Vale was hit by a dizzy spell. He held his forehead and realized that his soul was still trapped in a puppet.
He slowly opened his eyes and saw that he was now lying on a bed. The bedroom he was in had a pink theme. The pink paint made the room look bright. Wooden puppets of various shapes were neatly arranged in a glass cabinet. Some larger puppets were also lying in the corners of the room.
"What happened? Why am I here?" Vale tried to remember what actually happened until he ended up in this bedroom.
Faint memories crossed Vale's mind. He remembered that he, Brenda, Colbert, and Yor climbed through a hole in the ceiling. They then arrived in a room filled with wooden puppets. The group of wooden puppets then surrounded them. Thereafter, he passed out and woke up in a strange bedroom.
"Did those puppets bring me here?" Vale was sure that the puppets did not bring him to this bedroom to let him rest peacefully. There must be something dangerous about this place.
Vale got up from the bed. He then approached a table next to the bed. On the table was a photo showing a family consisting of a father, mother, and a daughter.
"Does this photo belong to the creator of this maze? If so, am I in his room? But the creator of this maze should be dead, right?" several questions came to Vale's mind. He sighed and set aside these questions.
He then pulled out the top drawer. Inside the drawer, there were eight strange wooden boxes with small holes on the top. Vale then took one of the wooden boxes and examined it. Thereafter, tried to flow mana into the box. A moment later, various runes appeared on the surface of the box and the hole on the box emitted a light.
[Happy fifth birthday, Lily, my beloved daughter. Forgive daddy because daddy cannot attend your birthday.]
"Hm? What's that sound?" Vale felt the sound came from the box he was holding. Subsequently, he lifted his head to see a projector displayed on the ceiling of the room. Apparently, the box he was holding had a function to play visual and audio recordings.
Subsequently, he redirected his mana into the box. The projector started running again.
[Those annoying people kept bothering daddy. Daddy will teach them a lesson. Wait me there, my princess. Daddy will come back in a few days.]
The recording ended there. Vale then examined the recordings in another wooden box. He carefully watched each recording, occasionally pausing to inspect hidden details. After 20 minutes, Vale finished watching the recordings in the eight wooden boxes.
"There is some important information that I got from this recording," murmured Vale.
Finally, Vale learned specifically about the true identity of the creator of this labyrinth. He was a magus named Chakuva, or Redrick Chakuva as his real name. He was the person who appeared in the recording. The recording contained his messages to his daughter.
Initially, Redrick Chakuva was a magus affiliated with the Malefic Orchestra. This was evidenced by the symbol on the clothes he wore in the recording of his daughter's first birthday. The name Malefic Orchestra was also mentioned several times. Based on conversations between Redrick and his wife, Vale concluded that Redrick came from the continent, a place that had been mentioned in conversations between Holman and Frida.
Vale also concluded that Redrick was known as a brilliant and intelligent magus. It took him only eight years to reach a high position in the Malefic Orchestra organization.
In the recording of his daughter's third birthday, Vale gained some clarity about what Malefic Orchestra was. In the recording, Redrick explained a little about the dimensional fragment his organization had discovered. The Malefic Orchestra found a blue-quality dimensional fragment, and they intended to explore it.
Based on this, Vale assumed that the Malefic Orchestra was a magus organization that aimed to discover, claim, and explore dimensional fragments. There might be many magus organizations similar to them out there.
In the recording of his daughter's fourth birthday, Redrick found something inside the dimensional fragment. In the recording, he said that he would not give what he had found to the organization. Finally, he promised to be a great father to his daughter.
If connected with the recording of his daughter's fifth birthday, it was clear that Redrick left the Malefic Orchestra organization. He was then hunted by the organization.
Something surprising happened in the recording of his daughter's sixth birthday. The recording showed that Redrick regretted betraying the Malefic Orchestra, resulting in the organization hunting him and injuring his family. His wife was already dead there, probably due to the Malefic Orchestra, while his daughter was seriously injured and disabled.
On his seventh birthday recording, Redrick, who appeared to be insane, continued to entertain his severely injured daughter. He explained that they would escape to a remote island to flee from the Malefic Orchestra, and that he would not let his daughter die.
On the last recording, Redrick explained that they had arrived at the island, and he intended to turn his daughter into a living puppet to save her life.
"This man's tragic destiny persisted. After living on that island, he was killed by the Midvalley Magus Academy, and his dimensional fragment was seized and used as a test site for students," said Vale, empathizing with Redrick's unlucky fate.
Suddenly, Vale heard the bedroom door opening. He turned around and saw a puppet of a little girl who looked exactly like Redrick's daughter. The puppet was very similar in appearance to Redrick's daughter. "Bro, are you awake? What are you doing there?" unexpectedly, the puppet of the little girl called Vale "bro."
Vale furrowed his brows, unable to figure out what was happening.
"Lily?" Vale remembered that Redrick's daughter was called Lily.
"Thank goodness you're awake. Come on, let's go out." Lily grabbed Vale's hand and dragged him out of the bedroom.
As Lily held Vale's hand, the teenager discovered that he couldn't move his body independently, and that his body only moved following Lily's lead.