Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 116

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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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116. 4th Layer of Heuji’s Labyrinth, Path of Darkness (3)

‘We have enough manpower. Recruiting people would only cause trouble. We still lack space, so it’s better to postpone it.’

Food wasn’t scarce, but not being scarce didn’t mean it was abundant.

Clothing was also lacking, and for sleeping arrangements, everyone had to spread out blankets or sleeping bags in the lobby.

Unless it was necessary for conquering the labyrinth, recruiting people was still premature.

‘Too many died because of that flower trash and the cursed prince.’

Fortunately, she could recover the cost of the toilet she gave the prince as an apology gift from the 4th layer.

‘I hope layers like this appear frequently in the future.’

She had collected 14 shop coins, so what should she buy?

Having such a happy dilemma naturally made her lips curve upward.

“Princess, did something good come to mind? You’re suddenly smiling.”

“Hmm, phew. It’s nothing, Sir Ralph.”

“Princess is in a good mood? Something good will come out of the treasure chest? We’re opening the chest now!”

“Yes. You may open it now.”

“Then I’m opening it! One, two, three!”

A weapon came out of the chest again. Fortunately, it wasn’t a spear but a different weapon.

“It’s a crossbow. Do you know how to use it?”

Crossbows and longbows are both ranged weapons, but they’re very different.

They finally got a weapon with enough penetrating power to pierce crocodile hide, but it would be useless if no one knew how to use it.

Fortunately, Ying silently nodded, and Serena no longer needed to die.

‘The timing is too perfect.’

Serena felt that getting a weapon a party member could use right away was like a warning from the Labyrinth God.

‘I should be more careful from now on.’

What good would come from offending the Labyrinth God inside the labyrinth?

The Princess once again etched into her mind that regression wasn’t omnipotent.

“Then this is Zero’s~”

Instead of immediately taking the new weapon, Ying rummaged through her bag and pulled out an apple.

“Why an apple? Are you giving me an apple to apologize for getting a weapon first?”

The apple went not to Olive’s hand or mouth, but onto her head.

Ying carefully placed the apple on the Guide’s round head so it wouldn’t fall, then stepped backward.

‘Crossbow, apple, person with apple on head?’

Serena wasn’t the only one who recalled the famous marksman’s tale of placing an apple on his son’s head and shooting it with an arrow.

Whether a similar tale existed in this world, the Guide’s face turned pale.

“You crazy bitch!”

“Stay still.”

Ying pulled the crossbow string with just her arm strength without tools, loaded a bolt, and fired immediately.

Whoosh!

The bolt flew at lightning speed, pierced through the apple, and embedded in the wall.

Apple juice dripped down the Guide’s stone-stiff face.

“You crazy biiiitch.”

This entire process happened before Olive could finish cursing.

The Guide fumblingly touched her face to confirm this wasn’t the afterlife, then threw the apple with a gaping hole to the marksman.

“That was dangerous!”

“I can shoot.”

“You could have just said so!”

“It’s been a while, needed to confirm by touch.”

“A while?”

This time, Olive’s face truly turned pale.

It was a terrifying story that made even Serena’s blood run cold.

Ralph, with his rich empathy, was trembling.

“Hey, Zero. That’s a joke, right?”

“Not enough bolts.”

“I’ll forgive you if you say it’s a joke.”

“It is a joke.”

“Huh?”

Ying, who always maintained silence, admitted it was a joke. The sun would rise in the west.

Even Olive, who had been protesting to Ying, was flustered and her anger cooled.

“You know that’s not a funny prank, right? Don’t do it again next time.”

“Confirmation isn’t necessary. My arrows don’t miss in the darkness.”

“Just eat this and shut up.”

Olive picked up the apple she had thrown at the darkness marksman and stuffed it into the archer’s mouth who only spoke nonsense.

Crunch crunch.

Using Ying’s healthy teeth chewing the apple as ASMR, Serena illuminated the stone chamber wall with the white lantern.

‘As expected.’

When the shadow from the white lantern settled on the wall, the wall glowed. The light drew some form.

“A picture appeared!”

“Just like over there, there are two.”

“The direction where the picture appeared is different.”

There were two pictures created by light. One had shadows and light mixed together in dots, while the other was completely bright in a square shape.

“What could this mean? I can’t tell even looking at it.”

“That’s usually something learned people do. Let’s copy it for now.”

Serena had known the answer since seeing the picture in the other room, but it seemed the others needed some time.

‘Well, I’ve encountered many things like this.’

They say imagination can only be exercised with underlying knowledge and information, so these medieval fantasy people couldn’t find the answer immediately and struggled.

“Aha! I got it!”

Olive, who had been copying the picture since she didn’t know the answer, was the second to figure it out.

“Ms. Olive, did you figure it out? I want to know too!”

“This is a hint about how to handle the 14th floor lighting.”

Olive pointed to the picture where light filled the entire square.

“Look carefully. This depicts the 14th floor. The entire 14th floor is light? What could this be? When we hit the crystal as the Princess said and changed all the 14th floor lighting to light, stairs appeared. And in the room we found first, there was a black square, right? That’s a hint that something will appear if we change everything to darkness too.”

“Ah, I see! Ms. Olive, you’re smart!”

“Ahem.”

Olive raised her nose proudly.

“Then what hint is the picture with dots in the middle?”

“The middle? That’s…”

Unable to figure out that answer, the Guide’s round pupils wandered aimlessly in the whites of her eyes.

“That’s homework for the young master, so it’s a secret from the Knight too!”

“You’ll tell Sir Ralph though.”

“Oh my, Princess! A knight shouldn’t just be good with sword and shield, but also smart! You know!”

