The 27th Rio — At the End of the Death-Return Labyrinth, Whose Dream Do You See? - Gray corridor, corpse's eye socket

The strange air of the silent chamber still clung to his back. Rio walked without looking back. His footsteps vanished, swallowed by the cold stone floor. In his right hand, the diaries of his predecessors. His left hand held nothing. Ready to move at any moment. The passage was dark. Only the pale blue moss on the walls barely traced the shadows. He reached a fork. Rio stopped. Opened the diary. On the edge of a tattered page, a hand-drawn map was scribbled. He looked at the floor. Faint arrows were carved there. Old scars pointing right, straight ahead. Next to them, an X mark. The sign of death. "The predecessors wrote it. This way." He turned right. The air felt slightly damp. Old bloodstains spread black along the grain of the stone floor. Traces of something dragged. On the wall, three thin, sharp scratches—clearly not from a beast's claws—ran all the way up near the ceiling. —Someone was caught here. The old scar on Rio's right cheek throbbed faintly. Not his imagination. His body remembered. That scar came from those claws. A bead of cold sweat slid down the back of his neck. A pitfall. One stone in the floor was subtly newer than the others. Hard to spot by eye, but the predecessor's diary said: "Third from the left, the darkened stone." Rio leaped over it lightly, without a running start. The moment he landed, something clicked. No time to look up. Rusted arrows shot from slits in the wall. Two of them. Low trajectory. Rio kicked off the ground and rolled forward to dodge. The arrows struck the stone behind him with a sharp screech and bounced. From the arrowheads on the floor, old green poison seeped out. His breathing quickened for just a moment. (So this is a trap.) The "correct path" his predecessors found through countless deaths. He was walking that narrow path now. Over a hundred deaths' worth. Rio bit his lip and pressed deeper. On the passage wall, glowing letters appeared. The pale light pulsed in the darkness. The same rhythm as a heartbeat. The letters were ancient magical script. Yet somehow, their meaning entered his mind. *Whom will you kill, and by whom will you be killed.* Rio stood still and looked up at the words. Whom will he—kill. No memory of it. His hands had never hurt anyone. ...No. Not *yet*. And—by whom will he be killed. More than fear, a strange sense of acceptance settled in. A future where someone kills him here. The Labyrinth spoke of it as if it were only natural. The letters glowed brighter, as if reflecting Rio's unease, then faded away. Rio clenched his fist and started walking again. *Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.* That wasn't his own footsteps. More irregular. Harder. Like claws scraping stone— Rio drew the short sword at his hip. The leather grip clung to his hand. His body moved faster than thought. His knees dropped naturally. His center of gravity settled. No conscious memory. But his arms, his legs, his eyes—they remembered. A fork in the passage. From the depths of the darkness, it emerged. Gaunt. Humanoid. Skin that might once have been gray was now rotting to an earthy color, ribs visible through it from the outside. Its back was bent, almost crawling on all fours. At the ends of its limbs, what were once fingers had warped into black, deformed claws. Eye sockets. Deep within those hollow holes, a pale blue light glinted fiercely. Ghoul—Shiki. The aberration described in the diaries. Once an explorer, trapped in this Labyrinth and dead. The ghoul opened its mouth in a twisted grin. Inside was nothing but void. "...Come on, then." Fear. The pit of his stomach turned to ice in an instant. But beyond that, a calm self remained. The ghoul leaped. No footsteps. Just a shadow closing in instantly. Claws swung down. The sound of tearing wind. No thought of dodging. His body moved. He pivoted on his right foot, pulling his body sideways, evading the claws by a hair's breadth. A few strands of hair danced in the air. He sank lower. Into the enemy's guard. Before the ghoul's chest. Rio's vision had already locked onto its head—the blue core. Instinct told him. That was the weak point. His right arm moved. The short sword traced an arc. A single flash. His aim was true. The tip of the blade pierced precisely into the fleshless eye socket, through the pale blue light. *Crunch.* The sensation of something hard shattering traveled up his hand. "—Gi... i... ah." The ghoul stiffened, letting out a death rattle. Rio swiftly pulled his sword free and leaped backward. The ghoul collapsed. Before its body touched the floor, the phenomenon began. The corpse started disintegrating, emitting particles of light. It rose like smoke and vanished in moments. All that remained was a single blackened claw and a faint stench of rot. Material conversion. Parts of a ghoul turn into weapons or relics. That's what the diaries said. Rio let out a short breath and gripped his trembling sword hand. "That just now... I did that?" A strange sensation. As if his body was being moved by something other than himself. Imprint memory. The traces of mortal combat his predecessors left in this flesh. Rio reached to pick up the claw on the ground, then stopped his hand. Beside the remains. A particularly small piece of metal glinted dully in the darkness. He picked it up. An oval shape, about the size of a thumb. Rusted and crumbling. Faint letters were carved on its surface. Something a ruin-delver once wore around their neck. —An explorer's dog tag. He tried to trace the surname with his fingertip. In that instant, the tag crumbled to dust with a faint sound. Too brittle. Rotted away. Proof it had spent a long time here with the corpse. Ash-like powder remained on his palm. The blood drained from Rio's face. That ghoul he just killed. It was originally— "You were... an explorer, weren't you?" His voice trembled. Just like him. Delved into the Labyrinth seeking an exit, and then here— Swallowed by the Labyrinth, dead, memory lost, transformed into a monster, trying to kill someone. Forever, until killed. Something black swirled deep in his chest. A shudder close to nausea. "I see." Rio brushed the ash from his fingers. Twenty-six. All his predecessors died. The diaries said so. But Rio had never seen their corpses. Among the ghouls wandering the Labyrinth, were the previous Rios—? That doubt sank heavily to the bottom of his heart, unanswered. —*Scritch. Scritch-scritch-scritch.* His ears caught the sound. From far away. Not just one. More. Several. Rio raised his head. Deep in the dark corridor. Multiple pale blue lights flickered in the darkness. They noticed too. That their comrade was gone. That prey was here. The presence of multiple ghouls was slowly, but surely, closing in. Rio picked up the decayed claw from the ground and forcibly jammed it into his belt. An improvised weapon, left behind by that ghoul at the moment of death. He crushed his fear with reason. With tense fingertips, he opened the next page of the diary. Scribbled letters marked the trap locations. *'Pass through the great hall ahead. There is an entrance to the second layer. However, the traps are most densely packed there. Enough to make the passage traps seem easy. Assume at least three more ghouls are roaming as well.'* Rio closed the page. The footsteps grew louder. A dense zone of traps. A swarm of ghouls. The entrance to the second layer. What he had to do was simple.

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Episode 2

Name: The 27th Rio — At the End of the Death-Return Labyrinth, Whose Dream Do You See?
Author: Novelia

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