Modak flinched intensely as he pulled back his hand, shaking it with a suppressed yelp, "Fucking- urgh, this game!"

  He groaned loudly, though he quickly caught himself. He didn't want to be too loud, just in case someone was listening in. Then again, with how loud this music was playing, that probably didn't even make a difference.

  "Take it ease, we've still got plenty of time!" Silvia pointed out, "Plus, to you, this is clearly just like one of those weird shocking pranks, right? So it's not... that bad... right?"

  "Yeah, yeah, if this weren't potentially fatal, I would tell you to give it a shot," Modak sighed, looking back at the screen. It was asking him to enter a three-letter nickname. Just like he had done before, he input three letters - M-R-S. Modak, Ryan, Silvia.

  "You know... I've been wondering, is there a reason why my initial is last?"

  "It's alphabetical."

  "Hm. Sure, missus."

  "What?"

  "Missus. Mrs."

  "Oh... that... I did not mean that," Modak pointed out, and Silvia patted him on the back.

  "I know, bud. I know. Anyway, you're pretty close, right?"

  "Yeah..." Modak sighed, looking at the machine's screen. The display was glitched, so it was hard to make out perfectly, but Modak was at 156750 points. The high score for this game, 'Gunslinger's Ascension', was 165000 points. The way things were going, he would basically just need to last for around ten, maybe fifteen more seconds than this last game, but that was way, way easier said than done.

  While Modak started playing again, Silvia began to look around, "So... have you played these other games, too?"

  "Hm? Oh, yeah, I... have," Modak replied, staring at the screen without blinking, "One of them is a racing game, another a fishing game. Then there's this magic-themed rhythm game, I really liked that one. And then the last one is 'Ghost Hunter', a classic."

  "Ghost hunter? Oh, I think even I played that one before!"

  "Seriously? Were you any good?"

  "Nope!" Silvia scoffed, looking back over Modak's shoulder. He was already up to 100000 points, "Ooh, you got this!"

  The orc smiled a bit, quickly dodging past a few more of the bullets, aiming the crosshair at the enemy on the other side of the screen. As usual, a certain glitch happened right when Modak hit around 150000 points, which basically froze the screen for a moment. Luckily, Modak remembered the bullets' trajectories and knew how fast his character could move, and was able to dodge past them.

  "Oh! 157!" Silvia smiled excitedly, "160! 163! 164, aaaand- 166! You got it!

  With a broad grin on her face, Silvia hugged Modak, who anxiously pushed her away, "What are you- Get away, just-"

  Confused, Silvia took a step back and stared at the orc, a bit hurt. When she realized that the screen, once again, displayed 'Game Over' after Modak was killed by one of the bullets, and was shocked once again. Modak groaned, "Most of these games end with a 'Game Over' either way, so... Ouch."

  "Oh, gods, I'm sorry..." Silvia apologised, patting Modak's back. He just smiled lightly and input the three initials again, replacing the top score in the game. A moment later, the screen flashed black. It was actually quite startling. Usually, a screen like this would be reflective when it turned black, but this one was matte. Rather... it was a bit too dark.

  And then, a moment later, it flashed back on. Though, instead of the regular screen, it was a hole. Inside of the hollow, black space stood a small golden plastic statue.

  Modak raised a brow, "Oh!"

  "Huh? Is that the statue Ryan needs? The 'boss' statue? Was this the hardest game?"

  "Uh... maybe? I don't think so. It was surprisingly easy, actually. But maybe you just get the statue by getting a high score on any one of them?"

  "Ooh, does that mean you'll come back with five statues?"

  Modak laughed, "Maybe! We'll see. For now, let's just move on," he quickly, and excitedly, walked over to the next closest game cabinet. This one was the racing game.

  Ryan stumbled off the rollercoaster. He looked down at the back of his map, "Finally, just the... last one."

