I fell as if sucked into the dark passage.
Pitch-black darkness, so thick I couldn’t see an inch ahead.
But thanks to Diul’s ability, my eyes could see just fine.
I checked the ground, landed steadily, then looked up.
I’d worried the Undead might follow down into the passage, but that didn’t happen.
…Did they stop moving once I disappeared from sight?
I could only hope so.
“Phew…”
I caught my breath and surveyed the area.
A straight corridor stretching forward.
So I picked the right answer, at least?
I stopped ti and recovered my Willpower. Then I released it and let my stamina recover too.
I started walking slowly down the passage.
There was no telling what might jump out ahead, so I kept my senses razor-sharp.
The corridor continued straight for a long stretch.
Nothing ca at while I walked, no traps, no monsters.
Sohow, that made it worse.
If sothing was going to show up, I’d rather it just get it over with… Hm?
Light was starting to appear ahead.
I raised my guard even higher and approached.
The source of the light was torches.
A wide cavern with torches hanging here and there.
In the center of the cavern sat a single boulder, conspicuously alone.
I crept closer to examine it.
‘What’s this?’
Sothing was carved on top of the boulder.
A circular design ringed with radiating spikes.
It was clearly ant to represent the sun.
Surrounding the sun emblem in a circle were unknown characters arranged like a magic circle.
And along three lines extending from the sun to the east, west, and north, small grooves had been carved into the stone.
As if sothing was ant to be slotted in.
“Hmm…”
I looked around.
Apart from the passage I’d entered through, the cavern branched into three paths: left, right, and straight ahead.
Three grooves, three paths.
I was starting to get a vague sense of what I was supposed to do.
Each path probably led to sothing I could bring back and slot into these grooves… right?
The sun emblem definitely seed like a signal related to clearing this floor.
“Which way first, Diul?”
I spoke to Diul out of habit.
Diul, bobbing above my head, radiated indifference, as if to say figure it out yourself.
Mm… alright, let’s try the left path first.
I heightened my tension and pressed forward down the left corridor.
The path was short, and it quickly opened into another cavern-like space.
In the center of this cavern, smaller than the main one, an amber gemstone sat on the ground.
‘Is that it?’
So I just slot that into the groove, I suppose.
But I didn’t rush in.
…Just walking up and grabbing it would be way too easy, right?
This was so fucking obviously a trap.
I took one step closer, and the inexplicable sense of dread sharpened noticeably.
Sixth Sense was sending warnings too.
I picked up a loose stone from nearby.
Then I tossed it toward the gemstone.
The instant the stone touched the ground, spikes erupted from every direction.
KRAKRAKRAKRAK!
Massive iron spikes shot out at terrifying speed, rhythmically shredding the space as they extended and retracted.
Only after several seconds did they withdraw back into the walls as though nothing had happened.
“…”
Pretty obvious, right?
I threw another stone to test it.
KRAKRAKRAK!
The spike trap triggered without fail.
So it wasn’t a one-ti chanism; it kept activating.
And it seed to detect contact with the floor.
The thod to retrieve the gemstone ca to easily enough.
“One, two…”
I jumped from where I stood toward the gemstone.
The instant my feet touched the ground, I snatched the gemstone with my hand.
I stopped ti, perford ntal Concentration, and Teleported back to where I’d been standing.
KRAKRAKRAKRAK!
The spikes stabbed empty air.
And the gemstone was in my hand. Easy.
Having plucked the gemstone out without a hitch, I returned to the central cavern.
Click.
I slotted the gemstone into the western groove.
An orange glow traveled up the line and filled roughly a third of the sun emblem.
“So this is how it works?”
Two left.
I headed for the right path next.
Alright, what kind of trap is waiting for this ti?
Not that I was enjoying any of this, but I forced a cheerful attitude as I walked. After a short while…
Just like the left path, a small cavern appeared.
There was a gemstone in the center of this one too, but…
This ti, chains were wrapped tightly around it.
I threw a stone first, as before.
No trap triggered.
Sixth Sense wasn’t picking up anything either, so I cautiously approached.
Was I supposed to undo the chains and take it?
Clank.
The blue chains binding the gemstone were connected to the cavern walls on all sides like a spiderweb, anchoring it in place.
I reached toward the gemstone.
I tried pulling with so force to loosen the chains.
“Ngh.”
