Labyrinth Exploration 101 - Chapter 261

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

Labyrinth Exploration 101 Episode 261

Reminiscence(1)

The destroyer’s onboard break room.

“…Area 7 should be the last one, right?”

Im Hae-jun muttered while scooping up ice cream.

“The people from Area 3 did say that no one had cleared up to Area 6.”

That was Kang Hyeon’s response. Seo Ji-woo twisted the corner of her mouth.

“Well, yeah. How could anyone clear this alone?”

Zzzzzing- Zzzzzing-

The sound of magical welding came from one corner. It was Yoon Hwa-rim.

She had received permission from Seol Ha-woon to use the turrets, and even received two more turrets as gifts, so she was upgrading her cart.

──Bwaaaaa!

Suddenly, the ship’s horn sounded long and loud. Everyone looked up.

“Oh. Looks like we’ve arrived.”

They all came up to the deck together. Seol Ha-woon was still standing on deck.

He spoke to the explorers.

“We’ve arrived.”

The harbor was in a festive mood. Countless soldiers and fishermen waved their hands and cheered toward the returning soldiers. Ship horns continuously echoed throughout.

Soon the explorers also disembarked from the ship. They received equally enthusiastic welcome.

“Well done.”

Afterward, the naval admiral personally commended them.

“This operation will remain in naval history for ages to come…”

A needlessly long, boring and sleepy speech. Explorers yawning. Soldiers’ heartfelt salutes. Im Hae-jun who had inevitably packed ice cream.

Such scenes continued, and now everyone climbed onto Yoon Hwa-rim’s cart and slowly left the harbor. They headed toward Area 7.

Vroooom.

Before they knew it, the sea had disappeared. The scenery became a mountain road.

“The one behind is following well too.”

Lee Jun-ho looked at Cart No. 2 behind them. Seo Ji-woo and Kate were squeezed together in the small cart.

As they went down the mountain’s downhill road, the space gradually thinned. Like the neck of a bottle, even the sky mysteriously narrowed.

At the moment when everyone was blankly admiring the magical scenery.

───-

With a strange sensation as if magical power was sweeping over their entire bodies, their vision suddenly opened up.

Suddenly the horizon was clearly revealed, the sky became clear blue, and some village appeared.

“Huh?”

“There’s something over there.”

All the shop signs were in Korean. Blue mountains lined up like a backdrop, familiar housing styles.

“What? Isn’t this Korea?”

Lee Jun-ho’s eyes widened.

“But what kind of labyrinth is like this?”

“That’s exactly why it’s a labyrinth, dumbass.”

Cart No. 2 had approached from the side, and Seo Ji-woo parked it. Everyone got off their carts.

A status window appeared before their eyes.

■■■■■■■■

■Area■７■■

■■■Error■■■

■■■■■■■■

“…Error?”

The moment Seo Ji-woo muttered, the village scenery in the distance flickered like a glitch.

Bzzt-

Parts of the village fragmented like broken data and repeatedly restored itself. Cracks that seemed like magical power breaking appeared briefly in the sky, but quickly returned to normal.

“…What was that just now?”

“For now.”

Seol Ha-woon spoke to them as they looked around.

“Let’s look for clues in the village first.”

“Error?”

Labyrinth Exploration NaN Monitoring Room. Kim A-rang blinked her eyes while looking at the screen.

■■■■■■■■

■Area■７■■

■■■Error■■■

■■■■■■■■

A status window saying “Error” filled the screen. She thought the Area 7 theme must be “Error,” but suddenly.

Bzzzzt──-!

Electricity sparked from the monitor and the entire screen went black.

“What the.”

The other staff monitoring Area 7 were the same. They were greatly startled and jumped up.

“Kim PD! Kim PD, our screen went out!”

“The camera. The camera won’t move either, PD!”

Monitoring transmission and camera operation had stopped.

“I know. I’m watching too.”

Kim A-rang’s brow furrowed.

