Chapter 21: Rumors of the Labyrinth
Caelus woke to an unfamiliar ceiling.
His body felt strangely normal, almost as though yesterday’s beating had never happened.
His ribs no longer protested when he breathed, his shoulder moved without stiffness, and the cut across his forehead had vanished without leaving so much as a trace.
He sat up and looked around.
The room was simple but well furnished, clearly one of the guest chambers in the Marquis’s residence. A tray beside the bed held several empty vials.
Healing potions.
Judging by the result, expensive ones.
MIST has better medical resources than I expected.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood. There was no pain, not even soreness.
Yesterday, Eve had nearly beaten him unconscious.
Today, his body disagreed with the evidence.
Caelus slipped the bracelet around his wrist and turned it once beneath his sleeve. The metal tightened against his skin, responding to his mana.
He focused on the artifact.
[Veiled Form]
The bracelet warmed.
A strange sensation crawled across his face as his features subtly shifted. His jaw narrowed, his cheekbones moved, and the shape of his nose changed just enough to make the reflection staring back at him unfamiliar.
His hair darkened into a deep brown, nearly black, while his blue eyes gradually bled into a dark crimson.
He touched his face.
Everything felt normal.
That was the unsettling part.
He activated the second effect.
[Perceptual Blur]
For a moment, the world seemed to lose focus around him. Not literally. It was more like the mind itself was being given a reason not to remember him too clearly.
Caelus studied his reflection.
Perfect.
He dressed quickly. The clothes Veyra had provided were laid out neatly on a chair. He picked them up. Frowned at them.
They were practical and deliberately plain. No expensive fabric, no embroidery, no family crest, nothing that would immediately place him among the nobility.
Which made them effective.
It also made them terrible.
Caelus had spent most of his life surrounded by clothing that announced exactly who he was. Wearing something deliberately forgettable felt strangely insulting.
"These are what I could find," Veyra said from the doorway. "What you were wearing before was obviously expensive. Defeats the entire purpose of a disguise."
Caelus turned. She looked different. Her hair was shorter and brown. Her hair was shorter and brown, her features subtly altered, and even her frame seemed smaller. Her voice had changed as well, slightly lower and stripped of the familiarity Caelus associated with it.
He stared at her.
Caelus studied her for another moment.
"It’s unsettling."
"Why?"
"Because I know exactly who I’m looking at, and somehow none of the details agree."
"That’s the point."
"I know. It’s still strange."
He looked down at the clothes again and sighed.
"I look like a merchant."
"A traveling merchant."
"That’s worse."
"You wanted to avoid attention."
He didn’t argue. He just put on the clothes and adjusted the fit.
---
By the time Caelus reached the carriage, Veyra was already waiting beside it, her disguise firmly in place.
Caelus climbed inside and glanced around.
Eve was nowhere to be seen.
He looked at Veyra’s shadow.
It stretched naturally across the ground beneath her feet, but he could feel something faintly wrong about it now that he knew what to look for. The darkness beneath her seemed a shade deeper than it should have been, as though something inside it was breathing.
"She’s in there?"
Veyra stepped into the carriage. "She’s here."
Caelus looked down again.
"In your shadow?"
"She said she’d rather remain in Shadow Form while we traveled."
Caelus stared at the darkness beneath her.
"She can stay in there the entire time?"
"She’s training her control."
He considered that for a moment, then shrugged.
"More space for us, I suppose."
Veyra gave him a sideways glance as she took her seat.
"Don’t get comfortable."
Caelus ignored her and settled back against the seat.
The carriage began to move.
---
Veyra had been watching him since they left the Marquis’s residence. Not constantly, but often enough that he could feel the weight of her attention whenever he looked away.
Eventually, she spoke.
"How did you know?"
Caelus glanced at her. "Know what?"
"How Eve would move."
Her voice remained calm.
"You weren’t reacting to her attacks. You were moving before she committed to them. You predicted several of her movements before even she seemed to decide what she was going to do."
Caelus said nothing.
Veyra continued.
"Then there’s the Hero."
She leaned back against the carriage seat.
"You knew his fighting style. You knew his habits. You knew what he would do before he did it. And that isn’t the only strange thing about you."
Her eyes settled on him.
"And you’ve known things since the moment you walked into my office that you shouldn’t have."
A pause.
"So I’ll ask one more time. How?"
He smiled mischievously.
"You see," he said, "I’m the author who wrote this world. That’s why I know so much."
Veyra stared at him.
A vein twitched on her forehead.
He maintained his smile, knowing full well it’s irritating her.
She continued staring.
"That’s not a real answer," she said finally.
"It’s the truth."
"That’s not possible."
"I know." He shrugged. "But I already gave you the truth. Whether you accept it is your problem."
She stared at him for another long moment. Her expression was unreadable. Then she looked away.
The carriage continued south.
---
They reached the region surrounding the Temple of the Moon.
Caelus slowed the moment he stepped from the carriage.
There were far more people than he’d expected.
Mercenaries stood beside adventurers carrying worn equipment and freshly polished weapons. Groups of Awakened occupied the road and surrounding clearings, some openly discussing the rumors while others watched the area with the careful suspicion of people who had come for the same reason but had no intention of admitting it.
Conversations overlapped around him.
"The labyrinth is..."
"Temple of the moon was..."
"Does it really have an entrance..."
Caelus’s expression tightened.
This wasn’t supposed to be a private expedition.
It was becoming a competition.
There are a lot of people.
He had expected the place to be quiet. Instead, half the local adventuring population seemed to have heard that something valuable was hidden here.
"I thought this was supposed to be quiet," Veyra said.
"So did I."
Caelus studied the crowd.
They knew a labyrinth existed somewhere in the region. That was all.
They didn’t know where the entrance would appear.
They were searching based on rumors.
Caelus had something they didn’t.
He knew the exact location.
But—
He couldn’t remember anything about rumors leading people here in the original story.
That didn’t necessarily mean they hadn’t existed. He hadn’t written every conversation, every rumor, or every insignificant event leading up to the labyrinth.
But that was precisely the problem.
He no longer knew which parts of the world had changed and which parts he’d simply never known about.
Veyra noticed his silence.
"Something wrong?"
Caelus kept his eyes on the crowd.
"I expected fewer people."
"Does that change your plan?"
"No." He paused. "It just makes it more annoying."
She looked at the crowd. "Is the labyrinth supposed to be this well-known?"
"No."
She turned to him. "Then why are they here?"
"Rumors."
"Rumors from where?"
Caelus opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
He didn’t know.
He knew the labyrinth existed. He knew exactly where its entrance would appear. He knew what he had come here to obtain.
What he didn’t know was who had started the rumor.
"I don’t know," he admitted.
Veyra’s expression shifted. Slightly.
He’d never admitted uncertainty before. Not to her.
Caelus turned back to the crowd.
They were searching.
They didn’t know where the entrance was. They didn’t even know whether they would find it.
He did.
That was still his advantage.
He didn’t know who had started the rumors. He didn’t know how many people would eventually enter the labyrinth, or how much their presence would disrupt the events he remembered.
For once, there was no convenient answer waiting inside his memories.
But there was one thing he knew.
The Eclipse Ring was here.
Unlike the rumors surrounding the labyrinth, that wasn’t something he had to guess about.
He looked toward the place where the entrance would eventually reveal itself.
His expression settled.
He had come here for the Eclipse Ring.
He intended to leave with it.
Whatever the changing timeline threw at him, whatever competition waited inside, he would deal with it.
Even if he needed to kill for it.