The Labyrinth

The black slate flared bright in an instant, and the whole of the lobby floor was caught upon it.

The hunters milling in a crowd glowed gray. The merchants glowed green. The gates shone violet, and the Labyrinth shone black.

That was not the only thing worth marveling at.

Detection and sensation, shared. I was puzzled for only a moment before the meaning came clear.

A rush — a strange feeling, as if the black slate were being carved into my entire body at once. Understanding followed immediately. Detection was knowing. Sensation was feeling. Information the Detection skill came to know was passed straight into the senses of my body.

"...This is insane."

A kind of privilege, granted only once a skill reached its highest level. A sharp thrill ran through me from head to toe.

By the feel of it, an ordinary hunter would struggle to ever get this far. How difficult it truly was, I didn't exactly know.

I went ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠looking for answers on the community boards.

I dug through the posts. A few days of watching the boards had taught me something: useful writing carried two titles in front of it.

One post looked convincing.

Perfect information, and a conclusion just as clean. The verification mark wasn't there for nothing.

At any rate, that made it certain enough. A max skill level I hit without a second thought was, for other hunters, close to impossible.

This ability really is absurd.

On top of the vegetative-state buff, Lee Hee-ja had gone and cracked her skull and died at the very moment I awakened. As a backlash against a life whose every way out had been sealed shut, an absurd privilege seemed to have taken hold: experience multiplied a millionfold.

Looked at that way, life was a curious thing. For the profit of bastards who deserved to be beaten to death, I had been kept forcibly alive for eight years, unable even to die. And then, out of nowhere, luck like this.

Even so, nothing anywhere guaranteed that the end of luck was a happy ending. My reality was still a body without sensation, tottering along on mana threads. I had a long way to go.

Thinking that, I started toward the Labyrinth.

The state controlled the Labyrinth. Entry and exit were strictly managed, and ten percent of a hunter's points were forcibly deducted on the way out. The reason was simple. Do otherwise, and the nation would perish.

Ten years ago, the Black Towers had erupted without warning in countries all over the world. A message rose before every human eye.

People laughed. But the moment ten percent of a nation's own citizens died of heart failure, the laughter vanished. Only fear remained.

The great powers immediately threw their full support behind hunters. For weaker nations, the situation only grew worse. In the worst of them, they said, sixty percent of the population was already dead.

"Hello. I'm Lee Hee-yeon, an administrative officer with the Hunter Association. May I have your affiliation and name, or the alias you'd like to use?"

Fortunately, Korea was not that far gone. It was nowhere near joining the ranks of the great powers, either. By the experts' analysis, it sat at the very bottom of the middle tier — a society that had developed, but lacked the population to climb any higher.

"No affiliation. Not my real name. I'll use the alias Transcendence."

Transcendence. I'd simply named the alias after my trait.

The short-haired woman smiled.

"A moment of eye contact, if you please."

When our eyes met, a cold blue light swept across Lee Hee-yeon's irises. She gazed into empty air for a moment, murmuring something under her breath, then nodded with a gentle expression.

"Transcendence, you've been successfully entered into the national database. This is your first time in the Labyrinth. Might I ask how many floors of the Tower you've climbed?"

I'd seen it often enough on TV. I didn't have to answer. When I kept my mouth shut, Lee Hee-yeon took a step back.

"I asked only out of concern for your safety. I have no other intention. Then, I hope your hunt is a safe one, Awakened Transcendence."

The state took its share of points when a hunter left, and that was the end of it. Push past that line and try to control the Awakened, and the results were ugly.

Even China, the very byword for control, had stopped policing individuals after a severe drain of talent to Russia and the United States.

Points were collected thoroughly and without fail, but a hunter's personal information was left entirely alone. Of course, some degree of quiet background checking was surely still done.

"Take care."

I stepped into the Labyrinth. A short walk brought me to six branching paths in all. From five of them came a chill that prickled the skin, and even Detection at level 20 could read no information from them.

I couldn't go that way. Dangerous hunting grounds meant for high-rank hunters — places ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠where attacking one another was permitted. Some Labyrinths, I'd heard, were even linked across nations. This was not where I belonged.

