Moon's Labyrinths

Silence descended within the labyrinth . Until a moment ago, he had the distant sounds of footsteps, but now, he no longer heard it . In the dismal darkness, one could hear small laughs .

“Koohk... Koo-koohk...!”

He was trying very hard to suppress his laughter, but some of his mirth escaped his lips . It was an impossible task . He was trying to suppress his delight, yet he let out an extremely cathartic laughter . He did succeed in suppressing the volume of his laugh, albeit barely, so it didn’t ring out within the labyrinth . Still, he was at his limits .

‘Hold it in . I have to hold it in . ’

The idiot was oblivious of his impending death . He was heading towards hell . However, if he heard the laughter, the idiot might realize something was wrong . He might come back .

‘I’ll have to let out my mirth when I get to my Personal labyrinth . ’

At that time, he would be able to let out a truly loud laughter . He would be away from the eyes of others, and he wouldn’t even have to worry about the monsters . He would be able to laugh to his heart’s content .

‘Life is such a fickle thing . I was in the worst mood not too long ago . ’

Nicholas had been in a very bad mood . Of course, it had to do with the incident yesterday . His mood had hit bottom thanks to the continued clean up of the Beginner’s labyrinth . Then, yesterday’s incident dropped his mood further to a new bottom . He never expected his mood could worsen so much, yet he had surprised himself by proving himself wrong .

If he had his way, he wanted to hire a couple girls and drink alcohol for the next couple days . He wanted to go into his Personal labyrinth and hack the monsters into pieces . However, he had to clean up the Beginner’s labyrinth . The commission, which had been dragging down his mood, still hadn’t come to an end . He kept cussing as he headed towards the Beginner’s labyrinth .

Of course, he didn’t plan on working hard towards cleaning up the labyrinth . The Mana Stream will hit in a couple days . Soon, the labyrinth would be refilled with monsters, so the current cleanup was useless . But since he had a contract with the Armstrong city, he acted like he was doing his job . He was doing it in order to keep the higher ups off his back . This was the same for the other high rank Connectors . They were sealing off certain tunnels, but they weren’t going all out in killing the high rank monsters .

Nicholas was subbing in for his colleague, who had guarded this tunnel overnight . He let out a big yawn and started his job as a sentry . At times, he had to kill monsters that didn’t know their place . Aside from those incidents, it was an extremely boring task .

That was why he had been daydreaming about what had happened yesterday . In his mind, he imagined killing Sungyoon in several hundred ways . Besides that, he imagined several thousand ways he would have molested and raped Chelsea and Grace .

“Tsk!”

He clicked his tongue . His sharp senses picked up something coming towards him . But it wasn’t a monster . It was a human .

‘It is another maggot blinded by a little money . ’

The Mana Stream was close at hand, yet this maggot was still trying to earn some chump change . These maggots hadn’t returned to earth . They were the reason why he still had to honor his commission . The cleanup of the Beginner’s labyrinth and Sungyoon made Nicholas hate the beginner Connectors . His anger was stacking up against them . This was why Nicholas wasn’t looking kindly towards the approaching Connector .

“Uh?”

Nicholas, who had been frowning, showed surprise when he caught sight of the approaching Connector . However, his surprise lasted only a moment . A murderous intent appeared alongside his smile .

‘Look who it is!’

The maggot slinking towards his direction had a very familiar face . It had only been a day since Nicholas had seen him . However, this particular Connector had rocketed to the top of his kill list .

It was Sungyoon .

‘Should I kill him right now?’

There were no bystanders . Even if Nicholas killed him, no one would care . He would merely be a single beginner Connector gone missing within the labyrinth . Even if he didn’t take care of the corpse, the monsters would take care of it . Also, the imminent Mana Stream would make sure there would be no evidence . It really was the perfect timing to do this .

‘No . This isn’t it . ’

However, Nicholas shook his head from side to side . That would be too easy . He had a more entertaining idea .

