"Its a mirror room!" Her little, floating wolf pet, flew around the walkway to take a look at the different shapes it appeared in on the differently sized mirrors. "Look at this one! I am a wobbly little translucent creature!" It danced as it passed through a curved on the inside mirror. "And this! I look taller than you!" The small wolf zoomed through.
Aefia looked in between the gaps of the mirrors, just to insure she wasn't missing anything. A mirror maze, I was told it would have a clue written but they never told me what the clue was needed for. If my system is right, this mirror maze is supposed to be the third stage and no other clues are needed after the second stage.
"Hey! Were you even looking?! Times like this rarely come and go! And when they do, it's better to take the opportunity." The wolf urged Aefia to play with it while tugging her sleeve. "Come on! We will only play for a bit, then you can continue your search for whatever you want!"
"Alright, hold on, I have to take note of something." She spoke while flicking on her screen. While clicking the notepad function of the new layout, she mumbled something to herself. "I am uncertain if I have found some kind of glitch in this matrix. If so, I might as well finish the remaining stages by myself. I have already leveled up and there are more things upon my reach now."
She paused before typing into the screen. "Its not like I am going to forget it now, but I rather have it written somewhere too. I have already gone through three of the same mirrors, so that is a sign. Repition of a certain number of items mean that we are going the right way. So I will write that down."
"The mirrors which repeat are all in the shape of a circle. No edges, not sharpness. And the more we move forward, polygons of upto twelve sides are going to start appearing, making it harder to identify the circular ones from the edged ones. I should have a list of questions written down just in case I am trying to run away from some unidentified creatures."
While the nausea was still causing her thinking abilities to decrease, she continued adding more words into the screen until she realized not everything was needed. Two weeks in this world and I am already going insane...don't know what will happen within the next two weeks. Oh right, in two weeks will be my last stay in Nikoan.
She aggressively pressed the delete button until only one sentence was left. "The mirror maze is like a game where you are collecting coins." If I read this line, only one thing flashes into my head, that is, the coins tell you the right way. In this case, I will think of the repeting mirrors as the coins in a chasing video game.
Now the only question I will put here will be, "How many distorted points do you see?" Since mirrors don't really have a distorted point, I will directly look at the edge to see whether there are any visible points. I think that is enough for now. And didn't the talking wolf say something earlier?
"Oh! You are done with your clicking and tapping! Now let's play something! I am bored." Her wolf yawned while pouncing onto her hand. "You decide of a game because if I do, it won't be fun. And make sure to add details like no talking or no snickering."
"Then I guess I already have a game in mind. That depends upon if you want to play it. By the way, after you or your magical species speak about your secrets, do you all become a childish character? Because I don't seem to get how else I feel like having to take care of a miniature pet wolf in a disastrous moment." Aefia spoke while it flew off her hand.
"Well, to begin, how do you expect me to act after you already know what I truely am like? One of the reasons behind why I told you that was because I was already childish, but to maintain my professional approach in front of my owner is hard. So just to keep you out of suspicion, I told you about my last time as a cub." Her wolf said while sitting on her head. "Begin with the game already!"
"Hmm..." Aefia thought. What is one game that I can play to have work done while also enjoying the game? But I rather leave room for suggestions. "What about, you choose?"
"Who? Me? In a hundred and fifty years of being stuck inside a rock, I have never heard or played any games before. But what if I suggest we count the mirrors? This room is full of them."
"That won't be fun, will it? What about we count the round mirrors? Something like with every three or four round mirrors that you see, say 'here'. It will be a bit like hide and seek while chasing. Once I catch up to you, we switch roles." Aefia spoke out with her tired mind. I remember being able to make up games in a matter of seconds back when I was at the Mafia. And this one isn't even fun, maybe my headache is just something I didn't need.
"Yeah! That's fun enough! I will go hide while you seek! Stay facing to your right." Her little wolf spoke. "Oh wait! I forgot we haven't shared names yet! Although I remember that your name is Aefia, but you still don't know mine. In short, my name has been given as Puppet for a long time now. I don't know why."
"Your name is Puppet due to someone named you after your death? Is that what you are trying to say?" She brought the little wolf down to her hand. "Yes, my name from when I was alive, my brain deleted it."
"Puppet isn't a bad name though, I really like it. Anyway, we are getting late for the game. You have three seconds to hide." Then Aefia recalled something. "Oh wait! Hold on! I forgot to say that both of us needs to go into hiding in both directions. Once you spot three circular mirrors in a row, say 'here'. Then I will go look for you while you stay in your usual position. And if I find three circular mirrors in a row, you will have to look for my location."
"Alright, got it." Her wolf jumped down from her hand and transformed to its full size while running towards the path which led to the left. Aefia walked towards the path that led to the right. "Did I forget to ask, how exactly my system got the skill to turn into whatever it wants without my indication or commands?" She smiled to herself.
She slid her fingers across the cold dusty surface of the few cracked mirrors. Quite a number from the few had dried blood stains which meant this place wasn't left unguarded. If there are solid proof of human DNA being left here, then it is no doubt that there are beasts walking through the shallow depths.
