Labyrinth Exploration 101 - Chapter 275

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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 275

Youtiful(1)

Rain falling on Obongri. The village scenery spreading like a watercolor painting, soaked with water. We lean against the Rear Mountain Spire, looking up at the sky.

We’re waiting for the meteorite that will soon arrive.

“This is really the end, right?”

“Shh.”

“Huh? Why?”

───-!

Just as Im Hae-jun was muttering, a faint vibration occurs in the sky.

Crackle─

A rift opens, and through it, a white meteorite is revealed.

“Oh! It’s coming!”

White light descends, evaporating the raindrops. In my eyes, I can see the unstable fluctuations of magic power occurring in the meteorite’s core.

「Primordial Attunement」.

Thanks to the trait that allows me to contemplate mana in its pure form.

───-!

“Everyone to your positions.”

We stood at the designated positions on the spire. Everyone placed their hands on the pads and channeled their magic power.

Sssssss───-

Magic power converges to a single point at the tip of the spire, forming a blue formula.

“Fire”

I activated the switch. The trajectory had been set long ago.

Kwaaaaaa──-!

A blue spear shoots up. It cuts through the air in an instant, precisely penetrating the magic core, and an explosion occurs from within.

Crrrrrack──-!

The meteorite’s shell peels away, and the entire world turns blazing white.

Whoooooosh….

It was as dazzling as if the sun was shattering right before my eyes.

I closed my eyes for a moment, then slowly opened them.

In the pure white space, a status window was sitting there alone.

[Terminal Station]

[Remaining Experience Points: 101,102]

[Please consume all experience points.]

“….”

It seems it’s time to use the remaining experience points.

I placed my finger on my spine. I injected all the experience points into the spinal implant.

The mental visualization was ‘to support my sequence to the maximum extent possible’.

Whoosh!

Heat surges up, spreading from the back of my neck to my toes.

The pain is severe but bearable. Honestly, compared to refinement, it’s a trivial level.

“…Done.”

I nodded and opened my eyes.

The status window had changed at some point. It was just an instant by my standards, but quite some time seemed to have passed.

[Time of Choice: A total of 8 people have reached the terminal station of the maze.]

[Please select the final person who will make the last decision.]

１. Kang Hyeon

２. Lee Jun-ho

３. Lee Jong-soo

４. Im Hae-jun

５. Yoon Hwa-rim

６. Seo Ji-woo

７. Seol Ha-woon

８. Kate

[If there is no majority, there will be a discussion period.]

A blank paper appeared, fluttering. I picked it up with telekinesis.

The end is a vote.

If everyone’s opinions don’t converge into a majority, that is, if there’s no trust relationship between the team in this process, it will probably be a complete mess.

But.

[Voting has been completed.]

Seol Ha-woon 7 votes

Kate 1 vote

Without me knowing, we seemed to have become quite united.

“Hmm.”

I can see Kate looking flustered. It’s probably not Kate’s own self-vote. I think it’s someone who wanted to mess with Kate.

Actually, it was me.

[Mr. Seol Ha-woon. Please come to the Choice Room.]

A door appeared in the pure white space.

[Choice Room]

I approached and opened the door. One person was sitting there, looking at me.

Deep navy eyes with a faint blue ripple. Sharp features.

Her face is very famous. Because she’s a person well-known in the media.

Mage Tae-yul.

“…Mage.”

I called her name in great surprise.

She shook her head.

“I’m not a mage. I’m a persona placed here. To give you all one choice.”

“…What?”

“To put it bluntly, it means a copy.

She’s calling herself a copy. To the viewers, she might seem like a simple guest placed here, but her presence is overwhelming.

“I am meant to grant one wish to whoever reaches this place.”

She continued speaking.

“I have spent long years here solely for that purpose.”

“…”

“Any wish is fine. You could become the master of this maze, or bring back the dead.”

The dead.

One person’s face flashed through my mind.

“Would they only come back to life in this maze?”

“That’s right.”

I sensed her voice. A subtle difference in sequence was detected.

Probably because she isn’t the ‘real’ Tae-yul.

“…So it was you? The one who caused the error.”

The wish is naturally just bait, and she’s not talking about the ending of this maze.

She’s naturally leading the conversation in a different direction.

Perhaps the wish I should make to her, the correct answer is─

“Everyone wants to live.”

She said.

Tae-yul had placed a ‘part’ of her personality here. It was her magic.

