93. Dungeon Loop

The tunnel was dark. Ray’s powerful flashlight lit our way through it. The soft flashes of light emitted by the small crystals embedded in the wall would have been enough for me to advance, but for Ray, such a place was just a nest of frightening shadows.

“So you carried a spare,” I said, lighting the glimmering crystals with the flashlight he had given me. “And you even have an extra battery. Did you anticipate we would end up roaming in a labyrinth and would get lost?”

“Don’t give me that admiring look: I anticipated nothing. It’s already a miracle that Zeeta has been able to follow us all the way here. Also, Armen… are you seriously lost? We only came across three intersections so far.”

Three intersections with at least four or five entries. That was enough for me to confirm I was lost. I had hoped that there would be some signs indicating at least the way back, but all the signs I had seen so far were saying, “DANGER!!”, “This is a DUNGEON. Please, TURN BACK if you don’t want to RISK YOUR LIFE”, and the last we had come across went, “WELCOME TO YOUR DEMISE, ADVENTURER”. Scary.

“I’ll leave the orientation part to you, Ray. In return, I’ll protect you and Zeeta if a Fire Orb shows up.”

“There are no Fire Orbs in this world, Armen.”

“Then, when we get to the final boss.”

“Are we in a game?!”

I chuckled.

“Well, maybe there aren’t monsters, then?”

Ray frowned contemplating the room we just walked in. Unlike the tunnel, it was spacious, better lit, and shimmered with red light; its walls were as if new. Three large, stool-like transparent cubes encircled a huge red sphere in which I could glimpse the variable shapes of some dark and purple clouds. The whole view gave off an unsettling vibe. What was with that weird room?

Then Ray whispered:

“Not only the living monsters are dangerous.”

I raised an eyebrow, quizzical, but Ray’s attention was caught by the red sphere in the center of the room. I turned to Zeeta and noticed in surprise that he was straightening up, catching his breath.

“Isn’t the qi pressure,” he huffed, “lower here? Or am I getting used to it?”

I shrugged, clueless. After a silence, Ray looked away from the sphere and answered:

“There’s no way an untrained person can get used to a qi pressure like that in a few minutes. But an untrained person wouldn’t have been able to get here. So I take it that you actually do know how to control your qi.”

“I don’t.”

“That’s not possible.”

Zeeta hesitated, smirked slightly, and said:

“Are you saying I’m lying?”

“Yeah. Unless your body is naturally resistant, but then that means you were acting when you were climbing the first steps at Yuutow Tower.”

“My body is as weak as any normal human’s.”

“Then you are a qi martial artist.”

Zeeta chuckled. I gaped at him. He was a qi martial artist? Zeeta was? Then… He had lied to me? Seriously? Could it be Ginger had taught him? The Cheetahs’ leader was a monk, after all, and he knew a little about qi controlling, although he had never taken the trouble to teach us, newbies. Or did Zeeta learn when he entered the Hidden Hall? Under my increasingly troubled gaze, Zeeta grimaced.

“Straw Head, don’t look at me like that. Actually…” From under his shirt, he pulled out a necklace with a blue, spiral pendant. “Cesarine lent this to me to help me complete the mission she gave me. It’s supposed to protect me from qi pressure and qi attacks to some extent. I thought it would be more effective, though.”

He cast Ray a scoffing glance as if saying, “You didn’t see that coming, huh, you were so quick to accuse me of lying.” Ray pouted quietly.

I examined Zeeta’s necklace with curiosity.

“Such a nice pendant,” I observed, then I looked up, a smile on my face. “Cesarine, huh. So you already exchanged gifts.”

Zeeta’s eyebrows twitched.

“Shut up, Straw Head. She lent it to me. Think about it. If I really cared about her, right now I would be searching for her and not for Erma, wouldn’t I?”

“… True. But, hey, who knows, Zeeta? Maybe Cesarine was teleported into the dungeon, too!”

Zeeta shook his head.

“No. I’ve been listening to the instructors, earlier. It seems Cesarine has been kidnapped by the Revolutionaries. She’s probably not even on this island anymore.”

