Divine Luck: SSS-Rank Battle Maid Harem

The loose sand beneath Zach's feet shifted and slipped whenever he adjusted his weight. The sun glaring down at them from above was harsh and seemed intent on boring holes in their skin. The stale air didn't help.

Zach, Nora, and Borso were not used to the harsh environment nor walking on the sandy dunes.

Alzara, however, had not felt this comfortable ever since Zach summoned her. She had to constantly remind herself to slow down since every step she took brought her ahead of the others. The sun on her skin was like war kisses, and the air filled her lungs and body with energy. Continue reading stories on My Virtual Library Empire

Alzara was excited to be back in a place similar to home. It didn't feel quite the same as home or a real desert, but the Labyrinth had done a good job. No one other than a skilled Desert Witch would have felt the difference.

The sun was a little too bright for how warm it was. The air was stale and dry, but the faint wind wasn't suffocating the way it was in a real desert. And the sand beneath their feet was a little too loose.

"Are you alright, Master?" Alzara asked after stopping herself again. She saw Zach hang with his head when she glanced back.

Unlike fighting a few monsters, this kind of environment put deeper and more thorough pressure on one's body. It wasn't as harsh, but it could be worse for someone whose entire body was weakened.

Zach looked up, startled. He had just been busy thinking about something.

"Yeah, I feel fine," He answered. It was almost surprising how well he felt. He wondered if it was due to his connection with Alzara, the Desert Witch.

"By the way…" He started saying, earning the attention of the other two as well, who were busy trying to figure out how to walk on sand without getting too tired.

"Aren't the elves strange?" He asked. The other three looked at him.

"Because of the ears, you mean?" Borso asked.

Zach shook his head.

"Their existence. They are sentient. Both in the Labyrinth of Syst and the Labyrinth of Vidur, the only sentient beings were ones on a level beyond mortals." Soara, Patient Zero, and Blizzard were the sentient beings Zach had met in the other Labyrinths. They were remnants of their destroyed worlds.

"So?" Borso asked, not understanding the issue.

"Who are the elves? Where do they come from? Why can't they leave the Labyrinth? How did they—" Zach's mouth snapped shut. He wanted to ask how the elves survived the destruction of their world, which had led to the creation of this Labyrinth. But Borso's presence forced the restriction into place, preventing him from saying anything about that.

Zach didn't know whether the Labyrinth of Jira was created under similar circumstances as the other two he had visited, but he had no reason to think otherwise.

The Labyrinth of Syst had used a dilapidated city and a temple to house the first eleven Trials. Soara had sacrificed a piece of her strength to save her world's legacy and escape the destruction of herself and her world. She had made the Labyrinth to look for challengers who could clear the twelfth Trial and possibly defeat the enemies who destroyed her world and then help her regain the strength she lost.

Blizzard had cut out a slice of their world to trap Patient Zero and the monsters she had infected. The ice bird didn't want the Blight to spread. At the same time, by creating the Labyrinth, it could wait for people to challenge it and eventually defeat Patient Zero.

But the Labyrinth of Jira…

It was more than just a tiny part of a world on the brink of ruin. By the looks of it, a world at least as big as the one Zach was from could fit in the Labyrinth. And none of it looked like it was about to be destroyed.

The monsters they had seen so far on the first to tenth floors couldn't be found anywhere on the Gjula Continent. That included the elves. However, the monsters on the floors so far didn't seem like they were responsible for anything other than the death of humans or other monsters.

They weren't eroding the world or the Labyrinth the way Patient Zero's Blight monsters had. And while they were strange, compared to the native monsters of the Gjula Continent, they weren't the abominations Zach had seen in the memories of the deity statues in the Labyrinth of Syst.

He could only assume that the monsters were a natural part of the ecosystem. However, they were non-sentient beings that didn't care about the passage of time.

The elves, on the other hand, were not only fully sentient, but they were also aware that they were living inside a Labyrinth. Their home was a sliver of land attached to an entire world. They had been living like that for ages. The Labyrinths had existed on the Gjula continent longer than recorded history covered.

For all that time, the elves had seemingly lived their lives the same as usual.

Zach couldn't quite put his finger on it. But something wasn't adding up.

Zach sighed and looked at Borso.

"You can't read lips, right?"

Borso shook his head. Before he could ask why, Zach spoke again.

"Bear with this for a little. I need to talk to these two." He snapped his fingers, and a soundproof barrier appeared around Borso.

"If you knew that there was an entire world many times the size of this place out there, wouldn't you want to visit it?" He asked. Unlike Borso, Alzara and Nora were aware of the secret behind the Labyrinths. They were supposed to be the remnants of broken worlds.

That meant the elves had lost their original home. The current elves probably didn't remember it since they would have spent many generations in the Labyrinth by now, but Zach doubted a people similar to the Sesha would have forgotten their ancestors' wishes.

"Maybe it's just impossible for them to leave the Labyrinth, Young Master," Nora suggested. Her eyes widened. She realized what Zach meant as soon as she said it.

"I wouldn't stop trying just because it's impossible."