Chapter 20: Fights, “Cheats?”, and Labyrinths

  The castle remained an aesthetic offense against reality: pure gold, “indestructible” materials, proportions designed to humiliate any sensible architect. An unethical combination, some would say.

  After crossing the entrance, Katherine’s group advanced down a main corridor too wide to be a corridor and too narrow to be a hall. Golden columns repeated with an obsession that only someone like Dinamo would consider “good taste.” The air held a faint shimmer, as if every centimeter of the place was waiting for its turn to betray you. A glow that didn’t come from light, but from the mind.

  Katherine walked at the front without haste, yet without losing a single real instant. Her conceptual bracelet rested on her wrist like a contained threat. Caetano was a step behind, silent, alert to everything. Baek moved with his sword low, no dramatics. Irina and Romero kept formation without questioning it. And Yehiel… Yehiel stared at everything with that strange mix of academic curiosity and this wasn’t in the brochure.

  After all, he was a messenger first.

  They didn’t take long to find them.

  About fifty meters ahead, the corridor opened into a rectangular widening, like a point designed to stop people. And there they were: twelve castle guards, aligned with an almost military symmetry.

  They were decent copies of the all-powerful Dinamo.

  Not perfect—the copies never were—but convincing enough to be unsettling. They all had the same blond face, the same easy superior smile, the same golden sheen on pale skin, with something slightly off, like a drawing redone by someone who remembered the image, but not the soul.

  And above each head, floating, a simple word, visible even without conceptual senses. It wasn’t a nickname. It was a label.

  At the front were six warriors.

  Each carried a spear made of golden material and a simple Spartan shield in the same tone. Their armor was Roman plate, yellow but dulled, as if the gold’s light had been deliberately degraded so it wouldn’t blind the audience too much. They planted themselves with shields forward, spears ready—textbook stance. Above their heads: WARRIOR.

  In the middle, a couple of steps back, stood two support mages.

  Both held wooden staffs—real wood, which was already a mockery—and wore white togas with gold embroidery. The worst part wasn’t the outfit; the worst part was the fake beards. They hung clumsily from their jaws, grotesque on young, well-formed faces. Above their heads: MAGE.

  Beside them, also in the center, were two assassins.

  Completely covered in black cloth. No skin, nothing. Only two pairs of fixed red eyes, unblinking. Each held a dagger in one hand, and the rest of their gear was either hidden or simply didn’t exist until they needed it. Above their heads: ASSASSIN.

  In the rear, closing the formation, were the last two: archers.

  Hunter’s clothes, simple leather armor, relaxed posture. Their bows were an unpleasant mix of gold and wood, like someone couldn’t decide between “elegance” and “folklore.” Above their heads: ARCHER.

  There was no mystery.

  They were archetypes.

  A repeatable template.

  The kind of guard the group was supposed to face again and again throughout the rest of the castle, while time ran down and Dinamo’s game became more fun for him.

  The silence lasted half a breath.

  Then one of the front warriors moved.

  He didn’t walk. He ran.

  His acceleration was brutal. In a blink he’d crossed half the distance. His speed rivaled the fastest currently serving Katherine, which was a serious statement for a “cheap copy.”

  But his attack…

  His attack was a joke.

  A straight thrust, spear forward, shield closing the angle. Simple. Telegraphic. Made so the audience would understand what was happening.

  Everything about his posture screamed: NPC. There was no other way to see it.

  Baek saw him coming with the calm of someone watching rain fall.

  He stepped forward.

  His speed barely surpassed the guard’s. He didn’t need more—though he also couldn’t give more than that.

  Either way, his advantage was unbeatable: the weapon.

  Dinamo could create many things, but there were materials that, by design or by real limitation, he couldn’t properly counter. That was why even he avoided crossing iron with certain “impossible” weapons.

  Baek raised his sword and made a cut.

  An easy one.

  One that any shield-bearing warrior would read as “defendable.” One even the most incompetent would block by accident.

  And that was exactly what he wanted.

  The warrior reacted as he should. He rotated the shield, tightened his stance, prepared to absorb the impact and return a counterthrust with the spear.

  A textbook posture.

  The problem was that Baek’s cut wasn’t a cut meant to “hit.”

  It was a cut meant to “split.”