“What is it this time?”

The previous Apocalypse Labyrinth briefly crossed her mind, but this was different from that time. Back then, there was only a problem with forced return, but the cameras had worked properly.

“Everyone wait and see!”

Kim A-rang hurriedly ran up to Yoon Sa-hyuk’s office.

“PD Yoon!”

She flung open the office door.

“…”

At that moment, she froze.

Inside was not Yoon Sa-hyuk but someone else.

It wasn’t a Mitamnan official either.

Except for his face, the man was completely black. Shadow-like hair, a coat draped over his shoulders, neat slacks, worker boots like military boots, even the pupils staring at her were all black.

“…Whoa.”

Kim A-rang let out an unconscious sigh. Even for her, who had become quite famous lately, this was the first time in her life meeting such a person.

“Um… what brings you here…?”

South Korea’s mage, perhaps one of the most well-known people in Korea, Tae-woo.

He gestured toward Yoon Sa-hyuk’s monitor.

“It’s a rift.”

“…Pardon?”

“Rifts and labyrinths are seemingly used as synonyms, but they’re only similar in meaning, not completely the same. Have a seat.”

Kim A-rang hesitantly approached and sat down.

“What about PD, PD Yoon?”

“He went to catch a mentor for a moment.”

This was to prevent them from encountering each other by any chance.

Tae-woo is avoiding Tae-yul. Probably Tae-yul feels the same way. Tae-woo worries about the aftermath of a collision, while Tae-yul finds Tae-woo tiresome.

A fight between mages isn’t a fight—it’s war. If those two ever encounter each other, they’d probably destroy Seoul without breaking a sweat.

“Mentor? Who?”

“You don’t need to know.”

…But why is he speaking informally to me from our first meeting?

As if reading that thought, Tae-woo spoke.

“You’ll find out later.”

“Gasp, don’t tell me you can read minds?!”

Tae-woo quietly looked at the monitor. The screen was still pitch black.

What is he looking at?

“Anyway, um, mage sir. Are you saying a rift has formed in our labyrinth?”

“That’s right. There’s been a problem with the flow of time.”

“Why? It was working fine and then suddenly?”

Tae-woo said quietly.

“Because it wants to live.”

His voice is strange. Having been talking with him for a while now, there’s no variation in tone at all. Every tone is constant. Not even the slightest emotion seeps through from him.

“Who wants to live… the labyrinth?”

“That’s right.”

Tae-woo nodded and continued.

“All things do not wish for death. It’s an instinct regardless of whether they possess intelligence or not. This labyrinth too has lived long enough to awaken the desire not to die…”

It’s a small village. That would be the overall assessment.

The era is close to the early 2000s, around the time before and after I was born.

Houses with old slate roofs, children’s graffiti drawn on faded walls, and a small arcade machine in front of the stationery store. A cozy village where the elementary and middle schools are side by side, and you have to go to the town center for high school.

A hot summer wind blew, but somehow it felt refreshing.

“Let’s go together!”

“Hey, avoid that kid because he’s stupid!”

“He smells!”

Children running through the village alleys. White blankets hung on clotheslines swell in the wind, and the slow fanning of grandmothers sitting together on wooden platforms continues leisurely.

I looked up at the sky. There were currents of magic power shimmering hazily like heat waves.

It must be one of the hints.

─…Master! Can you hear me? It’s me, Hae-jun! They say a meteorite fell in this village!

The radio activated. It was an item Yoon Hwa-rim had issued one per person.

“A meteorite?”

─Yes! I found out by giving ice cream to the kids. It seems like it’s related to the meteorite somehow?! It’s like a movie! Wait a moment, I’ll dig for more information! Hey! Friends, come over here!

Im Hae-jun seemed to communicate well with the children.

I was walking with my staff when I was captivated by a certain sign.

Ji-hoo’s Snack Bar

A snack bar.

I opened the door to the snack bar. Clang. The bell rang.

“Hello.”

