Fold here. Fold there. Pet Basarioel. Fold here. Cut there. Crease. Line. Dot. Line. Fold. Pet Basarioel.

I slipped into the rhythm without realizing it—each motion flowing into the next like a quiet current. My fingers moved with purpose, my thoughts narrowing into a single shining thread. I wasn't just working—I was building something essential. Something foundational. Something real.

If we were to learn how to use a labyrinth properly, I needed one. Not in theory. Not in abstract. Not in metaphor. A real one. Foldable. Functional. Mappable.

And I needed it made today.

Fold. Cut. Line. Dot. Line. Fold. Pet Basarioel.

The more folds I added, the more it began to click—not mechanically, but emotionally, spiritually. Each crease aligned with something just under the surface of my awareness. It didn't just work—it felt right.

Sure, the skillcube had responded to the structure hours ago—sparking briefly when the geometry hit a critical ratio—but this was deeper than that. The maze didn't Sing with my Truth. Not yet. And definitely not with my Lie or Ideal. That required more than technique.

It required belief.

It required sacrifice.

Everything Has a Price.

But how do I express that in this? How do I weave that into form? Drawing market stalls? Trade ledgers? Too obvious. Too literal. A shallow reading.

No… no. Wait.

My fingers paused mid-fold.

A memory stirred. A skyline of crooked spires. Filthy alleys teeming with desperate dreams. Iron chimneys like raised fists choking on soot.

Pendell.

I smiled.

Of course.

I had walked those streets too long not to remember their rhythm. I knew their smells, their soot-stained secrets. I knew how the market turned people into commodities and lies into currency. The city itself was a labyrinth. Alive, breathing, devouring. A perfect foundation.

I began drawing.

Fold. Line. Dot. Paint. Fold. Basarioel nestled at my side, purring softly beneath my elbow, a living weight grounding me as I worked.

I scrawled the twisted veins of Pendell's side streets, let ink bleed into alleyways shaped like broken promises. I etched the humming silence of its soul into the folds. The desperate economy of survival. The slow, constant cost.

I kept folding. Drawing. Ink staining fingertips, paint blurring as the sun shifted across the sky and I—entirely unaware—chased meaning into paper.

It wasn't until sunset brushed the windows in gold that I even looked up.

No one had come to interrupt. No one had brought tea. No reminders. No calls to duty. Just the silence of concentrated absence.

And then—softly, like a candle lighting in another room—Lumivis's voice emerged behind me.

"That's because, sire," he said, calm and amused, "Cordelia warded them off. Declared that you were engrossed in your project and not to be disturbed unless the matter was of critical importance."

He stepped forward, his presence a gentle warmth just outside my field of vision.

"And truthfully, there wasn't anything that Sven and Wallace couldn't resolve in your place. You do have paperwork, yes, but we all agreed it could wait."

I turned, but he continued, his voice layered with something between admiration and curiosity.

"This is important. This matters. Not because anyone's forcing your hand, sire. Not because of obligation. You chose this. You chose this path. And for what it's worth…"

He smiled slightly.

"It's fascinating to watch."

"Thank you, Lumivis," I said with a sigh, the weight of focus finally starting to lift. I turned back to the project before me—only to frown.

Pendell looked… clean.

Too clean.

This wasn't the city I knew. Not really. It was a sketch of an ideal. An echo of what should have been. It wore the skin of Pendell, but not its rot. Not its scars. Not the truth.

And truth was the price.

I exhaled sharply. Then I picked up my pen again—not to create, but to damage.

I started with the market stalls. They were too orderly, too whole. I slashed lines through them, collapsing canopies, caving in counters. I shattered windows with sharp, erratic strokes, breaking glass in jagged constellations of chaos. Ink bled like smoke. Paint bloomed like rot.

Then came the filth. The fire. I scraped soot across rooftops, let black veins crawl through brick and stone. I splattered burns into walls and scrawled the violence of memory in cruel geometry. Every stroke was a reminder of what had actually happened.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

This was the Pendell I remembered.

War-torn. Afraid. Groaning under the weight of its own corruption. Ashes where there were once avenues. Corpses of buildings. The echo of screaming through every ruined corridor.

The Chimera Flies came last.

I dotted them in—grotesque little smears of anatomy and wrongness—lurking on eaves, crawling over signage, clinging to crumbling masonry like parasites. Their wings were jagged shards. Their limbs ended in contradictions. Monsters, every one of them. And I had known them. I had fought them.

I had brought them here.

This was the price I paid. This was the truth beneath the labyrinth. Not potential. Not hope. Cost.

I didn't just live through Pendell's fall. I caused it.

I burned that city to the ground.

