Chapter 64

At that moment, Nel said, “Hmm. Looks like there’s another standout item here.” She was holding a crown. It was made of platinum, and at the center was a huge, bright gemstone, a ruby that looked as if it were aflame. “Look, Master Fay—look at this ruby!” “Huh! When I think sparkles, I normally think diamonds. Who knew a ruby could shine like this? I guess you don’t see them much in the real world.” “Hold it right there!” Uroboros said, bursting into Fay and Nel’s conversation. “Tiny Human, a piddling stone like that has nothing on me!” “On you how?” “Mine eye! The one I gave to you!” In other words, the divine treasure, the Eye of Uroboros. Fay didn’t have it there with him, but it was still fresh in his memory: Destroying the ruby-colored eye had been the win condition for Uroboros’s game, The Forbidden Word. The Eye of Uroboros that Fay had received was a piece of the eye he’d shattered in that battle. “Oh yeah… Yeah, I mean, that’s gorgeous, too.” “Try to actually remember, Tiny Human! The little bitty rock in this crown is nothing compared with the grandeur of mine eye!” She pointed at the crown. “The way it’s shining—if you can call this a shine—I would say—” Boom! Behind Uroboros, the silver lion statue abruptly stood up. It was alive. “Excuse meeeeee?!” Pearl yelled. “Don’t tell me we’ve got another raid boss on our hands!” said Fay. “I am Sphinx, Guardian of the Holy Sanctuary. I applaud you on making it this far, sagacious ones.” Sphinx’s eyes glowed. It looked around eagerly at Fay and the other four people who had entered the treasure room. “Oh ho? I see you have defeated that damnable Sleeping Lion. But you will find I am not like him. For one thing… Behold! I stand and walk on two legs!” “And we’re supposed to care about that?!” Pearl said. Sphinx was, indeed, standing on its hind legs. So this was the second raid boss. The party got ready for a fight—except for one of its members, who barely spared the scene a glance. The silver-haired girl. “You should see the gleam of mine eye! It’s incredible!” Uroboros was still busy expounding on how amazing her eye was. “You see, Tiny Human, it’s not just about light! The rubies of the human world aren’t even as hard as diamonds, while mine eye is easily a hundred million times harder than any diamond! In a hardness contest, it would wipe the floor with this tiny ruby!” “And you made it so we had to break something that hard to win your game?” “What is more, mine eyes can shoot beams!” The glare that Sphinx fixed on the silver-haired girl was almost palpable. “You there, girl. I, the great Sphinx, am displaying my astounding and little-suspected talent, yet you dare to ignore me!” “Hey, Tiny Human, think there are any gemstones in this world that can shoot beams?” “If there were, I don’t think they would be gemstones anymore.” “Exactly! Which is why mine eye is the bes—” “Unforgivable!” the monster howled, shaking the treasure room. The thousands of coins on the floor jumped with the shock, and the crystal candleholders came rattling down off the wall. “I shall crush you all like so many insects. When I enter my battle mode, all Arises are neutralized, no items have any effect, and with a single blow, I shall—” “Oh, shut up.” Without even turning around, Uroboros met the swipe of Sphinx’s paw with a casual backfist. Sphinx takes 96,198,030,879,910,199 damage. Sphinx is dead. “Hrrrohhhh?!” The giant monster’s roar shook the walls. “Sheesh. Don’t interrupt me, kitty.” Uroboros turned around, annoyed, but by that point, the raid boss was already back to being an immobile statue. “Oops… Did I do that again?” Uroboros asked with an adorable tilt of her head. She didn’t sound very sorry. As they watched, a gleaming silver key appeared in midair. This must be the item the raid boss gave up upon its defeat. Item: Treasure Hall Master Key Inventory limit is expanded from 2 items to 100. In addition, you retain your items even if you are destroyed. “Geez, talk about OP!” Pearl said. This game typically limited players to two items per person. Just carrying a couple of components to craft with filled up your inventory slots. But with this, they would never have to worry about that limitation again. This means we can make far more powerful items than before and carry lots of them. We’ve suddenly got way more freedom in how we approach our strategy, Fay thought. He felt bad for