The desert stretched forever.
A horizon of dust and shimmering heat, without tree, without shade, without end. Sand rippled in great dunes like a beast's skin, every grain shimmering cruelly under a sun that never moved.
Seo-jin stood at the edge, chains hanging slack at his wrists, and almost laughed.
Almost.
His lips were too dry for the sound. His throat too ragged. His voice—still recovering from the Overseers' last game—was more a memory than a tool now.
Beside him, Elior muttered the first words either of them had spoken since they were dropped here:
"…Another paradox."
The Overseers' decree had been simple: "Cross the desert. You may not eat, you may not drink. Hunger will end only when hunger is accepted."
Which, Seo-jin thought, was their poetic way of saying: "Suffer."
He lifted a hand, gestured broadly toward the wasteland ahead, then sketched an invisible question mark in the air with his finger. A wordless jab: Well? Lead on, oh holy one.
Elior scowled. Sweat already streaked his brow, but the lines of his face held firm. He was always firm.
"This is cruelty for its own sake," Elior said, voice hoarse. "They mean to drive us to collapse."
Seo-jin wrote something in the sand with his fingertip: AND?
Elior's jaw tightened. He started walking.
The first hour passed in silence. Chains rattled softly at their ankles, dragging furrows through the sand.
The second hour turned silence into weight. Every breath seared. Every step sank.
By the third, the sun seemed to grow heavier, pressing down, until even Elior—always the pillar, the unwavering saint—stumbled.
Seo-jin stopped first. He crouched, dragged a stick figure into the sand. The figure was round, with a smiling face, arms raised high. Beside it, he scratched another, taller, thin-limbed, stick-straight.
Then he drew X's over both.
Elior looked, confused at first. Then he barked a laugh, sharp and bitter. "You think we'll both drop dead here."
Seo-jin grinned silently, his lips cracking. He gave a little bow.
"Idiot," Elior muttered—but he kept walking, and now there was a ghost of humor in his stride.
The desert did not end.
At some point, the horizon shimmered with color. Blue. Clear. A river, wide and glittering, appearing where there had been nothing before.
Seo-jin's stomach clenched. His tongue scraped against the roof of his mouth like sandpaper.
But his eyes narrowed.
He grabbed Elior's wrist before the Saint could take a step forward. When Elior glanced back, Seo-jin shook his head, pointed to the illusion, and traced his finger across his throat. Death.
Elior swallowed, hard. The veins at his temple pulsed.
"…You're right." His voice cracked. "It's a test."
Seo-jin shrugged as if to say: When isn't it?
They turned away. The river shimmered, then dissolved into air.
In its place: dry bones scattered in the sand. Dozens. Some human, some animal, all gnawed hollow by time.
Elior's shoulders stiffened. "So that's what became of those who trusted illusions."
Seo-jin knelt among the bones, ran his fingers over a skull, then tapped it against his own. A hollow sound. He tilted his head at Elior, smirk playing at the corner of his parched lips.
The Saint sighed. "…You're impossible."
But for just a moment, the desert felt less endless.
By the tenth hour, walking was no longer possible.
Elior fell to his knees, chains clattering. Sand burned his skin. He pressed his palms together, eyes closed, lips moving in soundless prayer.
No answer came.
Seo-jin sat beside him, legs crossed like he was meditating, though his spine sagged with exhaustion. He pulled at the sand with a fingertip, sketching nonsense symbols, spirals, crooked stars.
When Elior opened his eyes, his lips trembled. "Are you mocking me even now?"
Seo-jin raised his brows innocently. Then, with deliberate strokes, he drew a caricature: Elior with a halo, stick-figure arms holding chains. Above it, in jagged script: HOLY FOOL.
Elior stared. Then, to his own shock, he laughed. Actually laughed. A rough, broken sound that startled the desert silence.
"Holy fool, is it? Better than damned clown."
Seo-jin slapped his thigh in silent applause, then gestured at Elior with a flourish. Touché.
The laughter died quickly, swallowed by thirst. But it lingered. A thin thread binding them through the trial.
Time ceased to matter.
They walked. They crawled. They fell, rose, fell again.
At some point, Seo-jin began seeing things. Shapes on the horizon, blurred, half-there. Shadows moving just out of reach.
One of them—one—was different.
A silhouette, faint as smoke, yet clearer than the others. Not an Overseer's nightmare, not a mirage. Small, slight. A figure with hair tumbling like water, hands outstretched.
In her palm gleamed a flask of silver.
Seo-jin blinked hard. The vision swam, but remained. She raised the flask, tilting it toward him—inviting, gentle.
His throat burned. His hands trembled.
But then he remembered the bones. The illusions. The Overseers' cruelty.
With a snarl—soundless, but vicious—Seo-jin lifted his middle finger at the vision.
The silhouette didn't vanish. Instead, she lowered her hand slowly, tilted her head. And though her face was blurred, Seo-jin swore he saw something impossible: sadness.
When he blinked again, she was gone.
He staggered, pulse racing. Sweat stung his eyes.
Elior glanced at him, frowning. "…What is it?"
Seo-jin shook his head. He wouldn't—couldn't—explain. Not yet.
When collapse finally came, it came for them both.
They fell side by side onto the scorching sand, chains heavy, lungs tearing, stomachs hollow.
Above them, the Overseers' voices slithered through the air:
"Paradox incomplete. Hunger remains. Walk again."
Seo-jin barked out a soundless laugh, shoulders shaking. Elior turned his head, lips trembling, and laughed too. Hysterical. Bitter.
Because what else could they do?
Together, chained and starving, they laughed until their voices broke.
And the desert stretched on.
That night—or what passed for night—Seo-jin dreamed.
He dreamed of her. The figure in the desert. Hands outstretched. A flask gleaming like moonlight.
But this time, she didn't vanish. This time, she whispered something he could almost hear. A syllable. A name.
He woke gasping, throat raw, heart pounding.
Elior slept fitfully beside him.
Seo-jin lay back down, staring at the empty stars, and for the first time since he'd entered the Overseers' labyrinth, he smiled in the dark.