Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 315

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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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315. Safe Return

Serena fell asleep like fainting, without even dreaming.

She thought she would have nightmares after being tormented by spirits all night, but it was unexpected.

The sleeping princess woke up because it was noisy outside the capsule.

Her eyelids were still heavy, but among the noisy voices, the clear voice of a boy who hadn’t reached puberty yet forcibly woke Serena up.

‘Old Man? Has the gardener returned?’

Serena hesitated as she tried to open the capsule bed door and go out. Once bitten by a snake, one fears even a coiled rope.

This wasn’t a mountain hut in the snowy mountains, and she knew the person making noise outside the door was a living person, yet she hesitated to open the door.

‘I really got badly scared. For a while, I’ll be afraid to open doors when I hear voices outside.’

This time too, her guard was lowered because it was Old Man’s voice, but if she had heard Philia or Seraph’s voices, she might have cracked the door open to check the situation outside.

Serena carefully opened the capsule bed door and went out.

The people who had gone to the 5th floor garden of Heuji’s Labyrinth were laying out the spoils they obtained from their perfect conquest.

Since the 5th floor had a garden concept, medicinal herbs and poisonous plants were the main items. Especially Count Randy gazed at the blooming magic herbs as if they were about half as lovely as Philia.

“So, I said this is a perfect conquest. I said we searched everywhere there was to search, but the Count and young master kept insisting we needed to explore more. So I staked my neck and said it. Let’s go back. If this isn’t a perfect conquest, I’ll stake my neck!”

Olive was getting a shoulder massage from Lavenda while bragging about what happened on the 5th floor.

The Mysterious Stranger smiled a customer service smile while reacting to Olive’s words. Whether the story was interesting or not, even the reaction wasn’t purely professional.

“Don’t tell me you really staked your life?”

“I said they could put a collar around my neck!”

‘So she didn’t stake her life.’

The Guide didn’t stake her life, even as a joke. It wasn’t just because she was attached to life, but more because she refrained from speaking carelessly in case what she said might actually happen.

Olive, who couldn’t change her habits and was flirting with the Mysterious Stranger, noticed Serena had gotten up and brightened.

“Princess! It was perfectly conquered, right?”

“Phew. We couldn’t see how much of a fuss Olive was making, so we wanted to go around one more time but couldn’t. It’s a perfect conquest, right?”

“What, go around again? We have a magic map so we didn’t need to search so thoroughly! Look! We even found another code! Look!”

Olive took out the magic map and spread it, waving it around. The plant distribution of the 5th floor was perfectly recorded.

“It’s a perfect conquest, right?”

Olive’s green olive-colored eyes sparkled with expectation. Serena nodded and gave the answer the Guide wanted to hear.

“Yes. The 5th floor has been perfectly conquered.”

“Yes!”

Olive clenched both fists and looked up at the cave ceiling, shouting in triumph.

In contrast to Olive, Old Man’s reaction was calm. Rather, he looked at Olive with eyes that seemed to find her pathetic.

‘Only Olive demanded to stop exploration, so Grey and Count Randy probably didn’t bet anything.’

“Princess~ We perfectly conquered it, but isn’t the Minotaur God going to praise us for doing well~?”

After finishing her triumph, Olive swayed her body in front of Serena with a coquettish voice. The Guide danced better than Sesi.

“Do not dare make demands first to the great one from heaven.”

“Yes~”

Serena currently had 21 shop coins. Since she hadn’t caught the 44th floor Labyrinth Rat Leader, it would be 22 if she did.

She had collected quite a lot, but if she went shopping right after a perfect conquest, she would be moving as Olive wanted.

‘I should wait an appropriate amount of time. Or I could save them until something necessary comes up.’

Currently, there were no facilities needed in the lobby. Prince Willow was singing the oven song, but it wasn’t a necessary item.

‘For the Prince’s sake, expanding the lobby would be better than the kitchen.’

After purchasing exercise equipment and periodically installing other equipment in the lobby, the Prince’s lack of exercise had improved a lot.