Sphinx. Given that it dropped such a potent item, it was probably supposed to be a far, far more difficult fight than that with the Sleeping Lion. Unfortunately for Sphinx, it had faced something even badder than it was. “Did… Did you really defeat it?” “These games lately have been so mean-spirited that I’ve been conditioned to smell a trap when something goes so easily.” “What are you talking about, Rumpy and Chesty?” Uroboros tugged on their sleeves, urging them on. “I need you to hurry up and finish this game—we have to go over to mine!” “Yeah, I know, but…” “Poor, departed Sphinx was really a major foe, right?” Uroboros set off, skipping along. She was in such high spirits that when she bounced up off the floor of the Treasure Hall, she got up almost to the ceiling… “Ooh, whazzat?” “Huh?” That was strange. Uroboros herself, floating up to the top of the room, was the first to notice, followed by Leshea, who was watching her and happened to look up at the ceiling. Uroboros went up, but she didn’t come back down. She floated in midair, her head inches from the ceiling. It was like she was stuck at the high point of her jump. “Um, Miss Undefeated? What are you doing?” Pearl asked. “Mistress Undefeated?” Nel added. After a rather long pause, the silver-haired girl sneered, “………Hmph!” Her innocence had vanished, replaced by the unbridled anger of an enraged deity. But she pushed that unfathomable power back and simply laughed. “I get it. You’re afraid of me? Well, I am undefeated, after all. But because you’ve interfered with me, I see you lot as well. Plus, now I get what’s going on with the Divine Gates. You heard me, Tiny Human.” Uroboros looked down at the ground. “It’s just like you suspected. We can clear this labyrinth.” “—?!” Fay gasped, not sure he’d heard right. “I mean, just look. If that wasn’t true, there’d be no reason to try to pluck me out like this.” Someone was trying to get rid of her? What did that mean? Something was obviously happening to the deity Uroboros. But Fay couldn’t discern any more than that. “I’m gonna head back to the human world. You just hurry up and clear this maze. I’ll be waiting.” The silver-haired girl winked at him, and then her body was surrounded by rainbow-colored bubbles. There was a dry pop, and the bubbles burst and vanished. Along with Uroboros. “…Huh? I mean…wha…? Um, what…?” “What just…happened? What happened to Mistress Undefeated?” Pearl could barely form words, and even Nel seemed shaken to have witnessed such a bizarre phenomenon at close range. Fay knew how they must be feeling—because he was feeling the same way. Had Uroboros vanished? Or been made to vanish? Had she gone back to the human world? Or had she been sent back? “Leshea? What was that?!” Fay demanded. “I think she was forcibly ejected from the game.” Leshea’s response was immediate, but she sounded grim. “But I didn’t know that was possible. The only one who can interfere with a god is another god. Which would have to mean the game master who created this labyrinth…except we know that deity is already dead.” A god who was already gone had plucked Uroboros out of the maze? Was that possible? “She said something else that bugs me. She said she understood what was happening with the Divine Gates. Players from all over the world are being dragged into a single game. If she knows why, that’s something we have to hear!” said Fay. “Exactly! Master Fay, what if we went back with her, just for a few minutes?” Nel said, clapping her hands. “If Mistress Undefeated went back to the human world, then we should be able to meet up with her there by returning from the save point at the Execution Grounds. Then we can ask her what’s going on.” “That might be an idea. But…” There was still something that nagged at Fay. Uroboros had told them to “hurry up and clear this maze.” Which was another way of saying, Don’t come back until you’ve cleared it. “Uroboros looked like she was okay. I admit, hearing what she has to say would be… Huh?” “It would be a complete waste to turn back now!” The door opened with a slam. The meep from the Execution Grounds had apparently made its way to the Treasure Hall. “I congratulate you on defeating Sphinx, Guardian of the Holy Sanctuary. Sphinx is a mighty enemy, yet you defeated it in a single blow! Wonderful!” “We weren’t the ones who defeated it,” Fay said honestly. The person—or rather, the god—who had