While Lune is still recovering from the injuries he’s sustained, the officials still had to continue on with the Awards, so after a brief reset, everyone was called up to the main hall so that we may begin the Second Event – The Practical Match.

Once again, Shawn walked up to the stage that was right in front of the golden throne Lune sat on previously and began explaining what it is that everyone will be doing.

“Good day, everyone! Well, it’s not really that good, given everything the recent events that had transpired rather… unexpectedly, I’d say. Once again, I would like to formally extend my deepest apologies to Lune Grimheart and his company for the ruffians’ actions. Be certain that the people who had initiated and acted out the horrid acts the other day have been kicked out and banned from any future Mobius Awards and have been brought to the local authorities. They are currently awaiting their trial, but I highly doubt they’ll get out before ten years at least. Grimheart’s still recovering in the infirmary as we speak, but I will be sure to tell him this soon after this speech of mine is over.”

“Thank God…” Cecily heaved a sigh of relief.

I didn’t want to say anything. There’s nothing I could’ve said that could alleviate her worries anymore. Partially, I still feel a bit guilty for not picking Lune, especially after seeing him in such a sorry state in the infirmary. He really doesn’t feel like he’s present in the moment at all, especially after he called me by his friend’s name on accident. Then again, if he himself said I made the right decision, then I’ll respect his wishes and pray for the best. Oh Great Sun God, whatever your name is, please watch over my dear friend Lune so that he may stand tall once again!

“Mommy, is daddy gonna be okay?” Nelly tugged on her mother’s skirt.

“Of course he is, dear. He’ll be back better than ever!” She replied with a weak smile.

For Cecily, there’s nothing I can say to alleviate her worries. She knows the truth about Lune, be it about his past with Marina or the actual state he’s in in general. But Nelly’s a different story. I was appointed Nelly’s Uncle, and by God I’ll make sure I live up to that title!

“Your dad’s a real tough nut to crack, Nel.” I added casually, “We would often spar back when we were still living under my old man’s care, and no matter how hard I think I slugged him, he’d always get back up with a smile on his face!”

“Spaw?” She questioned what ‘spar’ meant.

“No, not spaw, SPAR. That’s like a fight between friends.”

“But if you’we fwiends, then why did you fight?”

“Ah, no, it’s like… How do I put this? It’s like a battle between friends meant to strengthen our bond. He’s pretty outgoing when he needs to be, but I’ve seen firsthand that he’s actually quite shy when around others. Thus I’ve concluded that he’s a man of few words, but many actions, so I…”

“You’re losing her, brainiac.” Cecily nudged me, “Nelly’s still just a four year old. Don’t go giving her a full on essay about her father, since she’ll easily get lost in that sea of words you concocted for her.”

“Wahh~! I don’t get it at all, Uncle Meil!” Nelly gripped her head tight as she spun around in place, “Am I dumb?”

Cecily gave me a look that meant Now look what you’ve done, but I wasn’t at all deterred. Not to brag, but I’m pretty good with handling kids. I myself was a child once in my life, so I’ll just treat her like the four year old version of myself!

“Of course you are.”

“Huh?” Cecily gave me a death glare.

“Whoa, whoa! Hear me out! I’m just saying, she’s a four year old, so obviously she’d be dumb, right? But that’s the beauty of being young and dumb, it means you have a ton of time and energy to grow into a really smart person!”

At these words, Nelly’s drooped down expression became one of pure bliss and excitement, leading to her giving me a hug. Immediately following said hug was an upwards gaze that signified she was waiting for something, and I knew exactly what that thing was.

“Fine, fine.” I sighed whilst cracking a smile, “Here’s your headpats.”

“Yaay!”

“Alright now, you two.” Cecily turned our attention towards Shawn, “This dweeb’s gonna start explaining the Second Event’s rules, so why don’t you have a listen?”

Oh right, Shawn. I kinda forgot about him, ha-ha… Nevertheless, he gave us the basics during the opening ceremony, so this was mostly just an in-depth look at the Event. It was quite interesting, as for this Event we’d actually all be blindfolded and lead to the top of the Palace, where our goal would be to reach the bottom.

