“Watch out!” Estella’s warning came too late, as one of the three howlers disengaged from the crusader, and pounced at Aren, slamming into him and knocking him to the ground.

Its jaws were lined with three rows of sharp teeth, revealing the fact that monsters in this dungeon really did evolve and mutate, becoming more efficient killers over time. Those same teeth sunk into Aren’s left shoulder, but luckily glanced away from the shoulder armor of leather and some metal plates, finding nothing but his shirt and tearing it up.

Estella was quick to react after that incident, and slashed the howler with her sword, carving right down its middle and through its vestige core, destroying it in the process. The howler immediately dispersed into mist-like ash.

The two remaining howlers circled Estella, trying to find an opening in her defenses, now that she was caught flat-footed and facing a different direction. Unfortunately for them, Estella outclassed this dungeon and its upper stratum inhabitants by quite a bit.

Perhaps sensing the attack coming, or reading it, Estella immediately turned, swinging her sword wide and horizontally — more to keep the monsters from advancing on her than striking — but still managed to find a howler’s throat with the tip of her blade. It didn’t count as a fatal blow that would’ve been negated, so the wound remained on the howler. The other howler was the focus of Estella’s counter-attack, and, perhaps realizing this, it tried to back away, but to no avail.

Estella was surprisingly quick on her feet. She closed the distance with two bounding steps and decapitated the howler with ease, freeing its core from the grips of the dissolving mist and ash, and then turned on the remaining howler, finishing off that one as well with a single downward swing of her sword which separated the monster’s head from its body.

On the ground, Aren watched this with a mix of confusion and surprise. He had been lost in thought, but he could not even remember what he was thinking of, or how he even got here. The last thing he could remember was the eerie sound of the voices of the Lost Battalion.

Still not aware of himself, he checked his pocket to see if his comm was still there, but immediately realized his mistake. He was in Singularity. There were no howlers in the real world.

Slowly, the memory came back to him. The quick dinner Isobell fixed for him, and the cup of warm tea. He recalled Thomas speaking reassuring words like it will be fine, and similar. He recalled Isobell suggesting that Aren may have PTSD, from the attack on the transport. They were both aware of the fact that Artemis engaged their transport, and yet neither one of them brought it up or considered that to be strange. Why was that so?

It didn't seem like something one could casually ignore, like the Cold World War going on around them, every day. They are soldiers, that is why, Aren thought. They don't ask questions. They solve problems. At least, that is how Aren thought of them.

“What is wrong with you?” Estella asked, her tone more filled with worry than the anger her phrasing might suggest. “Why are you so out of it?”

Aren pressed his hand against his shoulder, feeling the texture of the leather armor under his palm and the tears and holes from the howler’s fangs. It seemed as if the armor truly did spare him some pain and inconvenience. Then again, it was his left shoulder, with the useless stump of an arm.

He looked at Estella next and pondered how to reply to her.

“I am sorry,” he said. That was the best he could come up with.

Estella frowned and then sheathed her sword. She approached Aren and extended her hand to him. Aren took the offer, and with Estella’s help, got back up on his feet.

“Look, if you don’t want to do this, we can go back,” Estella said. “We can just… relax in the chapel outside or something.”

Slowly, Estella’s gazed lowered, crawling over Aren’s arm and then to the fact that their hands were still locked together. Aren did the same, following Estella’s gaze. Simultaneously, they let go of each other.

Aren cleared his throat, while Estella turned around, peering down the ravines as if to see if more howlers were coming.

The Labyrinth was indeed a maze of sorts. It was cave-like with occasional signs of man-made construction and architecture. Spacious tunnels led to twisting passages where the roof was dozens of meters above them. Then there was the abyss, as Aren came to recognize it, where they could walk down a narrow path surrounded by murky depths that only revealed darkness below. This chamber was where Aren felt the Calamity most strongly. It — whatever it was — lurked somewhere far below, in the lower stratum of the Labyrinth.

From the higher vantage point, Aren thought of the Labyrinth as the inactive caldera of an extinguished volcano. It somehow felt like everything within it was part of the abyss, and that all paths eventually led to the center and the bottom. It seemed to be the opposite of what one might consider a labyrinth, but navigation was difficult.

Fang explained that the Labyrinth changes, but he never mentioned specific details. Aren wondered if perhaps it was a type of reverse labyrinth; perhaps finding the center was easy, but going back was the problem.

“Let’s keep going,” Aren said, breaking the tense silence.

Estella nodded and began pacing forwards, not even looking back at Aren.

