Chapter 2: The Hourglass of Turns
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 2: The Hourglass of Turns
Five seconds to assess the situation.
Fifty-five seconds to devise a strategy.
…And just by thinking that, I wasted another second.
‘Think. Think.’
How can I get out of this?
My action points were displayed above the hourglass.
[Action Points: ■■■■]
Normally, in the computer game, four action points would let you move over ten meters.
But right now, my body was completely paralyzed.
I had a good idea why.
The sixty seconds I’d been given were just for thinking.
My action points were calculated based on that fleeting moment, that fraction of a second before time stopped. There's a limit to what I can physically accomplish in that instant.
I forced my unmoving right arm to lift. As my hand moved about three centimeters, one bar of my action points vanished.
[Action Points: ■■■□]
‘No.’
This won’t work. Even if I use all my action points, I can’t raise my wand in time to block that sword.
What about dodging?
Could I even do that?
What if I used my remaining action points to duck my head?
The blade would hit my cheekbone instead of the carotid artery in my neck.
I probably wouldn’t die instantly. But it would hurt like hell. So much that I’d wish I had. And if I messed up, I’d lose an eye.
And my chances of survival would be extremely low. The impact of the sword would whip my head around, and Goblin #2, now out of my line of sight, would stab me through the lungs with its spear.
Then what the fuck is the point?
What’s the use of these sixty seconds?
Is it just time to pray before I die? That might be great for a fanatic, but what good is it to me?
“Haaah.”
I let out a sigh without thinking and then realized something.
Wait a minute.
Isn't this strange?
I can't move my body, so how did I just sigh? Can you let out a slow sigh like that in a fraction of a second?
When everything stopped, I'd blurted out, “What the?” without realizing it.
“Can I... speak?”
I carefully let the words out.
It worked.
I could speak.
I had a guess as to why.
This game supports multiplayer for up to four people, though no one ever plays it, so it's treated like a single-player game.
‘It's the chat function.’
It was a feature designed with multiplayer in mind. If you hit Enter during the game, a chat window pops up. Whatever you type appears in a speech bubble above your character.
So, could it be that the words I'm speaking now are being treated as a form of chat?
Chatting during combat doesn't consume any action points.
If that's the case….
‘Could I chant a spell?’
Wizards in this game always chant when they cast spells.
When they do, the incantation appears in a speech bubble above the character, just like a chat message.
Of course, the player doesn't type that message by hitting Enter. It appears automatically when the character casts a spell.
But they're both the same type of speech bubble.
So maybe…
‘Please.’
I twisted my wrist, adjusting the wand's direction. I aimed it at the goblin in front of me.
[Action Points: ■□□□]
The movement of my wrist cost two more bars of action points, and the hourglass had four seconds left.
Three.
Two.
“Fireball.”
The moment I chanted the spell, new messages appeared.
[All Action Points have been consumed.]
[Ending turn.]
[The hourglass has been flipped again. Cooldown: 60 seconds.]
KABOOM!
A Fireball, backed by 10 points in Wisdom, erupted from the tip of my wand. The blast sent the goblin in front of me—and Goblin #2 with the spear right behind it—flying.
*
“KIIIEEEEEAAAAAAK!”
The two goblins, now on fire, rolled around on the ground. Their screams sounded like they were being spat out from the depths of hell.
A moment later, they went limp.
“Hah…!”
The breath I'd been holding in from the tension finally burst out of me. Air gushed from my mouth like water from a broken dam.
“Hah… hah…”
My neck stung. When Goblin #1 was hit by the Fireball and sent flying, the tip of its damn sword had sliced into my neck. Blood, hot and sticky, trickled from the gash.
‘I almost died.’
Holy shit.
I almost died!
My whole body trembled uncontrollably, seized by a fear of death I'd never felt before.
It was like that full-body shiver you get when you take a piss on a cold day. I was shaking like a leaf.
“Sob… sniffle.”
I heard the elf woman crying behind me.
I didn't cry. Instead, a fresh wave of anger surged through me.
‘Why the hell is this happening to me?’
What crime did I commit by clearing that shitty game? I felt like taking whoever dragged an innocent person here and threw them into this shithole—be it a god, a developer, or some garbage law of physics—and burning them to a crisp, just like those goblins.
Aren't the five stages of grief denial, then anger?
I'll admit, from the moment I picked up that wand at the magic university until now, I'd had my fill of denial.
This is just a stupid nightmare. I'll wake up soon. This can't be happening.
And now, it was anger's turn. A fiery rage boiled inside me. Why me?! I lived a good life!
‘Calm down.’
I struggled to rein in my emotions. I had to be calm. I had to be level-headed.
I would absolutely not move on to the next stage after anger.
I will not die.
I'm the player who mastered this turn-based game and reached developer difficulty. I'm an expert at raising wizards in this game. With my own unique build, I can raise this wizard better than anyone else.
I will survive this.
*
Once my head cooled, a more concrete plan began to form.
First, the Hourglass of Turns.
A helpful message had appeared, explaining how to use it.
[The Hourglass of Turns can be used once every 60 seconds. To use it, flip the hourglass.]
[The Hourglass of Turns will activate automatically in an emergency.]
A holographic magic hourglass followed me at a fixed distance.
I could flip it anytime to gain sixty seconds and form a strategy.
How to flip it?
Not with my hands. It was invisible to others, and I couldn't touch it myself.
Thankfully, using it was even simpler than touching it.
