I stared at the blade in front of me in deep concentration, my expression set into a heavy frown.

Less fire, more lightning. Come on…

The blade burst into flames again as small sparks of electricity fizzled out of it.

I groaned.

“This is really hard, chat… Why is it so hard? It used to be so easy…”

GeorgeDoshington: thats what she said

JamieWasTaken3: gotta do a training montage

“Yeah, probably…” I said with a sigh.

It was actually quite disconcerting that something I had been able to easily do just an hour ago felt so difficult, if not impossible, now. It had been the same with Heat vision, but I felt it even more now, since I’d been relying on the lightning so much in fights.

Obviously, I’d always known that the system had to be messing with reality and my body somehow, but this felt uncomfortably close to the system screwing with my mind.

It brought up a whole slew of questions. Who made the system? Why? What was its purpose? Was the system merely a help tool and everything I did was possible without it, or was the system what enabled all this crazy nonsense?

Obviously, my guess for the first question was that the Fate Weaver had made it. But as for the rest of the questions… I had no idea.

Better not think about it too hard right now. It already felt like I was skirting too close to having an existential crisis. It was already hard enough to keep up my mood.

“Oh well… ” I pouted. “I guess I pivoted from my fire lightning build to a purely fire-based build. That’s probably not great with all the water based enemies around here…”

I still felt like it was possible for me to activate the damn sword, I just needed to learn how to do it.

Later.

I still needed to find more food.

I continued walking through the locker maze for about an hour as Ebi continued mapping it out. A few more of my regulars popped into the group chat in that time, so I didn’t feel as pressured by the troll duo.

I also encountered a couple more sentient puddles on my way and confirmed that yes, they were really annoying to deal with without lightning. Physical attacks didn’t really do anything and while fire did decent damage and made them smaller, the steam made for an unfortunate smoke screen for them.

Luckily, the small sparks from the sword I could still manage were sometimes enough to beat them.

I still had to chomp on a ton of life ooze with how much Ether I was using though.

Finally, after a whole hour of wandering, I found something.

“Chat… I don’t like this one bit,” I said as I eyed the small screen on the side of the lockers.

I was pretty sure that this wasn’t the same one I’d activated yesterday. I didn’t see any opened lockers around and while my memory for this kind of thing wasn’t the best, the layout around it seemed different.

But then again, I’d seen the layout change in front of my eyes and I wouldn’t put it past this stupid dungeon to want to try and confuse me.

KaiEbikoOfficial: yeah I don’t know about this

JamieWasTaken3: you have flameguard now tho

GeorgeDoshington: round two babyyyyy

bloopbooper: blooop! ヾ(。＞＜)シ

I pursed my lips.

To be fair, I did have better ways of dealing with sentient towels trying to smother me now, but I still didn’t like this.

Not like I had much of a choice though. It was either activating this thing or continuing to aimlessly wander through the maze. And considering Appraisal outright stated that the bracelet was used to navigate floor two, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the intended route.

“Right…” I sighed. “Here goes nothing, chat… God, it’s gonna be super loud again, isn’t it? Ugh…”

With great reluctance, I lifted my wrist and let the screen scan it.

It beeped, a ten appeared on the screen, and I jumped back and cringed in anticipation for what was to come.

As expected, the entire maze began to shift once more with the horrible creaking and scraping sounds all around me. I grit my teeth, gripped my sword, and did my best not to get crushed while keeping an eye on the little screen, watching it count down.

Once the movement stopped and the countdown on the screen turned into ‘Locker 14578 opened.’, I breathed out a sigh of relief. Then I immediately tensed up again and prepared for a fight as I heard a locker popping open behind me.

I whirled around to see enemies flying out of the locker. But instead of flying towels, they were…

“Hats?!”

Sun hats, bowler hats, top hats, baseball caps… All sorts of hats spinning through the air aiming straight at me.

I breathed in and shot a Flame bullet before they could get anywhere close. Just as advertised, I could feel the fire bunching up more and moving straight forward rather than spreading out like with normal Fire breath, before a fireball shot into the hats’ midst and took out about a half of them.

The rest of them converged on my position and I jumped to the side to dodge while channeling fire into my sword and slashing through the space where I predicted they would fly through.

Several more hats went up in flames, while the rest uselessly bounced off the ground where I’d stood.

Unfortunately, one of them had come at a weird angle and managed to bounce right into me.

