Magenta narrowed her eyes. Just as she was about to say something else, three figures emerged from the distance.

Ace and Moss were heading in their direction, with the latter's face looking as grim as ink. Striding behind them was none other than student No. 5–Alton.

Celio blinked at the familiar face.

Now that he thought about it, the last time he saw Alton was still at the opening ceremony.

"No. 5? You weren't at the test either." Aureolin leaned toward him with curious eyes. "I didn't expect you to skip as well."

"Apologies, Professor Aureolin." Alton entered a gentlemanly bow. "I had some issues to deal with in the SAA."

"Ah." Aureolin blinked. She drew her head back with a shrug. "I guess it can't be helped then."

SAA? The Student Administrative Association?

The first time he heard about the organization was from Edris, who mentioned it as a requisite to enter the music tower. Celio peered in the man's direction.

No additional information was given about SAA by the professors or the rules. Frankly, he thought it was a group that only existed in name. He didn't expect to meet someone who was actually a part of it.

Not to mention a player like Alton.

As the five professors rejoined, Alton turned his head sideways, throwing a glimpse at the dark-haired man on the bench.

At the attention, Edris gestured a hand in return, shooting him a cocky grin. When the man retracted his gaze with a polite bow, Edris's eyes flickered in amusement as he continued to feed the pigeons, which had multiplied in quantity.

"Investigations are underway." Moss turned to Magenta. "We'll be sure to pick out the culprit behind this treacherous act."

With the test postponed and classes cancelled for the rest of the day, the students dispersed to their accounts.

Despite being given a break, however, no one dared to relax. Not when the professors may hit them with an impromptu test, like during the initial ranking.

The professors told them to take the day off, but most students were more than happy to use it as another day of self-studying. Some even cried out in relief as they were given extra time to prepare for the test.

Alton was quickly surrounded by his group members. He seemed to have established quite a reputation among the other players.

Celio witnessed the students' various reactions with a complicated expression. Many of them had been entirely conditioned by the Labyrinth rules.

As for Edris's group, they decided to head back to the dorms.

"Master," Celio said, trailing behind the dark-haired man as he entered the dorm elevator. He pushed the button for the sixth floor. "Did everything turn out well?"

"Do I not look okay?" Edris glanced at him. Lifting a finger, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. "Here you go."

The beast tamer stared at the [SNEAKERS] card in his hand. He blinked twice.

"You didn't use it?"

"You need it more than me." Handing the card back to the golden-haired boy, Edris shrugged a smile. "Why? You don't trust me?"

"No, I do! I'm just quite curious… so did the plan go as expected? How did you manage to escape the seventh floor?"

When the dark-haired man didn't respond, Celio furrowed his brows. Although Edris retained his usual demeanour, the small incongruities in his behaviour gave him a sense of uneasiness.

It might be his imagination, but ever since his Master returned from the seventh floor, he'd been acting a bit… off.

The elevator door slid open with a ding. Edris and Celio stepped out, just in time to see Owein heading their direction from the other end of the hallway.

Passing shoulders, Edris and Owein locked gazes before the latter walked past him and into the elevator. The doors slid to a close, and Edris withdrew his gaze.

"Master?" Seeing that the man had fallen quiet, Celio tilted over to enter his view. Edris turned around, pressing a finger to his lips as he smiled at the beast tamer.

"Secret."

"Huh? Oh, okay." Celio glanced up. "Oh, also! Are we going to meet later today to discuss the progression of our pl—"

Before he could finish his sentence, the dark-haired man headed straight past him and into his room. The door slammed close between them, leaving the beast tamer in his dumbfounded state.

"…Master?"

***

The moment the door closed behind him, Edris stumbled forward, pushing his arm against the nearest wall for support.

A bead of sweat slid from his temple to his chin, splattering onto the wooden floor. Edris slowly exhaled as he slid against the wall.

Through blurry vision, he glanced at his profile.

PLAYER ID

Edris

LABYRINTH

#53

PLAYER STATUS

Abnormal

ROLE DESCRIPTION

You are an incoming student who got into MW Academy by bribing the Principal. Congratulations on your admittance!

You… [EXPAND FULL DESCRIPTION HERE]

AFFINITY LEVEL

52%

CARD SLOT

Blazing Torrent Earplugs Medical Pack

NOTE: Future card slots may be unlocked as a reward

His eyes narrowed at a particular section of his profile.

