Chapter 627
Chapter 627: Unable to leave, a maze outside the labyrinth!
Ughhh
The 7 party members immediately gagged out of disgust and repulsion . The rotten stench stinks into the high heaven for goodness sake . Sachi and s.h.i.+on should be congratulated for not fainting immediately . Even Wu Yan is pale from smelling this foul odor .
“Holy s.h.i.+t!”
Wu Yan cursed .
He immediately turned off the smell sensation in his system . The others did the same thing as they couldn’t deal with this smell . They stopped hurling in disgust when they closed this setting .
“Where are we?…”
Sachi said with a slightly pale look on her face .
“What an awful place…”
This place was already creepy enough with the dim lights . The line of sight is also very terrible here . It’s hard to say where anyone’s heading under the poor lighting conditions . They were initially confused when they arrived because they thought the darkness is due to their uninitiated visual senses .
Wu Yan patted his chest and he swapped his casual clothes for his battle gear . He looked in front of him and he quickly gave up on that thought . He opened his map .
“What the?!”
Wu Yan yelled out loud .
“There are no indicators on the map at all?”
“No indicators, that means…”
The others quickly verified that by looking at their own maps . They only saw a blank field of darkness .
“What’s going on?…”
Souta looked at his map .
“Are we in the labyrinth already?”
Excluding the case where the players are inside a maze, they can generally tell their locations by taking a look at the map outside of the labyrinths . Without indicators or legends, it would be hard to locate towns in such a large gaming environment .
“No, we aren’t in the maze…”
Wu Yan scanned his surroundings .
“You can’t teleport into the maze with crystals . We should still be somewhere outside in the fields . ”
A maze is a place designed for players to explore on their own . If someone can teleport inside a specific area of the maze, that would defeat the purpose of exploring every nook and cranny .
Of course, one can still use escape crystal to run away from the maze . As long as they are not in an Anti-Crystal Zone, that is .
On that matter, Wu Yan brought out a teleport crystal . As expected, the use b.u.t.ton is grayed out which means they can’t use crystals to teleport out of this place .
“An Anti-crystal zone…”
The other members’ expression darkened once more .
“Onii-san…”
Sachi got closer to Wu Yan out of fear . Sachi thanked herself for bringing this quest up in front of Wu Yan . If she arrived at this kind of place with her guild without him…
Sachi started trembling when she thought about the worst-case scenario .
Wu Yan used his enhanced visual perception to determine their current location .
They are currently standing at the center of a crossroads, there are pathways in front, behind, and to his sides . The paths looked like they went on forever . The walls are dark and sticky with a black paint-like substance that emitted a foul-smelling stench of rotting objects . The nauseating smell must have been from the walls around them .
“Onii-san…”
Sachi asked Wu Yan .
“What do we do now?”
They are inside an Anti-Crystal Zone, this also looked like a maze out in the fields where the map function failed to work . Moonlit Black Cats are woefully unprepared for this kind of operating situation .
“How… How do we get out from here? I don’t see any exits or anything…”
s.h.i.+on looked around .
Wait, how do we get out?
s.h.i.+on brought up a very important subject .
Crystals couldn’t be used, the map is blank, and there are only winding pathways around them, how do they escape from this place?
Sachi looked at s.h.i.+on with a blank expression . She’s panicking deep inside . It’s bad enough they are stuck inside a death game . If someone told her they have to spend the rest of their days inside this empty dungeon without seeing the light of day, she’s definitely going to collapse from stress .
As she clenched her fists, she felt a hard sensation within one of her palms . She looked at the object and she cried out in shock .
“The teleportation crystal’s still here!”
They turned their attention towards the crystal in question .
“What is this crystal?”
Wu Yan expressed his confusion out loud .
“It didn’t disappear after one use and it can also transfer the whole party, with more of these crystals all the players will have a better time clearing this game…”
“Onii-san…”
Sachi raised the crystal and she appeared flabbergasted .
“I can trade the teleportation crystal now…”
“Oh?”
Wu Yan got it from the trading window Sachi offered to him and he clicked the gray “Use” b.u.t.ton on the item window . Nothing happened .
A flash of inspiration hit Wu Yan .
“Let us out of here!”
The crystal didn’t respond…
“Git’!”
“…”
Nothing…
“Open sesame!”
“…”
“Pineapple and jackfruit!” (Apparently a song by Xie Na)
“…”
“Ma me Ma me Hong!” (Buddhist mantra)
“…”
“Little rabbit, please open the door pretty please…”
“…”
“Open up! I am gonna smash you if you don’t!”
“…”
“…”
Wu Yan tussled with the crystal . The other Black Cats watched him in a stunned state .
Is this the same guy that took down a floor boss on his own?
“We aren’t stuck here forever, right?…”
s.h.i.+on awkwardly laughed . She voiced the same question on everyone’s mind .
“I don’t think so . ”
Wu Yan put down the crystal and he stared at the dark walls surrounding them .
“There are no certain-kill settings inside SAO . I don’t think they would design a dungeon that players can’t escape from . There are roads here, see? We can just explore them…”
The guild members nodded because that’s the only option here .
Wu Yan hesitated when it came to choosing one of the four paths here . He chose the path in front of him and the others tagged along .
“Stay on your toes, there might be monsters lurking around here…”
Wu Yan reminded them . They nodded in affirmation . They are swimming in deep water now, they should listen to Wu Yan if they wanted to come out of this in one piece .
The seven of them stopped all idle chat . The mood was very tense and heavy . s.h.i.+on and Sachi walked while holding hands, kinda like girls who are braving a haunted house . They looked very unsettled as if they are preparing themselves for a monster to pop out of nowhere to scare them .
It didn’t take them long to stumble upon another crossroads with three paths in front of them . Wu Yan chose the middle route and again, they found another crossroads . Wu Yan continued along with his pattern of choosing the middle path or the one in front of him .
The paths weren’t linear and the winding paths completely disoriented them . The weird forks and misleading routes started making them dizzy as a sense of unease started setting in .
Don’t me this goes on forever…
Fortunately for them, the path soon came to an end . However, there is no reason to celebrate because it’s a dead end .
“We… we aren’t going to be stuck in this h.e.l.lhole, right?”
s.h.i.+on started getting scared, Sachi hugged her to calm her down .
“s.h.i.+on, just stop…”
Sachi is also afraid…
“I hope not…’
Souta and his other guild members gulped in unison . Wu Yan said nothing as he turned around to walk back where they came from . They continued fumbling around before they reached a crossroads . He stared at the crossroads in silence .
He lost track of where he came from…
“No monsters, no traps, only a confusing maze here…”
Wu Yan looked at the ceiling of the pathways here .
“We are in trouble now…”