A space completely blocked on all sides. Steam spewed from above, and the roar of mechanical devices turning on both sides was endless.
“Wait, let’s catch our breath here like you said.”
Rowen breathed roughly while checking Nigel’s condition. Bangs soaked with cold sweat, lips gone deathly pale. And above all, the strange behavior he’d shown earlier bothered him.
“Nigel. What was that earlier?”
“…What.”
“Don’t you remember? You tried to jump into that oil puddle. You wouldn’t listen even when I stopped you. As if…”
Rowen hesitated for a moment as if choosing his words.
“It was strange. You acted strangely like this yesterday too.”
“……”
Nigel kept his mouth shut. He couldn’t deny those words. It had definitely been like this in the garden yesterday too. Now he could understand. This was clearly a frog’s habit. Unable to withstand hot steam, instinctively craving moisture.
Rowen’s blue eyes bored into Nigel persistently. Even in the darkness, his gaze was vivid.
“You… haven’t completely returned, have you?”
To make even Rowen notice. This is a big mistake by Nigel Kaiserion. Nigel sighed and put his hand into his uniform’s inner pocket. Then he pulled out a leather pouch and shook it in front of Rowen’s eyes.
Clink.
The silvery-white scale fragments inside the pouch made sounds as they knocked against each other.
“…What’s that?”
“Scales the Headmaster gave me. I was able to return by swallowing these in your room that time.”
Nigel revealed it matter-of-factly while gripping the pouch tightly.
“Like you said, I haven’t completely returned, Rowen.”
“……”
Smiling bitterly, Nigel looked at Rowen’s hardened face.
“This morning, when I opened my eyes… I was a frog again.”
My God, Rowen whispered as if unable to voice it out loud.
“What the Headmaster gave me isn’t a cure. It was only a temporary effect. If the medicine’s effectiveness wears off or my body condition worsens, I could turn back into a frog at any time.”
“……”
Rowen couldn’t continue speaking.
Because Nigel had appeared fine this morning, he had believed the nightmare was over. But Nigel had been enduring that fear alone, desperately acting like a human from morning. And he himself had been chattering about festivals and whatnot without even knowing.
“…Why didn’t you tell me?”
Rowen’s voice trembled. He seemed both angry and sad. He gripped Nigel’s shoulders tightly.
“If you’re in pain, you should have said you’re in pain! Why am I by your side! Because you’re like this, Veil Khalid—”
“What would change if I told you? What do I gain besides making you worry?”
Nigel shot back coldly. But rather than blaming Rowen, it was merely reproaching his own powerless self.
“Nigel!”
“…Don’t yell. My head’s ringing. I’ve told you everything honestly like you wanted now.”
Nigel cut off Rowen’s words while pressing his temple. Then Rowen made an expression as if he was even more upset. Nigel looked straight at such a Rowen with resolute eyes.
“That’s why we need to hurry. Before these scales run out, we need to catch the bastard who made me like this and break this curse.”
Nigel’s eyes flashed with venom.
Rowen bit his lip tightly. His heart felt like it was tearing at the fact that Nigel had been driven to this extent.
“…Alright.”
Rowen didn’t argue anymore. Instead, he gripped Nigel’s wrist firmly.
“Let’s get out. Quickly.”
Woong— Clack!
Just then, the floor of the safe zone where they were standing began to tilt. The grace period of the Infinite Clocktower Maze had ended.
“Should we run?”
“No. Don’t use brute force.”
Even while breaking out in cold sweat, Nigel stared at the moving walls and ceiling gears with sharp eyes. The throbbing headache rang through his head, but rather, that pain made his senses sharper.
“If this is a maze, they would have created a way out.”
Nigel muttered.
“The Magical Engineering Department definitely said they create things that are reproducible and have rules… This is.”
Tick, tick, tick.
He was counting the beats. The rhythm of the huge mechanical device. It was like the tempo of a waltz. It had been strange from the beginning. They were clearly running at full speed, but the graffiti marks on the wall beside them were staying in place.
“…We’re not moving forward.”
Nigel ground his teeth.
“The floor is moving. Exactly in the opposite direction at the speed we’re running.”
“…What?”
“The exits and forks ahead are probably bait. If we keep running, we’ll just be exhausted and ground up by those gears.”
