Chapter 212: Like Lovers Do (1)

「Wait, think about it—this means we’re completely alone in this massive place!」

「Not exactly… the other guys who got caught in the forced transfer with us should be around here somewhere, too.」

「But didn’t you say there’s zero statistical probability of running into them?」

「Well, that’s true.」

「Heheh, Hyun-nim… did you guide me into a dark, secluded place like this because you had an alternative motive, perhaps…?」

Even without the neural link of their Assimilation, Hyun could practically see the corners of Ain’s mouth curling upward in a mischievous grin. Her tone gave away her exact thoughts.

「I know exactly what’s running through your head, but the scenario you’re imagining isn’t going to manifest, okay?」

「Huh…?」

「I actually brought along a fully rendered grid layout of this floor from the Interloop map logs.」

Hyun seamlessly shared a three-dimensional holographic map packed with guide vectors directly to Ain’s visual interface. It was a 3D structural model outlining their optimal route from the starting zone all the way to their meeting point with Louise.

Even though he had successfully traversed this floor once during his Asra days, it was physically impossible to memorize such a hyper-complex, shifting layout. If he hadn’t secured this exclusive map from the Interloop logs, he wouldn’t have even considered stepping foot into the labyrinth in the first place.

Whosh!

Simultaneously, a twin pair of crimson flames erupted violently from Ain’s hands.

Having party-queued with her for so long, Hyun could now read her mechanical patterns like an open book. There was only one reason she would intentionally deploy Ifrit’s Claws in a completely vacant corridor with zero enemy aggro and decent lighting.

「Listen, if you’re going to get this embarrassed afterward, maybe don’t drop hints like that in the first place!」

「What are you talking about?! My mind is completely blank right now, okay?!」

「Mmh… sure it is.」

Seeing Ain react exactly as anticipated, Hyun chose not to explicitly call out the emotional data he had just read through their link.

‘Should I check on the spatial distribution of the remaining players?’

Maintaining Assimilation, Hyun propelled Ain’s character into a high-speed sprint through the maze. To an unmapped user, this zone was a multi-day trap, but to someone operating with verified navigational coordinates, the entire layout could be cleared in less than ten minutes. It took a mere handful of heartbeats for them to slide into the exact coordinate center of the 16th floor.

‘This is the spot.’

A structured artifact known as a ‘Compass’ was hard-coded into the center of every single floor within the labyrinth. Similar to a Demonic Eye Orb, it was a system utility designed to scan and register anything emitting a concentrated mana signature within the zone.

While its primary intent was allowing players to track hidden monster hordes or secure an exit vector when completely lost, it could occasionally be repurposed for alternative tracking methods like this.

Click!

The moment Hyun slotted a basic mana crystal into the structural groove on the floor, eight brilliant spheres of pure white light materialized on the ceiling architecture.

A single white sphere represented an individual soul registering a mana signature within the map instance. In short, the constellation of glowing dots mapped out the exact real-time coordinates of every entity currently populating the 16th floor.

‘Wait… eight dots?’

Looking up at the ceiling, Hyun’s eyes widened in slight surprise. According to the light signatures compiled by the terminal, there were precisely eight living entities currently processing within the 16th floor boundary.

‘First, the two overlapping signatures right in the epicenter are obviously me and Ain.’

The single dot lagging behind their path vector represented Parmu’s soul signature. The three dots scattered randomly across disparate quadrants of the grid belonged to the vultures who had been hungrily eyeing the Named monster earlier.

‘Then what about the remaining two?’

An unidentified duo was actively charting a course across the 16th floor.

Had a pair of unflagged bystanders accidentally been caught in the outer blast radius of Parmu’s boundary field without his knowledge? Or was there another stealth-tier Named monster native to the 16th floor? Alternatively, could it be high-spec Rankers capable of organically grinding down to this tier?

‘We need to check it out.’

Isolating the coordinates of the mystery duo proved to be incredibly straightforward. Just like his own configuration with Ain, there was another distinct sector on the grid where two light signatures perfectly overlapped.

