could very well be, though, and until she was sure they wouldn’t suddenly attack her, Emilia kept her guard up.

Actually, on second thought, she should just be keeping her guard up from now on, no matter what.

Yuka—the thing wearing Yuka—nodded, and suddenly, it was gone, the normal Yuka standing before them instead. ⸂Good,⸃ they said, motioning her to stand beside Vermilion, who seemed to have largely returned to their normal state as well, even if they still felt different—still felt wrong.

Kyren stepped in front of them, his bulking form glowering down at them. His normal expression, one of general annoyance with everyone. ⸂We have been given our mission by Ajarni,⸃ he said, voice catching reverently over their leader’s name. ⸂As you do not have access to the system, we will impart it to you on his behalf.⸃

Personally, Emilia didn’t think that sort of speech suited the man, but she wasn’t about to say that to him—he was liable to punch her. Plus, having only Vermilion as an example for how people acted directly after they were affected by the heartcores, she could only assume she was supposed to be somewhat subdued while she slowly regained her personality. At the very least, she knew from Fran and Jerrina that the infection didn't completely calm a person—Emilia wasn’t sure how long she’d last acting like a bland faced shell!

Her eyes shifted to Yuka as they listened to Kyren explain their goal, assessing the young Clarity member. They were definitely on the bland side, their personality so subdued that while it could have been like that before their trips through the labyrinth, it could just as easily be a consequence of their manipulations. Carne’s personality had clearly been affected permanently, in contrast to someone like Boundary, who flashed between their personalities, neither of which were particularly bland in the way Clarity members’ alternate personalities seemed to be.

It was all so weird. Were it not affecting visitors, Emilia might have assumed it was a way for the platform maintainers to manipulate the residents of the raid: force certain personalities into different groups in order to control how those groups are interacting. Maybe it was that, its reach unfortunately extending to visitors, whether by accident or design. A coding error: where a line should have excluded visitors from this particular storyline of heartcore corruption, it didn’t.

⸂Do you understand?⸃ Kyren asked, sounding very much like he didn't think they would. That might have been fair, Emilia had only been half listening while Vermilion seemed to be shifting rapidly between her two personalities and retaining very little of what was said.

“The mission,” Emilia said, eyes turning back to Kyren, “or quest, if you will, is primarily to get into the Ingogia household without being noticed. Other groups will create distractions as necessary. We are to find the visitor and determine if they actually have gained system access, and if so, find out who else knows. Depending on the information they supply us with, we will decide what to do with the Ingogia estate. In the worst case, we will access the Ingogia’s personal landing pads and head to the other Enclave estates connected to it.”

Kyren hadn’t said they would be killing anyone, even if that was written between the lines. Kyren hadn’t said they wouldn’t be able to trust that this visitor would tell them the trust, either about the system access or who they’d told. That and so much more was simply written between the lines.

Tonight would be bloody. They weren’t expecting anyone to survive, their lives were the price of information. This was the start of a war, and they were to take out every person they came across, even if everyone seemed to be denying that. A mental leap: we’ll kill only when necessary, but of course, it will always be necessary.

Information about how to access the system would be relayed back to Clarity, and they would either track down more visitors—and who said they didn’t have more hidden away back at their base?—or keep the information safe until the next visitation.

Emilia could guess they didn’t particularly like the latter option—too much could happen in the indeterminate time between—but they would do it if they had to. Just like they’d sacrifice all of them because they had to.