Labyrinth Exploration 101 - Chapter 319

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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 319

HERO(5)

“…Wow.”

Lee Si-ah clutched her pounding heart.

Seol Ha-woon glared at Ilron, and Ilron cried out to him pleadingly.

─Ilron: If we can just derail this train, possibilities will open up for us too. Both you and us—

─Seol Ha-woon: There’s no ending where everyone is happy.

─Ilron: We can’t give up without even trying. We have to make an effort!

Ilron is desperate. Lee Si-ah, and perhaps all viewers around the world, watch the two men seriously.

─Seol Ha-woon: …Effort.

When Seol Ha-woon quietly repeated the word, Ilron responded emotionally.

─Ilron: Yes. We can at least try to make an effort!

Ilron’s earnest expression fills the screen.

“Ah, why is this happening.”

Lee Si-ah’s heart aches. But even without Seol Ha-woon, if this maze is cleared, you all will….

─Ilron: Please help us. If derailment proves impossible too, then I’ll accept it.

─Seol Ha-woon: ….

There’s no change in Seol Ha-woon’s expression. There’s no sign it will change either.

Lee Si-ah roughly tousled her hair.

“Why are all the difficult decisions Seol Ha-woon’s burden.”

-Sigh

-Can’t help it

-But taking kids hostage is a bit much, agree?

-It’s not a baby, it’s a maze ㅇ

-Seol Ha-woon’s heart is rotting away..

-Really? Seol Ha-woon seems completely unaffected

-Truly an advance team.

-In the end, the person who bears everything is Seol Ha-woon

Seol Ha-woon looks intently at Ilron and speaks.

─Seol Ha-woon: …I’m sorry.

-Kids or whatever, honestly they’re Labyrinth People, agree?

-Honestly it doesn’t matter

-Wow.. but this is really bitter

-Do the labyrinth people really have to be eliminated no matter what..? ㅜ.ㅜ

-ㅠㅠㅠ

-Ah but..

-Honestly it’s too inhumane

-So bitter

-At least try some other effort

-Seol Ha-woon seems to only want to take the easy path

-How is that the easy path; it’s clearly the hard path

-Persuading is the hard path. Killing is the easy path.

Sympathetic chats flood up in the chat window, but.

─Seol Ha-woon: I have no feelings toward you at all.

Seol Ha-woon’s conviction shatters all of that.

Snap.

He flicked his finger. The magic power pooled like a mirage exploded.

───-!

An explosion erupts from the bottom of the train. Blue light bursts forth, swallowing the entire freight car.

KWAAAAANG───-!

In the roar, the children’s cries echo throughout.

Lee Si-ah unconsciously placed her hands over her ears.

“….”

However, the train itself is not destroyed. The breaking steel writhes as if alive, finding its place again and sticking back together. A tremendously magical sight that cannot be reproduced with CG

─Ilron: Kuk, kruuuuk──-!

Ilron resists while gripping the railing. He tries not to get caught in the explosion. Indeed, his skin repeatedly burns and regenerates.

“Ah….”

The main broadcast’s time slows down for a moment.

Slow motion.

Seol Ha-woon looks at Ilron,

and Ilron also looks into Seol Ha-woon’s eyes.

That meeting of gazes is somehow strange.

Eldia gave me precious teachings.

Soon flowing out, a monologue about Eldia.

One of the Labyrinth People that Seol Ha-woon rarely but continuously mentions, Eldia from the Space Labyrinth.

If deception techniques reach their peak, anyone can be deceived. Even if that target is not a ‘person’.

Seol Ha-woon and Ilron.

The two men’s gazes cross.

Seol Ha-woon is reflected in Ilron’s retina, and before long, Ilron seems to realize something.

He slowly lets go of the railing.

Seol Ha-woon turns around, leaving Ilron who was sucked into the explosion behind.

Those sentences left by ‘someone’ that make NPCs suspicious. However, I don’t easily accept advice of unknown origin.

“…Wait, hold on.”

Lee Si-ah feels goosebumps rising on her body as she sits up.

─Seol Ha-woon : This train cannot be destroyed. It’s one with the maze… In other words, it’s the killer.

Following Seol Ha-woon’s quiet murmur, the narration continues.

Carving letters would also be damage in the end, so why didn’t it disappear until I ‘discovered it’?

From Lee Si-ah’s perspective as a fan of Seol Ha-woon, it’s like Sherlock Holmes-level deduction.

There’s only one conclusion.

A smile spreads across Lee Si-ah’s face, and Seol Ha-woon shows his profile while wrapped in blue flames.

