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Chapter 109 Labyrinth [4]

I stumbled forward slightly.

When all was said and done and I managed to recover my bearings, I looked up to see the hooded figure staring at me without saying a single word.

"....."

However, there was something about that gaze that felt familiar.

\'....What do I do now?\'

I was in a bit of a slump at the moment. From the way he was looking at me, it seemed as though he knew me.

Or more specifically, the previous Julien.

The problem was...

\'I have no idea what his relationship with the previous Julien is.\'

Were they friends? Colleagues? Enemies...?

Furthermore, if they knew each other, wouldn\'t it be easy for him to tell that I wasn\'t the real Julien? The more I thought about the situation, the tenser my body became.

"....."

In the silence that gripped the surroundings, I stood still while meeting the hooded figure\'s gaze.

That was until the figure brought its hands toward its hood and pulled it down.

"Ah..."

Immediately, my expression changed.

"Professor."

The one standing before me was none other than Professor Bucklam. Wearing his trademark warm smile, he greeted me.

"Phecda. It\'s been a while."

I blinked.

Ah, right. That was indeed my name.

Staring at his complexion and seeing that he was doing well, I nodded slightly.

"You\'re looking a lot better since the prison. I take it you\'ve been doing well since I last saw you."

"Haha, well. It\'s a nice place."

"It is."

I looked around and leaned my back against one of the walls.

\'....So the one who he was familiar with was me, but not the previous Julien?\'

How odd. For a moment, I was convinced that the reason he looked at me like that was because he knew the previous Julien. Instead, it was me.

It took me aback.

Amid my thoughts, the Professor looked down at my ankles.

"That?"

"It\'s nothing."

I raised my arm to display the threads.

".....My teammates will come here soon. I did it so that I don\'t lose sight of them."

"Ah."

The professor nodded his head.

Then, as if recalling something, he handed me a small map alongside a device.

"This is?"

"It\'s a map of the dungeon. This device over here will tell you the general location of the other members within the Labyrinth. They will be represented in a red dot. On the other hand, the blue dots represent the cadets."

Other members...?

Although I somewhat expected the situation, it still left me slightly shaken. For them to have such a detailed map of the entire Labyrinth... Just how did they do it?

The thought lasted a few seconds before I was suddenly reminded of a certain figure.

\'....No, rather, this makes sense.\'

Atlas Megrail.

I had done a little digging up after our last meeting. It was there that I came to know of his identity.

It was also that understanding that truly made me aware of how powerful the organization was.

For them to have a potential contender for the crown and a high-ranking member of the Academy...

\'It\'s no wonder shit keeps happening.\'

To make matters worse, they not only operated within one empire but all four major ones. Their strength wasn\'t something a simple Academy could contend with.

The thought made me shudder.

"...."

Still, I took the map and device without hesitation.

The device was rather small. It was about the size of a stopwatch, and in it, I could see red dots.

\'It\'s like a radar...\'

No, it was practically a radar.

On the display, there were two red dots. It was probably us.

\'This will be useful.\'

Then, I turned my attention towards the map. Staring at it for a good moment, I found myself frowning after a bit.

\'This is more complicated than I expected.\'

While I had indeed thought that the Labyrinth was big, the map gave me a true view of just how big the Labyrinth was. It was massive.

In fact, judging from where we were, I felt my lips twitch.

\'We\'re barely still at the entrance.\'

We were nowhere near close to the center of the Labyrinth.

"Huu."

Taking another quick skim of the map, I folded it and placed it in my pocket. I then turned to look at the Professor.

"I\'ve been wondering for a bit now. But how did you manage to get yourself involved in this mission?"

Professor Bucklam was a rather controversial figure within Haven. His appearance here wasn\'t something I expected from him.

Then again, if it was because he wanted to meet me again, it made sense.

"....It wasn\'t exactly hard. The mission was posted on the \'Mission Board\' and I just took it. Since I met the criteria, it all went smoothly from there."

"I see."

I nodded, pretending to have understood what his words meant. For now, I kept the words \'Mission Board\' in mind. It was a new piece of information.

In any case, there was something that I was curious about.

"If you don\'t mind me asking, what\'s the mission about?"

"Oh, that."

Pondering, the Professor began to explain.

"We have several units moving around taking care of the lower-rank cadets. The boss monster is also affected. We\'ve drugged it with some Orphion. It was originally, a medium-ranking Junior rank monster. With the drug, it should be just beneath the threshold of Terror rank. Not quite there yet."

".....Oh."

I was only able to understand a small part of his comment.

However, I could more or less understand what he was trying to imply.

\'The lower-ranked cadets don\'t gather much interest from the crowd. My best guess is that they want the higher-rank cadets to move toward the boss where they will all suffer critical injuries due to how powerful it is. At the same time, since most of the attention is on the higher-rank cadets, their suffering will be witnessed by the entire Empire which in turn can be used as a weapon to push Delilah out.\'

It was a somewhat simple plan. One that I could follow.

