Labyrinth of Desire (1)

I rubbed my eyes and opened them again, but the reflection in the mirror still showed Audrey and me tenderly embracing each other.

On top of that, the Audrey inside the mirror kept rubbing her face against me like a child, repeatedly calling me daddy.

…This was clearly wrong. It wasn’t just that a strange illusion of the two of us was appearing in the mirror—the mirror was even producing sound.

Was this mirror replaying my memories? No, if it had read my memories, the Audrey inside it would have called me Manager. Then what the hell was this illusion?

“Hey, Audrey. …Audrey? Can you see this in the mirror too?”

“…What on earth is this?”

“Beats me.”

Audrey, who had stepped closer, was staring intently at the mirror that showed the two of us wrapped in a loving embrace. It seemed she couldn’t make sense of it either.

…An illusion of Audrey doing weird things.

It might be a trap in the labyrinth targeting the strongest among us first—Audrey. If so, what was the origin and purpose behind these strange acts reflected in the mirror? Was it trying to humiliate us to death by showing distorted scenes based on our memories?

The moment the illusion-Audrey’s whine reached her—“Mmm, Daddyyy….”—Audrey’s face stiffened. Of course it would sound bizarre. No matter what, seeing herself in the mirror arbitrarily calling me daddy had to be unsettling.

“Manager, th-this is….”

“It looks like some kind of mental attack. Tsk… Of all things, we get hit with this right from the start.”

There was a reason hunters preferred gates where you simply killed monsters and called it a day. The conditions for clearing them were vague, and some gates used non-intuitive, anomalous attacks that sowed discord among teammates. Those were far more troublesome than gates that might threaten your life but had relatively clear clearing conditions and could be smashed through with raw power.

Besides, in the case of irregular gates like this one, prolonged exposure to such mental attacks often eroded the mind without you even realizing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it. That was why hunters had to undergo a mental evaluation every time they renewed their license—to prevent anyone from completely losing it.

“Hmm…. So for now, we just have to be careful around these mirrors?”

“S-seems that way.”

I tore my eyes away from the mirror-Audrey, who was rubbing herself against me in an embarrassingly intimate way, and looked straight ahead. A passage wide enough for ten people to walk through side by side stretched out before us. The way up to the ceiling was blocked by a transparent wall.

It looked like the rule of this gate was that we had to physically navigate the labyrinth ourselves for the clear to be recognized.

“Let’s stay on guard just in case and head in. …Audrey?”

“…Do we really have to keep walking while looking at these things?”

“It’s fine. Don’t pay it any mind. We know they’re just illusions.”

Audrey kept glancing at the mirror beside me, as if worried her image would look strange. Then she started sneaking peeks at the mirror next to herself too… She was probably afraid her bizarre behavior would keep appearing like this.

Together with the anxious Audrey, I cautiously stepped into the labyrinth. In every corridor made of glossy, pure-white walls, a large mirror stood waiting.

The layout makes it impossible not to look at the mirrors even if I try.

But closing my eyes and walking forward would be dangerous in its own way. So we carefully observed the floor and walls that looked like they were made of pure white marble and walked forward in silence, our footsteps echoing softly.

In that time, I passed by several mirrors.

What the hell is this?

Audrey having her hair gently stroked by me. Audrey burying her face in my chest and sniffing my scent. Audrey wrapping her arms around my neck and planting wet kisses along my throat.

For some reason, the mirror kept showing scenes of Audrey being physically affectionate with me. And on top of that—

I couldn’t understand why the illusion kept calling me daddy. It was such an eerily harmless sight that I almost wondered if the real goal was to shame us to death.

The me inside the mirror finished a sickeningly sweet kiss and gently stroked Audrey’s hair. The Audrey in the mirror nestled against me with a face like a happy cat, savoring every touch.

By now, the real Audrey had forgotten her embarrassment for a moment and was staring at the scene in a daze, as if she ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had been sucked into it.

…So I’m asking again—what the hell is the intention behind showing us this?

And maybe it was just my imagination, but it felt like the intensity was gradually rising—.

“Manager. Should we take a short break?”

“Huh? You want to rest already?”

“……Yes. I want to rest.”

Audrey barely managed to tear her eyes away from the mirror, grabbed my sleeve, and dragged me far away from it before finally letting go and awkwardly averting her gaze. So it wasn’t really about resting.

“Are you embarrassed, Audrey? It’s pretty similar to what you usually do anyway.”

“Well… I suppose you could say that….”

For someone as obsessed with beauty as Audrey, even if it was an illusion, she apparently couldn’t stand the sight of herself calling me daddy. Honestly, it was kind of cute.

When I couldn’t hold back a smile and the corner of my mouth twitched upward, Audrey’s face turned bright red and she shot me a sharp glare.

“Is my illusion that funny to you? Is that it?”

“No, I didn’t mean it’s funny—.”

“I’m going to destroy this ugly labyrinth.”

Without warning, Audrey dashed forward, drew her pistol, and aimed at the wall. Before I could stop her, she fired a mana bullet at maximum output.

