Labyrinth Exploration 101 - Chapter 265

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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 265

Reminiscence(5)

I set up a workshop. I made the meteorite fragment containing the Sequence and memories from previous cycles into a necklace and wore it on my body.

After that, I constructed the watchtower based on the formula blueprints.

It was all thanks to me from the previous cycle, but I suddenly became curious.

Are the me from the previous cycle and the me from this cycle different people, or the same person? Could even the current me repeating time be fake?

…Questions about existence right now are unnecessarily philosophical.

Let me trust myself and live in the present.

“As expected of master! At this rate, we’ll be able to escape in no time?!”

Im Hae-jun grinned with his soot-covered face.

“…”

I looked around at the other explorers. Lee Jun-ho was swinging his fishing rod around, and when our eyes met, he tilted his head as if asking if I had something to say.

Seo Ji-woo tapped my shoulder.

“Are you making fish-shaped pastries today?”

“There’s the machine. You do it.”

“When I do it, they all burn, every time.”

“Still, try it. It might taste better.”

“Huh? What are you talking about.”

I looked at Kate. She had a thoughtful expression. Next to her was Lee Jong-soo with his pet deer.

“Hyung. It’ll be finished soon, right?”

Meanwhile, Kang Hyeon approached. Both his hands were wrapped tightly in bandages. He’d been like that for some time now.

“Are you hurt?”

“Ah, from practicing.”

“You get hurt too?”

“When I try to move fast, I end up hurting myself.”

Kang Hyeon smiled and scratched the back of his neck.

What I see in his appearance── nothing.

To me, Kang Hyeon is an unknowable person. Similar to Eldia, that Labyrinth Person.

I still don’t know what kind of person you are.

It’s been almost a year since we’ve been together, but your transparency still has an unfathomable depth. I can’t see into it.

But I don’t worry. It must be the same for you too.

“Take it easy.”

“Ha-woon oppa! Have you read the novel Hyeon wrote?”

Yoon Hwa-rim suddenly approached, clutching a notebook.

“Novel?”

“Ah, hyung, that’s-“

“It’s really interesting!”

Kang Hyeon waved his hands dismissively as if embarrassed, but Yoon Hwa-rim showed the notebook cover.

【Clear Sky】 Volume 3

“You should read it later too, oppa. Who’s reading Volume 1 right now?”

“…Hwa-rim. How long are you going to read that?”

Unusually, Kate also stepped forward. She glared at Yoon Hwa-rim’s Volume 3 with sharp eyes.

“You’re not making any progress.”

“Ah sorry. I’ll read it quickly.”

I found something strange and scanned the explorers’ hands in turn. Seo Ji-woo had Volume 1, Yoon Hwa-rim had Volume 3, and Im Hae-jun had Volume 2.

Even Lee Jun-ho and Lee Jong-soo were holding novels with different titles.

“What. Everyone except me?”

I suddenly felt like I was being left out.

“…Hyung seemed busy.”

Kang Hyeon scratched the back of his neck as if making an excuse.

“Writing is my hobby. I write something different each time.”

“Hyeon writes really well! I almost cried while reading it. The story is one thing, but the writing is just insane. He’s like someone who’s been writing his whole life.”

Well, everyone is making efforts to get through time somehow. That’s a good direction.

Then Seo Ji-woo raised her hand high.

“Ah right! I picked tons of pine mushrooms in the mountains today, so dinner party call?! Kate, you come too!”

“I have things to do.”

Kate immediately cut her off. Seo Ji-woo’s face soured.

“No, hey. Why do you keep avoiding us lately?”

“…”

She snorted silently and went down the mountain road.

Seo Ji-woo glared at her retreating figure.

“She’s suspicious. She keeps wandering around at night lately. Do you know anything?”

Seo Ji-woo nudged me with her elbow.

“Am I your friend?”

Lately I’ve only been in the workshop. Developing formulas and researching the meteorite.

Tap tap. I tapped the ground with my walking stick and said.

“Everyone disperse now.”

“Okay. I’m going~”

Lee Jun-ho shouldered his fishing rod. Seo Ji-woo asked.

“Hey Lee Jun-ho. Are you going fishing again?”

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you eating the mushrooms?”

“Save some for me. I’ll bring back some black porgy too.”

“…Black porgy, well. Deal.”

Lee Jun-ho has been spending more time lost in thought lately. Will the time he spends alone help him?

I called out to Lee Jun-ho as he walked away.

“Jun-ho.”

“…Yeah?”

Lee Jun-ho turned around. I hesitated for a moment, but.

“Never mind.”

No matter how I think about it, at least Lee Jun-ho isn’t the type to take his own life.

