Labyrinth Exploration 101 - Chapter 316

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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 316

HERO(2)

I limped around fixing up the shack. There wasn’t a ghost-possessed tool set, but I could use formulas well enough.

I secured the creaking door, cleaned the boards neatly, and filled the gaps in the wall where cold air was seeping through. The messy space finally took on the semblance of a place where people could live.

Afterwards, I sat on the floor of the room with the child, Jeong Soon, and we had various conversations.

Though she’s much younger than me now, in the end this child is an elder who lived in this world much earlier than I did.

I listened respectfully to Jeong Soon’s information.

“So it really was a war.”

Not long after the Korean War had ended.

This place had been completely devastated in the midst of that horrific war.

“So, you absolutely have to find this?”

11-year-old Jeong Soon-i pointed to the picture in the herb book I had shown her and asked.

“That’s right.”

First, I had to find this red flower, the Red Star Herb. I didn’t know if Tae-woo had drawn them, but the most important underlines were marked all over it.

“But why can’t we go out at night?”

“…There are strange people.”

Strange people.

Jeong Soon-i fears the night.

I had different thoughts. Tae-woo wouldn’t have just thrown me here for no reason.

The Red Star Herb would probably be somewhere around here, and those ‘strange people’ were likely related to the Red Star Herb as well.

A mage doesn’t reveal their thoughts like a proper mage should.

“Are those strange people still around now?”

“Since it’s night, they’re probably wandering around.”

I crouched by the window crack. I activated a sequence to enhance my retinas. Because magic power wasn’t circulating, activation was quite difficult. I had to consciously squeeze the magic power in my body and focus it on my optic nerves.

My vision repeatedly blurred and sharpened, until finally the darkness outside the window thinned and the outlines of objects began to appear clearly.

“…”

Grrrrrrowl!

A sound like a beast’s cry came from outside. But it wasn’t a beast. The human figure staggering toward us was definitely in human form.

The most appropriate word would be ‘zombie,’ but red spores were blooming like mushrooms all over their bodies. The red light flickering like fluorescence in the darkness was quite eerie.

“…Jeong Soon.”

“Yes?”

“When did things like that start appearing?”

“I don’t know exactly… they only come out at night and aren’t visible during the day.”

During war, or right after war, these kinds of strange phenomena often occur.

Magic power ultimately reacts to and arises from humans’ intense desires, that is, mental visualization.

The more people die, the more despair, sadness, and resentment accumulate, the more that place becomes a living hell.

It’s hard to imagine now, but at one time, all of Korea was like this.

I first took out the reagent bottle I had brought. Analyzing the green juice that Tae-woo had left behind came first.

First, it’s green. If it’s green, what could it be? I opened the green medicinal herbs section of the herb book. The herbs of this era had distinct colors thanks to being filled with nature’s magic power.

Green, green… Found it.

Moonlight Herb leaves. Has detoxifying and calming effects that resemble moonlight.

“Do you eat it?”

“No. Jeong Soon, if you ever eat this because you’re hungry, I’ll die.”

“Oh my. Are you sick?”

“Something like that.”

The other herbs could probably be obtained in this vicinity too. The more strongly magic power is condensed in a place, the more commonly rare herbs grow.

“Have you seen any of these?”

I showed Jeong Soon the other pictures in the book.

“Oh. I’ve seen this one before.”

Jeong Soon-i pointed with her finger to a picture of grass with frost dew on it.

“Where?”

“It’s hard to explain in words, let’s go together tomorrow.”

“Alright. Let’s go look for it together tomorrow morning.”

Yelp! Yelp!

Suddenly urgent puppy sounds came from outside. One zombie was chasing a small puppy that was whimpering as it ran away. A country mutt with yellow fur, still a puppy.

“Ah, that’s Baduk’s sound!”

Jeong Soon-i looked over there with a start.

I sighed and rested my walking stick on the window crack. I projected rifle-shaped magic power over it and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

With a small explosive sound, the zombie’s head burst apart.

Jeong Soon-i, who had been watching carefully, quickly went outside and brought the puppy back in her arms.

“Do you know this friend?”

“Yes. I met him last week… but I let him go because there was nothing to eat… but he came back…”

“…At least tie a leash on him.”

I handed over jerky from inside my coat. Jeong Soon-i fed the jerky to Baduk.

“Yaaawn~”

Whiiine~

After that, the two young ones fell fast asleep.

I quietly went outside. I approached the corpse I had knocked down earlier.

