Chapter 343

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 fl.u.s.tered .

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 .

“s.h.i.+t! 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sed, 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 d.a.m.n 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 st.u.r.dy 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 h.e.l.l 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 s.p.a.ce . Tim carefully waved his hand towards his side . His arm moved through the s.p.a.ce without disturbing anything .

It was a s.p.a.ce 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 h.e.l.l? We came here using the stairs!”

“Please stay calm . ”

Sungyoon pacified Tim, who was fl.u.s.tered .

“This is probably the distortion of s.p.a.ce 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 .