Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 340

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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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340. No News at All

Despite a dangerous moment in the middle, Serena successfully smuggled the sword into the cell.

‘Smuggling, success!’

Having brought a forbidden weapon into the cell, there were countless things to experiment with and confirm.

Would the guard give an out judgment if they saw the weapon, or would they just confiscate it?

How far could she hide it elsewhere without them finding out, and so on.

But Serena held back from these experiments.

‘The Count must have visited Olive and Ying too. He said he’d apply for visits daily, so let’s stay quiet until tomorrow.’

The Princess and Knight hid the smuggled weapon under the straw mat. Then they began their work.

What kind of work, you ask?

“Shall I start first? I’ll keep watch.”

“Yes! Leave it to me!”

It was digging out loose stone crevices to extract stones. Ralph enthusiastically scraped at the stone crevices with the dagger he’d received during the visit.

Thanks to staying quiet yesterday, Serena and Ralph had two more chances to experiment.

Serena decided to use this opportunity for cell judgment rather than weapon judgment.

If they could move to the adjacent cell, they could learn an important fact.

‘Whether being in a different cell counts as out or not.’

This was crucial information for escaping from prison.

Since entering the guard’s sight range meant automatic out and return to the cell, this was more important than the weapon smuggling experiment.

“Huff. Huff.”

Ralph blew away the stone dust—whether it was lime, cement, or concrete that filled the stone cracks—with his mouth. Then he scraped the stone crevices with the dagger again.

Perhaps because the tool was good, the work progressed faster than the previous attempt.

“Count Ralph. Let’s switch now.”

“Please wait just a little longer. I think it’ll be finished if I do just a bit more.”

Only after this similar conversation was repeated ten times did Ralph finally step away from the stone wall. He smiled with relief, his face covered in stone dust.

“It’s all done! I think the stone will come out!”

“In the end, didn’t you do it all by yourself?”

When Serena scolded Ralph, the knight’s gaze, which had been proud, turned to the floor.

“I’m sorry. But it wasn’t difficult! It was actually a bit fun!”

Finding enjoyment in the escape process. Truly befitting someone who handled positive thinking in the Lobby.

Clank clank clank.

Before they knew it, night had fallen, and the guard patrolled the darkened prison corridor, shining their light.

As soon as the guard passed, Serena and Ralph moved to extract the stone from the wall.

Though they’d scraped out many crevices, the stone chunk was large and the crevices narrow, making extracting the stone quite difficult.

However, Serena and Ralph didn’t give up and kept trying, eventually remembering the saying “if pulling doesn’t work, try pushing” and succeeded in pushing the stone out.

The cell on the side where the hole appeared in the wall was to the east, so they couldn’t see inside when moving to the visitation room.

So they were wary that monsters might enter through the hole, but perhaps it was needless worry. Nothing came through the hole.

“Is anyone there?”

Ralph called out toward the hole. There was no answer.

It seemed there was neither the priest who knew the treasure island’s location nor any ordinary neighbors.

“I’ll go in first— oh no. It’s too narrow.”

The hole in the wall created by the removed stone was too narrow for Ralph in full armor to crawl through.

“Please wait a moment. I’ll remove my armor.”

“No. Considerable time has already passed removing the stone. Let me go check.”

“What? That’s too dangerous! There was no answer, but who knows what might be there.”

“It’s fine. Even though we made such a commotion, wasn’t the adjacent room quiet? It’s probably an empty cell.”

“Did we make a commotion? I thought we scraped the wall without making noise, but was it noisy from the next room?”

Ralph questioned the Princess’s words. Serena clicked her tongue inwardly.

‘Oh no.’

The two making a commotion and being noisy had happened during the first attempt.

Fortunately, Ralph didn’t suspect Serena’s words.

“True. If someone was there, they would have reacted from when the stone started being pushed out of the wall. But please be careful.”

Serena infused magic power into magic paper and wrote an ice arrow spell so she could attack immediately if needed.

Holding the magic paper ready to tear at any moment, she stuck her head into the hole.

Crawling a little, she immediately hit the stone they’d pushed out. Serena used all her strength to push the stone further and emerged from the hole.

The Princess had arrived at the adjacent cell!

