Chapter 67

“That’s it, my friends! I knew you could do it if you tried!” Dax told the dice approvingly. He nodded in complete satisfaction, then turned on his heel, his black coat swirling. “Fay! We are lifelong rivals, so appointed and guided by the destiny known as games! But in this particular game are many who wish to return home. Let us postpone our contest for now!” “Huh? You’re leaving already?” “We’re prioritizing finding the lost apostles. If you’ll excuse us,” Kelritch said with a dip of her head. Then she trotted quickly to catch up with Dax, who was already proceeding out of the grotto. They heard her ask him, “Are you sure you don’t want to go with them? They’re on the cusp of completely clearing this game. You could rack up another win if you followed them.” “I have my own manner of doing things.” “Yes, a clumsy manner. You thank him for helping our lost apostles and then just leave? Admittedly, I don’t dislike that upstanding quality of yours.” The two of them disappeared from view, and the grotto of the dice, so full of chatter until a moment before, fell silent. In the stillness, it seemed all was over…but only for a second, until Pearl’s scream tore through the air. “N-no way! But why?!” “What’s up, Pearl? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” “W-well, just…just look!” Pearl pointed at Nel. She seemed to be pointing at the girl’s chest—but then her finger moved up, up, until she was pointing above her head. There hovered her unlock percentage: 99.999 percent. “What?!” Nel doubted her own eyes. The unlock percentage had already been at 99.9 percent. Once they had cleared the grotto of the dice, it obviously should have ticked up to 100. Everyone had just assumed so. Even Fay. Yet there was still 0.001 percent to go. “Huh? Well, that doesn’t make any sense.” Leshea folded her arms, pondering. “Between us, we checked out every corner of every area. And I’m pretty sure we’ve seen every single monster and trap and item around here.” “Y-yes, Leshea! Yes, we have!” Pearl said, nodding. “We’ve explored every nook and cranny! I was so sure this grotto was the last area of all—this doesn’t make sense! The unlock percentage always advanced by tenths of a percent before. So why is it going out to 99.999 percent now? How can we have 0.001 percent left? It doesn’t work that way!” It was a fair complaint. The unlock percentage had generally increased by 0.1 percent each time they had defeated an area boss, cleared any event, and so on. No event had ever pushed the percentage out to three decimal places. Which seems like another way of saying that it’s not that we’ve missed an item or a boss. There’s some tiny little thing we’ve overlooked, Fay thought. The unlock percentage was telling them something. They were only steps away from clearing this game. They were just missing one thing, something that represented a mere 0.001 percent of the dungeon. “Maybe we missed something?” Nel asked. “But Nel, we checked every inch of this labyrinth,” Pearl insisted. “Even if we did miss something, it would be almost impossible to figure out where it was—” “Pearl,” Fay said, calling the golden-haired girl’s name almost before he thought about it. “That’s it!” “Um…what is?” “That last 0.001 percent isn’t in the maze. It’s outside it. Everyone, let’s head back.” “I’m sorry, whaaaaaat?! Wh-what are you talking about?” Fay didn’t answer, but the way he turned around made it obvious. The message was, Follow me. He strode through the endless corridors, passing through the Execution Grounds and their save point with hardly a second glance, until he arrived at the large antechamber that had been their very first respawn point. “Goodness, welcome back. Are you looking for something?” “No, we’re fine. I’m after something outside the castle.” They left the large room with the entrance to Lucemia, heading toward the exit and passing through the castle gate. There, they were confronted with a grassy plain that spread as far as the eye could see. Verdant grasses and a profusion of colorful flowers grew there. A pleasant, springlike breeze blew past, and there wasn’t a cloud in the blue sky, which stretched out until it met the horizon. “Master Fay?! Where are you going?!” “There’s no labyrinth this way, Fay! Wait—you’re leaving the castle entirely?!” “I just remembered,” Fay said, working his way across the sea of green and enjoying the sensation of the spring breeze. “When did the unlock percentage first appear for us? It wasn’t when we entered the labyrinth. It showed up before that!” “—?!” Pearl’s breath caught. “This field is where we arrived when we first dove into this game. We could already see the unlock percentage by that point.” “Huh? What was that?” Pearl asked. “It went away in a hurry. Number of respawns, maybe?” “If it were possible to reach one hundred percent unlock just based on the stuff in the labyrinth, then the number wouldn’t have appeared till we got there. But it showed up here, which means…” “There’s something to explore here, too?!” “Exactly. But when we went through here, our unlock percentage was zero.” “Y-yeah, of course. It was all we could do to escape the Killer Apples and make it through.” Pearl had respawned twice being attacked by the deadly fruit. That was as close to a trick or trap as they had come—but even evading the apples hadn’t increased their percentage. “What else is there?! Do you have an idea, Fay?” “Yeah. There’s something really big.” He kept going. He seemed to be heading right back to where they had started the entire game. At last, something large and dark loomed on the horizon. A pit. It yawned there, alone in the open field. The moment they saw it, Pearl and Nel both burst into a run. “Ahhhhh!” Pearl