Mythic Tower, 10th Floor
A damp, dark space. A chill wind slipped through the gaps in the old wooden planks, raking through the hair of the old man who sat there, utterly unmoved.
"Kh...!"
A thin, unpleasant laugh spilled from his lips. He had felt them — the ones who had just arrived.
"Well, well. It's been a very long time. Walking in here without a shred of fear."
Guests, after all these years. His body itched for action, but he did not move. Not yet. They still hadn't fully entered. He had to wait until they took the bait.
"What will you do? Come in? Or turn back?"
If they chose to enter—
"It'll be rather lonely."
The comrades they trusted would vanish.
"And rather long."
A maze with no end — one they would never find their way out of — would appear.
"Keh-heh-heh."
A bone-chilling laugh leaked into the dark. If those fools made the wrong choice, they would hear it soon enough: the screams of people wailing inside a maze, with no one left to help them.
You have entered the 10th Floor of the Mythic Tower.
The instant they stepped through, Jinhyuk and his companions swallowed hard.
Timid Momo sidled up and clung to Jinhyuk's leg.
"Feels like a ghost's about to pop out, sir!"
"Yeah. It's scary."
"Scared of what? If we're ranking scary, the knight standing right next to us takes first place."
"Granny! Is Commander Seira a ghost, ma'am?! Are you even listening to yourself, ma'am?!"
"Our little Yoddle friend — want to try falling out of a plane in a bit?"
"Don't open the plane door. We'll all fall."
After putting a stop to Elia, they started walking, slow and careful.
Gloomy. And desolate. Those were the most fitting words for the space they now stood in.
Caw, caw, caw. Creaking timber and the cries of crows — even the background music was excellent.
"I've seen this before, sir!"
"Yeah, you have."
"Designation: torii. A structure used in Japanese shrines to mark a sacred precinct. It also functions as a gate connecting this world to another."
Every gaze in the group swung toward Elia.
"What's with the stiff delivery?"
"Hmph! I'm a 3,271-year-old elf, I'll have you know? There's hardly a thing I don't know."
"You looked that up on NemoWiki, didn't you?"
"How did you know? Master can be awfully sharp sometimes, huh?"
Elia admitted it without a fight and shrugged.
In any case, with a torii standing there, this was probably a space tied to Japan.
"Let's go in."
The moment they passed through the torii, the air itself seemed to change — a little murkier, a little heavier.
"Master, what class did you say the card you picked this time was?"
"I don't know the specific class. They only said it was someone close to the heavens."
The illustration had shown praying hands with little sparkles stuck on. Looking at the picture alone, it had been sacredness itself — so why a place like this?
"This floor and the card might not even be related. The Mythic Tower doesn't always spit out floors that match the cards."
"Eek!"
Momo recoiled in horror and pointed.
A massive ancient tree that looked as though it had lived a thousand years. From its branches hung straw rope and an enormous number of talismans.
Torii, and now talismans.
If this floor was tied to the card, the torii had made him think onmyoji — but talismans and a sacred tree? He was going to have to add shamans to the list of candidates.
"What's the System even doing, sir?! How about a briefing sometime this century, sir?!"
"You're used to it. Unhelpful is its whole thing. Still, don't chew it out too hard."
He dropped his voice a notch.
"It might get angry and mess with us."
"Ah, copy that, sir!"
They walked a long while into the chill wind before a great gate loomed up ahead. The wood was so old it looked like it would shatter if you so much as poked it.
"That's a lot of talismans."
The gate was packed densely with all manner of Chinese characters and charms. Jinhyuk studied it, then let out a low hum.
Because at the very top, in glaring red, it said:
Whether the letters had been written in blood or paint, time had sent them dripping down in long, dark trails. Open that thing and you'd probably get well and truly cursed.
"Supreme Commander! I've got that troublemaker Momo locked down, sir! She won't be drop-kicking any doors on my watch, sir!"
"Momo's not opening that door!"
Kancho and Momo had tied each other down to make sure that terrifying gate stayed shut. Contrary to both of their wishes—
BAM!
The old door flew open with a satisfying crash. He had kicked it so hard that half of it went sailing off in pieces, shattered.
"Huh?"
Kancho and Momo stared, dumbfounded, then lifted their heads and looked at the one who had kicked it — Jinhyuk.
"Hm? What? We came all this way. Of course we're going in."
It was scary, no argument there. But with no other path in sight, not going in wasn't an option. When there was no choice to make, the faster you decided, the better. So he had kicked it in, clean and simple.
He studied the silence-soaked interior.
"See? Nothing here. No need to be sca—?"
Jinhyuk stopped.
His companions had vanished without a sound. Maybe it was because the people he relied on were gone — sweat beaded down his back.
Maybe I shouldn't have kicked that door.
A twang, like a plucked zither, leaked through the air. Each time the note sounded, new torii and new paths bloomed into being — and vanished just as fast. Structures knitting together and coming apart, over and over, until the whole place was a tangle of creation and collapse.
A chime rang out.
Oh, crap.
A string of the most bloodthirsty messages in the world stacked themselves in front of his eyes. This rotten System bastard. Nowhere to be found when a helpful explanation would actually be useful — but the second it got to scare you, it was more enthusiastic than anyone.