Still, the more space there was to move around, the better.

Serena secretly set her sights on lobby expansion as the next miracle.

“Count, would you like to check the musk?”

“Let me see. Hmm, excellent. Do you know how to prepare it?”

“Of course!”

Low pounded his large chest to express confidence. He shouldered the musk deer to prepare it. Hana was hovering around Low.

“But which part of the deer is musk used from? I thought it was the antlers, but this one doesn’t have antlers.”

Hana, who lacked common sense and basic knowledge, had apparently heard that deer antlers were used as medicine, so she pointed at the musk deer’s plain head.

“Right? It doesn’t have antlers? Do they use the protruding teeth as medicine?”

Sesi also pointed at the deer alongside her sister. Duri, wanting to join her family, randomly put her face against the deer’s rump and sniffed, then wrinkled her face.

Low adjusted the musk deer on his shoulder and replied.

“Don’t you guys know that? Musk is deer balls.”

“Balls….”

“Balls?”

“Huh?”

Duri had no thoughts, and the Odd Sisters’ eyes shook like small boats caught in a storm.

“Right. Musk deer balls are musk.”

“They eat deer balls as medicine? Ugh. Sesi, stay strong.”

“I don’t want to. I don’t want to eat deer balls!”

Sesi turned pale and shook her head vigorously. At the same time, she desperately appealed silently to the Alchemist.

Count Randy cleared his throat and joined the conversation.

“Ahem. Low, that’s wrong.”

“Huh? It’s not medicine you eat but medicine you smell?”

“I don’t want to smell balls either!”

Count Randy corrected the wrong part of the Hunter and sisters’ conversation with a serious face.

“Musk is obtained by harvesting the musk sac adjacent to the reproductive organs, not the reproductive organs themselves. The reproductive organs are separate. Here, look.”

“Ah, I know that. But since that part gets discarded, my brother and I just casually called it deer balls.”

Count Randy pointed to the locations of the musk sac and reproductive organs while indicating the musk deer that Low had spread out to show its belly.

Since the two were very close, Sesi squeezed her eyes shut and shouted.

“It’s balls! There’s no difference!”

“Sesi. You can’t say organs with different functions are the same. The reproductive organs clearly exist for reproductive activity, and this musk sac is for producing scent.”

Low shouldered the musk deer again and roughly patted Sesi’s head.

“Hey. It’s expensive, so bear with it and eat it. From what I heard roughly, all the other ingredients are precious too.”

The Alchemist kindly recited the ingredients that would go in.

“I’m thinking of adding Minotaur gallstones and horns, giant earthworm gastrolith, and teeth. Since they’re hard-to-obtain ingredients, the medicinal effect will be better.”

“You heard? They’re all expensive.”

Sesi’s crumpled face showed no signs of smoothing out. Sesi, who didn’t know much, asked again.

“What are gallstones and gastroliths?”

“Cough. Gastroliths are stones that Grandmother Krom removed when preparing the earthworms. Gallstones are probably similar stones that form inside the body, right?”

“I’m done with all that. Earthworms are so tiresome.”

The Undead shook his head, saying the simple repetitive labor was boring. Sesi, who had also learned what gallstones and gastroliths were, hurriedly put her hands over her vital points.

“I can just press acupuncture points. I don’t need expensive medicine.”

Lavenda knocked Sesi’s hands away.

“It’s dangerous, so no.”

“Waaah!”

The genius Alchemist with a renowned reputation across the continent was going to create medicine using rare medicinal materials with otherworldly knowledge, but tears wouldn’t stop flowing from Sesi’s eyes.

Considering that not long ago she was a vagrant who had to worry about her next meal, it was a complaint born of being overwhelmed by good fortune.

But Serena didn’t get angry. She thought positively.

‘The fact that she’s complaining means trust has built up. It’s better than trembling in anxiety about being abandoned for being useless.’

If it had been Sesi from a few days ago, she would have secretly complained only to her sister Hana and forced herself to take the medicine.

