The Labyrinth's Eerie Gaze
The seawater crashed in rhythmic song, surging onto the pure white sand before retreating again and again.
When the waves spread thin across the beach like the finest carpet, they shimmered with transparent emerald light. Then, as if afraid of being caught, they would pull back toward the sea, layering into clear sapphire hues. Ian found himself utterly lost in the living spectacle of color—so breathtaking it stung the eyes—like a painter absorbed in a masterpiece.
A flock of sleek seagulls with golden-tipped wings wheeled overhead, screeching as they swooped down to snatch snacks from unwary tourists in a ridiculous display. Yet even that absurd commotion couldn't disturb Ian right now.
Each time he exhaled deeply and drew in the sweet scent of the sea, his body felt so light he might float away. The vast sky meeting the distant horizon shone with unusual clarity today.
Back on Earth, whenever his heart felt heavy, Ian would visit Gyeongbokgung Palace. The dense forest of skyscrapers and apartment complexes in Seoul's city center had shrunk the once-boundless sky to little more than a palm-sized patch. Only by standing in the palace's wide courtyard could he gaze up at the unobstructed heavens. The weariness and melancholy weighing on his life would scatter like tiny fragments in that moment.
But the emotion Ian felt now ran far deeper than mere freedom and peace.
'I am free—!'
He wanted to shout it out loud. He was experiencing with his entire being the kind of luck countless people on Earth had only dreamed of. Didn't everyone long, at least once, to break free from the chains of their circumstances and embrace a life without worry?
After drinking in the beautiful, colorful beach to his heart's content, Ian turned his steps toward the mysterious place located at the far western end of the shore—the labyrinth.
As he headed west along the beach, the lively bustle of tourists gradually faded.
Soon a massive barrier blocked the way across the sand, and stern-faced high-ranking soldiers stood guard with cold eyes before a thick iron gate. Along one side of the barrier were a reception desk for recording the names of adventurers setting out to explore and a ticket booth collecting the labyrinth entrance fee.
Ian took a few steps back and looked up at the sloping path beyond the barrier that led to the coastal cliffs. Near the end of the path gaped a pitch-black hole that made his chest tighten with instinctive dread. Staring at that hole—shifting like a mass of inky blackness—he felt an eerie terror, as if throwing himself inside would send him plunging into an eternal abyss.
Just then, someone approached and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Whoa?!”
“Hey, tourist. Don’t just stand there staring straight into the labyrinth entrance like that.”
Startled, Ian lifted his head to look at the speaker. It was a middle-aged swordsman with a massive build and wild yellow hair swept back carelessly. His gentle eyes might have made him seem approachable at first glance, but the sharp gaze beneath them gave his overall presence the heavy weight of solid rock.
“Um, excuse me, but may I ask why I shouldn’t do that?”
“Huh? Didn’t the grown-ups teach you?”
“Pardon?”
“Tsk. What an unreliable kid.”
The man looked Ian up and down, then pointed somewhere in the distance. It was a street stall selling fried squid skewers. The silent signal clearly meant that if Ian wanted the full story, he’d have to buy him a meal.
Ian nodded readily and walked toward the stall. As they moved, they exchanged brief introductions. The man’s name was Rendol Ignis. A middle-grade adventurer, he had once belonged to a fairly large guild in his youth, but now he enjoyed a free life wandering the labyrinth’s outer areas and selling low-grade byproducts.
When Ian mentioned he was about to be promoted to low-grade errand boy, Rendol burst out with a hearty laugh. “So you really are just a greenhorn after all!”
Once they reached the stall, the two each took a one-silver fried squid skewer and began eating. Ian had barely taken two bites of the spicy-sweet, chewy treat when Rendol had already demolished two skewers and downed a cool drink in one go.
“Listen, Ian. That labyrinth down there—the one whose depth no one can measure—is basically a living entity.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It possesses a will of its own. Sometimes it even emits strange thought waves toward adventurers. Labyrinth researchers say it was built to imprison monsters made from the blood and flesh of an evil god, so the place itself might carry that evil god’s will.”
“Then… what happens if someone ordinary like me keeps staring at the entrance?”
“If you keep standing there without a strong adventurer beside you, the labyrinth might just ‘look back at you.’”
Ian’s face turned deathly pale in an instant. The delicious skewer suddenly tasted like nothing at all. Sure enough, this world was a terrifying place where letting your guard down even a little could spring an unexpected trap. It seemed to offer refreshing freedom, only to cackle and slip a banana peel under your feet.