A miraculous realm that I still cannot look deeply into or even understand.

But this copy clearly has a desire. A wish.

Same as us.

She wants to live.

Even a personality simply torn off and created doesn’t want to die.

She wants to live, even if only in this labyrinth.

That won’t do for me.

“My wish is the destruction of this labyrinth.”

I don’t desire much. I don’t easily change a purpose once I’ve decided on it.

“To seal the rift,”

She looked at me and listened.

“I wish for us to move forward from this place.”

“State your wish more clearly, speak it aloud.”

She commanded. She meant for me to recognize what I was about to do.

“Yes.”

There was no reason I couldn’t.

“I wish for the death of all these labyrinths, of all the ‘fakes’ living here.”

“…”

She stared at me intently.

“I’m sorry.”

It’s an honest feeling. It’s not that I don’t feel guilt.

It’s just something that must be done.

“There’s no need to be sorry. You would always make the same decision.”

Suddenly I became curious about this being.

Could it be that Tae-yul was the one who designed this maze?

Had she watched all our regressions?

“Now your wish will be fulfilled.”

Ssssssh──-!

Suddenly the space began scattering like pieces of paper.

Cracks formed in the pure white space, and her shell crumbled away.

“Let me give you one piece of advice before you leave.”

Psssssh…

Gradually disappearing, she left a brief final word.

“Don’t trust me in that place.”

Tick── tick── tick── tick──

The sound of a second hand clotted within a magical soul.

A metronome proving one’s present.

Tick── tick── tick── tick──

Tae-woo listens to his heartbeat with his eyes closed. Quietly thinking while gripping his wristwatch.

Back when I still called that kid my younger sibling, and that kid still called me older brother.

‘Big brother! Look at this!’

That memory still cherished.

‘I made one for you, big brother.’

But it was something too long ago for both of us. Buried under all kinds of sediment.

Long years, accumulated memories had made it so.

Humans cannot live long. Humans who live long cease to be human.

Memory and time are similar in the broad view.

Tae-woo is an old human, and Tae-yul is a human whose ego became bloated.

But Tae-woo entrusted himself to beliefs and rules, becoming part of time. Tae-yul rejected herself and indulged in games.

‘How’s that! Now even if you suddenly go to a different timeline, you’ll be able to know the present.’

Back in childhood when she still couldn’t fully control time and wandered not even knowing the method.

Before being bound by the curse called magic.

‘How did I make it, you ask? It’s very profound. Have you heard of the Big Bang theory? That the universe keeps expanding. Magic power is the same. As time passes, it moves away from us, and past magic power gets a little closer to us. This watch detects that minute difference. This magic movement uses a whole 0.01g of oganesson!’

Oganesson. The heaviest element on Earth that disappears as soon as it exists.

Its half-life is 0.00089 seconds. She barely managed to preserve it with magic power in that instant. It was hard to obtain…

To that child excitedly introducing her invention, Tae-woo said.

“…Thank you.”

At the same time, he opened his eyes.

There was a door right in front of him.

He pushed it open and went inside.

Step.

The walker descends. Blue traces ripple on the road surface Tae-woo stepped on. The internal circuits resonate and spread as if detecting an intruder, but there’s no particular attack.

Thud.

He walks. With his coat tails fluttering, clutching a single book in his hand.

Thud.

The magic power pattern carved with each footstep is irritating. However, this is a mage’s workshop. Created by ‘him’ to train and refine himself.

Thud.

At the end of that space thick with the smell of oil and magic power, one person stands.

The back view looking out the window is upright.

The walking stick held in one hand is his symbol, and his long hair is his identity as a mage.

Thud.

When he briefly stops walking, the man turns to look at him.

“You’ve come.”

Seol Ha-woon.

“….”

Tae-woo checks his wristwatch. If the current temporal coordinates are like this, he nods slightly and asks Seol Ha-woon a small question.

“How does it feel to have become a mage?”

“You’ve come from about 5 years in the future?”

Tae-woo’s eyebrows twitched. At some point, Seol Ha-woon had begun to guess his time like a ghost.

“Subtle reverberations remain. Magic power grows more distant as time passes, and closer the further in the past it is.”

Like my younger sibling, he senses my time.

“The answer to my question is.”

Then Seol Ha-woon places his hand on the window frame again and looks at the sky. Tae-woo quietly walks over and stands beside him.

“It’s not a special feeling, but I’m sensing it.”

