Deadline Is Raining in the Status Window - Chapter 36

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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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“The brakes aren’t doing their job—they’re just sitting next to the accelerator! You useless Sunbird! Sunbirds are supposed to be pretty and cute! What kind of Sunbird are you?!”
“W-wait, Evan! I can’t overlook that! Apet is my one and only Sunbird! She’s lovely and adorable, just like a Sunbird should be!”
“Adorable only in the Third Princess’s eyes. Objectively, White One is thirty-five billion times cuter, you troublemaking Princess!”
“H-huh, t-troublemaking…!”
“You’ve never suffered a day in your life, yet you claim to serve the common people? If you love commoners so much, try living on a million crowns for a month!”
“Gasp! That’s two days’ worth of snacks!”
“Do you even know how much a carriage rental costs per day?! What’s the price of five turtle bread—the people’s snack?!”
“Oh no! That’s… that’s not in my speech! Please don’t ask questions like that…!”
My question had apparently struck Sera Crowell’s trauma button. She crouched in a dark corner, reflecting on her past life. Sunbird’s eyes glistened with tears, hurt that I’d said she wasn’t cute, and she gently stroked the Princess’s back. Watching this, Seian found it so satisfying that he doubled over with laughter.
“…”
Wait. Why is Seian even here?
“Why is this deadweight here?”
“What? I let him tag along the other day, and now he’s a deadweight?”
“Someone who can only eat, sleep, and play—who’s never lifted anything heavier than a spoon—that’s what I call deadweight.”
“H-how dare you!”
“You don’t even realize I’m just humoring you because you’re cute most of the time, you completely hopeless fool! Did everything you ate at the Imperial Palace turn to shit?!”
Seian was pushing my already-maxed-out stress to the breaking point. I twisted his wrist, spun him around in a full circle, and his arm cracked as he was forced into a somersault, landing hard on his back.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
Seian’s arm flailed like a squid. It was probably dislocated. I turned my head sharply to find my next target.
“H-hey, I didn’t do anything.”
“I just hate you! I hate breathing the same air as you in this cramped space, you garbage gorilla!”
“Waaahhhhh!”
When I declared my genuine hatred to Reina, the tall red-haired woman crouched down and wept bitterly. Last was Eugene, the junior of the Northern Duke. The man flinched, looking intimidated, but thinking about it rationally, Eugene didn’t seem like the type who relied solely on skills, and he looked sturdy enough to survive. He might actually be useful for clearing this dungeon.
“You’re fine. You’re useful.”
“…R-really?”
“Welcome. I wish you were the only one who got transported here with me.”
“Phew…”
Now my anger was subsiding. Stress needs to be released on time, or it turns into illness.
I took a deep breath to calm myself, regained my composure with proper mind control, and did a full round of morning exercises.
I didn’t want to waste water through unnecessary sweating in this situation, but if I didn’t do something like this, I felt my voice would give out from screaming. That would only make the water shortage worse.
I did a round of magical aerobic exercise and tapped the ground with my spear.
“All you bandits who are about to mooch off my water and food. Gather here.”
After venting my stress so thoroughly, the Club members assembled at my command without hesitation.
“First, let me make something clear. Looking at my condition, you can tell I came here knowing there was a dungeon in this place.”
“Hey! Do you have fun sneaking off without me and going on adventures alone every time?!”
“Shut your mouth if you want water, red gorilla.”
“Damn it!”
Since we all had to survive together, I revealed everything I knew. What I knew amounted to why this place was created, what lay at our destination, and how we could return—but that was essentially it.
…Come to think of it, I do know the essentials quite well. In any case, once I finished that explanation, it became clear why I was in such a place and why I’d brought so much baggage with me.
“Originally, I brought four days’ worth of water and provisions in case we got lost, but given the circumstances, we have no choice but to divide it into quarters and traverse this in a single day.”
With the protagonist couple buff, we might stumble upon the Stalactite Cave by sheer coincidence, but accounting for the most tragic scenario was advantageous for survival.
Now that I think about it, in the original story, the party suffered from dehydration before finding a lake in the Stalactite Cave and drank from it enthusiastically. Of course, after their escape, they all came down with food poisoning and ended up in the hospital. They’d gulped down lime water without hesitation, after all.
“First, I’ll distribute the water. Reina and Eugene get one bottle each.”
The rest would be one bottle for the Third Princess and Sunbird couple, and one for Seian and me. The moment I distributed them fairly according to my judgment, Seian predictably voiced his complaint.
“Hey! They get one bottle each, so why do we only get one between the two of us?”
