The Two of Us in the Labyrinth (4)
Fortunately, that night passed without incident, and I managed to get a proper rest.
Then came the next day.
The second wave began.
Unlike the first, the monsters that appeared this time were ten goblins and two goblin warriors. There were more of them, and they moved a little faster, but nothing about it rose to the level of a real threat.
"Three on the left!"
"Got it."
Dozens of water droplets rose into the air around Lee Si-hyun.
Water Spear
Sharply spinning lances of water punched straight through the goblins.
I didn't waste the opening. I reached toward a goblin charging in from the opposite side, and mana gathered at my fingertips, taking the shape of a small magic bullet.
A bolt of blue light split the air and slammed into the goblin's shoulder.
"Grk!"
It wasn't enough to drop it in a single shot, but it was more than enough to break its momentum. The water spear that followed from Lee Si-hyun punched clean through the goblin's chest.
"You're hitting better than I expected."
"Than you expected?"
"You couldn't even use magic properly before."
"People grow."
"In a few days?"
"I've been practicing this whole time."
"...Have you?"
Lee Si-hyun looked at me like that was news to her, then turned her head forward again.
And just like that, the second wave ended without anything resembling a crisis.
The third wave brought three orcs and a pack of goblin archers. They were clearly stronger than anything we'd faced so far, but our approach didn't change much. Lee Si-hyun held their attention from the front, and I picked at the openings from behind, putting magic into the gaps.
Plenty of my shots went wide at first. But after firing them again and again, I started to get a feel for the trajectory — how to bend it, how to lead a target.
Read the monster's movement. Anticipate the direction it would run. Then fire before it ever got there.
The magic bullet struck the fleeing goblin archer square in the head. It let out a short, choked scream and went down.
At the same time, as if it had been waiting for exactly that moment, a system window unfolded in front of my eyes.
Stat Accuracy has reached E-rank!
Stat Magic Power has reached E-rank!
Finally.
With that, every last one of my stats had hit E-rank.
And in that instant, the world around me froze.
The goblin mid-collapse. The dirt hanging in the air. Lee Si-hyun, just starting to turn her head this way. Everything locked in place, still as stone.
Then the rank-up rewards for Accuracy appeared in front of me. I scanned each of their effects as fast as I could. The skill and the piece of equipment both looked reasonably useful for the fight we were in. But thinking past this labyrinth, the answer was already decided.
Accuracy and Magic Power are the stats I'll need to pour everything into from here on out.
A trait that would carry me through the entire growth process was worth more than a skill I'd only get to fire off once every few hours.
◈ Visual shake is reduced when aiming at a moving target.
◈ Ability to predict a target's movement direction is slightly increased.
The moment I finished choosing, the E-rank rewards for Magic Power appeared. I checked all three in order. The skill was a new offensive spell. The equipment was the kind that boosted a spell's power. Neither was a bad option. In terms of giving me more ways to fight right now, they were plenty tempting.
But what I actually need is this.
I didn't hesitate. I took the trait.
Getting the fundamentals of mana control properly in place. For me, that had to come first.
◈ Mana cohesion is slightly increased when forming magic.
◈ The chance of simple spell formulas falling apart is reduced.
Neither of the traits I'd picked had the kind of effect that would make anyone's jaw drop. But Accuracy and Magic Power were going to stay at the center of how I fought, and that meant they needed looking after. Investing in traits that would shore up my foundation over the long run was a far better deal than grabbing a skill just to scrape through the crisis in front of me.
Yeah. These were the right calls.
Once both selections were done, the system windows broke apart into motes of light and scattered.
Time, which had been holding its breath, started moving again. The dirt hanging in the air drifted down to the ground, and the collapsing goblin's body slammed into the earth.
Then—
"Dam-ah! Behind you!!"
Lee Si-hyun's voice cracked through from behind me, sharp with urgency. I turned my head and found the last remaining orc charging straight at me, a massive club already raised high over its head.
"I know."
I'd already seen it when time had stopped. I calmly drew mana to my fingertips. Far more of it than before gathered in a smooth, clean coil, glowing a deep blue.
It really is different.
I aimed straight at the orc's head.
The magic bullet that left my hand curved, just slightly, tracking the orc's movement — and then it hit.
The magic bullet struck dead-center in the orc's face.
"Guhhk!"
The orc's body lurched hard. The water spear Lee Si-hyun sent after it punched through its chest before it could recover.
Oh. Already filled this one too.
In that instant, something deep inside my body began to burn.
The mana that had been flowing quietly through me surged, violent and sudden, as if a dam had given way.
C-rank in a single jump?
It was a far bigger leap than I had been expecting. I pulled up the information on the newly evolved trait at once.
This is insane.
