"Well, that was something…"
'Yeah, you'd think everyone would be grateful to Alex. To steal his kill like that is something."
"Is there some history there we don't know of?"
"Maybe, but that's not for us to interfere in."
The students continued their chatter and waited for their path to open. Of course, there were those who remained frozen in place, too scared to do anything else. They had seen too many deaths in one day.
A minute later, a large portal opened in the distance that showed the bright day sky, and as soon they saw this, the students wasted no time in rushing out.
Alex turned to his friends, looked at their wretched figures and smiled a little. "You guys look like you've been through hell."
He stated and Ross simply shrugged, "I bet you had it worse."
"Yeah. Where were you taken? I was so worried you know?"
Julia chipped in and asked what was worrying her all that time. She had already forgotten about Zen at the moment. Right now Alex took priority.
She moved and placed her right palm on Alex's cheeks, the emotions of worry and love clear in her gaze.
"It's over now. What matters is that we all made it out alive." He said and then looked around again.
Noticing this, Julia stepped back a little with a fallen expression, something Alex noticed instantly.
Without being told, he figured it out, "Abigail didn't survive, did she?"
He stated more than asked and Ross nodded in response. "The third floor of the labyrinth was more dangerous than we anticipated. Julia couldn't protect herself and Abigail at the same time."
Ross explained in her stead.
Julia still looked dejected and couldn't face Alex. While it wasn't her fault, she still felt like a failure.
Understanding what she was thinking about, Alex moved closer and brought her into his embrace.
"Don't think too much about it, alright? You did what you could. This labyrinth was just too dangerous."
At this point, Alex's golden aura had died down and while he felt slightly weakened, it wasn't enough to put him down. But he was completely drained. There was not a shred of mana in his system.
Both virtually and in reality. It was something Hunter Zol noticed once the sura Alex was emitting died down.
He noticed how every shred of mana stored in his cells was completely drained. He was like a husk at this point.
'Interesting…'
He thought to himself and waited for Alex to wake up.
...…..
"I know…" Julia nodded and buried her head deeper into Alex's chest.
Letting out a tired sigh, Alex gestured for Ross, and they made their way to the open portal.
....
"Huh?"
Alex muttered when he suddenly appeared in a completely white space. Ross and Julia who were with him were nowhere to be found.
However, the memories of what transpired and everything that happened prior to entering the Convergence Maze came back.
"So that's what happened."
He let out a heavy sigh of relief and the burden of those deaths suddenly dissipated like they never existed.
For a moment, he feared Julia would be scarred from what happened. And he wasn't just talking about losing Abigail, but the burden from seeing all those gruesome deaths.
[Alexander Gray, congratulations for making it out of the Convergence Maze.]
Suddenly, a prompt appeared before him as he heard the system's voice.
"Thanks."
[Your point from eliminating void creatures amounts to 680 points. Congratulations on emerging in third place.]
'Third place?'
Alex furrowed his brows in confusion. From the number of void creatures, he fought alone, he thought he would have come in at least second place; mostly because of Zen stealing his kill.
But hearing what the system said, it seemed someone had a higher kill than he did.
"Who came in first and second?"
He already had a guess about the first place, but he was clueless as to who came in second.
[The second place went to Julia Knight and the first place went to Zen Henjok]
"Oh…
"I should have seen that coming. Then what place did Ross get?" He muttered mostly to himself.
'I'll find out when I see him, there's no point in thinking about it.'
[Alexander Gray…]
He heard the system call his name again bringing him out of his thoughts. Alex could swear it sounded more serious than before, but it was a small detail not worth thinking about.
[… You are presented with a choice.]
[Keep the memories of what transpired in the Convergence Maze or Erase the memories of everything related to the labyrinth]
Listening to the choices, Alex quickly understood the reason behind this action.
'With the things the students witnessed, there are bound to be many mentally broken by the experience. However, we are also given the choice to choose whether to keep those memories.'
The experiences in the labyrinth were bound to mature the students in more ways than one, however, it could also backfire if not taken care of properly.
The smartest thing was to completely erase everything about it. And since the events took place in a virtual space, it was very easy to do.
Of course, they could still access the feeds of what transpired in the labyrinth, but from a different perspective with no attachments.
"I choose to keep them."
Alex made his choice. He had a lot of questions as to how he achieved that blazing form and while he had a few guesses, he still needed to talk to someone to make heads or tails of that form.
[Choice accepted.]
The system acknowledged his choice and went silent. It was time to return to the real world.
There were still three more events to participate in.
Alex closed his eyes when his body began to turn into light particles.
....
Opening his eyes, Alex saw the bright sky through the glass opening of his pod.
Confused as to why he was seeing the skies instead of a ceiling, he opened the pod, and his gaze immediately fell on Hunter Zol who stood there with a small smile.
"How do you feel?"