The fate of the dice was rewritten from beginning to end. God was the one who drew, created, and narrowed the circle.
Kiyomasa Kun stared at the surface of the dice, his eyes glimmering with reflections. There, he saw a void.
When I blinked, the numbers had vanished into thin air.
Kiyomasa Kun roared as he transformed into a tiger within seconds. "This can't be!" he growled. "You little traitor! So, you dare to cheat me, huh?"
"No," I denied. "It's not a cheat. Come on, let's lift the dice."
Kiyomasa Kun was certain there was a number on the other side of the cube. But when he lifted it confidently, he found nothing. This only fueled his anger further. "This is impossible!" he roared. The walls of the hall cracked open as soon as he roared. Stones flew into the air. A pack of tigers stood before me.
They were going to either kill me or destroy me. No enemy ever chose the simple path of killing.
"Fate has been written, Kiyomasa Kun!" I shouted with all my might. I could hear the hissing of centipedes crushed under the rubble.
Despite the tigers, despite my trembling body, I would not take a step back.
"You're done," Kiyomasa Kun said to me.
My legs twitched. I struggled to stay standing.
The most lavish form of terror spread across his face.
Arrogance spread across his face like a carpet.
The tigers were coming at me.
Time stopped for me.
🦞
"Welcome to Labyrinth II."
I opened one eye. My entire body was covered in sharp pains and cuts. "Labyrinth II?"
A metallic bird perched on my chin and rubbed its wings against my face. "Do you believe in tigers?"
My consciousness returned with its words. I recalled the last moment when the tigers approached me, stretched my skin, and caused me to close my eyes in pain.
"No," I said confidently. "If you think you can make me abandon my faith in God with these, you're very wrong."
"Tsuyika, you're such a young and naive girl," said the bird.
"So what?" I said, clenching my teeth to suppress the pain. "It's better than blindly believing in an animal."
"The Tiger King is not an animal; he is a spirit," said the bird. "He resides within you, within me, and within all creation."
"Oh, shut up." I pressed my aching hands against the ground. "No matter how much you torture me, I will never believe you."
"Labyrinth II will teach you everything," said the bird. It drew a circle in the air. Suddenly, a mirror appeared within the circle. I could see my own reflection on its surface.
Blurry and reflective, the image gradually morphed into tree branches and my mother's face. Behind her, the face of my deceased father. And then, to my shock, the face of an old friend who had died in Labyrinth 27. He waved at me as if begging to be saved. Despite the sight, I stared as if intoxicated. I wasn't just seeing the image; I was drinking it in with my eyes.
The hardness of the ground seemed to sting the soles of my feet. Every scratch and cut on my body hurt even more.
"They all died in the labyrinth," said the bird with a merciless tone.
My lips trembled. My clenched teeth clashed against each other. "Why did you show them to me?"
My fingers, clenched into fists, felt deadly with my nails digging into my palms.
"Because," the bird said as it circled around the ring it had drawn in the air. My head was spinning. "You are everything that your identity has shaped you to be. The God Council, led by the Tiger King's Protection Squad, has decided to leave you at this stage. You will be abandoned here for cheating in front of God."
I stared at the dust rising from beneath a fallen brick.
"My fear, from my faith," I said without holding back.
The bird screeched as if frightened by my words. "Oh, you naughty child! You think you're something to be envied. Those who are left here by the God Council can never set foot outside again. You are trapped here with everything you are. However, if you accept the Tiger Rules, the Council might reconsider its decision."
Its words burned through me.
"Never and ever!" I screamed. "Never!"
The bird took off, heading for the hole above. As it was about to leave, I shouted at it with all my might. "If your King is not afraid of me, then let him come and face me!"
Wait a minute! Did I just challenge a lion? Did I say that? Yes, maybe I could do something.
I looked at my fists and feet. Defeating the Tiger King was impossible. The bird had already flown away.
I was left alone in the vast labyrinth.
🦞
Time seemed to stretch endlessly. The only things looking at me were the four dark walls. I kept imagining myself leaning against the prickly bark of the pine trees.
What broke my spirit was the loneliness I was left with.
It was as if one of the walls was whispering to me. It told me to obey the tigers, that God would not be angry with me for it, that I could bring some flowers to my parents' graves again.
I fiercely rejected these thoughts. "No." My response was clear and simple.
Whenever my inner voice wavered against this simplicity, I would remind myself of the stories of the Kinya natives.
In the year 4500, Lujius Vam had incited the Kinya natives to rise against the Tiger King. This was a hundred years ago. The people were starving. The animals' meat had been consumed, and famine had begun. Hunger and thirst had become unbearable. The sky was dark.
A soul-crushing ignorance spread like a disease. People had forgotten how to use the Jen alphabet. Only a handful of Kinya natives remained, trying to hold onto their faith while everything else slipped away.
Many of the Kinyans misunderstood faith, making the populace passive while production came to a halt. The only investment made was in one thing: The Dice of the Unfortunates Project.
The Dice of the Unfortunates Project was said to have been created by a German scientist named Max Dertman, who survived World War II. The term 'Unfortunates' referred to the people of 4500.
The dice, consisting of numbers from 1 to 7, represented a form of consciousness transformation.
The first time Max Dertman used the project, he used it to his own advantage. Despite being on trial at the International Criminal Court, he vanished entirely on the day of his execution. No one could make sense of it. Just as everyone was ready to spit in his face, the scientist disappeared, leaving only a single note in his dark, cold cell: "You will never find me."
Since then, the project was first protected in America and then moved to Japan after the Third World War. After a war between the Kinya natives and the Japanese, the project fell into the hands of the Kinyans.
The Dice of the Unfortunates was hidden in the Whip Tower without being accessible to the Kinya Lower Natives. The tower was 300 meters high, 100 meters in diameter, and it pierced the sky like a spear.
During the Fourth World War, a nuclear bomb from Europe exploded inside the tower, releasing the project out of control.
And from that moment on, the Tiger Race emerged.
Endowed with the dice's power, they gained consciousness and took control of the project. They declared war on other countries, launching 7 nuclear bombs across continents and killing billions.
Now, they wanted to enslave the remaining humans, establishing themselves as gods in the eyes of humanity.
That was what the history books told us.
I felt despair when I thought about everything the Tiger Race had done during its century-long reign. But I wouldn't give up, no matter what. I would use every last drop of strength within me.
As my thoughts intensified, a gate suddenly appeared beyond the walls. Dust and ash filled the air.
I coughed as the wind filled my lungs. The rattling of chains echoed through the room. Someone was being brought in through the gate.
A heavy thud. Chains clattered.
I looked at the person lying on the ground.
"Yuto!"
The boy, with wounds around his eyes, was my classmate from high school.
End of Chapter.