NOLMES. ZACRIYA KINGDOM.
In a dimly lit room deep within the capital, the only sources of illumination were the flickering holographic screens that hovered in the air, each one brimming with cascading numbers and symbols.
The screens painted the walls in a wash of cold, purple light, revealing a space cluttered with discarded bottles and the lingering haze of cigarette smoke.
Seated at the centre of this chaotic command centre was a figure, her legs crossed on the chair and thin vertical pupils glued to the screens before her. The machina leaned back, her lips curling into a satisfied smirk as she exhaled a stream of smoke.
Brushing her long, dishevelled hair out of the way, she flicked the spent cigarette into a tray piled high with its brethren and, with a deft spin of her chair, faced the room behind her.
"Labyrinth preparations are ready."
In the shadowed corner of the room, half-hidden by the darkness, stood Finch. His tall, graceful figure was almost spectral, one half of his body seemingly merged with the shadows themselves. His eyes gleamed with a quiet intensity as he listened to the woman's report.
The latter, unbothered by the foreboding atmosphere, continued in her drawling voice.
"I've hacked into the Mage Faction's administrative system. With the Vyris archmage away and Quine Poet preoccupied with the mines, they're too distracted to notice the mana inconsistencies." She paused, excitement in her eyes. "All we have to do now is implement the linking technique between Nolmes and Odeen, and the plan can get started."
The sound of footsteps echoed from the hallway as Robin strolled into the room, his usual ostentation evident in his every step. Perched on his shoulders was Canary, who clung to him like a kitten.
"Oh? What's this?" Robin's eyes gleamed with a mischievous light as he took in the scene. He took off his stovepipe, as if removing a hat would improve his vision. "We're finally activating the Labyrinths?"
The woman nodded curtly, removing her legs from the chair cushion onto the floor. She knocked over an unfinished bottle, stirring up a pungent scent of alcohol throughout the room.
Robin's expression twisted into a grimace. He gagged, dramatically waving a hand in front of his face as if to ward off the smell.
"No! Canary, hold your breath." He scooped Canary off his shoulders and pressed his palm over her eyes. "Or else you're going to get tainted by Woodpecker's dirty place."
"..."
At the same time, he signalled the sitting woman to toss him an unopened bottle by her feet.
Unfazed by his antics, Woodpecker rolled her eyes and returned to the screens. She ignored his silent request, her gaze remaining fixed on the screens, her fingers tapping out a rhythm on the arm of her chair.
Canary yanked his gloved hand down from her eyes and shot him a look. She pulled herself out of his tight embrace and scooted towards the older man in the shadows. Finch gave her a faint smile, as she looked up, grabbing his hand.
"Finch, you shouldn't pamper her so much, or else she's gonna grow up with attachment issues." Robin clicked his tongue.
Finch paid no attention to the man as he gave a belated nod at Woodpecker's earlier report. "Tell Sparrow and the others to get ready."
Woodpecker leaned back in her armchair, the leather creaking slightly under her weight. A smile stretched across her face, anticipation and mischief dancing in her eyes.
She spun around from her chair and reached down for a bottle. The next moment, her pupils thinned into a glowing slit, and the bottle cap popped off on its own. She took a long sip from the bottle, savouring the taste as she gave the man a mocking smile.
Under Robin's pouting gaze, she let the moment linger before speaking again.
"The fun starts here.".
The real game was about to begin.
***
ODEEN. ADALAN KINGDOM.
After returning to the cabin, Edris barely had the energy to do more than grab a quick bite to stave off the gnawing hunger in his stomach. He reached for a nimblet in the snack jar, not even bothering to heat it as he tossed the entire pastry into his mouth.
Yukioe, watching Edris make a beeline for his bedroom, exchanged a look with Ace, who stood beside him.
"What is he, an owl?"
Edris didn't even bother to acknowledge his coworker's jibe. As he reached his door, he glanced back over his shoulder at Ives, who was standing quietly in the hallway.
"Go find Yukioe or Ace if you're hungry," he instructed, his voice soft but firm.
Ives nodded, and with that, Edris closed the door behind him.
The Distributor—a device he'd scammed off the Sacrificial Hourglass—kept his bodily functions stable with minimal energy expenditure, but that only worked under the precondition as long as nothing was demanding to suck his mana dry.
Everything that went on last night stated otherwise.
Edris didn't even have the strength to think about the subsequent measures. His body demanded rest, and he obliged without resistance.
He was usually a light sleep, but this time, sleep claimed him quickly. He drifted in and out of reality, his mind teetering on the edge of awareness.
