Labyrinth Exploration 101 - Chapter 177
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Labyrinth Exploration 101 Episode 177
Departure(2)
The parking garage of a luxury officetel reeking of blood. Inspector Lee Young-ho looked down at the cold corpse inside the white chalk lines drawn on the concrete.
The victim was Lee Ji-yeon, the 77th eliminated contestant from Mitamnan.
“….”
It was identical. A carbon copy of Kim Hyeok-jin’s murder case. Once again, there were no witnesses, footprints, or evidence whatsoever.
“Killed in one strike again. Almost instant death.”
Lee Ji-yeon had also died from a single sword strike. Probably pierced near the solar plexus. By a blade whose form was difficult to even identify.
“Doesn’t seem like simple robbery either… Lee Ji-yeon had no particular grudges against anyone. Her hobbies were volunteering and charity work. Really.”
Lee Young-ho clicked his tongue at his subordinate’s words.
This wasn’t a crime motivated by personal grudges. Everyone at this scene probably realized that.
“Maybe they just want to openly show that they’re the one doing the killing?”
“…That’s possible.”
A warning to the world. Some kind of crazy villain like that.
But why specifically Mitamnan contestants?
“This guy doesn’t seem afraid of the Association.”
“Right.”
Mitamnan was an Association-approved program. Therefore, making it into the debut group meant receiving an official explorer license. The same license that required rolling around for 1-2 years at a sect, school, or university before taking the exam.
So if it was confirmed to be serial murders targeting only Mitamnan, the Association would move.
It was better to be caught by the police than by the Association.
“Hmm…”
Lee Young-ho considered the possibilities for a moment. There was a faint sense of unease he felt from this scattered crime scene.
“The sword was stabbed. How? While facing each other.”
“Huh? How do you know they were facing each other?”
“The posture. If you stab from behind, they just collapse forward, but if you stab from the front.”
Lee Young-ho turned to his subordinate and pressed his fist against his chest.
“Ugh.”
“Like this, the weapon briefly supports you. So there’s a subtle difference from just stabbing from behind. I thought it was just coincidence with Kim Hyeok-jin, but…”
The culprit was deliberately killing while facing them.
The reason being, because they’re a pervert?
Or as a minimum courtesy?
Were they close enough to warrant such courtesy?
If the culprit was among the Mitamnan survivors, exactly one person came to Lee Young-ho’s mind.
It might be confirmation bias caused by the information provided by Hao Xian and Mei Lan, the Mount Hua Sect duo, but.
Kang Hyeon.
No matter how he thought about it, that person was the only suspect.
* * *
Outdoors where summer’s humid wind rippled.
Kang Hyeon sat on the dirt-colored stairs, looking up at the sky. He quietly gazed at the cloud fragments flowing across that high, blue expanse.
Life and clouds.
The two were alike.
They drifted without knowing where they were going, then suddenly disappeared at some point. No purpose, no destination. They simply existed there.
“….”
Kang Hyeon picked up a dry tree branch from the ground. As it touched his grasp, it transformed into a broadsword with familiar weight and texture.
When he opened his hand and dropped it again, it quickly returned to an ordinary tree branch and settled into the dirt.
He always had a sword with him. This was proof that he was real. A mark that every moment of himself truly existed.
Kang Hyeon quietly closed his eyes.
‘Hyeon. Someone must do it.’
His father’s heavy voice from memory flowed in.
‘You must do it.
The work of cutting away the falsehoods rampant in the world, and straightening and mending the twisted things. Accomplishing what must be done while leaving myself behind.
A painful and sorrowful duty. The path of a seeker that no one acknowledges.
However, his father knew. Kang Hyeon had also come to know.
This was his calling.
He caressed the ends of his hair. Last night brushed through the soft texture.
‘Oh?! Hyeon!’
The person who had approached him with a bright smile. The emotion in her voice might not have been fake. Her kind nature and beautiful smile might have been infinitely close to real.
But it didn’t matter.
Since her very existence was already false, Kang Hyeon had pierced her heart without hesitation.
‘…Huh?’