“Guh!” I gasped as it rammed into my stomach, making me hunch over and drop my sword. I immediately slapped it with a burning hand to get it off of me.

I was about to crouch to retrieve my sword but noticed the rest of the hats already spinning their way at me. With no time to spare, I simply lit up my body and started smacking the hats out of the air as they came.

In the midst of that, I quickly reached into my backpack, pulled out the shower head, lit it on fire, and began using it instead of my sword.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Luckily, enemies made of fabric were much more vulnerable to fire than puddles of water, and the fight didn’t last too much longer after that.

As the last flaming hat dissipated into mist, I plopped on the ground with a sigh and rubbed my stomach.

KaiEbikoOfficial: you alright?

GeorgeDoshington: bitch slapped

JamieWasTaken3: damn your getting really good at this

“Thanks,” I said wryly. “Yeah, I’m fine… Just a tad winded.”

I retrieved my sword, put it back into its sheath, then gave the shower head a brief look – it didn’t seem damaged at all despite the flames – and put it back into the backpack.

“I’m smacking sentient flying hats with a flaming shower head. What even is my life, chat?”

JamieWasTaken3: lol yea

GeorgeDoshington: spooky locker time

bloopbooper: bloop (*￣▽￣)b

I grunted as I pulled out the bucket out of my backpack and began recovering.

KaiEbikoOfficial: well time for a new map

I winced.

The stupid maze rearranging itself everytime I found one of those screens really didn’t help, did it? I owed Ebi so much for sticking with me. I would have to pay her back somehow… If I ever found my way back to Earth.

I shook my head, purging those thoughts.

No, I would definitely find my way back. No question about that.

First though, I had to find my way out of this dungeon… And hopefully find more food at some point.

Feeling refreshed and my stomach no longer hurting from the hat’s charge attack, I got up, put the bucket back into my backpack, and started toward the opened locker.

“Alright, chat. We learn from our mistakes here. No burning everything inside… Actually, how about no trying to fight with fire at all? If something attacks me inside, I’ll just run.”

GeorgeDoshington: but muh free skill points

KaiEbikoOfficial: good plan

JamieWasTaken3: the skill points arent worth it ogre

I hummed.

“Yeah, I’m not risking my life just to get a few more skill points… And there’s no guarantee I’m even going to get anything for doing the same thing again.”

As I got closer to the opened locker, I felt myself tense up and my arms began shaking. I stopped a few steps before I could peek inside the locker and just stared at it for a moment.

I suddenly really didn’t want to go in. Sure, everything ended well the last time but…

Well.

Maybe I wasn’t as okay as I thought I was.

The thought of messing up and getting suffocated by hordes and hordes of enemies again…

A chill went down my back.

GeorgeDoshington: gogogo

KaiEbikoOfficial: nana?

uptonMIKE: maybe you should rest up first

“Yeah… You know what? I think you’re right, Mike. I think I’ll just… take a bit of a breather first…”

I plopped down on a nearby bench, still eyeing the opened locker door, blocking my view of the inside. As soon as I did, my stomach grumbled and my hand reflexively went up to it.

“Ugh… Except I can’t. I have to keep going or I’ll starve.”

I moaned as I dropped my head into my hands.

How long could I keep on going? This was already the longest stream I’d ever done and I was nearing my limit. How much longer could I pretend that everything was fine? That I wasn’t stuck in a different body in another world? That I hadn’t nearly died several times in just a couple of days? Could I even ever get back home? What would I even do if I did? What had happened to my original body? Would I discover a corpse? Was I even… me? Or did I just have the memories of that person? Was the phoenix actually my creator rather than a kidnapper? Was the stream chat even real at all? Was I just talking to myself, pretending to chat with people? Was anything real at all? Was it all a dream? What even was the point of keeping on going?

I belatedly realized that my face was all wet and I was sniffing and shaking.

KaiEbikoOfficial: nana?

KaiEbikoOfficial: nana please

GeorgeDoshington: shit we broke her

KaiEbikoOfficial: it’s gonna be okay

bloopbooper: bloop…? (｡•́︿•̀｡)

JamieWasTaken3: george shut up now

“I want to go home…” I whined.

God, how pathetic was I? To cry and whine on stream like this. Who did that?

