The Labyrinth Maze(1)

"Wait, Mr. Voidwalker," Celine called out to me after class, approaching me in the hallway.

Turning my head to the side, I faced her.

After the last class, the time we talked about my mother, my students seemed distant. I've come to realize that it had something to do with what we talked about on that day, namely my mother.

Even I could understand why they've been acting like that.

It was probably because of the guilt they felt, which led them to distance themselves, as they couldn't bear facing me right now.

Something I've seen enough times already in mercenary groups, where the mistakes of one killed another member of the group.

Although that was certainly not comparable, the effects of those two situations were very similar.

"Yes?" I responded. "Do you need anything?"

She scratched her cheeks, tilting her head with a closed eye, as she chuckled lightly. "Not in particular, but…"

I raised an eyebrow. "But?"

"Uhm…" Celine turned around and opened her bag, looking for something inside it.

After she found it, she pulled it out and handed it to me. "..after the last class, I've been researching the 'rampaging guardian incident' and found something interesting.."

By now, she piqued my interest.

Turning my whole body around, I watched her with utmost interest as I crossed my arms. "Tell me more."

"Well…" she opened the item that she wanted to give me, revealing it to be a file. "..if you take a look in this file, you can read about the signs that happened before the incident.."

I leaned forward, nodding as I read the document. "Yes?"

Heightened ether density; more common occurrences of monsters and the monsters refusing to attack, preferring to run away, instead of initiating a battle.

These were all signs that my mother once mentioned before she went to the expedition.

"Reading through the files, I noticed that there were some similarities between that time and the current state of the second layer…" she flipped a page, continuing. "Lady Acedia also wanted to take a look, but couldn't, due to the sudden call of help from the Transilvania kingdom."

For a second, my heart felt heavy, as she mentioned that Acedia also wanted to take a look.

However, I quickly calmed down, as I remembered that she couldn't due to the approaching night of the blood moon.

I proceeded to read the file, and compared the signs of the incident and the current time.

"Interesting…" I whispered, resting my chin on my hand. "They do look to be the same."

"Yeah," she nodded while closing the file and giving it to me. "Take this, please."

I raised an eyebrow. "Should you be giving this to me?"

"Haha." She shook her head, laughing in response. "No, I really shouldn't. But most of the mages are already away due to the Transilvania problem, so I don't think that anybody will realize."

As I always assumed Celine to be the 'diligent, quiet type', the way she acted surprised me.

While I didn't know if that was her true personality or if it was just something she did, because she was worried about me, it made me feel touched.

"What an evil student." I joked, as I lightly patted her on the head, flashing a warm smile. "Thank you."

"It's nothing," Celine responded with her own smile, genuinely happy that she was helpful to me. "Just remember to give me it back to me before the mages return. So somewhere around the school festival, I guess..?"

"Of course." I nodded, before focusing my attention on the file she gave me. "I'll be taking some days off then."

"Make sure to teach us something amazing to make up for the lost time." Winking, she giggled before turning around.

"Sure."

***

***

Early in the morning.

While it was a little strange to take some days off, only a little more than a month in, Melina didn't particularly mind.

Especially because my student's satisfaction was so high, she permitted me to take a few days off.

Melina also told me, that at least half of my class went to her, just to tell her how great I was as a teacher, which left quite an impression on her, as something like that never happened before in her time as a principal.

Which was a very long time.

After finishing preparing, I opened my dimensional storage to grab one of my stored ether cores.

Crushing it, it filled my room with the familiar darkness, wrapping around me like the tight embrace of a parent.

Drowning inside the darkness, I awoke to the familiar sight of the black sky.

Feeling the white sand beneath my fingers, I sat up, taking a look around the Depths.

While it may sound crazy to many people, I spent so much time in the Depths that it feels more at home to me than the Overworld.

For some reason, the constant stress and danger that lingered around this place was something that I just got used to.

Quickly, I skimmed over my environment, superficially scanning for any dangers in my close proximity.

Nothing there.

Nodding, I stood up, setting off to go to the second layer.

"Let's do it the fast way." I sighed as I started pumping out ether into the atmosphere, trying to create an artificial portal to the second layer.

While the wishing method surely was the easiest, it was also very time-consuming and unpredictable.

The time it would take to find a portal down to the second layer could range from a few seconds to hours, and I didn't want to bet on my luck.

So I used the faster method. Pumping mana into the Depths and forcefully creating a portal to the second layer.

Although that was very ether consuming, I didn't have enough time to fool around, as I was on a time limit.

While the school festival was still a few weeks away, I only took a few days off.

Calculating the time of the Depths, it would be around a month until I had to go up again.

Bamwf!

It only took a few seconds until I ripped apart a portal to the layer below.

Raising my fingers, I scanned them, trying to gauge how much ether I had used.

The skin on the tip of my fingers turned even paler than my skin already was, revealing my purple mana circuits beneath.

"Tsk." I clicked my tongue. "I really hate this method."

While creating my own portal certainly was fast, it took around half of my ether to exert that much control of the Depths, practically weakening me for at least a few days or so—at least until my body recovered all the ether.

Even though I knew that I was capable of absorbing ether from the atmosphere, I still couldn't figure out how to do it of my own will.

Unlike mana, I couldn't just drink a few potions or suck the mana off from nature at my own will.

And as I was the only one, that could freely utilize ether, I had to find out all those basic things by myself, basically making it hell for me to even try to achieve even a fragment of the things mana could do.

It just wasn't as versatile as mana...I think.

Snapping out of my thoughts, I looked over to the purple portal, ominously levitating a few inches above the ground, changing its shape with every second, as if it couldn't decide how it wanted to look.

It was only an artificial portal, after all, and thus very unstable.

Not wanting to waste any more time, I approached the portal and stepped right through it, suddenly feeling a large wave of heat washing over my body.

As my other feet followed behind, the portal behind me closed, completely disappearing, as looked around.

Similar to the first layer, the second layer also was one made of sand. However, this time it wasn't white sand, but normal golden caramel sand.

The sand grains of the sandstorm crackled as it raged around, forcing me to squeeze my eyes, so as to be able to at least see anything.

Ignoring the loud howling of the raging sandstorm, I took out my stored coat and heap wrappings to shun my skin from the heat.

Focusing ether in front of my eyes, I created a small barrier to protect my eyes from the sand grains.

"...I almost forgot how it felt to be on this layer," I murmured, as I took a look around—this time actually being able to see. "..I wasn't here in a long time..."

I had been in the second layer of the Depths countless times, but it was mesmerizing to me every single time.

Raising my head, I took a look at the entrance of the second layer.

Two gigantic walls of sand stood opposite each other, leaving a small pathway between them, which seemed to be the entrance to the Labyrinth amidst the empty desert.

It was the only entrance to the Labyrinth and, thus, also the easiest way for monsters to ambush the Overwordlers.

Taking in a deep breath, I took a step forward.

Right.

This was the second layer of the Depths.

The Labyrinth Maze.