Chapter 343
It was as Bruce had said . The staircases didn’t lead down one path .
After climbing a dozen meters upwards, the staircase split into two paths .
The first path splits into three paths . The second path split into two paths .
The Connectors split up into parties as they headed down the various paths .
There was a chance that their enemies were using a divide and conquer strategy . There was a chance that the parties were walking into a trap . However, they didn’t have the time to worry about such a thing .
The only thing they could do was to be a bit more vigilant of their surroundings .
Thankfully, there were no traps . However, Sungyoon realized in time that he would have preferred traps to what he was facing right now . He ground his teeth .
“Uh?”
Tim, who had been walking in the front, sounded flustered .
Sungyoon’s face crumpled .
‘Again?’
It was as he had expected . They had run across another party . It was the party that took one of the other paths .
The warriors were wearing helmets, so he couldn’t see their expressions . However, he could see the expression on the faces of the magicians since they wore cloth over their heads .
They all looked taken aback .
“K . . . Knight’s party? Why are you coming down from above?”
The warrior in the front asked the question .
“We’ve been climbing up our staircase . ”
Sungyoon replied .
“What? That can’t be! We were climbing our staircase too!”
“In truth, you guys aren’t the first ones we’ve encountered so far . ”
Sungyoon brought his hand up to the back of his head to scratch it . He did it out of habit .
However, he had to lower his hand when his gauntlet clashed against his helmet .
“We’ve encountered another party before we arrived here, and we had the exact same conversation . From our perspective, we were climbing up the staircase, but it looked as if they were descending the stairs . ”
“Like right now?”
“Yes . Like right now . ”
The warrior tilted his head . He had an idea what was going on .
“Shit! The tower’s labyrinth is playing with us!”
The warrior clicked his tongue . However, Sungyoon shook his head from side to side . He told the warrior a more horrible truth .
“If the tower is just a labyrinth, there is no way we’ll get confused as to whether we are climbing or descending the tower . I believe space is distorted within this place . ”
“Are you talking about the phenomena that sometimes show up in the Great Labyrinth?”
“Yes . I think it is something similar . ”
The warrior let out a sigh . He probably let out a round of curses within his heart .
Sungyoon had done the same thing . He had inwardly cussed when he found out the truth .
“It can’t be helped . Did you mark the path that you traveled through?”
“I did . ”
Sungyoon took out a specially made pen .
“We also marked our path . In the next crossroads, let us take the path that we didn’t take before . ”
“Understood . ”
The two parties walked past each other .
“This is causing a headache for an entirely different reason than we had expected . ”
Tim checked the time as he spoke . In the beginning, they had moved in silence, but they had encountered unexpected difficulties .
“It can’t be helped . We can only do our job right now . ”
Sungyoon kept calm as he spoke to Tim .
However, his face had turned stiff to a frightening degree within his helmet .
***
Three hours passed, and everyone returned to the original spot . No one looked happy .
“Did you guys come back after getting lost in the twisted staircase?”
“Yes . ”
Russell became disappointed at Sungyoon’s answer .
“What about you, Sir Russell?”
“It was the same . It wasn’t just our party . It was the same for everyone . ”
The gathered Connectors had branched out in small groups to explore the tower . Everyone came back grumbling .
“We held out hope that you experienced something different from us . ”
“I’m sorry for letting your expectations down . ”
“You don't have to apologize . Everyone here failed too including me . ”
Russell patted Sungyoon’s shoulder once . Then he walked towards where all the Connectors were gathered .
“Thankfully, everyone made it back!”
It was the only good news . When Russell spoke loudly, the Connectors focus their attention on Russell .
“Did you draw a map?”
“We made a rough one . ”
Someone handed a piece of paper towards Russell . It was a map of the tower made by piecing together everyone’s information .
It was very rough, but it was better than nothing .
“Alright! Everyone copy it!”
Each party sent out a representative to copy the map . Grace stepped forward for Sungyoon’s party .
If no one in the party was good at drawing, members from other parties drew for them .
“Are you all done drawing it?”
“We did . ”
Each representative waved the piece of paper in the air .
Russell clapped once to get everyone’s attention once again .
“This damn tower is playing with us, but we cannot retreat! We have to find the ‘something’ that can save earth! I have no idea what that ‘something’ is, but we have to find it at all cost!”
He was making an extremely unreasonable demand, but no one refuted his words .
Earth was facing an existential threat, so they had to put their hope into something unreasonable .
“I want you to comb the tower! Don’t miss any spot that gives off a weird vibe! Since we are in a distorted space, the tower is much bigger inside than expected . We can’t go by how large it is from the outside . Still, we have to do this! Be prepared to draw every inch of this tower!”
All the Connectors nodded their heads when Russell spoke .
***
‘It seems someone walked past this place already . ’
Sungyoon thought to himself as he looked at the clear mark pointing towards one of the forked paths .
Grace drew in another pathway on her map .
‘This is getting way too complex . ’
Sungyoon shook his head from side to side when he looked at the map in Grace’s hand .
Grace was drawing the inner structure of a tower, so it looked very different from a normal map .
However, he understood what he was seeing . Grace was a talented drawer, so the map was very detailed .
