I gripped my club tightly as I advanced cautiously through the maze, the Overseer’s warning about deadly perils echoing in my mind. The passage I followed was narrow, barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side, and it twisted left and right at random intervals. My heart pounded loudly in my chest as I stopped to peek around every corner, ensuring that no monster lay in ambush. I also checked for traps, scrutinizing the walls and floor for any abnormalities with each step. Although I found nothing, it did little to ease my anxiety.

  The Labyrinth was anything but quiet. Occasionally, I heard distant screams and shouts, often accompanied by roars and other terrifying noises that I was sure did not come from human throats. More than once, I felt the primal urge to run back to my safe cul-de-sac and never leave it again. I wanted to raise my middle finger to the sky and tell the Overseer and the Celestial Council to take their Trials and shove them. What purpose did these Trials serve other than to terrorize humanity's survivors? If there was truly so little room left in Paradise, they could have simply saved fewer of us instead of engaging in this absurd and cruel process of whittling us down. Perhaps they enjoyed watching us fight for our survival. The idea that we might be nothing more than rats in a race they were gambling on filled me with such anger that I nearly forgot my fear. If given the choice, I would have preferred to stay on Earth and die fighting rather than participate in this spectacle.

  Of course, I did not retreat. A stubborn part of me wanted to survive and find a way to seek revenge. To achieve that, I needed to confront my fears.

  After what felt like the seventh or eighth turn, I reached my first intersection. The passage branched into two paths: one to the left and one to the right.

  Which way should I go?

  I had never been in a labyrinth before. I remembered doing maze puzzles in books when I was a kid, but solving a maze on paper and being trapped in a life-sized labyrinth that stretched from horizon to horizon—and was actively trying to kill me—were entirely different experiences. I needed a strategy to escape, but I had no knowledge to draw upon.

  As I stood there, racking my brain for ideas, I heard a woman’s scream. This one sounded closer than the others. Due to the labyrinth’s strange acoustics, I couldn't determine the exact location or distance of the sound, but it seemed to be coming from about one hundred meters to my right.

  “Hello!” I called.

  I knew shouting could attract nearby monsters, but I couldn't just stand there and do nothing.

  “Help me …” the voice came again, much weaker this time.

  “Hold tight!” I said as I started down the passage to my right. “I’m coming!”

  The passage went straight for about ten meters before turning left. Still fearful of traps, I did not run, but I quickened my pace slightly. It was clear that if I was going to help the woman who had screamed, I needed to reach them quickly. I tried to avoid thinking about the potential dangers I might face if I found them, fearful that such thoughts would cause me to hesitate.

  The path twisted and turned several times before reaching a four-way intersection. I paused, carefully considering each direction. The maze's winding layout made me uncertain about which path would lead me closer to the woman. I could retrace my steps to get my bearings, but that would take too long.

  “Can you hear me?” I called out.

  There was no response. This was not a good sign, but I had already made up my mind. I drew an arrow in the dirt pointing right—in case I got lost and returned to this intersection—and chose that path.

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  After several turns, the passage ended in a dead end. I cursed and began to turn back, but I stopped when I noticed something. Clinging to the wall just above my head was a large black beetle. And by large, I mean it was the biggest insect I had ever seen—about the size of a lab rat. It had large mandibles and segmented armor, and it stared at me with two beady red eyes. I had encountered my first denizen of the Labyrinth.

  But was it dangerous? Those mandibles certainly looked capable of delivering a nasty bite. I cast Inspect on it, and knowledge flooded my mind.

  This is a Juvenile Bone Eater Beetle. It is a Rank 0 creature worth an estimated 1-2 experience points. While a single beetle poses little threat to a healthy individual, they can become very dangerous in swarms.

  You have 19 out of 20 mana remaining.

  As before, when I used the spell Inspect, the information didn't appear as written words in my mind. Instead, my mind conveyed the knowledge I received as an inner voice, much like having an internal monologue. It felt strange yet natural at the same time.

  Before I proceeded, I decided to do my part to prevent the beetle from joining others to form a swarm. I struck it with my club.

  It did not splatter as I had hoped. Its armor was harder than it appeared. Instead, I only managed to knock it off the wall to the ground, where it then skittered away from me. I chased after it and whacked it a few more times before its armor cracked and its insides exploded outward. I sensed a strange energy enter me as it died. I had a feeling about what that meant, but I didn’t want to draw out my grimoire to confirm it. I had already wasted enough time on the beetle.

  I hurried back to the intersection. Once I arrived, I erased the arrow I had drawn and wrote "Dead End" instead. Yes, I capitalized the letters, because I was just that anal. I scratched a new arrow into the dirt, pointing down the middle passage, and set off in that direction. I kept calling out to the person I intended to rescue, but received no responses.

  At each new intersection, I turned right. If I hit a dead end, I backtracked. I consistently scratched arrows or words into the dirt to aid my navigation. This strategy paid off several times when I took a passage that led back to the same intersection. Without the scratch marks, I would have assumed I was at a new intersection and could have easily gotten turned around.

  As I continued on my journey, I came across more beetles. For the next two encounters, I used Empowered Strike before attacking to check how the spell worked, which resulted in satisfying splatters and instant kills. However, I decided to stop using the spell afterward in order to conserve my mana. I noticed that these beetles were juveniles, and I anticipated that the adult beetles, if I ever encountered them, would be much more difficult to defeat.

  In all, I killed five beetles before I came across the shoe prints. I was standing at a T-intersection, and the prints crossed from right to left in front of me. I bent down to examine them more closely. The indentations in the dirt were barely visible, and whatever had created them was flat and lacked any tread. The sunlight struck the shoe prints at just the right angle, casting a faint shadow along one edge that allowed me to notice them. I placed my foot next to one of the prints and found that they were similar in size.

  There was no doubt that I would follow them. The real question was whether the trail would lead me to the person I was trying to help or to someone entirely different. The maze had disoriented me, making it possible that I was miles away from my intended destination. Nevertheless, this was my best lead yet, and I couldn't pass up the chance to connect with another human. It would be easier to survive the Labyrinth as part of a group.

  I scratched an arrow into the dirt, careful not to disturb the shoe prints, and set off down the left passage. By this time, I had stopped calling out, as I wasn’t receiving any responses and was afraid of attracting unwanted attention.

  At each intersection, the shoe prints turned left, following a pattern that contrasted with the one I had been using. I wondered if their strategy was more effective than mine. Along the way, I found the remains of smashed juvenile bone eater beetles. They appeared to be thicker in the left passages than in the right ones, and I wondered why. I encountered several live ones feasting on the bodies of their dead comrades, and quickly dispatched them with several whacks of my club. Once again, I felt that strange energy wash over me after each kill. The grimoire within my soul was pleading for my attention, but I delayed manifesting it. I did not want to waste either time or mana.

  After turning left at the fifth intersection, I reached a dead end and stopped, staring in wide-eyed horror. Unlike the other dead ends I had encountered, this one did not end in a blank wall. This one ended in a corpse impaled on a three-meter-tall metal spike sticking up from the ground.