Since carelessness was forbidden in the labyrinth, Serena immediately surveyed the interior of the adjacent cell with her eyes blessed by the Deity of Darkness as soon as she stood up.

The cell was completely empty.

‘Phew.’

“It’s empty.”

“Thank goodness!”

The structure of the adjacent cell was identical to the cell where Serena and Ralph were imprisoned.

Serena picked up the straw mat on the floor and covered the stone chunk extracted from the wall and the hole in the wall.

“You cover the hole with the straw mat too.”

“Aren’t you coming back?”

“I want to confirm the guard’s reaction when a prisoner is in a different cell. I’ll investigate this cell while waiting.”

“Understood. And… please be careful!”

Even with the thick stone wall between them, the knight’s concern for the Princess was vividly conveyed.

Serena placed her hand on the cool stone wall and smiled bitterly.

“Don’t worry. No matter what happens, I’ll be fine.”

‘At least inside the labyrinth.’

Serena removed her hand from the stone and began investigating the cell in earnest.

Just as when she’d briefly looked around, there wasn’t much of anything special.

One toilet, two straw mats. Serena wasn’t sure, but probably bars that could be destroyed from inside.

Since there were no treasure chests or traps either, Serena’s expression became listless.

As Serena was halfheartedly looking around the cell, her eye caught something.

‘This is.’

It was a very fine scratch on the stone wall.

It was only visible because the cell was dark after lights-out and Serena was blessed by the Deity of Darkness. If the cell had been bright, it would have been too fine to notice.

It wasn’t an ordinary scratch. One, two, three, four. A total of four sticks tilted at the same angle, with one line drawn through all four lines.

If Serena wasn’t mistaken, it was a counting mark.

‘In East Asian countries they usually use the character for “correct” for tallying, but in the West they use something like this.’

Without going far, similar marks occupied the wall surfaces in the Lobby too.

Each day that passed, the Lobby administrator added one line to the wall.

Each time a line was added day by day, Serena recalled the final moments of the Mysterious Stranger who had remained alone in the Lobby, and her heart grew cold.

‘Did the owner here stay for 5 days? No, I can’t be certain someone was here. This might just be basic decoration.’

If it had been left by the cell’s previous owner, it would have disappeared due to the labyrinth’s restorative power.

Like bloodstains or the skull floating in the sewers, it seemed to be part of the labyrinth’s interior design.

Clank clank clank.

The sound of the guard’s footsteps they’d been waiting for could be heard. Serena swallowed dryly.

‘Now. Look at me!’

Serena didn’t hide but stood boldly in the middle of the cell with both arms spread wide.

How would the guard react upon seeing Serena in the adjacent room?

In the quiet prison that had fallen to night, the guard’s footsteps and Serena’s heartbeat mixed together.

Unlike the footsteps with their regular intervals, her heartbeat grew faster and faster.

‘Here they come!’

Finally, the guard of Heuji’s Labyrinth prison arrived in front of the cell where Serena was. The guard’s light pierced through the bars and illuminated the inside of the cell.

Though Serena was caught in the light beam whose range was distinct in the darkness, the guard turned their eyes away and walked forward.

They had ignored Serena in the cell.

‘Great! Even if it’s a different cell, as long as we stay inside a cell, it’ll be fine!’

Just as she was celebrating the significantly reduced escape difficulty, an unexpected turn occurred.

Tweeeeet-!

A guard who saw Ralph alone in the cell blew his whistle. The cause was clear.

‘Insufficient prisoner count!’

Just as they say you may not know where someone sits but you know where they’re missing, the guards seemed to be the same way.

Now that the loud whistle sound was heard, it was time for red light to flash throughout the prison. But no matter how long she waited, no red light flashed.

Clank clank clank.

Instead, a guard came running from the direction of the iron door, and the two began patrolling together.

The patrol after blowing the whistle was different from before. The guards formed pairs and patrolled the corridor at 1.5 times faster speed than before.

Though the range of their vision remained the same, since there were now two guards, their fields of view didn’t overlap.

Unlike before when it was easy to attack by targeting the guard’s back, now she had to be careful not to be spotted by the other guard.

‘This has become troublesome. But I learned something good.’