‘The parties with no one good at drawing will have a terrible time . ’
Grace put her map away .
Sungyoon’s party started to move once again . They decided to go down one of the paths not drawn on the map .
When they turned a sharp corner, something appeared in front of them . Sungyoon and Tim reflexively swung their weapons .
‘Sir Russell!’
The two men desperately aborted their swing . Russell had also swung his sword towards Sungyoon and Tim . He quickly retracted his sword .
“It is you guys . ”
Russell lowered his sword .
“You surprised me . ”
Tim placed a hand over his heart . Russell let out a light laughter .
“We feel the same way, Ross . ”
His gaze headed towards Grace .
When he checked she was ok, he asked Sungyoon a question .
“Did you find anything out of the ordinary?”
“No . We found nothing . What about you, sir Russell?”
“It was the same for us . The only things we saw were stairs and stone walls . ”
Russell knocked on the wall .
“Let’s copy each other’s map .
When Grace heard Sungyoon’s words, she took a step forward . A member of sir Russell’s party stepped forward too .
The two of them looked at each other’s maps, then they started to fill in the empty spots on the map .
“You filled in a lot . ”
Russell spoke as he glanced at the map that was starting to become fleshed out .
“We ran into other parties occasionally, and we exchanged information . Moreover, we’ve been doing this for a while . ”
“It is our biggest problem right now . ”
Worry entered into Russell’s voice .
“We have no idea how long our troops outside could hold out . ”
“Has it been around a day since we entered the tower?”
Sungyoon looked at his watch .
“Correct . We brought a lot of the elite Connectors, and Connectors are a sturdy bunch . They won’t break from fighting for a day . However, the casualties must be mounting . ”
Currently, the Connectors were desperately fighting against the monsters .
“I copied it all . ”
Grace returned with the newly revised map . Sungyoon nodded his head as he looked at Russell .
“Let’s start moving once again . We have no time to waste . ”
“We should . ”
Russell agreed with him .
“Be careful . ”
“You too, sir Russell . ”
The two parties walked past each other, and they forged ahead once again .
“Do you think the map is close to being finished?”
Sungyoon asked the question to Grace .
“We’ve checked most of the paths . There aren’t many paths that we haven’t explored yet . ”
It meant that their task was close to being finished . However, Grace, Sungyoon, Tim, and Emily didn’t look thrilled about that prospect .
“Still, we have no idea if the unexplored paths diverge further . ”
It was as Tim had lamented . The unexplored paths diverged further into numerous paths .
However, this worry paled in front of their other worry .
“What if we don’t find anything out of the ordinary after we search all the paths?”
No one replied to Emily’s words . They were slowly mapping out the entire tower, and their biggest worry was finding nothing .
“Let’s worry about that after we search all the tunnels . ”
Sungyoon tried to soothe his party members . Sungyoon and his party members pressed down on their worries as they started walking once again .
“You are probably right, Mr . Sungyoon . We should worry after we . . . !”
Tim stopped speaking . He came to a halt as he looked at his surroundings . Sungyoon and the others came to a stop too .
“…what the hell is this?”
Tim’s words expressed what everyone was feeling .
Sungyoon slowly looked around his surroundings .
“…it seems we found the ‘something’ that we’ve been searching for . ”
The stone walls surrounding the staircase were nowhere to be seen . Only darkness could be seen . Sungyoon spoke in a low voice .
It wasn’t as if they couldn’t see, because it was dark . Connectors could see their surroundings using magical energy, and there was plenty of magical energy in their surroundings .
In fact, the magical energy in this place was very dense .
It was like being in a Great Labyrinth . Their vision hadn’t been blocked .
“There is nothing here . ”
Emily’s voice rang out through the space . Tim carefully waved his hand towards his side . His arm moved through the space without disturbing anything .
It was a space with nothing except the staircase, which Sungyoon’s party was standing on .
“L . . . let’s head back for now . Sir Russell said we should return if we found something out of the ordinary . ”
Emily expressed her opinion, but Grace disagreed with her .
“I want to, but we have no way of doing that . ”
“No way of doing what?”
Instead of saying anything, Grace pointed backward .
Emily’s eyes widened when she looked backward .
“The staircase . . . is gone?”
It was as if the staircase had been built up to this point . The stairs came to an abrupt stop behind them . There was only absolute darkness behind them .
“Huh? What the hell? We came here using the stairs!”
“Please stay calm . ”
Sungyoon pacified Tim, who was flustered .
“This is probably the distortion of space within the tower that has been troubling us up until now . ”
“What should we do?”
Grace asked for Sungyoon’s opinion .
Sungyoon stood at the edge of the severed staircase, and he looked downwards .
“I’m guessing it’ll be a bad idea to jump off here . ”
Tim, Emily, and Grace nodded at the same time .
“Since we can’t go back, we have only one remaining option . ”
Sungyoon looked up the staircase . The others followed his gaze upwards .
Unlike the dead-end staircase behind them, the stairs continued upwards . Moreover, they could see light emanating from an exit .
“Let’s go . It seems we have no choice . ”
Sungyoon and his party members started climbing up the staircase .