“Right, so before we begin.” Shawn broke out into a nervous sweat as he spoke, “First are some rules. This goes without saying, but play nice. You’re working together to escape here, so don’t go butting heads now. Let me stress this once again – If not even one of you makes it out of here within the allotted time, the Awards end prematurely and everyone’s sent packing.”

“Um, excuse me,” Cecily raised her hand from the crowd, “Then what happens to Lune?”

“Have no fear,” Shawn replied, “We’ll be sure to send you his belongings by mail soon if that happens.”

“Ah, no, I mean what happens to him?”

“…No more questions, please?”

Whoa, Shawn of all people being suspicious? This guy keeps stumbling on each and every stair he encounters, and he’s toying with Cecily’s emotions like that? Another thing worthy of note, he’s not letting on everything he knows. He’s actively hiding some key details. I’ll have to be wary just in case from now on, doubly so even…

“Now, as I said, if none of you makes it out, you all fail, but the inverse is also true. If even ONE of you exits the labyrinth, then everyone passes.”

At this, the crowd unilaterally roared. It seemed to both excite and confuse the participants how and why everyone would pass the match, because then what would even be the point of it in the first place.

“Ah, did I say everyone? Apologies, I only meant a select few.” Shawn corrected himself, “This kind of ties into what I said in the beginning – play nice. We have surveillance all across each and every room in the labyrinth, and we’ll be reviewing each and every one of you. Everything is marked, from the most obvious question, How much did you contribute to solving the puzzles, to the most minute details like Were you actively being a team player or a rogue who did nothing but ride off of the others’ success?”

Sounds interesting, and useful too. We might actually be able to uncover something about Shawn’s weird behavior just now whilst still passing onto the next stage. That being said, we all got blindfolded by the staff and we’re brought up to the top of the Palace. The flight of stairs was nigh endless, by the way, and having to carry Nelly up with me because she was afraid of heights certainly didn’t help much.

***

“You may begin!” The guards shouted as we all untied our blindfolds.

“Whoa! This place looks cool – literally!” One of the participants joked. The pun here is that the place was imitating an icy cave type labyrinth.

“So my guess is that we need to pass through that door on the other side of the room in order to advance.” I added, ”And something tells me that the door’s locked until we complete this stone cube puzzle.”

Indeed, in front of us was a simple cube puzzle. Archaic in structure, but a surefire way to stop someone from intruding nonetheless. Basically, it worked as such – there were two weighted pressure plates that required a mass equal to or greater than the cube’s mass in order to be pressed down. We just needed to push them in order to advance, simple as that.

“Right, but there’s almost a hundred of us, right?” Silvia explained, “Instead of busting our butts trying to push this heavy looking cube around, surely if a couple of us stood on the pressure plate, then we’d push it down no problem!”

“Hey, now that you mention it…” Someone from the group agreed, “You’re right! Alright half of you step on the pressure plate, the other half pass through the door!”

Just as he instructed, around 50 of the participants stood on the plate, pressing it down, and the other half leisurely walked to the other side of the door. The three of us were obviously walking towards the door because we saw right through Silvia’s plan, but oddly enough Silvia herself was among the group of people that was pressing down on the plate. She’s up to something…

“Yoink!” She suddenly jumped off the plate, leading to the plate to not have enough weight on it to stay pressed down, thus slowly closing the door in front of her, “See you dummies, not!”

Making fun of the kind and naïve part of the group, she had just barely ran across the room and passed the door with us, thus effectively halving the participant count.

“What?!” I started verbally attacking her, “You stupid woman! Why did you trick them? Now we’ll have less heads to use during the rest of the rooms!”

“Oh my, again with you, Mister First Place?” She snickered, “As if you’re one to talk. You obviously knew that my idea was a trap, yet you and your worthless trio still didn’t say anything and just strolled down to the door, happy as can be!”

“That’s…”

“Sigh, since you’re this dumb to realize my intentions, I’ll explain in a more dumbed down matter – 99 people in a room makes for a crowd, no? It’s difficult to formulate a plan at all, so I effectively lessened the workload whilst simultaneously sifting through the dumb and naïve ones from the smart and pragmatic ones.”

I didn’t have anything to say to refute her selfish logic. It was sound, after all, flawless even. Simply put, looks like she didn’t get second place on the Preliminary Match for nothing! Then again, she’s second place only because of me, so how smart can she really be?

