"Here we are, alone and determined," HeeJin muttered under her breath. “As per usual.”

She closed her eyes, going through slow inhale-exhale cycles a couple times. "This is doable."

Tableau over a table told HeeJin that she was on a solitary route. In unplanned emergencies (which, reassuring) she was supposed to press a button on her bracelet, withdrawing from the exam. 

She put it on, making an oath to only press if there was an unavoidable peril. Not a single second earlier.

After a moment of hesitation, she also took out her lenses. She doubted they would be needed in next thirty hours at the very least, so she might as well save up a pair or two and let her eyes rest.

As the door slowly rose, revealing an exit, she threw a glance towards white bunny sitting in one of the corners of the room. It seemed unbothered, sniffing something at its legs.

HeeJin sighed. 

She looked away and headed towards the exit, making decidedly confident steps in a failing self-cheering attempt.

Behind her, the bunny raised its head, looking after her, and vanished.

---

As she went on, HeeJin couldn’t help but feel optimistic - the challenges that led up to this point (a crawling tunnel that was steadily closing behind) weren’t unfairly impossible insofar.

Potentially deadly, but not impossible. Quite a lot of puzzles relied on pattern recognition, albeit some threw needles at her as she went through them or tried to crush her between the walls or to drop her to her doom or sent electric shocks or yeah, good old pattern recognition. Some lightheartedly sprinkled traps over them for wrong answers in comparison weren't worth mentioning.

Some rooms made HeeJin waste more time than others - there was always a healthy dose of hesitation in trying an uncertain solution (though patterned puzzles were usually solved by her bunnies long before she could articulate the solution herself - which she greatly appreciated, cheating her way through), but nothing HeeJin wouldn't have expected from a place called Trick Tower. 

And then a massive room, filled with bright plastic, made her freeze in her steps and do a double take. 

A labyrinth. One of those that you can find on playgrounds and in shopping malls, brightly colored, with bulbous windows to stare at your parents from, impatiently waiting for them to look up at you so you can wave. She saw quite a lot of those after she ran away. 

Sometimes, when nobody was around, she even got in herself, but it wasn’t the same feeling she wished for as a child by any account.

Her parents and adult social circle preferred more “high-standard” playtimes for their children. It wasn't more boring, but also wasn’t…

This maze (an amalgamation of several, judging by the sheer volume) had obviously seen some rough use, covered in scratches with deep-seated dirt in them, remaining labels in few places so sun-bleached, it was impossible to tell if those were item descriptions or warnings against unsupervised use.

It also was very notably built for little children.

For the first time in this exam HeeJin appreciated her thin and comparatively short stature. 

She could even freely navigate underneath the tunnels!

There was some space between the floor and the lowest level of the playground, small stairs connecting it to the porch. But HeeJin wasn’t going there - a metal plate that read “Entrance” hung above the tunnel itself. Further, around it, old plastic filled the room so densely, after a couple meters there was no tell where they went. 

As was customary, to her left hang a plate with instructions. “Get to the end of the labyrinth. Damaging walls of the labyrinth is prohibited.”

In a corner of HeeJin’s eye, a bunny went forward, vanishing into thin air after a couple hops. 

“Hopefully, examiners did not put deadly traps in such tight spaces.” With a mumble, she bent, following it.

Thankfully, there weren’t any deadly traps inside. Only some sections had opened at the bottom and let you fall to the ground level. 

No big deal.

Possibly some broken bones if you weren’t careful, but much tamer compared to, say, floor falling under her feet only to reveal spikes at the bottom. 

HeeJin could work with this.

Hah, no wonder they included the “no damage to walls” rule. It was rather tempting to just cut into plastic and continue from where you were dropped, instead of redoing the whole path. HeeJin suspected that for someone broader than her (or more high-strung) this was a grating experience, being forced to crawl through a child's playground. On the other hand, she didn’t have a fun time either, considering her sense of direction. 

Her bunnies usually got that covered, but they weren’t around at the moment.

After restarting several times and learning that traps on the bottom activated whenever they wanted (even if you passed over them previously without an issue), HeeJin started crawling through sections with seams at the bottom by pushing against the walls. It slowed her down significantly, but she didn’t dare to take the risk - more than once they opened beneath her as she passed over them in such a manner. 

Each time they did so, HeeJin flipped them a bird, basking in fantasies of how her parents would react.