cried. “Y-yes, that’s it! This pit was here all along!” Both of them remembered now: They had all avoided this pit. “Looks like an awfully big hole. If you jumped in there, you’d definitely die.” “So why do you sound like you’re thinking of doing just that, Fay?! We’ve already been annihilated by two different traps! We don’t need any more dumb respawns!” Pearl had been done in twice by the trick with the Killer Apples. She’d been so worried about dying a third time that they’d avoided jumping in the hole. But just maybe… If there’d been a pit this big in the dungeon proper, they absolutely would have jumped in it by now, just to make sure. Maybe there was an item down there, or maybe a boss. But this thing was outside the labyrinth, a gimmick encountered before they’d known the significance of the unlock percentage, while they had still been fresh with the fear of being annihilated. This had to be it: The very first mind game the god had played on them was also the very last. “Wow, I really feel like we’re almost there!” Leshea said, approaching the pit. Her vermilion hair flapped in the wind as she stood on the very edge and peered in. Inside, the pit was almost preternaturally dark. You would hardly be able to see your hand in front of your face down there. What waited after the drop? “That looks really, really deep. Are you s-sure you want to jump in there?” Pearl asked. “Not like we need to be afraid of getting wiped at this point. Here goes, Pearl!” Fay said. And then they jumped. Fay, Leshea, Pearl, and Nel all dove into the hole. The instant they did so, something glimmered above their heads. 100.0000000000000 percent “Oh!” “We did it!” Pearl and Nel clapped their hands even as they plummeted in freefall. The drop carried them through the pit itself, down tens and then hundreds of meters underground. When the fall ceased at last, they found themselves somewhere familiar. “So that’s how it is!” Fay said. They had fallen from the grassy plain and landed gently in a very particular place. A gigantic, round coliseum. In front of them was a pyramid about two meters tall. Yes: that threatening pit right at the beginning of the game had actually been the shortest route to the deepest chamber. “Hello, god! We did all the things to make you come back to life!” Pearl said, jogging up to the pyramid. She held the Resurrection Bell in her hand and raised it high. “Now, time for you to respawn!” Riiiiing. There was a beautiful sound that could summon the souls of the dead…but though they waited and waited, there was no change in the tomb. “H-huh? Hey, that’s funny…” Pearl blinked, uneasy. She rang the bell again and again, but all it did was make a nice sound there in the underground coliseum. “Don’t tell me… We still haven’t done everything we need to do?” “All that’s left is passion,” Leshea said, trotting up to Pearl and placing a confident hand on her shoulder. “Take a good look at the sign. ‘No humans cleared my labyrinth, and I grew tired of waiting.’ I think I know what the game master is doing here. It’s a way of saying, ‘Huh! Guess I made my game too hard. Nobody can clear it? Nobody at all? Too bad about that.’ It’s an open taunt!” “It doesn’t say all that!” “Which means there’s just one thing for us to say back!” Leshea took a big, deep breath. “Ohhh, man! This dungeon was really super easy, huh?” There was a shiver in the air as Leshea’s yell echoed around the coliseum. They had solved the god’s little trial. Now it was time for the players to dispense a sneering challenge. “Doesn’t this god have any real challenges to offer?” Leshea said loudly. The pyramid showed no reaction—but she kept right on. “We crafted all the items and beat all the bosses. Is that really it?” “Yeah, color me disappointed!” added Fay. “Kinda takes the wind out of my sails to find out this dungeon was so simple. I hope there’s at least a nice, powerful final boss we can fight! Don’t you, Pearl?” “Y-yes! This was so boring, I’m getting sleepy. A fancy maze like this with no final boss? Fail! Right, Nel?” “Erm, y-yes indeed! I do wish we could see who built this thing!” Still the pyramid did nothing. Leshea decided to give another push. “We got one hundred percent unlock percentage, so I guess we’re done playing. Unless… I wonder if the god is afraid of someone clearing their game.” “Afraid? You mean, like, scared?” “Yeah, shaking in their boots!” Fay pointed at the silent tomb and called, “Come out! Don’t hide in that boring old tomb. The challengers you’ve waited for so long are finally here!” Chak. Chak chak chak… At that moment, the pyramid began to shudder, small quivers passing through it, shaking the stones of its foundation, shivering away from the walls like a pile of wood blocks coming apart. “Wh, Wh, Wh…” Finally, it seemed to explode, the top of the pyramid flying clean off, clear into the sky. Out burst a god with light-brown skin. “Who dares to call this game a boring, easy failure?!” The god held a staff with yellow and black stripes. The deity appeared as a young girl whose hair was golden in front and purple behind; she flew into the air and came down hard atop the coliseum. “I lay in my grave and listened—have you said your piece?!” Her eyes glowed with vitality. Her cheeks were flush with life. It was clear at a glance: The final boss had respawned. “Save your grumbling for when you have defeated the final boss—me!” The very last opponent in Lucemia, the Labyrinth of Death and Rebirth, had appeared. Vs. Anubis, God of the Underworld Win Condition: Defeat the God of the Underworld. However, conditions for defeat are unknown. Lose Condition: Players are in a respawn state. Notes: Any items obtained in the maze Lucemia may be used.