Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 325

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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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325. There’s a Space in the Library Floor

There’s a secret room in the 26th Floor!

The Guide had investigated the lounge earlier but failed to discover it, yet Hana found it.

The Young Knight, who particularly loved secret rooms, sparkled his eyes.

“Miss Hana! That’s amazing!”

Perhaps displeased that a novice had accomplished what she couldn’t, Olive pouted her lips.

“You wouldn’t have known if there wasn’t a monster. It’s not that amazing.”

“Hmph. I can’t hear what a fraud who came three times and couldn’t find the secret room is saying.”

Hana boldly ran her mouth. Olive immediately reached out to punish the cheeky brat.

“You little thing!”

“Hehe! Too slow! Gueek!”

Olive’s slow reach had been a fake. The pickpocket caught by the Guide filled her round face with embarrassment and rubbed her palms together apologetically.

“When I was your age, I was careful not to run my mouth wrong and get stabbed, but what are you trusting to be so fearless? Back in my day…”

“I trust the Princess!”

“Ugh.”

There was a good reason for Hana’s boldness.

Olive just flicked Hana’s forehead once and released the pickpocket. A round bump rose on Hana’s round face and round forehead.

“Kyaaaa, it hurts.”

“Be grateful Zero didn’t order it. But anyway, a secret room~ How do we get in?”

This was the lounge where it was safe to have conversations. Olive hummed while carefully pressing various spots on the carpet with her foot.

“Stop that.”

Serena drew the party’s attention, which had been focused on the floor, to herself.

“Just because there’s a secret room doesn’t mean we must visit it. Our purpose for coming to the 8th Layer was to collect Labyrinth Book pages, and we’ve already achieved that goal. Let’s return to the lobby.”

At the suggestion to return, not only Olive and Ralph but even Count Alpha were surprised.

Unexpectedly, Hana, who had found the secret room, was calm, and Ying, as always, was expressionless and quietly indicated her intention to follow the Princess’s will.

“We’re returning after finding a secret room?”

“Since Princess’s safety is the top priority, I agree with returning to the lobby. However, how about we return and send a separate investigation team?”

“Princess. How to get in. Can’t we just find that and then go? Please?”

Olive acted cute while looking up at Serena. The Guide stamped her feet.

“If I go to the lobby like this, my stomach will burst and I won’t be able to sleep. Please. Like Compass said, I came three times and didn’t know there was a secret room. This really isn’t right.”

Olive lamented while hitting her own knee.

“At the very least, shouldn’t I find the method to enter the secret room to restore my honor? Please?”

‘What should I do.’

Currently the party was split exactly in half 3 to 3 between those who wanted to investigate the secret room and those who wanted to return to the lobby.

Since Ying and Hana from the return-to-lobby faction would follow Serena’s will, if Serena just changed her mind it would be 6 to 0. They would unanimously and peacefully investigate the method to enter the secret room.

‘If this were a game, I would have saved and entered right away.’

As I’ve realized many times, this is reality. I shouldn’t think of it as casually as a game.

‘But. I did save.’

Even if I die while entering the secret room, I’ll regress to just before coming to the 8th Layer.

Since there was no Noop’s baldy telling her to try hard not to die, Serena changed her mind.

“Fine. Let’s just investigate the entry method.”

‘It’s been a while since I died. Even if I die, I have a lot to do, so let’s go for now.’

If she died and had a private audience with the Minotaur God, she had so much to say it would fill one page of her notebook and move to the next.

“Yay! Princess is the best!”

Olive jumped around happily. Then she landed on all fours like a frog on the soft carpet.

“Is there a gap somewhere?”

The Guide began to thoroughly investigate the soft, long-haired carpet with her fingers like picking lice.

“Compass. Can’t you feel something like a door?”

“Can’t feel it.”

“Where’s the monster?”

“It seems to be down this way.”

“Really? The question is whether we encounter the monster right when we open the door, or after going a bit after opening the door.”

