Chapter 59

Chapter Player.1 Once More into the Maze Gods’ Games We Play 1 Turning back the clock about half an hour… In the Ruin branch office’s underground Dive Center, the office’s four Divine Gates stood surrounded by barricades that made it clear no one was to dive. At that moment, every gate in the world led to a single game: a labyrinth from which no one could escape back to reality. “““………””” The gates were surrounded by a handful of staff members along with the fellow apostles of those trapped in the game. Nobody said a word. How could they? It had been eighty hours since the rescue team had gone in. The other apostles were sick of waiting, the strain beginning to show on their faces. When would someone, anyone, come back? Some people leaned against the wall, while others slumped on the floor and closed their eyes… Then the jaws of the dragon-shaped statue yawned open. The Center was immediately abuzz. “Wha—?!” “Look! The gate!” Everyone jumped up at once, staring wide-eyed at the gate, afraid to even blink. A golden-haired girl came bursting out of the dragon’s jaws. “We’re baaaaaaaa— Ow! Ow!” She came flying into the room, but she slipped as she landed and fell on her behind. A raven-haired girl landed next to her. “Are you okay, Pearl?!” “Urgh… Yeah, Nel. Everything but my bottom, it seems…” Two young women. When they realized the pair were members of the rescue team, the faces of every apostle in the room lit up. Could it be true? “Waaahoooooo! We’re back! Man, we sure kept you guys waiting, huh?” said a man who came bounding out of the gate next. “Captain Ashlan?!” exclaimed several of the subordinates who had been waiting for him. Ashlan, captain of Team Blaze, had returned. Eleven apostles followed him, piling out of the gate one after the other. His teammates. “Captain? That’s everyone!” said a member of his team’s support staff, rushing over. “I can’t believe you’re all right!” said another. They were cheering their heads off—their long-awaited teammates were finally back. From behind Ashlan, a voice said, “Oh? Made it out all right, did we?” A young woman with vermilion hair and mystical amber eyes landed in the Dive Center. The Dragon God Leoleshea—a real, live deity descended from the superior spiritual realm. “Fay! This way!” she said, waving. “Hup! Everyone make it back?” Fay asked, emerging from the gate. He took a quick look around the room, counting the number of returnees. “Let’s see… Captain Ashlan and his team make twelve. Me, Leshea, Nel, and Pearl make four more, for a total of sixteen… Huh? Wasn’t there one more person with us?” “It is I!” Pop! A young woman with flowing silver hair bounded out of the Divine Gate. Her red eyes shone like jewels, and she spun nimbly in the air before landing as easily as a cat… …right on Captain Ashlan’s head. “Blrgh?!” “And so I return!” Captain Ashlan went down like a sack of bricks. The silver-haired girl, now standing on his back, puffed out her chest proudly. She was very pretty—one might say super pretty—but her outfit was…unique. She wore a choker and earrings that just dared onlookers to comment, along with a jacket so big it didn’t fit her. The icing on the cake was her shirt, which read Undefeated in unmissable letters. “It will not do for you to forget my undefeated self, Tiny Human,” she said. “Yeah, okay,” Fay replied. “Just don’t forget you’re standing on Captain Ashlan, please.” “Hmm? Oh? Ah! I seem to be stepping on something.” She hopped down off Captain Ashlan. Everyone in the Dive Center started talking at once. They had seen this girl eighty hours before—wrenching open the jaws of a Divine Gate. “I am undefeated! You have a problem with that?” This was the doing of a god, utterly and absolutely. As well it might be. For this girl was not human. She was the undefeated god Uroboros, feared as one of the world’s Three Great Impossibles. “Hey, Chief Secretary Miranda…isn’t here? Huh? Ahh, she must be in her office,” Fay said when he didn’t see the Chief Secretary in the Dive Center. He gave Leshea, Nel, Pearl, and finally Uroboros a quick glance. “We better go report in. To let her know we were able to get back for now.” 2 Returning to the Chief Secretary’s office… “And there you have it. We’re heading right back in!” “There I have what, Lady Leoleshea?! This is all just too much.” Miranda took off her glasses and heaved a sigh. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You defeated a raid boss in the dungeon, revealing a save item that enabled you to save your progress and come back here.” “The raid boss was called the Sleeping Lion!” “Ah, yes. But there are two important problems that remain to be solved.” Miranda put her glasses back on. She looked at Leshea, who was sitting on the sofa across from her, and at Fay, who sat beside the former deity. “I’m asking you and Lady Leoleshea here, Fay. You and the twelve members of Captain Ashlan’s Team Blaze got out, great. But the other 197 people are still stuck in there, right?” “Yeah. That would be the first problem,” Fay said. He and his teammates had only managed to explore a very small area, but the trapped apostles were scattered all over the sprawling maze.