Harem Sync: Divine Edition-Chapter 35: The Labyrinth Below Us

"Okay, let’s focus," Haru said, putting the diary under his coat.

He looked at the blocked passage, then at Kira, who was still kneeling near the rocks. "Is there a shadow on the other side of this passage?"

Kira crouched down further, peering through the cracks between the rocks where a little of Isabela’s light managed to filter through. "Yes, it’s completely dark in there."

Haru nodded and activated Shadow Step, an ability he had taken from Arwin Corvus.

He was pulled into his own shadow on the ground, the world going black for a split second, and then reappeared on the other side of the blocked passage in an instantaneous, silent movement.

He landed crouching, hands on the ground for balance, and slowly stood up, looking around as his eyes adjusted to the near-total darkness.

The air made breathing feel like work, the excessive humidity mixed with a chemical that clung to his lungs.

The walls were no longer made of cut stone like in the mansion; they were natural, raw rock with an irregular texture, and had thick roots, some as thick as an adult’s arm, mixed with the stone as if they had grown there for decades without interruption.

The tunnels seemed excavated, not by tools but by something organic; the marks on the walls were too irregular to have been made by a pickaxe or earth magic, more like giant scratches or corrosion.

Haru turned to the pile of stones blocking the passage from the inside and began to remove them one by one, pushing the smaller ones aside and using mana-augmented strength to move the larger ones. It took about five minutes to create enough space for a person to pass crouching.

"Come on!" he shouted to the other side.

Isabela came first, crouching and passing through the opening with flames in her hands illuminating everything, followed by Kira who passed with the natural ease of someone accustomed to moving in tight spaces, and lastly Aldric who came hesitantly, looking around with visible fear.

When everyone was on the other side and Isabela raised the flames higher to illuminate better, they remained silent for a few seconds, just observing the tunnel that stretched forward, descending at a gentle angle.

"This... this wasn’t made by humans," Aldric murmured, his voice trembling.

Kira sniffed the air again, ears lowered. "It smells of death down there. A lot of death."

Isabela looked at Haru, waiting for a decision, and he looked at the dark tunnel that descended even deeper into the earth, probably leading directly to the core of the dungeon that Vandris had been feeding all this time.

"Let’s go," he said simply, starting to walk down the tunnel.

Kira stopped abruptly in the middle of the tunnel, her ears perking up as she sniffed the air intently. "It smells like monsters here. Lots of them. But they’re not fresh, it’s more... ancient. As if they’ve been here many times over the months."

They continued following the tunnel, which descended deeper and deeper, and that’s when they noticed something strange. Ahead, the tunnel didn’t continue straight, but split into several different paths, constant bifurcations that went left, right, continued straight, or descended at steeper angles.

Some walls had symbols drawn with what looked like white chalk or light paint, simple markings like arrows pointing in specific directions or large Xs blocking certain passages, as if someone had tried to map it all and leave indications so as not to get lost.

They followed the arrows for about fifteen minutes until they reached a wider area where the tunnel opened up, forming something like a natural chamber, and on the back wall, illuminated by Isabela’s flames, was a map painted with dark red paint that was probably blood.

Showing interconnected tunnels, routes traced with thicker lines indicating safe paths, and strange markings at specific points, circles, squares, some symbols that looked like warnings or indications of danger. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Aldric approached quickly, eyes wide. "That’s the map!?" he said, almost shouting with relief mixed with indignation, because he had searched the entire mansion for a scroll or book when the damned map had been drawn on the wall of an underground dungeon all along.

But when they looked closer, they noticed something.

Some routes were crossed out with black ink, as if they were no longer safe or had collapsed. Others seemed to have been redrawn several times, layers of paint superimposed showing that the layout of the tunnels had changed over time, probably as the dungeon grew and expanded.

They spent a good amount of time standing in front of the map trying to understand its logic; none of them knew exactly where to go because there were symbols that didn’t make immediate sense and routes that seemed to lead to the same place but by completely different paths.

"Okay, so..." Haru pointed to a red circle in the lower right corner of the map, "...this must be the core, right?"

Aldric moved closer, analyzing it. "Probably. Or it’s a trap. It even looks like a bathroom symbol. Vandris didn’t leave any legend."

Isabela crossed her arms. "Why would a necromancer draw a bathroom on the dungeon map?"

"I don’t know! Maybe he spent a lot of time down here!" Aldric replied defensively.

Kira tilted her head, looking at the map sideways. "If we follow this route here..." she touched a line that went directly to the red circle, "...it seems like the shortest path."

"It also seems to have five red X’s marked on it," Haru pointed to the danger symbols scattered along the route. "Which probably means ’don’t go this way or you die’."

Kira considered that. "Or it means ’treasure’. I think the Ys indicate death."

"In what world does a red X mean treasure!?" Isabela turned to her.

"In the world where I grew up, we marked hideouts with Xs," Kira replied seriously.

