Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 181

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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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181. Heuji’s Labyrinth 8th Layer (2)

Books. Books. Books. Books. Books. Books.

There were nothing but books everywhere.

Bookshelves packed full of books stretched out vastly, perhaps infinitely.

The bookshelves extended infinitely backward, sideways, and upward.

Except for the soft floor and the comfortable fireplace area, everything was occupied by bookshelves and books.

Thousands, tens of thousands at minimum, perhaps hundreds of millions, perhaps infinite books engulfed the party.

The books didn’t attack the party, showed no hostility, and simply sat quietly on their shelves, yet the party was overwhelmed by their sheer number.

No matter where they turned their heads, there were only books.

When they tilted their heads up, an infinite tower of books soared endlessly toward the sky.

Books! If one bookshelf fell, the bookshelves might collapse like dominoes and crush them under books.

Moreover.

“Aaah!”

Ralph’s scream was heard.

“What’s wrong!”

Serena, who had been spacing out while overwhelmed by the volume of books, quickly turned her head.

Ralph pointed to the stairs the party had come down.

“The, the back of the stairs is all books too!”

When Serena turned around, it was just as Ralph said.

Usually the back of stairs was blocked by a wall, but this time an infinite wave of books rippled behind the stairs as well.

Moreover, the stairs were only visible when viewed from the front. When they moved to the side, the stairs disappeared and bookshelves took their place.

The space was distorted.

The Guide first checked if they could return via the stairs. Fortunately, only the appearance was strange and the stairs were intact.

Next, the Guide checked the direction where the next stairs would be.

The labyrinth compass didn’t stop in one direction but just spun round and round.

“Why is the compass acting like this?”

“Don’t be surprised. Sometimes there are layers like this.”

Count Randy calmed down at the Guide’s composed attitude.

“Princess, the map.”

“Here it is.”

The party’s current location and the terrain they had identified appeared on the magic map.

While the Guide stared at the magic map, the other party members were busy looking around.

Everywhere they looked, there were only books. Nothing but books.

Serena raised her head to look up. That’s right. There was an upper floor, and it was visible.

From Serena’s perspective, it was the ceiling; from the upper floor’s perspective, there was a circular opening with no floor.

Aren’t there sometimes buildings with stairs in the center that are open from the upper floors down to the lower floors?

It was that kind of design but with the stairs removed.

Standing on her toes, she could see railings and bookshelves installed on the upper floor.

“Ah shit, we’re screwed.”

The Guide, who had been staring at the magic map, scratched her ponytail vigorously.

“Is the path complicated?”

“It’s not that the path is complicated. Princess, hold this for a moment.”

Olive suddenly handed the magic map and labyrinth compass to Serena.

When Serena received the Guide’s main tools, the Guide even put down her bag and said.

“I’ll be right back.”

“What?”

Then Olive ran straight between the bookshelves. She was so fast that no one could catch her.

Count Alpha reached out to grab Olive, but he grasped empty air as if catching wind.

“Did she run away?”

Everyone except Ying was surprised by the Guide’s sudden action. Count Alpha even got angry, asking if the Guide had run away.

“What are you doing, Guide! Don’t run away like a coward and come back right now!”

Count Alpha called out to Olive, who had disappeared between the bookshelves, with a loud voice befitting his build.

“Did you call me?”

Olive, who had run between the bookshelves like lightning and disappeared, returned running at a similar speed to when she vanished.

The direction she disappeared and the direction she returned from matched.

“What was that sudden behavior!”

“The black knight has a good voice~”

Olive ignored Count Alpha and deliberately poked her ear with her pinky finger.

“Here’s a question! How did Olive run?”

Count Randy was flustered by the sudden quiz but answered earnestly.

“Since you came back in the direction you went, you ran straight and then turned back, right?”

“Wrong! Incorrect! The correct answer is: I kept running forward looking only ahead!”

How could she return to where the party was if she ran straight looking only forward?

While everyone was puzzled, the Guide picked up the bag she had placed on the floor.

“I’m not lying, so try it if you’re curious. Watch out for monsters.”

The Guide took back the labyrinth compass from Serena and held the magic map to prove her point.

“Ta-da.”

As soon as the Guide’s hand touched the magic map, all the blank spaces were filled.

Books. Books. Books. Books. The map was also conquered by books.

No matter how they changed the scale or kept turning the map in one direction, it was the same.

Infinite bookshelves densely filled the map.

“How is this possible?”

There were so many books it was dizzying and nauseating.

It sounds ridiculous to say this, but it felt like their mental strength was being tested because there were too many books.

“I told you. We’re screwed. These kinds of layers are a pain in the ass to navigate.”

“Is there a path at all?”

“Since it’s not the last layer, there must be one. We have to find it. But if you don’t know the method and just walk thinking ‘the path I walk becomes the path’…”

Olive scratched her cheek.

“No matter where you go, you’ll come back here.”

The Guide clicked her tongue and crossed her arms.

“Still, it’s a bit better that you don’t get lost but come back here, right?”

The Archer, who hadn’t been surprised even once while the party was startled multiple times and had their mental strength tested, agreed.

“Better.”

“Yeah. It’s fine. It’s not the worst.”

Olive seemed to have calmed down as she picked up a cookie from the table.

“Oh, this looks delicious.”

“You shouldn’t carelessly eat food found in labyrinths.”

Alpha politely warned, seemingly displeased with Olive’s continued unauthorized actions.

