Herta's gaze swept quickly across the disordered mirrors surrounding them.
To ordinary eyes the arrangement might have looked like pure chaos.
In hers, however, the placement, movement trajectories, and refraction angles of every mirror were already assembling into a complex spatial model inside her mind.
"If I observe a little longer and combine it with the movie clips, I should be able to locate the problem," Herta said quietly.
Kanzaki turned his head.
"If the mirrors never reflect us, will the Mirror Shadows even appear?"
The mirror walls on both sides had already closed to less than five meters away.
"I don't know. The movie never spelled it out. But the shadows that do come out can be killed."
Herta continued without pause.
"What we really have to watch out for is the ghost's Fake Body. Every time it's destroyed it grows stronger, and it can move freely between any of the mirrors."
"So basically every mirror is like its personal doorway?" Kanzaki cut in.
"Yes."
"Tsk. Troublesome. From what you're saying I can't even finish the Fake Body off."
"You can kill it. Just don't exceed five times. In the original, once it's been destroyed more than five times the mirrors turn into Countdown Bombs. Nothing can stop them, and they blow everything up."
Kanzaki's head filled with question marks.
"As expected of a bad movie. A horror film with ghosts that doesn't properly strengthen the ghosts, and instead throws in mirror bombs as some unnecessary gimmick. Is the screenwriter a spy sent by a competitor studio?"
"…And the countdown time is still unknown," Herta added, driving the point home.
Kanzaki's eyes twitched. His blood pressure felt ready to spike.
"Oh, and the Fake Body is invisible too. You can't see it in the original, but I can track its movement through fluctuations in spatial curvature."
"Even someone with eyesight as bad as mine finds this outrageous. Is the screenwriter already dead? If not, after I send you back to Azure Star I'm going to find him and kill him before I eat you."
"Don't… Watch out!"
The title "Lord Kanzaki" never left Herta's lips. She switched to a sharp warning instead.
Kanzaki's reaction was faster than her words.
By the time the first syllable of "Watch" left her mouth he had already slipped aside. His fingers came together and locked onto a point along the attack path. Ice erupted, freezing the shadow solid.
A heavy block of ice crashed onto the light-absorbing glass floor with a crisp crack.
Kanzaki's cloudy, unfriendly gaze fixed on a massive mirror in the distance that had just rotated to face them.
The ice on the floor melted almost at once.
"I didn't plan on killing it. How did it die?"
"…Probably because it was a trap to begin with. A Fake Body that shatters on contact is more likely to force a dead end. That's one kill already."
"My fists are itching."
"Don't start yet. I just noticed something new. The rotation speed of the mirrors is slowly increasing."
Herta's brow furrowed.
Kanzaki rolled his eyes.
Slowly increasing rotation speed meant less and less room to dodge as time went on. Sooner or later they would be reflected, and a Lethal Shadow would be born.
"I've been tricked by you, brat. Can I break the contract? This job is nothing like easy."
"You can. But don't you still want to eat me?"
"Is there a chance that breaking the contract still won't stop me from eating you?"
"But I can't smile right now. I can't feel happy. Is meat that tastes bitter even worth eating?"
"…Shut up, brat. Just find a way out of this maze already. I don't want to stay here one second longer!"
"Then please be quiet, Mr. Magician, and stop interrupting my train of thought."
"…?!"
Kanzaki admitted he was starting to get anxious.
What a sharp-tongued little brat. Sooner or later he was going to eat every last piece of that tender flesh.
Ten minutes passed. The invisible attacks grew more frequent.
Kanzaki was still managing, so he told Herta to stop warning him and focus entirely on cracking the maze's secret.
But the longer it went on, the more irritable he became. A situation where he could only dodge and never strike back was pure torture.
In the words of Azure Star, the screenwriter's entire bloodline needed to be sent flying.
"Three o'clock."
Herta stretched out her hand, finger locked firmly on the spot.
"Height 23.85 meters, distance 74.14 meters. There's an invisible mirror there… or rather, an Air Wall. Break it."
"Fine, fine, fine!"
Magic gathered at his fingertips and condensed into a thick bolt of lightning that tore through the space with a roar.
The sound of shattering glass echoed through the maze. Mirror fragments scattered in every direction.
Herta stared at the back of Kanzaki's head with a complicated expression.
"Mr. Magician… I didn't tell you to break the invisible mirrors at the neighboring coordinates as well."
"You didn't tell me not to, either!"
"The coordinates I gave were very precise."
"Brat, are you looking for trouble on purpose? I already told you my eyesight is bad and I can't see clearly at that distance. Discriminate against me again and I'll watch your butt!"
With that, Kanzaki scooped Herta up, set her on his lap, and raised his hand.
The hand never fell.
"I'm sorry… I didn't consider it from your perspective," Herta said.
"…"
Kanzaki sighed, resigned.
"Just don't apologize. It doesn't fit the image I have of you. It sounds awkward."
"If your vision is this poor, finding the ghost's true body will be troublesome. Mr. Magician, do you know any special magic… something like sharing my vision?"
"I do. But it shouldn't be used too often."
"Is there a price?"
"Of course. I don't want my reserved food going blind. That would ruin the aesthetic, and without the aesthetic my appetite suffers."
Herta blinked, slightly stunned.
The words were unpleasant, yet the intention behind them almost sounded like concern.
"Are you caring about me?"
"Huh?"
Kanzaki laughed out of pure frustration. He lifted her again and sat her properly in front of him, one arm firm around her lower abdomen so she wouldn't slip.
"Are you kidding? Caring about you? That attribute doesn't exist in my persona. Agreeing to help you in the first place already made me go OOC."
"Then you're quite respectful of the author who created you."
"…"
Why did that sound so much like sarcasm?
What a punchable, venomous-tongued brat. Especially that tone of voice. Every word she spoke carried a natural quality that made fists itch.
Suppressing the urge to keep bickering, Kanzaki expanded his perception. His expression turned solemn.
The mirror fragments on the ground stirred. One after another they floated upward, began to glow, and rotated toward different directions.
Just as Herta had said, mirrors could not be broken freely. The more there were, the tighter the remaining space would become until there was nowhere left to move.
"I hate puzzles. You creators from Azure Star really love showing off this low-level suspense. Can't we have more pure battle-thrill segments instead?"
"…I wasn't the one who created these."
Herta multi-tasked without missing a beat, answering him while continuing to simulate the space in her mind and search for the critical coordinates.
Another mirror reflected their figures.
For the first time Kanzaki caught a vague glimpse of the Lethal Shadow Herta had mentioned emerging from it.
He still couldn't make out the details clearly, but a rough outline showed it was an exact copy of the two of them.
"You said the shadows can be killed at will, right?"
"Yes."
The moment he received confirmation, Kanzaki snapped his fingers. Flames roared to life and swallowed both shadows in a single surge, reducing them to gray mist that scattered and vanished.
Flames were still the most practical choice.
Their destructive force against solid objects was neither as violent nor as swift as lightning, yet they avoided shattering the invisible mirrors that remained.
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