While conversing with Hana and confirming the monster’s location, Olive crawled around the floor. Her green olive-colored eyes were so serious it wasn’t funny, but rather looked cool.

The wind of the wilderness focused on work was cool. Count Alpha was also seriously cheering on the serious Olive when an unexpected person interfered.

“Miss Olive! That’s not right!”

Not Hana, not Ying. It was Ralph.

“What? Knight, are you daring to interfere in my area of expertise?”

The Guide, whose pride had been hurt once, glared. Ralph didn’t cower and shouted confidently.

“This is a library! Even if there’s a secret room in the floor, you should search through books, not the floor!”

Ralph had a reason to interfere. Olive’s round eyes became even rounder after hearing the Young Knight’s persuasive words.

“What? Ahh~”

The Guide who raised her upper body let her shoulders droop.

“Ugh! Knight seems to be right! How annoying! Get it together, Olive! You’re a deep-layer guide!”

Olive tapped and pinched her own cheeks while pumping herself up.

Count Alpha praised Ralph for not being intimidated by the expert’s authority.

“Count Hanson seems to know more about the labyrinth than I do.”

“Hehe, no. Since I can’t find minute gaps like Miss Olive, while thinking about how I would find a secret room, the stairs caught my eye.”

Since they found books to create stairs, maybe they could enter the secret room by finding a specific book.

It was a very simple idea, but that made it feel more logical.

“Ugh~ books again.”

Olive scrunched up her face and reluctantly walked toward the bookshelf.

“Bookshelf classification? Anyway, we found stairs by finding a misplaced book. What book should we look for for the secret room.”

The Guide looked at the books packed tightly in the bookshelf with an expression of being fed up.

Olive’s drooped shoulders showed no sign of rising.

“Ah~ I should have brought the Count.”

“Then we wouldn’t have discovered the secret room.”

“Ahem.”

When Hana shrugged her shoulders, Olive stuck out her lips like a duck’s bill.

“Tch. Anyway, I can’t find the book alone. Everyone search together.”

Since they couldn’t get enchanted by books again like last time, the party gathered to investigate the bookshelf.

Whether it changed over time or because they created the stairs, the bookshelf had different books than before.

Serena, though not as much as Olive, investigated the books with an equally severe headache.

‘It probably isn’t about finding a misplaced book. Then there’s something else. What could it be.’

This isn’t reality, but game knowledge helps in the labyrinth. Serena squeezed her memories of libraries and book-related puzzles she had entered in games in her previous life.

‘Making sentences or words with the first letters of book titles. Or puzzles arranging book spine pictures to connect were most common. Or placing books in the correct location.’

In case it was a book spine picture puzzle, she paid attention to the spine patterns, and in case it was first letter matching or sentence making, she carefully read the titles.

In case it was a puzzle about placing books in the correct position, she had to remember the book contents too.

Serena’s head sent warnings from excessive information input. As mentioned several times, Serena was not smart. Both in her previous and current life.

But for appearances, to maintain others’ misconceptions, she had to act like an intellectual, so her head hurt like it would split every time.

‘I want to just shout “Uwoong!” too!’

How simple would life be expressing all intentions with “Uwoong,” “Kkiwoong,” and “Keurreung.” At least there would be no need to tear her hair out while glaring at books.

The party spent even more time investigating the bookshelf than when dealing with Labyrinth Books. But they couldn’t achieve any notable results.

“Kyaaa, my head and eyes feel like they’ll burst! Let’s rest for a bit!”

Olive called the party to gather in the lounge. After saying to rest briefly, she herself investigated the armchair, wall-less fireplace, and desk.

Serena ate the chocolate chip cookies and mint tea provided in the lounge. Her head had hurt, but with sugar intake, she felt like she could live.

“This is delicious! I wish I had known those book monsters were weak enough to die from one dagger hit. Then I would have kept taking cookies.”

Hana regretted her past lack of courage, as the time hiding with not only her siblings but also the Leader’s corpse she had killed on the 7th Floor had been painful.

