Labyrinth Exploration 101 - Chapter 7

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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 007

I Hate Getting Hurt (2)

‘…Hey. What are you staring at like that?’

Sometime in the past. High in the sky somewhere. Inside a plane heading into an operation.

I asked a comrade who was looking at a photograph.

‘Family. Why?’

My comrade answered with a faint smile. It didn’t particularly move me. Though as an orphan, I was a little envious.

‘Don’t look at it too long. That’s a death flag.’

‘…You’re talking nonsense again.

My comrade’s name was Seo Ji-hyuk.

He chuckled and put the photo away. I casually asked.

‘Did you say you have a younger sister?’

‘Yeah. But her personality is pretty damn awful. She’s like you.’

‘…What are you saying.’

That guy and I were from the same batch. We trained together for 2 years and had already worked together in several operations. With a bit of exaggeration, we were comrades who had shared life and death.

‘Stay alert. This is where it gets real.’

But this was our first deployment. We were essentially going to war.

‘Right.’

He answered like that, but he was too good a person.

He was excessively good.

Probably a friend who wasn’t ready to kill people.

A friend who shouldn’t be in the miserable battlefield at the end of the world.

Terrorists──those called ‘villains’ often commit acts that ordinary people could never even imagine.

‘Seo Ji-hyuk! Don’t go!’

In the Urban Area where buildings were horribly destroyed. Seo Ji-hyuk running through the middle of it appears in my scope.

‘You fucking bastard, I said don’t go!’

I shout. Seo Ji-hyuk advances as if he can’t hear me, and at the end, there’s a child.

Maybe 4 or 5 years old.

‘That fucking bastard, hey!’

Seo Ji-hyuk eventually took the child in his arms. A blood-covered child. When he lifted up the child who was already limply hanging as if dead, the blanket wrapped around the child slipped down. The thin waist was packed full of explosives.

‘This fuck-‘

───KWAAAAAK!

The explosion shook the earth. A shockwave swept through the area. Seo Ji-hyuk was blown away, covered head to toe in the child’s organ fragments and flesh.

I ran toward him, drenched in blood.

‘Snap out of it! Hey! Hey! You son of a bitch!’

The guy who lost focus in his eyes and trembled like an aspen tree.

I slapped his cheek to bring him to his senses, but not far away, another child was spotted. On the child’s shoulder was a bazooka as big as their body. The child was struggling to aim it at us.

I didn’t hesitate.

I shot the child between the eyes.

‘Damn… fuck.’

I shook off that day’s killing with curses, but Seo Ji-hyuk couldn’t do the same. He suffered from terrible trauma.

The guy who missed his family, who liked children, couldn’t even sleep properly at night, and would have seizures and sob several times a day…

Like I said, that guy and I were friends.

But when the situation became like that, I couldn’t be friends with him anymore.

If I stay with this guy, I might die or get seriously hurt.

That’s what I thought.

And that’s exactly what happened.

The military, the battlefield is such a place.

Good guys die first.

Good guys drag down their comrades.

On the other hand, someone like me survived even on ‘that day’ when it seemed like the world was determined to kill me at the very end.

The one who killed people most easily survived the longest.

“…Hmm.”

I turned my gaze away from Seo Ji-woo. Her profile resembled Seo Ji-hyuk so much that I ended up thinking about the past unnecessarily.

“Ah, I don’t know what we’re supposed to do.”

“Let’s just look around for now.”

The mages moved around, murmuring. I looked around the surroundings.

First, I don’t see an exit anywhere, but they say we need to get outside. On the Grass Field, Kim Se-jin is sitting and reading a book.

I quietly approached Kim Se-jin.

“…What are you reading?”

I asked carefully.

Maybe the book he’s reading could be a hint.

“Ah. A novel.”

“May I take a look?”

“Haha. Sure.”

Kim Se-jin handed me the book. I flipped through it quickly, but there wasn’t anything particularly special. I just gave it back.

“Thank you.”

“Sure~”

I went up to the Seating Stand for now. I climbed as high as possible and looked down at the Grass Field.

I don’t know.

“…I’ll have to eat it.”

Can’t help it. I guess Magic Power talent of 11.5 isn’t enough.

I took out a Lemona from my pocket. Slurp- I sucked on it.

[ Blue Lemona: Magic Power stat increases by 1 for 1 hour. ]

A warm sensation of Magic Power rose in my back.

My sight and hearing became much clearer, and I felt heat at the back of my neck. In that state, I leaned against the railing and stared at the ground below…

“…?”

The scenery is strange.

From far away, it all looks like the same grass, but the faint Magic Power rippling around the edges of the field makes the colors stand out differently.

A quite mysterious ‘whole’.

When I focus Magic Power in my eyes to observe it, I can see it.

I can definitely see it.

The entire Grass Field is one formula.

“Found it.”

I smiled. I was about to deploy a formula immediately, but hesitated.

Suddenly I had this thought.

Kim Se-jin.

Why is that mage sitting specifically there?

It’s not the exact center of the Grass Field, but slightly off to the right in an ambiguous position. What’s the reason for that?

“You seem to have noticed?”

I heard a voice from beside me. I turned around with a start.

It was Seo Ji-woo.

She muttered while crossing her arms.

“Hah~ That was exhausting to shake off. Why are they so clingy?”

“….”

Someone who clearly wasn’t ordinary at first glance.

Seo Ji-woo’s personality is quite famous. There are many stories about her floating around the internet, and before my regression, she even came to find me directly. Seriously looking like she wanted to kill me.