  He nearly hurled on that one. Though, that would have been a lucky result. It also felt like he nearly fell out of that seat, and might have fractured a rib on there. Now, there were only two more fields unstamped. The one correlating to the 'hardest', basically the 'boss' rollercoaster, and the one that was presumably hidden underground, which Ryan was pretty sure he found earlier. With that boss rollercoaster, he should be able to get another one of the statues. And then, later when he went back to the core room, he could go on that last rollercoaster, get the perfect completion award, and then smash up the damned dungeon core.

  Luckily, that 'boss' rollercoaster was easy to find. But, at the same time, it would also be fairly easy for him to be spotted by others when he was on there. Luckily, though, the rollercoaster was right next to another food court. So, right now, he was headed there first. Ryan had confirmed it earlier. After he closed the hatch in the food court behind him, the lock closed again. But as long as he didn't enter and close it, the hatch would stay open until he went through or this part of the dungeon regenerated naturally.

  Right now, he was going through the process of getting the code to open up the hatch. When he was done with the rollercoaster, he would run here, basically jump down that hole, and make his way to the funhouse through the manhole network.

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  "Come on, there you go..." Ryan groaned, pushing the hatch open. He climbed back outside, holding his rib as he did, "Gods, poor Modak... I hate having broken ribs..."

  He carefully made his way to the rollercoaster. It was absolutely massive. Ridiculously so. Plus, it apparently set a record for being the fastest rollercoaster ever at the time. That record had been broken in recent years, of course, but it didn't bode well for the dungeon-version.

  Ryan put down his backpack and sat down in the cart. Just in case, he tried out something before the cart started moving. Using the horn of shapeless water, he tightened down the restraints even more, and then closed his eyes, stepping into the space in his mind, between the spirits' domains. Whenever he did this, his body tensed up and basically subconsciously stayed how he was, so that would hopefully work here as well. Maybe it would help push through... that without feeling too sick or hurt.

  He took a few deep breaths, hoping that this would be okay. He was even about to go into Jester's domain and lay down on his pile of pillows, but just before he stepped through the threshold, he was dragged all the way out back into his body. Ryan couldn't breathe; the ride was going way too fast already. It felt like his skin was about to be pulled off his cheeks, and all the air was forced out of his lungs. This was ridiculous. It genuinely felt like he was about to die. Which was pretty weird. He didn't feel this scared looking into the barrel of a gun, something that Modak and Silvia had reminded him of just a few hours ago, but this? No, this went a step too far even for Ryan.

  He held on tightly to the horn, and its ice was tightly wrapped around his arm and torso so that he wouldn't be dragged around. For a moment, it felt like Ryan's life had been saved.

  And the worst of it? This was just the way leading up to the peak of the rollercoaster. For just a moment, it stopped up there, giving him the time to take a single breath, before plummeting him down. He went around in loops and spirals and even more loops, being dragged back and forth and up and down, like he had hidden inside a cocktail shaker or something.

  Then, suddenly, the ride stopped.

  "It's... done..?" Ryan groaned, forcing his way out. He had survived that? Seriously? Though, just as Ryan stepped out, he fell to his knees and vomited on the ground. There was quite some blood mixed in there, "Fucking- Urgh..."

  He pushed himself back up. His eyes were practically burning, so Ryan got out his phone and looked at himself in the camera. His eyes were completely blood-shot. And not just red like they were irritated - the whites of his eyes were actually completely blood-red, with just a few small splashes of white left.

  Ryan could start to feel the taste of copper in his mouth, as blood coated its inside, and a high-pitched ringing was starting to become more and more prevalent in his ears. His shoulders were in pain, and if he hadn't locked himself down even more with the horn of shapeless water, he might have actually broken something by being thrown around like that earlier.

  Even so... Ryan looked down in front of him. Right by the exit, a small, plastic figurine was sitting on the ground. He quickly grabbed it, stuffed it into his bag together with the map pamphlet, and immediately rushed over to the nearby food court. He had a bad feeling. Well, technically, he felt bad all over in almost every single way, but this was different. Like something was coming for him.

  Ryan pulled himself over the counter of the stand, when he heard a gunshot sound. The wooden boards were torn apart, and Ryan glanced through the large hole. He could see a familiar person.

