After a while of arguing, I finally convinced Balmy to borrow me the dark orb she found when Targaroth’s throne shattered.

“Hmm… What is this?”

I turn the sphere around, inspecting every side for imperfections or clues. The dark sphere is hard and smooth. As for its material… who knows? The lack of light reflection makes it hard to identify. With the dark particles spinning around it, the sphere reminds me of a miniature black hole.

“Can I take a look?” Thunder Thighs says, extending one hand towards the orb.

“Sure, I don’t see why not.”

I hand the dark sphere to her, and she repeats the same steps I did a moment ago. The others send curious glances our way, but they either don’t mind letting us solve the mystery or they don’t think they could do any better than us.

The only exception is Balmy, who continuously spins around my head, anxiously looking at the dark sphere. I’m sure she’s containing the impulse to quickly grab ‘her’ orb and fly away.

I’m tempted to swat her like a fly… but I don’t. Not because I don’t want to – and believe me when I say I want to –, but because she deserves some leeway after finding what could be our only clue to solve the mystery.

It’s an exceptional outcome that won’t happen again, so she better stop fooling around.

A stream of black particles, looking like a dark smoke cloud, flies towards the dark sphere and joins the particles already orbiting it. It surprises us, and Thunder Thighs almost lets it fall to the ground.

“N-no! My orb!”

Balmy panics and rushes to save the orb. But the only thing she achieves is to scare Thunder Thighs, and in a try to protect the orb from the ‘attacker’, the black sphere leaves her hand and flies in my direction.

Everyone sighs in relief when I grab it in mid-air.

Following the direction where the black cloud came from, I find Moo with her axe in battle position, and the corpse of a monster that’s turning into smoke. The first smoke cloud must have come from another monster he defeated not long ago.

“What?” Moo shrugs. “They were going to attack us, so I might as well kill them before they did…”

I sigh. “Couldn’t you have warned us?”

“Okay. Next time, I will.”

I roll my eyes. How many ‘next times’ do you need…? Knowing that it’s useless to argue with him, I decide to return my attention to the relevant issue: the dark sphere that’s now in my hand.

The monster at Moo’s feet turns to smoke. As usual, the smoke starts to unnaturally flow towards who knows where, leaving a trail behind. But then, as if changing its mind, it turns around and gets sucked into the dark sphere.

“How weird…” I shake my head.

The item didn’t suffer any change after absorbing two monster’s worth of smoke. The amount of black particles orbiting around it is the same. It didn’t gain any weight, its size didn’t increase, nor did its aspect change.

No item description pops up when you try to analyze it, which means this isn’t a normal item. But it must be important. It wouldn’t have been hidden inside Targaroth’s throne otherwise… Furthermore, it absorbs the smoke released from the dead monsters, which means it must be related to them.

As far as I know, the only items that don’t display any info when inspected are those that work as key items, like the cards that open the doors to the dungeon core in my dungeon. You can set a description if you want, but if you do, the invaders will know this is an important object and pay extra attention to it.

Not creating a pop-up description for key items is the most common because it imitates what you would experience in real life. It increases the immersion and the satisfaction you get when you solve the puzzle is higher.

Or you can also omit the description to confuse the invaders, as I do with my cards.

“Ugh…” But nothing of this helps to solve the mystery. The headache that was starting to fade, starts growing once more. Though this time isn’t as bad as the one caused by them. “...Why it’s all questions and no answers?”

Thunder Thighs smiles. “Isn’t it more interesting like this?”

“You’re right, but… isn’t it too much?”

“I don’t mind it.” She chuckles.

I shake my head. I can’t understand her passion for unveiling impossible mysteries and investigating every single detail… I enjoy mystery, too. But not when nothing makes sense! I want to be rewarded for my efforts!

“Hey, hey. Are you finished yet?” Balmy starts pulling my sleeve. “If you are, give my sphere back, before you break it.”

“Sure. Take it.” I roll my eyes and give it to her, even if only so that she leaves me alone for a while.

“Yaaay! Hahaha!”

As soon as she gets hold of it, she starts shouting and spinning around, wildly swinging the dark sphere around. So much for ‘keeping it safe’…

In the middle of her swinging, I notice the particles orbiting around the dark sphere deform in a weird pattern. As the sphere moves around, the particles get pulled into it all the time, but they seem to want to escape in the same direction as the smoke from that monster before. It wasn’t perceptible when Thunder Thighs or I were holding it because our hands were way bigger than hers. The particles couldn’t move as freely or as smoothly as now that Balmy is holding it.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Balmy! Stop moving.” I order her.

“?” Balmy tilts her head, a stupid look on her face. She furrows her brows. “What do you want now? It’s mine, so I’m not giving it back!”

I ignore her and approach the sphere. It’s certain. The orbit they take isn’t a perfect sphere, it’s more like an egg shape. And its tip happens to point in the same direction the smoke tried to escape to.

“Fly around while holding it. Do it slowly.”

“I don’t want to.” She crosses her arms in defiance.

My eyebrows twitch for a moment, but I know how to peacefully convince her. “You can give the sphere to me, so I can do it, or do it yourself. It’s your choice.”

“Fine…”

Balmy reluctantly flies around, obeying my instructions. She’s ready to do anything as long as she can keep the dark orb for herself. Hahaha. Easy. Too easy.

Thanks to her efforts, I realize what this dark sphere’s purpose is.

“It’s a compass, right?” Says Thunder Thighs. “The tip is always pointing in the same direction.”