“…A customer I haven’t seen before?”

I sat on a small chair. The food written on the menu board was tteokbokki, sundae, fried food, ramen.

I’m not picky about food. If it’s there, I eat it, and if it’s delicious, I eat more. But among them, there are definitely special foods.

“One bowl of ramen, please.”

“1,000 won.”

One thousand won for a bowl of ramen. What touching prices.

Fortunately, I had money I brought from the previous area.

I held out one thousand won, and the owner cooked a bowl of ramen.

“….”

Bubble bubble bubble bubble.

The amount of water is exquisite. The green onion and egg toppings are perfect too. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen ramen with this kind of visual. My mouth is watering.

“Here.”

I reverently picked up my chopsticks. One bite, two bites, three bites, four bites.

The bowl was empty after five bites.

“You eat heartily, different from how you look.”

The owner said. I smiled bitterly and looked around the interior of the snack bar.

Various newspaper articles were scrapbooked. As Im Hae-jun said, they were all articles related to meteorites.

“By any chance, was there some kind of accident in this village?”

I asked the owner. The owner stirred the tteokbokki on the iron plate and answered.

“…Why are you curious about that?”

“Because you’ve made it impossible not to be curious.”

I looked at the owner and opened my eyes as wide as possible. It was my attempt at being cute.

“That’s true. I made it like this so people would remember.”

The owner said with a sigh mixed in.

“About 40 years ago, a meteorite fell. Half the village disappeared. My husband died then too. But that meteor was a funny one.”

“A funny one?”

“Yeah. You’d know if you went to see, but usually meteors explode as they fall, right? But that one didn’t explode. It just crashed into the ground as it was and became a hill. Damn thing.”

The owner gave a bitter laugh filled with mixed emotions.

I asked the owner.

“Ma’am. Where might that place be?”

I arrived at the site of the meteor impact. Indeed, it had become like an ordinary back mountain.

The massive meteorite had been covered with soil and grass over the long years, so you wouldn’t even think it was a meteorite, and from the summit you could see the entire village at a glance.

“Hmm…”

I picked up a leaf and placed it on top of my head.

“…This is strange.”

It’s definitely strange. It’s not simply a matter of the village scenery.

The ‘flow of magic power’ is slow. At the very least, it’s not normal.

Labyrinths usually have the same flow of magic power as modern Earth. Unless it’s a special space like outer space, labyrinths are ultimately magical scratches created on Earth.

Also, the word ‘error’ from the 7th Area keeps bothering me.

I can’t tell yet, but if the purpose is to prevent a disaster related to meteorites, this flow of magic power must also be a hint.

That night, we gathered in an old inn room and exchanged the information each of us had gathered.

Most of it was similar content.

“The key seems to be the meteorite. There was observational data saying that a meteorite of similar size to the one from 40 years ago could fall on this village again.”

Kate presented the materials she had found at the library.

“The problem would be the method.”

I continued while skimming through the astronomical observation records.

“Either destroying the meteorite that will fall, or escaping from here before the meteorite falls.”

At my words, Seo Ji-woo suddenly raised her hand high.

“I recommend solving it rather than running away.”

Kate felt the same way.

“I agree.”

But there’s no further reaction. Everyone suddenly turns to look at me.

They seem to be gauging my reaction. It’s a burdensome level of trust.

Is this a side effect of Je Mal-ol?

“…Let’s decide by majority vote.”

But without knowing the overall information, we can’t argue about the right or wrong of expedients.

“Then… I also agree with Ji-woo.”

“Me too.”

Starting with Kang Hyeon and Lee Jun-ho, everyone reached unanimous agreement.

“Then.”

I said to them.

“Now get out. This is my room.”

I opened the door with telekinesis.

“Huh? Weren’t we all going to sleep together?”

Seo Ji-woo spouted something strange. This is my room that I paid for and reserved.

“Get out.”

How petty, how petty— I chased out all the grumbling guys and laid out bedding in the now quiet room.