She was walking back to the entrance in a corridor of plastic tunnels when the bunny appeared at last.

“Took you long enough,'' she thought without a bite. Which was said too soon, as her guide vanished shortly after, leaving her alone at a crossroads she recognized, previously going left.

HeeJin sighed deeply, pouring all of her annoyance and exasperation into it.

In the end, it took her somewhere around two hours to clear the maze - much longer than she expected. It was clear she severely underestimated the scale examiners were going for.

(Was it more or less than a football field?..)

HeeJin was sure she heard grunts and swearing of other participants in there, but luckily never met anyone face to face. 

By the end, her poor aching body caught onto the fact that her previous challenging day was continuing and dramatically demanded to lay down. HeeJin scoffed under her nose, swearing the damned tower up and down, as she passed by an identical to her entrance sign. 

(The resting room she passed immediately after brought her sore muscles to the forefront of her mind, but she pushed forward.)

---

A tall well full of entrances felt like one of those artfully photoshopped liminal spaces, an architecture that had no solid understanding or intention behind it, dim, deserted to time and going from never to nowhere.

Walls were made from slabs just as big as the exterior walls, junctures between them not filled in fully, leaving barely-there grooves, leaving dim overlapping shades from sparse lighting. In some places, old rods and hooks stuck out of the walls, their rusty crooked handles bringing only mistrust of their safety.

Tall spikes far at the bottom were the only thing that were souring that picture but HeeJin skillfully ignored them.

She sighed. There was a lot of risky climbing ahead of her, wasn’t it?

Jumping across the well and hoping for the best also wouldn’t work. It was three to four meters wide, not to mention that entrances were placed seemingly at random. 

Her bunny hopped around her legs for a bit, couple times landing its relatively light body on her feet, before winking out of existence. HeeJin crouched, eyeing hallways going to and from the well, placed at irregular distances and heights.

Looking up, she wasn’t able to see the top of it.

HeeJin wasn’t certain in her climbing abilities (in clinging to little depressions for her dear life), so going downwards it was. Since she didn’t need to pull up it should be easier, right?..

Her first choice led her to a pile of building waste blocking the tunnel after just a couple of turns.

She headed back.

Second had a simple dead end. HeeJin tapped the wall and traced rough concrete with tips of her fingers, but even if there was an inconspicuous door somewhere among these slabs, it wasn’t opening for her.

She had to try again several times.

Even being led to discovering that going upward was much more manageable.

It was helpful, considering that in order to find a working exit, HeeJin ended up needing to climb higher and higher. 

Unfortunately, her fingers, not used to such heavy exercise, added themselves to the pain list, even toppling her long-suffering legs. 

---

HeeJin narrowed her eyes at a steep staircase heading up at a sharp angle.

Back when he was still taking her on visits to foreign countries (for her treasured brief freedoms, while resisting any attempt of adding parent’s personal bodyguards to the convoy), her brother loved to luck, even taking some sort of second-hand pride in it. Whenever he wanted to grant her some favor he technically shouldn’t have, they had a bet and rolled the dice. 

HeeJin won much, much more than she lost.

Most of it was on her hallucinations, but she wasn’t unlucky.

(Cards were more favored by their onlookers, but those were long and bothersome, and she wasn’t counting her blunt cheating as luck.) 

All she wished to know is what happened all of a sudden?!

She was steadily heading higher and higher, and unless there was a drop coming up soon, HeeJin was going nowhere.

---

“No. Absolutely not,” HeeJin shook her head in blind denial. “No way in hell.”

“Get to the end of the labyrinth,” said a sign. Past it brightly coloured used plastic was a mocking sore to her eyes. “Damaging walls of the labyrinth is prohibited.”

---

This… was shaping into a serious problem. 

She leaned on the palms against her knees, staring down the well.

It seemed she made a circle. Again.

Bummer.

She looked at the bunny out of the corner of her eye. “You are truly useless here, aren’t you?”

As expected, it said nothing, blinking at her with its dumb pink eyes.

Suddenly, its nose twitched. Long fluffy white ears jerked, pointing at the well and, after an apprehensive (to it, not thought HeeJin) heartbeat, the bunny winked out of existence.

She wanted to sigh, but choked on the inhale, stilling in motion, hearing an enthusiastic masculine voice coming from below.

“Oh-ho? A group?”