  "Seriously..? Again? Why the fuck do you have to keep bringing that guy, Richie..?" Ryan groaned. It was the psycho soldier; the one that had shot him twice, back in the Channel. He was rushing right at the stall, and in the background, Ryan could even see Richard following behind, a lot more casually than the soldier.

  Ryan dragged himself down the open hatch, and hurried to close it behind him. Though, he did hear a slight thump a moment later, and had a very, very, very bad premonition.

  He quickly rushed down the ladder, as quickly as he could right now, and could soon feel everything around him shake, as dust and concrete crumbled from above him, "Did that- Holy shit, did that piece of shit just throw a fucking grenade at me?!"

  As though the adrenaline fixed him right up, Ryan stepped off the ladder and quickly summoned the spirits, for safety. He really, really just needed to take a breather. The only good thing was that Ryan, Modak, and Silvia were the only ones who knew how to get down here, and it didn't seem possible to enter the rest of the lab from inside the boss room without entering from outside in the first place. Basically, Ryan was safe from Richard and that soldier, at least for the time being.

  "Come on," Ryan sighed and dragged his feet down the hallway, holding onto the map. Jester was on his shoulder, shining a light onto the map with the small pocket-torch so that Ryan could navigate properly.

  Meanwhile, the others were doing what they could to just defend Ryan while he was recovering and taking some more blood rose pills, which definitely did make him feel way, way better already. He should be good to go by the time they get to the funhouse. Just in case, Ryan navigated to one that was a bit further away, and was even leading away from the core room to hopefully make the monsters down here less of a threat right now.

  Ryan and the spirits cleared out one of the rooms, the one that had the ladder back to the road this time. However... there was something else here. The ride that Ryan assumed to be the final 'rollercoaster' on the list.

  "According to this... it should be just third on the 'difficulty' scale," Ryan muttered. At least so far, the stamps were all in order of how rough each ride was. The slot that was empty was one of the earlier ones, which had made this all even more confusing until he figured out there was another space here.

  Maybe instead of going down there, he should just take a slightly more relaxing ride and get another certificate. That way, he could hand it in before coming back down to the core room, and maybe get one more spirit core fragment before they couldn't do that anymore.

  With a groan, Ryan sat down on the 'ride'. It was basically like a small railway, clearly meant to transport animals or materials across the lab more easily. At least the seats were a bit more comfortable than the rollercoaster seats.

  Just so that he wouldn't be thrown around, Ryan actually sat on the ground, lodging himself in the foot-room of the regular seat in the back and the one in front of it. This was like a small tram, rather than a rollercoaster ride. He took a deep breath as the cart started moving. And compared to that last ride... this one was an absolute breeze. It basically felt like a calm stroll.

  Though, even then, he probably got a few extra bruises. Soon, the tram came to a halt, and a rain of confetti appeared above him, raining down onto him.

  Ryan was so done.

  "Fuck you, dungeon," he groaned, getting back up. He pulled the floating certificate out of the air and stuffed it into the backpack outside, quickly picking it up to help Gaia put it on again. Ryan just... couldn't be bothered to carry it on his own right now.

  "Okay. So, now... if Modak and Silvia's plan works, we've hopefully got five by the end of this. Now, just the funhouse and haunted house."

  Ryan approached the ladder and slowly started climbing it up. Luckily, he was really just bruised up and exhausted, rather than seriously injured. Hopefully, he should be able to get through the funhouse well enough. From what Ryan heard from his uncle, the biggest concern for that place were the puzzles, rather than the obstacle courses, anyway. With his intuition, he should hopefully be able to figure out everything that was needed to get get the perfect completion certificate.

  He pushed himself out of the manhole cover and closed it back up behind him. He was right in front of the funhouse, now.

  Quickly, Ryan entered the living structure before he was spotted. This one's starting area was also an obstacle course, which was quite often the case. He took some deep breaths, unsummoning Gaia. He put on the backpack himself. As long as he was careful enough, Ryan should be able to get through this, even with this backpack.

  He was just so fucking exhausted.

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