It didn’t budge an inch.
Even putting everything I had into prying the gemstone free, it wouldn’t co loose.
Okay, fine.
So brute force wasn’t going to cut it?
I stepped back from the gemstone and loaded up a spell.
Then I fired Fla Strike at the chains.
BOOOOM!
When the flas cleared, the chains were completely intact.
…Seriously tough, aren’t they?
Any ordinary iron chain would’ve been blown to pieces.
I tried Light Bullet and Blade Storm too, attempting to destroy the chains. Sharp winds slashed against them.
SKREEEEECH!
But no luck.
No matter how many spells I unleashed, the chains remained without a single scratch.
What the fuck is this?
What, adamantium? Vibranium? Sothing like that?
After mulling it over, I decided to target the walls where the chains were anchored instead.
BOOM!
I blasted through the cavern wall.
But no matter how deep I dug, the chains seed to go on forever with no end in sight.
Any more blasting might collapse the entire cavern, so I had no choice but to abandon that approach too.
After struggling for a good while, I finally sank to the ground with my arms crossed.
“What am I even supposed to do…”
Was it a puzzle? Was there so other solution?
I looked around the cavern.
“Ah.”
And then I spotted sothing.
On the wall just above the entrance I’d co through.
An identical amber gemstone was embedded there. What the hell?
I walked over, pried it out, and stared at it in disbelief.
“…I just take this one?”
So the gemstone wrapped in chains was a fake?
Just like on the second floor, this Nightmare bastard really loved making people feel stupid.
I returned to the central cavern and slotted the gemstone into the eastern groove.
The orange glow traveled up the line, filling the sun emblem to two-thirds.
“Hah.”
Good.
Just one groove left.
I steeled myself and headed down the path straight ahead.
“…”
What is that?
An hourglass?
At the end of the front path, what awaited in the center of the cavern was a massive hourglass.
The enormous hourglass was fixed in midair, connected to so kind of structural frawork.
And there was sothing beneath it too.
A tall, cylindrical rock.
Slotted into grooves on the rock were an amber gemstone and, of all things, a cube.
A 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube, the kind where you twist the faces to match colors.
I tilted my head and reached for the gemstone first.
Of course, it wouldn’t co free.
I looked back at the cube.
…So I have to solve the cube to get the gemstone?
‘Shit.’
What now.
I’d completely forgotten the formulas.
There’d been a ti when I used to play with cubes obsessively, but that was back in elentary school.
Naturally, it was all hazy now.
Instead of painted colors, each square of the tal cube had a picture drawn on it.
I lifted the cube out of the groove where it sat snugly fitted into the rock.
CLUNK!
The mont I did, the massive hourglass flipped over with a thunderous noise.
I looked back and forth between the hourglass and the cube in alarm.
The aning was painfully obvious.
Solve it before ti runs out.
I stopped ti imdiately and began fumbling through my mories.
How did it work again? I needed to recall the thod.
Co on, long-term mory. I used to do this all the ti!
Okay, so first you make the cross… then what… right, was that how it went?
Now that I was actually trying to rember, bits and pieces seed to be coming back.
It felt like I could manage if I just worked through it.
I released ti and started clumsily turning the cube.
After a few twists, I looked up to check the hourglass. And then.
“Huh?”
Half the sand had already fallen.
Wait, it’s only been like ten seconds…
Now I noticed the hourglass was draining at an absurdly fast rate.
I stopped ti again.
The cube was less than five percent done.
What kind of bullshit is this.
It wants to solve a cube in a matter of seconds?
Sure, a world champion could probably do it in five seconds flat, but that was obviously beyond .
On top of that, all I knew was the basic thod, and basic formulas were nowhere near fast enough for that.
…What happens when the hourglass runs out?
No way to know. But it definitely wouldn’t be anything good.
And solving the cube in the roughly ten seconds left before the hourglass emptied was equally impossible.
In other words, checkmate.
‘God damn it.’
What do I do?
Maybe try smashing the hourglass?
…That obviously wasn’t going to end well either. Rejected.
What if I put the cube back? Would the tir stop too?
With that thought, I released ti and slotted the cube back into the rock.
But the hourglass kept draining, indifferent, as if to say no take-backs.
I stopped ti again.
Only one option remained.
Get out of here for now.
I released ti and scrambled out of the cavern.
