—And that’s how it went.
“Hard mode, huh...” I sighed.
I recalled everything that had happened so far while I checked the pickaxe and the shovel that fell on the floor. You could say I was trying to escape reality as well.
“Wait. A community building labyrinth? Could this be a...”
I walked into the log cabin-style house nearby me. The metal hinges on the door were difficult to budge, probably because it hadn’t seen much use. The interior seemed to be about twenty square meters wide. There was a simple bed, a cabinet, and a round wooden table which stood in the middle of the room. The interior somehow managed to look even cheaper than the cheapest hotel, in the cheapest city, in the cheapest country.
I noticed a brown A4-sized envelope on top of the wooden table.
“Ah, right. They’re a management company, so there should be things to manage.”
If Karumi-san’s words were to be believed, then my training period would last three months. She said we would meet again after the training is over, so the pickup should be in three months at best. I didn’t really have any guarantee that she was gonna keep her word, but I guess thinking positively would make it a little more bearable.
From the look of things, it didn’t seem like I was going to be able to just waltz back home, so I guess I should be grateful my merciful employers had the decency to provide me a room to stay in. There was nothing man-made around here aside from the cabin. But if this place was a labyrinth, it wouldn’t surprise me to find a huge structure sprawling out underground.
I opened the envelope and took out the contents; I found a stiff and seemingly old starchy paper with official-looking information handwritten with a fountain pen. It read:
<Labyrinth #228>
Purpose: Foster an environment to ensure inter-clan engagement, collection of military goods, and deposit base. This structure is also designated as the neighboring residents’ evacuation point.
Scheduled Completion: Mid-scale Labyrinth—Class 3.
I supposed this wasn’t that much different from a building. Rather, a labyrinth being classified as a ‘community building’ wasn’t too unrealistic a proposition.
Total Construction Status: 2%—Construction of cabin for worker completed.
Current Construction Progress: 100% completed.
Interior Design Progress: 100% completed.
Facility Equipment Installation Progress: 100% completed.
Deployment of Golems for Facility Protection: Completed.
Waiting for manager to take up their post...
—Hmm? There’s two progress sheets here, but their contents are completely reversed.
Additional Notes: Person in charge of the labyrinth’s construction, Barald Gain (49), has been arrested under suspicion of corporate embezzlement.
“Hahaha... This sure happens a lot with public projects, huh?”
So he hadn’t even started working, and pocketed all the money intended for the construction. If I’m unlucky, he might have even stolen the money for management and maintenance costs; which meant the company thought they needed a management administrator because it was completed on paper, but in reality it was actually incomplete—I had nothing to manage.
I was at a loss for words. Managing a facility like this seemed more and more like a punishment game. I wanted to break down and cry, but attempting to escape my reality wouldn’t get me anywhere, as unfortunate as it was.
“Did we need the embezzlement feature?!”
My scream echoed out into in the ravine.
Screaming helped me calm down a little bit. This was unbecoming of someone as tempered a gamer as I, who had experienced countless RPG challenge runs. You know, challenges like forty-hour time limits, or game overs that meant you had to start over with no resets or data backup. They were masochistic challenges that pushed even the most ruthless of frame-timed, auto-save limited experts to their limits.
I felt pleasure every time I got wiped out towards the end. The only truly masochistic thing were the challenges themselves. The games were innocent and magnificent pieces of work on their own... I wasn’t playing because I’m a masochist or anything, if that’s what you were thinking. All that aside, I wasn’t particularly pessimistic despite the actual lack of a building to manage, or the obvious corruption.
Couldn’t I make my own labyrinth if there wasn’t one to begin with? They said they would raise my salary depending on how well I improved the place, so I figured it was pretty safe to say whatever I did would be an improvement over this shabby cabin. Besides, the idea of making my own labyrinth seemed like fun. Fortunately for me, the house was already kinda furnished... But I thought I would have to give up on the dream of living in a comfy room with water service, gas, or heaters of any kind.
“So what am I supposed to do about food...?”
First of all, that translucent window that floated over my hand made me doubt whether or not this world was the same as the one I came from.
—There may be squirrels, mice, or even birds for all I know around here. It may not be much but it can make for a decent meal.
I looked in and around the cabin for about half an hour, but didn’t manage to find even a trace of any of those.
—This is quite a problem, there’s no fruits or anything either... I guess it’s time to eat grass and leaves.
I did find some butterflies with glassy-looking feathers, and I may be able to find some worms if I turned over some rocks or dug a little, but I’d rather not have to resort to doing so if I could help it. There was also the concern of hygiene as well, but there were a lot of ponds and little rivers nearby, so getting water wouldn’t be that hard.