How wickedly they made it. It was a design that took advantage of people’s fear and the instinct that ‘we must move forward.’ Nigel quickly scanned the surroundings. If not ahead, then the answer is to the side.
The steel walls blocking both sides were meshing and turning regularly. At a glance, there seemed to be no gap, but Nigel’s sharp eyes didn’t miss it.
“Rowen. Look at the right wall.”
“The wall?”
“The moment the gears mesh, a gap appears for just a moment.”
Between the huge gears. Once every three seconds, a blind spot large enough for a person to squeeze their body into was occurring. If they jumped into that gap, they could fall into the maintenance passage of the mechanical device.
Of course, if they missed the timing, they’d be crushed to death. To think they made such a device for festival visitors. No matter how much someone likes mazes, if they enter this, they’d have no choice but to panic.
It was fortunate that the person trapped here with him was Rowen Ashfield. If it had been someone else, he would have wasted more time and energy needlessly calming them down.
“……”
Rowen checked the gap Nigel mentioned and narrowed his eyes. There really was a gap there that a person couldn’t exit through but air or wind could pass through.
Hmm. Nigel’s hypothesis was quite plausible. Rowen naturally brought his hand to the sword sheath at his waist, but soon realized he had been robbed of his sword moments ago. Since he didn’t have a sword, he had no choice but to use the scabbard.
While a sword needed to be familiar to one’s hand from sharpening the blade and balancing it, a scabbard was different. True to being a member of the Ashfield family, Rowen had never been attached to his possessions.
“I’ll try to widen the gap.”
Nigel, who immediately grasped what he was trying to do, nodded. He put strength into the hand gripping the scabbard. Though he didn’t have the sword, the scabbard with the olive tree pattern engraved on it was a weapon that boasted excellent strength in itself.
Woong— Clack.
The huge gears were trying to mesh once again. A gap barely wide enough for one person to pass through appeared and disappeared repeatedly between the walls.
“One, two….”
Nigel counted the beats in a low voice. Rowen tensed all his body’s muscles. A heterogeneous space, heat constricting their breath. But his blue eyes were unwavering, aiming only at that ‘gap.’
“Now!”
The moment Nigel’s signal dropped, Rowen thrust the scabbard into the gap.
Kkaang!
Along with a solid metallic sound, the scabbard got stuck between the walls. The walls that were about to close hesitated, caught on the scabbard.
“Uurgh…!”
Rowen gritted his teeth. The tremendous pressure the mechanical device emitted traveled through the scabbard to his wrist. The scabbard began to bend while screaming. The gap was barely a hand span. Woefully insufficient for a person to escape through.
“Not yet… more… wait, hold on.”
Veins stood out on Rowen’s forearm. He pushed the wall with all his might using the scabbard as a lever along with a battle cry.
Then the gap widened more.
Hissss—!
When steam spewed through the gap, Rowen clicked his tongue with a “Tch—” and narrowed his eyes. Even though he loosened the strength in his hand just slightly, the steel wall before his eyes tried to close as if to fill the gap again.
“Now!”
Simultaneously with Nigel’s shout, Rowen kicked off the floor and jumped. The two slid through the narrow passage.
It was perfect coordination.
Kwang—!
The moment the two escaped through the gap, a terrible bursting sound was heard from behind. It was the sound of the walls colliding and the scabbard stuck between them shattering to pieces.
If they had been even a little slower, it would have been their bodies crushed instead of the scabbard. The two rolled on the floor from the recoil.
Kudangtang—
“…Urgh.”
Nigel squeezed his eyes shut. But instead of the hard floor’s impact, something soft yet firm embraced him.
It was Rowen. He had twisted his body in midair and taken a breakfall so he would touch the floor first. Dust billowed up in a cloud.
Only after rolling several times did the two’s movement stop.
“…Haa, haa.”
“……”
Only rough breathing filled the narrow space. The noisy mechanical sounds inside the maze were now only felt as vibrations rumbling beyond the walls. It was an escape. Nigel slowly opened his eyes.
A familiar outline was visible in the darkness. Blonde hair disheveled and soaked with sweat, and a chest rising and falling rapidly. Rowen was lying sprawled on the floor, still firmly embracing the back of Nigel’s neck and waist.
Nigel was in the position of lying face-down on his chest.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
A sound that was far too loud and intense reached Nigel’s ears.
