Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 336

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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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336. The Second Rustling

“I’m sorry.”

The young knight looked down at the floor with his spirits completely crushed.

He was so dejected that he seemed even shorter than Serena.

The wall crevice that Ralph had excitedly dug into was restored to its original state when first discovered. However, the spoon that broke while digging the wall was not restored.

Fortunately, the summoned goblin’s dagger remained in their possession, but all its teeth had fallen out from being shoved into the stone crevice, making it useless as a weapon.

“It’s not your fault. You were focused on the work, so I should have alerted you to the guard’s approach.”

Serena honestly admitted her mistake and let out a light sigh.

“We were too complacent thinking it would be fine as long as we left the door roughly propped up after breaking it.”

“I did think anything would be okay as long as we didn’t leave the cell.”

“That couldn’t be right though.”

The princess and knight looked at each other and smiled bitterly.

“What should we do now? Should we continue digging the wall?”

“Do that. I’ll alert you when the guard comes.”

“Yes!”

Ralph began digging at the wall that had returned to its original state with the toothless dagger.

Serena sighed and sat close to the door, watching the corridor so she could immediately notice if a guard came.

‘There are still a few things left to experiment with. But experimenting doesn’t mean we can escape. How can we get out?’

She racked her not-so-good brain hard, but no brilliant ideas came to mind.

And so dinner time arrived. Despite failing at an escape attempt in front of the guard, meals were still distributed.

Ralph diligently dug at the wall with the wooden spoon he received anew along with the porridge.

The next patrol came along with the lights-out for the entire prison.

Serena created an orb of light. Thanks to the blessing she received from the Deity of Darkness, Serena could see well even in the dark, but the young knight needed a light source.

“Will it be okay if the guard sees this?”

“Well. I don’t know.”

In the prisons Serena knew from her past life, punishment was given for individual activities after lights-out.

Even in her past life, she lived far from prisons, so she wasn’t sure if it was real, but anyway, that’s how it was in the prisons she encountered in creative works.

There was no way to know how light orb magic would be judged in a labyrinth with a prison concept – not medieval, not a medieval fantasy world prison.

Serena steeled herself thinking this was also an experiment, but her heart softened seeing that freckled, innocent face.

‘Even if I’m fine because I regress when I die. What about Ralph who got caught up in my experiment?’

Based on experience from the previous loop, getting three strikes meant going straight to the guillotine.

Serena might be fine since she knew about regression and was experienced with death.

But what about Ralph’s feelings being dragged to the guillotine together?

Even if everything became nothing after regression, all the fear Ralph would feel from being fixed to the guillotine until the blade fell was real and genuine.

She couldn’t use Ralph’s constant readiness for death as an excuse.

‘Ralph prepared to die for justice and the weak. Being prepared for execution at the guillotine… who would make such a preparation.’

When Ralph realized he was fixed to the guillotine, he was truly terrified.

He was so frightened that the loud-voiced knight couldn’t make a sound and only moved his lips.

What Ralph was trying to say then – was it “Run away” or “Please save me”?

Serena never wanted to know the answer.

‘But if we get three strikes, I’ll find out the answer.’

She had experimented cheerfully up to two strikes, but facing the third strike made her heart heavy.

‘Get it together, Serena. Even if we don’t get three strikes, tomorrow means going to the guillotine.’

Serena continued her internal monologue.

‘It’s not confirmed to be execution. Maybe it’s not execution but something else like moving cells, so I might be scared for nothing.’

‘Steak was served from morning – would that be for moving cells!’

It wasn’t a conversation between angel Serena and devil Serena, but between scared Serena and equally scared Serena. Time passed without substance.

A headache came on. They say eye pain accompanies migraines, and both eyes hurt whether she had them or not.

Serena pressed acupoints good for eye health while calling Ralph.

There was time to have a conversation before the guard came.

“Count Ralph. Let me ask just one thing.”

“Yes!”

Ralph answered with the enthusiasm to tell even his underwear color if the princess asked.

The bigger and brighter Ralph’s smile, the deeper the shadow cast over Serena’s face.

“You must have seen X marks being added to the wall each time we failed at escape attempts.”

“Yes. It seems bad if they increase.”

Ralph expressed concern while looking at the X marks. It would be problematic if he didn’t notice when X’s were being added so obviously.

“Usually these things give three chances, don’t they? I think something bad will happen if one more X is added.”

Serena couldn’t look directly at Ralph and turned her head, biting her lips.

“Instant death according to labyrinth rules… something like that might happen. It’s just an example, but anything can happen in a labyrinth.”

“Ah. Then should we stop digging and wait for our party?”

Ralph’s hand, which had been diligently digging at the stone crevice, stopped. Serena waved her hand while still facing away from Ralph.

“But I have a feeling something similarly ominous will happen when tomorrow comes. I have that premonition.”

Since an apostle of the Labyrinth’s God was talking about ominous premonitions in the labyrinth, Ralph’s expression became serious.

Ralph covered the dug crevice with a mat and approached Serena.

“Do you think we need to escape before tomorrow comes, Princess?”

“Yes.”

“But we only have one escape attempt left?”

“That’s right. What would you like to do?”

The question was so difficult that wrinkles formed not only on Ralph’s brow but also his forehead.

“I… would prefer that you remain safe, Princess. If both options put you in danger, I’m sorry but I want to attempt escape.”

Ralph hesitantly revealed his reasoning.

“I don’t want to die doing nothing.”

It was a thought befitting someone who preferred physical hardship over mental strain. Serena, who disliked both physical and mental hardship, screamed internally.

“Even if the result is that I’m safe, but you end up in great trouble?”

The knight’s face, who had been speaking his inner thoughts in a small, hesitant voice, brightened. His voice grew louder again.