“What. How anticlimactic.”

He chuckled and turned back toward the river.

“Really anticlimactic.”

Seo Ji-woo grumbled with dissatisfaction.

“Even if I want to bring everyone together, everyone’s too individual. Does anyone want to be like this…”

“Noona. Slurp. I want to eat the mushrooms.”

Before I knew it, Im Hae-jun had attached himself to Seo Ji-woo’s side. His lips glistened with saliva as if thinking about the mushrooms.

Two fingers. It feels somewhat awkward, but I knock on the door of a household with the joints of my middle and index fingers.

Knock knock.

A house with a yard, whose original owner had disappeared.

Knock knock.

An explorer’s voice comes from inside.

─Yes, who is it~

It was Lee Jong-soo.

Kate answered.

“It’s me.”

Creak. The door opened with the distinctive dull sound of a metal entrance.

A deer walked out first. It was a baby spotted deer.

“Oh, Kate. What brings you here?”

“Nothing special, I just harvested some.”

Kate showed him a basket full of fruits. Lee Jong-soo’s eyes brightened.

“Huh. Don’t tell me, you’re giving these to me?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you…”

Lee Jong-soo received the basket with a moved expression. Kate looked at him quietly.

“Are you doing okay these days?”

Lee Jong-soo gave a bitter smile.

“Ah, honestly it would be a lie to say it’s not hard… Even though I don’t look it, I’m extremely introverted. But having this one here…”

The spotted deer. An animal that Seol Ha-woon had gotten from somewhere and practically forced Lee Jong-soo to adopt.

“What’s its name?”

“Yeon-soo. The generational character in our family is ‘soo’. Come inside and sit down. Let’s eat some watermelon together.”

Lee Jong-soo pointed to the wooden platform in the yard.

“Yes. Let’s do that.”

Kate sat down on the wooden floor. She gently tickled the chin of the spotted deer that was staring at her blankly.

Meanwhile, Lee Jong-soo neatly cut up watermelon and brought it out.

“Here you go.”

“Thank you.”

Kate ate the watermelon while looking up at the sky.

The sky had grown dark before she knew it. Constant constellations. Constant flow of wind. Street lights flickering on old telephone poles. The sound of insects from afar. Crunch crunch. The spotted deer and Lee Jong-soo eating watermelon.

A village called ‘Odongri’.

Suddenly Kate’s eyes grew coldly calm.

“Jong-su, aren’t you curious?”

“About what?”

“Why the villagers suddenly disappeared.”

“Uh… because it’s a labyrinth? Maybe it happened because we entered?”

A faint smile spread across Kate’s lips. She brushed her hair as if tired.

Lee Jong-soo seemed to empathize with her.

“Kate, you must also be having a hard… time, right?”

“No.”

Kate shook her head.

“I actually prefer being alone.”

It wasn’t some philosophical logic like ‘you can’t be strong if you can’t endure solitude’.

She’d had so many clingy people around her since childhood. She hated being treated like some fake princess most of all.

Knock knock.

“…Huh? Who is it now.”

─Jong-su! We’re here!

A familiar voice. Many footsteps.

Lee Jong-soo opened the door. It was Seo Ji-woo, Kang Hyeon, Yoon Hwa-rim, and Im Hae-jun.

“Oh, what. Kate, you’re here too? You acted like you wouldn’t come.”

Seo Ji-woo placed a basket full of pine mushrooms on the platform.

“I was about to leave.”

“Come on. Eat this before you go. When grilled, it tastes better than beef.”

“That’s right! It’s really delicious. These are wild ones you can’t get anywhere!”

“…It’s fine.”

The spotted deer stopped Kate from leaving. Kate was surprisingly weak against cute animals.

Meanwhile, a grill was prepared.

“Kate! If you eat with us, I’ll give you volume 3! I just finished reading it!”

Yoon Hwa-rim also waved volume 3 while seating Kate.

Sizzle.

A meat-like smell rose from the mushrooms. Premium pine mushrooms with earth’s spiritual energy, land’s energy, and magic power properly mixed.

“They’re done! Everyone eat. They’ll smell a bit earthy, but that’s the taste of wild pine mushrooms…”

They all ate the pine mushrooms together. They also grilled and ate fish. They had fruit for dessert.

After the meal, they played games like silent 007 bread to help digestion. Quite warm laughter filled the night air.

“Ji-woo. But how far can you connect with your wires?”

At some point, Kang Hyeon asked Seo Ji-woo.

“Well. I don’t know either.”

“Really?”

“Heh. There’s no limit.”

Seo Ji-woo nodded confidently. Kang Hyeon looked at her intently.