The last emotion that settled in her eyes was surprise and betrayal. And an incomprehensible emptiness.
‘I’m sorry.’
Kang Hyeon had apologized to her. Even though she was fake, even though she was an empty shell that shouldn’t be alive…
“…I’m sorry.”
The quiet whisper scattered in the wind.
There were too many fakes in this world.
He could distinguish their authenticity.
When emotions stirred, they showed gaps. They revealed emptiness that couldn’t be hidden. Kang Hyeon caught that and saw through the falsehood.
Except for one person── Seol Ha-woon.
Even when he seemed angry, even when he seemed sad, his deepest depths were always calm and composed. Nothing could shake him.
Because he was such a consistent person, ironically, he was more unknowable than anyone else.
“Kang Hyeon.”
A low voice shattered his thoughts. It was PD Yoon. He spoke with his usual expressionless face.
“Let’s go. Filming starts now.”
“Yes.”
Kang Hyeon stood up from his seat. The anguish from moments before left no trace.
That’s what he thought.
Suddenly Yoon Sa-hyuk held out a handkerchief.
“…?”
To the puzzled Kang Hyeon, Yoon Sa-hyuk said.
“You must have yawned.”
“….”
Only then did Kang Hyeon notice the small moisture around his eyes.
“Ah… Yes. I was a bit sleepy.”
He wiped away his tears with a bitter smile.
Yoon Sa-hyuk watched Kang Hyeon intently.
* * *
“We’ve decided to take Seol Ha-woon’s car advertisement seriously. Keep it normal.”
Kim A-rang spoke from inside the van in the parking garage.
“Yes.”
The person in charge nodded while taking notes.
“We won’t shoot the rest.”
This Seol Ha-woon CF shoot was thoroughly planned.
One ad that could be consumed as a meme, one that strikes a middle ground, and one SUV vehicle ad that directly utilizes Seol Ha-woon’s serious and chic image.
Three was the limit.
Even if Seol Ha-woon wanted more, they wouldn’t schedule anything beyond that.
“I’ll cut all the variety show offers.”
Seol Ha-woon doesn’t appear on variety shows. At least not during our contract period.
He could appear reasonably friendly to the public, but he shouldn’t become too comfortable a star. He shouldn’t wear down to that extent.
“Yes! Confirmed!”
Someone whose name everyone knows, but who’s difficult to approach casually when you actually meet him. That kind of aura and distance suits Seol Ha-woon.
“…But this modeling fee is ridiculous.”
She thought she’d become numb to money after securing hefty performance bonuses, but Seol Ha-woon’s modeling fee was 1 billion won per year.
That’s S-class celebrity level.
“I’m so jealous… Let’s get out now.”
“Yes.”
Kim A-rang got out of the van with the management staff member.
Manager Kim, who had been waiting, bowed deeply.
“Ah, you’re here. Ha-woon is already inside.”
This was Retina Corporation, which Seol Ha-woon had agreed to work with.
Jemal-ol’s pick, a small company like a corner store.
“…Yes.”
The company factory looked like some kind of container from the outside. She didn’t like it at all—in fact, she really disliked it.
When Kim A-rang opened the door and entered, Seol Ha-woon was right there.
“How is it?”
Seol Ha-woon nodded as if satisfied.
“It’s clean.”
“…Do you even know the process?”
“I learned it.”
“Ah, this section is our Retina’s Spell Orb production line.”
Manager Kim Jung-soo guided them with a nervous expression.
“The speed might be a bit slower than major corporations. It’s not just about scale, but Spell Orb manufacturing is more dangerous than you’d think…”
They could see equipment managing Mana Liquid and employees wrapped up from head to toe.
Seol Ha-woon silently looked around the production line before handing over a bundle of papers.
“These are Spell Orb blueprints.”
“Oh. You could just give us the orbs themselves.”
“These will probably be a bit different from existing orbs.”
“What’s different?”
Kim A-rang tilted her head. Seol Ha-woon hadn’t received university education, let alone proper mage training.
He should still be weak in this kind of theory.
“I reviewed papers and technical materials related to Spell Orb manufacturing processes.”
