Black-Haired Dad Isn’t Something You Reap - Chapter 199

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 199. F.O.E Stands for Fxxking Overpowered Enemy (7)
“The commotion we heard was probably its reaction when we touched it. I’d say there’s roughly a two-day time difference between this place and that one?”
“Me too! I was thinking the same thing!”
As Nanakda and I discussed this shared conclusion, Croa’s face fell and he pouted his lips. Croa, I genuinely want to look after you, but right now we have more pressing matters to handle.
“Since you’re the designer of the Labyrinth, you would’ve found it easy to resolve those bizarre phenomena that gave us so much trouble, wouldn’t you?”
“So you proceeded without hesitation. If a space exists that even the designer doesn’t know about, then that one must be the culprit behind the Maze’s transformation, right?”
“We have thermal weapons, so if you just guide us to the vicinity, we should be able to bring down a wall or two without much trouble, yes?”
“Ask about that too, and write down whether there’s anywhere we can secure food supplies. If you’ve been here for a year, there must be supply routes established.”
“Reasonable. Go on, Princess Vishnabel! Write down everything we need to ask!”
“Don’t order the Princess around!”
“You’re the only one who can write on walls with a sword like that!”
“Ask politely!”
“Oh my, Your Highness Princess! I humbly beg your pardon for my rudeness! Would you kindly take up your blade and inscribe these words for us?”
“You disrespectful bastard!”
“I’m plenty respectful!”
As we made exaggerated screeching sounds and pretended to claw at each other, Croa’s pouting lips began to tremble with tears.
“Every time you do that, showing off how close you and Nanakda are, it makes me feel like I’m intruding where I don’t belong. It makes me anxious, you know?”
“What do you mean, showing off?”
“Why don’t you let the Princess hit you and see how strong she is?!”
“There you go again! Emphasizing how close you two are!”
So this is what they call an office husband—so poignant. He waits at home every day for Pisha to return, yet he feels so wronged he can barely stand it. As Croa piled on his complaints, I found myself at a loss for words to refute him.
I mean, every time I go out to work and run into him, something happens—how am I supposed to prevent every single incident? And closeness? When you brush against death multiple times together, camaraderie naturally sprouts! How could the affection between comrades possibly equal what I share with my fiancé?!
As I thumped my chest in frustration, Nanakda stepped in and pointed at Croa.
“Hey! Then give up your position! I’ll do a contract marriage with her instead, so you can just meet her on official business!”
“What? I don’t want to.”
“You know better than anyone that your position is advantageous! Why do you keep complaining?!”
Croa grumbled that he couldn’t help but feel jealous regardless.
Wow, just being caught between two men is this exhausting—how in the world do people manage two households? That must be something only truly capable people can handle. A Princess barely managing one Imperial Kingdom certainly can’t do it.
I clicked my tongue and decided to focus on my own task. As I carved my questions into the wall with my dagger, Croa and Nanakda continued their bickering, eventually escalating to fisticuffs where they kept saying they’d kill each other.
“Hmm, I think that’s enough.”
1. Can you guide us to a space that shouldn’t exist according to the design?
2. Do you know where we can obtain food supplies?
As I carved the final question mark with a flourish, both men stopped fighting and clapped their hands toward the wall.
“Beautiful penmanship.”
“I bet you’re the only one who can write in cursive on stone walls with a sword, Pisha.”
Ah, it’s not that impressive. Choco can do it too. I brushed off the praise and watched as footprints began moving in a certain direction. The answer to the second question probably wouldn’t require waiting two days.
“That direction gets quite a bit of sunlight. Is it the Central Garden?”
“What? It’s a field!”
Nanakda’s eyesight is incredible!
We quickly overtook the footprints and emerged into the Central Garden, where a vegetable patch had been cultivated. Tomatoes grew there, and so did yard-long beans. Those would taste delicious even if we just roasted them.
“Pisha, look! Eggplants are growing here too! Tonight we’ll roast them and have a feast!”
“Ugh, eggplants are mushy and gross.”
“Nanakda, you’ve never actually tasted a properly prepared eggplant.”
When roasted or fried, they’re absolutely delicious. We harvested beans and tomatoes to make a hearty stew, then roasted the eggplants and force-fed them to Nanakda. After prying open his mouth and shoving the food in, Croa and I finally heard him admit it tasted good. We then shouted at the persistent Nanakda outside, who kept knocking and asking us to open the door again, before clearing the table.