So today’s meeting feels somehow strange.

“Your name?”

Seo Ji-woo asked me.

She, the current her, doesn’t know me yet.

I answered.

“…Seol Ha-woon.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“That’s on the older side.”

Seo Ji-woo, with her hands clasped behind her head, glanced at me and asked.

“So, what is it~?”

She’s not asking because she doesn’t know. She probably figured it out much earlier than me.

“…The entire grass field is a formula.”

“Oh~ You’re quick.”

Seo Ji-woo snapped her fingers. Then a board appeared in mid-air. She scribbled something on it.

“The answer would be this, right?”

It seemed like she drew the magic formula directly, but instead of looking at the answer, I looked at her. Up close, she looked much more similar.

Especially the eyes are almost identical.

A furrow appeared between Seo Ji-woo’s brows.

“What? Why are you looking at my face?”

I belatedly checked the formula Seo Ji-woo had presented.

“It seems like only half is correct.”

“…Huh?”

Seo Ji-woo tilted her head. She seemed to be pondering my words for a moment, then let out a hollow laugh.

“Ha, only half? Then what’s the other half?”

I quietly leaned against the railing.

Meaning there’s no need to tell you.

“Geez. I don’t know what amazing thing you think you’ve discovered.”

Seo Ji-woo raised her hand. Magic power condensed above her palm, and a magic formula was drawn in an instant. The formula transformed into some kind of pass card and was placed in her hand.

“The answer is correct, you know?”

I nodded.

“Congratulations.”

“Congratulations my ass… Yes yes~ I’m going.”

Seo Ji-woo frowned and tore the card with a swish. Magic power rose from beside her and her entire body was transported somewhere.

“That seems to be a correct answer too.”

The grass field itself seems to be the correct answer, but the magic formula I’m thinking of is a bit different.

It’s a matter of center of gravity, you could say.

In magic formulas, as far as I can sense, a ‘center of gravity’ exists.

In other words, as long as the center of gravity is appropriate, not all magic formulas need to be symmetrical.

People—including my past self, of course—mostly think that magic formulas must be perfectly symmetrical. Just like how the grass field in this subspace right now forms left-right symmetry.

However, the magician Kim Se-jin.

If we assume his current position is the ‘core’, considerable asymmetry occurs in the magic formula. However, there’s definitely an inherent order within it.

Because the center of gravity is stable.

Therefore, if we contemplate the magic flow of the formula with Kim Se-jin as the origin point, a somewhat different result would appear.

“Whew….”

I closed my eyes.

First, I grasp the form of the formula in my mind, then implement it externally through [Mana Manipulation]. I weave the magic power blooming in my palm into a formula….

I opened my eyes again.

Instantly, goosebumps rose all over my body.

Kim Se-jin.

Very far away from the railing where I stood, Kim Se-jin, who looked almost like a dot, was looking at me.

He gazed at the formula forming in my hand and smiled deeply. It was a grin that stretched from ear to ear.

“…Ah, scary.”

That guy with the big eyes smiling like that looks incredibly insane.

My concentration almost wavered, but the formula was already complete.

Tszzt—!

The formula sparked and transformed into a card. It was a golden card.

“It worked….”

I looked down at the grass field again. Kim Se-jin wasn’t there.

“Huh?”

“Wow. Does this make sense?”

“?!”

I spun around in surprise. Kim Se-jin was right behind me. He looked at me and muttered in admiration.

“No, excuse me. How? How so quickly?”

“…I’m the one who wants to ask. How did you come up here so quickly?”

“It’s my space. In my space, where I want to stand is up to me.”

Kim Se-jin smiled brightly. It was a puppy-like smile.

“You. By any chance, is it Servant Syndrome or something? I saw you limping.”

“Limping has nothing to do with Servant Syndrome.”

Kim Se-jin seemed to think for a moment and scratched his cheek.

“Ah, is that so. Interesting.”

“…No. More than that.”

I looked back and forth between Kim Se-jin in front of me and the golden card. My heart beat slightly faster.

“By any chance, is there something to this?”

“Something to what?”

Kim Se-jin tilted his head.

“No, like a hidden mission or something. Isn’t it something like that?”

“Uh… I just did it because I was bored.”

“…Excuse me?”

My mouth fell half open. Because it was so fucking ridiculous.

Kim Se-jin’s eyes widened.

“I just twisted the magic formula because I was bored. Honestly, I thought no one would figure it out. Usually even veteran magicians don’t recognize asymmetry well.”

“No, then, that, ah shit. I wasted time.”

I tapped the ground with my walking stick. Tap tap. Tap tap. Expressing dissatisfaction.

“Haha. I didn’t know. I really didn’t expect a participant who would figure this out to appear. But, that’s yours.”

“What’s mine?”

“That. There’s a stone embedded in the card.”

I looked at the golden card. A small stone was embedded in the front.

“What is this?”

“A magic stone. It’s a gift.”

Magic stone. It’s quite an expensive item. It’s only about the size of a fingernail, but this is probably worth ten million won.

I quietly slipped it into my pocket.

“And.”

Kim Se-jin covered his mouth and whispered.

“All of this was caught on camera.”

“….”

Caught on camera.

Those words carried quite a few meanings.

“A limping genius who saw through a high-level Formula set up by a high ranker.”

Kim Se-jin smiled deeply.

“Wouldn’t that help your image quite a bit?”

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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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