Katya wandered through the corridors of the Labyrinth's eighth floor. She had no particular reason for doing so, other than slight cabin fever from the camp area. It took real effort to create a camping trip that caused cabin fever, she thought, but the Guildmaster somehow pulled it off. She didn't even have any good chances to practice her brawling. Elowen's weird traps and other survival things Katya had no clue about kept monsters at bay throughout most of the floor. Katya was of two minds about the traps. On the one hand, it was nice to be able to wander around the floor without a full party of five, and not have to worry about that whole dying thing. On the other, having gone three days and having to last today and tomorrow without any effective ways to practice was driving Katya bonkers.

"WUGGITY-WOOGITY-BUH-BUH-BOO!"

One of Quixote's distinctive...chants, one might say, echoed through the jungle. The noise sounded both distant and very close to Katya; a paradox that, nonetheless, made perfect sense in her mind. With nothing better to do, Katya began walking to where the sound seemed to come from.

Several minutes later, Katya found Quixote in front of two Death Scorpions. She had never seen monsters have expressions, let alone that of a baby about to bawl. Yet, here they now stood, cowering from Quixote.

"Hey, uh, Quixote? The heck're you doing?"

Quixote quickly turned around, his face still in its "terrifying" expression. However, instead of shouting more about the nuanced terror of his screaming at monsters, Quixote composed himself. He put the crazed old man expression aside, and adopted a rather noble look, befitting his history as a nobleman.

"Ah, good afternoon, young Katya," Quixote uttered in a smooth, noble voice.

Quixote's highly unusual expression and style of speech immediately unnerved Katya. She put herself on guard, raising both of her gauntlets—and enabling the ambient effects function of both. Small embers emanated from her left gauntlet, while blue sparks came out of the right. The effects served no practical purpose, but Katya thought they looked cool. They also sometimes scared some of the unsavory types that would want to mess with a woman of Katya's stature—a nice plus, but irrelevant compared to the coolness factor.

"Oh-hohoho, why the guarded stance? It's only me, Quixote."

"Uh-huh. Yeah. Whoever you are, you've never actually been around Quixote, have you?"

"Hmm. Well, Katya, you are free to believe that I am some sort of imposter. I can only continue to insist that I am the genuine article."

"No-one in the guild, let alone Quixote, talks like that! You're a really bad imposter, y'know that?!"

"Mhm. Actually, I know a way to dispel your doubts. Could an imposter do...this?"

Quixote snapped his fingers, and before Katya's eyes, Coeurl manifested.

A very tiny version of Coeurl.

The mini-Coeurl appeared in mid-air with a wheezing sound effect, and proceeded to fall to the Labyrinth floor. It then proceeded to attempt many of Coeurl's techniques and attacks—from what Judith told Katya, these all seemed pretty accurate. None of them actually had any effect, though, because the mini-Coeurl was smaller than Katya's foot.

"...Well, only Quixote would do something this weird," Katya muttered. She tilted her head up, and made eye contact with Quixote, while putting on the best "what the hell are you doing" expression she could muster. Quixote responded with a sly grin.

"Perhaps this is how I was before the madness of my terror obsession took hold of me. Perhaps this is an act to terrify you. What truth do you perceive, young—"

Katya balled her right gauntlet into a fist and raised it, palm towards her face, with the ambient effect still emanating. She wasn't actually going to hurt Quixote—mostly because she didn't want to, but also because that would be stupid. She just wanted to make it clear that she was not going to waste several hours debating "truth" with...whoever this was.

"And here I'd thought I'd finally found a fellow fan of theatric actions," Quixote said, in a wistful tone. "No-one appreciates what we do, Katya! At every turn, I am besieged by the others, with endless doubts of the true power of—"

"Gonna stop you right there, Probably-Quixote." Katya lowered her fist and disabled the ambient effects on her gauntlets. Whatever persona of Quixote's this was, he was very annoying, but he could at least take a hint. "There's a biiiig difference between my moves and names, and the constant shouting you do. See, I'm aware what I do can look pretty stupid to others! To that, though, I tell myself, 'who cares?' It's fun! Heck, sometimes it gets other peoples' attention and admiration!"

"What do you stand to gain from any of that, though? You see, when I am in my primary persona, I use my 'mastery of terror' to assert a certain power. It might not always be successful, and I must work out how to inflict terror in less petty ways... But, nonetheless, the power over emotions and reactions... To me, it is intoxicating. ...To my other persona, however, it seems to be naught but fun and games..." Quixote's head tilted towards the ground, his expression a slight scowl.

Katya, who'd kept a straight face throughout whatever just happened, blinked a few times. "Hey, uh, quick question. Y'know how you said this act could've just been a thing to terrify me? ...I don't get how, though. Like, you're monologuing. Not even very well, at that. It's not even that theatric! Normal-Quixote's shouting I can at least see as theatrics for the sake of theatrics!"

Quixote silently stared at the short-statured brawler in response. Katya returned the favor with a similar silent stare. Within a few minutes, Quixote broke the silence.

"BOOOOOOOoOooooOOOOOOooooOOO!" The sudden shouting startled Katya, causing her to jump a little. "A-HA! Terror Experiment, successful!"

"...Huh?" Katya was nothing but confused by this point. "Terror Experiment? What?"

"TRADE SECRET!" With that final exclamation, Quixote dashed off back towards the healing spring camp.

"...At least he's back to...normal?" Katya said to herself.

Back to the Update
Table of Contents