  The blade went in smoothly, as if the shield were cardboard. It divided the golden material, went through the arm, through the armor, through the intention.

  He never had a chance.

  The warrior was cut in two.

  There was no heroic scream.

  No time.

  Just a clean separation, and then the body began to crumble into golden dust, as if the castle refused to stain itself with real blood.

  The others weren’t surprised.

  That was part of what was unsettling.

  Two more warriors attacked immediately. Same smile. Same absurd confidence. They didn’t even lose their expression when their fate was exactly the same: Baek moved the sword with scalpel precision and split them before they understood they’d already lost.

  The commentator, somewhere, was probably having a mechanical orgasm, if the cheers were any indication.

  But here, in the corridor, the only sound was the sweep of a sword—and that was just the byproduct of Baek’s arm moving.

  Freya let out a short laugh, with the tone of a rich girl being shown a cheap trick.

  “Seriously?” she mocked, not hiding her contempt. “Pathetic. This is the mighty royal guard of that false god? They’re nothing but chickens who don’t know how to hide their heads.”

  “I admit I feel a little disappointed, Frey, but you shouldn’t be so harsh—this seems to be the introduction, as Hana would say. We don’t want your words to come back and bite us later, do we?” Romero laughed awkwardly as he offered that friendly remark.

  Freya only snorted at his comment, brushing it off.

  Hassan didn’t even bother looking at the remains. He just raised a hand, as if he were about to pray—and decided not to. Probably for the best.

  The six warriors had fallen in seconds.

  That left the mages, the assassins, and the archers.

  But they never got to execute a plan.

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  Because Yehiel, who until then had maintained his posture of “useful guest,” did something that broke the group’s rhythm.

  One of his goats stepped forward—the one carrying the black chains and an inexplicable sense of mystery.

  It was one of his most reliable goats. A childhood friend from his point of view, after all: it had been with him since he was fifteen.

  And then it produced a gravitational field.

  There was no visible explosion.

  There was a change in the rules.

  Pressure dropped onto the widening all at once. The remaining guards were crushed against the floor as if their own weight had been multiplied by a thousand. The mages didn’t even get to lift their staffs. The assassins tried to move and only managed to sink further. The archers were pinned; the bow creaked, and everything ended as yellow smears across floor and walls. Dust. As if a hoof had manifested to fuse them with the ground.

  Yehiel didn’t look satisfied.

  He looked like he was thinking: don’t mess with me.

  Caetano turned his head slightly toward him, expression cold and practical.

  “Don’t use your abilities,” he said, without raising his voice. “Not you, nor your companions.”

  Yehiel blinked, genuinely surprised.

  “Excuse me?”

  Caetano didn’t explain immediately. Not because he couldn’t, but because he didn’t feel like wasting time on pedagogy inside a trap-castle. Even less with—for all intents and purposes—a possible traitor who knew when he might turn against them.

  “We’re inside Dinamo’s game,” he finally spat, dry. “The more we show, the easier we make his job. Think, for the love of God—what, is your brain really as you look, or are you just stupid?”

  Without a doubt, Caetano didn’t seem to like him.

  Yehiel frowned, glancing at his companions, who were indignant at that last comment.

  “But if the goal is to get there quickly, isn’t it more efficient…?”

  Katherine cut him off without even looking at him.

  “Yehiel,” she ordered. “Wait.”

  One word. A command.

  No insult. No argument.

  And yet it carried enough weight for the messenger to understand it wasn’t a suggestion.

  “You can intervene from time to time,” she continued. “But you stay in reserve. You can only use physical power—no conceptual abilities.”

  “Not because I lack power, but because I’m not giving him information for free.” Katherine’s thought passed like a cold, accountable line—and vanished.

  Yehiel clenched his jaw.

  He didn’t fully understand why, but he had no choice.

  The conceptual contract didn’t force him to smile, but it did force him to obey as long as his principles weren’t being corrupted. And this wasn’t corruption: it was strategy, however irritating it felt.

  “Understood, Your Excellency,” he replied, with forced politeness.

  Their woolly companions didn’t look pleased. One of the goats kicked the floor once, as if offended by the idea of “waiting.” They all stared with irritation at Caetano’s barely-there smile.

  But in the end, they accepted the situation.

  The corridor was clear.

  Twelve guards fewer.

  And the castle went on as if nothing had happened.