The guards disappeared with quick steps. Serena entered the hole and returned to her original cell.

Even though the guard had blown the whistle, there was no X mark on the cell wall.

‘It’s not an out.’

Now that Serena had returned to the cell, what reaction would the guards show?

Though normal patrols occurred at 3-hour intervals, the guard who discovered the prisoner’s escape didn’t stop patrolling.

The pair of guards who had circled the rectangular Corridor of Wing 1 reached the cell where Serena and Ralph were.

In the darkness, the guard’s vision swept the interior of the cell. After confirming that both Serena and Ralph were in the cell, the guard blew the whistle again.

Tweeeeet-!

Clank clank. The guard’s steps slowed down. The guard who passed through the corridor like that didn’t return even after enough time for one round had passed. The patrol was finished.

“Count Ralph, take off your armor. This time you also need to come with me to the adjacent cell and wait for the guard.”

“Yes. Understood.”

The guard who came on patrol 3 hours later passed by the cell where Serena and Ralph were, saw the empty cell, and blew the whistle again. A new guard hurriedly ran over and joined his companion.

The two guards ignored Serena waving her hand through the bars and walked quickly around the corridor. Serena and Ralph returned to their original cell as soon as the guards left.

“It seems dangerous to enter the guard’s vision range. Showing ourselves so openly is suspicious.”

“I agree. But the guard couldn’t see us in the cell. Since there’s nowhere to hide here, we might need to move while hiding in other cells.”

“It would be nice if we could also go to the western cell, but this wall doesn’t have any loose stones. Should we still dig a crevice?”

“No. If it’s not a loose stone, I don’t think another cell will appear no matter how much we dig the wall.”

Breaking walls wouldn’t lead to adjacent rooms, and breaking floors or ceilings wouldn’t lead to other floors. This was a representative characteristic of the Labyrinth.

Loose stones were hints that this wall could be destroyed to reach the adjacent room. There would be no point in digging walls without loose stones.

“Since we haven’t rested properly yesterday or today, let’s rest now. Tomorrow we need to visit again and move in earnest, so it will be busy.”

Serena used her bag as a pillow and tried to sleep. Though she woke up every 3 hours due to the guards’ footsteps, she managed to get decent sleep and received breakfast.

Breakfast was white porridge. Yesterday’s lunch and dinner had steak, so the white porridge was unexpected.

“The Count must have forgotten to request special meals.”

“Or maybe he thought steak from morning would be too heavy.”

Since there was no food shortage and steak once a day was sufficient, Serena didn’t think deeply about it.

But when lunch was also white porridge, she was a bit flustered.

‘We haven’t had a visit yet? Are they meeting Olive or Ying first?’

She waited anxiously, but the group of guards didn’t come until dinner time.

“They must be unable to visit because they’re planning and executing an escape plan!”

Ralph showed optimistic expectations, but they bounced off Serena’s earlobes and didn’t reach her brain.

Serena’s anxiety grew when dinner was also white porridge.

The next day. Looking at the white porridge served for lunch, Ralph turned pale and said.

“Princess. There are only 4 days left now. It’s strange that there’s no news.”

“….”

“We need to make an escape plan by ourselves. That’s it! Since the guards can’t recognize us when we’re in the adjacent cell, how about moving to the adjacent cell? Then we can avoid the guards who come to execute the death sentence!”

Ralph sent a look seeking praise, apparently pleased with his brilliant idea. Serena patted the knight’s shoulder while gritting her teeth.

‘What if we starve to death? We can’t hide forever.’

Moreover, she still hadn’t grasped the rules of the 12th Layer.

If they were automatically moved to the guillotine on execution day, just like how they were automatically imprisoned upon entering the 12th Layer, it would be really troublesome.

Serena pondered deeply and decided on a course of action.

“Let’s wait for now.”

“What?”

The knight looked puzzled, but the Princess said no more.

The original plan was to wait until execution anyway. It had just changed from one day to one week.

“You have a plan, right?”

The young knight’s blind faith-filled gaze tormented Serena more painfully than poisonous thorns.

Enduring by ignoring the continuously distributed white porridge and eating the food they brought, the final night arrived.

In the quiet darkness, the Archer appeared.

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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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