Cautiously, HeeJin looked over the edge, spotting a man’s head curiously looking at her from a tunnel a couple meters below.

HeeJin coughed to cover up her embarrassment. “No, it's me. Just, uh, me. Bad habits and solitude give birth to useless talking to oneself, you know? Silence isn’t where I’m at my best, so…” by the end she trailed down, last sentence so quiet, HeeJin doubted he heard a word. 

God, she wasn't wearing lenses right now.

HeeJin desperately hoped her vibrantly pink eyes weren't visibly in this lighting at this distance.

The man hummed, tilting his head, messy dark hair leaning to one side. HeeJin could catch glimpses of green clothes, but the angle was too awkward to see anything clearer, much less his tag. “Sure! Anything uptop?”

“No.” HeeJin scowled at the tunnel she came from. “Only rolling boulders.”

The man thoughtfully nodded. “Nothing here as well.”

Four seconds passed in complete silence.

HeeJin bit her lip, hesitating. 

“Do you know if this place has only one valid exit?” 

“Not really,” the man scratched his head, not even pausing the answer. Seemed like he wasn't bothered by a question, nor by her asking it at all. “Never been here in the last few years. But I’m inclined to think that this monstrosity is just a crossroads. Plenty of those ways should be fine!” He paused. “But not this one.” 

He jumped, latching on the opposite wall, making his way to the entrance that HeeJin was fairly certain led to the door that won’t open.

He seemed. Rather casual. And either non-judgemental or not expecting anything from her. Both were nice for her.

“Not that one either,” shared HeeJin.

“Okay, then!” 

Not the least bit discouraged, he changed direction. 

Fascinated and a bit jealous, HeeJin watched his lanky green-clad figure easily climb higher, to the tunnel she didn’t go to. 

Upon better inspection, it was now obvious that his long green clothes were some sort of traditional attire.

HeeJin eyed his over the shoulder bag for any weapon. There was no obvious shape of a sheath strapped anywhere on him, so he either hid it, or preferred hand to hand combat.

HeeJin kept standing there, waiting for the man to leave before struggling to her next attempt. While he was quite friendly and, dare she say, upbeat, a single minute wasn’t worth the risk.

He lifted himself over the ledge to a tunnel with an energetic yelp. When he straightened out, HeeJin could see patterns running down his cropped vest and a tag on his chest reading 61, cream white a stark contrast to the dark green and black of his clothes. 

He smirked goodnaturedly, noticing her observing, and waved at her jovially before disappearing in his tunnel of choice.

She listened to the barely audible distancing footsteps, until they went silent, before climbing to another, higher tunnel herself.

He made climbing seem so effortless. HeeJin couldn’t help but briefly pout at the contrast with her own huffs and grunts at the struggle. 

---

HeeJin poked a small square slab of concrete, placed next to four others in a row, all wildly different in tone but similar in size, placed in order of ascending value. She made a couple steps forward, her eyes trained on them, looking from a different angle. 

Yeah. 

She remembered those.

HeeJin turned around, at the winding hallway that she already passed through half an hour ago and scowled, before starting a low run through the room full of darts.

---

HeeJin bleakly stared down. 

“I hate you,” she conspiringly admitted to the bleak concrete spikes that were close now, almost directly under her.

This time, the well stayed silent.

---

She was fairly certain she moved downwards, albeit slowly. HeeJin never came back to a well, at least, which was definitely a win in her book, and there was a decline in repeated rooms. She also noted a pattern - the more wastefully dangerous the room, the less likely it would be rearmed and looped through -  the more likely she was progressing.

HeeJin glanced at her watch. It was closing to the twenty hour mark. She slept twice, for six and half hours each time, the barest of minimums she could afford before her skills would suffer.

Some provisions she saved for the exam were stuck in . Was HeeJin close or still far? There were plenty of death-threatening traps on her way, but after a couple passes through, she was beginning to feel familiarity. 

There were only so many puzzles their examiners could devise and HeeJin was becoming adept at seeing patterns, her bunnies present (as it went, one at a time) and leading her almost nonstop. 

The problem was that there were just too many branching paths.

HeeJin grew certain that something more dangerous was preferable compared to… this. Despite doing her best, she felt restless each time she let herself a break, a tightening knot deep in her lungs urging her to keep moving and moving faster. 

She glanced at her watch again, biting the inside of her cheek, before rising eyes at the situation in front of her.

