Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 257

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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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257. Heuji’s Labyrinth 11th Layer (1)

As they descended the stairs, the surroundings gradually grew darker. Serena created several more light orbs.

The stairs illuminated by magically created light gradually narrowed in area, became steeper with severe height differences. The width of the path also narrowed to barely allow one person to pass through.

Serena carefully descended what wasn’t really stairs but a slope mimicking stairs, supporting herself with both hands against the walls. Her long magic staff was quite cumbersome, unlike a hiking stick.

‘Game characters have it good. They can just put weapons in their inventory.’

Or they stick them to their backs with mysterious power, or walk around empty-handed and summon them when needed.

‘I wonder if some magic magnet for conveniently carrying equipment will come out of a treasure chest?’

The Princess, who had been complaining about her staff, soon realized this was a luxury problem.

“Ugh.”

“Count Alpha. I’ll push you.”

“No. I can manage.”

As the path gradually narrowed, the Imperial Knight with his good build and full plate armor got stuck in the passage. Fortunately, he could turn his body and move sideways.

It wasn’t just the path width that was narrowing. Without realizing it, the ceiling was also getting lower. The Guide’s hair, who had descended all the stairs, barely grazed the ceiling.

“Be careful, the ceiling’s low~”

Except for Olive, the shortest member of the party, no one could stand upright. Serena bent her knees and stood awkwardly hunched over, observing the environment of Heuji’s Labyrinth 11th Layer, 41st Floor.

At first glance it looked like an ordinary cave, but careful observation of the walls, floor, and ceiling revealed traces of stone carved by tools.

“This looks like a mine shaft.”

The intelligent Alchemist completed his deduction faster than the Princess.

“Tch. Mine types have dirty paths.”

The Guide pouted and checked the direction of the stairs with her compass. The compass needle spun round and round, then continued to waver back and forth without stopping.

“Why is it doing this?”

Olive was about to answer Serena’s question but stopped and smiled brightly.

“Ta-da! The Olive quiz time you’ve all been waiting and waiting for has returned! Wow, applause!”

Olive, who had been actively encouraging enthusiastic responses, looked at the tall people standing hunched over with their heads twisted at bizarre angles and clicked her tongue.

“Tsk. The ceiling looks a bit higher over there, so let’s move first!”

There was a place nearby with a higher ceiling where the tall people could barely straighten their backs and heads.

“Everyone straightened up? Then it’s really the return of Olive’s labyrinth quiz! Why is the labyrinth compass doing this? Huh?”

The Guide thrust the labyrinth compass needle, which kept moving at 30-degree angles, toward the party.

‘Our labyrinth compass has two needles. One points to directions and the other points to stairs. It ignores nearby stairs and points to distant ones.’

Then the answer was simple. Since the only reward for getting the answer right would be the Guide’s wink or hand kiss, Serena generously yielded the chance to answer correctly to someone else.

“Well. Hmm. It’s nothing.”

Count Randy, who lacked tact, tried to answer the quiz immediately and got attacked in the ribs by the Princess. Count Alpha was tactful, so the honor of being the correct answerer went to Count Ralph Hanson.

“Correct! Is it because there are two stairs on this floor, excluding the stairs we just came down?”

“Yes! Our Knight got it right! That’s right, like the 3rd Layer, there are two stairs we haven’t been to, so the compass is shaking like this.”

“If the compass needle shakes like this, how do we confirm which direction the stairs are in?”

“Right now they’re shaking similarly because of the distance, but if there’s a closer one, it’ll lean toward that direction. And when we find those stairs, it’ll point to the other stairs and the stairs we came down from.”

“Two stairs. The paths will be complicated.”

“Mine-type labyrinths are characterized by complex paths. But the rewards are also abundant.”

When Olive said “abundant” while looking at Serena’s chest, she immediately apologized and slapped her own cheek.

Though she didn’t like the mindset of naturally looking at people’s chests, Serena magnanimously forgave her since the effort to correct it was commendable.

Olive rubbed her cheek, which was turning red and starting to swell.

“In the 3rd Layer, whichever stairs we chose was pretty much the same~ I wonder how it’ll be this time. The floor is deeper too.”

“We’ll need to choose the stairs well.”

“Don’t worry since we have the best Guide acknowledged by the Princess.”

The Guide winked her round eyes to reassure the party.

“Hehe, how reliable.”