AFFINITY LEVEL

52%

"…Hah."

Edris pressed his hand against his temple. His brain felt as though it was being squeezed with a cramp. He let out a shaky breath.

"Owein, you fucker."

Grimacing at his affinity level, which was just about to drop below the 50 mark, Edris quickly activated the [MEDICAL PACK] card he'd snatched from the ”ward.”

A maroon pouch appeared in his hands, and in it were three identical tubes of liquid. Popping open one's lid, Edris chugged the entire thing down his throat.

He inhaled and exhaled, then inhaled again. Only after an entire three minutes did his breathing turn back to normal.

Edris reopened his profile display:

AFFINITY LEVEL

82%

"So each tube replenishes 30 affinity points."

According to the Labyrinth rules, players would experience spontaneous mute intervals once their affinity dropped below 50.

He tossed the rest of the [MEDICAL PACK] back into the card slot. There were three tubes in the pouch, which meant he could use the card two more times. Back in the real world, an item like this would at least be deemed as a Category B elixir.

Leaning against his bed frame, Edris wiped the sweat off his forehead.

That was close.

Too close.

His mind flashed back to the portrait room.

***

TWO HOURS AGO.

The moment Edris stepped into the space, he received a new message on his profile interface.

Congratulations! A hidden location has been unlocked!

You have entered [%3^#[email protected]'S WARD]!

Edris's eyes narrowed at the notifications. The interface had never announced anything like it before. Not even when he was exploring the campus for the first time.

To think that narcissist's portrait led to a space like this.

It was completely dark inside, the smell of damp oak wafting through the space. Edris sniffed, covering up a cough with his arm.

The portrait hung on the center of the right wall and right beside Magenta's room. Logically speaking, there was no way a room like this could fit between the two.

Yet here he was.

He double-tapped on the pendant under his shirt, bringing forth a dim purple light around his neck. Whoever the entity was controlling the artifact, probably didn't expect him to use the item as a candle.

The enclosed space was in a narrow rectangle shape, with jet-black walls at the side reachable within an arm's length. He appeared to be in some form of an office.

A single wooden desk situated at the end of the room. Cobwebs interweaved the table and chair, and dust particles floated around him, visible from the pendant's glow.

Approaching the end, Edris brushed his fingers against the soot-stained surface. Not much was on it aside from a few books stacked on each other, a rusted cup, a broken clock, and an obsolete-looking picture frame.

"How strange."

This entire situation was very strange.

He could hear noises coming from the outside. The professors had arrived. But from the looks of it, the current space he was in didn't seem to result from their creation. In fact, chances were they also didn't know it existed.

Edris inhaled deeply.

He picked up the picture frame from the table and dusted off the surface.

It was a photo of two people, a man and a woman, cheeks squished together as they gazed at each other with bright smiles.

The person on the left was a young woman in her early twenties. She had short, jet-black hair, bangs, and round, hazel eyes. One of her hands was raised behind the man's head, framing the scene as though he had rabbit ears.

As for the man himself…

In the damp, narrow space, Edris brought the picture closer to the pendant, lighting up the glass surface. Moving his thumb across the man's face, Edris's expression fell strange.

"…The Archivist?"

It was safe to say that not a single person, at least in the Eastern Continent, had not heard of the Seven Conquerors. Although they existed almost a thousand years ago, their names were passed down through history books and fables, spreading far and wide.

Of the seven, The Giver and The Archivist were the only ones with records of their appearances. The former was the founder of the Zacriya Kingdom, and the latter was the greatest inventor of all time.

Edris thought back to the statue in Adalan and all the accounts of his face plastered in various books.

The messy, ash-coloured hair, the light blue eyes, the signature mole under his right eye—although a slightly younger version of the man in his memories, the figure in the picture was definitely him.

His mind growing complicated, Edris massaged his temples and exhaled. The inside of his throat felt coarse.

"This is getting more ridiculous by the second."

Why did The Archivist, a figure in the real world, appear in the Labyrinth setting?

More importantly, who was the woman in the picture, and why is the picture in this hidden space behind Sky's room?

A bead of sweat slid past his temple, moving along his face as it dripped down his chin. Edris shook himself out of his trance. He yanked loose the necktie on his dress shirt and examined the rest of the items on the table.