  The march resumed as if nothing.

  The castle didn’t react to the instant massacre at the threshold. It didn’t complain, it didn’t stain, it didn’t warp. It simply kept being the castle: golden, clean, hostile, and deliberately boring in its unimaginative “fun.”

  Yehiel, on the other hand, did react.

  He climbed onto one of the twin sheep—woolly, big, broad-backed—and let himself sink with a weight that wasn’t physical. He stared ahead, but he wasn’t looking at anything. He had the expression of someone who’d been useful for a second, only for his boss to scold him because of someone else’s word.

  Irina noticed without effort.

  She approached calmly, as if stepping in to comfort someone in the middle of a trap-castle were just another task in the day. She climbed onto the sheep’s back with an ease that felt improper for a warrior of her rank, sat beside him, and spoke quietly, without it sounding like pity.

  “Don’t take it too personally,” she said. “Lady Katherine is several steps ahead of us and knows our enemy very well. If she asked you to wait, it’s probably part of some scheme to avoid revealing information too soon. Seriously. Don’t take it so hard.”

  She gave him a beautiful, clean smile. Not flirtatious—simply human.

  Yehiel didn’t look convinced. His pride was still there, intact, and his mind was still searching for an argument that would justify everything. But comfort didn’t come from logic. It came from being treated like a person and not like a tool.

  He nodded slowly. It felt good to be comforted.

  “Thanks… Irina, I really appreciate it.” He tried to repay her by fulfilling one of her requests, which seemed to work if her happy smile was any indication.

  They didn’t say much more.

  They stayed seated, back-to-back against the wool, listening to the sound of other people’s steps, the echo of metal, and the castle’s artificial silence. A comforting silence, as much as that was possible.

  The expedition continued.

  Not far away, by another route, Hanami and Dimitri advanced like a duo badly designed by a bored god.

  “Come on, big guy. You’re the star.” Hanami pointed down the corridor as if she were hosting a TV show. “Go up front and punch through the floor if you want, I don’t care.”

  Dimitri didn’t answer. Not because he didn’t want to—because he couldn’t. Once his berserker trait was active, he was incapable of reasoning. Right now he was nothing more than a rabid animal.

  Hanami kept tossing random comments for her own amusement, even if he couldn’t understand her.

  The important thing was that she was focused.

  On her wrist—or somewhere on her gear—she received the updated route Katherine kept sending her. She changed course constantly: right, left, an impossible turn, a brief backtrack. All based on information coming from Eoin and the castle’s internal readings.

  Hanami didn’t argue with that. She just turned it into a game.

  They rounded a corner and ran into another group of archetype guards. The castle insisted on its concept of “repeatable content.”

  “Huh… more NPCs?” Hanami leaned out like she was browsing a menu. “Big guy, I choose you.”

  She moved behind Dimitri, giving him a clear line of sight to the guards.

  And then Dimitri attacked.

  The monstrosity of flesh—that mass that wouldn’t stop growing, that thing that seemed to exist halfway between anatomy and grotesque—charged with simple violence. There was no technique. No style. There was weight, acceleration, and the kind of strength that made metaphors unnecessary.

  The guards became smears. Smears that became dust.

  The ones who, by miracle or reflex, got close enough to try something against Dimitri died with even less noise.

  Hanami handled them.

  A stab in the back. It had always worked.

  Her concept demanded it, and she obeyed it, even if she didn’t like it. It wasn’t even effort. It was routine.

  “Ah… grinding XP is sooo boring,” she said to the air, walking through golden remains. “Wonder how Kathe-chin’s doing.”

  She didn’t have time to truly worry. She barely had time to breathe.

  The route changed again.

  And they kept going.

  Meanwhile, the main group received new information from Eoin and adjusted their path immediately.

  The decisions were cold and fast. It was obvious Katherine wasn’t “exploring” a castle. She was solving a problem. And the castle was just the board.

  Each route change let them ignore traps, guards, or even riddles, which undoubtedly made their progress easier. That particular correction led them to a different door.

  It wasn’t a normal door. Not because of its size—though that too—but because of what it bore: a carved relief of simple symbols and, at the center, a text.

  A riddle.

  The castle’s voice tried to pass itself off as something ancient and mysterious, but by then nobody believed it.

  The line read:

  One by one I keep rising, you will never catch me.