done it was no longer in the game, but the meep didn’t seem bothered. “And you’ve covered nine percent of the maze—congratulations again!” “Is that really a number to congratulate us on?” “Now at last, the final boss shall appear!” “Talk about your non sequiturs! Okay… I get it. We don’t have to explore every corner of the labyrinth—you can take the shortest route, and it works out like this.” “If you would please proceed forward, everyone.” The door that Sphinx had been guarding already stood open. Beyond, where the meep pointed them ahead, it was pitch-black. It certainly felt nothing like they had seen up until now. There wasn’t so much as a mote of light, only utter darkness. “Announcing four visitors!” Slowly and hesitantly, they stepped into the darkness. The moment they did so, there was a clunk, and the floor gave way beneath their feet. “A pit trap?!” Fay said. “H-hey, nobody said anything about—ahhh!” They plummeted. All four of them fell deep beneath the maze, continually accelerating in freefall. At last, they began to see a hazy light somewhere below them. There was light so far underneath the ground? “If the final boss is waiting for us…then this must be the innermost depths of the maze!” “Y-yeah, but at this speed, we’re going to get squiiiished!” “You don’t have to worry about that, Pearl!” said Leshea, snapping her fingers and looking totally unconcerned. Poof. They were caught by an invisible layer of air. They began to fall more slowly, floating into the pit like a balloon drifting down from the sky. This was Leshea’s psychokinesis, which she’d also demonstrated in Uroboros’s game. Or so they thought… “Oops!” Leshea said, sticking out her tongue. “Silly me! I forgot, I’m on PMD mode, so I can’t use my powers.” “Huh? Wait…nooooooooo!” Pearl cried. They started dropping again, picking up speed. Just when Fay and the others had started to relax, suddenly they were once again racing downward at a ferocious rate. There was an impact, a blow too harsh to call a landing, as they reached the deepest part of the dungeon. “Well, here we are!” Leshea said, the only one of them to bounce right back. Behind her, Fay, Pearl, and Nel all heaved sighs of relief. If they had been falling even a little faster, no doubt the whole party would have been wiped out. “…I think I landed on my hips…and my back,” Fay said. “…I landed on my butt,” Pearl complained. “…And I think I scuffed my knees, but at least we’re all right,” said Nel. They looked up to find themselves confronted with a massive, silent space. A gigantic, circular coliseum. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of huge chunks of stone patterned like marble. Fay couldn’t guess what skill or technology made it possible, but the blocks were all perfect cubes, set so close to one another that you couldn’t fit a razor blade between them. Defeat the final boss: this was a battlefield massive and impressive enough to fit the win condition of this labyrinth. As long as you closed your eyes to one little problem… The final boss was nowhere to be found. “I SLEEPETH HERE.” They couldn’t miss it: smack in the center of the coliseum stood a small pyramid, about two meters tall. In front of it was a wooden sign. “NO HUMANS CLEARED MY LABYRINTH, AND I GREW TIRED OF WAITING.” “““Don’t die on uuuuuusss!””” Fay, Leshea, Pearl, and Nel all cried at once, their voices harmonizing in a symphony of protest. Yes, they had known. They could have predicted this. They could have guessed the god had disappeared, despairing of ever finding anyone who could clear the labyrinth. But to have it land almost like a joke? “This stinks! This labyrinth keeps yanking our chain every which way!” Pearl yelled. She stalked right up to the pyramid and started pounding it with her fists. “I’ve had enough! I know you’re in there, god!” “H-hey, Pearl?!” “Taste my fist of rage!” Poik. With an adorable noise, Pearl’s punch smacked against the pyramid, but the structure didn’t so much as quiver. “Eeeeeeeeyoooooowch! Hrk… All right, Nel, your turn!” “You want me to—?! W-well, all right!” Nel launched a kick against the pyramid, spinning herself like a top to gain momentum before sending a vicious reverse roundhouse. It made a tremendous noise as it landed, but still the pyramid didn’t budge. The strike appeared to have been completely ineffective. “No use, Pearl,” Nel said with a defeated shake of her head. “Do