This train tries to use players like me to reset the NPCs.

As sticky, hip music flows.

Because NPCs are the only ones who can stop the killer.

─Seol Ha-woon : …Effort.

Seol Ha-woon leans on his walking stick as he reflects on effort.

Bang! Bang! Bang- Bang-! Kwaaaaaaack──-!

Moving through the train that explodes and burns chaotically…

─Seol Ha-woon : I’ll try something called effort.

“Waaaah!”

Lee Si-ah screamed without realizing it.

Seol Ha-woon’s change – choosing not to kill the child and taking a more righteous path.

The plot twist revealing that all of this was a scheme to deceive the ‘train’ like Eldia did.

Lee Si-ah is-

──chickenchickenchickenchickenchickenchicken

“…Are you kidding me, damn it.”

The annoying spam appeared again.

──drumstickstickstickstickstickstickstickstickstick

I hid myself on a shallow hill near the vigilante group’s barricade.

Are those civilians visible in the distance really enemies?

From my position needing the Red Star Grass, the probability is high.

But considering civilians as targets without even having a conversation doesn’t sit well with me.

I chose infiltration. I launched a wire with magic power and hooked it to the edge of the building rooftop. Holding my breath, I used the wire’s tension to climb up to the rooftop in one go.

Thud.

I landed on the ceiling and slowly went down the stairs. I encountered several guards in the process, but subdued them without much difficulty.

The deeper I went, the more humid the air became. A fishy smell mixed with mold stung my nose.

I put on a mask I had prepared in advance.

“….”

I found a passage leading from the 1st floor to the underground. It was locked, but I quietly dismantled it and opened the door.

Inside was a completely red world. Red spore mycelia stretched like blood vessels across the walls, ceiling, and floor without exception. Bubbles like dandelion seeds floated in the air.

With each step I took, spore clusters burst under my feet, releasing red smoke.

I sensed the interior with Sequence. Magic power spread stealthily, detecting the underground structure and form. Based on that information, I stepped forward.

Before long, something was caught in the red mist.

In the deepest part of the underground─ at the center where spores rose particularly thick, there was a monster in human form.

A human shell lying on an old bed.

It was a woman. Her entire body had transformed like a plant. Her skin cracked like tree bark, and red leaves sprouted from her fingertips.

A single red flower bloomed above her head.

It was the Red Star Grass.

“You found your way here well.”

At that moment, a voice came from behind me.

It was Lee Won-nam, the vigilante leader.

“….”

I looked back at him silently. He aimed his gun at me and continued speaking.

“…For 3 weeks after infection, they move aggressively to spread spores themselves. But after 4 weeks, the body gradually hardens, and after more than a month, they transform like plants as you see.”

Lee Won-nam looked around the interior with distant eyes.

“…Are you waiting for her to wake up someday?”

At my question, he smiled with self-mockery.

“At first, I thought she could come back to life. Because her heart was beating. But now I know. That’s just a dead person. If I believed she could come back to life even in that state… that wouldn’t be normal.”

I couldn’t read Lee Won-nam’s expression. I couldn’t grasp his intentions.

It was a sensation I hadn’t felt in quite a while since learning Sequence.

However, he’s not acting like Eldia.

He’s just a dulled person. Someone broken by war, worn down and eroded until everything was ground away.

“Then why are you doing this?”

“…You called this disease a plague, didn’t you?”

Lee Won-nam’s expression hardened for a moment.

“I wish this had spread across the entire Korean Peninsula instead.”

I looked at him. His empty eyes were filled with despair.

It was resigned malice.

“On the refugee road, my son’s throat was cut by an enemy sword, my daughter died in my arms from starvation. And my wife was killed by a bullet fired by our own army.”

Lee Won-nam looked at the woman covered in spores. Probably the person who had been his wife.

“What did we do wrong?”

Lee Won-nam asks in a crumbling voice. Not to me, but to this world.

“…You did nothing wrong.”

“Right.”

Lee Won-nam calmly let out a long breath.

“And yet it turned out like this.”

A man who lost everything.

Dry and withered, already dead.

“What meaning could there be in such a country? There’s no meaning at all.”

I looked at Lee Won-nam. His words weren’t unfamiliar.

Having faced countless ruins and deaths, Lee Won-nam was just one of the people I had met before.

“I know.”

An individual swept away by the massive wave called the battlefield can do nothing.

“Even so, we must find meaning within that meaninglessness. Something very small and insignificant… can become our meaning.”

Lee Won-nam suddenly looked at my leg. He smiled faintly as if recognizing something from my wound.