Fear is just a matter of familiarity, I realized. I’ve seen ghosts so often now that they don’t scare me anymore. Did Croa encounter these things frequently enough that he wasn’t frightened either?
“Let’s sleep!”
“We need to move the bed first!”
But the monster under the bed was still terrifying, so we pushed it to one side and stretched out to sleep instead.
After repeating this routine for two days, the words we’d carved with our blade received a response, and a black pen drew long lines, guiding us forward.
“Usually we’d answer starting from question number one, right?”
“But didn’t you say the Estate keeps transforming? What if the layout changes midway?”
“As long as we’re following the footprints, it should be fine, shouldn’t it? The designers are even adding directional arrows in between to account for that concern.”
We’d never gotten lost while following the designers’ trail so far, so it should be okay. Besides, these people are incredible. How do they manage to guide us through a constantly shifting Maze?
“Gasp.”
“Wow!”
“What an enormous space!”
Where the pen led us was a white, expansive chamber. Pillars stood in regular intervals, stretching endlessly forward and to both sides, while new words appeared on the wall.
Keep your eyes forward at all times!
Did that mean only look ahead? Or did it include not getting distracted? Either way, we decided to be cautious about both and jogged alongside the golden sheep. After running for a while, I spotted something humanoid, roughly three meters tall, groping along the floor.
“Eyes… eyeless…”
A scream rose to my throat, but I forced it down. Nanakda and Croa caught on and clamped their mouths shut. The humanoid creature had empty eye sockets and was frantically clawing at the ground, searching for its eyes. What appeared to be eyeballs from other creatures were crushed beneath the giant’s hands.
“Aaaahhh! Aaaaaahhh!”
But the golden sheep, useless throughout its entire existence, finally let out a scream.
“Kisomalos, be quiet!”
“Don’t you see the rest of us staying silent?!”
“Hey! There! It’s coming!”
Damn, so it can’t see but its ears work just fine! The giant, who’d been crawling on all fours, began picking up speed subtly, like Croa moving about. We screamed even louder than we’d been holding back and ran forward, eyes locked ahead.
“Should we scatter? I think I could outrun it and lose it!”
“No! Keep your eyes forward like we were told! What if we can’t find the way!”
“Right now, staying together is our best option!”
I scooped up the terrified golden sheep and bolted forward. Croa and Nanakda followed me, and after running at full speed for about thirty minutes, a narrow passage came into view.
“The pen! Gasp, it continues! That must be it!”
We squeezed through the tight opening and kept running down the corridor. The giant probed inside with its hand, but when it couldn’t reach us, it seemed to give up and turn back.
“Pant, pant! Pant!”
“Pant! I’ve run more today than I have in my entire life, pant!”
“Hey, Kisomalos, don’t scream like that!”
“I’m terrified, what do you expect!”
Did he think we weren’t scared?! Furious, I grabbed his horns and wrung his neck while holding on, performing a full rodeo. Fortunately, our destination seemed close, because the black pen, which had been drawing arrows continuously, made a large X mark on the floor at a crossroads decorated with a full moon symbol.
“Is the space beyond this floor non-existent according to the design?”
“Should we use some TNT to blast through?”
“Do it!”
Croa pulled out a blocky TNT covered in hazard markings, and Nanakda let out a strangled gasp before diving behind the wall. This stuff doesn’t detonate easily—our nation’s solid TNT is incredibly stable.
“Pisha, the detonator!”
“Detonator armed!”
With practiced efficiency, we assembled the explosive and retrieved the ignition device. After establishing a safe distance, I instructed Nanakda and Kisomalos to take cover.
“Close your eyes and cover your ears! Watch out for the noise and shrapnel!”
I shouted “Ignition!” at the top of my lungs, then clamped my hands over my ears and hunched down. A deafening boom erupted, dust billowed across the entire chamber, and once the stone particles settled, a gaping black hole yawned open in the floor.
“Whoa…”
“It’s completely black.”
“I can’t see anything down there.”
No matter how deep the shaft was, this absolute darkness seemed wrong. I picked up a brick from nearby and hurled it downward, but no matter how long I waited, I never heard it strike bottom.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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