“…!! The Revolutionaries?” I was aghast. “Who are the Revolutionaries?”

“A powerful group of revolutionaries.”

“… Ho.”

“Er… They supposedly want to dismantle the World Government, make a better world, you know, those sorts of things. Nick told me many of the leading members are former Heroes that have been wronged by authorities. Apparently, the DA has worked with them on some occasions. They’re famous criminals, because they’re righteous people.”

He meant Cesarine had been kidnapped by “righteous criminals” and former Heroes? Being the daughter of the Nyomin’s director was certainly more of a curse than a blessing.

“Anyway,” Zeeta added, “Cesarine is probably in a better situation than Erma right now.”

His words made me put aside my worries for Cesarine Lovecryce at once. Erma…

We looked around the room. Apart from the transparent cubes and the red sphere, there was nothing noteworthy. Was it a dead end?

“The qi pressure is definitely lower in the room,” Zeeta affirmed.

“But looks like we can’t go further,” I added.

After a silence, the three of us nodded and tacitly turned around. As we were about to leave the room, I saw Ray and Zeeta deviate their steps and strangely turn around. I stopped, confused.

“Aren’t we leaving?”

Both of them looked puzzled. Zeeta strode towards me, saying:

“We are. Of course… we are…”

His voice wavered as, again, his movements became sluggish as if in a slow-motion movie, and he began to turn his back on me. I glowered at him, panicked.

“It’s not funny!”

“I’m not doing it on purpose, dammit!”

“… Okay. Then, why?”

“It must be the sphere,” Ray answered thoughtfully as he tried again and failed to leave the room. “And the cubes. They’re probably the ones holding the runic formation.”

“A runic formation?”

I stepped into the room again. I didn’t feel anything, and my eyes couldn’t see the energy either. Anyway, it wasn’t affecting me, most likely because I was an undead. But how were Ray and Zeeta going to break the formation? Moving the cubes? Zeeta must have been thinking the same thing, because he walked to one and tried to push it, in vain. When I helped him, the cube didn’t budge. Were we going to stay here forever? The realization sent a shiver through my body.

“It’s so uncool but… should I go get some help?” I suggested.

Ray didn’t answer. He was frowning at the sphere.

“Say, Armen. What color is it to you?”

“The sphere? Red. With black and purple colors.”

“Black and purple?” Ray repeated.

“That’s right. But mostly red. Red energies impose rules, don’t they? Addison said red formations are basically impossible to break unless you fulfill a certain condition. That’s what makes Eder’s power so awesome, right…” I nodded to myself. And that was what made our current situation so worrisome. To think we had fallen into a trap so soon…

I went around the beautiful crystal sphere shimmering in scarlet light. It was perfectly shaped, as if artificially created, yet I was sure no human would have been able to create something like that. I contemplated it for a long moment in awe. I had been taught that dungeons had been created by the Holy Gods. Was that true? I raised a hand but refrained from touching the sphere. Something about that crystal frightened me. I didn’t quite know why, but the more I looked at it, the more it felt as if touching it would send me to a different world, a timeless, lifeless world without light, purpose, or fears… It felt as if looking at a void. Though frightening at first, it was also strangely soothing to just look at it. No doubt the Great Crystals had been worshipped by humans for two millennia. I smiled, joined my hands, and bowed.

“Huh? Straw Head? Did you see something?”

Ray and Zeeta stopped by my side, looking at the foot of the sphere. My smile broadened as I straightened up.

“I kind of felt like paying my respects. My grandma used to tell me this a lot, ‘Respect-e the wonders of nature: that will bring-e you a good fortune’.”

Ray was left speechless. Zeeta sighed, disappointed.

“I hope your good fortune will come soon, then.”

“It doesn’t work like th—”

“Quiet,” Zeeta cut me off. We turned to him, quizzical. “Someone’s coming.”

“…! Who?”

“Erma.”

“For real?!”

“No. Seriously, do you take me for a soothsayer or what?”

“It would have been too much good fortune,” I admitted with a sigh.

