Labyrinth Exploration 101 - Chapter 266

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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 266

Reminiscence(6)

I returned to the workshop. Documents with scribbled formulas and magic stones were neatly arranged.

They were all my research records.

The work of a magical scholar who delves into phenomena based on theory and intuition. For the current me, it was a field that felt more real than actual combat.

Tap. Tap.

I tapped the formula documents with my pen tip and fell into thought.

“….”

Questions that spread like a chain reaction.

Why did he kill the villagers of all people?

Did he have to kill them, or was it to relieve stress or something?

In truth, I had intentionally avoided questioning the disappearance of the entire village. I simply dismissed it as something caused by the labyrinth.

If that wasn’t the case, it would mean the culprit was among us.

I didn’t want to suspect them.

At some point, I had become quite naive. The sharpness from those days had also dulled considerably.

However, even if I revived that sharpness, it wouldn’t be beneficial for me.

At some point, I started always thinking of decent endings.

An ideal happy ending where no one sacrifices, no one gets abandoned…

An impossible ending.

“….”

I focused on the formula again. The fountain pen floated up gently.

Scratch scratch.

The pen tip moved on its own, correcting the structure of the formula.

The flow of magic power, the arrangement of particles, the overlapping of concepts.

Designing a path to move forward in this closed world.

The sequence naturally activated, brightening my mind, and I could see the mana particles flowing in the atmosphere.

It was as clear as being underwater.

──Knock knock.

Suddenly, the sound of someone knocking on the workshop.

I looked out the window. It was already sunset. A whole half-day had passed.

I opened the door.

It was Kate.

“What’s the matter?”

It wasn’t surprising. She visits the workshop once every two weeks to check on my progress.

“May I come in?”

I nodded. Kate entered and looked around the interior of the workshop.

“The scent of magic power has gotten thicker. Are you becoming a mage?”

“You know already. Quantitative growth is impossible anyway.”

Here, magic training including mana breathing is almost meaningless. It’s because the nature of particles is different from the outside, that is, reality.

Therefore, the moment we go outside, they’ll be mirages that scatter.

“Still, qualitative growth is possible. Perhaps it’s a benefit that Mitamnan gives us. If time is given, if consciousness exists, we can grow in some way.”

“That might be true.”

Kate glanced at the formulas scattered throughout my workshop and asked.

“Are you certain about the method?”

“See for yourself.”

“…Is that okay?”

Kate raised her eyebrows as if surprised.

“Yes. I don’t mind such things.”

As Kate knows, most mages are very sensitive and touchy about their ideas. At worst, they’re close to paranoid and suffer from persecution delusions.

I’m not particularly like that. I don’t want to be either.

In the first place, even I obtained this ‘easily.’

In this field, effort is 1% and talent is 99%.

A mage’s completeness can’t be filled without the 1% of self-training and discipline, but it’s also an unfair domain where you can’t even start without the 99%.

A realm I couldn’t even have looked at if there hadn’t been a system in the first place. To act arrogant pretending it’s entirely mine after that would be nothing but disgraceful and vulgar.

“…Hmm.”

Kate put down the blueprint. She shrugged her shoulders as if satisfied.

“You could go into theory. It’s not too abstruse or complex, and it’s detailed and efficient.”

It was high praise.

However, her attitude was tinged with suspicion. I detected minute traces reflected in her retina as she looked me over.

Sequence.

I don’t know who taught her, but she seems to be using it quite well.

“Good work.”

Kate calmly left the workshop. I didn’t stop her.

…Should I have stopped her?

Kate walked along the edge of the village. It was an effort to find any possible ‘gaps.’

Kate always guards against perfection. She also doesn’t trust it. Even the most solid-looking walls have cracks.

Just as Seol Ha-woon has his own way, she has her own way too.

Tssssssst!

Kate vibrated magic power against the blue barrier at the village boundary. It was a high-dimensional application of sequence.

A sophisticated observation act that reverse-utilizes her magical property of destroying by vibrating particle structures themselves as ‘resonance’ to analyze this barrier’s structure, magic power density, and flow patterns.

“…This is the end.”

