Episode 107
107. The Invisible Wall
Whiiiiing—
A cold wind swept past, brushing against his cheeks.
At the player’s words—that this place was a maze—Geumson felt his thoughts momentarily freeze.
“This place is a maze? But I definitely saw a city…”
Geumson scooped up a handful of snow from the ground.
It was cold.
So cold that his palm began to ache.
This wasn’t an illusion.
The snow was real. The cold was real.
And yet, his vision was deceiving him.
“Was it a mirage?”
Like a desert mirage, perhaps the city he had seen was nothing more than a false image.
Without hesitation, Geumson activated Mac’s Insight.
Paaat—
Eyes that pierced through the flow of magic itself.
What golden hand saw was shocking.
“This is…?”
The entire snowy plain before him was tangled in an enormous web of magical threads.
This wasn’t a simple illusion spell.
Space itself was twisted and distorted—
a bizarre structure where entry was free, but no exit existed.
Like a fly caught in a spider’s web, the moment one stepped inside, they were already trapped.
‘So it really was… a maze.’
A hollow laugh escaped golden hand.
From the moment he descended from the sky—
no, perhaps from the very instant he entered this region atop the griffin—
he might already have been within the maze’s influence.
The distant city he’d seen had merely been bait.
He had walked straight into the trap with his own feet.
‘Did Uncle Jincheol really have this level of skill? Or… was it someone else?’
A man who silently drew blueprints with a stiff expression.
A man who always pursued perfection, yet suffered when faced with the walls of reality.
Maze Architect Ma Jincheol.
The companion who had fought alongside him during the Age of Ruin came to mind.
* * *
“Damn it! It broke through again! My maze—those stupid monsters broke through it again!”
It had been the same back then, too.
The day the shelter’s outer wall was breached, monsters flooding in.
Ma Jincheol clutched blood-stained blueprints and roared in frustration.
“They don’t even try to solve the maze—they just smash through my ice! Those bastards… isn’t that going too far?!”
“Uncle, we were short on materials and time. Still, thanks to it, casualties were reduced. That’s more than enough.”
“Enough, my ass! My maze… my design was flawed! My ice was too weak! If only the ice had been stronger, it could’ve held out longer… damn it!”
Back then, while Geumson forged equipment to arm the people,
Ma Jincheol was responsible for fortifying the spaces where they stayed.
He hadn’t simply built walls into a maze.
There were no proper construction materials in that chaos.
So he built walls of ice—
a complex, intricate labyrinth meant to exhaust monsters until they collapsed on their own.
That was why he was called the Maze Architect.
‘Left, three-three. Left again, three-three.
Then right, three-three. Repeat.’
Three left turns, repeated three times.
Then three right turns, repeated three times.
Repeat that pattern, and no matter where you were, you’d eventually pass through the maze.
A consideration made not for monsters—but for humans.
And yet, despite pouring his soul into his work, Ma Jincheol was never satisfied.
Especially with the maze he created.
“Damn it… if only I’d had more time. Just a little more time, I could’ve made it perfect…”
Every time a shelter fell,
Ma Jincheol would drive himself harder, almost abusing himself.
And then, one day, he said:
“Golden Hand… a truly perfect maze doesn’t need walls.
It makes people not even realize they’re inside a maze.
They don’t know when they entered—
and never even think about leaving.
That’s a real maze.”
Back then, Geumson hadn’t understood.
A maze without walls?
It sounded like nonsense.
He thought it was just despair talking.
“Come on, Mr Jincheol. Stop saying weird things and hurry up and build the maze.
A maze like that doesn’t even exist…”
He’d laughed it off.
Because if he didn’t laugh, it felt like Jincheol would collapse.
But now—
Geumson understood those words down to his bones.
‘Maybe… he said it with such confidence because he’d already built one?’
The snowy plain stretched endlessly before his eyes.
No walls.
No ceiling.
Just snowfields and trees as far as the eye could see.