I took the leftmost path. After I'd walked a while, the passage ended, and a vast open field wrapped in darkness spread out before me. Visibility ran to about five hundred meters. Beyond that, there was nothing but dark.

Line of sight scaled with a person's physical ability. I could see even this far only because a level of forty was, all things considered, fairly high. That was why the orthodox approach was to not so much as set foot in the Labyrinth in the early days after awakening. If you couldn't properly see what was in front of you, what kind of fight was there to fight?

For me, that limit had become meaningless. Lighting my view with flame would have been enough on its own. Now I didn't even need to do that.

A map with a radius of about a kilometer drew itself in my mind, and every living thing inside it registered with perfect clarity. I could confirm them by eye as well. Monsters burned red. Hunters showed gray. Now and then a peculiar color stood out — orange, or ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠green.

"...This is straight-up cheating."

I walked on a little, then hurled a fireball into the dark. Flame bored through the blackness and receded, and for an instant I caught the shape of a goblin with a hole punched through its chest.

Fssst. I felt the goblin crumble to powder and scatter.

An ordinary goblin was worth 2 points. Set beside the 11 I'd earned from the same kind of goblin on the first floor of the Tower, the efficiency was far worse. Even so, hunters found their way to the Labyrinth in the end. A Tower that opened only once every three days stopped being enough.

Fwoosh! Fwoosh! This time I formed two fireballs. Instead of throwing them, I sent two fist-sized clumps of flame flying on will alone. They traced shallow arcs apart from each other and lit the dark.

"Kyek!"

"Kreeeek!"

Two goblins in different places vanished. When I'd thrown the fireball, they hadn't even managed a scream. This time they screamed, and then they died, because the projectiles were slower.

Maybe it was because a human body and mind were linked. Move the body together with the spell, and its power clearly multiplied. High-rank mages were said to form hand seals and the like. Someday, I might have to do the same.

"Kieeeeeek!!!"

And so I cut the goblins down, one after another. Ordinarily, a hunter who had only cleared the second floor of the Tower would be called a madman for stepping into the Labyrinth, but I didn't find a single thing difficult about it. If anything, the goblins dying without ever spotting me were almost pitiable.

Once I was sure I was safe, I tested the mana threads as well. I seized a club one of the goblins was holding and swung it.

"Kyek!"

Fast and precise, but the impact wasn't heavy. I'd struck the face dead-on, and all it did was startle the thing onto its back. It was up again in a moment, rubbing its face and glancing around, then staring in blank confusion at the club floating in empty air.

That is pretty funny.

After several tests, the way to use it came to me. It only looked ineffective because what I was holding was a club. In truth, it wasn't. Stab a vital point with a bladed weapon, or bring something heavy crashing down with centrifugal force behind it, and it ought to be more than effective.

Fssssst! I finished off the dazed goblin. Mana rushed in at once to fill the empty space, and I checked my points.

The points had climbed quite a bit. I'd already taken twenty-four goblins, and I'd walked a fair distance besides.

"...A mage, huh? How about we hunt together?"

I ran into a few hunters as well. Most took one look at me — empty-handed, carrying a single wooden doll — and seemed inclined to ignore me. The ones who had approached after seeing my fireball were friendly from the start. It matched exactly what I already knew. Magic-type Awakened were rare, and a mage confident enough in their skill to walk alone was rarer still.

"I'm all right."

The moment the words left me, I flinched — not because of the other hunter, but because of my own voice. After eight years of forgetting how to speak, hearing it was as uncomfortable as listening to someone else.

He glanced at me when I offered nothing more, then moved off. I went on hunting and pressed forward. Before long, a blue gate rippled into view ahead of me.

The exit.

I had hunted fifty-seven goblins.

A dizziness washed over me, like liquid sloshing inside my skull. This, too, was natural. Mana welled up without end, but a human mind was finite. For today, this was enough.

Vmmm! I walked out through the exit. A short way down a passage I had never seen before, I caught sight of short hair. Administrative Officer Lee Hee-yeon.

"You came out quickly."

I held my arm out to her smiling face. Her eyes flashed for a moment, and a mechanical tone seeped from the terminal at her side.

The dizziness seemed to deepen a little more. I gave a light bow and stepped away. For just an instant, a strange gleam seemed to cross Lee Hee-yeon's eyes.