The elevator beeped, and we stepped out into the underground. We had exited into a large open room with several doorways dotted along the walls. Some weak overhead lights dimly lighted the room, and I thought I saw something move in the corner.

This was a bad idea. It hadn’t even been that long ago that I had gotten lost in this underground, and now I had willingly chosen to return. I turned to my companions.

The ghost girl, Kura, was happily floating around the room. Kioshi was examining each of the doorways as if one would tell him which way we should go. Estouls continued to use me as a shield between him and the ghost waifu. He cautiously watched her as she floated around the room like a cat watches a red dot. Only, I don’t think he intended to pounce on his target.

I pulled out my phone and looked at the time. We were getting dangerously close to the time for our next match. I had to let at least someone know about what was going on. I made a few swipes and selected Tanaka-san’s photo. He answered after the second ring.

“Hello, Juyo-san. What’s up?”

“Hello, Tanaka-san, where do I begin…” It took me a minute to explain everything to him, from coming across the two waifus to coincidently running into Estouls as he was picking up snacks and the fight that ensued: I told him everything as I best remembered it.

“I can’t believe this,” Tanaka-san said over the phone once I had finished filling him in.

“I know we’ve been dragged-”

“Estouls just left those snacks in the hallway! Quick, where did he drop them? I’ll go pick them up right now!”

“Aren’t you focusing on less important things?”

“Less important? I loaned him the last bit of change I had on me; I can’t let that food waste! Surely you understand?”

Having lived on a tight budget myself, I decided to concede to Tanaka-san’s point.

“Fair enough, but moving on from that… I don’t know when we will make it back to the arena.

“You still have an hour before the fight. Do you think you’ll be down there that long?”

“I have no idea. Can you let the others know what is going on, just in case?”

“Certainly, but do try to make it back on time; we shouldn’t fight with one less team member.”

We ended the call after that. Now that I was thinking about it, I really shouldn’t have gone along with this. We had a bet to worry about, and now that Estouls was absent, our team would be less powerful. Perhaps I should send him back? But then what use would a ghost that can’t touch anything and my weak self be to Kioshi? Maybe I should try to convince him to wait for backup after all.

“Um, Kioshi-san?” I said in a shaky voice.

What is it? He held up a piece of paper.

“Maybe we should turn back and get back up after all. We don’t know what we are about to face, and Estouls should be preparing for the next match.”

“Hold on, Tai-kun,” Estouls suddenly said. He finally stopped cowering behind me and boldly stepped an arms reach away. “You don’t need to say that on my behalf.”

“I’m not saying it on your behalf; it’s just the tr-”

“A ghost, no matter horrifying, will not be enough to jeopardize this rescue mission.”

“No, we need to get back. There’s the bet and all…”

“On my pride as a butler, I will save that lady!”

“The things you take pride in as a butler seem to have nothing to do with being a butler….”

Estouls was unwavering. He confidently marched forward with Kioshi down one of the many corridors. I should have let them march off and gone back, but I instead hastily attempted to follow them. The duo stayed several paces ahead of Kura and myself as they continued their way forward.

I let out a sigh.

“You don’t seem very excited?” Kura said to me.

“Who would be excited about weaving through this labyrinth?”

“I don’t know, Theseus maybe.”

“Who?”

“The guy that fought the minotaur.”

I gave the ghost waifu a blank look.

“Anyway, this sure is a nice labyrinth. The ambient lighting adds to the overall atmosphere, and I love how they made the walls out of stone,” Kura said while trying to find something to talk about.

“It’s just a bunch of rooms and hallways; they just arranged it like a maze instead of in a practical manner.”

“Don’t say that! Think of all the poor architects that had to design the layout! They had to carefully craft it into a maze and place traps and all sorts of things!”

“Traps?”

“Sure, we will encounter them as we continue to go down.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Who knows… maybe there is a treasure at the bottom of the labyrinth!” Kura said with sparkles in her eyes.

The hallway seemed to start to go down on a gentle slope as we kept walking. We turned down several corridors with no apparent direction in mind.

“Shouldn’t you be telling me more about my dad or whatever?”

“Oh! Good point! Now, where did I leave off?”

“You should have a better idea of that than me.”

“Your father hid a key for you somewhere in the arena. It unlocks a locker at a local water park.”

We turned another corner to empty into a large room with many exits. Kioshi and Estouls stopped and began to look around. They debated quietly to themselves over which way to go. We stayed farther back from them to continue our conversation.

“Where did he hide the key?”

“I don’t know… He said he was sure you would find it, though!”

My father couldn’t make this easy.

“Did he give you any hints?”

“He said he left it with the other keys.”

“That’s not very helpful.”

“It may not seem like it, but it just makes the hunt for it all the more fun!” The ghost girl happily shouted. Estouls jumped at her sudden yelling.

