Raive was sure that, for some reason, they’d returned to where they started. No, not just him—everyone thought the same thing.
But that wasn’t even the worst part.
As if voicing everyone’s thoughts, Hershey asked innocently.
"What... should we do now?"
They had circled back to the start, even though they should’ve been walking in a straight line.
In short, the space inside the red dungeon wasn’t infinite. Far from it—the space itself seemed to be twisted.
"Raive?"
Even Therese looked at him expectantly, hoping he could offer them a solution.
However, he could only shake his head.
Right now, he had nothing to offer. They could only explore the dungeon manually, without a hint of a clue. They had to figure out its mechanism from scratch.
And all of that while making sure they handled all the monsters around them properly.
"For now, we can only explore this space as much as we can." Raive declared. "First, let’s make a record of the paths we’ve taken. Khamish, get me a pen and A1 paper."
"Y-Yes!"
After receiving the tools, Raive didn’t delay and drew a simplified map.
First, he split everything into 1 cm x 1 cm squares, creating a clean grid. The scale he used was one centimeter to one kilometer. From there, treating the center as their starting point, he began drawing everything they’d passed through from memory.
The small hills, the elevation, the location of the flower beds, and everything else along the path they’d taken. As he did, he noticed a simple trend.
’The space between each monster is roughly a hundred meters... is this a coincidence?’
Under everyone’s watch, he continued filling it in.
He drew a line straight up from the center, following the path they’d taken. At the end, roughly thirty centimeters up, he wrote "return," marking how they’d ended up looping back to the start.
"That’s one down." He said. "Next, let’s try going straight to the right. Leave the mapping to me."
"Honestly, I didn’t even think you could draw a map." Khamish sighed in awe. "This looks almost like a pro’s work!"
"True! Brother’s so amazing!" Hershey chimed in, jumping with excitement.
Shymine couldn’t help but chime in too, half-praising and half-criticizing. "More like—drawing all this from memory alone... Your memory is insane."
"If I were really that amazing, I’d have already told you the correct path, wouldn’t I?" Raive smiled wearily. "Anyway, we’ve got a long road ahead. Let’s continue."
However, despite his brave words...
Two days passed, and they still remained inside the dungeon.
If not for their phones telling them the passage of time, it would’ve been hard to even tell how much had passed. After all, the sun in the dungeon never moved. It stayed right above them, completely stationary.
Although they kept their rests to a minimum, the frequency slowly increased. From every eight hours, to now, having to stop and rest every two.
Everyone was getting tired—not physically, but mentally.
A never-changing scenery. A place where no matter where they went, they returned to where they started. That kind of "reality" was enough to make their hearts falter.
"Tsk..."
But worst of all, they still hadn’t found any idea how to clear the dungeon.
By then, they’d tried hundreds of paths and defeated thousands of monsters, but still hadn’t reached the exit.
Even Raive was starting to feel rushed himself.
So, on the 125th stop, he proposed another break to everyone.
What he wanted was time.
Time to immerse himself in analyzing the map before him.
At first, they’d explored all the cardinal directions. After that, they moved on to zigzags, but some paths looped back fast, while others stretched on far longer than should’ve been physically possible to fit on the map.
It was as if the dungeon wasn’t just a wide area looping infinitely, but something else entirely.
Raive stared at the map he’d drawn, now filled nearly to the brim. He had to figure out the rule behind how they kept getting sent back.
He went over all the paths they’d taken and began considering every small detail—even those that didn’t seem related at all. He was trying to find a solution that would satisfy every path they’d already tested.
It wasn’t anything simple.
Raive’s mind raced faster, his eyes darting across the large map, cycling through hypothesis after hypothesis. He was so deep in focus that he didn’t even notice the passage of time.
Or how the others were all watching him with worry.
"Hey, is it really fine to leave Raive like that? It’s been four hours, and he hasn’t moved an inch..."
"Well, he did say not to touch him until he’s done. But... how would we even know when he’s done?"
"Brother... please don’t push yourself too hard..."
They were all tired, but being tired didn’t mean they’d start lashing out unreasonably. They’d all chosen to come into the dungeon, after all. They couldn’t just pin the blame on any one of them.
Right.
That’s what they originally told themselves.
But still, when someone’s mental defenses were pushed to the brink, they start doing things they wouldn’t normally do.
"ENOUGH!"
Which was why nobody expected Shymine to rush to Raive’s side, yank him up by the collar, and shout. "Stop pretending you’re trying to find a solution. Just accept reality! We’re all stuck in this dungeon—forever!"
Raive, pulled out of his trance, saw Shymine’s dark expression and felt only confusion.
"Shymine...?" He called, but was cut off.
"Stop it! Don’t feed us false hope! Don’t bullshit us with your useless precognition!" She roared. "Just admit that we’ll all remain stuck here, until we run out of food and die...!"
"S-Sister, please calm—"
"I am calm!"
Shymine stomped her foot, causing the ground to freeze over.
It was such an intimidating display that Hershey stepped backward and fell to the ground from fright. But even that didn’t make Shymine flinch.
"You just keep trying this and that—do you want us to try every combination there is? That’d take years, bastard! Do you want us to stay here for years?!"
"..."
Raive couldn’t say a word back.
He knew what she said was true. He was, quite literally, trying every possible combination. And finding the correct one that way was almost like winning the lottery.
There was no telling how long that would take.
That was exactly why he’d been trying to decipher the "rules" of this place using the data they now had.
But to the others, it looked like nothing more than him stalling for time.
"If only there were markers we could follow..."
Khamish sighed, whispering to himself.
A quiet whisper, but one that carried in the current silence.
Enough that even Raive heard it.
"Mar...kers..."
His eyes widened, then he glanced back at the map, and gasped.
"Right... Markers! Why didn’t I think of that...!"
He was so focused on finding layered rules and meaning that he forgot something so basic!
With ease, he twisted free of Shymine’s grip, then dove into the map once more.
"H-Huh?"
His movements were so decisive and fast that even she was thrown off.
After all, even though she should’ve been stronger than Raive, who hadn’t taken a single stat-up candy, he shook her off with ease!
But most of all...
"I... I finally found it—the path to the exit!"