  Ever bigger, to infinity I go without end.

  What am I?

  Yehiel read it and, by reflex, thought of the natural numbers.

  A basic answer. Obvious. It even annoyed him that Dinamo had spent resources on something so school-level.

  He opened his mouth to say it.

  He didn’t get the chance.

  Baek stepped forward without hurry and, with a casual motion of his sword, split the door in two.

  Not like wood. Not like metal.

  Like air.

  The blade passed through the material with no visible resistance, and the two panels fell aside with a dry thud. No explosion, no alarm. The castle simply allowed itself to be missing a door.

  Yehiel stood there, dumbfounded, staring at the open void.

  The group kept moving as if Baek had merely pushed a chair aside.

  Katherine, without looking at him, had a quick thought—almost casual—like she was replying to someone who wasn’t there: “Don’t believe for a second that riddle entertained me. I will never answer that.”

  But Yehiel couldn’t control his uncertainty.

  “If you could cut the door… why don’t we cut the walls?” he blurted, frustrated. “What’s the point of following a path if we can go in a straight line to the throne room?”

  The question wasn’t stupid. It was the question of someone who came from a different kind of conflict. A different logic.

  A few of them looked at him, confused more by the tone than the content.

  Caetano looked at him with mockery and contempt. One second. Enough. He didn’t like him at all.

  “If you want to go straight so badly,” he said, “tell some of your pets to do it. If they use all their power, maybe any of them can break a wall and push straight through. Just make sure you die far away from us.”

  The word pets landed with malice.

  Yehiel knew he was being mocked, but he didn’t understand what was wrong with the idea. In his head, it was efficiency. Common sense. Not wasting time.

  Irina reacted immediately.

  “No!” she exclaimed, too fast.

  Then she shot Caetano an annoyed look. Then a controlled glance at her commander—like she was asking permission to “explain the obvious.”

  Katherine didn’t stop. She simply allowed her to speak with an almost invisible gesture.

  Irina lowered her voice and addressed Yehiel, serious.

  “We didn’t do it because this castle isn’t just walls,” she explained. “It’s full of explosives and mechanisms. Conceptual traps, physical traps—things that aren’t even worth figuring out what they do. If we start punching through random walls, we’ll trigger everything.”

  Yehiel frowned.

  Irina continued, and her tone grew a bit heavier at the end, as if saying it tired her out.

  “Dinamo might be an arrogant monster who doesn’t care about many things, but he isn’t stupid. If you stay inside his game and follow his rules, everything will be relatively ‘fine.’ That’s the best we can do right now, because of our weakness.”

  That last word—weakness—wasn’t aimed at anyone in particular. It was a truth they hated.

  Irina looked sad at the end. Just barely. But it showed.

  Yehiel saw it.

  He felt the impulse to fix it somehow, even if he didn’t know how.

  “Don’t worry,” he told her. “I’m going to protect you.”

  Simple. Direct.

  And still, it brought her a bit of happiness. Not because she believed she needed protection, but because someone was trying to care for something in the middle of this circus.

  She smiled at him again.

  Smaller. Realer.

  On the other side of the cut door, the corridor opened into a different structure.

  It wasn’t a hall.

  It wasn’t a corridor.

  It was a labyrinth.

  The walls were tall, smooth, and the golden material seemed to absorb sound with an unpleasant efficiency. The geometry of the place was aggressive even before entering: curves that promised no exit, corners that looked identical, paths that gave the impression of moving when you weren’t looking.

  At the entrance there was a sign with a name engraved, as if that made it friendlier.

  But the commentator cut in before anyone could read it.

  His voice appeared as always: too close, too certain, too pleased with itself.

  “To keep up the theme of painfully uncreative names, I present to you the… Warriors’ Labyrinth! Yes, very original. I hope you enjoy it—our host has set some expectations for this one, so don’t go disappointing him. Oh, and one more tip… don’t get lost.”

  The way he said “tip” was almost an insult.

  Katherine didn’t respond.

  She just walked forward.

  The group followed her.

  Yehiel, for his part, could only think about how strange everything was. Not the castle—that he’d already accepted—but his place inside it.

  “I’m just a poor messenger. I didn’t come for this.”

  That was his last thought before stepping into the labyrinth.

  And the labyrinth swallowed them.