He quickly picked the path we would take and started walking through the door. Kioshi was right behind him, followed by Kura and me.

We walked for only a short while before there was a sudden mechanical clang that echoed through the hallway. Estouls, who was leading the group, suddenly froze and looked down at his foot. He turned back to us with sweat running down his forehead.

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“We probably should run,” he said with an unusual calm.

A loud bang echoed in the hallway behind us. We turned around to see a large stone sphere start rolling our way.

Needless to say, we started running immediately.

The ball made a loud noise as it rolled through the hallway after us. We got a good head start since it started moving slowly, but shortly after, it sped up. As we ran, the hallway began to angle downward more and more. It was getting steeper, and running was getting a little more difficult.

“Haha, this is great!” Kura yelled as she floated next to us.

“What about this is great?” I shouted back.

“It’s our first trap on this quest!” she said with a laugh.

Being a ghost, she wasn’t in any real danger. I imagine that is the only way she could find this situation fun at all.

We continued to run until the hallway split into two paths. The ball seemed to get louder and louder. I could look back to see how close it was, but I imagine I wouldn’t like what I saw.

“Go right!” I shouted as we reached the fork. I dove to the right as the ball smashed into the fork. My body landed on the hard ground as dust was thrown into the air all around me.

I pushed myself off the ground and brushed myself off. The large sphere stone was now wholly blocking the direction I had come from. I looked around the area. There was no one else around.

Kura’s head popped through the boulder before I could say anything.

“What are you doing?” she asked me. Didn’t you see Kioshi’s sign say to go left?”

I had, in fact, not seen anything of the sort. I groaned and brushed some dust from my hair before responding.

“Didn’t you hear me say to go right?”

“Tai-kun! Tai-Kun! Are you alive,” Estouls yelled from the other side of the boulder. His voice was muffled, but I could at least make out what he was saying.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“We’re going to take the path ahead; we’ll try to meet up later!”

It seemed like a sensible enough decision. I just yelled “okay” to him before turning to look down my path as well. We could no longer go the way we had come; I should have turned back when I could.

I sighed and began my walk down the new corridor.

“That sure was fun; I wonder what kind of trap we will get into next!”

I decided to ignore Kura, who was floating alongside me. I put my hands in my pockets and began to dig around in them while the specter went on about traps.

I pulled out a series of items: a paperclip, my phone, a coin, and a folded-up piece of paper. There was not much here that was interesting. I slid most of the items back into my pockets except for the piece of paper. I was not sure what it was.

Carefully I unfolded it. The image was a familiar one. This was the Mirage Map that I had picked up in the Waifu Draft. The colored images still showed the areas we had walked in during the event, though the icons representing us were now gone.

“Ah! Is that the Mirage Map?” Kura suddenly phased through my head to get a good look at the map. A chill ran up my spine when she passed through me. I jumped and quickly slid away from her.

“Don’t do that,” I said while shaking off the chill.

“Where did you get that?” Her eyes sparkled as she asked me.

“It’s just a scrap of paper I picked up from somewhere.”

“That’s no scrap of paper; it’s a map that can come in handy! Try moving your finger on it.”

I slid my finger over the piece of paper. The previous map from the Waifu draft disappeared. In its place, a new map appeared. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this was the underground labyrinth I currently stood in. There was an icon for where Kura and I stood and two other icons for Estouls and Kioshi.

“Huh,” was all I said before folding the map over and tucking it back into my pocket. I’m not sure what good having it would do, but I would keep it in mind.

I continued walking forward down the tunnels.

“Only, huh?” Kura asked me. She must have figured I would be more impressed with the map.

“It doesn’t do us much good right now. Maybe when we leave, it will come in handy.”

She sighed but didn’t respond as we walked into another open room.

This room only had two doorways, the one we entered from and one straight in front of it. It was wider than the rest of the hallway and much taller. Near the ceiling, there were a series of metal grates on the wall. The ceiling also had a large disk that appeared to be painted onto it.

I looked all around as I began to walk through. Suddenly, a loud bang came from behind me. A large stone had just sealed the doorway shut. Then, before I could react, another bang echoed through the room. The opening on the other side had sealed as well.

Water began to spill out from the grates into the room.

“Aren’t these traps a little excessive?” I said aloud as the water began to cover my feet.

“I think normally they are turned off. Nothing went off at all when you were down here earlier after all,” Kura said with her hand to her chin and her eyes closed as she floated around my head.

The water was now up to my knees.

“This is filling up rather fast; we should probably do something.”

Kura began to float around and the room and through the walls. She flew through one wall and into another, then into the ceiling. When she finally popped back into the room, she had her arms crossed and nodded to herself.

“I see, I see.”

“What did you see?”

