Deadline Is Raining in the Status Window - Chapter 37

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

Having witnessed Reina and Eugene’s harrowing encounters, they learned their lesson well. From that point forward, they took turns serving as the expedition’s vanguard, rotating the dangerous duty among themselves.
Some traps were one-time use, but others could be reloaded. To safely shepherd the group through, Eugene borrowed my harpoon to deflect incoming projectiles, burning through considerably more stamina in the process. I could tell by how much water he’d consumed—Reina had barely finished half her bottle, while Eugene had already drained his.
True to his nature as the Northern Duke, he stepped forward without hesitation in crisis. Reina wasn’t foolish enough to overlook Eugene’s sacrifice either; she was clearly conserving her strength for emergencies.
I’d chosen my meat shield well, it seemed.
I retrieved the water bottle Seian had been carrying, took only a small sip, and marked dead ends in my notebook. Reina sighed each time we encountered another blocked passage, but fortunately both Seian and Princess Sera exercised restraint, so our two teams hadn’t consumed much water.
We could push forward a bit longer, then eat and redistribute our supplies.
“Ahhh!”
At a fork in the passage, as Reina rushed ahead to explore the right path, she screamed and bolted back. Rain-like droplets fell from the ceiling. Her clothes bore small holes, and the ground was stained red.
“Sulfuric acid, and potent at that.”
“We can’t proceed down this path.”
Sunbird uttered the exact same words as in the original story. This corridor detected impacts on its walls and floor, releasing sulfuric acid rain proportional to the disturbance. The original party had no safe way through, so they’d taken the left passage instead. After a full day of wandering, they’d found the Stalactite Cave, then spent another day lost before reaching the end of the Sulfuric Acid Corridor.
I knew this because the control valve for the acid-rain mechanism was located at the corridor’s end. Once they’d sealed it, the trap stopped activating. The entire group had felt deflated, then wasted another half-day before discovering the Secret Laboratory.
The conclusion was simple: this path represented the shortest route to our destination.
“Hey, Evan. What are you doing?”
I decided to test it first. I removed my jacket and carefully stepped into the corridor. When sulfuric acid droplets landed on the fabric, the water beaded up as if repelled—but then the cloth gradually began to dissolve.
A stark contrast to how quickly Reina’s clothes had been damaged. I felt profoundly grateful to Gerth. My feelings, reach him. Let Gerth know my gratitude.
“Hey! What are you really doing!”
Reina was about to physically stop me, so I’d better move fast.
I tucked my hair into my shirt, wrapped my jacket around my face to preserve minimal visibility, left only my glasses exposed, and ran.
“Hey! Evan Laef!”
“That crazy woman!”
“Don’t push yourself! That valve itself might be a trap!”
Eugene’s vision was sharp enough to spot the valve at the corridor’s end. Of course—he was the Northern Duke, raised on sparse, expansive lands with vision rivaling the Mongols.
“Evan! Right side!”
This time it was the Third Princess calling out. She’d judged it too late to stop me, so instead she quickly warned me of the corridor’s hazards.
A device opening from the side made my heart skip, but I hadn’t failed to anticipate worst-case scenarios. I quickly reached for my holster. I’d planned to sell the hundred-million-won gun without registering myself as the user, but this emergency left me no choice.
– User Evan Laef plus one additional user registered successfully.
A mechanical voice emanated from the gun. Seriously, this thing rivals science fiction, yet why is it a revolver of all things? With only six rounds? What exactly am I supposed to do with six bullets in actual combat? Does this world not have the concept of semi-automatic pistols? If I survive this, I’ll have to design a magazine loader or something.
“Ow!”
The moment I exposed my bare hand to aim, the acid droplets made my skin burn. But at this distance, my shot wouldn’t miss. Mitchell Neftis’s marksmanship skill existed precisely for moments like this.
Bang!
I’d doubted myself, but artifacts only interfered with human skill activation—they couldn’t touch magic already embedded within them. I moved despite my hesitation, and though I’d nearly died just now, at least I was alive.
“Evan! Right again! Then left!”
Thanks to the Third Princess’s keen eye, I managed to destroy the device before something activated by hurling ice at it. I’d used three of the ten bullets I’d swindled from the Professor by claiming the gun was defective, leaving seven.
“Ow! Ow ow ow!”
My uniform, woven from Arachne silk, was finally beginning to dissolve. I hastily stripped it off and dropped it to the ground. My bare hands burned bright red from touching the acid-soaked fabric, but I still had work to do.
“This hurts like hellll!”
This damned valve—I had to shut it. I screamed that I was dying, absolutely dying, but no one answered. After I locked the valve and told them it was safe to cross, all I heard was the thunder of multiple pairs of feet racing through the corridor.
“Are you out of your mind?!”
“You could’ve just gone left! Is there some fatal disease you get from going left?!”
“Evan! You were reckless just now!”
The ones who came running and scolded me in order were Seian, Reina, and Eugene. The moment they saw me stripped down, all three of them undressed simultaneously.
“Here, put this on first!”
Seian threw his school uniform jacket at me. Reina yanked her skirt down. Eugene watched Reina’s actions, saw something horrifying, squeezed his eyes shut, and wrapped the jacket around my waist.
Was Reina insane? Why the hell did she take off her skirt?
“Do you have an exhibitionist disorder?”
