Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 292

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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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292. Heuji’s Labyrinth 11th Layer Strategy (2)

5th tier lightning attribute magic Electric Chain. An attack magic that requires prior acquisition of the 4th tier non-attribute magic Mana Thread.

While Lightning Strike was a powerful single blow that targeted one enemy and luckily caught surrounding enemies in its range, Electric Chain was a useful magic that could perform both concentrated attacks and area attacks depending on the mage’s mental image, mana, and mana control ability.

When Serena first heard the explanation of this magic, the image she formed was the chain lightning magic she had seen countless times in games in her previous life.

However, just as things that look similar on the outside can be different inside, Electric Chain was quite different from the magic Serena knew in her previous life when you examined the theory closely.

The biggest difference was indeed the Mana Thread magic that had to be acquired as a prerequisite. A magic that created and manipulated threads made of mana that were invisible to mana and couldn’t be felt by beings that couldn’t detect mana.

The mana threads created by magic couldn’t be touched, and by the same logic, simple mana threads alone couldn’t bind or attack enemies. It was just a damn difficult magic to learn and even harder to manipulate.

But when combined with other magic, the story changed.

The electricity generated from Serena’s hand flowed along the invisible threads of mana.

Electric Chain was magic that used mana threads to easily control electricity that was difficult to control. Depending on how you manipulated the mana threads, you could perform area attacks on multiple enemies like chain lightning, or alternatively.

Kieeeeeek-!

Like what Serena did now, you could wrap mana threads around a single enemy and concentrate the attack.

The attack power even increased the more mana threads you wrapped around. If Lightning Strike’s attack power was 100, Electric Chain was between 10-20, but depending on how you handled the mana threads, you could see efficiency of over 100 with the same mana.

It wasn’t for nothing that Grey had recommended learning this instead of Lightning Strike.

‘It was difficult though! Really hard!’

But Serena had done it!

While the Rock Lizardman was busy blocking the attacks of three people alone, she had excellently wrapped the mana threads and successfully cast the Electric Chain magic!

The Rock Lizardman, wrapped tightly in transparent high-voltage wires, screamed and emitted smoke before dying.

[You have defeated the Labyrinth Rat Leader. 1 shop coin has been awarded.]

The Young Knight who had watched the Princess’s new magic up close sparkled his eyes.

“Magnificent!”

“Is Count Ralph alright?”

“I’m fine!”

Ralph grinned and showed off his gloves made from Alligator Rius leather. Olive approached the lizardman corpse that was charred black with burst scales and flesh.

“Princess, is it okay to touch now?”

“Yes.”

Olive stuck a dagger into the Rock Lizardman’s burst chest, cut through the flesh, and collected a large superior magic stone.

The outside was charred black, but the center was soaked with blood as if the heat hadn’t reached it.

‘Burnt on the outside but not cooked inside.’

If this were a restaurant, wouldn’t a customer have jumped up and shouted ‘Get the chef out here!’?

“Knight. Take this outside and cut it into pieces.”

“Yes, understood!”

Olive gave Ralph an errand and kicked dirt with her foot to cover the blood the monster had spilled on the floor.

“It does smell a bit burnt, but we’ll rest here today! Everyone relax and rest. I’ll go open the treasure chest!”

Olive recommended rest to the party, but who would really sit down and rest after hearing those words?

Ralph, who had returned after cutting up the lizardman’s limbs outside the leader’s chamber, also followed the guide.

“You think I’m going to gobble up all the rewards? Hah! These people. Have they only lived being deceived?”

Seeing Olive insist they should trust her, Ying spoke in a flat voice.

“Five.”

The guide glared at the archer who was suddenly counting numbers as if fed up.

“Tch. Fine, fine. It’s a shiny shiny shiny shiny chest. Everyone has good eyes.”

This leader’s chamber had no door in the direction of the stairs, so all party members saw the magic-grade treasure chest next to the stairs.

Olive, who had been trying to monopolize the rewards sneakily, claimed it was a joke when the party members’ gazes became piercing, and checked the chest and surroundings.

“Good! Now shall we open it!”

Olive opened the magic-grade treasure chest wide. Goggles came out of the chest.

Olive tried on the goggles before having the alchemist appraise them, then pursed her lips in a circle.