Lying alone, I thought about magic formulas.

Stopping meteorites. I had never heard or seen that kind of magic formula before, but more than that, the flow of magic power kept bothering me.

I concentrated magic power in my eyes.

Very small particles floating before my eyes. Particles of mana.

They never stop for even a moment. When I observe them, they spread out like waves and then repeatedly converge back to a single point.

Uncertain fluctuations crossing the boundary between existence and non-existence.

The mana in this village is not stable.

Among the other areas of the maze, only this place is particularly like this.

Why is that?

I can’t know yet. Because my skills and intuition are still immature.

“….”

For now, let’s sleep and think about it later.

I quietly closed my eyes.

From the next day, we investigated the meteorites.

We narrowed it down to two methods. Meteorite interception and village evacuation. We pondered magic formulas for that purpose.

“So you’re saying leave it to us mages and you guys just go mine magic stones.”

Kate scoffed at the swaggering Seo Ji-woo as if she found it absurd.

“I’m far superior to you in magic formula theory.”

“What? Wow, what’s with her?”

“Be quiet. Seo Ji-woo, you mine the magic stones.”

“Why me!”

“You’re lucky. You’ll be able to find and mine only high-purity magic stones.”

Efficiency is most important in personnel allocation.

“That’s good.”

“Kate, you go with Seo Ji-woo too.”

“What are you talking about-“

“To mine magic stones, you need to dig the ground. Kate, you’re good at that.”

“No-“

“That’s great!”

Seo Ji-woo grinned and put her arm around Kate’s shoulder.

“Let’s go together! To dig the ground!”

I roughly smoothed over the conflict that way and pondered magic formulas together.

A week passed like that.

Then, a month passed.

A month.

It was an excessively long time.

“…Master. We won’t be able to return even after our main broadcast ends, will we?”

One day, Im Hae-jun asked. I had already felt signs that something was wrong when a week had passed.

“That’s what I’m saying.”

I stretched out my arm. I felt the movement of mana gathering in my grasp.

It’s not a mistake. It’s not uncertain intuition either.

“There’s something here.”

This space is definitely ‘slow’.

Meanwhile, Kim A-rang glanced at Tae-woo.

He’s silent now. Even when just sitting quietly, he looks at his watch once every 10 seconds.

I don’t know the reason.

Then.

“1 minute.”

Tae-woo suddenly muttered.

“…Excuse me?”

“1 minute is about 10 days. It’ll keep getting longer though.”

It was hard to understand. Still, Kim A-rang took advantage of the opening when he spoke to casually ask.

“Wouldn’t it be faster for the mage to rescue them? Our filming is also being disrupted right now-“

“If you touch a rift from the outside, the interior becomes more vulnerable instead. As long as they’re inside the rift, it’s safer to leave them alone for now. If you try to break the rift, it becomes more dangerous instead.”

“Uh… um… like how you shouldn’t squeeze pimples with your hands? If you force it, it leaves scars.”

Kim A-rang threw it out as a joke, but Tae-woo thought for a moment and then nodded.

“It’s not exact, but if it’s easy to understand, you can accept it that way.”

“…Yes.”

He’s a very serious person. Even though he’s a mage, he listens carefully to ordinary people’s words and thinks from their perspective.

It was quite an unexpected personality.

His appearance looks like an incredibly fastidious noble beyond being strict and picky.

“But the problem is that we can’t film right now….”

“Rest for a while. Anyway, by your standards, it’ll be over within a day or two.”

By your standards. Still, he’s not entirely without the mage’s characteristic sense of superiority.

Well, it would be strange if he didn’t have any.

Kim A-rang nodded and said.

“Still, I’ll wait here with you. Since PD Yoon isn’t here, I’m the one in charge.”

Tae-woo looked at Kim A-rang intently and then nodded slightly.

It wasn’t much of a gesture, but she felt good as if she had been acknowledged for no reason.

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