They walked in silence for about half a minute before their conversation continued from before it was rudely interrupted by howlers. They were on the narrow path over the abyss, walking across.

“This is the skybridge. It is part of the main chamber. Whenever we reach this point, it means we’ve reached a new floor," Estella explained. "It is somewhat of a safe zone, but that’s not a rule.”

“So when we reach the other side, we go around?” Aren asked.

Estella nodded. “Yeah,” she said, continuing her explanation as if she was reading it out of a book. “Every time we walk across the skybridge, we reach something like a new dungeon. It changes every time you go into it, but the path you take generally stays the same.”

Aren thought about the words. “What about the way back?”

“It also changes,” Estella said. “So if you reach the sky bridge, the Labyrinth changes. But like I said, the path you take generally stays the same. It does change, but it is a very slow process. It takes years before it is completely different.”

Aren nodded. “Does that mean you can make a map then?”

Estella nodded. “Sort of. Explorers map the path, but they are also looking for shortcuts and the hunting grounds. That is how they make money.”

“Hunting grounds?” Aren asked.

“It is the name for the middle stratum,” Estella said. “Big alliances call it the hunting grounds, but it is the place where the powerful monsters of the Labyrinth fight each other and evolve. Normally, you cannot reach this place if you follow the main path," she said and pointed at the skybridge. "That is why explorers and their parties are so large. They try to discover alternative rounds. And if you leave the main chamber, which is this whole area, it really does become a Labyrinth."

“I see,” Aren said and lowered his head, eyebrows knitting together in a thoughtful frown. He pondered Estella, now, mostly. There was a dim halo of light around her as if there was a light source illuminating her from behind. Her hairpins made a small noise every time she stepped forward. The figure she cut truly did seem holy and unconquerable.

Maybe if they met sooner...

Many things would have changed if Aren did something different in his past. Chaos Theory. Strangely enough, despite the shock of hearing voices of the Lost Battalion, Aren was getting used to this. Maybe he just became desensitized to it.

Perhaps sensing the stalling conversation, Estella continued explaining. “The lower stratum has the most food, for the monsters, so that is where the most powerful of them stay. The rest are driven higher, so that is why the difficulty increases the lower we go. But that is only the case for Labyrinths that are active.”

After all, it was Aren's idea. He wanted to learn more about the Catacombs and how dungeons worked. If they were going to meet, anyway, may as well be productive about it.

“So adventurers are part of the ecosystem?” Aren asked.

Estella nodded. “Exactly,” she said. “It is difficult to explain, but this Labyrinth is different from every other one I’ve been in. Usually, you would encounter harmless monsters or treasure rooms after challenges, but this one is just obstacle after obstacle. For example, we haven’t come across a single herbivore type of monster yet.”

The darkness beyond yielded to the light of the lantern hanging from Estella’s belt and revealed a large chamber. The walls were formed naturally, but wooden beams, here and there, held up extinguished lanterns. The path widened to something akin to a bustling marketplace street, but it curved only around a formation of jagged, shiny black rocks. Crystal formations on the sloping ceiling offered a bit of light, and white, glittering dust fell off them.

“Like this place,” Estella said. “This is where you would encounter strange, but peaceful creatures that the monsters hunt and eat. These herbivores eat the crystal dust, mostly, or they eat the plants that eat the dust.”

Estella gestured to the room ahead. “But there are none here,” she said.

“What about the rocks?” Aren asked, his gaze attracted by the rock formation to their left.

“Probably something the industry would be interested in,” Estella said, glancing at the obsidian-like rocks. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Maybe the rocks also eat the dust?” Aren offered. “And change over time.”

Estella shrugged. “Maybe. Even after decades, people still haven’t figured out many of the things that happen in this place. Like, for example, where does the treasure come from? Has it always been there, or does it appear out of thin air? You could get into a fistfight at a tavern over your opinion on that one.”

Aren chuckled at the words and nodded. “It most likely has always been here.”

“Why’s that?” Estella asked.

“A LAGI runs Singularity,” Aren said.

Estella nodded. “That is the central argument for the purists. Their theory is pretty wild. Ancient civilizations and stuff like that.”

“What do the non-purists think?” Aren asked.

“They think the LAGI generates the items to adjust the difficulty curve. It’s not just adventurers that are part of the ecosystem. The treasures are as well. Monsters are attracted to them.”

Estella stopped after a moment and unhooked the lantern from her hip. She hung her lantern on a hook, right next to an extinguished one. “Let’s take a break here.”