Labyrinth Exploration 101 - Chapter 69

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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 069

Living Like This (3)

As I took one step into the garden at the entrance, I was immediately inside the mansion.

I was sitting in a chair, and across from me, someone who looked like a dormitory supervisor pushed up her glasses.

“Your qualifications are impressive.”

She was holding my resume in her hands.

I don’t know what’s written on it. Kate’s unconscious mind wrote it on its own.

Well, if I’m applying to be her personal secretary, it would have to be tremendous qualifications.

“But! People with good qualifications are a dime a dozen. What we want from a butler is life skills and assistance abilities. Not just general housework and cleaning, but whether you can serve the young lady with modesty and delicacy…”

I nodded at her endless words.

“I can do it well.”

“You’re confident. Good.”

“…There’s no need to intimidate him so much, Sellie.”

A gentle voice flowed in from somewhere. The clicking of high heels followed behind it.

Kate.

She appeared like a protagonist and glanced at me with rather cold eyes.

“I’ve changed my mind. Please leave. I don’t think we need a butler after all.”

“…”

This won’t do.

As I pondered how to persuade her, a thought suddenly came to mind.

I quickly reached into my inner pocket and pulled out another piece of paper.

“In the past, I served under Colonel Percival.”

Kate, who was turning away, stopped. She looked at me with narrowed eyes and asked quietly.

“…Percival?”

“Yes.”

I held out something like a letter of recommendation. Kate clicked over and took it.

“He used to call me ‘Old sport’ quite often.”

It’s not a lie. I don’t really know what Old Sport means either. It’s a line from The Great Gatsby or something.

“…It was uncle’s favorite book.”

A faint smile appeared on Kate’s lips.

Sharing memories. An important condition for making her unconsciously accept me.

“Then.”

Kate sat down next to Sellie.

“I’ll give you one test.”

She gestured to Sellie with her eyes. Sellie took something out from under the drawer.

A kettle, teacup, tea leaves… items for a tea ceremony.

“Would you try making black tea?”

Now it was certain.

She loves black tea much more than I thought.

“…Yes.”

I picked up the tea leaves. Having become quite skilled over the past two weeks, I made tea as I had been doing.

Be delicious. Be delicious. I even put in mental visualization, but the feeling of taste depended entirely on Kate.

Her unconscious had to respond.

“Here it is.”

“Yes. Let me try it.”

Kate lifted the teacup and took a sip. Her expression was quite subtle. I thought it hadn’t gone well, but it was the opposite.

She fidgeted with her lips and finally burst into laughter. As if she had lost her composure, she covered her mouth with her hand and brushed away the remaining smile.

“It has, flavor.”

I quietly looked at her.

She’s different here somehow. She’s not the always cold, authoritative yet aristocratic Kate.

Is it because she’s happy?

“Thank you.”

From now on, I need to find out. What she wants, what exactly she likes so much that she wants to stay here.

She might want fateful love, or wish for Hailford’s conquest of Earth, or expect a daughter or child who resembles her, or perhaps pray for the miracle of Percival’s return.

I have to shatter all of that. Trample and crush it, to let her know that the happiness she desires doesn’t exist here, at least.

There’s no paradise at the end of endless running and escaping.

Fake is just fake, and illusions can never become truth.

“Then… was it Mr. Seo Woon-ha?”

Kate looked at me with a faint smile.

“You pass.”

Whoosh.

Space and time changed as if pages of a book were turning. It was a study on some spring day. Kate was handling paperwork under bright sunlight. It was too sudden for me, so my adaptation was slow.

It really moves like in a dream.

“Woon-ha?”

Kate suddenly gestured toward me.

“Yes.”

“A cup of tea, please.”

“Understood.”

I heated the kettle to an appropriate temperature and put tea leaves in the teacup. I poured hot water appropriately and waited. Not too strong, not too weak.

I don’t particularly need a strainer to filter out the tea leaves. I just reached out and pulled out the remaining tea leaves with magic power.

I served her the black tea. Kate, who took a sip, smiled gently.

“It’s always delicious. Thank you.”

“It’s my duty.”

Clink. Kate put down the teacup. Satisfaction was thick across her face.

Surely, her happiness isn’t because of black tea.

Whoosh.

Summer came. Blazing sun. Heat waves rose from the beating sunlight. The interior was also stuffy.

Kate, who came out of the study, fanned herself with a hand fan and said.

“Woon-ha. The air conditioner seems to be broken.”

“Yes.”

I casually walked down the corridor. Just by walking, I reached some maintenance room, and tapped the air conditioner equipment with tools.

It was immediately repaired.

I went back up to her study.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes. Phew. That’s a relief.”

Kate let out a sigh of relief. She wiped away sweat drops with a handkerchief and lay down on the sofa.

She seems to be trying to sleep.

She doesn’t look anxious at all here. She doesn’t look precarious either. There are no sharp edges. All the passing spaces are mundane too. She, who hates waste, is wasting all her time.

These clumsy scenes somehow feel unnatural.

Whoosh.

Autumn. Kate is looking out the window. With a knitted blanket draped over her shoulders, she gazes at the falling leaves as if lost in thought.

The sight looks like a painting.

“Family Head.”

I called out to Kate. She simply tilted her head without saying a word.

“Please, stay right there.”

“…Hm?”

I pulled out an easel from somewhere. I set up a canvas and palette.

Swish, swish, swish, swish. After pretending to paint with a few brush strokes, an oil painting I had imagined was completed.