But just before the bullet could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠touch the wall, a large ripple spread out as if it had struck an invisible glass barrier. The mana bullet was swallowed whole.

“Tch!”

“…As expected, it doesn’t work.”

This wasn’t a matter of Audrey’s mana being weak or strong. This world simply operated under its own rules. Physical force was not permitted. The only way to clear it was to follow the laws engraved into the world we were standing on.

These were the fundamental principles that formed the very foundation of the gate. Any hunter with enough mana to break those rules at will could have collapsed the entire subspace world without even needing to find the mana stone core.

…In fact, they might even be able to create gates.

“Audrey. An illusion is just an illusion, and you are you. So don’t pay it too much attention.”

“You don’t understand, Manager. That illusion is actually—.”

“Actually?”

“Th-that… Ugh.”

Audrey tried to say something but her face flushed crimson and she clamped her mouth shut. She holstered her pistol again and silently urged me to keep moving.

…Her mood swings were pretty intense.

To be honest, if it had been me reflected in those mirrors, I probably would have reacted the same way.

We started walking again through the endless white labyrinth. The earlier incident had made things even more awkward on top of the tension that already existed between us, so we continued in heavy silence, our footsteps the only sound.

Once again, we came face to face with another mirror.

And in that mirror—

“………?”

Audrey stood alone in the middle of a crowded street in broad daylight.

…Completely naked.

What the mirror was showing now seemed to be Audrey’s figure as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠seen through ‘my’ eyes. Countless gazes. Under the bright light of day. In the middle of an open street. Audrey, exposing her pure white naked body.

Her height, taller and more slender than most men, combined with a silhouette of perfect aesthetic balance, stood out strikingly. Her overall figure was sleek and slender, yet her breasts were full enough to overflow a man’s hands. From her impossibly narrow waist, her feminine hips flared out attractively. Below that waistline that would look incredible in jeans, her pale thighs formed a suggestive triangular gap, and her long, impossibly proportioned legs drew seductive lines downward.

And then—

Is that…?

Below her elegantly curved, marble-like pale buttocks that continued the graceful line from her slim waist like a meticulously sculpted work of art—something transparent glistened as it trickled down the inside of her smooth thighs.

The Audrey in the mirror, her flushed face filled with unmistakable arousal, approached me with an expression that reminded me of a beast in heat. She grabbed my hand and pulled it toward her breast—.

“Manager.”

“Uh, yeah?”

While I had been completely absorbed in the lewd scene inside the mirror, the real Audrey grabbed my shoulder and forcibly turned me to look at her. Her face had gone deathly pale, then suddenly flushed bright red as she glared at me.

“Aren’t you looking a little too closely? The thing in the mirror has nothing to do with me! It’s just an illusion!”

She suddenly hissed at me like an angry cat.

“Who said anything? Like I told you before, I know it’s not really you.”

“Then why were you staring so intently just now?”

“I-I wasn’t staring like that….”

“…That’s it. Manager, from now on, close your eyes and don’t look at the mirrors anymore.”

“What kind of nonsense is that? I get how you feel, but we’re inside a gate right now. This is no time to let our guard down.”

“But—.”

“No buts. What can’t be done, can’t be done.”

“……….”

Of course she was embarrassed. The version of her in the mirror was doing things she had never even thought about. Still, I wasn’t such a clumsy hunter that I would close my eyes and wander around a gate just because of something like this. The moment you let your guard down, someone could die.

I brushed off Audrey’s sulking and continued leading the clearly annoyed woman through the labyrinth.

Fortunately, I didn’t feel any hunger or thirst. The only thing that kept accumulating was mental fatigue. As we silently wandered through the maze, Audrey quietly spoke up.

“…We’re not going to be trapped here forever, right?”

“Of course not.”

In simple terms, mana was a power that forcibly expanded the limits of probability. Just as creating a single water droplet in empty air without probability and creating a massive waterfall in empty air without probability showed a clear difference in mana consumption, the same principle applied to gates.

A gate containing A-rank mana could only be created within the probability limits of A-rank. Even if a gate created with A-rank mana contained a seemingly powerful and dangerous boss monster, that monster had to possess a weakness that an A-rank hunter could reasonably exploit.

Conversely, to create a subspace that was incredibly terrifying and dangerous yet offered absolutely no strategy to clear it—like some kind of self-indulgent power fantasy—would require mana far beyond even multiple S-ranks.

That was the fundamental rule of this world, one that even mana—which defied providence to create these phenomena—could not escape.

“Let’s just push a little further. It’s only an A-rank gate, not S-rank.”

“…Understood.”

It was extremely rare for Audrey to show this much reluctance to move forward, but we couldn’t just stand still. We had no choice but to push through.

Doing our best to ignore the obscene acts the illusion-Audrey kept displaying, we ventured deeper into the labyrinth. That was when—

This time, a man’s voice that wasn’t mine rang out. At the same time, Audrey froze in place and slowly, creakily turned her head toward the mirror.

“……Daddy?”