At some point, he vaguely heard the door to his room creak open, followed by the soft clink of a plate being set down on his bedside table. Another voice—likely Yukioe's—murmured something about how he probably wouldn't wake up, and then there was silence.
Later, he heard Celio's voice filtering through the door, filled with a mixture of concern and disbelief. "Master's not dead, is he? How can someone sleep for this long?"
But even those words were fleeting, fading into the fog of his mind as he drifted further away from wakefulness. And then, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, a dream took hold.
Edris rarely dreamed, but when he did, they were always lucid.
He found himself walking through this undefined space, each step lighting up a tile beneath his feet. The tiles formed a path, leading him forward with an almost gravitational pull. Eventually, his steps brought him to a floating black sphere, metallic chains weaving all around it. It was a familiar sight that sent a shiver down his spine.
He immediately recognised it as the same sphere he saw whenever he made an exchange with the Sacrificial Hourglass. But something was different this time. The sphere seemed slightly larger, and more prominent, with crimson blood dripping slowly from its top to its base. The drops disintegrated before they could reach the floor, vanishing into nothingness.
Edris felt an inexplicable compulsion to approach the sphere, to examine it more closely.
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As he edged nearer, someone called out to him.
"Edris."
The voice was distant but bright, and he flinched at the sound, the familiarity of it striking him to his core. He couldn't recall the last time he heard the voice, yet it engraved so deeply into his memories that he was able to identify it instantly.
There's no way.
He could feel steps approaching, stopping just behind him. His instincts urged him to turn around, to confirm the identity of the voice, but he found himself frozen in place—unable, or perhaps unwilling, to move.
"Edris," the voice said again, and this time, it was closer, more distinct.
The tone was lighthearted, almost playful, and it tugged at his heartstrings in a way that was making him nauseous.
"Extend a helping hand whenever you can."
The words were spoken with such leisure, as if the speaker were asking him how his day had gone. He'd heard these words times and times over.
"You're a good person, aren't you?"
Edris remained silent. He knew this was a dream, but even so, he couldn't help but cling to the voice, desperate for it to linger just a moment longer. As the voice began to fade, he felt the dream slipping away, and with a surge of willpower, he forced himself to turn around.
But all he caught was the fleeting image of a fading dash of green, slipping away into the shadows of his consciousness.
***
"Master!"
Celio burst into the cabin, his voice filled with urgency. His eyes quickly scanned the room and landed on the rare sight of Ace sitting on the couch, playing a game of cards with Ives.
The sight was so calm, so utterly at odds with the chaos he'd just witnessed outside, that it took the beast tamer a moment to process it. Both of them glanced up at his appearance. At the sight of the seven-year-old, Celio instinctively drew his head back and rubbed his eyes.
"You--" He was so taken aback by the sight that he'd momentarily forgotten why he came here. "What happened to your hair?"
Ives turned to him in nonchalance. "What about it?"
"It's... very personalised." Celio cleared his throat, then shook his head sideways. "Where's Master?"
Ace and Ives both paused their game and glanced toward the room with the closed door. Celio followed their gaze, his expression one of disbelief.
"Still sleeping? How are you two so calm about this? It's been three days!"
Without waiting for a response, Celio rushed to Edris's room and threw the door open, only to see that—to his relief—the man was already awake.
Edris sat on the edge of his bed, his hair dishevelled, his gaze distant and unfocused. The man looked almost lost, with no trace of his usual composure present.
"…Master?" Celio's voice was cautious, almost hesitant.
For a long moment, silence filled the room, its weight pressing down on Celio's shoulders. But then the man looked up, and the dazed expression vanished, replaced by the familiar, steady focus that Celio was accustomed to seeing.
"Is something wrong?" Edris asked.
Celio snapped back to reality, the urgency of the situation flooding back into his mind.
"Yes—very wrong!" he said, quickly updating him on the situation. "The Labyrinth pulls have started again."
Edris blinked twice.
"But we just got out of one," he said. "Weren't they supposed to happen every couple of months?"
"That's correct, which is why this isn't normal." Yukioe emerged from behind, having been dismissed early by the Healing Faction. His expression was grave as he faced the group. "The capital has issued a state of emergency."
Within minutes, the group gathered in the living room, where Yukioe began pacing, a deep frown etched on his face.
"This makes no sense," he muttered, confusion seeping into his tone. "Labyrinth pulls only happen every three months at the Tip of Crescent. But it's broad daylight, and neither three months have passed nor is it anywhere near the next due date."
Celio nodded in agreement, adding, "The Risk Faction has issued a notice for everyone who's been in a Labyrinth before—or has family members who have—to evacuate the capital. They found that everyone who's been pulled in so far shares that commonality."