After a moment, I could make out the sound of footsteps. The three of us stepped back and hid behind the sphere but… shouldn’t we be warning the newcomer of the runic formation instead? I stepped away from the sphere, intending to do that, but when I saw Yamazaki, I froze in plain sight and couldn’t move an inch.

“Holy crap,” I whispered.

“Talk about good fortune,” Zeeta muttered.

Ray grumbled through my necro-bond:

‘What is that old fox doing here?’

The instructor had obviously already seen us. He walked into the room carrying a bulky bag. His piercing eyes glided on us and fastened on the sphere. I swallowed.

“S-Sir… We’ve packed up our things and are about to leave—I mean, we took the wrong way—I mean, it seems Erma’s in here so… we…”

Yamazaki stopped before the sphere, sighed, and nodded.

“Oh. So that’s one of this dungeon’s loops. Once you enter one, you cannot go back and can only keep going forward until you’ve reached the end of the loop. If some foolish youngsters were to end up here without any assistance, they would likely become crippled or even die. Some very foolish ones could even get stuck in the very first room of a loop. Luckily, no trainee would be so harebrained as to break the rules and enter this place without permission. But if there were such troublemakers, they would only need to follow the kind instructor who, going about his business, found out they not only did not leave the island but also ‘took the wrong way’, and he had to go to rescue them and throw them out of the island himself. Yeah,” he chuckled darkly, “luckily, nothing like that happened.”

He raised his hand, and as soon as it touched the crystal, I saw a whirl of purple energy inside the sphere stretch toward it, and Yamazaki disappeared.

We were left agape.

“What the hell?” I gasped.

“I admit I was wishing for him to disappear,” Zeeta confessed, “but I did nothing.”

“So that’s how it is,” Ray said. “The sphere is a teleportation portal. It will lead to the next room of the loop. The only problem is… now that Yamazaki has seen us, he won’t let us explore the dungeon further. If Linah is not in this loop… we won’t be able to search for her, unless…”

He fell silent, and Zeeta completed the sentence for him:

“Unless we convince Yamazaki.”

“Convince?” I repeated.

“With a good blow that’ll knock him out.”

“I was surprised you would try to negotiate.” I exchanged a look with Ray. Neither of us wanted to harm the instructor. Ray also wanted to avoid being registered in the record of the Ministry of Dark Arts Regulation, but that was becoming more and more unavoidable. I suggested: “If it comes to the point, let’s try to ditch him first.”

Zeeta laughed between his teeth.

“He acted so cool trying hard not to see us that I guess I’m okay with just giving him the slip.”

That settled, we turned to the red sphere. I gave Ray and Zeeta a quivering smile full of excitement.

“It’s a teleportation portal! Guys, we’re gonna teleport! I never got teleported before.”

“Me neither,” Zeeta admitted.

“I… did once when I was a kid,” Ray said. “In a teleporter. One thousand Corns per ticket.”

Zeeta and I stared at him and said at once:

“Rich kid.”

“How was it?” I asked curiously.

Ray grimaced, remembering.

“Disturbing.”

I turned again to the sphere, and a broad grin spread across my lips. Then remembering we had come not to have fun but to save Linah, I nodded firmly.

“Let’s go!”

As soon as I put my hand on the crystal, I felt a deep, twirling energy rush inside my body. In a matter of seconds, a somewhat massive amount of energy had been poured inside me. Was I teleporting? I… wasn’t. Instead, my hand had inexplicably begun to sink into the crystal. Yeah, I was being dragged by the sphere!

“What’s going on?!” I asked, panicking. I looked at Ray and Zeeta. “I can’t pull my hand away.”

While Zeeta hurried and grabbed my arm, trying to help me withdraw the hand, Ray imitated him more slowly, trying to understand.

“I’m g-going deeper!” I stuttered.

Even with Ray’s and Zeeta’s help, my arm was being swallowed. Wasn’t the sphere supposed to be solid?

Holy Crystals, why? That didn’t happen to Yamazaki, then why was that happening to me?

Was it because I was an undead?

Maybe the Holy Gods understood I had already died and were trying to absorb my soul, to give it peace within the Crystal…

The thought terrified me. I wanted to live, I didn’t want to die.