“…At the hotel?”
“Yes. I really felt how famous I’ve become.”
When I sent direct Instagram DMs, they all responded with “Oh yes!” and “Wow, Seol Ha-woon!” and sent me all their materials.
“You understood all of that?”
“Yes.”
“…No way.”
Kim A-rang looked suspicious. Her expression said something like ‘He’s just pretending to know~’
“It’s true.”
Of course, the papers had many difficult topics, but ultimately it was all technology related to ‘Magic Power.’
Seol Ha-woon’s high Magic Power stats applied to those theories as well.
“Not physical calculation formulas or anything, just the flow of Magic Power.”
Muggles express the flow of Magic Power physically and mathematically. Well-controlled natural Magic Power produces consistent output, so it can naturally be converted into natural laws.
But that’s just the muggle way of not being able to accept Magic Power as Magic Power.
“I understood it as Magic Power itself.”
Seol Ha-woon was different.
Because he’s a genius.
He accepted Magic Power as Magic Power. He understood the process in the purest form of Magic Power.
“…Oh right. It’ll be good for Jemal-ol’s image.”
Kim A-rang still seemed unconvinced. Seol Ha-woon turned his eyes to Manager Kim.
“Manager Kim. As you’ll see from that document.”
Current Spell Orbs work by condensing formulas inside orbs finished with Mana Liquid. The moment the orb’s surface breaks, the compressed formula expands and manifests.
Thanks to this, even ordinary people can use them easily, but the drawbacks are poor Magic Power efficiency and expensive manufacturing processes.
Seol Ha-woon thought of a different method.
“My orbs don’t need compression and expansion.”
He condensed the formula to the actual orb size, skipping the unnecessary processes of formula compression and expansion.
“Huh? Then what?”
“I wrote it all down. Please read it.”
Unlike other mages, he used ‘volume.’
To explain roughly, the radius specification for Spell Orbs is 2.5cm. The area of a 2.5cm circle is approximately 19.5 square centimeters.
Regular Spell Orbs only use exactly that much, but there’s wasted space.
Because orbs aren’t 2D circles but 3D ‘spheres.’
The volume of a sphere is approximately 65.5 cubic centimeters. The space that can contain formulas differs by more than three times.
Of course, it’s not entirely easy.
If it were easy, all Spell Orbs would already be using volume.
There’s no particular difference in the manufacturing process, but it’s harder on the mage side who creates the formulas.
Because the mage can’t just scribble formulas on a flat surface, but must reconstruct everything three-dimensionally from start to finish, considering the Z-axis.
Most mages wouldn’t even attempt it because they don’t want to, it takes too long, or they don’t have the ability.
“We can probably reduce costs to about 1/4.”
Seol Ha-woon was different.
It’s natural talent anyway. Even putting in 1/10th the effort others make, he could easily accomplish this much.
“…Wow.”
Manager Kim had good instincts too. He seemed to catch the innovation in the 3D Magic Formula that Seol Ha-woon handed him and swallowed hard.
“Mage Ha-woon. If this, if this works—”
“It will work.”
Seol Ha-woon conveyed his confidence to Manager Kim.
“Trust my words.”
“…Here. Let me see too.”
Kim A-rang, now interested, snatched the Magic Circle. Her mouth instantly dropped open.
“What, what is this. You expanded the formula in 3D?”
“Yes.”
“No way, this… does this, work? Can you do it like this?”
“It works. I tested it myself.”
Seol Ha-woon nodded calmly.
“….”
Kim A-rang stared at him blankly, then placed her hand on her forehead. Suddenly her head felt hot.
She felt envious, jealous, and like this was somehow even more incredible.
“No way….”
This guy might be much more of a genius than I expected.
“…Then let’s try it for now. Manager Kim, please contact me after you test whether it works.”
Kim A-rang handed the magic circle back to Manager Kim.
“Yes! I’ll test it right away!”
Manager Kim rushed off. Along with the staff, his retreating figure was filled with joy.
* * *
The next day. I returned to the Unexplored Library.
After seriously contemplating while even taking notes, I decided how to use the [Trait Enhancement Ticket] I had acquired before.