There were six doors in front of her.

Merde. She might need to cycle through here five more times.

At this point, sacrifices should be made. Next stop she would sleep for five hours and that's it, no more waste of precious time.

HeeJin had to clear the tower no matter what.

---

Falling ceiling over her head rushed her forward, insensitifying running faster than she thought she could. A descending tunnel let her lower and lower, causing some part of her, the one not busy making sure she didn’t trip, to cheer inwardly. Finally.

For so long she was seemingly aimlessly wandering the Tower up and down, borderline lost, her hope was hanging on a single thread. 

But this dangerous room kept a lifesaving change trend going. 

That small, not-so-busy right now part of HeeJin rejoiced - this hallway was new and more dangerous than previous ones. 

And the challenge room before this one was too.

And both rooms and paths between them all went downward.

It was different.

HeeJin, out of her breath and outrunning falling concrete, would take any deadly road that actually led her where her goal was over another relatively safe loop.

---

“Applicant 243 finished…” stumbling through the exit, HeeJin immediately slumped to the side of the door, bonelessly slumping down. The pathway slowly closed behind her.

Bliss. Quiet. Peace of mind after ending a difficult task. Horizontal pose. Passing the phase and finally being able to sleep…

Pure. Bliss.

“Yay! You made it!” cheered gleefully Choerry above her, startling HeeJin. 

Too sudden. Way too gleeful.

HeeJin couldn’t help but lament. Her two seconds of quiet bliss! They came and went so fast!.. 

“Let me die,” she moaned, swatting Choerry away. 

HeeJin would’ve loved to be similarly cheerful, but she was simply not up to the task at the moment.

There was a recognizable sound of approaching footsteps. HeeJin begrudgingly opened her eyes. Chuu and HyunJin came nearer, the former borderline skipping.

“Welcome to the bottom of the tower!” Chuu sing-sang. “You are lucky you did not arrive here in the first thirty hours. This place is unbelievably dull!” A wink as she sat down. “It's a running theme here.”

Following Chuu, HyunJin half-nodded, smiling faintly at HeeJin. “Congratulations on getting here in one piece.”

HeeJin sent a weak smile back before her gaze fell to her (floor) level, looking around. There were twenty or so other participants. There was shinobi (of course), a weird purple guy, ugh, Hisoka, a woman with a sniper rifle, a trio of brothers, a bunch of others she vaguely recognized… The boy’s crew. Who were all looking this way.

HeeJin sent them a weak wave, which they returned several times more lively, young bastards (she was in their age spectrum, her subconscious unhelpfully supplied), before turning back to their conversation.

If this place’s running theme was boredom, hers was being utterly exhausted.

With her marbles finally (and temporarily) coming together and forming a mental transformer, she was ready to do some critical thinking for at least twenty seconds. 

Didn’t Chuu and HyunJin come from that direction? She missed all the fun bonding time again, didn’t she?

HeeJin rolled on her back, staring blankly at the ceiling. Her eyelids threatened to close constantly and she had to push all of her last willpower to keep herself awake. This phase ends in five hours. She never felt refreshed after only five hours of sleep.

If there was any mercy in the world, please, let there be a break between the phases! 

Choerry sat near, dragging HeeJin closer, so her head rested on the purplehead’s lap. “How did it go?”

“Tiring,” stated the obvious HeeJin. “How were yours’?”

“A loooong story,” HyunJin sent a glance at Chuu, before focusing back on HeeJin. There was laughter in her eyes. “But it would be better to tell it later. Believe it or not, you look like a mess.”

HeeJin grunted, agreeing as she almost slipped out of the waking world. But before that… “Is this many people or not?” 

Hunters were almost legendary in their rarity and even considering they dropped from four hundred to two dozen already, twenty-five wight've been still too many.

“Quite a lot, honestly!” confirmed her thoughts Choerry, glancing around. “There might be more, though. Someone could still drag themselves here in the last few hours,” purplehead winked at the half-asleep girl.

“Sure,” huffed HeeJin, rolling her eyes that almost refused to open again after an apex of the roll. “No more talk. I’m dead.”

HyunJin and Chuu moved closer, enough to almost touch her.

“We will watch over,” Chuu told her, leaning back on her arms, HyunJin humming in agreement.

“Sweet dreams.”

She fell asleep in six seconds flat.