“Oh! When I wear these, I can see dark places well.”

“Hmm, let me check.”

Count Randy examined the goggles closely and confirmed what Olive had said.

“Magic goggles with night vision function. Enhancement magic is also applied to protect the eye area.”

“Hmm. A bit disappointing. Are there no other functions?”

Considering the labyrinth’s difficulty and floor number, Olive clicked her tongue as if the magical tool’s performance was disappointing.

Seeing the disappointed guide, Count Randy breathed on the lenses. The lenses that should have fogged up remained clear.

Count Randy took off his gloves and pressed and rubbed the lenses with his bare hands. This time too, the lenses remained clear.

“It also has anti-fogging and anti-contamination functions.”

‘It’s an amazing function, but. Petty.’

Shouldn’t glasses-type magical tools have functions like see-through vision, enemy recognition, or level and health display? Anti-fogging and anti-contamination. It was petty, too petty.

Olive also couldn’t hide her disappointment and rolled her round eyes.

“Let’s see. Zero and Princess can see well even in the dark, so I should wear these, right?”

If the guide had been trying to grab personal benefits, she would have taken the magic goggles, but this was purely an efficiency-focused proposal.

‘It’s right for the guide to have them.’

“Yes. You use these. Don’t forget that ownership belongs fairly to everyone.”

“We’re excluding the Black Knight, right?”

Olive confirmed the magical tool shares half-jokingly, half-seriously, and took off the goggles she had gotten on the 6th layer. She gave the old goggles to Serena and equipped the new magic goggles herself.

Serena, who had lost her goggles when buried and had been wearing ordinary shop-bought goggles, immediately equipped the labyrinth-made goggles.

Since she had half the eyes of others, the importance felt twice as real.

Heuji’s Labyrinth 1st group strategy team spent the night in the leader’s chamber where blood and burnt smell coexisted, then descended to the 44th floor.

As soon as the guide stepped on the 44th floor tunnel floor, the stair needle of the labyrinth compass in her hand shook violently.

Olive looked disgusted like when she saw a group of ex-boyfriends waiting in front of her lodging.

“Damn. Why was it so quiet until now.”

Since there were no other stairs on the 42nd and 43rd floors, it seemed they were planning to come out all at once on the 44th floor. The number of stairs that could be predicted from the shaking compass needle was as many as 5.

In games, checking all stairs gets you called a thorough player, but in reality, checking all stairs gets you called a foolish suicide hopeful.

“Damn. This is a headache.”

Even the guide, who had been finding real stairs with experience gained from crossing death lines, seemed to find this judgment difficult as she messed up her hair bun and glared at the magic map.

“Is it here? No, here?”

The guide literally pulled at her hair while pondering.

“I’ll think together too!”

“Hey! Get away. When other people interfere, it just makes things more confusing.”

The Young Knight stepped forward to help Olive, thinking that sharing the burden would make it lighter, but retreated dejectedly at the guide’s claim that too many cooks spoil the broth.

“I wonder if the Prince went comfortably since he has the Earth Priest? Ugh! The path must be damn twisted to move blindly!”

Perhaps finding it overwhelming to worry alone, Olive requested help. Of course, she called an expert, not an amateur.

“Zero! You think about it together too!”

The tall archer and short guide put their heads together and consulted while looking at the map and compass.

The two labyrinth experts decided on the first stair to check after consultation.

“We’ll check these three here.”

The magic map was blank except around the stairs. Olive pointed to the expected locations of three stairs clustered in a similar direction.

“Ah. Since they’re close together, checking will be quick!”

“That would be good. But even if they’re close together according to the compass, having to take a roundabout way to actually get there is normal for labyrinths. Still, since they’re close, one of the three should be right~”

“We’ll check as we go.”

“Right. Since we’ve set the direction as Zero said, we need to check which of the three to go to first while looking at the paths and monster placement.”

The guide advanced energetically.

‘If we’re really unlucky, do we have to check all 5 stairs?’

Serena, who habitually thought negatively first, was startled and stopped thinking.

Since this was a labyrinth where words became seeds, negative thinking could really bring misfortune. A positive mindset like Ralph’s was important.

‘Yes! I’m glad the tunnel ceiling is high on this floor.’

Surely a perfectly fine tunnel ceiling wouldn’t get lower just because she thought this.