Me, apparently. The biggest loser to have ever been isekai’d. Why was I even whining? Shouldn’t I be excited? Hadn’t I always wanted to go on an epic adventure? To leave the shitty world I lived in behind and go explore new mysterious lands? What was I complaining about now? You couldn’t get more mysterious than this weird dungeon.

I should just stop being a wuss and get on with it.

I brought up my shaky arm up to my face and wiped the tears off. A bit of burst of fire from Flameguard and my arm was dry again, albeit probably salty.

I took a deep breath, exhaled, and repeated this a few times.

Then I finally stood up and looked at the locker again.

“Alright, chat… Sorry about that. Let’s keep going.”

They probably weren’t going to let this go, but I sure as heck was going to vehemently ignore what had just happened. Not like talking about it would help anyway. Maybe with a therapist. But I could hardly get a therapist to talk to here.

Despite some people’s protests – including my own, although I didn’t say that – I walked up to the locker and looked inside.

I blinked in surprise to see a column of light inside the darkness. Unlike the first time, the exit was immediately obvious.

“Okay, chat… That looks great, but I don’t trust this. I’m gonna stick to my rules. Only use fire for light.”

With a small nod to myself, I covered my sword’s blade in gentle flames and entered the locker.

I couldn’t help but tense up as I entered the completely dark and quiet place again. My heartbeat getting faster only made me more nervous… which made my heartbeat get faster. It was a vicious cycle.

But I trudged on, slowly creeping toward the light while keeping my eyes and ears peeled for any sign of immediate danger.

It felt like hours, but was probably only a few minutes. Either way, I still didn’t feel like I was making any progress. The exit wasn’t getting any closer. At first, I thought it was my own nerves and wild imagination, but then I remembered the first locker and how it screwed with space.

I briefly glanced back and saw the entrance. It looked about as far as the exit did. I seemed to be exactly in the middle, which was… a bit of a weird coincidence.

Feeling anxious about this whole thing now, I began walking back to the entrance. A minute passed, then two, and it wasn’t getting any closer. When I looked to the other side, the exit seemed the same distance as well.

“Crap…” I murmured into the dark silence, as I realized what was happening.

GeorgeDoshington: trapped

JamieWasTaken3: oh shit

So far, the space warping nature of this dungeon just made mazes, but now it had led me into a trap I couldn’t escape from. What the hell was I supposed to do now?

I heard a rustle behind me and whirled around, eyes scanning the darkness.

Not this shit again!

My heart began pounding even faster and I couldn’t stop my arms from shaking.

“Chat, help…” I whispered, my tone full of urgency.

GeorgeDoshington: LIGHT EM UP

repeaeaeat: try going in other directions

I didn’t think about it twice and followed Repeat’s suggestion. It felt counter-intuitive, but instead of going toward either of the lights, I instead fast-walked off to the side.

More rustling to my left.

I ignored it and broke into a run. My already tense breaths turned into hyperventilation as more and more rustling resounded all around me.

I chanced a look to the side when I heard a sound particularly close to me, and to my utter shock, the exit finally looked closer than before now.

I felt hope bloom inside me and pushed myself to sprint even faster into the darkness while keeping my eyes to the side and seeing the exit get closer and closer.

I gasped as something brushed against my leg and I instinctively slashed at it with my sword. The blade cut into the floating summer shorts and set them on fire, illuminating my surroundings and revealing hordes of sentient clothing all around me, positioned just out of sight of my fiery sword’s light and none of them between me and either of the exits.

The shorts tumbled back, bumped into the floating shirt there, setting it on fire as well. That shirt bumped into some socks, the socks into a sunhat…

“NOT AGAIN!” I shouted as I used all of my strength to keep running despite seeing all the monsters in front of me. An idea briefly flashed in my mind and I immediately implemented it without thinking about it twice.

I used Flameguard and spewed out fire from my calves and ankles, boosting me forward even more.

I flew forward, the exit to my right getting closer and closer, until a certain point, where I felt the space warp around me, the exit freaking swerved from the side and into my path in an incredibly nauseating way, and I flew out of the stupid locker before crashing into the opposite locker row outside.

I immediately tried to recover and stared inside the locker that was now filled with fire and sentient articles of clothing jumping around in panic, some of them pushing their way toward the entrance after me. I automatically breathed in and covered the entrance in as much fire as I could.

Once I was reasonably sure nothing would get through without burning to crisp or first flying up high, I ran in a random direction into the maze.