He was still grumbling at the System when a shuffling sound came from the underbrush.
This is scarier than those old folklore horror shows.
He freely admitted he was scared, and drew Berid's sword, Peracan.
A moment later, bizarre figures lurched into view.
"Ugh."
Faces and bodies half-crushed, their features too mangled to even describe. The rusted axes and scythes in their hands made it clear enough they were monsters.
Good.
Without further delay, he kicked off the ground and took the heads off the two that had been closing in.
Iron Brand
Peracan's sigil carved itself into the scythe and the axe.
"Ohh."
A strange sensation. They were entirely separate things, and yet he could feel them tethered to him by some kind of current. When he steered that current, the fallen scythe and axe rose into the air.
So it costs mana.
He moved the scythe and axe this way and that. The larger the motion he commanded, the more mana it burned in proportion.
"Ssshhhkk..."
"Guuuhhh..."
He loosed the weapons at the ones that came bursting out next. The axe and scythe buried themselves in the two creatures' foreheads, just like that. Iron Brand stamped them at once, and the weapons of the monsters that had just fallen became his to command as well.
He understood it anew — why, as time went on, Berid Windsor had become harder and harder to deal with.
"Kyaaaaah!"
"Grrrrrr!"
Perhaps because their own had been killed. The entire underbrush heaved, and monsters began pouring out.
Right. That's enough of a Peracan test drive.
There was no need to spend any more time here. He called back the companions who had been scattered.
"Blow them all away."
"Executing mission!"
Kancho stepped out in front and leveled a minigun. BRRRRRRT! Hundreds of rounds of explosive clay sprayed into the forest, turning the woods into a sea of fire and lighting the darkness as bright as day.
They had been scattered for a moment, but he hadn't been particularly worried. He had known it instinctively. No matter the situation, the authority of Card Manifestation was absolute.
"Mission complete, returning to base, sir!"
"Good work."
He gave Kancho a rough tousle and looked ahead.
A dreadful maze whose paths shifted in real time. This wouldn't be a problem either. He had a hard counter for mazes right here.
He drew the Yoddle Compass from his coat.
"Mythic Tower, 10th Floor. Exit."
The compass pointed the way without a hint of hesitation. A smile touched Jinhyuk's mouth as he glanced back at his friends.
"Let's go."
From here on, they were going to walk out of this maze. No wandering. Nice and cozy, the whole way.
You have escaped the dreadful maze!
The Goblin Barrier has been broken!
A smile spread across his face at the messages that rose before his eyes. The Yoddle Compass, true to form. Once again, it had guided them to the exit without a single mistake.
"Haaaah."
While Jinhyuk puffed a breath across the compass and polished it until it squeaked, not far away, inside a thatched cottage—
The old man's body shook. Violently.
What... what are those things?
At first he had thought he was imagining it. He had gone to the trouble of scattering them, only for the visitors to bunch back together before he knew it. So he had scattered them again. Several times, in fact.
Before long, though, he had no choice but to give up. He had realized it was meaningless. He had no idea by what principle, but the visitors kept regrouping in less than a second after being scattered.
"Nngh!! Wander for the rest of your lives!"
Scattering them was impossible, but the maze itself remained. So he plucked the strings in real time, shifting the paths. And they walked out of even that at a speed that made no sense.
Were they just lucky? He wondered — but that wasn't it.
The route to this place held hundreds of forks and doors. With the paths shifting in real time, the number of possible combinations should have grown exponentially. And yet those people had arrived here without a single wrong turn. This was something that had long since left the realm of good luck or bad.
No choice, then. If it's come to this.
The old man's face set with grim resolve.
Run.
He had prepared for a countless number of possibilities. The possibility of the enemy actually reaching him was not one of them.
The old man shot to his feet and opened the back door.
"TOOSHA!!"
"Ghak!"
A squat little creature came flying out of nowhere and drop-kicked him. Struck square in the solar plexus, the old man tumbled and rolled right back to where he had started.
CRACK!
Right on its heels, Jinhyuk and his party tore the door off its frame and came in. Jinhyuk walked over and helped the sprawled old man up.
"Might you happen to be the one who created the maze?"
Perhaps it was the impeccably polite, respectful tone. The old man's spirits revived, and his nostrils flared.
"That's right! I am the one who serves the Supreme Shaman—"
"He said yes."
Jinhyuk dropped the old man without ceremony and stepped back. Momo and Kancho lunged in as if they had been waiting for the cue.
"How dare you! Letting monsters loose! Building a maze!"
"You made that thing and now Momo's legs hurt!"
The Kan-Mo beatdown combo snatched up whatever came to hand and cheerfully hammered the old man with it.
He was clearly a bad old man, so why did Jinhyuk feel sorry for him?
"Eat dirt!"
Momo scooped up a hearty handful and force-fed it to the old man.
H-hey. Why dirt, of all things?
Sweating, Jinhyuk raised a hand. The signal to stop.
"Yaaaaaah!"
"Hit him harder, sir! Harder!"
Kancho and Momo missed the signal entirely and kept swinging. The beating only ended once Darc and Seira picked the two of them up off the ground.
"Guhhhh..."
Jinhyuk approached the trembling old man.
"You mentioned the Supreme Shaman just now, didn't you?"
And then he asked,
"Who is that?"