Ian took a deep breath to calm himself, then asked Rendol—who had already polished off six skewers by now—another question.
“What happens if you actually make eye contact with the labyrinth?”
“You’d suffer from horrible nightmares for a whole week. During the day you’d feel bone-chilling cold.”
“Oh my god… Just from glancing at it?”
“Yep. Especially for anyone with a stamina stat under 2,000.”
“What kind of level is stamina over 2,000?”
“Barely enough to start working as a low-grade adventurer.”
“But… I’ve seen job postings for errand boys that sometimes ask for porters?”
“That’s only possible when at least three middle-grade adventurers like me are there to protect the porters properly.”
Ian’s shoulders slumped.
“Sigh, so everything really does come down to stamina.”
“Bwahaha! Why the long face when you’re just stating the obvious!”
Rendol roared with laughter, then—finally full—finished off the last two skewers and ended his short meal. He exchanged a light farewell with Ian, as breezy as if the wind itself had taken human form, and disappeared without hesitation into the line at the labyrinth reception desk.
Left alone, Ian reflected on the encounter. Since arriving in Gelion he had met many people, and most of those connections had become good relationships that brought him great comfort. But this meeting felt different. It was as if he had encountered a vague presence whose thread of fate he couldn’t even begin to guess.
There had been no ulterior motive or shadow in Rendol’s laughter. Still, a strangely alien feeling lingered in one corner of Ian’s heart.
'Come on. Am I a fortune teller now? Getting all these weird thoughts from someone I barely met.'
Since he had learned the man’s name, Ian decided that if they ever ran into each other again, he would at least nod in greeting. With that, he shook off all thoughts of Rendol. After all, now wasn’t the time to be deeply pondering someone else.
'Ugh, this is insane. The labyrinth is alive! If I hadn’t known, it would’ve been fine, but now that I do, it’s a hundred times scarier!'
The labyrinth was no longer just a dungeon. It felt like a haunted place inhabited by a massive vengeful spirit, enough to send shivers down his spine. The problem was that Ian had already promised the Shield of Thorny Vines Guild members that he would explore the labyrinth with them.
'W-what do I do? My confidence has completely hit rock bottom…'
Even as the beach was dyed in crimson sunset and he rode the multi-passenger carriage back to the Dream Shelter inn, Ian’s worries never ceased.
That night, Ian couldn’t bring himself to turn off the bedside lamp as he tried to sleep. Once he became aware of ghosts or spirits, his nasty habit of suffering sleepless nights for days kicked in. The labyrinth—said to whisper the thoughts of a real evil god—had become, for him, no mere dungeon but the living embodiment of a colossal ghost story that could steal his soul the moment he stepped inside.
Yet even the lamp couldn’t dispel the thick fear that clung to the head of his bed.
In the dream that finally claimed him, the pitch-black labyrinth entrance he had seen during the day began to ripple and take on a gigantic shape. It became a monstrous, amorphous ghost wrapped in house-sized black mist and studded with thousands of eyes, staring down at Ian with skin-crawling menace.
“……Ian, come here……”
The labyrinth’s walls split open with a grotesque voice woven from the wails of tens of thousands, boring into his ears. As the labyrinth—now a colossal ghost—reached out to swallow him, Ian fell into an endless abyss without even managing a scream.
He woke with a start. The room was still quiet. It had only been a nightmare. Yet the old inn’s occasional creaks sounded exactly like an evil god calling his name. Ian pulled the blanket up to his chin and spent the entire night locked in a desperate battle against the darkness of the room.
At last the brutally long and harrowing night passed, and morning arrived.
Having barely slept at all, Ian rose with dark circles reaching his chin and a haggard face. Dragging his lead-heavy body to the window, he stared blankly outside. The blue haze of dawn had just retreated, and warm, bright sunlight was whitening the alley beyond the inn.
Ian gazed at the peaceful, cozy scene for a long time before finally reaching a resolute conclusion.
'Alright, that’s it! I’m going to train my stamina like my life depends on it! If my body is strong enough, I won’t pass out like a weakling just from hearing the labyrinth’s voice!'
The opponent was an actual evil god, sealed by the chief god in the world’s shadow. But to Ian, who had a phobia of ghosts, that existence was nothing more and nothing less than ‘a really big ghost.’ It was the moment Ian’s miraculous logic took shape: no matter how terrible the labyrinth’s dark mana or thought waves might be, a sturdy body would take care of everything.