Huh?
I darted my eyes from side to side vigorously while scanning my surroundings yet again. Where — no, why is there a child here? By the way, Eun-Kyung was staring at me like a total lunatic, her eyes filled with disbelief and a tinge of concern.
"You hearing this?" I tried to elicit a response of understanding from her but I was hit with her furrowed brows deepening which hurt more than an arrow to the heart.
She sighed with total conviction and muttered in an extremely audible volume, "Gosh, so now you've lost your senses too. We're doomed."
Whaaat???
「 You flatter me, ☐. 」
"How can you NOT hear this!?" I glared at Eun-Kyung while waving around my finger as quickly as I could. Why could she not hear this kid? If a toddler was stuck in this sort of situation, they would barely fare an hour. How could I even blame them, the conditions here were terrible.
The gender-ambiguous voice spoke up again.
「 Relax, ☐. First up, tell me your name. 」
Unable to understand this existence, I decided to follow its orders and be its puppet. For now, at least. Just as I opened my mouth to reply-
「 Hey, you really do take forever to learn, dont you? 」
Where did this kid learn her manners?
「 I can perceive your thoughts. Just mentally reply to me, you'll figure it out eventually. Also, you aren't my slave. If I had to coin a term, it'd probably be the opposite. 」
Well, I'm Namgung Kyong. A 25 year old loner whose life is completely boring.
「 Well... that's not what I expected. 」
That felt like a critical hit to my pride.
As soon the booming voice of the child subsided, a new message tab popped up.
[ Participant "Namgung Kyong" has learnt the Exclusive Skill, "Libra Clairvoyance"! ]
Okay... this is really weird. Well, back to the main topic. Eun-Kyung, still cowering in a mixture of irritation and fear, looked up to me as I got up and started pacing around.
"Well? What do we do?" she nonchalantly asked despite knowing the answer.
I gave her a look of pure annoyance and started walking to a random direction. It was the time to start a new chapter of my dull life.
*
I set off in a singular direction, unsure of what exactly was pulling me forward, but anything had to be better than standing still in this twisted nightmare. The eerie, childlike voice had gone silent, leaving me alone with my thoughts and Eun-Kyung's occasional, skeptical glances.
As I trudged forward, something shifted in the air, a subtle change that I couldn't quite place. My steps faltered, and suddenly, the landscape around me began to morph in ways I couldn't explain. Shapes that were previously blurred or hidden in the shadows came into sharp focus.
It was like I'd been blind the entire time.
The smooth surfaces now writhed with life, intricate patterns and symbols glowing faintly under the darkness. It was as if they had been there the whole time, waiting to be noticed. The walls — solid, imposing, and stretching high above us — were covered in shifting, almost breathing, markings. Each symbol pulsed faintly, like it was alive with a dark, sinister energy that I hadn't been able to perceive before.
I blinked, rubbing my eyes. "What… the f☐☐k?" I muttered almost to myself, my voice shaky. The world had changed in front of me into something I couldn't really get used to.
Eun-Kyung looked at me, her eyes narrowing in confusion. "What the hell is wrong with you now?"
Before I could respond, something far more terrifying caught my attention. High up, along the tops of the walls, massive shadows began to stir. Beings that resembled something I thought I recognised but in no way could have existed.
They moved slowly, as if patrolling, their forms obscured by the darkness but undeniably enormous. My heart raced as I watched, hoping they hadn't noticed us.
"Shit," I whispered. "Shut up, Gu Eun-Kyung."
Perhaps sensing my unease, Eun-Kyung followed my order, her face paler than I'd ever seen before.
Just then, the childlike voice chimed in again, calm but amused. 「 Those are the sentries, I believe. Don't worry, they won't attack… unless you give them a reason to. 」
Sentries? Amazing. Exactly what I needed. Whatever they were, I made a mental note not to provoke them, no matter what.
"Hey, let's go," I said, turning to Eun-Kyung. "Something's looking at us. Don't get caught."
