Divine Luck: SSS-Rank Battle Maid Harem

Zach disappeared from the Labyrinth of Jira's nineteenth floor, taking Nora's corpse with him. At first, not even he knew where he had gone. He didn't even notice it at first since the only thing in his fuzzy mind was Nora's unmoving face.

But after a while, he couldn't help but notice that he wasn't in a sandy desert anymore. He was on a dry, barren plain instead. And in the distance was a snow-covered mountain.

Zach recognized it.

It was the Labyrinth of Vidur. He looked around in confusion. It was enough to distract him from his grief temporarily.

How had he returned to the Labyrinth of Vidur? And hadn't the Labyrinth collapsed with the death of Patient Zero? It had fulfilled its purpose and had neither energy nor reason to keep itself maintained.

Zach frowned as he looked toward the sky.

There was nothing there. The sky was empty. There was no sun, clouds, moon, or stars. It was like a blank sheet the color of wet paper. The weather didn't exist, either. The wind didn't blow.

Something had happened since Zach and the others left the Labyrinth of Vidur.

"I had a feeling, but you're here again, kid…" A woman's soft voice said from behind Zach.

Startled, Zach turned around in a hurry, ready to fight.

But the woman sitting cross-legged in the air, who looked a little like she was glowing, had no intentions to fight. Her golden hair swayed gently in the non-existent breeze, the same as her simple white dress.

Even in this situation, Zach had to admit that she was extraordinarily beautiful. If he hadn't gotten used to the ground-shaking beauty of Mandra and his other familiars, he would have dropped to the ground in worship.

Instead, he frowned slightly.

"You…Patient Zero?" He asked. She nodded.

"Mhm. Though, I'm free of the Blight now, so feel free to call me something else."
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"...What happened to your other two arms and being bald?" He asked insensitively.

Patient Zero chuckled slightly.

As if in response, her hair disappeared and another pair of arms appeared under her ordinary ones.

"The Blight trapped me in a permanent state of combat. Hair gets in the way when fighting, and these two…" she said, flexing her second pair of fists, "are my weapons." She didn't need her weapons when she wasn't fighting. She could transform.

Zach couldn't even begin to imagine how that worked, but he couldn't say he cared, either.

"What are you doing here?" He asked. She should have died.

Patient Zero nodded as if she could see what Zach was thinking.

"I did die, and I would have stayed dead if not for this place giving me another chance. You see, this world, or what remains of it, is sealed off." Patient Zero looked toward the sky.

"When I died, I was supposed to have slipped away to oblivion or an afterlife or something. I'm not sure myself. It probably depends on where you die, honestly. But since this place is completely isolated from the rest of the world beyond the world, that didn't happen. After a while, my essence started congealing, and I regained consciousness."

Zach's eyes widened slowly as he looked at Patient Zero. He slowly turned to Nora beneath his hands.

"Does that mean…?" He started asking, hope surging in his chest. He looked toward Patient Zero again, his eyes bright.

However, Patient Zero slowly shook her head with a look of regret.

"I'm sorry, kid, but that girl's essence was already gone by the time you made it here. Even if it hadn't been, it would have been a long shot. This happened to me because I had already reached beyond the limits of my vessel. My essence is strong enough to weather the pressure that a body is usually needed for. Her, on the other hand…"

Patient Zero didn't need to finish her sentence.

Nora had been so weak that she died to the Child, whom even Zach could handle. But Zach couldn't even touch the hem of Patient Zero's clothes when she was in a weakened state after spending millennia prolonging her existence in an endless battle against Blizzard and the Labyrinth entrants.

But none of that had taken away from the base strength of her essence. It was her body that had limited the strength she could display. Her essence, once it recovered, was equal to the strength her body could release during her prime.

In her prime, Patient Zero was strong enough to first break free from a world and then take over it.

Nora's essence was better than an average person's but it was far from enough to overcome bodily death, even under perfect conditions, much less under horrible conditions.

Zach's shoulders slumped, and his face slackened as he caressed Nora's cheek. He was no longer curious about Patient Zero.

She said she was free from the Blight. She wasn't a threat. He didn't need to care about her. He didn't need to pay attention to her.

However, that didn't mean she couldn't care about him.

Patient Zero floated over next to Zach and put a soft, warm, incorporeal hand on his shoulder.

"Kid…I know how you feel. Just—"

"How could you possibly know how I feel?!" Zach shouted in an emotional outburst, smacking away Patient Zero's hand.

The last thing he wanted was pity. It only made everything feel even more pathetic.

Patient Zero's gaze cooled for a second before softening. Suddenly, another pair of arms appeared.

Before Zach could say anything else, Patient Zero wrapped him in a warm hug.

"Kid, I know better than anyone else how you feel right now," she whispered softly straight into his ear. She did not give him the option to ignore her words this time.

"I have not lied to you once, kid," she continued.

Zach remembered.

Patient Zero's story. There hadn't been many details, but she had told him what happened to her in rough strokes.

She had lost her family. She had lost her people. She had lost everything.

Zach stopped resisting.