Olive revealed Ralph’s training plan that she had decided on her own.

Since it wasn’t a very difficult problem, Serena recommended solving it here.

“Why don’t you try solving it by comparing both sides? We have to rest here today anyway, so we have plenty of time.”

“Thank you! I’ll definitely find the answer before we depart tomorrow!”

“Don’t lose sleep over it though. Rest comes first.”

“Yes!”

Ralph saluted the Princess and ran to the room they had discovered first.

After Ralph left, Olive snapped her fingers as if she had figured out the answer in the meantime.

“Super easy, right?”

“You figured it out.”

“Ah~ I threw the middle one to the young master thinking it was a code. He’ll be angry when he finds out it’s not a code but half of an incomplete picture, right?”

“You didn’t know at the time either. It should be fine.”

“Right? Even if that old young man gets angry, the Princess will help me, right?”

Olive, who had unintentionally thrown an incomplete puzzle to the old young man Grey, laughed excitedly.

She seemed even happier for having unintentionally tricked Grey.

Ralph continued pondering even after finishing dinner and finally figured out the answer.

“Ah!”

He couldn’t tell just by looking, so he borrowed paper and pen to draw it out and then noticed the answer.

Ralph came running to the Princess and Guide with a bright face, holding the answer sheet.

“Look at this! When you overlap the two pictures, it’s the 14th Floor!”

“Knight, correct! Well done! So smart!”

Olive ruffled Ralph’s hair with her hands like praising a dog.

Ralph didn’t dislike it, and rather welcomed the Guide’s touch.

“Excellent, Sir Ralph.”

“I’m embarrassed it took me so long to solve such an easy problem.”

“No. Isn’t that what riddles are originally like? When you don’t know the answer, it feels hopeless, but once you know the solution, it feels easy and absurd. But you shouldn’t mock those who can’t solve riddles, those who are solving them, or those who are happy after solving them.”

This wasn’t said from experience of being unable to solve an easy gimmick that could be solved by simply going back from the starting point, searching strategy sites, finding no strategy guides because it was such an easy gimmick, posting a question, and receiving 100 mocking comments.

‘People can forget to go backwards when caught up in preconceptions. Do they have to bite and tear like that?’

The sadness of being criticized as a lazy person after posting a question after confirming there were no related posts through searching. Those who haven’t experienced it don’t know.

“Yes, I understand!”

The Young Knight, who couldn’t possibly know Serena’s past life, was moved to tears by the adult magnanimity the Princess spoke of.

“Well then, now that the Knight knows the answer too, shall we discuss which 14th Floor to conquer tomorrow?”

“Since we’ve conquered the path of lighting all the crystals, shouldn’t we darken them all?”

“Nope.”

Olive wagged her index finger.

“We have one more path available to us, don’t we? A more delicious-looking, more impressive path?”

The Guide overlapped the two pieces of paper Ralph had brought.

The two pictures combined to form the 14th Floor, marking the places that should be bright and the locations that should be dark on the 14th Floor.

“All bright or all dark? That’s an obvious thought anyone could have!”

‘Sorry for being obvious. But didn’t you think the same thing?’

Though she wanted to argue, Serena quietly listened to what the Guide was saying.

“But this path! Light and darkness! A hidden path that only those who have searched both the paths of light and darkness and found both secret rooms can take!”

“Ooh!”

The Young Knight, who loved secret rooms and secret passages, responded with shining eyes.

“Anyone can see it’s difficult! Anyone can see it’s hard! Anyone can see it’s troublesome! The more such a path is, the sweeter and more delicious the reward that comes out at the end after breaking through! This is it!”

Olive had once said that she had the personality of eating delicious things first.

True to her words, Olive wanted to take the impressive hidden path rather than the Path of Darkness the party had been walking all along.

“That sounds like a wonderful idea!”

Ralph was completely swayed by the Guide’s persuasion.

Having secured an ally, the Guide looked at the remaining two people with a triumphant expression.

“What do the Princess and Zero think?”

“Darkness.”

“Zero’s opinion doesn’t matter, what about the Princess?”

“Since we’ve been walking the Path of Darkness all this time, I think it would be efficient to walk the Path of Darkness on the 14th Floor too.”

Upon reaching the 15th Floor, the crystal would calculate and settle the ratio of light and darkness the Assault Team had passed through.

Having seen the end of the path of light, it seemed good to see the end of the Path of Darkness as well to leave a good finish.

However.

“Tsk tsk. If you’re going to consider efficiency, you should obviously do as I said.”

The Guide clicked her tongue while wagging her index finger.

It was a posture and expression that Seraph would have called impudent and broken her finger if he had seen it.

“We already lit up all the crystals on the 14th Floor when we came. The fact that touching the crystals according to the picture on the wall takes less time than making them all dark!”

Hitting a crystal once on the 14th Floor meant half a day would pass in the lobby, and hitting it twice meant a full day would pass in the lobby.

Olive presented grounds that were so logical and efficient that Serena couldn’t dare refute them.

It was so logical that even Ying, the Loyal Servant of Darkness, couldn’t cry out for darkness.

“Kuk, I lost.”

Even Ying, who would usually insist on darkness, seemed unable to argue when considering the time that would pass in the lobby.

The servant of darkness ground her molars and admitted defeat.

“To even consider the number of times to hit the crystals! Ms. Olive is amazing!”

“Haha! I’m quite something, aren’t I?”

Serena poured cold water on Olive, who was excitedly acting superior.

“I still think the Path of Darkness is better.”

“Princess. Didn’t I say that I decide the path?”

The Guide narrowed her eyes as if her mood had soured.

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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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