Conveniently, the position was located right within their immediate radius. Spurring Ain into a sprint toward the vector, it didn’t take long for the faint echoes of human voices to ripple down the wide stone corridors.

“Is anyone there?”

“Hello? Is anyone out there?”

It was the distinct voices of a man and a woman.

‘They’re actual users!’

The original four-man vulture party he had scanned earlier didn’t include a female avatar, meaning this duo belonged to an entirely separate, unflagged party instance. Silencing Ain’s footsteps, Hyun quietly pulled up behind a masonry partition to eavesdrop on their dialogue.

“Is anyone out there?!”

Drawer, Reward.

If you reversed the characters of one ID, it formed the exact spelling of the other. The two were a deeply committed real-life couple who had customized matching usernames, and they were currently locked in a highly tense, anxious argument in the middle of the vacant 16th-floor corridor.

“This is bad. We’ve definitely triggered an advanced trap instance.”

“You should have listened to me when I told you not to touch that glowing pattern!”

During its transition phase, Parmu had systematically fractured the ceiling and floorboards to spin its colossal web matrix. The sole reason this completely unrelated couple had been swept into the spatial transfer zone was because the teleportation boundary field’s vertical grid volume had bled through the floorboards of the upper tiers.

“But Reward… I think my character is in a critical state.”

The male avatar, Drawer, looked visibly pale.

“The toxic spine trap that grazed me earlier… my health bar isn’t recovering at all.”

“What? Did you cycle through your antitoxins?”

“I used them, but the system is completely overriding the item effect.”

“This is exactly why I kept telling you the Labyrinth was too dangerous! We shouldn’t have queued for this dungeon!”

Reward continuously thrown out complaints, but despite her sharp words, her voice was completely laced with hyper-intense anxiety for Drawer’s survival. Even as they spoke, Drawer’s HP bar was steadily ticking down into the red.

“I just… I really wanted to show you what the interior looked like. I heard rumors on the forums that the luminous blue mana crystals that drop down here are incredibly beautiful…”

Clack.

Right at that exact second.

Almost as if by magic, a brilliant blue crystal slid smoothly around the corner of the masonry wall, coming to a halt right before their boots. The couple’s frantic dialogue ground to an absolute halt, and Reward’s jaw slowly dropped.

“Did a high-tier gem just drop out of thin air…?”

“No, that’s a premium mana crystal, Reward.”

“Where did it slide out from? Around that corner?”

Reward slowly took a step toward the crystal, but Drawer quickly grabbed her wrist, pulling her back with a firm grip.

“Wait, don’t touch it. An item drop like this definitely has an owner.”

“Huh? Ah…!”

“Right, the regional rules here prevent items from being automatically siphoned into a player’s inventory upon drop.”

Judging by the fresh drop animation, another high-spec party was undeniably clearing mobs just around the corner. They were likely too locked into a high-intensity combat loop to spare the micro-frames required to manually harvest the loot.

Yet, looking at it from that perspective, the atmosphere on the opposite side of the wall was completely, unnervingly silent.

“But I don’t hear any combat audio or skill cues.”

“Hmm, that’s highly irregular.”

The couple remained completely frozen in place for over a full minute.

“I know it’s technically bad manners to spectate another user’s active pull… but since there’s zero audio, maybe we can sneak a quick glance? It might not be a standard combat instance.”

“Be careful, Drawer-ssi! What if it’s a rogue PK trap?”

“It’s fine. Honestly, if it’s a trap, it might actually work out better for us. If I can harvest an unowned crystal to gift you the prettiest gem in the game, I’d gladly take the risk…”

Just as Drawer cautiously stepped past the partition…

Step.

A petite girl wearing a specialized hood stepped smoothly into the corridor light. Bending down to harvest the crystal from the stone floor, she muttered under her breath.

“Looks like they aren’t affiliated with that vulture guild.”

“Whoa, a player?!”