But she had checked all the edges of the village. The work she had repeated for over ten months while constantly plagued by an inexplicable sense of déjà vu ended today.

“It might not be the boundary…”

Kate moved toward the back mountain, but the situation showed no answers.

At times like this, that person suddenly comes to mind.

Seol Ha-woon.

However, he’s not here. Because he’s not a person of this world. That Seol Ha-woon and the Seol Ha-woon here are different.

He knew he had no tomorrow, but even so, he was strong. He was a truly strong human, and with that strength, he kept himself righteous to the very end.

His mindset is worth watching and learning from.

“….”

Kate had reached the back mountain before she knew it. It was the meteorite, the only hint in this 7th Area.

She climbed up the hill and looked down at the village.

Whiiiiiii───

For a moment, wind blew. Her hair swayed.

The moment she felt the ordinary nature.

Her eyes opened wide. The trembling of the wind was perceived by her heightened five senses.

“…!”

A realization like puzzle pieces fitting together flashed by.

At the same time, she felt some presence.

Kate turned to look in that direction.

And…

I woke up from sleep. I maintained 8 hours of sleep. I had to.

My body is full of flaws. A glass craft that could break at any moment if not precisely managed. Sufficient rest is not a choice but a necessity.

Bang bang bang!

“…What.”

Bang bang bang!

The knocking is particularly loud today.

I cleaned my body with a formula and opened the door.

“Ha-woon oppa!”

It was Yoon Hwa-rim. She had a tearful expression.

Sometime, an expression that the me from a previous cycle had experienced. But it was more urgent and frantic than back then.

Ominousness flashed red in my mind.

“Kate, Kate!”

I ran out without a word and got on her cart.

The cart cut through the cold air and entered the mountain road. It raised dust as it climbed the ridge.

Before long, we arrived at a place where all the explorers were already standing blankly like old trees.

Everyone was looking at one person…

No, one object.

Kate.

She was lying against the paulownia tree as if resting peacefully. As if she was tired from a long journey and taking a brief rest. As if lost in a peaceful dream.

Her empty gaze remained on the brightening sky, and her whole body was soaked with blood flowing from her neck.

I gritted my teeth as I looked at her.

“Ha-woon oppa. Who, who did this…”

Yoon Hwa-rim shook my arm.

“There’s someone else besides us, right?! From the beginning… I mean from the beginning…”

Lee Jun-ho was quiet. Seo Ji-woo’s face was red with anger. And Kang Hyeon…

I hid my expression as much as possible.

“Everyone go back.”

No one moved. They just stared blankly down at Kate’s corpse. Everyone seemed frozen in the cold air.

I calmly awakened them.

“Right now.”

One by one. They hesitated then moved their steps. They went down the back mountain in silence.

“…”

I remained alone and looked at Kate. Sunlight illuminated her corpse.

Kate was dead.

I don’t know if she’ll come back to life when the cycle repeats, but even in death, her personality showed through.

Kate died looking up at the sky.

It was a dying message.

“…Sky.”

I recalled the novel title written on the cover of a certain notebook.

Looking at the Sky

Knock knock.

Having come down to the village, I knocked on the door.

Knock knock.

Through the gap in the door, someone’s half-hidden face was revealed.

“Hyung?”

It was Kang Hyeon.

“I’m coming in.”

“Yes.”

Creak. The door opened eerily.

Kang Hyeon’s house was empty as always.

A rather abnormal house that had been emptied and emptied and emptied out, without even a sofa as furniture.

We sat in front of the only dining table. We faced each other as if nothing had happened.

I poured water into the teapot and steeped tea leaves. I placed a steaming teacup in front of him.

It was the same daily routine as usual, but the air was cold as ice.

“Kate…”

Kang Hyeon began like that. However, he didn’t continue his words.

Because you know that I know.

“She died looking at the sky. She probably barely managed to move her body after you left.”

“…After I left?”

Kang Hyeon asked back with his characteristic transparent eyes. Even in this situation, I couldn’t see through him.

Sequence is not invincible.

“You don’t have to pretend not to know. It’s not just because of one dying message.”

