Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 297

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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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297. Clatter Clatter (2)

Clatter clatter clatter.

The mine cart moved along the tracks maintaining a constant speed. They passed through a space that was pitch black not because it was too dark, but because nothing seemed to exist there, and arrived at an ordinary tunnel.

At the end of the narrow tunnel was a wall that could be destroyed. The Guide examined what was behind the wall, then gestured to the Knight.

Ralph destroyed the wall. A quarry with a similar structure to when they first arrived at the 45th floor appeared.

“Have we come to the 44th floor?”

“No. We’re still on the 45th floor.”

“But didn’t we go up?”

The mine cart had tilted as it climbed the uphill path, causing everyone to lean toward the back of the cart, yet they were still on the 45th floor?

When Ralph expressed his confusion, Olive casually shrugged her shoulders.

“Labyrinths are originally like this.”

The newly arrived quarry also had a hidden path to another route on the same floor. To put it simply, a path leading to the standard route. Olive opened the door locked from inside to secure the path and boarded the mine cart again.

The mine cart moved slowly, but faster than a person walking and much faster than traveling through the complex tunnels.

Just when they thought they would pass through the void darkness again, another tunnel appeared. Olive, who had been staring at the magic map the entire time on the mine cart, snapped her fingers.

“Aha.”

“Did you figure something out?”

“We’ve arrived at the 44th floor now. You know that strangely dark area? Even goggles with night vision function and the Princess and Zero’s eyes can’t see anything there. It seems like the area changes when we pass through there.”

Olive spread out the magic map to help the party understand.

“We boarded the mine cart from the leader’s chamber, the place we stopped in the middle is here. Our current location is here. But even though the mine cart moved through a shortcut, the travel time was too short.”

“The labyrinth has distorted time and space. If the strange darkness we passed through was actually passing through distorted space, that would make sense.”

The 44th floor was also a mining site. The group broke through the path to the standard route and boarded the mine cart. The mine cart passed through the void darkness again. No. The distorted space.

“What would happen if we got off the mine cart here?”

“Count, you could experiment with that.”

“I’ll leave that honor to Olive.”

“Don’t do anything dangerous.”

Count Randy seemed curious about the distorted space and kept looking around. Not that there was anything to see. Not because it was dark, but because nothing existed there.

“Hmm.”

The Loyal Servant of Darkness smiled slightly, seemingly pleased whether it was just darkness or appeared dark due to emptiness.

Seeing Ying’s smile, Serena’s anxiety that had been creeping up since before boarding the mine cart disappeared.

‘It must not be dangerous.’

The mine cart stopped at another quarry. By this point, Serena could roughly guess the mine cart’s travel route.

“It seems to visit the quarries of each floor.”

Using this mine cart, they could comfortably visit only the prime quarries of the 11th layer without any combat. It sounded very convenient, but even after leaving the 11th layer, they still had to climb 40 floors.

“Without the Princess, it would be like a picture of a cake, wouldn’t it?”

“That’s not necessarily true. This layer has many very rare, priceless precious minerals. Just mining those minerals would greatly help Huji’s finances.”

Mining a few minerals would help a nation’s finances? Serena perked up her ears.

“Were there such rare minerals?”

“Yes. Wasn’t Ying’s dagger made from special iron? I saw similar or even rarer iron ore and ingots embedded in chunks. It’s more than worth coming down to the 40th floor of the labyrinth.”

“Iron exactly like this? And even better iron?”

Olive was surprised and pulled out the dagger she had borrowed from Ying. As the labyrinth floors got deeper, monsters began deflecting ordinary weapons. It was difficult to damage monsters without magically enchanted weapons.

While Ralph’s magic sword and Count Alpha’s magic axe were active, the Archer’s dagger, which had no magic enchantments, was still in active service. This was all because they were made from special iron.

Such iron was embedded in the ground in ingot form? The gems that had caught the party’s attention weren’t the real treasure. The real treasure of the 11th layer was something else.

‘You see as much as you know.’

The knowledgeable Alchemist was very reliable. Always reliable, but especially reliable today.

The Guide protested, seemingly upset about missing treasure right before her eyes.