“Ah, please don’t misinterpret this! We weren’t trying to ninja your loot or anything…!” Reward waved her hands frantically in a state of absolute panic.

Hyun casually scanned the duo’s configuration. The moment his eyes locked onto their tightly intertwined hands, a look of realization dawned on him, and he nodded internally.

‘Ah, they were physically holding hands.’

Entities maintaining physical contact during a spatial shift were hard-coded to transfer to identical grid coordinates. The only reason this duo hadn’t been systematically separated across the 20-kilometer map instance was because they had been holding onto each other for dear life.

While Hyun was simply deducing the technical logic behind their shared spawn coordinates…

Gasp!

The couple completely misinterpreted his silent stare and instantly yanked their hands apart in sheer panic. An incredibly tense, awkward atmosphere suddenly filled the damp corridor.

「Reward-ah, do you think this player… could be a rogue Member of a PK Slaughter Squad?」

Asrian was infamous for harboring all sorts of toxic, degenerate player demographics. Among them, the most notorious were the ‘Slaughter Squads’—toxic high-level users who actively hunted down and griefed in-game couples without a single care for their global infamy metrics.

「No way, she’s solo…」

「Still, just to be mathematically safe, don’t hold my hand or act close.」

The two urgently exchanged worried whispers. They had already been targeted and jumped by random high-level players at least three times in the past simply for running a couple’s configuration in public zones.

Fortunately, those past attackers hadn’t been particularly skilled, allowing them to escape. But this hooded girl was navigating the deep layers of the labyrinth entirely solo—a clear indicator that her mechanical output drastically eclipsed their own.

While the duo maintained a hyper-vigilant stance, Hyun was busy processing their status menus to analyze their combat parameters.

Ain scanned their gear profiles and murmured internally, 「Hmm… they look to be sitting right around Level 140 or 150.」

「Yeah, that gear spec means they can barely manage basic pulls on the 1st or 2nd floor tiers. They definitely got caught in the collateral blast radius of Parmu’s boundary field by pure accident.」

As a flurry of tactical assessments ran through his mind, Hyun’s eyes narrowed as he noticed the distinctive, sickly emerald hue spreading across the male player’s skin mesh.

‘Did he get afflicted by a high-tier environmental toxin?’

Before Drawer could even process her movement, Ain casually tossed an object through the air. Drawer caught it out of pure reflex.

“That’s a high-grade antitoxin. Drink it and the status condition will clear.”

“An antitoxin…? But I’ve already cycled through standard pots and none of them—wait, whoa?!”

The exact moment the liquid cleared his throat, the emerald tint on his skin mesh rapidly receded, restoring his avatar’s original color palette. The lethal, automated HP drain on his status bar ground to an absolute halt.

Potions in this game operated on a strict tier hierarchy; advanced, high-potency status conditions could only be overridden by corresponding high-grade neutralizing items.

It was an incredibly sudden, unprompted act of kindness.

The individual who had made the executive decision to hand over the item was Ain. When Hyun sent a wave of tactical confusion through their link regarding her unprompted charity, her voice drifted back through their spiritual link.

「Heh, Hyun-nim, I could tell you were secretly worrying about their status bars from the background. So I simply stepped in and executed the move on your behalf!」

「…I honestly wasn’t thinking about that at all.」

「Are you sure about that?」

Catching the distinct trace of amusement in Ain’s voice, Hyun chose to remain silent, unable to construct a valid counter-argument. He waited until Drawer stepped forward to break the silence with a deeply grateful bow.

“Um… thank you so much for saving my character. But if you don’t mind me asking, what specific tier of antitoxin was that?”

Since Ain had initiated the interaction, Hyun kept up his current roleplay, adopting her sharp, detached vocal cadence as he tossed out a brief reply.

“It’s nothing special. Just a standard antitoxin solution refined using a processed mana crystal.”

“A mana crystal?! You’re saying you actively expended a premium mana crystal just to craft this single potion…?”

“Well, that’s precisely why your health bar stopped bleeding out, isn’t it?”

