We are using the main passage to quickly reach the central area of the dungeon, following the tip of the dark sphere’s particles as if it were a compass, when we hear a lot of noise. Luckily, there’s a side passage right next to us, so we hide there and wait.

“Do you think it’s another monster horde?”

I shrug at Calaban’s question. “I don’t know.”

A minute passes, but everything remains the same. The loud noises aren’t any closer than they were at the start, nor do we see more black humanoids and weird monsters. Everyone looks at each other, not sure what to do. Should we continue, when there’s a chance we find another horde? Or should we wait, knowing we may be wasting our time?

“I say we continue. What’s the worst that can happen? That we die? So what, this is a game! Moohahaha!”

“Yeah, let’s burn something!”

I ignore Moo and Muribelle. Well, I and everyone else do. When making important decisions, you should never listen to the battle freaks. They only know how to do a single thing, and charging ahead isn’t exactly what you’d call a ‘plan’. Furthermore, it usually leads to awful outcomes.

“The sounds are different from those made by hundreds of characters moving at the same time.” Points out Warpoke. “To me, they sound like… like two groups clashing together, maybe?”

“If that’s true, then we can continue without too much worry. Even if there’s a horde of monsters awaiting us, they should be fighting someone else. If it looks dangerous, we just need to turn back and use them to buy us time.”

“Huh… sounds right.” Navigator grunts, nodding.

Calaban’s teammates sure know how to use their heads, unlike Moo and Muribelle. They propose how to proceed forward while keeping a cool head. Meanwhile, the last member of my group…

“Nooo, it’s dangerous! Let’s go back and hide somewhere! I’m scared! Kyaah!”

…Why am I stuck with this team? Can somebody switch with me? Anyone? …Calaban? No? No volunteers…? Guessed so.

Calaban and I exchange looks and nod at the same time as if we could read each other’s minds.

“Let’s go.”

“We’ll go first, in case there’s a Calamity nearby,” I say.

“No! Noo! I don’t want to goooo!”

Grabbing the reluctant fairy by the ankle so she can’t run away, I leave our hiding place and peek into the carriage highway. “Nothing here… Moo, you take the lead as usual. And Muribelle, you should be ready to attack at any time. Don’t spare anything, we don’t have to mind saving resources for later. There’s not much time remaining anyway.”

“Leave it to me.” Moo strikes his chest. He looks reliable for a moment, before spoiling everything with his following words. “Monsters, give your best. I want to feel how hard you can hit! Moohaha!”

“Don’t worry, Koala. I’ll keep him alive.”

Muribelle tries to appease my worries, but… why am I more worried when she says not to worry…? How weird, right?

But well, unlike when it comes to making plans, you can rely on them during combat, somewhat. They at least don’t complain like a tiny someone.

We decide to keep moving forward, towards the center of the labyrinth.

The ‘carriage highway’, as I like to call it, is wide enough for four carriages moving side-by-side, and there’s still enough space for pedestrians on both sides. That’s, of course, assuming the carriages in the movies are similar to those used by the dwarfs. I must add that I haven’t seen any carriage in real life, so who knows if my assumptions are correct. This might not sound too impressive, compared to the roads we’re used to, but, remember: we’re underground. The effort behind building them isn’t the same as simply paving the ground and slightly flattening it.

On our way, the already large tunnel meets with two equally sized ones and widens up to a ridiculous degree. I’m not sure what to compare it to, I’ve never seen anything like this before.

It still maintains the same looks as before, though. Excavated rock, large columns, rotten pieces of wood, carvings on the walls, battle scars… It’s just that the scale is different than before.

We also start meeting other players. Each team sends wary looks to the others, not sure of their intentions.

The rules state that defeating another party will give us part of their accumulated points, but, if they defeat us, they will steal them from us. If you randomly attack other players, it might turn out they have fewer points than you, making the risk not worth it. What’s more, you can’t attack other teams with superior numbers unless you want to risk being disqualified, but you can defend yourself with superior numbers.

From what I’ve seen, there are very few teams who are alone, and nobody who has survived until this point is a rookie. In the end, nobody dares to make the first move out of fear but keeps a high alert to prevent surprises, which makes the situation quite awkward.

As we meet more and more players, I curiously inspect their looks. There are players from all factions, even the most disgusting ones, like the Abyss, or the newish Lost World.

One of the groups even has a dark sphere similar to the one Balmy is holding, which means they must have defeated a Calamity guarding one of the ‘domains’ too. That, or they got lucky to stumble upon it.

I also notice there are no Calamities nearby.

Since there are quite a few other player teams nearby, we’ve closed the gap with Calaban’s party. There’s no need to worry about monsters, so we can stay together. The greatest danger is the other players.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“We must be near the most important part of the whole labyrinth.” Points out Thunder Thighs. “All this infrastructure must be connected to a huge city, the king’s castle, or something similar.”

“I agree,” I say, nodding. “Not even the golem forge was connected to such a huge road.”

“We’re about to fight the final boss, right? I want some action! The sounds of battle are too loud and I can’t stop thinking about what awaits us!” As always, Moo only thinks of fighting.

Calaban shakes his head. “But with all these players… isn’t it going to be a boring fight? Regardless of how strong the boss is, if so many players fight it at the same time…” He points at all the players around us. “...it won’t be a fight.”

“I wouldn’t say so…” Warpoke shakes his head. “I believe we will find something ridiculous. The game developers wouldn’t create a stupid boss for the end of the Mystery Event.”