And yet—there was no way out.
Spatial distortion that erased any sense of direction, of origin.
The dream maze Ma Jincheol had longed to create.
It existed—right here.
* * *
‘What on earth is Uncle Jincheol doing here?’
Lost in complicated memories, Geumson fell silent.
But the other players around him only burst into laughter again.
“Judging by the way you’re muttering to yourself, looks like you’re messaging someone… better not do that.”
“Huh?”
“I got trapped trying to save that guy.
If he hadn’t messaged me, I’d be fighting in the Airtoss defense right now!”
“You bragged about getting me out, and you didn’t even bring a return stone?
Are you out of your mind?!”
“Do you know how expensive those are?! There aren’t even any on the market!”
The players bickered loudly.
It seemed everyone here had a story.
From what they were saying, return stones did work—
the problem was that none of them had one.
‘Can’t escape through the sky either?’
When Golden Hand looked up, the players spoke as if it were obvious.
“No return stones… and flying doesn’t work either.
Someone with a flying mount tried going up,
but once he passed a certain height, he hit an invisible wall and fell.”
Golden Hand nodded.
Spatial distortion.
This wasn’t a flat maze—it was a three-dimensional, sealed space.
You could enter, but never leave.
A meticulous design—worthy of Ma Jincheol.
“But you know what the most messed-up part is?”
“There’s… more?”
“This is the worst part.
You don’t return to a city when you die here.
You revive inside the maze.
Does that make any sense?!”
“You revive… inside the maze?”
golden hand’s eyes widened.
This was completely unexpected.
In 《Lepione》, death always sent players to their last registered city or village.
An absolute rule.
Yet here, that rule was being ignored.
“Exactly. Whether you die to monsters, hunger, or freezing—
when you open your eyes, you’re back here.
Random location, sure, but still inside the maze.”
The player shuddered.
“One of my friends completely snapped and logged out, said he was quitting.
But here’s the problem—
even if you log back in later, you’re still here.”
This was serious.
This wasn’t just blocking paths.
There was malicious intent—
to imprison players here forever.
‘And the system is helping him? Why…?’
golden handwas confused.
The Ma Jincheol he knew built mazes to protect people,
not to trap and torment them.
He was ruthless to enemies, yes—
but most of the people trapped here were ordinary players.
And the system itself was supporting Jincheol.
That meant there had to be a reason.
“So… everyone’s just stuck here like this?”
“What else can we do? There’s no way out.
Either we wait for a rescue party, or for the admins to bug-fix it.”
The players were half-given up.
Their eyes were lifeless.
Logging in every day, killing time, dying from hunger or cold, reviving—
an endless, meaningless loop.
‘This is bad.’
golden hand clenched his fist.
Yes, he had City Return.
He could leave whenever he wanted.
Astrid’s Shadow Robe could memorize locations—
even leaving and coming back wouldn’t be a problem.
But them?
These players were wasting precious time without even knowing why.
In an era where even a single combatant mattered—
‘I can’t just leave this alone.’
He had to solve it—
destroy the maze,解除 it, anything.
Still, knowing the honest, stubborn Ma Jincheol,
he hesitated to act recklessly.
But he couldn’t just watch from afar.
“First… I need to find a way.”
golden hand stood up.
At that moment, murmurs rose from one side.
Dozens of players were gathered, building something with intense focus.
“Heave—ho!”
“Tie it tighter there!”
“Adjust the angle! This time it has to work!”
Unlike the others, these players hadn’t given up.
They were building a massive wooden structure—
cutting frozen trees, binding them with monster hides and tendons.
“What’s that?”
golden hand asked one of the working players.
With hollow eyes, the man replied:
“A catapult.”
“A catapult? What for—hunting monsters?”
“No. To launch people.”
“What?”
Geumson doubted his ears.
A catapult—
not to throw stones, but people.
At the sheer absurdity, a hollow laugh slipped out of him.