“Ray… Zeeta…”

Two trickles of black tears rolled down my cheeks, vaguely reflected on the sphere. My two friends’ faces were stiff with horror, but they kept trying to save me. Zeeta crouched and frantically searched for some miracle in his bag. I heard him repeat something about a knife. Was he intending to cut my arm? That wasn’t a bad idea but… my body was already being sucked into the crystal. Panicked, Zeeta grabbed me by the ankle and shouted “No! Stop!”. But I couldn’t stop. I stammered:

“What the hell’s wrong with that sphere?”

“I don’t know!” Ray shrieked in distress. “I don’t know!”

But I knew. I was going to disappear. The crystal was going to transform me into energy. To it, I was just an object, a dead soul that had been wandering for two months and should have already been collected by the Holy Gods, and yet…

“I don’t want to die.”

As my forehead grazed the surface of the crystal and some claws of energy grasped me, I whispered with growing conviction, then shouted with all my might:

“I WANT TO LIVE! ZEETA! RAY! I WANT TO LIVE! DAMNED GODS, I WANT TO LIVE!”

As if expressing my desire out loud triggered something inside me, my core began to react to the sphere that was trying to swallow me. It didn’t raise any barrier nor tried to chase the intruder away. It imitated the sphere… and tried to swallow it in return.

Yeah, as ridiculous as it gets, my core was trying to eat a crystal, a divine meteorite of chokingly dense energy that had come from space two thousand years ago. Was that even possible?

It probably wasn’t. I realized that when I understood my body was already inside the crystal. Or so it seemed, but when my core finally stopped devouring energies and I could start thinking again, there was nothing left for me to see, neither the sphere’s red energy nor the dark and purple volutes. Around me, everything was pitch-black, silent, and empty.

Was it the end? Was I going to disappear like that?

But somehow, it didn’t seem that my mind was being torn or anything. Maybe I was in the afterlife? Such a dark place to live in… Was it the Hell promised to bad people? But was I really that bad of a person for the Holy Gods to send me to such a place? Frustration grew inside me. Well, and what if I was an undead? What if I wasn’t perfect? What if I was selfish and wanted to live? What if I wanted to continue living with the people I loved?

I thrived on such feelings. They were what made me keep going on. They were what gave me a reason to live even after my death two months ago. Life is a nest of feelings, be they good or bad. And I loved life with all my heart. How could the Holy Gods expect me to let it go? How could they? Anger was taking over my mind.

Bullies, I thought. Holy Gods, you bullies. I respected you, I loved you, and you betray me like that?

Was I being sacrilegious? I didn’t care. At that moment, life appeared to me as a sloppy system. I was raging mad.

Then, in the frightening emptiness of Hell, I heard my master’s voice in my head.

‘Armen. Can you hear me? I just activated my power. Th-There’s no need to be scared, it’s all right, we’re still alive, so p-please don’t leave my side.’

Despite his quavering tone, his order, far from making me lose my mind, felt like a ray of hope.

* * *

In the next room, Julen Yamazaki was sitting cross-legged on a mossy clump, his eyes fixed on the small, shimmering crystal levitating on the pedestal in front of him. After a long silence, he adjusted his glasses and muttered to himself in puzzlement:

“What are those boys doing?”

His fingers drummed on his knees. One minute, two minutes, ten minutes, an hour passed.

He finally let out a deep sigh.

To fulfill his part of the bargain, he was supposed to enter the dungeon to recover a special item for Makler Vod: a vial filled with the essence of the heart of the dungeon. To say the least, it was a difficult mission, probably more difficult than that of getting the Elixir of Heavens other people were so fond of: dungeon hearts were well hidden. Some had not even a tangible body. Some were just unapproachable. But Natasha had said she couldn’t enter the dungeon. If he didn’t get it, everything would come to naught.

Julen Yamazaki leaned against the comfy ground of the room, making a grumbling complaint. Then he frowned. Wait. If Natasha couldn’t enter the dungeon because she was an undead, then what about the Styxer’s familiar, Armen Moon?

After a contemplative silence, Yamazaki hit his forehead.

“What have I done?”