It’s easy to think that the most important enemy of this Mystery Event would be near the central part, as it’s the place that all players should be able to reach before it ends. I’m sure some players went directly in that direction since the start.

There could be other players that reached it more than half an hour before we did… All the rewards might have disappeared…

No, no, let’s forget about such a possibility! If the mystery was solved and the last boss was defeated, the dark sphere shouldn’t be working. We aren’t too late yet.

As I think so, I realize that a few of the teams walking ahead of us have stopped advancing, causing a disturbance for the other teams. They start arguing about something, but before I can pay attention, Balmy starts shaking my head.

“S-stop! We must stop right now and turn back!” She shouts. “It’s a trap! A trap I say!”

A trap? What’s she talking about?

Balmy makes a screen appear in front of me. The screen is displaying the map of our surroundings, and right ahead of us, where we want to go… there, there’s something I’d never expected nor did I wish to see.

“The fuck…!”

Do you remember when I said there was an unusually low number of Calamities around us a while ago? And that they completely disappeared not long after? Well… it turns out they were all concentrated in the same spot. The map has so many stars near to each other, that they hide the ones below, making it impossible to count them.

“So many Calamities…” Muribelle looks at her map with her eyes wide open.

“Moohahaha! Are they fighting between themselves? Is that why there’s so much noise coming from ahead?”

“Calamities…?”

We show the map to Calaban’s party so they can see what we’re talking about. Their reactions are more or less what you would expect from such a thing: surprise, bewilderment, and fear.

“Something big must be going on,” I say. “I know pro players,” to be exact, I know my sister, and she’s one, so… “and they wouldn’t stay close to each other unless it’s important. Most of them hate their rivals and are extremely competitive. We can’t pass this up. We must take a peek, and if we’re in danger, we can go back and earn extra points by fighting random enemies.”

Except for Balmy, who has no vote, all my teammates agree to my proposal. But Calaban doesn’t agree immediately.

“We should go,” says Thunder Thighs, “there’s nothing else worth doing, we might as well see what’s going on and decide on the spot.”

Navigator grunts in agreement, and Warpoke nods, as he always has with my proposals. Realizing there’s no one against it, Calaban turns to me and makes an okay sign. “Let’s go.”

We continue moving forward.

Following the passage, we turn to the right and a massive gate, smashed to tiny bits, appears in front of us. I’m sure it once was the joy of the dwarfs, protecting what was on the other side from dangers, while showing off their skills and wealth to the merchants and political figures. Now, not a single speck of that glory remains. Broken beyond repair, the rusted metal and corroded paint have long lost all their majesty.

The surrounding players rush inside, not wanting to waste time. We, too, follow their steps and end up on top of a cliff, a perfect place to see the spectacle that awaits us.

“Whoaaah! This, this is…” Not even Balmy the chatterbox can find words to express what awaits us.

We’re in a massive cavern. And when I say massive, I do mean massive. It goes so far that I can’t see the end.

It’s a sprawling city, so big that it can match real-life cities. The style is similar to the one we found when completing the quests for Calaban’s party, but compared to that one, this one looks luxurious. And unlike that one, the houses don’t reach more than half the height of the ceiling. Several columns, so wide that resemble mountains, support the cave, with archways spanning tens, maybe hundreds of meters connecting them.

In what I believe should be the center of the city, there’s a collapsed castle. Half of it remains, proudly standing over the rest of the city. As for the other half… well, it’s gone, substituted by a massive hole in the ground. From here, it looks like an endless abyss.

But what quickly catches our attention, forcing us to ignore the extraordinary scenery, is the ongoing battle.

Everywhere in the city, you can see players fighting monsters. Spells fly everywhere. The Calamities fly around like living tornadoes of death, slaying anyone who dares come close to them. A few players have formed groups to fend them off, using their all just to stay alive. Meanwhile, golems of different sizes roam around, smashing players, Calamities, and monsters alike.

‘Some of the golems seem to be controlled by the players... Shit. How much I wished I could have one of those pet golems…!’

In short, the whole city is like a huge battleground. A city-encompassing battlefield. A massive battle between two or more armies, except there’s no frontline and everyone is mixed up.

Furthermore, the battle is constantly fuelled by more incoming players, flooding into the city from all directions, using massive gates like the one behind us.

And the enemies… I shiver.

Every time a player dies, its corpse turns into one of those black humanoids. Then, when it or another monster is killed, they turn into black smoke – or particles, if you prefer – and they fly towards the gaping hole next to the castle. The same is true for the Calamities. The smoke then disappears into the hole and a new monster emerges. The monsters are like a black tide drowning the city, and as time goes on, there are more and more of them.

An unending cycle of death and rebirth indeed, in the most macabre way you can imagine.

From here, we can see a large group of players slowly treading forward, forcefully opening a path toward the black hole. But with the endless hordes of enemies spawning there, they have to push their limits for every step they take.

The spectacle makes me think twice about solving the ‘mystery’. I’m not sure I want to have anything to do with whatever is going on down there anymore…

We’re watching the battle with our mouths agape when a guy suddenly appears next to our group. “Will you participate in the raid? Or will you move independently?”

I tilt my head. Umm… sorry? W-what did he say?

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

Andreu and his teammates weren’t the first ones to reach the central city. By the time they got there, the conflict had grown out of proportion, exceeding anyone’s predictions. The more players congregated, the more noise they generated; which further increased the speed at which new players came. It was a massive battle spanning hundreds of players.