Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 123

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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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123. Sewers (2)

Although there were dry floors in the sewers, the party deliberately stepped into the dirty water.

“Hmm. Not bad. Yo.”

“The floor isn’t slippery and supports us well. The armor seems to be waterproof too.”

“That’s fortunate.”

Count Randy tested the effectiveness of the pendant enchanted with purification magic.

He deliberately scooped up dirty water and brought it close to the pendant, and the water that had been so black it was disgusting with floating debris became somewhat clearer.

‘It’s only avoiding the worst-case scenario.’

Still, seeing the purified water, it seemed like it would be fine even if it touched their skin.

Ralph looked at the magic stone pendant enchanted with purification magic and the cord holding the pendant with curiosity.

“Didn’t the Prince make all of this? It’s amazing.”

Even setting aside magic stone crafting which was an unfamiliar field, the skill in making the ring that secured the pendant and the cord woven from leather was excellent.

It was good enough to believe it was a commercial product.

“I heard he’s always liked making various things. It seems he did it secretly because his Master disliked it.”

“What? He dislikes it even though his skill is this good?”

“If you have time to spend on trivial pursuits, you should devote yourself to training in magic or swordsmanship. His Master is old-fashioned and tends to look down on any field he doesn’t recognize.”

“Trivial pursuits…”

Ralph looked hurt as he re-examined the pendant and leather craftsmanship, even though he hadn’t made it himself.

Prince Willow had demonstrated his skill by carving different patterns into the wooden ornaments that wrapped the magic stones.

The Imperial-style design, unseen in Heuji, was exotic and attractive.

Prince Willow had the talent of an artist.

To ignore that and dismiss it as trivial pursuits. Ralph’s heart ached just hearing about it.

“That old geezer would do that. He’s famous for his nasty personality. Yo.”

Olive didn’t miss the opportunity to badmouth Duke Pein.

“Other people become gentle and mild when they get old, right? That old geezer gets nastier with each passing year.”

“It seems Master’s reputation among Labyrinth Explorers isn’t good.”

“It can’t be good. Yo. Whenever he hears ‘Labyrinth Explorer,’ he immediately looks at them with those gray eyes. He sees anyone who fails his standards as a potential criminal, you know? What’s even more annoying is.”

The Guide seemed determined to ruin Duke Pein’s reputation as she chattered on without rest.

“He treats Labyrinth Explorers who aren’t Imperial Army like chess pieces. Yo. Whenever there’s a dangerous place, he throws in Labyrinth Explorers first, and when there’s danger, he saves the Imperial Army first.”

“Isn’t that unavoidable as the Empire’s person in charge of labyrinth conquest? Blood is thicker than water.”

“I know that too~ But from the perspective of someone on the outside, it’s still annoying, right? Yo?”

After cursing the Empire’s Grand Mage for a while, Olive suddenly burst into laughter.

“I was thinking it would be nice if that old geezer got struck by lightning~ And then! Puhup! He actually got struck by lightning! Puhup!”

The more she thought about it, the more excited she got, and Olive couldn’t stop laughing.

“What? Count’s Master was struck by lightning? Is he alright?”

Ralph was startled and asked about the welfare of the old man whose face he didn’t even know.

“Ah~ It’s not that he was actually struck by lightning~ It’s like this~”

“Could it be the hemorrhoid story you mentioned before?”

When the Guide was evasive, Ralph combined the information he knew to deduce.

Olive was so excited by the Young Knight’s wisdom that she held her stomach and laughed.

Count Randy held his forehead at the ‘Master’s hemorrhoid theory’ that was growing in influence within the labyrinth day by day.

“That’s right! That’s it! Kekeke.”

“I hope he recovers quickly.”

“I wonder~ If it’s serious enough to urgently seek the Empire’s genius alchemist, it won’t be easy~”

“I’m thinking of helping with treatment as soon as we leave the labyrinth.”

“Hemorrhoids are hard to cure~ Shh.”

Whether it was badmouthing his Master or his Master’s illness, either topic was uncomfortable for Count Randy.

Just as Count Randy was about to suggest ending the conversation, the Guide stopped with a serious expression.

“Alligator.”