Going to the snowy mountains together to obtain ingredients for the medicine she would take seemed to have become the foundation of trust.

Sesi’s tears stopped surprisingly quickly. Something Count Randy said while explaining how precious the ingredients were proved effective.

“Among the ingredients, gold is the cheapest.”

“Sniff, gold goes in the medicine too?”

“Pills are convenient to carry, so I’ll make them into pills and coat them with gold leaf at the end. They’ll sparkle and you’ll feel like you’re eating golden beads.”

“Hehehe, really?”

Count Randy took out gold leaf, one of the alchemical ingredients, and showed it to Sesi.

When the Alchemist said he would gild the medicine once completed, Sesi stopped crying and smiled brightly.

“Does Sesi like gold?”

“Hehe, yes! I like gems too!”

“I understand. I’ll embed gems in Sesi’s armor.”

Count Randy pointed to the unidentified leather piled up in the workshop and laughed. There was enough to make armor for all members of both the 1st and 2nd assault teams and still have plenty left over.

“Count, why did you suddenly bring out the Giant Earthworm leather?”

The Giant Earthworm that had been wearing the treasure chest like a crown was so large that even cutting out only the best parts of its hide filled the spatial storage chest completely.

According to the Alchemist, Giant Earthworm leather was sturdy and tough, with excellent elemental defense making it great armor material, but he couldn’t make armor due to lack of other subsidiary materials.

“Haha, it requires a lot of cash so I was planning to craft it bit by bit.”

The Alchemist’s lips twitched upward.

“Since we have the Money Tree and have gathered quite a bit of materials, I’m thinking of making armor for the assault team at least.”

“Earthworm leather?”

Sesi’s vivid blue eyes wavered again. Sesi made a tearful face but didn’t cry, instead clasping her hands together and pleading to the Alchemist.

“You’re not lying about adding gems, right?”

“It’s real.”

“Add some for me too! It’s unfair if only Sesi gets gems!”

“Of course I’ll add gems to Hana’s armor too.”

“Hehe, I’m excited!”

The Alchemist wasn’t being deceptive. Magic stones and gems were necessary to enchant defensive equipment.

‘Though they’ll still get sliced clean through by Sword Master aura.’

Serena massaged her tired eyes and opened her left eye. Hearing Count Randy’s words reminded her of something.

‘I should upgrade the Money Tree.’

1 Shop Coin for the first upgrade, 2 Shop Coins for the second upgrade. Serena used a total of 3 Shop Coins to upgrade the Money Tree.

Since there were many uses for cash, it was an investment thinking of the future.

For a brief moment she thought about whether she should widely announce this upgrade to the lobby people to show off, but she didn’t.

If someone mentioned that more gold coins seemed to be dropping than before, it wouldn’t be too late to say they had noticed the Labyrinth God’s blessing.

‘What can they do if they don’t believe me? I’m the one saying it.’

On the 5th Floor, there were facilities that could be upgraded besides the orchard trees.

First, she could expand the orchard itself to add trees purchased from the shop. The orchard had a built-in function that accelerated the restoration speed of tree fruits.

‘If I could easily travel back and forth to the 5th Floor, I’d expand the orchard and move the trees from the lobby to the orchard.’

Serena looked at other facilities with regret. The flower clock could also be upgraded.

‘Count Randy said the flower clock has quite a few rare and useful medicinal herbs and poisonous plants. Since he’s never said they’re insufficient, I probably don’t need to upgrade it.’

The beehive that provided brief sweet respite to the party trapped in the labyrinth could naturally be upgraded. Since they weren’t going to bathe in honey, she similarly ruled it out as a candidate.

With her right eye, the only window to see the world, closed, drowsiness washed over her again.

The garden team must have returned safely too, Serena touched the statue and entered the capsule bed, closing both eyes.

She was so tired that it seemed like she would sleep deeply without dreaming again this time.

“Princess! Wake up! Wake up! Something’s wrong with the Prince!”

Krom knocked on Serena’s capsule bed door.

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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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