Accuracy and Magic Power had both hit E-rank. As a reward, I'd picked up two new traits that would support those same stats going forward. And on top of all that, Fading Star Fragment had jumped all the way to C-rank in a single leap.
The unique skill looks pretty useful too.
...Still. I can't let my guard down.
The first three waves had gone relatively smoothly. But the real thing was almost certainly waiting in the fourth. Being the last wave, there was every chance something would show up that didn't even belong in the same conversation as what we'd fought so far. I couldn't afford to start relaxing now.
Don't get complacent.
I repeated it to myself more than once. And then I looked at the trait window floating in front of me again, and the corner of my mouth simply refused to come back down.
"...Heh."
Accuracy and Magic Power at E-rank. Two newly acquired traits. A growth-type trait at C-rank, plus a unique skill on top of it.
Yeah. How am I supposed to not laugh at this.
I tried to put my face back in order, but I couldn't quite stamp out the smile that kept leaking through.
That was when I felt a peculiar gaze from beside me. I turned my head and found Lee Si-hyun staring at me like something was wrong with me.
"What?"
"Huh?"
"You're suddenly laughing by yourself."
So much for managing my expression. I discreetly wiped what was left of the smile off my mouth and looked away.
"Nothing."
"What's nothing?"
"We already finished the third wave."
"...That's enough to make you that happy?"
She said it like she couldn't believe me, but her own expression had loosened a little too.
Several hours had passed since the third wave ended. The forest had gone completely dark, and the two of us were sitting in front of the campfire we'd built again, taking a rest.
Day and night in the labyrinth didn't move the way they did outside. A normal day was twenty-four hours, but the sky here ran much faster than that. The waves always started just before sunset, and a few hours after the fighting ended, night would arrive without fail. It felt like a day in this place was basically fifteen hours long.
Kim Jin-hyuk really is something else, now that I think about it.
He lasted five days in here. In hours, that was a full hundred and twenty — which meant that many more waves on top of it.
I guess the protagonist isn't the protagonist for nothing.
I stared into the burning campfire for a while, letting my thoughts wander.
"What are you thinking about?"
Lee Si-hyun, sitting beside me, asked.
"Hm?"
"You've been staring at the fire this whole time."
"Just thinking about the last wave."
"...It's going to be a lot harder, isn't it?"
She asked it carefully, watching the flames.
"They've been getting stronger as we go, so the last one will definitely be different."
"Yeah..."
Her expression tightened a little. I looked at her, then added it in the most offhand voice I could manage.
"We've done well so far, though."
"......"
"We'll figure out the last one somehow too."
Lee Si-hyun blinked once at that. Then she smiled, just faintly, and nodded.
"Yeah. We will."
Once the conversation ended, only the quiet crackle of the campfire was left. We stared at the flames in silence for a while. I don't know how much time passed. The firewood had nearly burned through, and the flames were starting to thin.
"Should we sleep?"
"Yeah."
I stood up and spread a blanket over a reasonably flat patch of ground. Lee Si-hyun followed behind me without a word.
Back during the first wave, just sharing the same blanket had been enough to kick off a whole argument. Maybe it was all the time we'd spent together in this place, but now we lay down side by side like it was the most natural thing in the world. No discussion required.
Of course, it wasn't as if it didn't bother us at all. Even after getting under the blanket, Lee Si-hyun pressed herself against the very edge, like she was still too aware of me. I shifted a little farther toward the opposite side myself, for no reason I could have named.
"I'll keep my distance so we don't touch. You don't have to glue yourself to the edge like that."
"I wasn't glued."
"You're going to get pushed off the blanket at this rate."
"I'm fine."
"And then you'll complain you couldn't sleep because you were cold."
"......"
Lee Si-hyun closed her mouth for a moment, then shifted just a little toward me.
"This enough?"
"Yeah."
I pulled the edge of the blanket over and covered her up to the shoulder.
A moment later, even the faint remaining campfire had nearly gone out. As darkness settled over everything, countless stars revealed themselves across the wide night sky.
"You can see the stars."
Lee Si-hyun, lying beside me, murmured it quietly.
"Yeah."
Faint starlight was spreading, slow and quiet, across the dark. This was a space where even the flow of time ran differently from the outside world. But those stars, at least, didn't look all that different from the ones I was used to seeing.
We gazed up at the sky in silence for a while.
Just one wave left now...
If we made it through that, we could leave this place.
"...Dam-ah."
Her voice came quietly out of the dark.
"Yeah?"
"Let's do well tomorrow."
I nodded slightly, still looking at the starlight.
"Yeah. Let's do well."
After that short exchange, the quiet came back. Before long, even breathing started coming from beside me. I closed my eyes as well.
And so the last night in the labyrinth grew deeper.