Olive briefly announced the monster’s appearance, a complete contrast to her constant chatter.

At news of the monster’s appearance, the party hurriedly searched for the monster.

Despite its large size, they couldn’t see where it was hiding.

“Where is it?”

“It’s in the water with only its nose sticking out. Over there where the bubbles are clustered.”

Even looking where Olive pointed, Serena couldn’t see the alligator.

While Serena stared intently at the water trying to find the alligator, Ying loaded her crossbow and shot a bolt.

The bolt burst the murky-colored bubbles and seemed to enter the water, then a Labyrinth Alligator with a bolt stuck in its nostril thrashed about while bleeding from its nose.

As the alligator moved, waves of sewage water crashed.

Serena was afraid the sewage water might splash into her mouth, so she kept her mouth tightly shut and pressed against the wall.

Ralph, wearing alligator leather armor, bravely approached the alligator through the sewage waves.

“Hiyah!”

‘If he opens his mouth like that, sewage water will get in.’

Just as Serena was worrying about Ralph.

Swoosh!

The Labyrinth Alligator turned its body and swung its tail to attack the Knight.

Instead of blocking with his shield, Ralph jumped up to avoid the alligator’s tail.

The long, thick alligator tail splashed sewage in all directions.

The four who had retreated because they were more afraid of the sewage water than the alligator were completely drenched in sewage.

The pendants, recognizing the contamination, worked hard to purify the sewage, causing a gentle light to emanate from the four’s necks.

“Ptui ptui! I got the alligator! Huh? Why are you all so wet?”

“It’s nothing serious.”

Serena waited for the sewage dripping from her face to be purified before answering.

***

“I wish our clothes were waterproof too~”

Olive grumbled as she wrung water from her wet clothes.

Serena felt the same way as Olive.

“It’s impossible due to insufficient magic stones.”

“Are magic stones insufficient?”

“We have spares, but not enough to enchant clothes with waterproofing magic.”

“We should consider magic stones starting from the next chest.”

While the party’s mage and alchemist shared inventory status, the Knight, Guide, and archer skinned the Labyrinth Alligator and extracted its teeth. The magic stone was extracted first.

“This will become undead really fast here. Let’s chop it into small pieces and spread it widely. Yo.”

“Can’t we put it on the scales?”

“Gasp, Knight that’s a good idea!”

They had deliberately skinned the previous two directly because they needed a lot of leather, but there was no need for that now.

If they put the Labyrinth Alligator on the golden scales, wouldn’t a large amount disappear as commission without the trouble of chopping it up?

When Olive snapped her fingers, Count Randy shook his head.

“Please don’t forget that we also need magic stones and gold coins.”

“Right~ That’s true!”

Spend magic stones and gold coins just to dispose of the alligator corpse conveniently?

It would be better to just endure the hardship.

The Knight and Guide chopped up the Labyrinth Alligator with their mouths tightly shut like the archer.

Then they threw the chopped corpse pieces into deep water so they would flow away.

The party walked through the sewers again.

After reaching the 21st layer, a straight path without crossroads continued.

Occasionally sewage trickled from holes in the walls, and dry paths were cut off requiring them to cross water, but the path continued in a straight line.

“Hmm.”

Even after walking quite a distance, no crossroads appeared, so the Guide stopped and checked the map.

There were only markings for holes where water came out here and there. Nothing else was visible.

“I haven’t missed anything~ Let’s go to the end for now! Yo!”

“In a labyrinth, can there be a straight path?”

“Sometimes, once in a while? Let’s go see for now. Yo.”

The Party expressed doubts but decided to follow the Guide’s judgment and go to the end of the path.

“Everyone stop.”

The Guide who had been walking in front quickly stepped back and gave a stop signal.

“Is it a crocodile?”

Ralph gripped his sword properly, and Serena stared at the water with determination to definitely spot the crocodile this time.

Instead of pointing out the crocodile’s location, Olive twitched her nose and sniffed the foul odor several times.

As if trying to calm her nose that had grown accustomed to the stench, she breathed through her mouth, then sniffed again, washed her face with water completely, and sniffed once more.

‘What’s there? I can’t tell anything.’

At least there was nothing abnormal that Serena’s eyes or nose could detect.

