Chapter 137: Chapter 129 – The wolves’ maze

The group had narrowly escaped a life-and-death situation. Maya found out about the wolves' maze below their house and the capital and got angry. Luckily, Sophia somehow managed to defuse the situation and even talked the cat-girl into exploring said maze together with her.

The couple had finished their lunch and went to the basement. There, Sophia created a portal to her extra space to quickly return if they want to take a break or have enough of exploring.

"Alright!" She was really looking forward to it and energetically raised her fist. "Lead away, Maya."

"Eh, me?" She hadn't heard about that before.

"Of course! I want you to have the most fun!"

"I see. Whatever, sure." Maya accepted the leadership role and took the first step through the entrance but immediately stopped again. "You don't think there are any traps, do you?"

"Ah... Well, Fen and Aura built it, so..."

"Again, you don't think there are any traps, do you?" It being made by the wolves didn't calm her down in the slightest.

"Uhh... Be careful!"

"Hey!" The cat-girl didn't like the sound of that.

"Well, that's part of a maze exploration, I guess?"

"That's true…"

"I'm also almost relatively certain that they most likely didn't put any super deadly traps in here. Probably."

"And I'm very certain that I'll give the lead back to you!" Maya wasn't a fan of those odds.

"Come on, don't be like that~." Sophia simply started to push the cat-girl's back through the entrance.

"D-Don't push me!" Resigning to her fate, she eventually, and cautiously, began to walk on her own but stopped again after two turns. "Say..."

"Nope, I can't see a thing, either." The tiger knew what she wanted to ask because the two found themselves in a pitch-black corridor. As there was no light left to reflect, their feline eyes had become useless, as well.

"What now?"

"Time for some light magic, I suppose. Do your best."

"Eh? Me?" Repeating herself, Maya pointed at herself while tilting her head.

"Stop being cute and do it." She liked her innocent pose. "I taught you light magic already, so it shouldn't be an issue, right?"

"Hehe. Well, this shield thingy I had to use in the war because a certain someone felt like going wild, but..."

"I gotta do what I gotta do~. If you can do that, something like illuminating this passage should be nothing."

"Alright." Maya closed her eyes and tried to imagine a type of magic that wasn't quite as large-scale as the other one. A couple of moments passed, and their surroundings slowly started to brighten up.

"See? It wasn't so ha- Eh?!"

"I did it! Huh?!" The cat-girl was happy about her success for a second but then froze up, as well. Now that the two saw something again, they noticed the roughly three-meter-deep pitfall right in front of them that was impossible to see in the darkness. "S-Seriously?!"

"W-Well, it wouldn't have killed us."

"That's true, but..." Maya glanced at the hole again. "It wouldn't have felt nice, either."

"Fair point. Fenny's in trouble, huh?"

"That'll depend on what other surprises he has in store for us."

"So, he is?"

"Probably." They had the feeling the wolf hadn't hold back. Luckily, the hole was just a surprise and didn't cover the entire corridor. Once they found it, the couple could simply walk around it.

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The two kept navigating through the maze for around 15 minutes. Eventually, they found a passage that seemed to be leading down somewhere as it was on a slight slope. Then, Sophia heard a weird sound and had to stop.

*Click*

"C-Click...? " She froze on the spot and slowly looked downward at the source of the sound. "Uh-oh..." Her face turned white as her eyes stopped at her right foot that stood on something that resembled a pressure plate.

"What's wrong?"

"Uhh... It might be time for my turn to get angry at Fen..." Cold sweat appeared on her forehead. "Seriously, if we're about to get chased by a massive boulder now, I- Ah." In the very moment she said those words, their surroundings began to shake. As if on cue, a gigantic boulder actually did drop from the ceiling behind the girls.

"Fen, you idiot!" Maya noticed the boulder speeding towards them and made a quick complaint before she panicked. "R-Run!"

"Well, duh." Sophia was already a step further. She grabbed the cat-girl's hand and broke into a sprint while dragging Maya with her. They ran for a couple of hundred meters before the two reached the end of the slope. There, the couple was greeted by yet another pitfall. This time, it was much deeper and around 10m wide, though. "Hang on tight!" She wrapped her arm around Maya's waist and simply jumped.

"Eh? Huh?! Waaaaaaiiit!" Not having expected any of that, the cat-girl could only scream as the two flew over the pit.

"Phew, that was fun~." As 10m wasn't a mentionable distance to jump for the tiger-girl, she safely landed on the other side. Letting go of Maya, she turned around just in time to see the boulder fall down the pitfall. "Wow, just like a movie!" Despite the situation, her eyes were sparkling.

"W-What just happened?!" Maya was a little confused by the events.

"I accidentally triggered a trap. Those wolves sure are something else. I couldn't have done it better myself." Instead of being angry, Sophia looked pretty proud after the initial surprise had worn off.

"T-That's way too dangerous!"

"Is it?" She tilted her head. "Sure, it scared the heck out of me, but thinking calmly about it, was there much danger? Both of us are way faster and can jump over the pitfall. Not to mention that we could've easily stopped the boulder with magic."