I poked at the brain fragments with a tree branch. Along with a terrible stench, red spore mycelia that had spread like blood vessels through the brain matter were revealed.

“Red Star Herb.”

The Red Star Herb might not be a flower or grass, but a parasitic mycelium. The spores use humans as hosts and mutate them into these monsters.

“Hmm.”

I could feel a faint flow of magic power from the spores, but this wasn’t the main body.

A giant main body that spreads these spores, that is, a mother body, must definitely exist somewhere.

And that is—

“The Red Star Herb.”

I nodded and turned back.

The next day, as soon as morning broke, I went outside with Jeong Soon and Baduk.

“It’s here. I think it was this way…”

I followed behind Jeong Soon. The child guided me along a narrow mountain path while searching her memory. Fresh air mixed with damp earth scent and grass fragrance brushed past my nose.

“Ah, here it is!”

We soon arrived at a small clearing where grasses with dew formed colonies.

Frost Dew Grass.

True to its name, even under the bright sunlight, blue dew drops were beaded at the tips of the leaves. It was the mysterious appearance characteristic of herbs imbued with magic power.

“…Shh.”

Just as I was about to harvest it, I pressed down on the child’s shoulder and lowered my body. Baduk also held his breath.

I felt human presence from the other side of the forest. They were men armed with guns, wearing a mix of old military uniforms and hunting clothes.

Were they bandits of this era, or a vigilante group protecting the village?

“Huh?”

Jeong Soon-i spotted them first and made a sound.

“Who’s there?”

They reflexively aimed their gun barrels at us, but soon confirmed Jeong Soon-i’s face and slowly lowered their guns.

A middle-aged man who appeared to be the leader of the group stepped forward.

“Jeong Soon. What brings you here? And…”

“This man said he’s looking for medicinal herbs.”

The man glanced at me.

“Who are you?”

I answered him.

“I’m a soldier.”

“A soldier?”

“Yes. I was dispatched to resolve the zombie… no, the plague situation that has spread here.”

He looked me up and down.

The problem would be credibility. It would be hard to readily trust a man wearing shabby rags.

“Your name?”

“Seol Ha-woon. I’m a sergeant.”

“For a soldier, you don’t have a gun.”

I smiled slightly and raised my walking stick. When I infused it with magic power, the wooden walking stick was projected into the form of a blue rifle. The man’s eyes widened in surprise.

“So you’re a superhuman…”

In this era when explorer job classifications weren’t well developed, anyone who could use magic power was lumped together as superhumans.

“Then, what do you think is the cause of this plague, Sergeant Seol?”

“In my opinion.”

I opened the medicinal herb book to the page on Crimson Grass. His gaze lingered on the red herb illustration.

“It’s this. Have you ever seen it?”

“…Well.”

He shook his head with a strange expression.

“For now, go back. This is a restricted area.”

“Ah, we need to take that.”

Jeong Soon-i pointed to the Frost Dew Grass. But the man firmly shook his head.

“…That won’t do. We’re cultivating it as our asset because we need it for medicinal purposes.”

He’s hiding something. But I can’t give up either. My life depends on this.

“To block the spores, you’ll need proper gas masks.”

He turned to look at me.

“I’ll make them for you. Let’s exchange them for those plants.”

“…You can make them. Is it possible right now?”

“Yes. What’s your name?”

“Lee Won-nam.”

“It’s possible, Mr. Lee Won-nam.”

The method for making primitive gas masks is simple. First, soak tough cloth in magic power to make it act as a filter, then crush purified magic stones and attach them.

“Magic stone.”

I picked up a stone scattered on the ground. It was an actual magic stone.

Perhaps because it was right after the war, magic stones were scattered everywhere in this era.

“If you gather these blue-glowing stones, I’ll make gas masks for you.”

I crafted dozens of magic stone masks and exchanged them for Frost Dew Grass.

“In case this doesn’t work…”

Mr. Lee Won-nam asked while putting on the mask.

“That won’t happen. I’ll stake my life on it.”

“…”

When I mentioned staking my life, Lee Won-nam didn’t say anything more. It was quite a convenient way of speaking.

“Since it purifies not just spores but also the air, if you put it on patients with lung disease, their breathing will become much easier. Use it freely.”

“…I understand for now.”

After that, I returned to Jeong Soon’s house. I also caught a few wild animals on the way.

I prepared the wild animals and put them in the fire pit, then ground the Frost Dew Grass finely in a millstone.

A bluish juice flowed out. I put that liquid in another reagent bottle.