"Here! Find me!" Puppet called out. Aefia snapped back to reality and went back towards the direction the wolf was headed. While recalling the sequence of mirrors she had followed from the starting point, and still finding herself lost. The mirror maze, was said to be one of the most hardest stage of all others.
She bumped into some of the mirrors at least a few times, but still managed to make it towards the cross mark that had been stained earlier. "I have completely lost track of time, and I really need to hurry. Otherwise, the three would be left suspicious of me permanently leaving them, and continuing on my own."
Suddenly, she skidded to a stop thinking of a certain possibility. I have so many questions. Were these stages even necessary? The escape room and the mirror maze? If anything, this two stages are the most useless things to be done and the most time consuming tasks. If only I could find a loophole, what is even needed to be done in this room?
Recalling the fact that I had already killed the 'boss' of the dungeon stage, this should be either the second or the third stage. Based on what I think might have happened, stage one is already cleared and when the entire team reunited, we were to split up again and carry out the next rows of stages. Which most likely meant, that we would come back together to clear the fourth stage once again and then we move on to the next stage. That could be a possibility, can't it?
When Aefia finally managed to catch up with Puppet, the first thing she did was ask it whether it spotted any sort of maps along the way. "No, this dungeon rarely has anything that comes to use, so I believe a map was left to be decomposed somewhere in the dirts. Why do you need it suddenly?"
"Do you somehow know, whether the exit of this room is connected back to the small storage room which I thought was the escape room?"
"Well, see, if you need to enquire about something, why not ask the host of the show about it? Would it hurt to try and communicate with them?"
"Are you insane?!" Aefia smacked the wolf's head. "How do I communicate with them when we have no ways to do so?! And this is an urgent case that I need answers to." She spoke as she portraited how important it was.
"Well, why not ask her lady? And you would say, 'How do we go back-' ow!" Puppet twitched its ears due to the sound of glass breaking. "What are you doing! Why are you breaking the mirrors!" But most importantly, how did she take her sword out so fast?! It all happened in a split second!
"I guess I don't need to know about there being an exit that connects to this room to the dark passageway connected to the place the others are currently in." Aefia said while pointing at the rotting paper with blocks and lines drawn into it. "I have noticed one thing on every single mirror in this room. They aren't completely opaque, and it was most probably done to make sure the map underneath was visible. I have a high expectation that the Queen had done so in case anyone was doing a search of this place, but I am not certain if it was true. But anyway, all I needed to do was break the glass to get the map."
"That's smart. But why exactly did you need the map again?" Her wolf carefully walked over the shards of sharp pieces and looked at the map. "Wait, don't tell me that you were planning on leaving this stage and directly moving towards them to help them clear their stage?!"
"No! I am not going to take everyone's task and complete it for them! I am not a robot that I have the energy and work needed to complete everything!"
"So what? What are you really planning to do then?"
"It is obvious enough that I might have just cleared their stage for them too. The way this mission moves is viewed as much easy by now. Firstly, both of our teams were summoned into two different areas because having four altogether in one dungeon won't show a significant split in power. Rather, it would focus on only two or three people using their skills while the other two would be standing there, doing nothing. And if you remember, the main goal of these stages were to get stronger before moving towards the boss room."
"So it's like the video games you played?"
"I don't know whether it is, but let me tell you the different stages that this mission is supposed to work. Why do you keep interrupting me?!"
"Okay, okay! Continue!" Puppet walked forward and Aefia followed behind.
"The first stage is the dividing. That stage was supposed to show you how things would work for the rest of the stages, it is viewed more like a tutorial. Once both teams reunite, they would be shown with a powerful beast to defeat and that was the boss for the first stage. Since I had levelled up in between, the timing was slightly wrong and the next stage began a little too late. The second stage was supposed to start when the colourful beasts approached, but I had already intercepted it. This stage, in summary, was supposed to be a substage for the final boss."
"And where is this final boss?"
"Right after this part. If you see this map carefully, multiple rooms are connected to multiple other rooms. The exit from their place led to this room and the dark passageway connected to their place also leads to this room. Do you see the loophole? Both teams, with their new team members, were supposed to depart both ways, this passageway and the other passageway. Then they would reunite in this room, and the third exit..." Aefia pointed to the end of the mirror maze in the map. "Is the exit that would lead us to the fourth and the last stage before the final boss room."
"Ooh!" Her wolf jumped up and down. "Then let's go get the remaining of your teammates!"
"No, the stage won't be completed unless they figure this out themselves. That's their quest, the actual escape room. We can wait in the center to direction of their exit and this stage's exit. Because in the distance from this point and the door's midway point, is where the boss of this stage will appear."
"So we wait?" Puppet asked. "Or nah! We will wait at the centre where the boss will be summoned. Because you too can hear their footsteps, right? They have already found the exit."
"Yes, let's just get going now. The boss's area will soon be covered by the colourful beasts again. The faster we complete this, the lesser we kill." Aefia spoke as she heard human footsteps and aggressive metal claws stomping. The metal claws were much closer to their standing position compared to the others.