All I had to do was decide to flip it.
That was enough to activate the hourglass.
‘With this, I'm not in any immediate danger of dying.’
However, I wasn't invincible. Once used, the hourglass had a sixty-second cooldown.
[The hourglass has a 60-second cooldown after activation before it can be used again.]
After I killed the two goblins, a message saying, “The hourglass has been flipped again,” had appeared. The magic hourglass had indeed flipped over, and the sand began to flow in the opposite direction.
Judging by this cooldown, I could probably only use the hourglass once or twice per battle, at most.
The hourglass now had seventeen seconds left on its cooldown.
It would be best to wait for that to run out before moving.
Before, everyone was in a state of shock and just stood around stupidly before being ambushed. From now on, I had to proceed with caution, watching my surroundings.
I will find the exit gate and escape, no matter what.
I will not die.
‘And now, to farm.’
The starter wands from the magic university each contained a single Tier 1 spell.
Mine was ‘Fireball,’ the Fatty's was ‘Psychokinesis,’ and the Fanatic's held ‘Ice Spike.’
I collected their wands.
“Do you want to use one of these?”
“No…” The elf woman's voice was completely devoid of energy.
“What spell does your wand have?”
“Lightning Shock…”
“Use it if a monster gets too close.”
“Okay…”
I looted two Magic Stones from the goblin corpses and two potatoes from our fallen comrades.
I pulled the elf woman's hand.
“Let's go.”
To be honest, I wasn't sure if she'd be much help in a fight.
Still, it was better than nothing.
*
I was a little worried the elf woman had completely shut down, but thankfully, she was okay. After about ten minutes of walking, she regained a tiny bit of her vitality.
Then she asked me a question.
“Why… why are they doing this to us?”
“Doing this?”
“I thought they bought us as slaves for a high price to make us do things like cleaning or laundry. Why would they send us into a Labyrinth…?”
I knew the reason.
According to the game's scenario, a few years before the player creates their character, the Labyrinth erupted.
Countless adventurers died in the event. Now, the magic university was desperately short on wizards. So, they decided to fast-track the training of Labyrinth-exploring wizards.
Their method was to ‘throw a massive number of slaves into the Labyrinth and train whoever survives.’
Reason one: anyone who could enter the Labyrinth with just a wand and find the exit was considered to have outstanding talent as a Labyrinth wizard.
Reason two: the price of a slave is dirt cheap. It might be a ‘high price’ from the elf woman's perspective, but compared to the magic university's annual budget, it was pocket change.
But I didn't share any of this knowledge with the elf woman.
There was no guarantee that what I knew perfectly matched this world.
The best way to survive in a strange world is to keep your mouth shut. Speech is silver, silence is golden, as they say.
So, I gave the elf woman this answer:
“Maybe they're betting on which one of us makes it out alive.”
It was the kind of thing a common human slave, steeped in defeatism, might say to vent to a fellow slave.
“What's your name?”
Her question made me hesitate.
I didn't want to have a personal conversation with her if I could help it. Getting attached in a situation like this was the last thing I wanted.
But we at least needed to know each other's names. I couldn't exactly shout, “Elf woman, get down!” in an emergency.
“Call me Caleb.”
It was the name I used when I created my account.
“And you?”
“I'm Yernil.”
She trotted along beside me and asked another question.
“Caleb, what did you do before you came here?”
A difficult question.
My only memory from before character creation was scratching my thigh in my underwear while starting up developer difficulty.
“You're very quiet, Caleb.”
When I didn't answer, she muttered awkwardly to herself.
“I thought you were quite friendly with the others on the slave ship.”
What?
So there were people who knew me before I arrived at the magic university?
This was a bit concerning.
If I managed to escape, how was I supposed to react when I met people who knew things about me that I didn't?
“I used to live in the fairy forest at the eastern edge of the continent, then I went to the city of Flandre.”
Yernil started telling me her life story, unprompted, and I had little interest in it.
Amnesia caused by the trauma of being thrown into the Labyrinth by the magic university.
I wondered how convincing that excuse would be, then shook my head.
No, what am I even thinking about?
Just escaping this place was a huge hurdle. I didn't have the luxury of worrying about things that hadn't even happened yet. I had to focus on the present.
“I got a job at a courier service there, delivering packages.”
Yernil's chattering beside me was starting to get on my nerves.
“But it turned out the courier service was using the packages as a front to distribute drugs. I had no idea, of course! But… I ended up being framed as a drug mule. I couldn't pay the fine, so I became a slave.”
I didn't have the capacity to listen to her sob story, mentally or physically.
“Yernil.”
“Yes.”
“Be quiet.”
I wasn't trying to be a jerk. It was advice for the party's sake. We didn't know what kind of monsters might be drawn to the noise.
This was real life, not a game.
“I'm sorry…”
Seeing the life drain from her expression, I realized my mistake.
This was her way of coping with the shock of seeing the Fatty and the Fanatic die.
She needed to vent about our cruel fate, to find some small comfort in this hellish situation.
She needed a bare minimum of positive energy to keep going in this Labyrinth.
“...It's fine if you keep your voice down. If you're too loud, monsters…”
Click.
A sound came from under Yernil's foot.
[It is your turn.]
[Action Points: ■■■■]
The hourglass flipped, and time stopped.
“Hah.”
A sigh escaped me.
“Please, no.”
I squeezed my eyes shut in despair.
Yernil had stepped on a trap.