Tae-woo looks at the same place as him.

“That farewell is approaching.”

Meetings exist because there are farewells, and farewells exist because there are meetings.

However, only Tae-woo is free from such causality. For Tae-woo, meetings are fragmentary, and farewells are ambiguous.

Tae-woo meets dead people. He knows of their deaths yet cannot know them.

“Mage.”

Suddenly Seol Ha-woon turned to look at him.

“Could you wait just a little longer? Until I reach that future.”

Tae-woo quietly met his eyes.

Seol Ha-woon had deepened. He had reached a great realm as a mage and become a true mage.

However, his answer was already decided.

“Time waits for no one.”

Tae-woo is someone who doesn’t know how to wait.

…Perhaps, he might not even be human.

After clearing the Maze Labyrinth, I finally returned to the dormitory.

The other explorers went out to watch the live broadcast or do other things, but I slept all day.

This labyrinth felt like it lasted 3 years.

“Haaaaam….”

When I woke up, almost a full day had passed.

I checked my schedule through smartphone messages.

[The final labyrinth is in 3 weeks.]

[Please rest comfortably.]

“…Final.”

Final. For some reason, it’s a bittersweet word. This Labyrinth Exploration NaN will also end before long.

However, the real thing might start after that.

Black Call.

Is Kang Hyeon the culprit behind that incident, or is it some other mastermind?

I don’t know yet. It’s a future event for which there can be no evidence.

Above all, I doubt whether I’ll even be alive until then.

“…Should I go?”

I got up from my stiff body.

Let me go check on the business.

Astroal Merchandise

“Phew….”

The adventurer watched Aro appraising the loot with a tense face.

〔Beep beep- Appraisal result: three C-grade loot items. One B-grade loot item. Assessed amount is 237,500 points.〕

Astroal Merchandise developed banking and loot business.

The official currency is Astroal Points (AP). The currency for the entire Astroal site.

With these AP, you can use the hotel, purchase products at Merchandise, and get a 10% discount when paying membership subscription fees.

Also, adventurers who hold over a million of these points become priority candidates for Astroal VVIP membership.

〔Deducting 1% survivor insurance fee. -2,375 points.〕

Astroal also operates a survivor insurance system. Sometimes adventurers die unexpectedly in unthinkable places, and this is a system that inherits points to designated individuals upon death.

“Is it done?”

〔Yes, that’s correct.〕

The adventurer took back the card and put it in their pocket.

“Thank you for your work.”

The adventurer bowed and went to another part of the site.

Aro sat in the wide chair. Now Merchandise had division of labor, and no adventurer called him just a ‘robot’ anymore.

Is this the taste of success?

〔Hmm haha.〕

Aro laughed.

“What are you laughing about?”

Seol Ha-woon appeared.

“But why are there so many human staff? You could just hire robots.”

He approached, tapping his walking stick.

“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? To boss people around.”

Aro shook his head.

〔Robots lack adaptability, negotiation skills, and customer service abilities. I am a very special and unique entity.〕

“…Is that so.”

Seol Ha-woon poked Aro with his walking stick. It meant to move from the chair.

Aro hesitantly got up from his seat.

“You seem to be making a lot of money. Do you have any other business plans?”

Seol Ha-woon sat down in the chair.

〔I am considering medical services.〕

“…Medical? That would require too much initial investment.”

〔However, considering our foot traffic, there would be guaranteed profits. Also, Master. This is a MoMo 1-point acquisition ticket.〕

“Oh?!”

Seol Ha-woon’s eyes widened.

A point acquisition ticket. Aro had finally produced results!

That was the expression on his face.

〔Though it does come with the condition that stats must be below 12.〕

“Let me see. That’s fine.”

It looked like a ticket, but the MoMo system definitely responded to it.

“It’s real. 1 stat point increase. Upper limit 12….”

Suddenly, Seol Ha-woon’s expression became serious.

“But it’s strange. Who could have made items like these.”

〔I do not know.〕

“Well… I’ll really praise you for this one.”

Pat pat. Seol Ha-woon stroked Aro’s head.

“Then I’m going.”

〔Where are you going?〕

“To think about where to use this. Why?”

Beep beep. Aro’s eyes flashed.

〔There is a lot of loot accumulated. Reprocessing is needed for random boxes.〕

“…Huh?”

Reprocessing.

In other words, Seol Ha-woon’s crafting ability was needed.

—————
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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