There was a time where Ainsworth felt satisfied with his position. The children, Caladan and Carlisle, despite only having been at the monastery for a short time, had become like little brothers to him. Elise was his closest childhood friend besides Lumière, and having entered into the service of the Goddess alongside him, he felt he had been truly blessed to have a friend he could share that side of his life with.

Before his father had died, the former Father of the monastery on Cobbler’s Street, Ainsworth had been reckless. He had been a playboy who would rather spend his time with women than practicing the reciting of scripture and acting under the service of the Goddess.

When his father had died, Ainsworth had to quickly abandon that life, coming to the realisation that his father’s legacy was what he had tried to pass on to his son, his love for the Goddess. He had desperately tried to follow in his father’s footsteps after that. He become a pious, wise individual. He always tried to serve the greater good, helping and feeding the needy. He chastised Lumière for his actions, even though they were childhood friends, sometimes overstepping his position and acting above him.

But when Elise had died, he realised that nothing about him had really changed. He was always a reckless, stagnant individual. He had always talked about how Lumière wore a mask to cope with his feelings, never realising it was the same on his part.

Father Benedict had been a mask worn by Ainsworth in order to cope with his father’s death, to pretend he hadn’t been a failure of a son.

That regret was a driving force for Ainsworth now. Even if he was scared or felt inadequate, he knew he had to move forward, to become more powerful for the sake of never losing anyone again.

Steeling his heart, Ainsworth drew his blade in a split second, swinging it towards the head of the creature. However, when he looked at its face as his sword cleaved into its flesh, causing crimson blood to erupt outwards.

It had taken a different face, a familiar face. It was soft and pale, with long golden hair and glimmering sapphire irises. That familiar face stared at Ainsworth with a look of horror, as if disgusted with him.

“Why… Why would you… kill me…?” Its voice was layered, feminine and soft, but also gravelly and terrifying, resembling both Elise’s voice, and a monster’s. It was hollow and deep, but also maniacal and humoured.

Immediately, the monster Elise’s false face contorted, revealing bloody red tendrils amidst sloshing brain matter and fragmented bones. The tendrils instantly grew in size, swelling with blood and pus before shooting out towards Ainsworth.

He swung his sword to slash through the tendrils, but this only exacerbated the issue. Blood and pus erupted from the sliced tendrils, bathing him in thick, foul sludge. He recoiled, feeling himself grow sick, but his wariness remained.

The creature stood patiently as Ainsworth resisted keeling over. The tendrils gradually reformed into the same misshapen genial expression. The creature reached out its spindly arm, extending its palm outwards as if inviting Ainsworth towards it.

As Ainsworth looked up at the creature, the room began to feel heavy. He felt an sense of impending doom, as if he would experience true despair in a short moment.

He immediately closed his eyes, turning around before he opened them once more. It was the perception of the creature he had been warned about, something he had forgotten to employ in the midst of battle. Of course, how could one fight their enemy without looking at them.

As the creature seemed patient enough to wait out his whims, Ainsworth shot a quick glance at the monster again. Then, he began to count. Five seconds quickly elapsed, and then Ainsworth was filled with that sense of impending doom once more.

'I have five seconds before I have to stop perceiving it... what will occur if I gaze at it past those five seconds...? That feeling... it felt like I would really explode. I don't want to risk it. Let's operate on this basis and fight in five second intervals.'

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However, before Ainsworth could act, the familiar feminine voice rang out once more.

"You couldn't save anyone!" It screamed, its shrill voice echoing through the shadowless hall.

Ainsworth's eyes widened. The monster lunged forward, its shriveled spindly arm transforming into a sharpened lance, bulging with large pustules full of blood.

Ainsworth rushed forward, raising his blade before swinging it in an arcing motion forward. It sliced through the point of the sharpened blood lance, effectively cutting through the monster's spindly arm. The two severed pieces of the arm rushed past Ainsworth on either side of him, leaving him face to misshapen face with the creature.

It screamed even louder. "You let them all die! Your friends! Your comrades! You weren't strong enough to save them! How could you think you're strong enough to move forward like this!?"

'I'm not moving forward because I think I'm capable! I'm doing it because I Have to!'

Ainsworth didn't reply out loud, finally putting the mantra into practice. Instead, he pushed his blade down harder, attempting to cut into the torso of the creature.

It lashed out with its other spindly arm, causing blood to drip down Ainsworth's cheek. Still, with a grimacing expression, he perservered. He pushed harder, slicing past the shoulder bone and into the upper ribcage. With each ounce of successive force, his blade began to chip and crack.

Then, as he looked away to counteract the five-second sense of impending doom, his sword shattered completely. The creature lurched forward with its uninjured arm, throwing Ainsworth backwards across the length of the hall.

He skipped along the ground like a rock, each time he bashed into the marble flooring causing painful reverberations to echo through his body.

“One must die to leave.”

‘What!? What is it talking about now?’ As Ainsworth tried to recover from the shock of being tossed around like a ragdoll, his mind raced, trying to come up with a solution as to why the creature was talking nonsense. Everything in the labyrinth had meaning and significance.

It dragged the torn fragments of its arm along the ground as it approached Ainsworth.

'This creature... why isn't it attacking with the intent to kill!? Everytime, it grazes me, or otherwise fails to hit me... is it the case that it's not trying to kill me? Or is it playing around with me, knowing I'm weaker in comparison? Or... is it that the fight is not the only key element of this room...?'

Ainsworth immediately recalled the fountain of blood he had seen the moment he had entered the Astrologer's labyrinth. Was it the case that it was also a key element of the labyrinth’s trial? Why else would it have sat in the center of the room, changing as the initial woman disappeared, filling up with blood? Was this a clue?

No matter how much he attacked the monster, it wouldn’t die. It was only the case that he himself was sustaining wounds as time went on. However, that one sentence had caused him to recall his conversation with Lumière one night in the Main Cathedral’s hospital ward,

‘To the tribes who settled in the sand dunes of Baruunlan, they would become decorated with scars. Losing blood meant losing water, the very source of their lives.’

‘One must die to leave.’

As he looked away to avoid the five-second doom, the creature lashed out its wispy hand like a whip, crashing against Ainsworth’s side. He stumbled before hitting his head on the edge of the fountain in the center of the room. His sword clattered to the ground, and his bleeding head was positioned above the overflowing blood that spilled out onto the ground.

The creature began to approach.

Slowly, a stream of crimson began to drip from his forehead, mixing into the pool of blood in the center of the fountain.

Then, the monster stopped moving. Its shredded arm began to repair itself gradually. It let out a calm yet shrill laugh, as if satisfied and amused.

“I have given you guidance… to the exit.” A wry smile creeped up the elongated face of the creature, before it promptly took a wide bow. Then, in an instant, each individual mass of the creature transformed into floating balls of crimson blood, before dropping to the ground with a resounding splash. Ainsworth was further coated in red, his gaze shaking, already stunned and silent.

Then, the shadowless room was quickly overtaken by emerging shadow. The opalescent starlight that lined the marble room vanished, and Ainsworth was bathed in darkness.

He heard skittering noises echo around him. It was like the individual feet of many bugs, all voicing their presence at once. It was a cacophony, as if there were dozens of them lying around him in wait. He had already picked his sword back up, holding it up weakly in preparation for another attack.

As he waited, trying to steel his nerves again, a minute passed. And then another minute. And then one more.

It began to seem like nothing would happen at all.

Then, eyes awoke in the darkness, peering down at Ainsworth with gazes full of malice and disdain.