“Whatever, what’s the next room have in store for us?”

Looking around, it seems more like a whole damned jungle or savanna made out of moss rather than a ‘room’, per se, and from the cliff we were situated on we saw the door to the next room almost entirely. Two paths were laid out in front of us, one that clearly led to the door, and the other leading to a mysterious side passage. Obviously, we had to choose.

“Is there even an option?” I asked, “Come on, everyone, we’re going to the door.”

“Ah, but…!” One of the participants voiced their opinion.

Ugh, here it comes… The worst ideas always come from the words “Ah, but…”. Are you really that stupid, good man? Must you really see the correct path and still have the gall to tell me we should explore a bit and go on an adventurous detour?! Damn, if Lune was here, he’d probably already have went there and come back…

“Alright, simple fix.” Cecily said, “Who wants to go to the door, follow us. Who wants to have fun exploring, go the other route. Needless to say, we’re on a time limit, but if even one of us makes it, we all succeed. No use dawdling on it.”

Whoa, just what I’d expect of the General of the Great Hiana Underworld! Sounds like she’s used to bossing around nonsensical idiots. Silvia appreciated this quick-wittedness of hers as well, so even she gave a slight praise to Cecily whilst she sided with us. Thus, we went on our way and made it to the next room.

This one was a simple white room with a single jigsaw on it. Nothing more, nothing less. We carefully picked it up and entered the next room, which was… identical to the last one. But wait, weren’t we just in this room? The jigsaws are different though.

“Oh!” Nelly jumped in place, “I get it! If we collect all the pieces, we’ll get a puzzle a the end and we’ll be able to solve it!”

“Nice thinking, Nel!” I patted her on the head, “Come, everyone! Let’s go!”

Thus, a long and arduous trek across countless rooms began. With each room we felt it was the last, but we’d only ever be reminded that it was in fact not. We were getting tired, some were starting to hunger, and to top it all off, we were still on the clock. Running out of time meant game over, so we had to hurry!

“Wah.” Nelly leaned back on one of the wall panels of the current room we were in, “I’m tiwed.”

“Want me to carry you?” I offered.

“No, just let me west fow a bit.” She said before noticing something, “Wait, this wall…! It’s empty on the othew side!”

“Empty? Wait, you mean it’s hollow?!”

Just then, she pulled out the panel on the wall and saw on the other side of it a pitch black passageway. Entering it, she disappeared almost completely. No one else could follow her in, since none of us were as small as her, so all we could do was call out to her and wait. Just then, an announcement could be heard from somewhere in the room.

“Time’s up everyone!” Shawn’s voice echoed out, “None of you made it.”

“Wait, you don’t mean?!” I yelled back.

“None of you made it… safe from this little girlie here with me in the announcer’s box right now!”

“Hellow!” Nelly’s chipper voice could be heard, “You said they can heaw me fwom hewe somehow?”

“Yep!” Shawn chuckled, “Say hi to your mom!”

“Hi, Mommy! Hi, Uncle Meil!”

“Nelly…! You’re safe!” Cecily almost fainted from the shock.

And so, the ‘infinity loop’ as they called it was shut down, and everyone was led out to the main hall. We all passed! Well, not everyone. Apparently, only we who had made it to the Jigsaw Puzzle rooms were allowed to continue our participation in the Awards, leading to our total falling from 100 to a mere 17 if we include Lune. Quite a leap, huh?

Well, none of that matters, since we made it! And it’s all thanks to Nelly! Oh, I’m gonna shower her with so many headpats later! But never mind that, we need to inform Lune of this crazy escape room experience! Entering the infirmary he was located at, we made sure he was awake before regaling him with one of our own adventurer stories for the first time!

“What?” He said with a horrified tone, “A… jigsaw puzzle?”

“Yeah! It’s incredible how they somehow made it seem infinite!”

“Do you… have one of the jigsaw with you right now? I need to make sure of something.”

What an odd request. Lune’s making me worried here, but nonetheless I gave him the jigsaw I kept as a memento.

“…” He felt it up since he couldn’t quite see it, “Call Shawn over… NOW!”