And now, with every inkstroke, I did it again. On purpose. With intention. Not because I wanted to—but because I owed it.

This maze wasn't complete until it bore the same scars I did.

Only then would it Sing.

Only then would it be real.

More and more, my Truth began to harmonize with the folded map of the ruined city before me. At first, it was just small things. The rhythm of my folds synced with the rhythm of my breath. The ink flowed from my brush in perfect cadence with the pulse in my fingertips. There was no friction anymore between thought and act. Each crease, each line, each painted shadow—it all just fit. The labyrinth wasn't resisting me. It was welcoming me. Begging to be completed.

The ruined alleyways. The broken spires. The seared brick, the twisted signage, the horror sketched into the streets. This wasn't guesswork anymore. This wasn't imagination or fabrication. This was a memory, transmuted into ink and ash and intent.

I wasn't just building a labyrinth.

I was remembering one.

And in that memory, my Truth took root. The Truth not everyone wants to speak aloud. The Truth I had tried to walk away from, or drown beneath duty, or soften with noble excuses.

I burned a city. I watched it fall—and let it fall faster.

And now… I was rebuilding it. Not as salvation. Not as apology. But as an artifact. A shrine. A declaration.

Every cut edge of paper, every jagged ruin of graphite, every curled roof smudged with soot, all of it began to pull inward, collapsing like an origami shell being drawn into its own center. I realized I was folding without conscious thought now. My hands moved as though they already knew the steps, as if this labyrinth wanted to become whole.

It didn't want to be a map. It wanted to be a cube.

My cube.

My Skillcube, yes—but more than that.

It wanted to be my legacy. My monument. My burden. My blade.

This was no longer just a labyrinth. It was a prison. A wound. A mirror. A kingdom.

More and more of it bent in, tighter and tighter, drawing the ruined city into itself. Chimera Flies scattered and folded into sigils. Broken buildings twisted into spirals and vanished. Ash smoothed itself into fine lines. The city compressed—and in doing so, became.

And then, something in my mind just… clicked.

A subtle lurch. A shift. Like a gear finally falling into place after spinning loose too long.

Stop.

My body obeyed before I even finished thinking of the word. My hands froze above the last fold.

And I knew.

This was it.

This was my [Paper and Pencell].

This was the form that had waited for me—not one I reached for, but one I had been walking toward the whole time, without even knowing it.

Not a sword. Not a spell. Not some conjured beast of myth or mythic blueprint.

A cube.

Rough in texture. Smudged at the corners. Warm still from my hands. But brimming with intention.

This was my cubic labyrinth.

A prison and a home.

A weapon and a wound.

A map, but also a mausoleum.

It held Pendell. The real Pendell. Not the one on paper, not the one in stories, not the one the academy textbooks pretended had simply been 'lost' to encroaching chaos.

It held the Pendell I remembered. The city that fought. The city that screamed. The city that cracked open and bled monsters.

And through it all, the part of me that did not look away.

This was my world.

That thought echoed in my mind, quieter than I expected, but heavier than stone. Not loud. Not triumphant. But absolute.

This was my world.

No one else could have made it. Not Fractal with her precision. Not Sven with his structure. Not Cordelia with her insight. This required me. My hands. My memories. My guilt. My pride.

Because that's what this was now, too—pride.

I thought I'd only ever feel shame when I thought of Pendell. That my past there would always feel like a scar I couldn't look at without flinching.

But here, in this moment, folding its bones into something greater, I felt… whole.

I didn't have to erase the fire. I didn't have to rewrite the screams.

I could carry them. I could use them.

I was allowed to be proud of surviving. Proud of learning. Proud of owning it, instead of hiding from it.

Pendell didn't burn for nothing. I wouldn't let it.

It would live again—inside this cube. As a construct. As a tool. As a labyrinth.

As a memory that wouldn't fade or lie or change.

And if someone dared to walk its halls?

If someone braved the alleys I drew in blood and graphite, the ones haunted by inked monsters and ash-creased doors?

Then they would know. They would feel every heartbeat of mine that echoed through those walls. They would see the price I paid. The price I chose.

Because everything has a price.

And I had finally paid mine.

I exhaled, long and slow. My hands trembled slightly—not from fear, but from the sheer fullness of the moment. Like I had just come down from a fever. Like I had been burning too hot, too bright, and was only now settling into something sustainable.

The cube rested in my palms like a heartbeat. Alive. Waiting.

And for once, I didn't feel like I had stolen power. I didn't feel like I had tricked the world into giving me something I didn't earn.

No.

This time, I made it.

Fold by fold.

Line by line.

Memory by memory.

This was my [Paper and Pencell].

This was my cubic labyrinth.

This was my world.

And I would wield it as such.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.