“The disk on the ceiling, there is a dial to open the door,” she pointed to the door we hadn’t come in through. “You will have to wait until it floods to turn it, but it will open from the bottom first. You need to turn it fast enough, so you don’t get sucked down by the water and stuck in an opening that isn’t large enough for you.”

“So, either way, I get swept away when the door opens?” That didn’t sound like a good idea, no matter what happened.

“Good luck!” was all the ghost waifu said to me.

The water was now up to my neck. I started to kick my legs to keep up with the ever-rising water level.

“Isn’t there anything you can do?” I asked the floating ghost. She was hovering just above the water.

“If I could touch something, I would turn that dial for you. Right now, I’m afraid I can’t do anything to help.” She seemed sincerely apologetic. I sighed as I continued to keep my head above the water.

It wasn’t long before I was pressing against the ceiling of the room. The dial was right next to me as the water filled up. I reached out and put my hand on it.

Up close, I could see that the disk was protruding from the ceiling slightly. There was a gap between it and the ceiling at the very edge that was wide enough for me to see toward the center. Some shaft connected the disk to the wall, but that was all that I could see. I pushed on it, and I felt it slide. It turned relatively easily. A grinding sound accompanied the sliding. Something moved, but the room was still filling with water. I took a deep breath just before the water level went over my head. I didn’t have much time.

I carefully maneuvered both my hands onto the disk. I looked all around. There wasn’t anything for me to get some footing with so that I could spin this. It turned easily, but it seemed like I would have to move it quite a bit to get the door to open enough.

I didn’t have enough time to think about the best way to do this; I just had to try something. I swam to one of the vents on the wall and propelled myself off it with a strong thrust of my legs. I kicked as hard as I could with my hands reaching out to the disk.

I shoved my fingers into the gap between the disk and the ceiling and grabbed it as tightly as I could. At the same time, I was furiously kicking to rotate the disk. The disk began to spin as I swam around it. The loud grinding indicated that something was moving. I could also feel some grinding for the tops of my fingers as I slid them against the ceiling.

I swam in a circle until I began to feel a pull at my feet. The water was starting to be sucked out from the bottom. I tried to push against it and gripped the disk tighter, but it was no use. The current finally began to pull me. I held on for as long as I could; the disk spun along with the currents pull, but eventually, I was ripped away from it and sucked down below.

I hit the wall above the door first, or maybe it was the door itself. My back was what made contact, and I had no time to turn around.

I felt myself get pulled downward and was pulled under the door. As soon as I did, I headed down a hallway that was now like a rushing river. I reached out helplessly as I was swept along.

Something made contact with my hand, and I grabbed at it immediately. I felt a jerk as I was no longer getting taken by the makeshift river and quickly pulled my head above the water to gasp for air.

“Are you okay?” Kura asked, having just appeared in the air above my head. I looked at what I was holding onto, a chain embedded into the wall; it looked like there were several laid out along the hallway to grab onto.

“No, I’m not okay,” I said as I tried to navigate my feet to the hallway floor. The water was shallow enough that it only came up to my waste, but the current was so intense I felt I might get sucked away at any moment.

I held onto the chain tightly until the current’s intensity started to die down. The Initial amount of water that had been filled up must finally be gone. There still was a flow, but it was steady. I imagined that water was continuing to fill up from the grates. I would have to keep moving in case this hallway would fill up next.

I hastily headed down the hallway. The whole time I made sure to grab the next chain I could as not to get sucked away again, just in case.

The hallway finally opened up into a very expansive room. We stood at a ledge that had a thin stone walkway coming off of it. The thin walkway stretched across the long room to another ledge with a door. Under the ledges and the narrow walkway was a deep pit. There were spikes pointed up, and snakes were slithering around them at the bottom of the pit.

The water from behind me was steadily floating in the pit and beginning to flood it. It would take a while, but this room would be flooded as well.

“Kura, can snakes swim?”

“Yes, they can; it would be a bad idea to wait here for the water level to rise. Those snakes are especially poisonous.”

“When I get out of here, I’m going to have a word with whoever designed this labyrinth,” I grumbled as I put my foot on the thin walkway. It was only wide enough for one foot. I had to quickly swing the other in front of it and try to catch my balance.

“Careful!” Kura yelled.

“Just be quiet!” I snapped back as I took another step forward.

I had both arms out to try to keep my balance as I kept stepping forward. Kura didn’t say anything more as I kept stepping forward.

I focused on keeping a steady breath and keeping my balance as I moved forward. The rushing sound of the water behind me offered no comfort, so I tried my best to tune it out as I moved.

A breath in and a step, then a breath out and a step. I kept this pattern as my focus until I finally stepped on solid ground.

I crumbled to my knees as my heart raced.

“Good job!” Kura shouted.

I didn’t answer as I pushed myself off the ground. I took a deep breath and continued forward. At this point, I just wanted to get through this and get out of here. It seemed like we still had a little of a way to go.