“I wore underwear today, it’s fine!”
“Yours are… filthy, so I won’t wear them.”
“Hey! I wash myself clean every day!”
It wasn’t a physical problem—it was just… that sort of thing.
“I’m sorry! My explanation was insufficient!”
Princess Sera, who came rushing late, bowed deeply to me and spouted the usual nonsense that those in leadership positions always do.
“Leave all dangerous matters to me from now on! That’s the destiny of those who stand above!”
As the club president, she declared confidently that it was better for her to suffer than for the club’s precious ace to be in danger. She said she wasn’t the Emperor or the Crown Princess, so she had no position to spare her body—she was merely a component meant to uphold the honor of the imperial family, so I should use her freely.
Yes, that part of her—believing that honor lay only in sacrificing her body for her people and nation without hesitation—was one of the reasons the Sunbird had to consume a bowl of antacid daily.
I looked at Seian to gauge whether he agreed with her words, and the man shook his head vigorously while clutching a water bottle.
“If I’m the club’s ace as the Princess says, then it’s only natural that the ace stepped forward at the right moment.”
“But!”
“And considering my height and build, my uniform jacket won’t fit the Princess properly. If she runs in it, she’ll only slow down.”
“…! I didn’t think of that!”
Princess Sera promised with a guilt-free expression that once we returned to the surface, she’d have a doctor and healer from the imperial household attend to me. While we were bickering, the Sunbird opened his water bottle, had me wash my hands, and tore his shirt to wrap around my wound like a bandage.
“This is all I can do for now. We need to return before infection sets in.”
“That’s fine.”
I rummaged through my backpack and pulled out antibiotics with a flourish. I’d brought them just in case something like this happened. Antibiotics were a miraculous substance—inflammation gone in an instant, secondary infection eliminated. I popped the pill wrapped in premium packaging into my mouth and swallowed, and the Princess clenched her fists in excitement.
“As expected of our club’s ace! Your preparedness is remarkable!”
“Heh, when I was young, I got scratched by a tree branch and suffered from high fever for ten days.”
Back then, our house was like a flood
(a forest)
—much the same as I was. The wild grass and trees that grew unchecked had toxic varieties, so it felt like I spent a whole year just cleaning up the yard.
“So you’ve been through everything! As expected of you…!”
“…”
“A-a-ah, you’re our club’s ace!”
You were about to call me Neftis’s mad dog, weren’t you? With that premonition, I grabbed the Princess’s cheeks and pulled them, then took the water bottle from Seian and drank deeply.
“Get to work, you meat shields. Let’s advance a bit more and rest.”
“Understood. Don’t act recklessly like before.”
At my command, Eugene charged toward the trap pit, and because he was tense about needing to be more helpful than me, he took an arrow to the thigh. Reina, finally excited that it was her skirt’s turn to shine, caused such a commotion that the Sunbird tore off his remaining sleeve to treat the wound, and I gave Eugene some antibiotics.
“Let’s rest here for a while.”
I scratched a mark on the stone to indicate our direction along the narrow path, then withdrew my four days’ worth of rations from my backpack one by one.
“This is incredibly heavy. You’ve been carrying all of this alone this whole time?”
“The canned meat makes the weight unavoidable.”
Since Seian Crowell seemed concerned, I explained the reason, and when he suggested we split the load after resting, I let out a derisive snort.
“You’ll drop it, so never mind. Just keep watch over the water bottles and supplies.”
“And here I was trying to help!”
Stop it—you’re being annoying. Perhaps because his life now rested in my hands, Seian Crowell was doing something uncharacteristic, which sent a chill down my spine and made me shudder. I handed a paper pouch to the Third Princess.
“This is….”
“Where did you get this?”
As expected, the Third Princess from the Imperial Palace and the Northern Grand Duke who had spent his life on battlefields recognized it immediately. Eugene in particular furrowed his brow sharply and confronted me with the pouch in hand.
“Removing supplies from the barracks violates military law, doesn’t it?”
“I didn’t violate it.”
“Then who did?”
“The Academy Military Club will know.”
“Thank you for the honest report.”
Oh no…. What should I do about the Military Club? Will they be punished because of me?
When I was searching for rations with a long shelf life and proper nutrition, my eyes fell upon members of the Military Club who were in the middle of mock combat exercises. On a whim, I probed whether they could procure military rations, and they said it was simple enough and sold me four days’ worth of supplies.
The military ration pouches used by the Army within the Crowell Imperial Army bore the imperial seal prominently stamped upon them. When I opened a pouch, it contained one can of meat, one hardtack biscuit, and one chocolate bar.
It was truly a simple yet excellently comprehensive meal plan with everything necessary. I popped open a can of meat and drank the broth first, then tore into the hardtack. The bread was rock-hard and the meat was tough, but the fact that it was properly salted was absolutely excellent.
“…When I return to the Palace, I shall submit a petition to Father regarding improvements to military rations.”
“…On behalf of the Brandenburg Army, I express my gratitude to Your Highness.”
“Eugene. Why didn’t you make such a request when you first met me?”
“I receive officer’s rations, Your Highness.”
“For the sake of the soldiers’ morale, ensure inspections are conducted going forward.”
“I shall keep it in mind.”

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