‘You are a Connector, so you should get the full experience of fighting the rest of the monsters . You won’t face the monsters left behind by us . You’ll face the high ranked monsters . ’

Sungyoon still hadn’t noticed Nicholas . Nicholas had superior vision compared to the beginner . It was to be expected .

Nicholas moved his body . He reduced the sounds of his footsteps to the best of his abilities, since he didn’t want Sungyoon to notice . He stood in front of the tunnel that had been cleared . He made sure the non-cleared tunnel looked like it had been cleared and vice versa .

As he had intended, Sungyoon moved by him to enter the depths of hell .

“Koo-koo-koo-koohk!”

Nicholas kept letting out silent laughs as he once again took his original post .

He had been faithfully guarding the tunnel that led straight to the lowest floor of the Beginner’s labyrinth . There was only one entrance, and it led to nowhere else . As expected of a labyrinth, there were many complex tunnels, and this particular one led straight to a place that would be hell for Sungyoon . It would be glorious .

‘If he runs back out after a short amount of time, I’ll just cut him down . That’s all there is to it . ’

What if he couldn’t run away in a short amount of time?

‘He will be dead . ’

The only regret he had was that he couldn’t see the maggot’s despairing face as he would be slowly eaten alive by the monsters .

* * *

‘Shit!’

Sungyoon collapsed to the ground as he placed his back against the labyrinth’s wall . He focused on using his ears to pick up any abnormal sound . Fortunately, he didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary .

‘Why the hell are they here!’

He didn’t know the exact time, but he had been on the run for a couple hours . For the first time, he had continuously kept running into monsters that shouldn’t be present in the Beginner’s labyrinth . He knew the cleanup this time around hadn’t been perfect, but he was encountering high ranked monsters at an alarming rate . After he ran away from the first monster he encountered, it didn’t take him too long to encounter another monster . It was the same type of monster that had been chasing him before, a monster much higher in rank than the ones normally found in the Beginner’s labyrinth .

He realized it at that moment . Something was off about his current location . The Mana Stream was close at hand, yet this place still had a lot of monsters, and they were all high ranked . It was as if this place hadn’t been cleaned up .

‘I entered a place they hadn’t finished cleaning!’

Sungyoon accurately assessed his situation . At the same time, he realized how much danger he was in .

‘Where was it?’

He had a hunch as to where things went wrong . It was where the sentry had been guarding the tunnel . He didn’t know what went wrong, but the most likely explanation was that he had entered into the wrong tunnel .

‘Was he guarding the wrong tunnel?’

Sungyoon could have never imagined that Nicholas was the sentry . That was why he thought the sentry had made a mistake, and he grinded his teeth . He might die, just because of someone else’s mistake .

However, he didn’t have the luxury to rage and continue grinding his teeth .

-Koo-roohk!

He once again heard the cry of a monster . Sungyoon gritted his teeth . It seemed the monster hadn’t located Sungyoon yet .

‘Go away! Please go away!’

He didn’t want to make any sound, so he put his hands over his mouth just in case . The only things moving were his eyes .

After a while . . .

‘It left . ’

The monster’s presence was gone . Sungyoon lowered his hands from his mouth, and he let out a sigh of relief . A sigh escaped from his lungs, a sigh containing many emotions that he couldn’t express with his words .

‘I have to escape somehow—’

But before he could finish his thought, Sungyoon raised his shield .

Pah-jeek!

A bone chilling sound emanated from the shield, and the connector felt his body lift into the air .

“Ah-oohk!”

It was as if he had been hit by an enormous hammer . Sungyoon rolled across the ground in an ungainly manner .

‘What the hell!’

His left arm felt numb, and it wouldn’t move . He clutched at his left arm, as he looked up to find an enormous monster sneering down at him .

‘How? I didn’t sense the monster’s presence!’

He was sure the monster had left .

‘Wait a moment . How did I know it had left?’

