"COMMENCING EXTERMINATION!"

The golem lungs towards me with its fist. I dash towards it and block it with my sword.

"Lilia, stay back! Let me handle this!" I shout. Lilia only nods in acknowledgement.

The reason why I tell her to not interfere is because we're in a small corridor right now and her, being an inexperienced mage she is, won't be able to aim her magic well enough to not hit me instead of the golem.

The other reason being, well, I can take care of this guy myself.

The golem counters by sending his other fist, which I dodge easily by leaping backwards.

"Hyper Slash!"

I send out a huge vertical slash via my sword towards the golem, which it blocks by crossing its two arms.

"It's not over yet! Penetrating Vortex Spin!"

My body thrusts with great power towards the golem. Still in defense position, it has no time to evade, so it merely shifts its two arms to block my attack.

"Hah, how foolish!" I say, even though I know perfectly well it's just an AI in front of me. Can't help it, I suppose. I'm just to fond of acting like those anime shonen villains.

When the two of us crash, my sword pierces through its arms. And not just that either, it pierces through its body too, leaving a clean hole on its chest.

"EX...TER...MI...NA...TE...."

The golem crashes to the floor.

Pitiful thing. It really has no chance to win whatsoever.

"Oh, you did it, Akira-sama!" Lilia shouts as she approaches me.

This time she doesn't do a leap to hug me though, which kinda bums me out a little.

And so we continue our journey through this maze, arriving in a room quite familiar to me.

It is the room where I got teleported to the castle the last time.

Finally, I am here again. Time to get my revenge!

"Now, listen well, Lilia-chan. Do not touch anything you see in this room. In fact, you should just stand near the entrance and wait there until I finish this puzzle. This is the place where a trap boots me out of this place the last time I went here. We don't want that to happen again now, do we?"

"I-I understand."

Lilia obeys as she stands near the entrance archway like a good princess.

Now, to crack this thing up.

In front of me there's a big monitor, with its edges decorated with illustrations of angels. Below, it, there's a panel with a bunch of buttons on it. The monitor is displaying a sequence of symbols, while the buttons have those symbols carved on them.

Now, you might be thinking, "Well, clearly you're meant to match the buttons you press with the symbols on the monitor".

And that's how typical puzzle plebeians think.

You see, the symbols actually mean something. A question. And you're supposed to put the answer via the buttons.

Now, how you're supposed to know what the symbols mean?

Easy. That is, if you're not the kind of guy who're just obsessed with battles and not caring about the lore.

In a certain library lies a book with a translation for some of the symbols. Combined with the murals that exist in certain Phantasma ruins, you'll be able to obtain the complete translation of the Phantasma symbols.

They're really obscure things only people obsessed with that kind of stuff (like me) will be able to discover.

And now, time to bring out my note and decipher this damn thing.

Or, to be exact, re-decipher it, since I've already done it before after all.

The text says...

ONLY THE LOYAL SUBJECTS OF THE PRINCESS OF AIR ARE ALLOWED IN THIS HALLOWED LAND. SO ANSWER, YE TRAVELER. WHAT IS HER MAJESTY'S MOST BELOVED BIRD?

This puzzle. This puzzle was the one that tripped me over last time.

First of all, any ordinary folk would just call out bullshit on that, saying "How the fuck should I know what some ancient civilization princess' favorite pet bird is?"

Of course, I'm no ordinary folk. I know they're not going to put a question without an answer.

This place is called The Maze of Air and air obviously has strong ties to birds. Birds (the ones that fly on the skies anyway) can be called as the masters of wind. And wind means air (well, moving air).

So I searched for clues in the maze itself. And I found there are various bird statues hidden among the invisible rooms.

With a painstaking effort, I drew the birds from my tactile sense alone. And I discovered that the birds differ in species; dove, ravens, etc.

So I counted them. One species stood proud with the most statues. And I entered that species.

It was the wrong answer.

All those hard work... it was just so infuriating.

But then, I realized something. I had misinterpreted the question.

I look again at the angels on the edges of the monitor.

They're not angels. They're "winged humans".

One of the extinct demihumans that existed in the long lost era of Phantasma.

And the Princess of Air should be their ruler, as people of the air.

They're her most beloved "bird". They're her subjects after all.

I enter the answer.

THOU ARE CORRECT. THE GATE SHALL OPEN FOR THEE.

"Yes, I did it! Take that, you son of a bitch!" I shout. I can't help cheering since this goddamn puzzle has taken so much of my time to solve.

The room begins to glow brighter. It's a sign that a teleportation is going to happen soon.

"Y-you solved it, Akira-sama!" Lilia says, glowing with excitement.

"Of course! Who do you think I am, a third-rate puzzle solver?"

And then, we close our eyes due to the overwhelming brightness.

***

When we open them again, we're already in a different room entirely.

It's a gigantic open room in the form of a cylinder, with no entrance or exit in sight. The ceiling stretches tall, as tall as a 10-story building, if my estimation is to be believed.

And then, it appears.

A machine manifests out of thin air right in front of us.

It has a vaguely humanoid shape, with four wings on his back and two bird's beaks as its hands. Its feet are also bird's talons. It only has one glowing blue orb as its eyes. Its color is pure white, and just like the rest of the maze, it's covered in Fantasma writing.

"This is your final challenge, explorer." It somehow speaks without having a mouth. "Best me in battle and the reward shall be yours."

I scan him right away.

Its name is "Malavac The Roc" with the title "Guardian of The Maze of Air".

It seems we're due for a boss battle indeed.