Now three herbs remained. The root of Eternal Snow Ginseng, Dragon Scale Stone, and most importantly, Crimson Grass.

“…”

I leaned against the wall and thought about the vigilante group for a moment.

They definitely know about Crimson Grass.

“It’s delicious. You should eat some too, mister!”

At Jeong Soon-i’s words with oil around her mouth, I picked up some meat.

“Give some to Baduk too.”

“I’m already giving him some.”

While eating, I connected my ‘sight’.

Using the 【Feather Cloud】 I had sent up to the sky beforehand, I was monitoring the vigilante groups in this area.

Meanwhile, in the live broadcast, explorers were encountering each other one by one in the 5th Zone—at the Camel Building that Seol Ha-woon had created.

But Seo Ji-woo was more focused on SNS than the live broadcast.

“…Hwa-rim is getting cursed out like crazy.”

It was all criticism posts about Yoon Hwa-rim.

‘Why are you using the turret Seol Ha-woon made as if it’s yours’, ‘ungrateful’, and so on.

Seol Ha-woon himself didn’t care at all, and actually praised her saying it was Yoon Hwa-rim’s formula since she had modified it herself to make it her own, but the viewers were in an uproar.

That could happen. They don’t know the inside story.

“The firepower of this backlash is intense.”

However, the fandom’s anger didn’t subside easily.

Seol Ha-woon’s core fans were restraining themselves out of concern for backlash, but light fans don’t know about such things.

Whether it’s SNS, chat, or communities, they just fire away like machine guns. Malicious users are also jumping on that artillery fire.

But well, this level of issue would be quickly resolved if the two of them did an SNS live broadcast together later.

Yoon Hwa-rim isn’t weak enough to have her mentality broken by such malicious comments.

─Seo Ji-woo : Reincarnation Gate. I think it’s the same one?

Just then, her own voice was heard from the TV. Seo Ji-woo perked up her ears. On screen, Seo Ji-woo’s party was inserting a key into the Reincarnation Gate.

Click.

The door opened. We didn’t even do any defense.

-Wow, the luck is really hahaha

-Hahahaha

-That’s so Seo Ji-woo

-Overwhelming luck that surpasses overwhelming violence

-They just cut all the kids’ hard work down to 5 minutes lol

-This is really Ji-woo.

-The mage who creates connections..

As the door opened, our party immediately entered the 5th Zone.

GX25

Then the screen changed to the convenience store ‘GX25’ in the 5th Zone.

Beep-

Kang Hyeon, who had become a part-time worker, scans the barcode of the product a customer handed him.

Beep-

Beep-

It’s as dry and emotionless as CCTV. The sight of Kang Hyeon standing there blankly doing his job is funny.

“Wow, he’s standing there like a scarecrow.”

Beep-

Beep-

“Ah, isn’t this hilarious?”

He’s just scanning barcodes beep beep, but for some reason it’s incredibly funny. It seems like it’ll make it into a highlight clip.

-Hahahaha

-Hahahaha

-Hahahaha no way hahaha

-Hyun is so cute hahahahaha

-Hahahahahaha

The chat is reacting well too.

Fzzzt!

Then suddenly all the lights in the convenience store go out, and darkness engulfs the interior.

Kang Hyeon immediately drew his broadsword and radiated magic power.

Hihihihihihihihihihihihihihi

A child’s laughter was heard right before his eyes.

The murderer, the shadow was right in front of him.

A grotesquely shaped child staring with pitch-black eyes that had no whites.

Fzzt!

The moment the lights came back on, the child had vanished without a trace.

─Kang Hyeon : Whew.

-Ah, what a shock

-Wow shit

-But where did Seol Ha-woon go again?

-Seems like he went ahead

-He built the building, made money from tenant fees, and left right away

-Seol-bastard seems to be preparing something up ahead again

-Spoiler) Seol Ha-woon gets eliminated in the next area

-What’s with that bastard

-Ban him please

-Don’t get pulled in by the aggro…

“There’s quite a lot of aggro.”

Seo Ji-woo was lying very comfortably on the sofa watching the live broadcast.

Scenes of explorers earning money through part-time jobs flashed by quickly, and finally.

Tap. Tap.

The train platform.

Seol Ha-woon, tapping his walking stick as he arrived at that problematic place, was shown on screen.

“Here he comes, here he comes.”

Seo Ji-woo sat up and focused.

She didn’t know exactly what had happened on this train or what actions Seol Ha-woon had taken, but from roughly listening to what the production crew said, it seemed like there had been quite an uproar.

Finally, that story was about to unfold…

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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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