[ Recognition Level Up! ]
[ Recognition Grade: 16 ]
[ An additional 60 days of trial version are granted. ]
[ Karma: Grade-up gift is given! ]
[ Trait Enhancement Ticket Acquired ]
The one I got back then.
“Visio Divana.”
Kim Se-jin, the mage who taught me sequences, expressed the path to becoming a mage as ‘Visio Divana.’
In other words, eyes that see miracles.
Having become more ambitious, I set my goal as becoming a mage and decided to enhance 【Good Eyes, Good Ears】.
The result.
【Right Eyes, Right Ears】
The trait’s name had changed. Its grade also rose to advanced.
The sensation isn’t tremendously different yet. I’ll probably need time to adapt to the trait. The difference between intermediate and advanced is quite significant.
“…I do seem to see better though.”
Still, I can see the development of formulas and the flow of magic power much better. Beyond just seeing, I can predict what comes next.
Thanks to this, my formula is being completed.
A dark art among dark arts formula that tracks magic power preserved in dead people’s eyeballs and extracts visual information from their lifetime – something that might even violate the law.
It’s a shamanic formula that makes full use of my magic power talent.
What might be contained in Kim Yoon-jun’s eyes?
The secret he left behind – I should be able to find it before long.
[Regarding the murder case of former Labyrinth Exploration NaN participant Lee Ji-yeon, investigative authorities state that the possibility of serial killings is not yet certain….]
News happened to be flowing from my smartphone.
I think while resting my chin on my hand.
If Kang Hyeon is going around killing people, why doesn’t my radar activate?
Is his magic power not contaminated, or is he hiding himself better than any villain?
I don’t know yet.
I suspect Kang Hyeon, but I hope it’s not you.
Even when all suspicions lean toward certainty, and your face becomes contaminated.
I hope you have some kind of ‘justification.’
Rustle.
I put away the nearly completed formula book. I stood up with my cane and left the library.
Tap. Tap.
As I walked toward the dormitory, two silhouettes suddenly appeared in the distance.
“Hyung. You were here after all.”
“Oh~ Mal-ol-haem~”
It was Kang Hyeon and Seo Ji-woo. Both were dressed in black-toned outfits, and Kang Hyeon was carrying chicken pizza in both hands.
“You came early.”
“Yeah. I went to Ji-yeon unnie’s funeral hall but got too depressed so I just came here. Mal-ol-haem also went early this morning, right?”
Lee Ji-yeon’s funeral hall. I also paid my respects as a fellow program participant.
Seo Ji-woo grinned.
“Since we’re all here, let’s watch the live broadcast together.”
“Live broadcast? Where?”
Kang Hyeon asked. Seo Ji-woo pointed to the grass field near the dormitory.
“The grass field. Romantically with some beer too. It’ll just be the three of us anyway.”
I looked at Kang Hyeon. Kang Hyeon also felt my gaze.
“…What about you, hyung?”
I don’t really like the idea. There’s no particular reason to watch the live broadcast together when it’s already awkward to watch alone.
But….
I want to observe Kang Hyeon as a person a bit more closely.
This kind of daily life seems somewhat necessary too.
“Sure, why not.”
“Oh~ good good. Everyone sit down~”
Seo Ji-woo went into the grass field and plopped down. Kang Hyeon also sat down next to her.
I looked at the two of them blankly from nearby. Seo Ji-woo, who had set up a tablet PC in a visible spot, looked up at me.
“What are you doing? Not sitting?”
I explained the reason.
“People who limp technically have difficulty sitting cross-legged.”
“Ah…. Wait a moment.”
Seo Ji-woo wove threads to make a chair. I sat on it.
“I need to go to the bathroom quickly!”
Seo Ji-woo ran to the bathroom,
┌──Labyrinth Exploration NaN──┐
Just then, the live broadcast began.
While the opening was playing, I looked at Kang Hyeon. Kang Hyeon also suddenly faced me and smiled.
Neither of us had anything to say.
Kang Hyeon.
I suspect you.
Probably, you know it too.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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