“I go to Vermillion University,” Zack replied after a bit of consideration, unable to hide the hint of pride in his voice. “Department of fiscal engineering and terraforming sciences.”
“Yep, I knew you looked smart,” the college aged girl replied. “There are only two types of people that go to Vermillion. You either have to be really smart, or really rich. And, well…” her voice trailed off.
So she was saying that he definitely didn’t seem rich.
There wasn’t a shred of untruth in that statement, but still, Zack felt like he got smacked in the face by a wet paper towel, especially when it came from a girl his age. He decided to shake it off. “What about you?”
“I’m studying fashion design at the Saint-Bordeaux Institute of Design,” answered the banged girl nonchalantly. “We’re by the water, around Paradise Harbor.”
“Ah.”
So she was one of those girls. There were a handful of universities in Vermillion City, but Saint-Bordeaux Institute was one of the more famous ones, well, behind the obvious most famous university in the region of course. A lot of aspiring fashionistas went to Saint-Bordeaux, and a surprisingly large number of their alumni became very successful in the fashion industry.
“So, what are we going to do next?” she asked, as if Zack had already agreed to party up with her.
Zack blinked. “Uhh….‘we’?
He would be lying to himself if he didn’t acknowledge that part of his caveman brain wanted to protect her from the scary monsters on an instinctive level as part of his duty as a man, but Zack also had this nagging thought tugging at his subconscious that he simply didn’t want to share his hard-earned loot or experience gain, and that she would slow him down.
Every minute spent talking was a minute not studying… er… hunting monsters.
“Well, you seem pretty capable, so I’m going to stick with you,” she continued, resting a hand on her hip defiantly, her arrow still tucked between her index and middle finger.
She had several rings on her finger, one slightly wider, and one slender, as well as three different bracelets around her wrist, but Zack wasn’t going to pretend that he knew anything about fashion. All he knew was that they were sparkly and looked nice.
“You’re not going to let me die out here all alone, are you?”
She said it in a way that made it very difficult to refute her request, her immaculately straight hair spilling downwards from her shoulders. Zack could not even begin to imagine what kind of advanced routine or products she used to make it look like that.
Fashion students were a different breed when it came to taking care of themselves, something that he had to learn.
“I’m Claire, by the way. Claire Fleurette.”
“Zack.”
He cleared his throat, having come to a reasonable compromise to present her with. “Alright, you can join me but under a few conditions. I’ll keep you safe as best as I can, but I really need experience, so I’d rather we don’t attack the same monster unless it’s absolutely necessary. If you’re too slow, I might just head on forward first. And generally speaking, you should listen to me and not cause too much trouble. Is that alright?”
Claire nodded as obediently as she could.
“Don’t worry, I won’t cause trouble. I just want to survive this mess and go home."
She sighed. "Don’t you wish this was just a dream? That’s what I hoped for in the beginning, but that smell is so horrible that we can’t possibly be dreaming…”
Zack nodded, agreeing. “Yeah, you’re right about that. Let’s get out of here.”
He started walking, and Claire Fleurette trailed behind him, drawing her bow once more.
“Here’s the plan,” Zack said while Claire jogged to catch up with his long strides. “The first thing we need to do is cover as much ground as we can so I can confirm my theory about the structure of this labyrinth.”
He pointed towards the wall to the right. “The wall is very slightly curved, a fact that’s hidden by all the corners and dead ends and overgrown plants trimmed in a way that make you not notice it as much. But if you do look at the curvature, have you noticed that it’s consistently following the same curve throughout?
“Mm… yeah.”
“That means that it’s highly likely that we’re in a circular labyrinth disguised as a square labyrinth. The convex of the wall points outwards, and the concave points towards the center.”
He looked over at Claire, who was blinking quickly trying to catch up to his explanation.
“What does convex and concave mean?”
“You know when you take a bowl out of the dishwasher? Concave is like the curve inside of a bowl where the water accumulates, think of it like a cave, and convex is like the curve outside the bowl where the water drips off.”
“Ohh… like colored contacts right? When you put them on your finger, they make a little bowl. So the part touching your finger is the convex, and the part that goes into your eye is the concave?” Claire mused.
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”
“That’s easy to get now! But can you slow down a bit? Your legs are a lot longer than mine!”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Zack nodded, slowing his pace a little. “Yeah, my bad. Anyway, let me finish my thought. There are two main takeaways from my theory.”
“One, if this is actually a circular labyrinth, it must be absolutely huge for it to show up like a square on the map function. Kind of like how the earth looks flat to us because it’s so big, same principle but disguised on a much smaller scale.”
“Two, I have a hunch that there’s something important in the center of the labyrinth. If I had to guess, it’s going to be something like the Minotaur of Crete from Greek mythology. There’s going to be a boss waiting for us there.”
Just as he said that, the ground rumbled as something very heavy hit the ground.
Zack nodded. “You felt that right? It came from the center.”
