My feet touched solid ground a mere second later. I raised my dagger in front of my face, prepared for the worst.

Nothing attacked me from out of the shadows, which I now recognized to be a long, empty corridor. I didn’t relax my guard, regardless, until two whole minutes had elapsed.

“Paz? Nicola?” I whispered.

Neither of them replied.

The corridor stayed quiet, devoid even of the shuffling sounds of chimeras.

My desperate gambit hadn’t ended in death—a fact I couldn’t help but be thankful for. But, it had ended in separation. And, after a week spent bonding with my teammates, I didn’t want to be alone again.

It kind of hurt.

Separation was honestly the best possible outcome, all things considered. I could have been teleported into a spiked pit, an acid lake, or some kind of nest filled with dungeon monsters.

If merely separated, all three of us could still unite . . . assuming none of my teammates had perished during their cursed journey through space.

Nicola, in particular, was low on all renewables. Her chances of surviving a crowded corridor on her lonesome was . . . not good. Not at the moment, at least.

Okay . . . calm thoughts.

My teammates were made of sterner stuff than that. I needed to figure a way out of my current situation, or else I would be the only one missing at the reunion.

Where the fuck had I been transported to even?

All of the Labyrinth’s corridors looked the same, and [Map] didn’t help much to identify my location, what with its inability to display exact coordinates.

A waypoint, then? I could tag places I had visited or learned of on the [Map], but doing so required a name . . . and the generic ‘item room’ simply wouldn’t cut it.

There were so many such rooms in the Labyrinth, after all.

Sweat dribbled down my forehead as I reviewed my condition. I was alone. Wounded. Drained. In a maze populated by monsters . . . one that was intended to be challenged as a party.

My potion timers were all on cooldown which meant that finding a safe place to [Meditate] had become a priority. My thoughts again went to Nicola. Without MP to draw on, she lived at the dungeon’s mercy, shackled to a festival she had never intended to participate in until Byron destroyed her home.

Byron.

My fingers shook with unnerving ferocity. Everything that had befallen us this past week rested squarely on his shoulders. We wouldn’t have joined the festival if he hadn’t targeted us. And, we wouldn’t have gotten separated if the bastard hadn’t given chase.

There were no two ways about it. As long as a member of my party lived, we would see the battle through to its conclusion. Byron would live to regret the fact that we had escaped today. And, I wouldn’t die until that debt was repaid. Not while I had any say in the matter.

I looked around the corridor. The persistent pink lighting triggered a surge of nausea that needed to be forced down with conscious effort. I put my best foot forward and surged off in a random direction, relying only on the iron in my blood.

A broad shape scuttled out of the nearest passage. I parried its heavy strike without slowing and buried my dagger in its face. Large, pincer-like arms fell as the creature thudded to the floor.

Hold on. Pincers?

Corpse of Wolf Crab Chimera LVL 13.

What?

More wolf crabs showed up, only to meet their end at the tip of my blade.

No . . . It couldn’t be . . .

“This can’t be,” I roared.

The wolf crabs simply kept coming.

There was no denying it now.

I hadn’t just been flung clear across the Labyrinth. I had been thrown back to the starting region with less than four days to make my way to the center.

Alone.

“Delay is not denial,” I chanted, munching on a sandwich. “It is only a temporary setback for greater things to come. Ah, dammit. Who am I kidding?”

I had holed up in a safe room to recover my renewables. The Wolf Crab Chimeras were tenacious, I’d give them that, but after everything I’d faced, they barely presented a challenge.

The major problem lay in the fact that I had to do this all over again. I could always keep going westward. But, without my teammates to support me, and without knowing the right direction . . .

“Ah, dammit,” I said again.

Of the initial one hundred and forty-four participants, I was probably the only one stuck in the starting area. Everyone else should have reached the middle regions by now. The odds of failure weighed down on me on all sides, crippling my will to continue.

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Why was I so fixated on survival, anyway? I’d done pretty well for a human who had been transported without warning to a fantasy world. No one would blame me if I huddled up into a ball and gave up at this juncture.

No one . . .

The visage of the old-man homunculus flashed in my mind’s eye.

I had already given up once. Nine hundred and ninety-nine souls had died for the chance to be in my shoes. What was that compared to a little setback? Could I be any more pathetic?

“Get up, Damien,” I hissed. “Get up.”

If the Labyrinth desired to kill me, it would have to work for it. Tossing me a few kilometers backward meant nothing on the grand scale of things. Nothing, you hear?

I leaped to my feet. A renewed burst of energy filled me, courtesy of successful [Meditation]. I chucked the half-finished bread into my mouth and marched out of the safe room to continue my trip.

The chimeras never saw me coming.

[Stealth] did wonders for silence, even without the boost from [Dark Stalker]. I ran down the winding pathways of the Labyrinth, leaving a trail of corpses strewn behind me.

Once again, I stuck westward, using the cluster of the monsters to gauge my position. If their levels got weaker, it meant I had moved away from the center and needed a course correction. If they got stronger, however, I doubled my pace.