Aside from the photo, the others were just as puzzling; the notebooks were written in some foreign language, the cup, although rusted on the outside, was smooth like porcelain within, and the antique clock stopped precisely at midnight.

Edris creased his brows. This entire situation was giving him a headache.

At the thought, he froze on the spot.

Something's wrong.

With his hypersensitivity, aftermath from using the Sacrificial Hourglass, he should have noticed the headache a long time ago, not after multiple occurrences. Only then did he realise how much his state had deteriorated since entering this place.

Edris took a step back to steady himself. Pressing onto the wall behind him for support, he flinched as he realised the wall was covered in protruding bumps. He spun around and raised the pendant toward the wall, only for his heart to drop.

Those weren't walls. They were bookshelves.

What he thought was a hidden office wasn't an office at all—it was a library.

"Someone's been here. They might still be."

Two voices came from the outside as a distant echo. They belonged to Ace and another professor. The one with green hair, if Edris remembered correctly.

They were currently in the same shared space.

Another wave of nausea ran through Edris's body, and despite his lack of thermoception, the man's entire back was covered in sweat.

Suppressing the urge to vomit, Edris pulled up the profile interface. His eyes tore past the blurring "74" in his affinity section, a number which was dropping by the second.

He tried to draw out the [MEDICAL PACK] from his card slot inventory, but due to his fading consciousness, the interface failed to give a response.

Edris gritted his teeth as he stumbled forward, kneeling on the floor and gasping.

…Not good.

His consciousness was slipping. As the room around him began spinning, an abnormally lucid voice reverberated throughout his head:

Give-and-take is a necessary cycle for equilibrium.

Would you like to give a part of yourself to the world?

"I…"

Just as Edris was about to respond, a second voice reached his ears. It belonged in the outside the hidden room, pulling back a sliver of his rationality above the surface—it belonged to Ace.

"There's no one here."

And everything went black.

***

PRESENT.

Edris sat by his bed, shuddering at how close he was to enter the Realm of Afterglow.

If it weren't for his experience dealing with Splinter Syndrome patients, he would surely have succumbed to the drop in affinity.

In the end, he didn't turn to the Sacrificial Hourglass. With the strand of remaining self, his consciousness had slipped in and out as the original owner of this role stepped forth, threatening to take over as he interacted with the people back at the academic building.

Edris had allowed it.

The worst thing to do at times like this was to fight the original role; not only would resistance result in a faster drop in affinity due to mental exhaustion, it would have exposed more openings to psychological intrusion.

Edris thought back to the secret room and all its accompanied absurdities. His expression grew grave.

"Just what are Labyrinths?"

He reached for the bottle of water on the table. Gulping it down in one go, he pulled himself to his feet and headed to the bathroom. Standing before the mirror, Edris examined his current state.

Although he'd concealed his condition quite well in front of the others, if one looked closely, they could still see the lingering rosiness in his face and the wrinkled dress shirt inside his blazer.

With a sigh, he quickly fixed his appearance and tied back his hair.

Heading out of the bathroom, he came face-to-face with Owein, who'd just walked into the room.

The brown-haired man gave him a casual glance before heading to his side of the room. Edris watched as he wiped his hands with a handkerchief, then neatly folded his blazer and placed it on the table beside his bed.

Sensing his stare, the man glanced up. "So you've survived."

"How did you know about the room behind the portrait?'

At Edris's question, Owein lowered his gaze. He grabbed the bag of yarn by his pillow and began knitting his scarf, which was now almost as long as him.

"I've been there," he said.

"Lies."

When Edris entered the room, the entire floor was covered in dust. Unless the man knew how to levitate, there were bound to be at least some footprints left behind.

“…”

At his merciless exposure, Owein fell silent. After a second, he turned back to knitting his scarf. Seeing the man didn't intend to explain, Edris narrowed his eyes.

"You told me to 'mentally prepare myself,'" he pressed on. "How did you know the room would lower my affinity?"

Owein lifted his head. "It lowered your affinity?"

This time, it was Edris's turn to fall silent.

"…Weren't you expect this?"

Owein looked at him strangely. "No."

"Then why did you… then what was the warning about?"

Owein's entire body stiffened as he seemed to be reminded of something. His hands clenched onto his scarf so hard his knuckles were turning white.

At the man's reaction, Edris raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

"The room…"

Owein swallowed, looking visibly disturbed.

"It's really dirty."