Grey had no idea what he was becoming to the people of Earth. All he knew was that they were in yet another bullshit situation that he would have to come up with a solution to.
"Are you sure that that is the only purpose of this place?"
"... What do you mean?" Amunet asked.
"Are you sure that this place is only used for a battle royale?"
"... Yes?" Amunet’s brows furrowed. That was all her inheritance told her.
"Why a maze, then?"
"Why...? I don’t know? Why anything?"
"I dunno. It just feels like if you’re going to try and put a few people in a kill or be killed situation, a maze is just weird."
"Not any weirder than anything else," Amunet said. As much as she wanted to hope, she didn’t want false hope either.
"Can the Old Ones fly?" Grey seemed to change the subject.
"No—." Amunet was about to say no when she suddenly frowned.
Technically speaking, if you were a high enough level, and your energy was thick enough, you could use the puppeteering strings like real strings. Then you could raise your puppeteering hands into the sky and literally carry yourself across.
"Yes, right?" Grey said.
"... Maybe? But why does that matter."
"Wasn’t Grey finding people easily by leaping into the air?" Thi Lan asked softly.
"Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?" Amunet asked with a frown.
"I don’t know yet," Grey said. "Just spitballing."
Amunet would have rolled her eyes in any other situation. This was why she didn’t want to fall into the light of hope so easily.
"Well don’t look so disappointed. If you wanna die so bad just go ahead and slit your own throat."
Amunet just scoffed and looked away. But a smile still tugged at the corner of her lip.
Grey reached over and tried to grab a piece of the hedge to the side of them. He tugged on it, hard. But nothing came of it. The thing was practically as sturdy as a rock.
What confused Grey was that... this Instance triggered because of Amunet’s arms? But the last time he got an Instance triggered like that...
’What had it said again...?’
—
[Rare Instance Event Trigger: Hellish Escape]
—
[Congratulations, Genesis Candidate! You have triggered a Named Instance! Good luck and don’t die! :)]
—
[Grey Temolt VERSUS Anchors of Hell]
—
’Hellish escape...’ Grey’s eyes narrowed.
That was the irony of that Instance. It was called Hellish Escape, and yet the moment he ran into the barrier, he died. How was he supposed to escape unless he, you know... fucking escaped?
But after he died, Grey figured that he had misinterpreted the name of the Instance. Maybe the escape it was referring to was that of the arms themselves.
But... where were the arms?
Logically, if this Instance was triggered by Amunet’s arms, then it should be the same Instance, no? Just in a different location?
Could the same Instance be triggered in two vastly different places?
But if the answer was no, that led to a whole host of other problems. Because if the same Instance couldn’t be triggered in two different locations, then it meant that somehow Amunet had just so happened to trigger two different Instances from the exact two locations they could have been triggered using the same exact method.
Now that made even less sense than just assuming it was the same Instance.
When Grey thought back to the first Instance, he remembered that he had been falling through an endless darkness. He had no way of knowing where that endless darkness was leading him to. For all he knew, it was this exact maze.
’That’s right...’
Grey suddenly had a realization. If you fall far enough beneath the crust of a world, wouldn’t you end up in the same location? So maybe it didn’t even matter?
’But isn’t that just if it’s a planet? This place is so fucking large, could it even still be a planet?’
Images of an impossibly vast blackhole filled Grey’s mind and he realized that maybe he shouldn’t care about the usual concepts of physics in the first place.
’In that case...’
Grey took a breath. "Alright ladies. Hop on, we have some exploring to do."
Thi Lan gave him a weird look. "Hop on what?"
Grey grinned. "Well, I wasn’t going to take it there. But if you’d like to repay me with a life’s saving grace, I can happily—"
Grey started undoing his belt buckle.
Thi Lan and Amunet both glared at him and Grey just laughed, scooping them both up. He hauled them over his shoulders and even with their protests, launched himself into the air.
Butterfly wings of red gold appeared around him and he shot up as far as he could as fast as he could.
Usually, by some point in the normal world, he would hit a point where there would be less particles to gather to use against his solar sail. As such, there was a limit to how high he could go.
But here, he felt like he could just keep going and going.
’Definitely underground.’ Grey thought.
That confirmed at least one speculation.
But when he looked down, there was nothing but an endless fog. He couldn’t even begin to see anything. Going up higher wasn’t helping, his senses weren’t broad enough to see through it all.
But Grey kept pushing and pushing.
’If I just go high enough...’
It took almost 20 minutes. Grey felt like he was exhausting all the energy he had, and Thi Lan and Amunet both had become extremely silent, half afraid that if Grey fell here without any energy...
They would just all die.
Grey laughed, fatigue evident in his voice. "Don’t worry. The fall would be so long that by the time we got near the ground I would have energy again."
That was not reassuring at all. But, on the bright side, Grey finally found what he was looking for.
The end of the fog.
Now, there were just two choices...
Either he try to make it to the center of the fog and fall down from there. Or... try to make it to the edge to escape.
Grey’s brow furrowed. He wasn’t sure what the right answer was at first...
And then he suddenly couldn’t have been more sure of it.