I Didn’t Even Want to Live, But God Forced Me to Reincarnate!

“Not good. There’s no sign of the door opening,” Ein said as he tried every possible way to open the door.
“Could it be that the door can only be opened from the outside?” Maiara concluded before she turned to look at me.
“Can you contact Kuu to help open the passage?”
Sure enough, Maiara asked me this question I had been expecting.
“Let me try…,” I said as I closed my eyes to focus on the illusions I had created.
Now, that’s one tricky question.
First, the nature of my Oracle is illusion and transformation. This time, I am using an illusion.
Illusion means it’s not real, it’s just a trick to make the others perceive reality as I see fit. It doesn’t have any substantial form.
Therefore, in conclusion, I shouldn’t be able to use the illusion I placed to help activate the hidden area’s passageway.
However, I should be able to connect with the illusion I created, transfer my magic power through it, and somehow use my magic to activate the passageway’s trigger!
My heart was thumping badly as I tried to execute the beautiful plan I had in mind. It should be able to work out…
YESS!!
I almost leapt out of joy when I managed to flip the books through this method.
I was so excited that I increased my pacing. And now, the last ‘trigger’ a.k.a the book needed was also in its right position and…
I breathed in heavily, about to open my eyes and announce that the door was opened!
However…
“Eh?” I opened my eyes and blinked.
In front of me was the still-closed passageway.
My high excitement immediately soured into grave anxiety.
Perhaps noticing that my expression wasn’t right, Ein asked, “What’s the matter?”
“Uhm…,” I gulped, trying to give a reason that was acceptable even to Maiara.
“It seemed like my magic couldn’t reach outside anymore, so my communication with Kuu-chan was cut…”
I said slowly after testing it with my magic. It couldn’t get past the door no matter what.
“Is that so… That’s too bad,” Maiara didn’t seem to be surprised, as if she had been anticipating this outcome.
“Guess it can’t be helped. Let’s go back to that room. Maybe we can find another path leading outside if we look hard enough,” Ein said.
We returned to that eerie underground room with Ein leading the way.
This time, we went through the nook and cranny of the room, not to look for anything valuable to steal–I mean, to take as a clue–, but to look for any other way out.
I combed through everything, touching everything in the way in hopes to find a hidden switch or trigger, or basically anything…
We were searching in silence, perhaps all of us were so focused on what we were doing because we all wanted to go back quickly, before they found out that we were missing.
Suddenly, Ein’s voice broke this tense silence we were in, “I think I found something.”
Maiara and I quickly rushed over Ein’s side to look at his finding. When we were right next beside Ein, we noticed Ein began tracing his fingers along the wall. Then, his fingers came to rest on a small indentation–it was a verrryyy slight indentation–hidden amidst the stones.
With a firm push, Ein managed to activate the hidden mechanism, and then like magic, a section of the stone wall nearby was flipped open, revealing yet another narrow passageway beyond.
“There it is. Our way out,” Ein said with a hint of triumph in his voice.
“Let’s quickly leave this place, then. It’s been quite some time since we are here,” I said, anxious that the people of the temple would notice us missing, then if they happened to be the bad guy, knowing we stumbled upon something dangerous… I shuddered thinking of the worst case scenario.
Seeing that the path opened in front of us was similar or exactly the same as the path that we took to get here, we plunged ourselves into the darkness of the passageway, readying ourselves to find the same stairways and then an open door somewhere…
Only for me suddenly noticing that my feet were stepping on… the air.
“AAAAAAAAHHH!!”
And what quickly followed it was the sensation of falling from the height.
It happened very quickly and my body was frozen in fear, falling down without any sign of stopping.
But before I could even do anything–
“Meol bryne, niman hîwl¯æcan ðe ymbfeng ûser ealdorgeard!” [O light, materialize and envelop our bodies!]
I heard a gentle voice chanting magic in an urgent tone that was contrary to how calm that voice used to sound.
In an instant, a gentle light quickly formed around my body and enveloped it. It felt so soft and warm to my skin, calming down my nerves. As the warmth and softness increased, eventually I felt that we stopped falling and after a little bit of bounce, the warm and gentle light particles dispersed.
“Are you guys alright?” Maiara asked me and Ein who were still in a daze, trying to process what was happening.
“I’m fine,” Ein said.
“Me too. Was that just now… your magic, Maiara-san?” I asked.