"That they've had some type of previous experience with the Labyrinth or survivors?" Ives frowned.
Celio nodded.
"Technically, the Moon family should be evacuating too," he continued, "since I was in the Labyrinth. But my mother and the Commander told me to go on first."
He'd expected the response. Knowing the Moon family's position in the kingdom, there's no way they could just leave instead of helping the capital. That's when he thought of the others back at the cabin. Naturally, Celio wasn't going to leave on his own. With his friends still in the capital, they'd need to figure out the next steps together.
The group stepped outside the cabin and into a scene of chaos.
Wafts of dust wrapped the streets, which were filled with people rushing in every direction, their faces marked by panic and confusion. Although the factions had tried to keep the information contained, from the looks of it, word had somehow spread that the new waves of pulls targeted those connected to past Labyrinths.
The result was a city in turmoil, with civilians desperate to flee before they could be drawn into the deadly unknown.
While Labyrinth pulls had once been an exotic and somewhat anticipated phenomenon, this new wave felt different—more dangerous, more unpredictable. Everyone seemed to sense it, and the anxiety was palpable.
"It's a mess out here," Yukioe remarked grimly as they watched the commotion unfold. "This is everyone, right? What about the Vyris twins we saw a couple of days ago?"
"They already headed back to Nolmes," Edris replied. "The Crown Prince of Zacriya had called them back to try to fix some issue with the Mage Faction's database. Apparently, it's been infiltrated, and several sacred artefact composition sheets have been stolen."
"Infiltration, huh." Yukioe's face darkened at the news. "From the talks circulating through the factions, something similar happened here."
Edris's eyes narrowed, a cold realisation dawning upon him. "You think it's the same people behind both cases?"
"That's the current hypothesis. And if that's true…"
"Nest," Ace said, his voice dropping low. "Them again."
The group's attention was drawn to a royal notice being broadcast throughout the city. The message was simple: Evacuate promptly to avoid potential harm, or endure the consequences at your own risk.
However, the insider's notice revealed more. According to what Yukioe received from the Healing Faction, the Labyrinth pulls have been occurring sporadically since the last Labyrinth ended nine days ago, with the frequency and scale increasing exponentially over the past two days.
Initially, the regime had treated the incidents as isolated cases of terrorism, which had masked itself as Labyrinth pulls. After all, the entire phenomenon had been perceived as a completely natural occurrence that no one thought even to question the inherent logic of these Labyrinths.
The Risk Faction concealed the true circumstances from the public, hoping to identify and apprehend the culprits before it escalated. However, with the cases spiking day after day, the situation quickly spiralled out of control. Now, the only viable option was to order a mass evacuation for those at risk.
"Theoretically," Yukioe said, his voice laced with frustration, "if they had noticed any abnormalities sooner, they might have been able to trace the source. But now it's too late. The only thing civilians can do is evacuate."
In other words, the situation had escalated to the point that left escape as the only viable option.
The group moved swiftly through the chaotic streets, heading toward the edge of the capital where the evacuation was being coordinated. The kingdom's Risk Faction had collaborated with its available mages to set up teleportation gates, expediting the process of moving people out of the city as quickly as possible.
As they neared the borderline, Edris thought back to Magnus Vyris.
The archmage was still here, his mastery of teleportation—arguably the best in the entire eastern continent—would have been invaluable in this moment. But Magnus had left to deal with the crisis in Nolmes, a necessary but unfortunate consequence of the situation.
"... So that was Nest's true intention from the start."
By kidnapping Magnus Vyris, they knew that Dolan Zacriya would deploy his most skilled forces to search for him, including Saire Harkness. This left the Mage Faction's administrative systems vulnerable to infiltration.
Edris's thoughts spiralled, the realisation washing upon him like a cold light.
And when Magnus finally returned to them, he was immediately consumed with the issues in Nolmes, not to mention his own recovery. Even if the capital had him here and now, large-scale teleportation would have been out of the question.
Nest's goal was obvious—to pull as many people into the Labyrinths as possible.
Although the motives behind this were still unclear, what was clear was the elaborate nature of their plan, meticulously crafted to strike at the kingdom's most vital points when they were at their most vulnerable.
He had to admit—regardless of what motivated them to do all this, Nest had prepared extensively for this operation, anticipating nearly every countermeasure.
Except, there was just one small variable overlooked in their plan, a slight miscalculation.
He turned his gaze toward a certain white-haired man, who met his gaze briefly before looking away with a resigned sigh. He already knew what Edris was thinking.
Edris's lips curled upwards.
Magnus Vyris wasn't the only one who excelled at large-scale teleportations.