But there were a few things that weren\'t clear to me.

"What about the Chancellors? How are you planning on dealing with them?"

Last I recall, they were all incredibly powerful people. There was no way they\'d notice that something was amiss.

Especially Delilah.

Who could even stop her...?

"I\'m not entirely sure."

The Professor replied with a helpless smile.

"It\'s information that\'s beyond someone of my rank. Most likely, a few big shots have been sent to take care of them."

".....I see."

That made sense.

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

The Professor nodded.

"I just came here to give you the files. Since we\'re working together and all."

"Ah, I see. Thank you very much."

What a sweet guy. It was a good idea to work with him.

"For now, I\'ll complete the mission. What will you do Phecda?"

I thought for a moment before answering.

"...I\'ll probably interfere."

"You will?"

"Yes."

I could just ignore the entire situation, but I didn\'t want to fail the quest. I was still unsure of what the failure would bring, but the boost in stats was quite appealing to me.

.....If I could do it, then why not?

"Do you need me to do anything?"

"No, that\'s fine. It\'s not ideal for you to move. We proceed as you planned in the prison."

"Understood."

With a nod, the Professor was just about to put his hood back on when I stopped him.

I held up the thread and showed it to him.

"If you don\'t mind, is it okay if I attach this to your ankle?"

Before he could ask why, I explained.

"The radar doesn\'t exactly tell me where you are. It only tells me the general location of every one. It would be better if I attach this to you."

".....I see."

The Professor didn\'t seem to be quite on board with the idea, but eventually, he sighed and agreed.

"Sure. I\'ll do it."

"Thank you."

With a flick of my hand, the thread moved down and attached to his ankle.

Perhaps surprised by how quick the process was, he looked up.

"That\'s it?"

"That\'s it."

What else was I supposed to do?

"Alright, I\'ll be leaving now."

"....Yes."

With a nod, Professor Bucklam donned his hood back on and turned to head in the opposite direction.

I stared at his back until it eventually disappeared from my sight.

It was nice to see his face again.

***

Within the quiet corridors of the Labyrinth, a hooded figure moved. It had been a few minutes since he had separated from Phecda, and after walking a few more steps, Giel stopped.

".....It\'s sad I wasn\'t able to get more information."

Contrary to his previous voice, his voice changed, becoming more hoarse.

"At least, he seems to be committed to his role."

Beneath the hood, the face wiggled, morphing from what had previously been the Professor\'s face to a new one.

With two glowing red eyes and a youthful face, the figure massaged its mouth.

"Umm, haa... Huu... Hee..."

Gradually, he started to get accustomed to his normal voice as he went on to mutter.

"....It\'s always a pain to change my voice."

Indeed, [Mimic] was a unique innate skill of his. It enabled him to change his voice and face as he wished. So long as he had a sample of them, it was no problem for him.

In any case...

"It was nice to see him again."

Phecda.

It was a familiar face.

They weren\'t close, but they knew each other.

"He\'s different from the past."

He was a lot calmer than compared to his past self. In fact, it was odd to see him like that.

"I better report this. It seems like Phecda is committed to following his role."

It was no coincidence that he had appeared before Phecda and his team. In fact, he had been waiting for them from the very start.

He had been assigned a goal beforehand.

One, to give Phecda the necessary tools to carry on the mission. Secondly, to gauge his intentions and gain some information from him.

Phecda\'s change in behavior was rather noticeable.

There were a few similarities to how he acted in the past, but he was also very different.

Giel was able to confirm this upon meeting him.

"I might need to observe more, but he is certainly different."

The reason Giel had disguised himself as Professor Bucklam was because he had been helped by Phecda to escape the prison.

It was also to check if there was anything between the two.

There were a few things that didn\'t make sense in the prison escape. For one, Phecda shouldn\'t have been aware of what was going on.

Secondly, there were a few things that didn\'t match up between the Professor\'s statement, and the other escapee\'s statements.

There were a few discrepancies that he needed to check out.

That being said, there was something peculiar that caught his attention during the conversation.

"Proceed as planned in the prison?"

It was an interesting piece of information. So was there really something between the two?

"I wonder, could it be that the t—Uh?"

Halfway through his sentence, Giel suddenly felt a discomfort.

The world suddenly looked unbalanced. Almost as if it was tilting. What came after that was a sudden wave of weakness.

Thud!

One that suddenly turned extremely painful as he fell to his knees.

"W-what...?"

Stunned, he looked towards the ground.

There, his eyes widened as he noticed a large pool of blood coming from his ankles. No, rather...

"M-my foot...!"

It was gone.

Tok—

Just then, the faint sound of a footstep echoed in the distance.

"It\'s..."

Giel\'s eyes widened as a dark figure approached from the distance.

Tok—

With another step, his figure became clear.

"....You."

Giel\'s expression changed at the sight of the person ahead. Before he could say anything else, a hand reached out for his face.

A cold voice followed after as Giel\'s world turned dark.

"....Like I said, it was nice seeing his face."