"Ah." Maya stopped to think about it for a second. "You're right. I just panicked..."

"Maybe that's the point of those traps? For learning to deal with a situation calmly and quickly?"

"Oh, that might be true. Or they just want to mess with us."

"Uhh…" She couldn't defend the wolves in that aspect. "Well… Aura also mentioned that mazes are her favorite part of a dungeon because, unless you cheat with magic, your power doesn't really matter, and that's a lot of fun."

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"So, you mean we should watch out for traps and try to solve them creatively?"

"Sounds great, doesn't it?" Sophia had a bright smile and seemed to be really looking forward to it.

"Sure, let's do it!" The cat-girl, too, took a liking to the idea.

"Yay, lead away!"

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Leaving the pitfall behind, the couple continued on the path that eventually ended in a three-way intersection.

"Hmm..." Maya looked at the different corridors. "Any preferences?"

"Preference, huh?" She looked at the path to her left, right ahead of them, and then to the one on her right. "Well, I don't go straight, so it's either the left or right one."

"Idiot..." She could only roll her eyes.

"Ehehe."

"Alright, well, straight's out of the question." The cat-girl played along. "Left or right, left or right... Left!" Seemingly on a whim, she then pointed at the corridor.

"The reason is?"

"Why not?" There was none.

"Perfect." Sophia herself wouldn't have done it any differently.

The two followed the path for around half an hour. As there weren't any more intersections where they had to choose, and no traps either, they had covered a lot of ground. Unfortunately, there was a reason that it went so smooth, or too smooth.

"A dead-end... Seriously?!" The couple had just walked around a corner, and Maya wasn't overly happy about the sight.

"Ahaha..." The tiger, too, had a complicated expression. "Our wolves sure know what they're doing."

"Oh, maybe it just looks like a dead-end, but it's actually just an illus- Nope, it's solid rock." Maya touched the wall to see if it was real and got disappointed yet again.

"Well, time to head back, huh?"

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Doing as told, the two turned around and went back to the intersection from earlier. This time, the girls followed the path they had previously labeled as the right one. Immediately after, they had to turn left before deciding to continue or go right as the corridor gave them two options.

"You decide this time!" The cat-girl didn't want to be responsible for another failure.

"As said before, I won't go straight~!" After Sophia's reasonable and carefully considered decision, the two turned right.

"Sure."

They followed the path for around ten minutes. It had a couple of left and right turns and eventually ended up at another intersection, which gave them the option to continue ahead or turn Left.

"Left, it is!" The tiger had no plans to change her approach.

"Hmm...?" Something about this crossroad bothered Maya, but she followed her for the time being.

Another ten minutes and some more left and right turns later, the couple once more had to decide whether go straight or turn left

"Well, you know the drill!" She still refused to go straight.

"Wait a moment!" Maya stopped her. "Doesn't this corridor seem familiar to you?"

"I can't say I paid much attention to it. Looks all the same to me."

"Hrmn... I feel like we've been here before." She looked around some more. "Yeah, definitely familiar. Let's mark this wall before we continue." Saying so, the cat-girl used some fire magic to scorch the wall.

Once this was taken care of, the two followed the left path for yet another ten minutes, and they actually ended up at the same crossing where Maya had marked the wall before.

"Wow, that point goes to you."

"I knew something was odd here!"

"The corridors all look the same to me. I have no idea how long it would've taken me to notice..." Sophia awkwardly scratched her cheek. "So, this path's just a loop, and we've been running in circles the entire time?"

"I think so. Let's find out." This time, the couple didn't go left, and after another turn, they were back at the intersection where the two arrived after running away from the giant boulder.

"Ah."

"That sure was a lot of wasted time." Maya, too, had an awkward expression and glanced at the only path left before facing Sophia again. "Looks like, in the end, we have to go straight, huh? It's the only thing left for us. We have no other choice. There's no use fighting it anymore. The other paths were just a phase, and that's the real one." She pointed at the straight path. "We just wasted our time the entire time. Everything else is a dead-end, after all. This is the only right way for our future."

"Having fun?" Sophia only looked at her.

"A lot~."

"I never should've told you how some individuals in my old world thought about homosexuality."

"Ehehe." The cat-girl let out a small chuckle before energetically raising her list. "Let's leave our dark past behind and finally go straight! It's the one true path that will show us the light~." Maya looked at the two dimly lit corridors they tried before, gave Sophia a quick kiss on the lips, and then entered the straight path that was shining brightly from her light magic.

"Were you always such a dork?"

"Not before meeting you~. I hope you take responsibility."

"Sorry~." Sophia followed after the cat-girl with a goofy smile

Interestingly enough, the straight path took a sharp left turn after around 50m and continued in a jumbled mess of corridors with a ton of intersections that led up and down, went in a zigzag way, and many other types that were anything but straight. If looked at it from above, it most likely would've been labeled as modern art.

 

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