Chapter 198: Annoyance

Chapter 198: Annoyance

With the exploration of the eye layer out of the way, Sofia would have now liked to understand how to leave it. Last time it had been a close call with the monster, now she should be able to easily outrun it, in theory at least, but it was still risky to awaken it. From what she had seen last time, the amalgam monster was like a tidal wave; it looked like it would flood the entire maze if given enough time. With that in mind, baiting it around the maze to loop back around and check the room behind it was unlikely to work.

Last time it woke up when I got too close, but maybe theres a way to prevent that, but I have my doubts. I had the rune on last time and it didnt help. Does it have to do with the eyes? Maybe something like invisibility could do the trick but I do not have that

Sofia spent a few minutes trying everything she could think of to get the eyes on the walls to stop staring at her. Her theory was that if someone managed to make the eyes lose sight of them, it could be an encouraging sign that the monster might not wake up. However, she would never be able to confirm it, as no matter what she tried, the eyes never stopped looking in her direction. If Pareth or a book summon walked away, some of the eyes would look at them too, so this was no good either.

For all I know, this might mean nothing anyway, what else can I do?

Sofia only saw two possible choices for the moment, either she stored Pareth and ran a bit more or spun around on herself to try getting out, or she could bolt it and see what happens.

That was how, standing at the furthest point in a straight line she could be from the monster, she held an angels bolt stronger than any she had ever used. The monster was still just some kind of a colored mass far away, very easy to aim at. With her rune still on, she pushed more and more mana into the spell until her arm started to disintegrate from the sheer heat and power gathered in her hand. She let that thing loose, almost four times the power of the original.

Before anything else happened, she was ejected backwards from the recoil. Pareth was there to catch her and soften the blow. The wild trait of energy hit the still immobile form of the horrendous monster. Sofias senses were a bit overwhelmed as she was first blinded, then deafened and burned by the heatwave. So far all was going as expected.

She couldnt heal because of the rune, but that wouldnt prevent her from running after she confirmed what happened to the monster. Her mana senses would be more than enough to navigate an empty maze she knew the whole layout of. Pareth could still see so Sofia looked through his eyes for now. When the explosion receded, it first revealed a portion of the maze which was only the black speckled stone, now stripped of all its usual stone bricks. The eyes had escaped the explosion and all gathered in a huge swarm at the edge of the destroyed area.

Finally, Sofia saw the purple eye monster. It was still alive, and now very awake, already, countless maws were appearing all over its form. It was hard to tell whether the bolt had inflicted any real damage at all. Expanding like a slime about to explode, it filled everything as it poured through the corridor.

Sofia stored Pareth and ran away.

I expected as much but Im still disappointed.

She easily outran the monster, its distant roaring and the shaking of the whole maze a constant reminder that it was still chasing. Not too surprisingly, there was no layer change happening at all until she found herself in a dead end and turned around, then she was back on the woodmen layer.

So at least this way out is consistent, nice. I also now know I cannot kill that thing no matter what, so the orb better be behind it, or Im never getting it. Sofia sat down and let the blood loss from her mangled arm finish the job of activating her rune.

After her revival, some rest, and the applying of another rune, Sofia got up and started hunting for this levels orb. She felt she had a solid idea to get the eye layers orb too, as long as it really was in the corridor behind the monster.

Seriously Is that normal? Is the trial broken? Is this meant to be like this?

Sir scribe, is this an error?

There was no answer. Usually, when the system fucked up and she complained, the scribe would notice, but since it stayed silent, it could only mean one thing. This was how the trial was meant to go.

Sofia picked up the largest remaining part of the orb, she could infer from it that the orb was originally an empty glass sphere. Examining the hundreds of scattered fragments, it did not seem to have any inscriptions or anything special about it.

Was I wrong from the beginning? Is the goal not to gather the seven orbs?! What then? Or am I meant to fix this?

Hmm I could go ahead and get [Restore command] from my keywords. That would probably do the trick. But I dont like doing it like that. Not only does it feel like a waste of keywords, but also, what would it say about that trial? Nobody can complete it if they dont have a skill or the technical know-how and tools to repair this thing? That just doesnt feel right at all.

So far everything was hard but never unfair. Even the asshole fleeing orb on floor 97 could be caught without anything fancy like flying as long as you have any strong movement skill which everyone should have at this point.

What is the intended solution?

Unwilling to resort to making a skill for this unless she was completely unable to find another way, Sofia returned to the hole left by the root. It had kept burning, and now she could also follow the hole up.

Will this lead to the eye layer?

The root came from sideways more than up. Sofia followed the gallery left behind after it had burned for a while until the space around her started to feel unstable. She knew that sensation, that was the edge of the trial zone. She had never tried going past it before, but she had a gut feeling that it would be a very bad idea for some reason.

Nothing here either then I did so much for so little progress

This is getting annoying.

Next Im cooking a grilled necrotic ooze, Ive had enough. It feels like I have been stumbling around for weeks!

This maze is a giant pain!