you remember how the Sleeping Lion reduced all damage done to it to 1? From the feel of this thing, I’d say the god’s tomb reduces all damage to 0. I doubt even Lady Leshea could pry this thing open, let alone humans like us.” A god’s grave was a sacred space, utterly inviolable. No one of any kind would be permitted to enter, to invade it. “Mistress Undefeated might have been able to do something about this, but she’s not in the game anymore. Then again, even if we busted this thing open, all we’d find is a god’s corpse. What good would that do us?” “Urk… When…when you put it that way…” Pearl sighed heavily. “I guess there’s really no point.” “All right, Master Fay. It’s time for you to share what you’ve been thinking,” Nel said, turning to Fay with a small nod. “The god who serves as the last boss is dead, and its tomb is completely unbreakable, as we’ve demonstrated. It looks to me like you were exactly right—it’s not possible to clear this game.” “Yeah, I’m with you. I don’t think there’s anything we can do about this tomb.” “But you still think we can finish the game?” “I don’t know. I just think we aren’t out of tricks yet.” There were no obvious clues right on the god’s grave or the sign. The same was true of the coliseum—the marble-like stones that seemed to shine with light were probably just there to provide illumination. Nothing else about them seemed notable. “Question for you, Nel. How far do you think we should trust what the meep said?” “Hrm? I’m not sure what you mean.” “In the tutorial, the meep told us about the legend of this labyrinth, right?” Once upon a time there was a god who loved building mazes. This god would wait in the innermost depths of its labyrinth, excited for humans to come and find it. But no one ever finished the maze, and eventually the god died of boredom. “If the god is the game master, then the meep is the rule book. Absolutely neutral in all matters relating to the game. So I’d like to trust the meep as I challenge this thing.” “Master Fay… Exactly which words are you referring to?” “The meep acknowledged the final boss is dead—but then it pointedly said something else.” “No matter how trying the trial, no matter how fearsome the foe, with your wits and courage, you will forge a path!” They could overcome any difficulty. Maybe that included the dead god? “So here’s where my strategy starts.” Fay turned toward them, putting his back to the god’s tomb, and spoke to the three young women. “If we can’t finish the game because the final boss is dead, then we just have to revive them and then defeat them!” “What?!” Nel said, shocked. “Whaaaaaat?! Are you insane?!” Pearl cried, her eyes going wide. Between the two of them stood Leshea, who clapped her hands and said, “Oh! That almost sounds doable. This is the ‘Labyrinth of Death and Rebirth,’ after all. It’s right there in the name. In this labyrinth, after death comes…rebirth!” ““Huuuuuuh?!”” Pearl and Nel cried again, this time in perfect unison. They had finally realized: Death wasn’t the end. The concept of rebirth had always been at work in this game. “You got it. To this very moment, no one has actually died in this labyrinth. Not us players, not the monsters—everyone is revived alike with the respawn.” And if the god was the last boss, then it would be treated as a monster—which meant it should be possible to resurrect it. So there was a game that couldn’t be cleared because the god was dead? The way to handle that was… …respawn the last boss and then defeat it. So how to do that? What did they need to do to respawn the final boss? “Think maybe it’s this?” Fay asked. Tink… In his hand, he held a pearlescent bell that jingled with a carrying sound. When Pearl and Nel saw it, they both pointed and exclaimed in unison, ““The Resurrection Bell?!”” Yes: the very item dropped by the Sleeping Lion. One of the Lion’s drops was the save item, Lionheart—but the other was the Resurrection Bell, whose purpose to this point had been mysterious. The Sleeping Lion’s body gradually grew transparent. When it was gone, the raid boss left behind loot: an item of pure pearlescent color called the Resurrection Bell. “I’ve been wondering since we got this thing,” Fay said. “In a game where humans and monsters both respawn, what’s the point of an item that specifically resurrects things? If even one of the players dies, the entire team respawns. There’s no