I didn’t bother killing any chimera I could avoid. The wolf crabs were weak enough that it would take hundreds of them to lift me to the next level. Which reminded me . . . where did all the corpses go?

There were over thirty parties in the Labyrinth actively trying to depopulate their surroundings. How did the dungeon manage to keep its hallways clean and pristine?

A soft sound reached in my ears—a ping or something of the sort. I ignored it as a figment of the imagination, but it rang again a few minutes later.

Definitely a curiosity.

I skidded to a stop. My current location provided no obvious hints, but a third ping caused a ripple to form across the surface of the [Map].

That had to be it.

I followed the beacon, noting how the pings got louder the closer I approached. [Map] had never shown this kind of behavior beforehand, making me into a fool if I chose to ignore it.

I stood close to something that the [System] wanted me to find. Treasure? Or maybe the location of my teammates. The latter thought filled my heart to bursting, and I quickened my steps until I finally located the source.

A room with a cleft appeared on the [Map] about a few corridors away, much the same as a typical safe or item room. A final ping rippled outward from its location. And then, the pings stopped and switched to a low thrum.

A few hours had passed since I’d begun my speed run. The punishing pace had wrought havoc on my stamina and slender elven muscles. I could use a brief rest . . . and a hug . . . and a shower too. But, I couldn’t imagine why [Map] would point me to this location unless something waited to be found therein.

I snuck past a couple of wolf crabs and entered the final corridor. The aforementioned room stood alone in a wall, hidden behind a plain door that bore no insignias. Paz had warned that boss lairs could sometimes appear as safe rooms in a bid to trick unsuspecting rankers. So, maybe a little experiment was in order?

“Think fast, uggos,” I said, returning to the chimeras.

They scuttled toward me with their funny crab walk that would have drawn a smile had I been in any mood for levity. I butchered the first and crippled the second. Then, dragging the still struggling creature toward the unmarked room, I tossed it with all my strength onto the door.

The wolf crab bounced off as if repelled by a ward, proof that it couldn’t cross the threshold.

Safe!

“Sorry, buddy,” I said to the dying creature, before putting it out of its misery.

The unmarked room opened without any resistance. I peeked into the darkness, hesitant to venture any further. And then, I took the plunge, allowing my feet to carry me into the chamber.

The room lit up the instant the door shut, providing a clearer view of my surroundings.

What the hell is this?

Ding!

You have unlocked a hidden objective.

Quest: [Damien the Explorer].

New objective: [Find the Traveler’s Room].

Objective complete!

Reward: 10 spirit orbs.

Complete your exploration of the dungeon to unlock further rewards.

I frowned at the notification, and then I minimized it in favor of gaping at my surroundings—or more accurately, the diagram engraved in the furthest wall from the door.

The drawing sat squarely in the stone, shaped in a perfect circle that indicated it hadn't been created by hand. A dizzying array of walls and corridors stretched across the circle. Small squares stood in the walls, marking the location of . . . rooms . . .

Bloody hell.

This was a map. A map of the Labyrinth.

It looked less intricate than mine, but the layout remained the same. And, unless I had ingested something, this was a map of the entire Labyrinth, not like my skill which only showed the general vicinity.

The larger map also possessed a feature I hadn’t seen in mine. Because, even as I watched, a glowing orb came alive in the center of the diagram.

The dungeon heart.

Or more accurately, a simulation of it.

It thrummed softly on interval—the source of the pings I had seen on my [Map]. But, why had it called out to me? Did it have something to do with my quests?

“The fuck?” someone cried out from behind me.

I turned in time to see an armored figure rush through the door. It slammed into my gut and bowled me clean across the expanse into a nearby wall.

I came to with my feet dangling off the ground, pinned by a hand around my throat.

“Who are you?” the armored figure bellowed, keeping me aloft with ease. “Who?!”

I fought through the pain and reached for my dagger.

“Enough,” a stony voice said.

A strong figure strode into the room, with lush, black hair tied in a long braid behind her. Tightly corded muscles rippled beneath her skin, which glowed a luscious brown, about one shade lighter than Nicola’s.

The woman smoothed the wrinkles on her orange monk-like robes. She stopped behind my attacker and regarded me with narrowed eyes. Every single one of her facial features, from her long nose to her slim jaw and blood-red lips revealed her as a foreigner among Bargherians.

Hold on . . . I knew this woman. I’d seen her once in passing. But, my current situation didn’t do wonders for my memory.

Her brown eyes met mine—

You have unlocked a new objective!

Quest: [Heroic Action].

Objective: Kill the impostor!

A person in your vicinity poses a unique threat to your adventure.

Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!

Reward: Undefined.

What the hell?

The woman’s eyes widened at the same time I received the notification.

She looked at me, then at a space in the air, then back again at me.

My heart sank.

I’d finally found someone with a similar quest mechanic. And, judging by her expression, she needed to kill me too.