The unconscious is this convenient.

“It’s finished.”

I showed her the canvas. Kate gazing at the falling leaves. The portrait rendered in oil paint was beautiful, as if painted by a famous modern artist.

“…Ah.”

Her face showed she was moved.

“Thank you. I’ll treasure it.”

The unconscious Kate is someone who knows how to say kind words. There’s no sign of calculating anything, suspecting people, or trying to use them. She’s simply spending each day purely.

Which means she’s missing a screw.

Whoosh.

Winter, spring, summer, autumn, winter.

Then again spring, summer, autumn, winter.

Several years passed in the blink of an eye. Though my perception was naturally only in units of time, during that period Kate’s unconscious steadily accepted me.

The proof of that was this very place.

“…The Family Head’s room?”

When I came to my senses, I was in the Hailford family head’s room. Cleaning tools were gripped in my hands.

It meant Kate’s unconscious had come to trust me enough to let me clean her intimate private room.

“…”

There were many picture frames in her room. I surveyed them while cleaning.

A photo of young Kate holding a stuffed doll and smiling brightly, a photo with a tense expression on horseback, a photo gripping the steering wheel on a yacht…

“Most of them are only from when I was young.”

Kate appeared from behind me. I quietly stepped back and bowed my head.

“I apologize.”

The diligent gestures and posture of a butler.

No matter how surprising the situation, one must always maintain composure and calm.

“It’s fine. Picture frames are made to be looked at. You can look.”

In that case.

I pointed to one of the frames arranged in chronological order.

“Family Head. This one is…”

“Yes. That’s Labyrinth Exploration NaN. I was twenty-one then.”

It was a Labyrinth Exploration frame. A photo of Kate winning first place overall.

So you did have such ambitions after all.

“At that time, I didn’t know Ke…Seo-rin Family Head would appear on such a program.”

“Actually, neither did I.”

Kate gave a bitter smile. I looked at her.

The current Kate is cozy. What exactly makes her so happy?

“It’s just the past now. I didn’t enter to win, but I ended up winning.”

“Winning wasn’t your purpose?”

“No.”

I suddenly became curious.

“If it wasn’t winning?”

“…It was the family’s order.”

“What kind of order was it?”

Kate looked at me silently. I realized my mistake. Without knowing it, my old habits had emerged. Those days of interrogating and questioning people.

She changed her expression to something quite stern.

“I also have something I’m curious about regarding Mr. Unha?”

“Yes. Please ask me anything.”

I straightened my back. Like a butler in a movie, I placed one hand on my shoulder.

“…You said you were on the battlefield with Percival.”

Percival. Full name Percival Alastair Hailford. Rank: Colonel.

Kate’s uncle.

“How was Percival?”

Kate asked about Percival. If she was looking for him even in her unconscious, he must have been quite a precious memory.

“Colonel Percival was…”

He often talked about his niece.

A lovely child, a kid who sparkled more than anyone, the most brilliant talent in Hailford, he would say.

“He was someone who cherished family. He treated his soldiers like family, and many soldiers followed him.”

“…I see.”

Kate picked up one of the picture frames. It was a photo taken with Percival. Kate embracing Percival with a rich and abundant expression.

“I miss him. I long for him too.”

“Were you very close?”

This was a fact I hadn’t known. It left a bitter aftertaste.

Kate let out a small sigh.

“To me, he was like the only breathing room. Most of these photos were taken by Uncle Percival too.”

A bittersweet smile bloomed on her lips.

“You must have been deeply saddened.”

Percival is no longer a person of this world.

He died when I was still active duty.

“…I was. But people always die, eventually.”

Kate turned to look at me.

“Could I trouble you for a cup of tea?”

“…Yes.”

I felt something off about this entire situation.

It’s strange. In her unconscious, Percival remains dead.

However, in this labyrinth, the happiness she desires is recreated. If Percival was such a precious person, shouldn’t Percival be revived as someone alive?

Why does she?

Swirl, swirl.

While brewing black tea, watching the surface turn red, I think.

The current Kate is different. She’s living her life like flowing water. She’s too leisurely to show the ambitious twenty-something noble.

Surely, there must be another reason.

The most decisive clue that could wake her up…

“Cough.”

Suddenly Kate coughed. I turned to look in her direction. My eyes widened greatly.

There was blood at the corner of her mouth.

“…Oh my.”

Kate smiled as if embarrassed, like a mischievous child caught playing a prank.

“Please don’t be too surprised.”

At that moment I realized.

I understood Kate’s wish.

“I’m satisfied, after all.”

What she seeks to obtain in this Unconscious Labyrinth is perhaps──

A peaceful death.

“You don’t need to make that expression.”

She was someone who wished for her own death from the depths of her heart. Someone with no attachment to life.

Someone who simply waited for the day her existence would fade away, freed from all the heavy responsibilities given to her.

“I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner.”

Was Kate someone who, somewhere in her soul, wanted this kind of peace more than fierce competition? Had she dreamed of a life where she could simply appreciate daily routine and fall peacefully asleep?

“I will be leaving forever before long.”

Like an elderly person passing through the winter of life, Kate calmly accepted her own death.

And then….

[ Emergency Quest : Debut Team Damage Crisis ]■ A promising Debut Team is in danger of being damaged.■ If not recovered, ID Seol Ha-woon’s regression will end.■ Upon success, you will receive a new reward.

A completely new [MoMo] Status Window appeared, one I had never seen even once before.

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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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