Serena helped Hana wrap chocolate chip cookies in a handkerchief for her siblings while shaking her head.

“As I said, the boundary between the lounge and outside is ambiguous here. If you, who cannot read, had wandered the 8th Layer, you would have been in great danger for not being able to read the rules. Hiding in a safe place with your siblings was a wise decision.”

“That would have been completely useless if the Princess hadn’t looked in the mirror~ You should know you and your siblings are alive thanks to the Princess.”

Olive, who had given up on investigating, was eating cookies when she tilted her head curiously.

“No wait. Didn’t you say back then that your ability told you to go that way? Do you feel anything now?”

“Nothing.”

“Maybe because your life isn’t in danger? Hmm.”

Olive pretended to ponder deeply, resting her chin on her hand. Cookie crumbs stuck to the corner of her mouth made her look less cool.

“It’s not making pictures with book spine patterns, and it’s not matching letters or finding positions either… There was nothing special about the desk and fireplace.”

The Guide seemed to have hit a wall. Still not ready to give up, she asked for others’ opinions.

“Zero. Don’t you have any ideas?”

“No.”

“Ugh. At this rate, all that’s left is to take out all the books from the bookshelf and investigate it.”

In the labyrinth, you couldn’t just casually pull out books.

Since it was a puzzle related to book arrangement, they had to carefully extract books to prevent the disaster of disrupting the arrangement and never being able to solve the puzzle.

‘Sometimes there were games that absolutely wouldn’t let you restore the original arrangement. If you were unlucky, you couldn’t even use guides.’

Guides like “move the first book two spaces to the right” became useless if the arrangement changed.

Serena cursed the developers while recalling several games that carried on this vicious tradition despite not being retro games.

‘May you stop at every floor on your way to your destination every time you take an elevator.’

It was quite a merciful curse compared to the developers’ malice.

“Everyone’s rested, right? Hey. Pull out some books for me. Hey.”

Olive gestured to the two close-combat specialists. At her light motion like calling a dog, Ralph moved immediately, and Count Alpha looked displeased but still moved.

“Stack them on the floor in order so you don’t mess up the sequence they were shelved in. Hey.”

“Please wait a moment!”

Hana, who had neatly wrapped cookies in a handkerchief, jumped up.

“There’s a place to investigate before pulling out books!”

“What? Don’t tell me you want to investigate the bookshelf in the back? That place only looks like that but you actually can’t go there.”

Olive was about to demonstrate the peculiar structure of the 26th Floor of the 8th Layer, but Hana was faster.

Hana stuck the golden dagger she received from Seraph into the floor. The highest-grade dagger proclaimed by the Genius Alchemist sank softly into the plush carpet.

“Haven’t looked at the floor under the carpet yet.”

Hana walked with the dagger embedded in the carpet. The highest-grade dagger proclaimed by the Genius Alchemist cut through the carpet more easily than butter left at room temperature.

“Waaaaah! What are you doing! The tiger’s coming!”

Startled Olive tried to stop Hana. Hana lifted her round face with a flash.

“Huh? Isn’t it fine as long as we don’t tear the books?”

An innocent question appeared on Hana’s round face. It was a question she asked because she genuinely didn’t know.

Speechless Olive looked at the Princess. Serena also couldn’t think of a proper answer and just blinked.

‘Is it okay to tear the carpet?’

Normally, you shouldn’t tear carpets in a library. It’s basic among basics and common sense among common sense.

But the Labyrinth Library usage rules said not to tear books, not that you shouldn’t tear carpets.

‘Is it… okay to tear it?’

Hana had already torn the carpet a little, but the terrifying Librarian of the Labyrinth Library didn’t come saying ‘You there!’

Serena spoke quietly in her uncertain state.

“It seems like it’s okay to tear it?”

“Then I’ll tear it!”

They say ignorance breeds courage. Hana cheerfully finished tearing the carpet. The Sealed Door hidden beneath the carpet glowed crimson.

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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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