“Why are you telling us this now!”

“I thought Olive would pick out only the ingots and pocket them.”

“Damn! That’s correct! Alchemist!”

Hit so precisely that she couldn’t shamelessly play dumb, Olive groaned and showed her regret.

At the next quarry, Olive searched for iron ingots with fire in her eyes. But perhaps because the floor was lower, only gems sparkled.

“Tch.”

Olive clicked her tongue and boarded the mine cart. Clatter clatter, the mine cart moved, but somehow the slope was getting steeper.

The party naturally leaned toward the back of the mine cart.

“It’s dangerous if the weight concentrates on one side. Count Alpha, Count Ralph. Please hold steady at the front of the mine cart.”

“Understood.”

The two who weighed the most among the group due to their armor held steady at the front of the mine cart.

Even so, the slope showed no signs of becoming gentler, and the end of the tracks was nowhere in sight. The mine cart just kept going up, maintaining its constant clatter clatter speed.

“This is strange. Will monsters appear? Zero.”

At the Guide’s warning, Ying prepared to shoot arrows at any moment. When Serena tried to prepare magic, Olive shook her head.

“Princess, focus on maintaining the mana field.”

“Do monsters appear even in situations like this?”

“Of course. I’ve ridden mine carts in layers similar to this before.”

Olive tapped the mine cart she and the group were riding.

“Back then, the mine cart was smaller than this one. It was also a mining type, so we opened lots of chests and everyone stuffed gems and raw stones tightly into their bags before taking the shortcut mine cart. But suddenly we heard crows cawing from somewhere.”

Caw.

Olive imitated the sound of crows cawing. It was quite good.

“The crow bastards swarmed like storm clouds and only targeted our bags. The Archer and mage resisted, but arrows were almost running out and mana was depleted. The crow bastards were damn fast. In the end, except for really well-hidden gems, we were completely robbed. Some people even had their equipment stolen.”

“How could that be! What a waste.”

“Tell me about it. There was this girl with really, really pretty eyes that I was trying to hit on after work, but she got her eye plucked out and became one-eyed. Ah.”

Olive, who had been excitedly telling her story, realized the presence of the Princess who only had one eye and shut her mouth.

Serena didn’t really mind, but Olive, feeling guilty, desperately tried to take back her words.

“Of course, Princess, your eye is prettier. I’ve never seen orange eyes in my life. Mysterious, noble, and cat eyes are really pretty, but Princess, your eye is just like a cat’s. Eyes that call for kisses.”

When people are in a hurry, they first say what they usually think about or words that are habitual.

Olive had hit on the Princess. Serena found this more unpleasant.

“I’m really fine.”

Count Randy, noticing his lord’s uncomfortable mood, changed the subject.

“What happened to the adventurer who lost an eye to the crows?”

“Since having one eye is very inconvenient~ she quit being an adventurer and opened a tavern. Business was good, but she whined about some romantic failures and closed the shop. I don’t know what happened after that.”

Olive didn’t say it, but everyone on the mine cart thought the same thing.

‘She got dumped.’

Serena mourned for the victim who fell to the wind of the wilderness. Others similarly mourned for the victim, but the perpetrator Olive shamelessly pretended not to know.

“The story’s over but we’re still going up? Is the space not distorted?”

“We’ve climbed quite a lot. We’re still going up.”

“At this rate, aren’t we going to reach the 1st floor?”

The Guide grinned, hoping that would really happen. Serena also spoke up to agree.

“That would be nice.”

Being able to reach the 45th floor of the labyrinth without a teleportation room. Wasn’t that the best shortcut?

Though it was unlikely, everyone was agreeing that they hoped it would happen, when the Archer, who had been preparing to shoot arrows the whole time, put away her weapon.

“The summit.”

“Oh, have we reached the top?”

As the Archer said, the end of the tracks that had been climbing endlessly came into view. The tracks didn’t break off after reaching the peak but continued downward.

Serena looked at the angle of the tracks that curved downward from the peak and opened her one eye wide.

‘What is that? Isn’t that a fall?’

The tracks curved at nearly 90 degrees. At this angle, there was a high possibility that the mine cart would derail and crash. Serena urgently called Ying and Olive.