“There’s already a bomb installed inside here. When it explodes, the spores will go anywhere. Whether Seoul, Gaegyeong, or Hanyang… I wanted to grow it a bit larger before detonating it, but since you’ve discovered it, there’s nothing I can do.”

“…Do the residents of this village also know?”

“I feel sorry about that. I deceived them, saying it was medicine. That if they sold this, they could make money and rebuild the village.”

Lee Won-nam lost his expression. He was already a person whose ego had been shattered.

This is the greatest harm caused by war.

The irresponsible pens of old monsters sitting at desks kill and wound countless people.

“You should go to Jeong Soon-i.”

Lee Won-nam took out a detonator from his inner pocket.

“…Or will you die here with me?”

I looked at him calmly.

It wasn’t the kind of confidence that said I had already predicted your actions.

I simply always prepare second and third contingencies.

“…Mr. Lee Won-nam. You called me a superhuman.”

5th-stage Refinement, and various magical traits inherent in this body.

“That’s too rudimentary a detonator.”

Now I can trigger magic power simply by observing.

In other words, the moment Lee Won-nam ‘showed’ me the detonator.

“…Unfortunately.”

His plan was destroyed.

“It’s a difference in class.”

Crackle! Sparks flew from the detonator. It was a collision of magic power.

The detonator was damaged while emitting black smoke, and Lee Won-nam stared at it intently.

“…I see.”

Lee Won-nam quietly dropped his rifle. Immediately after, he pulled out a pistol from his back pocket and fired it at his own temple.

──!

The bullet penetrated his skull. Brain matter and blood mixed with the spores and spread.

Lee Won-nam’s body lay quietly.

Peace that came belatedly to someone already dead.

“….”

I bowed to him.

Meeting such people never becomes familiar, no matter what. My heart always grows dark and feels unsettled.

It was unavoidable.

Jeong Soon-i woke from sleep due to a desolate presence. Baduk also growled while glaring toward the door.

But she didn’t move rashly. Instead, she gripped the small pistol she’d received for self-defense and stared intently through the gap in the window.

Rustle. Rustle.

There were people stepping on grass and approaching this way. Jeong Soon-i was startled with fear.

Rustle. Rustle.

She took deep breaths to calm her heart. She waited while reviewing how to use this small gun.

Rustle rustle. Rustle rustle rustle.

Just as the approaching sounds grew louder and Jeong Soon-i’s heart was pounding.

──!

Suddenly a blue light flashed.

“Argh!”

“Gaaaah!”

The assailants screamed and tumbled about. Jeong Soon-i was startled and looked at them. Blue flames were clinging to the bodies of the vigilante group and village elders.

“Argh! Aaaaah!”

“Graaaah!”

They screamed for a long while before becoming quiet. Had they fainted?

Jeong Soon-i crept outside. People sprawled outside.

“Is everyone alright…”

Just as she was checking their condition.

“Graaaah!”

One person who had been lying down suddenly grabbed Jeong Soon’s ankle.

“Eek!”

Despite bleeding from his head, he managed to get up, knocked the child down, and raised a wooden club above his head.

“….”

“….”

Jeong Soon-i looked into his eyes. He couldn’t bring himself to swing the club and gritted his teeth.

After hesitating for a long while, just as he seemed to make up his mind and let out a fierce cry.

“Aaaaaaaah!”

Jeong Soon-i unconsciously pulled the trigger.

Bang.

Something lodged in his chest. His eyes closed and he slowly collapsed.

“….”

Having escaped from him, Jeong Soon-i dropped the gun with trembling hands.

She had shot a person.

Killed him.

Tap─ Tap─

Just as her breathing was about to become rough, the sound of a walking stick could be heard.

Tap─ Tap─

Seol Ha-woon approaching through the grass field.

Jeong Soon-i ran to him while sobbing.

“I, I, I—”

She clung to him and burst into tears.

“It’s okay.”

“I, I killed a person-“

“No.”

Seol Ha-woon shook his head as if he already knew everything. He knelt down, looked at the child, and smiled.

“He’s not dead. He’ll wake up soon.”

“…What?”

He patted the head of Jeong Soon-i, who asked as if dazed.

“It’s a tranquilizer gun.”

In these war times, someday, even a child like this might have to kill someone.

But he thought it didn’t need to be now, while he was here.

“It’s okay now, so sleep a bit more.

“Ah….”

Jeong Soon-i collapsed smoothly in Seol Ha-woon’s arms. She fell asleep as if exhausted.

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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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