Silent and tense. It’s a coldness that arises because we cannot know each other.

Tension arising from friction, like having a finger on a trigger.

“In my opinion. The person who could massacre over a thousand villagers in just one night is…”

We try to gauge each other’s abyss, looking no different from usual.

Both Kang Hyeon and I are the same.

Kang Hyeon’s fingers holding the teacup didn’t move at all, and my gaze didn’t waver either.

“…Hyeon. It can only be you.”

Kang Hyeon asks back without even changing his expression.

“Yes? The villagers died? Where?”

At this point, even I have to smile bitterly.

My level of Sequence is still far lacking when facing such a strong opponent.

“They were buried in the back mountain.”

“Ah… But hyung, you’re good at following traces. If all the villagers died in one night, there should be traces left, right?”

That’s correct.

It’s possible to kill thousands in one night. Explorers are that kind of people originally.

However, Kang Hyeon left not a trace. He cleanly deceived my Sequence.

In other words,

“You must have endured for that long a time.”

You must have grown while enduring years so long that even I couldn’t predict.

“Kang Hyeon. When did you break free from regression?”

“…”

Kang Hyeon’s expression hardened.

It was only for a moment.

“…Hyung.”

He soon chuckled and shook his head.

“It’s not regression. It’s repetition. A mere labyrinth doesn’t have the power to make us regress. It just distorts time and makes us… think that way.”

Kang Hyeon continued.

“The starting point is fixed, and when time runs out, it repeats – we’re just magically trapped in such a false world.”

I looked at Kang Hyeon. I asked with my eyes.

About your existence.

Kang Hyeon smiled faintly and took a sip of tea.

“Yes. I’m the ‘truth’ that broke free from this repetition. I always exist as truth. No labyrinth can influence me.”

Kang Hyeon raised his head.

“Hyung was always wrong.”

I was reflected in his clear eyes.

“Because you always wanted to go out together with everyone.”

“….”

“I thought hyung was someone I could trust. I thought he was someone who could make any sacrifice for the greater good. Someone who loved no one and hated no one….”

One of Kang Hyeon’s eyebrows twisted in a sneer.

“But that wasn’t the case. In the end, he was just another human.”

A laugh I didn’t even know I had escaped from me.

“…I stopped being a monster.”

I was once in that mire.

If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. To fight monsters, one must become a monster.

I willingly became a monster when Seo Ji-hyuk died, but I also escaped from it with Seo Ji-hyuk’s help.

“Now answer my question. How many times did you repeat?”

Suddenly, Kang Hyeon’s expression grew faint.

“Quite a long time. Until a mere beginner who couldn’t even string sentences together became a bestselling writer.”

I looked at Kang Hyeon. He had escaped the repetition and awakened to a new realm. Though it was purely qualitative growth, many parts of him as a person had been damaged. Yet he remained unaware of his own ‘defects.’

He was more seriously broken than anyone I had ever seen.

“Why did you kill Kate?”

“She was quick to catch on.”

Kang Hyeon calmly confessed his murderous acts.

“Sometimes I killed Kate, sometimes I killed Ji-woo, sometimes I killed Jun-ho… Kate had the highest frequency.”

That’s when I realized.

It wasn’t something you could count on your fingers. It wasn’t just a matter of decades.

“During countless repetitions, Seol Ha-woon failed countless times. Kang Hyeon watched his failures.”

Kang Hyeon spoke calmly as if telling someone else’s story. Had hundreds of years worn away his emotions? Behind his peaceful mask, worn-out distortion flickered coldly.

I asked him.

“So. Do you think you can succeed?”

Kang Hyeon smiled.

“I’ve already found the method. Right now, I’m giving him a chance. It was our last promise.”

“Last promise….”

I thought I knew who that promise was made with.

Probably,

“A promise made with Seol Ha-woon.”

“…Yes. That’s right.”

Kang Hyeon nodded brightly.

“It’s a promise for hyung’s sake. Adding a few more years to these hundreds of years won’t make much difference….”

“It’s a promise for my brother. A few more years on top of these hundreds won’t make much difference….”

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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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