“It’s fine if you’re safe, Princess! I am your knight! I will give my life to protect you, justice, and the weak!”

Though they were just nice-sounding empty words, Serena felt sincerity from Ralph.

“I see… I won’t forget your resolve.”

“Yes! Then shall we dig again?”

“Do that. I’ll continue experimenting too.”

Even saying this, Ralph’s thoughts would change once fixed to the guillotine.

But Serena steeled herself to go straight to the guillotine, using the 100,000 people trapped in the labyrinth and the fact that everything would become nothing after regression as excuses.

‘Sorry, Ralph. But at least you won’t be lonely since we’re being executed together.’

Clank clank. In the darkness, the range of the eye-light appeared first, followed by moving armor.

The guard walked down the corridor, moving only his eyes to scan the inside of the cells.

The orb of light Serena created was caught in the guard’s eye-light range, but the guard didn’t blow his whistle. No red light flashed, and no X was added to the wall.

“The light orb seems fine even if discovered!”

Ralph, who had covered the dug wall with a mat and sat leaning against it to hide it with his body, was delighted.

‘Good.’

Serena began follow-up experiments.

“What I want is light to secure vision.”

Serena created a new orb of light separate from the one illuminating the cell. The light orb slipped through the barred door gap and stopped in front of the guard.

‘Will it react or not!’

An orb of light floating in the dark prison corridor after lights-out. It was extremely suspicious. In a real prison, the guard would have immediately blown his whistle.

But the guard passed by indifferently even seeing the light orb swaying in front of his face.

“That one got no reaction either!”

“I see.”

‘Does it not react at all if what’s in the corridor is inanimate?’

Here, the Princess decided to conduct one additional experiment while anticipating the results.

“What I desire is lightning that flows through iron!”

Serena created an electric arrow and fired it at the guard.

The guard hit by the electric arrow was paralyzed and stopped for a moment, then turned his head toward Serena’s direction.

Serena was caught within the guard’s sight range and the whistle sound rang out loudly.

Tweeeeeeet-!

At the same time, red light flashed throughout the entire prison that had been dark as night due to lights-out time.

‘Attacking guards is out. Is that obvious?’

She felt like she had courted death just to confirm something too obvious. But Serena shook her head, recalling the resolution she had made earlier.

‘I’ll thoroughly dig into the judgment rules.’

Beside the Princess shaking her head, Ralph, tied to the guillotine alongside her, struggled.

Perhaps less frightened thanks to their conversation in the cell, his struggles were violent and every word he spoke could be heard.

“Princess! Please escape!”

Ralph resisted by hitting his wrists and neck against the guillotine, but it was useless.

The Labyrinth’s mysterious guillotine didn’t budge even under impacts that should have broken it.

“Count Ralph. Don’t be afraid. I’m fine.”

“Princess!”

“And even if you forget.”

“Princess! Please use magic!”

“I will remember.”

Thud.

Serena remembered the sensation of her severed head rolling on the floor. It was more dizzying than the mine cart coaster on the 11th Layer.

The Princess staggered as she got up and immediately grabbed the deity by the collar.

Even knowing it was like casting pearls before swine, she was an ignorant human who couldn’t help but repeat the same action.

“This isn’t right!”

Serena excitedly shook the deity like someone who couldn’t see straight, then imitated the Guide’s way of speaking.

“Hey!”

The heavenly deity didn’t become angry or displeased even when a mere earthly being grabbed and shook him by the collar.

He simply gazed at the human with crimson eyes whose emotions couldn’t be read.

Though she wanted to beat the Minotaur God and cut his neck just like what she had suffered, he was a deity and she was human.

Serena cleared the impious imagination from her mind that was being read in real-time and did what she couldn’t do last time.

“Is House Huaim truly your descendant?”

“That’s right.”

The deity confirmed as truth a hypothesis that everyone expected but wasn’t 100% certain about.

‘Wow! Ancestor! Are you Grandmother or Grandfather?’

Serena swallowed her desire to be sarcastic.

Her list of questions to ask the Minotaur God filled more than a page of her notebook.

Since the private audience time was short, there was no time to waste.

‘Though it seems like I’ll meet him often on this layer.’

She had another ominous premonition. Serena shook her head vigorously and asked the next question.

“What exactly do you want from us?”

‘Us’ referred to Serena and her cousin Richard. The Minotaur God spoke in a gentle and affectionate voice.

“An ancestor doesn’t want much from his descendants. I hope you live happily and healthily.”

The deity’s answer was so absurd that even though this wasn’t reality, Serena’s blood pressure shot up.

‘Happy? Healthy?’

“Do we look happy and healthy to you right now?”

If that’s how they appeared, then the Minotaur God’s mysterious crimson eyes clearly weren’t functioning properly.

‘Or they’re just decorative.’

Fortunately, the Minotaur God’s crimson eyes weren’t decorative. The Minotaur God spoke in a bitter tone.

“I’m sorry that’s not the case.”

Serena regretted letting go of the deity’s collar too early and asked the next question.

“I dare not speak of heavenly affairs, but do you know that Death is angry?”

“I haven’t broken any heavenly rules. Death is being unreasonably angry.”

Perhaps because she learned he was her ancestor, the deity’s appearance of making excuses after doing wrong first overlapped with Richard, her sibling, and father.

‘Even if you limit it to inside the Labyrinth which is your domain! People are dying and coming back to life, so what’s unreasonable about it!’

Though blood is thicker than water and one’s arm bends inward, Serena sided with Death.

Whether the Princess’s inner thoughts displeased him or the allotted time was up, the Princess opened her eyes in the Lobby.

‘Tsk.’

It was time to voluntarily enter prison in order to break out.

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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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