“That’s right.” I nod. “But there’s even more.”

We suspect there’s a reason why the monsters disperse into black particles that fly away after their deaths. We tried to follow the trail left by the dark particles, hoping to find an important clue, but it was too fast for us. But now, we have a way to find out where they go.

“A compass? It must be pointing somewhere important, right?” Balmy, listening to us, pumps her fist. “Yeah! I knew it! I knew my orb would be amazing! Hahaha!”

Her orb…? Since when is it hers…? You know what, it’d be a waste of neurons to argue with her.

“It’s all thanks to me, the Great Fairy Explorer! If it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t know where to go next! Yay, hahaha! Let’s go, forward. To solve the mystery!”

“Yeah, yeah…” I wave Balmy away from me. Let the adults talk without interrupting, will you?

Thunder Thighs, too, ignores Balmy and asks, “What do you think we will find if we follow it?”

“I don’t know… But I hope it’s important. We don’t have much time left.” When I check the clock, it says there are forty minutes remaining.

“You’re right…” Thunder Thighs brings out her map. “Let’s see. That direction is… the center of the labyrinth?”

“It’s possible. That, or at least in that direction. I’ll check my map.” I take out my map too and get surprised by what I see. “Wow. The number of Calamities in our surroundings is less than before. Did they all die?”

“I’m not sure I want to find out…”

“Yeah. Me neither.” I nod.

What could have killed the Calamities? The other players? It’s possible, but unlikely. Maybe one or two, but certainly not enough to significantly reduce the number of stars on our map. Maybe the roaming golem? Are the Calamities teaming up to eliminate the remaining players?

Something… worse?

Sometimes, it’s best to stay ignorant. Or you’ll be paralyzed by fear.

“Thunder Thighs, Koala. Are you done? You must come to see this,” Calaban says, pointing behind him. “We might have some serious trouble.”

While we were busy with the dark sphere, the others have been scouting and clearing the way ahead. They must have found something dangerous blocking the path.

“Alright.” I shrug. “By the way, Calaban. We discovered what that black thing is.”

“D-don’t leave me behind!”

…Please, everyone. Ignore the tiny fairy. If you pay attention to her, her ego grows and she gets even more annoying.

I explain Calaban our discovery. We discuss our plans to follow the direction it’s pointing at, and that it must have something to do with the dead monsters. We’re relatively close to the central area, and since it’s the only clue we have, we should go there.

“I understand, we can go take a look,” he agrees. Then he stops and warns us. “Now, stay quiet; they’re close. Did you say that orb has to do with the monsters? If so… it might have something to do with this.”

They? Who are ‘they’?

Our teammates greet us with nods or waving their hands as we approach the main road. We decided to use the side passages while deciding what to do next because they’re safer. The side passage we’re in is on a higher level than the man road. To reach it, you need to use a set of rotten stairs.

The spectacle on the level below makes me rub my eyes in disbelief. I never imagined we’d find something like this.

“Oh, my, god. This is madness.”

“Hyaaaah!” Balmy does her best to contain the scream.

The whole lower level is flooded by monsters. It’s a mix of black humanoids and the other monsters we’ve found in the Mystery Event. Like an inexorable tide, they all come from one side, splitting up into smaller groups every time they find a side passage, effectively distributing themselves throughout the labyrinth.

Their numbers are ridiculous! There’s no end to them!

The density decreases as they split up, but even where the main road turns and we lose sight of them, their numbers are so high that we wouldn’t stand a chance.

I search for Balmy and find her hiding behind one of the nearby stalagmites. The dark sphere… yes, I thought so.

“You were right,” I whisper right next to Calaban’s ear. “The monsters are coming from the direction that thing is pointing at.”

This means… that we must use this road if we want to find out what’s at the end.

He inhales, holding it before exhaling. “Haah… What do we do now? We can’t fight them all at the same time.”

“You’re right.”

We stand no chance against so many enemies. If I had Shared Voltage with the upgrade, maybe… But regretting past decisions will get us nowhere.

This time, Warpoke is the one who gives us hope. He’s the one closest to us, so he must have heard our whispers.

“The developers wouldn’t have created an impossible situation. There must be another path.”

“Another path…” I nod. “Yes. But we don’t have much time left. If possible, I’d love to take the shortest and simplest route. Who knows if we’ll get lost like last time…” I glance at Calaban.

“Hey! I did my best, ok? It’s not my fault if there was a wall dividing the two sections.”

“I know, I know. I was joking.”

We observe the swarm of enemies marching below us as we think of possible solutions. Then, unexpectedly, the enemies stop pouring in and, soon, the road becomes empty.

“...or we just had to wait for a while,” says Warpoke, pretending he knew this would happen. “I knew the developers would give us a chance.”

Yeah, sure. You just came up with it after the fact.

“Alright. Let’s go down and follow the main road. We can’t waste time.”

I urge everyone forward, but Calaban doesn’t seem too keen on the idea. “I don’t believe it’s safe. What will we do if they come back? Do you have a plan?”

“If they come back, we’ll have to find a place to hide and pray they don’t see us.” I shrug my shoulders and start going down the stairs.

“...”

Oh, come on. Don’t look at me like that. I’m a normal human being, ok? Did you expect me to come up with an amazing plan or something? Even the brightest minds can’t be shitting perfect plans all the time!

image [https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]

Reuse and recycle. Andreu and his teammates would soon come to understand the true meaning of this phrase.