opportunity to resurrect anyone.” “I see. So we can guess that you must use this item on a monster!” Pearl said. “I sure didn’t think of that. Way to go, Master Fay,” said Nel. Both of them sighed with admiration. Leshea nodded, too. “I’m with you. I can’t shake the feeling that there’s one more condition we have to fulfill—but the Resurrection Bell is definitely the way to go, I think.” “Huh? What do you mean by that, Leshea?” Pearl asked. “We’ll just have to try some stuff out. Pearl, catch,” Fay said, and then he tossed the bell to her. That most precious of items flew through the air, gleaming as it went, until Pearl caught it in her hand. “Give it a ring near the tomb. If we’re lucky, the final boss will come back to life.” “Wouldn’t that mean we would have to fight it immediately?” “Yep.” “Terrifying much?!” “No, no, it’s fine. I don’t think it’ll actually come to a battle,” Leshea said. She had already noticed. Nel was giving them a skeptical squint, while Pearl, holding the bell, just looked plain flummoxed. “O-okay, well, anyway, I’m going to try it. All right, final boss, it’s resurrection time!” Riiiiiing. A gorgeous sound to summon the dead echoed around Lucemia, the Labyrinth of Death and Rebirth. It bounced back and forth off the walls, a note light and cool. This lovely, multilayered wavelength would be able to pass through the tomb’s outer walls and reach what was inside. But the god’s tomb showed no change. “Wh-why isn’t anything happening?!” Pearl asked. “Looks like my less favorable prediction was the accurate one,” Fay said thoughtfully. “I guess maybe we’re actually going to have to get serious.” “Fay?!” “It’s just like Leshea said. The Resurrection Bell is probably a key item, but there’s some other condition for bringing the god back that we haven’t fulfilled yet.” To put it another way—the reason the god had died was still in force. “All right, let’s bring Nel into this conversation. Why did the god die, again?” “I-it’s right there on the sign, isn’t it? Because there were no players who could clear the maze!” “Right. Which means…” It still wasn’t enough. “This isn’t cutting it.” Fay pointed above his own head to the floating number, 11.9 percent. “The unlock percentage.” “You can’t be serious!” It was just what the meep had said: The number was a demonstration of their passion for the labyrinth. “You’re right, it is right on the sign. ‘No humans cleared my labyrinth, and I grew tired of waiting.’ If you ask me, it might as well say, ‘If you want something with the god, get a hundred percent clear.’” They just had to clear everything. If someone actually got all the way through the maze, the god would have to acknowledge their achievement. “One hundred percent unlock percentage, that’s the goal. We have to go through every area of this labyrinth, activate every gimmick, beat every boss, collect every item. Then the god will come back to life.” “Excuse me?! Th-this is no laughing matter, Fay! You’re talking about achieving the impossible!” Pearl said. “Hey, we’ve just got to do it.” Fay asked if they were ready to start clearing the maze in earnest—to show that he himself was prepared. The unlock percentage was a sign of passion, necessary to free the god from its tomb. They were aiming to get the final boss to respawn. In order to do that, they would need a 100 percent unlock percentage. “The meep was telling the truth. It said the areas we’ve been through were just about ten percent of the labyrinth. And our current unlock percentage is 11.9 percent. The numbers just about line up.” “This is going to take thousands of hours!” “Maybe tens of thousands. Master Fay, is this really the only way?” “We’ll all do it together.” Fay turned back toward the tomb and spread his arms wide, raising his voice. “There are a hundred fifty people who have been wandering this maze for hundreds of hours without being able to get home. There’s another fifty of us on the rescue teams. First what we do is, the two hundred of us need to link up and share everything we know with one another. Every trick for upping our completion percentage.” “That’s…a big plan.” “Urgh… But you’re right. It’s the only way!” “It’ll get us a big jump, right?” Fay said, giving the two fretful young women a thumbs-up. “This game just went from ‘impossible to finish’ to ‘possible to finish if you have enough time.’ The players just have to be passionate enough.”