“What are you saying? A knight who’s never even entered a labyrinth?”

“All knights of the Empire have labyrinth conquest experience.”

“Going in and out of a conquered labyrinth with an experienced guide isn’t labyrinth conquest, is it? It’s tourism, isn’t it? I guess the Empire has tourist-accessible labyrinths like Vieta?”

Count Alpha’s neatly trimmed eyebrows twitched.

Serena held her forehead.

‘When did she look out for him, and now she’s picking fights.’

Or maybe she was annoyed because she had shown consideration first but he kept complaining?

The Princess immediately intervened to change the subject.

“It’s difficult to understand, so explain in detail.”

“The entire space of the 8th layer is distorted. If you don’t find a way to break through, no matter where or how you move, you’ll return to this fireplace. This fireplace area.”

“Then we can’t proceed?”

“We need to find a way to proceed. From my experience. This is premium information you can’t get anywhere else even if you pay for it, so listen carefully.”

The party members focused on Olive’s words. Count Alpha also looked at the Guide with cautious eyes, as if he had never given any warning.

“This is about a labyrinth I actually visited. It was a layer surrounded by strange fog where you couldn’t see ahead. There was a campfire right in front of the stairs that illuminated just a tiny area around it, and the rest was covered in thick fog. From within the fog, you could hear things exploding, monster cries, and sounds of hard objects breaking.”

“Gasp, that’s scary.”

Ralph, who was secretly quite timid, reacted immediately.

“The sounds kept getting closer but we didn’t know the way. We agreed to explore just a little bit around the area and return right away, so I tied a rope around my waist and entered the fog.”

Gulp. Ralph’s Adam’s apple moved greatly. Serena also nervously drank some water.

“I was scared too, but what could I do? I’m the Guide. Trusting that the rope was my lifeline, I entered the fog, and wow.”

Olive shook her head back and forth.

“I took exactly two steps in and couldn’t see the party that should have been behind me. I even heard monster cries coming from the direction where the party was. Thinking this was dangerous, I tried to pull the rope to signal, but the rope came toward me limply.”

“Gasp! Why?”

“The rope was cut clean through the middle.”

“Gaaasp! Wh-what happened? Did monsters attack the party? The stairs were right behind them, so they should have been fine. Please tell me that’s what happened!”

The emotional Young Knight pleaded desperately as if the people by the campfire were his own companions.

“Even experienced me was so shocked that my mind went blank. Fortunately, I had only moved exactly two steps, so I just had to turn around and take two steps back. With only that thought, I turned around and took one step, two steps, but.”

Olive spoke ominously.

“I was still in the fog.”

“Gasp!”

The Young Knight, who had been continuously swallowing fear and air, was on the verge of suffocating.

“Even then I thought ‘Ah, shit, I’m screwed’ and was panicking when I faintly saw a light in the thick fog. I thought I didn’t care if it was a trap or monster and just ran toward it. And it turned out to be in front of the stairs? My companions were all still there too.”

“Phewwww. Thank goodness.”

Ralph’s lungs, which had been on the verge of bursting from continuously swallowing air, finally exhaled.

“So you failed to explore that layer?”

“Count. What do you take me for? I’m the Winds of the Wilderness. I scatter fog like that away like wind.”

“What was the answer?”

“Princess. From here on it’s a paid section. If you promise to accompany me to just one labyrinth instead of money and goods.”

“Speak quickly.”

When Serena cut off her words cleanly like a rope being severed in fog, Olive pouted her lips.

“It’s similar to the 4th Layer. The campfire in front of the stairs had driven away the fog. When we lit our torches with the campfire’s flame, the fog disappeared and the spatial distortion was gone too.”

Like Columbus’s egg story, it seemed hopeless when they didn’t know the answer, but once they heard it, it seemed trivial.

“Hey. Everyone looks disappointed right now, but this is premium information! This could be the key to solving this layer’s mystery!”

“I absolutely did not think it was trivial.”

“Princess, I saw you making a blatantly trivial expression!”

Though the ending was a bit anticlimactic, Serena perfectly understood the Guide’s intention in bringing up this story.

“You ultimately wanted to say there’s a hint somewhere around here.”

“Yes! Princess, correct answer!”

Crackle crackle. The sound of burning logs from the wall-less fireplace was heard warmly.

The group examined the fireplace area they had forgotten about, overwhelmed by the sea of books.

A comfortable-looking sofa and a table with a plate of cookies, teacups, and a teapot.

And slightly away from the fireplace, there was a desk and chair suitable for work use.

If the sofa, fireplace, and table reminded one of a cozy living room or lounge, the desk and chair brought to mind an office or study.

Serena bit her tongue to wake up her mind that kept being drawn to the sofa and approached the desk.

On the desk were a small golden bell and a piece of paper. There were words written on the paper.

[Away from desk. Please ring the bell if you need the librarian’s assistance.]

“Librarian?”

“It seems to be set up as a library.”

Count Randy, who had been observing the desk following the Princess, stroked his chin and his eyes lit up.

“Perhaps the librarian might show us the way. Shall we ring the bell?”

“Whoa whoa!”

The sharp-eared Guide didn’t miss the Count’s words and stopped him like handling cattle.

“I’ll bet my golden egg turn that the librarian is this layer’s boss! Absolutely don’t touch the bell!”

His tone was urgent as if he had been severely beaten before.

“Everyone!”

The Young Knight called to the party with a bright voice.

“There’s a sign here that says Library!”

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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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