“Even so…”

Drawer instinctively wanted to ask if the current market value of a high-tier crystal didn’t drastically eclipse the value of his low-spec character’s life, but he wisely swallowed the thought, realizing it would sound incredibly ungrateful.

“A single Grade-10 mana crystal yields enough raw material to compound over twenty individual vials anyway.”

“Is… is that so?”

“Seriously, thank you so much for helping us out.”

With the verification that the hooded girl wasn’t a rogue player hunter, the intense panic completely melted off Drawer and Reward’s faces.

“By the way… do you happen to know the exact layout of this sector? We’ve never seen a zone like this mapped on the 2nd floor before.”

“We aren’t on the 2nd floor.”

“Huh? Then what tier is this?”

Instead of offering a verbal explanation, Hyun simply extended Ain’s finger toward the stone masonry.

Engraved clearly between the intricate historical murals was the distinct inscription: XVI.

Failing to immediately process that the Roman numerals translated to the number 16, Reward blinked in confusion, asking successive questions.

“Wait, what? What do you mean?”

“This is the 16th floor.”

In an instant, Drawer’s face drained of color, turning just as pale as it had been under the influence of the lethal toxin. Reward froze in identical shock.

Even though neither of them possessed the gear spec to ever access this depth organically, every active player on the forums had caught wind of the terrifying urban legends surrounding the 16th and 17th tiers of the Labyrinth.

“Is… is that actually true…?”

The absolute geometric hell-tier—a domain where once a player set foot, it was mathematically impossible to secure a conventional exit vector.

“Now that I think about it… there isn’t a single monster spawning in our radius! And we haven’t encountered a single mechanical trap either!”

“W-What is going on, Drawer-ssi?! We were literally just standing on the 2nd floor! How did our characters drop down here?!”

“The literal 16th floor…! How on earth did the system transfer us to a zone like this…?”

Drawer could only blink in absolute disbelief, his fingers trembling as he lightly traced the endless string of XVI symbols carved into the stone blocks. He desperately wanted to believe it was a visual glitch, but the sheer volume of system architecture surrounding them ruthlessly confirmed their exact coordinates.

‘Wait a minute!’

A sudden bolt of curiosity struck Drawer’s mind as he watched the hooded girl casually turn on her heel to resume her march down the corridor.

How was this solo player navigating a legendary hell-tier completely by herself? Furthermore, considering she was marooned on the 16th floor, her posture was entirely devoid of the absolute panic currently paralyzing their own inputs.

Clinging to a faint shred of desperation, Reward called out to her back.

“Um, excuse me…! Do you happen to know the navigational route leading back up to the surface?”

“I have zero intentions of ascending right now.”

The flat response caused Drawer and Reward’s expressions to instantly dissolve into pure despair. If this high-spec player had also been dragged into this zone via an unmapped system glitch just like them, it was entirely logical that she wouldn’t possess a verified exit strategy either.

This was the infamous dead-zone of the labyrinth. The exclusive method left for average users to escape its geometry was to systematically murder each other to force a graveyard respawn…!

However, a split second later, the girl’s voice drifted down the corridor once more.

“I’m charting a course to descend even further down.”

“…?”

For a brief second, both of them actively questioned their own auditory processing. However, as the girl’s walking speed rapidly accelerated into a fluid sprint, they were instantly snapped out of their daze.

“Drawer-ssi, what should we do…?!”

“For now, we have to keep up with her!”

“But she literally just said she’s descending deeper into the dungeon!”

“Yeah, but if her routing actually allows us to cross the threshold into a completely separate floor instance, navigating any other zone is going to be infinitely better than remaining trapped in this geometric prison!”

The hooded girl’s movement velocity was remarkably high. Her character model dynamically fluid-shifted through the labyrinth corridors like an elite acrobat tracking an optimized speedrun. Realizing that a single frame of distraction would cause her to completely vanish from their line of sight, the couple poured every ounce of their stamina into their controls, desperately struggling to mirror her pace.