“Isn’t this dangerous?”

“It’s fine. The tracks aren’t broken, they’re connected. The mine cart won’t crash.”

“Hold on tight.”

Clatter clatter. The closer the mine cart got to the summit, the more roughly the Princess’s heart beat. Serena gritted her teeth and gripped the mine cart. Olive and Ying’s arms wrapped around her waist and shoulders like safety belts.

So what! It was just as scary anyway!

“You heard Zero! Everyone hold on tight!”

The mine cart that reached the summit came to a stop. After pausing for a moment, it raced down the tracks at a terrifying speed. Serena screamed desperately while maintaining her mana field.

“Kyaaaaaaaaaah!”

“Princess! Close your mouth! You’ll bite your tongue!”

As if the slow speed up until now had been just a stepping stone for climbing up, the mine cart plunged downward at a terrifying velocity.

No one questioned why they were going down when they needed to go up. Because in the Labyrinth, you shouldn’t question such things.

Down they went, then maintaining speed they climbed up, then down again. It was fortunate there were no 360-degree rotation sections. Since the mana field didn’t block gravity, Serena had to feel the gravitational force with her entire body.

What felt like an hour to Serena and one minute to Olive passed. The mine cart’s speed, which had proven this was the Labyrinth by not derailing from the tracks, began to slow down.

“I think we’ve arrived?”

“Have we arrived?”

Count Alpha, who had kept his eyes tightly shut and only held onto the mine cart, cautiously opened his eyes. Conversely, Ralph, who hadn’t blinked once during the mine cart’s frenzied descent, closed and opened his stinging eyes.

“We’ve definitely arrived!”

The mine cart, gradually reducing its speed, stopped once again in what appeared to be a stone quarry-like space. The tracks showed their end without continuing further. They had reached the terminal.

“That was really fun! Even without the tracks breaking in the middle, it can be this thrillingly entertaining!”

The Young Knight was deeply satisfied. If there had been a mine cart review site, he would have logged in to leave a 5-star rating.

“Cough, cough.”

Serena coughed because her throat was sore from screaming too much at the beginning of the descent. Count Randy moved stiffly, his muscles apparently shocked from being too tense.

“It’s fortunate the tracks didn’t break.”

Count Alpha also hurriedly got off the mine cart and closed his eyes tightly. It seemed his stomach had turned from encountering this civilization for the first time in his life.

The three exhausted people drank water and rested. The three fine people broke through destructible walls to create shortcuts. Olive, who had exited the stone quarry with Ralph, waved the magic map.

“Aha. I thought it was strange that the 42nd Floor was the end, but this connects to the stairs on the 41st Floor that we didn’t visit.”

“It’s disappointing the mine cart doesn’t go directly to the 41st Floor.”

“But if we go up, we’ll be close to the shortcut too. Where is that.”

‘Is this strategy session over now?’

Having ridden a roller coaster that she hadn’t enjoyed even in her previous life, Serena’s mind was in a daze. She wanted to quickly return to the lobby, soak her body in the hot springs, and soothe her startled body and mind.

While Serena was trying to calm her wildly beating heart from the shock, Olive said something unbelievable.

“Great! Then let’s go back and collect the earthworm!”

“What did you say?”

Serena asked back, not just surprised but frightened. Olive shrugged her shoulders.

“Since we can go comfortably, we should go back and collect it. If we leave it, it’ll disappear due to the Labyrinth’s restoration power.”

Serena clenched her fists and gritted her teeth. She wanted to argue back, but it was so extremely logical that it was impossible.

In a situation where every single resource was precious, abandoning a resource that only needed to be retrieved was something neither the gamer’s soul nor the princess’s soul would allow.

‘Right, Serena. Just ride it. It’s just a roller coaster. It’s much better than tying people to tracks and asking if they want to keep going.’

“Ugh.”

In the end, Serena let out a groan and boarded the mine cart again that she had barely managed to get off. The Alchemist and Imperial Knight couldn’t bring themselves to object when the princess took the lead.

“Then let’s depart to retrieve the earthworm!”

Clatter clatter. The mine cart departed vigorously.

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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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