Aldric sighed deeply, massaging his temples. "Let’s try again. This blue line here that’s less marked, do you think..."

"Wait," Haru interrupted, approaching the lower left corner of the map where something was written in small print. "There’s text here."

Everyone crowded around to read.

It was written in hurried handwriting: "If you’re reading this and I’m not with you, assume I’m dead. The routes change with each full moon. Don’t trust the map completely."

Silence.

"...Great," Haru said with pure sarcasm. "So we’re looking at a map that might be outdated and that changes on its own periodically."

"What if we split up into different tunnels?" Aldric suggested.

"What! Are you crazy? Splitting up is something from horror movies!" Haru replied immediately.

"Why don’t you tell us what a movie is?" Isabela retorted.

"You’re not ready yet," Haru replied.

"When was the last full moon?" Kira asked innocently.

Aldric thought. "...Three days ago." He lightly banged his head against the wall next to the map. "We’re screwed."

"Not necessarily," Haru said, looking at the map again, this time searching for patterns. "If the routes change with each full moon but he kept coming here regularly, maybe it means some must be fixed. He wasn’t going to risk getting lost every time."

Kira sniffed the air again. "I can smell it. That dead fat guy (Vandris) passed by here many times; his scent trail is strong in some directions and weak in others."

Isabela looked at her. "You can distinguish a scent from weeks ago?"

"I can distinguish a scent from months ago if the environment is enclosed enough," Kira replied proudly.

"That’s... impressive and slightly disturbing," Aldric commented.

Haru clapped once. "It’s decided then. Kira follows Vandris’s scent, we use the map as a general reference, and if something goes wrong... well, we’ll manage."

"And if it goes very wrong?" Aldric asked.

"Then we run very fast in the opposite direction," Haru replied seriously.

Isabela shook her head but didn’t disagree with the plan because she honestly didn’t have a better idea. "Let’s go before I change my mind about this whole mission."

"Hopefully you’ll change, then we’ll go to the capital," Haru replied, somewhat annoyed.

While they were still trying to decipher the map on the wall, a sound echoed through the tunnels from somewhere to their left. It wasn’t wind, it was more organic, like heavy breathing mixed with the dragging of something being dragged across the stone floor.

Everyone froze, turning toward the sound.

"We’re definitely not going that way," Aldric murmured, pointing to the left tunnel where the sound had come from.

"I agree," Isabela said quietly, already lighting up her flames more intensely as a precaution.

Haru gestured toward the opposite tunnel, to the right. "Then let’s go this way, quickly and quietly."

They entered the right tunnel in single file, Isabela in front illuminating the path, Kira right behind constantly sniffing the air, Aldric in the middle glancing back occasionally with growing paranoia, and Haru bringing up the rear.

They walked about twenty meters when something changed in the air, a strange sensation as if they had passed through an invisible curtain, and for a second everything became slightly blurry as if they were looking through dirty glass.

Haru blinked, trying to clear his vision, and when he opened his eyes again the sensation had passed.

He wanted to say something to Aldric about it...

No one was there.

Haru stopped walking immediately, looking around with increasing attention. He was alone, with no sign of Aldric, Kira, or Isabela, and even the light from the flames that should have been illuminating everything had vanished, leaving only complete darkness except for the immediate area around him, which seemed to have light coming from nowhere.

"What the hell..." he muttered, running back along the path they had just taken, but after about ten steps he reached a fork in the road that hadn’t been there before, two tunnels opening in directions that made no sense with the route they had followed.

He tried again, taking the left tunnel this time, but arrived at a small circular chamber that he definitely hadn’t passed through, and when he tried to return through the same entrance he discovered that there were now three different exits where there should only have been one.

The paths didn’t match. Nothing matched.

Haru stopped in the middle of the empty chamber, looked at the stone ceiling covered in roots, then at the three tunnels that led nowhere useful, and felt indignation growing in his chest mixed with absolute mental exhaustion.

"Great... simply great," he said to himself with heavy sarcasm, his voice echoing slightly off the stone walls. "I get out of one mess and immediately into another."

He sighed deeply, running a hand through his hair in frustration.

"At this point my life feels less like a game... and more like some ridiculous web novel, written by someone who hates giving me a break."

He started walking down the middle tunnel on pure impulse since he had no way of knowing which one was the right one, footsteps echoing in the heavy silence of the dungeon, and he kept talking to himself because it helped maintain his sanity. "Like, seriously, what comes next? More spirits? Another player wanting to kill me? Literal Death collecting the interest it promised? Because at this rate..."

He stopped walking. He had heard something.

Footsteps.

They weren’t echoes of his own footsteps, they were different, heavier, dragging, coming from somewhere ahead in the dark tunnel where the light didn’t reach properly.

Absolute silence for five seconds as Haru stood still, trying to identify the source of the sound.

Then he heard it again, closer this time, definitely something coming towards him.

"And of course... the dungeon has a welcoming committee," he murmured softly with weary resignation.