I was afraid that once the hourglass ran out, spikes might co shooting out like in the left path.
I stared at the hourglass from the cavern entrance, every sense on high alert.
And soon, the last grains of sand fell.
The change was… nothing. Not imdiately.
But a mont later, vibrations rippled through the ground.
“…?”
I turned around, expression hardening.
The sound was getting closer.
Rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble.
What unfolded before was a flood of Undead, packing the straight corridor wall to wall, surging forward like a tidal wave.
“You’ve gotta be…!”
I panicked and fired Fla Strike.
The front ranks of Undead exploded outward.
But the montum only faltered for a mont before the horde surged forward again.
In desperation, I fired Light Bullets and unleashed Blade Storm.
That bought seconds at best. There was no end to them.
I retreated back into the cavern, pulled out Shelburn’s Ice Shard Dagger, and activated it.
KRAAAAAASH!
A blast of freezing cold swept through, encasing the suffocating tide of Undead in ice.
The ice ford a barricade of sorts, halting the Undead’s relentless advance, but…
Crack, crack…
It didn’t look like it would hold for long.
I stared blankly at the Undead for a mont, then stopped ti.
Did the Undead from above find their way underground…?
Was this the penalty for running out of ti?
‘…There’s no way out of this.’
The Undead procession had completely filled the only corridor.
There was no escape other than punching straight through them, and there was no way I could pull that off.
Even Teleportation would just drop right in the middle of the horde.
I searched desperately for a way out.
But no matter how hard I racked my brain, this ti there truly was no answer.
Am I… going to die? For real?
Feeling death closing in, right at my throat, I laughed bitterly to myself.
Dying because I couldn’t solve a Rubik’s Cube. What a joke.
I never imagined my end would be this garbage of a death.
‘You win, Nightmare, you son of a bitch.’
Must feel great, winning by rigging the ga this hard. Motherfucker.
But I had no intention of dying quietly.
Might as well thrash until the very end.
Resolve set, I released ti and gripped my mace tight.
The ice shattered and the Undead were about to pour into the cavern.
“RAAAAGH…! Huh?”
I’d been about to charge out with a battle cry, but I froze.
A dark energy suddenly coiled around my body.
At the sa ti, the Undead that had been rushing toward all stopped at once, as if they’d lost sight of their target.
What just happened?
I looked down at myself.
A hazy dark aura shimred around like heat haze, and my body had turned semi-transparent.
I looked up at Diul, hovering above my head.
The little spirit was radiating annoyance, grumbling as if this was a huge bother.
‘Is this your ability, Diul…?’
The Undead stood right in front of , staring vacantly into empty space like idiots.
I took a cautious step forward.
As if my very presence had been erased, not even the sound of my footsteps could be heard.
So this was the dark spirit’s second ability?
Concealnt, following Dark Vision.
Ha… Diul, you little rascal!
So you only help when I’m actually about to die!
Wait, this isn’t the ti for that.
While still concealed, I quickly picked up the cube again.
I needed to finish solving it and get the gemstone. Only then could I actually do sothing about this ss.
With a horde of Undead right in front of , I squeezed my brain dry as I worked the cube for several minutes.
‘…Got it!’
I managed to solve the cube.
I slotted the completed cube back into the groove on the rock.
Click.
The gemstone popped free from its slot.
I grabbed the gemstone and looked around at the Undead.
Wait a second…
But how do I get past all of them now?
I gingerly poked one of the Undead with my finger.
It showed no reaction whatsoever.
…So touching them doesn’t set them off?
I carefully made my way through the gaps between the Undead.
Squeezing through the horde shoulder to shoulder, like Sindorim Station at six in the evening. [TL: Sindorim Station is one of the busiest subway transfer stations in Seoul, notorious for extre rush-hour crowding.]
Why did a scene from World W*r Z suddenly pop into my head?
I felt like the protagonist who’d gotten the vaccine and was walking right through the zombies.
‘Hang on, just a little longer!’
I could feel that Diul’s ability was reaching its limit, so I hurried.
At last, I reached the central cavern.
The central cavern was packed with Undead too.
I barely managed to make it to where the boulder stood.
And I slotted the gemstone into the last remaining groove.
The mont all three gemstones were in place and the sun emblem filled completely with light,
FWOOOOOSH!
A brilliant blaze of light erupted from the emblem and engulfed the cavern.
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