When he had heard the growl fade away into the distance, Sungyoon had relaxed . But now, he realized there might have been another possibility .

‘It tricked me?’

Cunning! This was a trait that had been missing in all the monsters that he had encountered up until now .

Sungyoon felt a shiver run down his spine . He was already physically at a disadvantage . If his opponent was cunning . . . .

-Ooh-uhhhhhhh!

The monster let out a roar that rang inside the labyrinth .

Boom! Boom!

It started running towards its target . Sungyoon quickly got up . He saw it reach out with its hand and reflexively swung his mace .

Ting!

The mace had hit its arm, yet an unbelievable sound was heard . Incredible hard scales covered the monster’s body, and it easily deflected his mace .

‘I’m in over my head’

His right arm throbbed as he desperately dodged the Lizardman’s attack . In many ways, Sungyoon was oddly calm as collected his thoughts .

He no longer thought about fighting it . When the Lizardman would show signs of attacking again, he would start sprinting away from it .

Boom! Boom!

The sound of the monster’s footsteps rang out from behind him .

‘Thankfully, it isn’t too fast . ’

It seemed that it was a monster deficient in speed . Still, this wasn’t particularly good news . If its specialization was not speed, it was obvious what was . It would be either strength or endurance .

As Sungyoon ran, he made an assessment of his body .

‘Thankfully, nothing is broken . ’

The strong impact had temporarily numbed his arm . But, feeling was returning to his left arm . It was good news, but it didn’t mean there wasn’t any bad news .

‘My shield is... . ’

He had been busy running away, so he had only taken a glance at his shield . He had seen numerous cracks . He didn’t think it could block any more attacks .

It had almost destroyed a Blue Rank Gem with a single blow . The monster possessed a frightening amount of strength .

‘If I didn’t have this shield in my possession . . . ’

It wasn’t too hard to guess what would have happened . His body would have been obliterated, and his corpse couldn’t even have been pieced together at that point .

‘Still, I was somehow able to run away . ’

Thankfully, the monster was running at a slow pace . It was fast when compared to a normal human, but to Sungyoon, a connector, it wasn’t enough to catch up . Its slow and deliberate gait might have been the reason why it was able to sneak up on him .

However, it was too early for Sungyoon to think that way .

This wasn’t the normal section of the Beginner’s labyrinth where weak monsters were sparsely populated .

-Goo-ruh-ruh-ruh!

He heard a cry of a monster . It sounded clearly different from the monster chasing after him . Sungyoon looked at the tunnel up ahead .

It inevitably made Sungyoon’s face turn pale . His face looked as white as a piece of paper .

Boom!

An enormous paw took a step forward as if it wanted to stomp on Sungyoon’s pitiful hope . He could see sharp claws with a metallic sheen . This new monster had large canines, and its red eyes were vertically slit . It looked at Sungyoon with murderous intent in its eyes .

This new monster blocked Sungyoon’s path .

Sungyoon came to a halt . He had nowhere else to go .

‘Shit!’

Envoys of death were pinching him from both sides . Sink or swim, he had to fight them .

Sungyoon firmed his resolve . He glanced down at his Device . To be precise, he looked at the Gold Gem slotted into the Device .

Jimin had given it to him . She said it was a Gem that might save his life once .

‘I really don’t want to use this . ’

He wasn’t regretting the fact that he had to use it . Since he wanted to save his life, he had no choice but to use it . The reason why he hated using it was something else .

‘I don’t know what ability it’ll give me . ’

As it was a Gold Gem, it would undoubtedly possess a great ability . However, there was a possibility that its ability might not be helpful in his current situation . Sungyoon’s Gold Gem would awaken a special ability in him . If it possessed any other shape, he would have a rough plan knowing its preset function . But, he couldn’t predict what would happen after he activated it .

‘Fuck it . It’s a do-or-die situation!’

Sungyoon activated the Gold Gem .