The Party, trusting the Guide’s skills, didn’t ask questions and waited for Olive to concentrate.

Olive removed the pendant imbued with purification magic and entrusted it to Ralph.

She took a deep breath, leaped forward a few steps, then immediately retreated as soon as she caught the scent.

Finally having found the answer, the Guide put on the pendant and spoke.

“It’s poison.”

“Poison?”

“Poison gas. It’s spread from right here, so don’t come any closer. Yo.”

Olive drew the boundary between the safe zone and danger zone with her toes.

“It’s quite a potent one.”

Olive rinsed her nose with water and blew it hard. Blood stained the handkerchief.

The Guide grimaced as her nose stung. Ralph was startled seeing the blood.

“I have antidotes and potions here!”

“This much is fine. Anyway, we can’t go this way. Yo.”

“What? Can’t we hold our breath and go?”

“Sir Ralph. We don’t know how far the poison gas has spread, so that’s impossible. And some poisons can be absorbed through the skin.”

“Ah, I see!”

Serena asked a different question.

“Since we have the pendant, can’t we ignore it and go?”

“It’s imbued with purification magic, not detoxification, so it might be possible, but the mana consumption would be severe.”

“How about this? We create wind to blow away the poison gas!”

As if he had read it in a storybook, Ralph’s eyes sparkled strangely.

“If you do that in such a closed space, you’ll breathe in the spread poison gas and die slowly!”

“Ugh! I’m sorry.”

“That would have been possible in an open space. No need to apologize.”

Serena comforted the Young Knight who had lost his innocence and fell into thought.

‘It’s been a straight path all along. There’s no other way unless we break through here.’

“Isn’t there a device that sprays poison gas?”

“There doesn’t seem to be any around here.”

“How about sending a goblin just to identify the danger zone?”

Originally, they had planned to summon goblins in advance before entering the 6th Floor.

‘But it was scrapped because the summon was dispelled after a day passed.’

The plan was to summon goblins in advance and enter the 6th Floor once Serena’s mana recovered, but the goblins disappeared as time passed.

Due to the nature of the 6th Floor, Serena needed to maintain mana to cast purification magic, so the goblin labyrinth exploration plan was immediately scrapped.

However, if they were only going to identify the poison gas range and return, summoning a goblin would be fine.

At the Princess’s suggestion, the Guide shrugged her shoulders and wiggled her index finger.

“Well? Yo? Can a fake goblin detect the subtle smell of poison gas in this stench? You need to shed some bloody tears from inhaling poison gas to notice the difference. Yo?”

“As you say, it doesn’t seem like a goblin would notice such subtle differences.”

‘Then what do we do about this.’

Serena crossed her arms and glared at the invisible poison gas.

They needed to break through this poison gas, but there was no viable method.

“Lady Serena. This exploration was to check if there are necessary items on the 6th Floor. How about we return and create magical tools imbued with detoxification magic?”

Count Randy reminded them of their original purpose and recommended returning.

Since it wasn’t wrong, Serena turned around.

‘Ugh. Just when I thought the purification magic hell was ending, now it’s detoxification magic hell? I heard healing magic is even harder because you have to consider other gods.’

Not just anyone can become popular.

You need to know how to consider your friends to become truly popular.

The miracle that gods most commonly give to Priests is the miracle of healing.

Perhaps to consider other gods, the God of Magic made the difficulty of healing magic learned through him disgustingly high and lowered its efficiency.

Even if she somehow learned the magic, would magical enchantment be possible?

Just imagining it made the top of her head feel hot, so Serena unconsciously touched her hair.

While turning her neck to improve blood circulation to her head, the Princess’s eyes caught sight of a hole in the Wall trickling sewage.

The hole was quite large.

It was big enough for an adult to crawl on all fours or move by crawling.

‘A person crawling… Could it be?’

Serena stopped her companions and pointed at the hole.

“Wait a moment! We might be able to go through that hole!”

The Guide, who had been walking energetically at the front of the Party, turned around bizarrely as if her head was being forcibly turned by an invisible force.

“Princess. You noticed?”

As if the Princess had discovered something she shouldn’t have known. Olive smiled with a crazed expression.

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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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