Maiara nodded, “I’m glad that you guys are alright.”
I was again in awe when she admitted that.
As expected of an elf, their specialty was light magic, so they invented many ways to utilize their strongest and native magic element!
It was uncommon for humans or basically people in Riviera to do that. In such a scenario, one would probably use water magic to create a small pool so they won’t get hurt upon landing, or use wind magic to help with the wind current and float or fly, thus landing safely…
Manipulating light magic would be the furthest from our mind.
But let’s not comment on this lest she became suspicious of us!
“More importantly, this place…”
Maiara was the calmest among us and she was also the first one to look around the area.
Her words made me focus more on surveying the area. I was flabbergasted upon what I saw.
There was a narrow area in which we fell to. Right in front of us was a tall wall with a little bit of an opening on its side. And there was a luminous writing on the wall–I reckon it was light magic.
[Dear me, did you forget how to get out of the room? Really? Ha! Has the age gotten to you?
Unfortunately, this past you won’t write down the method here. Who knows, it might be intruders instead!
So, dear future me or the intruders… Listen carefully!
Beyond this wall is a maze. You just need to get out of the maze and you’ll be able to return to the surface.
Simple, right?
If it’s me, then this is a piece of cake!
If you’re intruders… Well, just pray a lot!
Good luck, me! No good luck for you, rude intruders / trespassers!]
“.........”
“So… There we have our answers. It’s really an exit door that I found!” Ein’s voice broke the silence.
“But the text that’s written on the wall… Don’t you think it’s some kind of a trap?” I asked, my voice slightly quivering due to my anxiety.
“Even if it’s a trap, it’s not like we have any other way, right?” Ein answered my question with another.
“Correct,” Maiara said.
I took a look above, towards the direction where we went in from.
Surprisingly, it was a full ceiling. No sign of a hole was seen from it at all. Even though we definitely fell from it…
This time, I could only gulp and nod at the two of them who were waiting for me to follow them into the unknown labyrinth.
[Fenrir, do you sense something?]
Before we took a plunge into the intimidating maze, I made sure to ask Fenrir.
[None. It seems that whatever is inside the maze has been hidden thoroughly.]
Fenrir’s voice resonated in my mind.
“Alright, let’s go!” I said after bracing myself. The adrenaline had helped make my mind clear and my body not fatigued, despite the fact that I had been expecting to get plenty of rest after going to the library, for our rest had not been good until today.
We proceeded to enter the maze’s only path.
It was dark and narrow, but thankfully Maiara summoned a ball of light to guide us so we could still see our surroundings.
Despite that…
“Huh? What is that noise–...!!”
Before I could finish my sentence, the walls surrounding our narrow path were inching in closer, as if they were trying to swallow us!
The light from Maiara’s magic ball showed that our path through this narrow passageway with the approaching walls was still a long way… At this rate, we would be smashed to death by the moving stone walls!
“Run!”
At Maiara’s urgent command, we started running towards the other end. The other end had ended in a turn, so it was unclear if we were finally free after that or the wall would continue to try smashing us, but still…
I ran with all my might and I could see that Ein and Maiara were also doing the same.
However, it wasn’t good enough! At this rate, we’d get smashed to death before we could reach the end of this path!!
I chanted desperately in my mind.
Right at that moment, I felt like there was a wind suddenly coming about, supporting our movements.
“Ack, the path ahead is closing faster than the rest! It’s trying to trap us here!” Ein shouted.
“Light! Come and hold the walls off! Destroy them if you can!”
Suddenly, Maiara shouted in a loud and fierce tone that I had never imagined I’d heard from her.
At the same time as her words finished, countless particles of light appeared and quickly swarmed towards the walls in front of us that were already closing in at a more aggressive speed.
I could see how the light actually tried to push the walls away from us, but the wall of stones seemed to be stronger. Still, the walls seemed to be inching in slower than before, which was good!
With this pacing, we finally reached the end of this path, and we turned left in accordance with the path.
Thankfully, the moment we turned left, I noticed that we were no longer in that narrow path whose walls were trying to squish us silly!
When I thought we could finally breathe, suddenly…
“Above us!” Maiara shouted, making me alert once more.
When I turned to look at the ceiling…
“Aaaah! The ceiling is spiky and it’s inching closer to us!!” I cried in alarm.
“Not again!” Ein clicked his tongue.