Eun-Kyung still couldn't see what I was so easily horrified about, but she nodded anyway, trusting my urgency, albeit with a level of skepticism.
I could feel my heart racing, but I tried to maintain a calm facade as I led us down the wide path of the terrifying labyrinth, the walls now radiating a strange, oppressive energy. Every step felt heavier than the last. The sentries' dark forms loomed above, their movements slow, deliberate, like ancient guardians overseeing some sort of grim fate.
Eun-Kyung followed closely, her usual confidence shaken. She didn't understand what I could see, but the fear in my eyes must have been enough to convince her. "You're seriously freaking me out right now," she muttered under her breath, but she kept moving.
「 Focus on running. Don't even think about what's happening. 」
The voice, although eerily calm, didn't bring me any comfort. Who exactly were these sentries? What was their purpose? The more I tried to grasp the situation, the more questions flooded my mind.
The oppressive weight of the sentries' gaze made my skin crawl, but a sixth sense was telling me to press forward. As we continued down the never-ending path, the oppressive energy from the walls pressed against me, heightening my senses. I could feel every heartbeat, every whispered breath. Each time I glanced up at the sentries, I was struck by an overwhelming urge to understand them, to know their intentions. But with the stakes so high, curiosity felt like a dangerous gamble.
Before I could even finish that thought, one of the many shadows surrounding the walls shifted. A low growl echoed through the corridor, reverberating off the walls. My instincts screamed at me to run, but I stood frozen, caught in the thrall of something primal.
「 Focus, Namgung Kyong. 」
The voice of the toddler had an aura that contradicted its age, one that seems to have existed for an eternity.
I mentally gritted my teeth. Easy for you to say.
I came back to my senses and realised that Eun-Kyung was heavily tugging on my arm. "Hey, are you trying to die?"
The urgency in her tone snapped me back to reality. I took a step forward, then another, moving quickly but quietly. We skirted along the path, while I ignored the glowing symbols that pulsed ominously underfoot. Every inch felt like a tightrope over an abyss, the smallest mistake leading to an immeasurable downfall.
Ker-POW!
Suddenly, a loud explosion echoed above us. I turned around instinctively, heart racing, but to no avail. The source of the explosion that had almost ruptured my eardrums was nowhere in my view. Yet, I still felt that unexplainable compulsion to run. To escape from this place. I'd never felt such a terrifying feeling, as if something way more precious than my own life was on my life.
I ran. I ran and didn't look back.
Each heartbeat echoing in my ears, my own thoughts were crushing down on me like a weight. Eun-Kyung, right behind me with her breath heavy and frantic. We darted down the still-ominous corridor, the edges of my vision flickering.
The dense and dark atmosphere around us began to thin. Its replacement was an intense, blinding white light. It felt as if the very fabric of reality was being reformed, and I squinted against the sudden brilliance of pure brightness.
With each step, the oppressive energy of the labyrinth that I so very despised continued to dissipate and the overwhelming pure white continued to swallow everything around us.
The walls disappeared first, vanishing into the void as if they were never there to begin with. The ground beneath our feet dissolved into nothingness, leaving us running on a surface that felt like air, yet solid enough to support our weight. The brilliant light seemed to stretch infinitely in every direction, an endless sea of white that erased all sense of time and space.
Eun-Kyung's frantic breaths echoed louder than they should have, bouncing off nothing. I slowed to a stop, panting, trying to make sense of where we were. It felt like we were floating in an empty canvas, a liminal space that was neither part of the labyrinth nor any world we had known before. One that was yet to be created.
What the hell is this?
"What… where the hell are we??" Eun-Kyung asked as she voiced my thoughts. She looked around, as confused as I was, her earlier irritation giving way to a new feeling — a feeling she probably had never felt until this moment.
A new voice appeared from seemingly nowhere, but rather than being the child's voice I was getting comfortable with, it was a voice far more serious and had a sense of hatred sprinkled in each word it spoke.
[State your business here, human. If you want to live.]
We're screwed.