Heuji’s Labyrinth 1st Group attack team, now with one more party member, began their full-scale exploration of the 11th Layer, 41st Floor.

The first monster to block the party’s path was a bipedal reptile, a Lizardman.

A group of Lizardmen armed with mining equipment like pickaxes, shovels, and hammers encountered the party.

The Lizardmen wore shabby cloth clothes, but the scales visible beneath the cloth looked like gravel stuck on. Though shorter than Olive, their wrists and legs were thick. Their appearance was similar to a certain race from fantasy novels she’d read in her previous life.

‘Dwarves?’

If you made dwarves based on Lizardmen instead of humans, they would look exactly like this.

As soon as the Lizardmen spotted the party, they aggressively swung their mining equipment. Fortunately, the ceiling was high enough for the Knights to step forward.

“Knight! Mine Lizardmen have hard scales, so hit them with hammers!”

At Olive’s advice, Ralph reached for his undead hammer, but Count Alpha shook his head.

“That’s not necessary, Count Hanson. Draw your sword, Count Hanson.”

Ralph drew the light-attribute magic sword he’d obtained in the labyrinth.

“Hyah!”

When the Young Knight attacked the Mine Lizardman with his magic sword, a more intense light trail was created than when he first got the sword.

Kraak!

Kruk!

The Mine Lizardmen attacking the party covered their eyes and suffered from the light emanating from the sword. Count Alpha didn’t miss this opportunity and swung his double-edged axe.

Slash.

The double-edged axe split the stone-hard Mine Lizardman in half. The Knight swung his axe more lightly than when exercising, but the axe touching the monster was incredibly heavy.

After defeating all the Mine Lizardmen, Count Alpha belatedly explained.

“Mine Lizardmen’s eyes are weak to light. Count Hanson’s sword enhanced by the Priest was more efficient than hammers.”

“Count Alpha’s martial arts were also dazzling!”

“It’s thanks to High Priest Hazel’s enhancement. With my original skills, I would have stopped at just piercing the scales.”

That’s right. The Priests who visited the lobby also enhanced the party’s weapons while looking for work.

They couldn’t enhance everything, but enhanced only Ralph’s magic sword and Count Alpha’s magic axe according to their attributes, and their power was considerable.

While the two Knights proudly stroked their enhanced weapons, the Guide searched the monster corpses.

“These guys were weak to light~ I didn’t know that and just hammered them. Tsk.”

“You didn’t know either?”

“I adjusted the light intensity so as not to stimulate monsters. If you’re at a level to walk around floors with Mine Lizardmen, everyone has sensitive senses, so dim light is enough.”

‘You’ll probably ruin your eyes doing that.’

“Wow, what’s all this?”

Olive’s mouth split wide as she searched through the Mine Lizardman’s pockets. The monster’s pockets contained various gem rough stones.

“These bastards. They’re rich.”

Olive stood up after thoroughly shaking out everything from the magic stones in the monster’s body to the gem rough stones in their pockets. Count Alpha raised his axe to cut off the monster’s limbs.

“Whoa whoa, Black Knight, wait a moment. We have a long way to go, so let’s save our strength.”

“Don’t we need to cut the joints properly so they won’t become undead?”

“That’s why I’m saying let’s save our strength. Princess!”

“Corpse explosion magic uses a lot of mana. It’s actually a loss.”

“That’s not it, please sprinkle some water. Just enough to wet all the corpses.”

Serena created water with magic and sprinkled it on the Lizardman corpses that Olive had gathered in one place. When the water soaked the corpses, the Guide pointed at them.

“Now you can cut them.”

“Does sprinkling water make a difference?”

Ralph was cutting the corpse joints out of curiosity when he was startled.

“Miss Olive! The scales are soft and squishy, so the sword goes in smoothly!”

“Right? When processing these guys’ corpses, strangely some were hard and some were easy to cut. When I thought about what the difference was~”

Olive grinned.

“The ones covered in blood were easier to cut. There’s no difference when they’re alive, but there’s a difference when they die.”

“Thank you for the valuable information.”

“Remember that their blood doesn’t weaken even when soaked, so use water!”

‘So she found out while processing Lizardman corpses covered in human blood.’

Truly the labyrinth. Even the circumstances of obtaining information were brutal.

The Labyrinth Adventurer and the monster subjugation unit Knight, both accustomed to brutal environments, looked at each other and smiled.

“How fascinating. The things I want to research keep increasing once I leave the labyrinth.”