Serena straightened her neck and back that had been suffering, and was happily patting her shoulders with both hands that were free thanks to the magic magnet, when the guide walking ahead signaled combat readiness.

The Princess and Knight immediately grabbed the weapons floating beside them. The guide announced the identity of the monster they would fight.

“It’s a Rock Lizardman! Everyone be careful!”

‘Damn.’

Serena cursed inwardly. No wonder the ceiling was so high – it must have been designed to match the physique of the monsters that appeared here.

‘Previous floor bosses just wandering around? Is this difficulty level for real?’

This damn labyrinth never allowed a moment’s carelessness.

***

“Hmm.”

Olive stood before the crossroads with a serious expression, lost in thought.

The party faced no fewer than 6 choices ahead.

In tunnels where one could get lost even with a map, the guide worked hard to lead the party in the right direction.

“First off, there are monsters here and here.”

Though she had no idea how Olive knew, she pointed to paths where monsters were lurking about.

‘In games, the path with monsters is usually the right path.’

The same was true in real labyrinths. The guide pondered between the two monster-infested paths while boasting about her experiences.

“Just because there are monsters doesn’t guarantee it’s the right answer. I once lost half my party members fighting through a path crawling with monsters, only to find it was a dead end with nothing there.”

“How terrible!”

Ralph felt sorry as if it were his own experience. Olive shrugged her shoulders.

“We got completely fooled. Coming back, we had to fight through monsters again, and everyone died except those with revival items. That exploration was a total loss. I had to take out loans to buy potions and immediately entered the next labyrinth.”

It was a sad and serious story, but Olive’s lips curled up more as she spoke. The reason was soon revealed.

“But! When I came out after conquering the next labyrinth, the loan shark had been stabbed to death in the meantime! I saved money! Damn, I should have borrowed more!”

After the cheerful story where many people died but Olive herself was happy about saving money ended, the guide asked for the party’s opinion.

“The right path has many monsters, and the left path has fewer monsters. Both paths seem to have Rock Lizardmen. Which way should we go?”

The standard choice would be the side with more monsters. But perhaps because they’d just heard Olive’s experience, choosing the side with more monsters felt unsettling.

Even though she asked for the party’s opinion, the decision-maker was Serena. Feeling everyone’s eyes on her, Serena spoke out of old habit.

“Left.”

As the party headed left, hidden Assassin Moles launched a surprise attack on the group. The magical barrier protecting the party was dispelled by the moles’ sharp and keen claw attacks.

The moles that failed their attack tried to quickly dig into the ground to escape, but were stabbed, slashed, pierced, and cut to end their lives.

“Oh my, these guys were hiding here? Then both paths have similar numbers of monsters, don’t they?”

Miner Lizardmen were safer to fight than Assassin Moles. Count Alpha, seemingly worried about the slow Princess and Alchemist, subtly suggested.

“Assassin Moles are dangerous. How about taking the right path? I humbly request this.”

Reversing a decision once made could harm one’s dignity and authority, but this was a labyrinth. When situations changed, immediately changing choices was a virtue of a labyrinth exploration party leader.

“Let’s go back.”

Serena accepted the Imperial Knight’s wise counsel, turned back, and headed down the right path. At the end of the path where they advanced while fighting mixed parties of Rock Lizardmen and Miner Lizardmen, there were stairs leading down.

‘Hmm. This isn’t good.’

While it wasn’t set in stone that each floor must have a leader’s chamber, labyrinth sections maintained the same environment and atmosphere.

Floors 41, 42, and 43 all required passing through leader’s chambers to use the stairs, but here were stairs sitting alone without a leader’s chamber?

‘Did we come the wrong way.’

Lucky people find the right path on their first try, but the party’s luck apparently wasn’t at that level.

As Serena managed her expression to hide her disappointment, Count Alpha bowed his head.

“I apologize. We took the wrong path because of me.”

“That’s not true, Count Alpha. From your position, it was a perfectly reasonable opinion, and this path isn’t confirmed to be a dead end yet.”

“That’s right, Count Alpha! There’s no leader’s chamber, but since it goes down, it might be the right path!”

“Hmm~ It could be or it might not be~”

“It’s better to go down and check than to turn back.”

The party descended the stairs with the guide in front, never letting their guard down.

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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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