“Well then. I have something to check.”

Then Kate stood up. Seo Ji-woo gave a sly smile.

“Check what. Hey. The mushrooms were delicious, right? Your expression completely changed after one bite. You ate the most.”

“…”

She said nothing, but silence meant agreement.

Kate unconsciously licked her lips as she left the house.

Plop─.

The quiet and lonely seaside. A fishing float sinks into the calm water surface, drawing concentric circles.

Plop─.

Where crickets chirp, one person sits on a fishing chair placed all alone.

It’s Lee Jun-ho.

“Catch a lot?”

Lee Jun-ho looked back at me. He had noticed my presence long ago, so he didn’t look surprised.

“Well, so-so. Should I make you some sashimi?”

He nudged the basket of flopping fish with his toe.

“No thanks.”

I limped over and sat next to Jun-ho.

“You look fine.”

“Hmm~ Fishing seems like a good hobby. I can organize my thoughts while waiting for fish.”

“How’s village life?”

“What village life. There’s no one here… It’s been well over a year already, but it’s not bad.”

I observed Lee Jun-ho. I sensed his reactions with Sequence. Lee Jun-ho chuckled.

“Using that again.”

“…”

“You think I’ve just been playing around for a year. Anyway, I’m fine. Time passes eventually. There are many people struggling because they have no tomorrow, so this is pretty good. I actually want to ask you something, hyung.”

Lee Jun-ho’s eyes narrowed.

He resembled a wolf. The distinctive aura of the Murim people I had met before was quite strong from this guy too.

As expected, this guy has different origins.

“I wonder if hyung is okay. Everyone relies only on you, but you have nothing to lean on.”

“I do. Something to lean on.”

I showed him my walking stick. Lee Jun-ho raised his eyebrows as if incredulous.

“Hyung. But I’m curious about this.”

Brushing his nose, he looked at the seaside again.

“Where did the villagers disappear to.”

“The villagers?”

“Yeah.”

Crack. The fishing line went taut. Something had taken the bait.

“I mean the villagers.”

Lee Jun-ho skillfully grabbed the fishing rod and lifted it up in one swift motion.

Splash─!

The water surface split as if cut by a sword, and a silver fish leaped up, cutting through the waves.

“They were definitely there on the first day, so why did they suddenly disappear? Just because this place is a labyrinth?”

Disappear.

That word felt somehow awkward to me.

As Jun-ho said, the villagers had really disappeared suddenly.

“That might be a hint. We just accepted it too naturally.”

It was a part that strangely deviated from plausibility, but we had simply accepted it because this place was a labyrinth.

Even so, I hadn’t thought about why they disappeared. I had perhaps refused to doubt such a basic situation.

I had no choice.

Because…

I got up.

“I’m going.”

“Hyung. I caught a pretty plump one, want to eat before you go?”

“You eat it.”

“…Ah, come on. How disappointing. Let’s eat later then. I’ll save it. Look at this.”

Jun-ho held up the large fish with both arms like a fisherman.

It really is big. How many centimeters is that? Must be at least 70cm.

“Alright. Let’s eat later.”

I stepped back from the mound. My expression hardened coldly as I gripped the meteorite fragment near my collarbone tightly.

I walked like that.

Walked.

Walked again.

I examined the scenery of this village.

At some point, I stopped walking.

The blunt hill behind the village. There was a strange sense of unease about this natural formation.

I stepped back and looked at it from a distance.

─Crack!

“…Ugh.”

Suddenly pain struck and blood vessels in my eyes burst. The scenery I saw on the first day overlapped with the current state.

It’s different.

The ‘shape’ of this back mountain recorded in my Sequence is different.

I reached out toward that place while clutching my temple. Telekinesis. I dug up the ground with invisible hands.

Thud. Thud.

Large chunks of dirt were swept away, and some objects buried within slowly revealed themselves.

Stick-like things resembling rotten tree branches. Stem-like things resembling hard tree roots.

When I cleared away just a little more, things resembling ribs and fingers came tumbling down.

The skin on my back stood on end.

Small pieces that had turned white with age. Empty eye sockets revealed between clumps of dirt.

They were bones.

It wasn’t just one. Dozens, hundreds, no, thousands of bone fragments were buried there in a tangled mess.

“…”

I thought about the villagers.

They hadn’t suddenly disappeared.

In the span of one night, they had been killed by someone…

The moonlight settled down and coldly illuminated their remains.

I swept back my hair. I exhaled while gripping my walking stick tightly.

“…Was I too complacent.”

There’s only one conclusion.

Among us,

there’s someone who remembers this repetition.

—————
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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