We continued to run…
“Which path do we take? It’s started to diverge now!” I said as I ran and saw that there was more than one path this time.
“There’s no time to think! Let’s trust our guts!” Maiara said as she led us to a path that she thought was the most correct.
Again, just as we were thinking that we’d have a chance to rest, this maze proved us wrong again.
“Careful! There’s invisible traps. Use your light magic to sense it. It’s faint, so concentrate,” Maiara said as she prevented us from going further.
I closed my eyes and focused on channeling my light magic.
Maiara went first, and I followed after her as I continued to channel my light magic constantly, so that I could make sure I wasn’t walking towards the trap!
When I just passed the first trap, I realized that Ein shouldn’t be able to do light magic, so I turned around to look at him in worry.
Thankfully, he seemed to be fine, following the path that Maiara and I had taken, avoiding the light traps completely!
Thus, we crouched, jumped, crawled… and did everything possible to avoid getting sliced by the invisible light magic trap set in this path.
Then…
“We’ve encountered a dead end!”
“Let me guess this time. This should be the way! …… Aaaah! …M-Maiara-san, thank you for holding my hand. I was about to fall… Yikes! Man-eating plants are below!!”
“Wait, this is a puzzle. I can solve this. Follow my commands. Please fire your light magic towards the pillar to the east, then to the south-west pillar, and…”
“Another dead end!”
“Careful, part of the ground will disappear, you can fall. Let’s hold hands–” “No, let’s just guess by letting our magic walk through the path first.”
That was how we went through this restless maze, full of sweats and tears.
Just as I was tired from all of this exercise, we finally saw that there was only one path in front of us, and the path was somehow different from the rest.
“Is this the exit already?”
I asked, and it seemed like all of us were wondering the same thing.
We walked towards that path with anticipation in each of our steps.
And what was at the end of this road was…
We were inside a room, this time.
This room wasn’t that spacious, but it wasn’t that small either.
Oddly enough, it was empty. No, there was dust, a proof that no one had touched this place for quite some time.
“Why is there suddenly a room here?” I voiced my question.
“There’s nothing here… Not even another path,” Maiara said.
“Is this another dead end? Well, there’s another path a bit far from here that we hadn’t taken, but we could evidently see that it led to a dead end, so… Hmm, maybe it was a trick?” Ein had a whole monologue as he was thinking.
“Let’s go back and try, then. We have no time to spare,” I said as I turned around and was about to retrace the path we took earlier when suddenly…
“Aaah! Earthquake!!”
I even tumbled down to the ground due to the earthquake! It was a big one!
Luckily, the earthquake subsided pretty quickly.
“Are you alright, Escha?” Ein quickly came to my side and extended his hand to help me stand up.
“Yeah, thank you…,” I held my hand towards his, and he helped pull me up from the ground.
“Wait. I think we’re on the right path,” Maiara said.
My eyes headed towards the direction she was staring at and… lo and behold!
The earthquake just now helped some kind of dust that was accumulating in the wall to come off, exposing yet another luminous writing on the wall.
However, it was some kind of writing that I wasn’t really able to read clearly… It was styled differently…
“This is one of the elven regional writings…,” Ein muttered.
“Unfortunately, I haven’t learned this regional writing yet,” Ein shook his head, clearly disappointed in himself.
“Don’t worry, young boy. It’s a regional writing that’s almost extinct. It isn’t as hard as the ancient elf language. And I… think I remember my parents passing it down to me when I was young, I can’t really remember,” Maiara said with a nostalgic tone, “But I can read it. It says…”
[Whoa, congrats on making it this far!
Now, there’s only one trial left.
If it’s you,
Then I suppose you can quickly overcome this trial. No, I think this wouldn’t even be a trial to you.
Unfortunately, if it’s anyone else other than me…
I don’t need to explain, do I?
You’ve read until this part? That’s great, then!
May the holy light illuminate your path, always.
After you read the previous sentence, the last trial… or a leisure walk for myself… will begin!
Good luck, the exit is just right this way!]
“...Was I tricked to read some kind of spell that could activate something in this place?” Maiara was flabbergasted. She took a pause when she noticed it might have been a trick, but she continued reading the rest of the passage in a hurry.
Before Ein and I could answer, there was a loud thud behind us.
Apparently, the path we just walked from was now closed, and standing in front of us was…
A MONSTER?!
I could hear the typical last boss BGM playing immediately in this moment…