The Alchemist, equally accustomed to blood, sighed with joy. The Effort Priest saw this and chuckled contentedly.

***

The tunnels of the 11th Layer were supposedly dug by mining Lizardmen, so most of the tunnel heights were adjusted to match the Lizardmen’s stature.

Thanks to this, the Princess had to keep her stiff neck bent the entire time—a neck that she had only bowed before deities, Grandfather, and Father.

It was fine to bow her neck where it should be bowed. The problem was that she couldn’t straighten it properly, so her metaphorically stiff neck was becoming physically stiff.

‘At this rate, I’ll get a herniated disc.’

Even changing the angle of her bowed head had its limits. Glancing ahead, she saw Olive, the shortest member of the party, constantly tilting her head this way and that.

Perhaps catching some suspicious sound with her sensitive ears, Olive sent a stop signal to the party. Serena crouched down completely, giving her overworked back and neck some rest.

“Ugh.”

While everyone was quietly groaning, Olive lay flat on the ground and pressed her ear to the floor. The party members tried to suppress their groaning sounds to help their guide when dirt fell from the ceiling.

‘So it wasn’t all stone after all.’

Serena brushed off the dirt that had fallen right onto her head. She took a step to the side and looked up at the ceiling, only for more dirt to fall.

‘The ceiling isn’t going to collapse, is it?’

Just as the Princess was about to cast a mana field spell due to an ominous feeling.

Screech—!

The ceiling broke apart and a monster with razor-sharp claws swung its front paw toward Serena.

Startled, Serena couldn’t even roll to the side and just ducked her head. Instead of the terrible pain of her body being torn apart, she heard a loud sound like metal clashing against metal.

Clang!

“So it was you, mole! Why are you confusing us by coming from above, damn it!”

When Serena raised her head, Ralph was standing there with his shield raised. That sight felt as reassuring as Mount Tai.

“Are you alright?”

“Y-yes. Thank you.”

The freckled young boy smiled kindly and extended his hand. Serena took Ralph’s hand and stood up in a daze.

Slice!

“What a pathetic creature!”

Meanwhile, Olive had finished off the monster that emerged from the ceiling and was wiping the blood from her dagger.

“I could hear vibrations and sounds of something digging somewhere, but I couldn’t pinpoint the direction at all. Look how dirty and cowardly it attacks from above just because there’s dirt up there too. If not for the Knight, it would have been a disaster.”

“That was excellent protection.”

“Count Ralph was incredibly quick in protecting Lady Serena. I couldn’t even see it with my eyes!”

“Hehe. You can see the Knight’s diligent efforts paying off. Effort would highly praise this.”

“Well done.”

Being praised by everyone, even receiving vocal praise from the Taciturn Archer, Ralph’s cheeks reddened with embarrassment.

“Hehe. I just did what I practiced. More importantly, I’m glad the Princess is safe.”

“I’m alive thanks to Count Ralph.”

Could the 3-star Ralph have reacted this quickly? Serena could guarantee the answer was no.

‘Just how did he train? Can settling one’s mind really make such a difference?’

Serena wondered about the Knight’s growth, particularly his seemingly improved reflexes, as she examined the monster that had attacked her.

What attacked the Princess was a monster resembling a mole. Its name: Labyrinth Rat. It was said to cut through even rock with its sharp, large claws.

“What’s really scary about this thing is that you can barely hear it digging. Look. It approaches so quietly that you can’t notice until it gets really close, then… Kwang! It bursts out and swings its front paws or drags its prey into the tunnels.”

“How does it hide vibrations and sounds while digging through the ground?”

When the guide shrugged, Count Alpha explained.

“It’s a racial trait of the Rat.”

“They’re born assassins~ But they can’t fool this Olive’s ears! They got me this time, but fat chance next time!”

Since everyone except Olive hadn’t even heard the approaching sounds, no one blamed the guide.

“This one’s hide is expensive. Let’s take it. Look.”

Olive skillfully skinned the dense, soft mole hide. Ralph, who had removed his gauntlets to feel the mole hide, was amazed.

“Regular moles are already very soft, but this monster one is even softer!”

“Yeah. It’s also big so it sells for a lot. Oh, this one has electric attribute resistance. Just so you know~”

Perhaps it was because she had been constantly subjected to the Fire Knight’s chatter. The guide’s chatter, filled with useful information, sounded quite endearing.

After disposing of the mole’s corpse, the party resumed their uncomfortable journey.

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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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