“I don’t think we should go towards the center,” Claire gulped.
Zack shook his head. “No, it’s the exact opposite. I think that’s where we’re supposed to go.”
––––
Ifrim’s eyes darted around nervously, his movements anxious. “What do the higher ups want with ussss, Berndith?”
The old ascended human male replied quickly. “Isn’t it obvious, imp? They want to pry the name of the progenitor of the cycle from our lips. It’s not just the Lion; the Order and the rest of the Council want answers as well.”
“Ssshould we tell them?” Ifrim replied, the imp sitting with his feet on the chair, rocking back and forth nervously.
Berndith crossed his legs nonchalantly and replied firmly. “No.”
“They will torture usss!”
“And we will still not tell them.”
“But why?”
Berndith sighed. “Because the moment that we open our mouths, the Seal will activate and we will be killed before uttering a single word. Not even the higher ups can go against the Tower’s authority.”
Ifrim looked unconvinced, shooting glances at the door behind them.
“Only you and I know the true identity of the progenitor, Ifrim,” Berndith smiled weakly. “Let’s enjoy the front-row seat while we can.”
“What about Airing Day? Ssssurely they will find out then!”
Berndith shook his head. “The Tower is cunning. Only carefully selected highlights of recent events are given to the Order to distribute, and the members of the Order are also bound by Seal to the Tower. Order members then pass select footage to reporters and guilds, who then play that media on television.”
“Not every stage is aired live, and the first one is especially curated. To keep intrigue, the Tower wouldn’t let anyone know the identity of the progenitor so easily. That’s the reason why we had to sign so many documents.”
“Documentssss are just paper! We rip them up!”
“Seal documents are not so simple to destroy. You’ll see… many of us have tried. Once we are under the Seal, there is not much we can do.”
Berndith cracked open a carbonated soda, guzzling it happily. “Just sit back and enjoy the show, imp. There are not many of us that get to watch uncut footage. Do you know how much the Sponsors would pay to get a hand on this?”
––––
“How… are you… not… tired!” panted Claire, who had her hands on her knees in fatigue while staring in awe as Zack dismantled another Meat Maggot.
There were a never ending amount of those monsters in the labyrinth, so plenty of grind material to go around for both of them.
“You just have to practice more. It takes time to get used to.”
In the span of time it took Claire to take down two Meat Maggots, Zack had taken down nine. Due to his high Endurance base stat of 7, the highest of all his base stats excluding Magic Affinity at 8, he was able to keep going without breaking too much of a sweat.
He was busy clearing away his notifications.
Congratulations! You have slain a Meat Maggot.
You have defeated an enemy below your level. Experience has been distributed.
Meat Maggot has dropped the following loot.
A rotten sack of pus.
1 lesser health salve.
1 iron coin.
Congratulations! You have slain…
Swiping each notification away, Zack tallied that his inventory now had thirty iron coins and a few more healing salves and random items than before. He checked the item description for healing salves and learned that salves were like a more primitive, less effective version of healing vials.
Level up! You are now level 7.
Level up! You are now level 8.
Those were the level-up achievements from earlier that he hadn’t cleared away yet. Underneath them was something different, a lengthy achievement notification.
New Achievement! Making progress.
Congratulations, initiate. You’re moving up in the world with each level up! Note that you will be able to train your bonus stats in designated training areas within each stage. Not every stage has them, so keep your eyes peeled!
For those of you who did not pay attention to your status systems, bonus stats are trainable in designated training areas or obtained upon level up, whereas base stats are inherent to each initiate and do not change until ascension or certain special situations.
Please contact a Guide or Trainer for further guidance with bonus stat training.
Reward: Nothing
That was weird. Zack definitely trained some of his bonus stats up during the week. If that was the case, then maybe the regular world was considered a designated training area?
…
Now that was a horrifying thought. If the world above ground outside of the dungeon was one giant designated training area, what exactly were they training for?
…
The answer was obvious. Monsters, and something about an assimilation, just like what Oni said in the last Delver’s Tube program.
Soon, not even above ground was going to be safe, huh?
Zack worried about his parents. But for now, his goal had to be to get stronger himself, so that he could fend for himself when shit really hit the fan.
The entire time that he was thinking, he was already engaging another Meat Maggot as Claire looked on in disbelief.
“Don’t you need to take a break once in a while?” she groaned, completely exhausted from kiting Meat Maggots around.
“Not yet.”
Zack chased the Meat Maggot across several corridors, defeating it. Making several more turns to look for his next batch of experience, he was unable to find anything, prompting him to search further away from Claire.
He wasn’t worried because the map could always guide him back to her.
The labyrinth had so many twists and turns that visibility was severely limited, and each corner could result in bumping into another person or monster, leading to absolute chaos.
On his next turn, that is exactly what happened.
"Found another one!" a man shouted from behind to his comrade, the malicious intent in his voice easily discernible.