“Eugene and Reina will need to exert themselves physically going forward.”
“If it’s about physical exertion, I can do that too!”
“Don’t talk nonsense. Even without skills, I could beat you with my pinky finger.”
You’d know that from what just happened. Since the artifact disrupting skill usage is active, my superhuman skills naturally faltered. What brought Seian down moments ago was purely the result of my physical strength and self-defense techniques. If my superhuman skills had been active, his arm would’ve been broken, not dislocated.
Inwardly impressed by Seian’s extreme egoism despite his arm throbbing with pain, I popped his arm back into place with a dull sound and continued my explanation.
“According to my investigation, an artifact disrupting skill usage is active in this region. If you use high-risk skills—”
“Skill. Flame!”
“You crazy bastard, listen to the explanation!”
Reina’s flame came flying from ahead, and we scattered in panic to dodge it. Reina was beaten by everyone for testing it without warning.
Even Eugene, who rarely laid hands on the weak, unleashed a headlock and pummeled her without hesitation, having learned from their previous fight just how terrifying a gorilla she was. It was a good development.
“Anyway, as you just saw, it’s best not to rely on skills. Fortunately, there are no monsters in this Labyrinth, so we only need to watch out for traps.”
After that, I explained why we needed to treat these four bottles of water as our lifeline. Thinking my ice might serve as drinking water, I’d experimented with it at the Training Ground, but unfortunately, even ice magic that created water from scratch tasted like brine.
This was likely a side effect of my mental image of water being the Sea. When I added this speculation, Reina nodded and spoke as if there was nothing to be done.
“Right, you’re from Ilam, after all, Evan.”
“What are you talking about, Miss Letem? Evan is—”
Frost-haired Third Princess, what were you about to say? When I glared with eyes wide as a cat’s, Princess Sera covered her mouth and watched my expression carefully. I told the others to wait a moment, then dragged only Sera into a dark corner.
Though it felt somewhat like extorting an elementary schooler, I had no choice but to corner the Third Princess with both arms and interrogate her menacingly.
“Where did you get that information?”
“Well, that is—”
“Tell me. From an imperial agency?”
“It’s not that—”
The Third Princess made a peculiar expression and stared directly at my face.
“No matter how I look at it, you only appear to be Mitchell Neftis with freckles and glasses.”
“….”
“Rather, I should be asking. How have you managed to keep it hidden all this time?”
“….”
“Since you seemed to want to hide your identity, I’ve simply been treating you as Evan Laef.”
Princess Sera really is… quick-witted, perceptive, and remarkably versatile. No wonder she garnered attention as the next Emperor despite her eldest sister being alive and well.
“In any case, keep this matter secret.”
“Understood! Keeping quiet is my strength!”
I know that well. She’s so tight-lipped that even after learning Sunbird was a user of teleportation magic, she kept silent until the truly dangerous moment.
Ah, it was truly moving. When the Dragon King descended upon the Academy, Sera, feeling the threat of death, told Apet to escape alone using teleportation, yet Sunbird stayed by the Third Princess’s side until the end.
The Third Princess and Sunbird—you could say this was the moment they fell for each other all over again. Crooow, that scene back then was truly magnificent, crooow.
I savored the emotional weight of that chapter as I linked arms with the Third Princess and turned back to rejoin the others. The atmosphere felt oddly like “come on, smile,” but the rest of them seemed oblivious to it all.
“So. What do you mean by using our bodies? You’re not asking us to carry luggage, are you?”
Of course not. I carry my own pack. The fatal problem was that among everyone here, only Sunbird could be trusted with the critical task of managing our food supplies.
I pulled out my notebook and pencil from my backpack and prepared to map our route, positioning Reina Letem and Eugene at the front.
“I never formally learned proper mapping, so I’ll draw the path we’ve taken as a map by counting each straight section as one segment and each fork as one segment. Your role is to protect our supplies and me.”
“That means….”
Ah. The moment I said it, it happened. Eugene’s foot clicked against a stone on the ground, and arrows shot from the walls, rubble cascaded down, fire and oil sprayed everywhere—a spectacular display—and the two of them advanced roughly a hundred meters.
“You meant we should be meat shields!”
“Evan, you absolute madwoman!”
If they took a bottle of water, they’d better earn their keep. Watching the two of them with their excellent physical abilities and quick reflexes bounding forward frantically, Seian clutched the water bottle in his arms and spoke to me.
“I think half a bottle of water will be enough for me. I could probably go a day without drinking.”
Look at him tucking his tail between his legs—Seian really is adorable.

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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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