Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 346

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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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346. It’s Both a Prison and a Labyrinth

The number of lines carved on the wall differed from Serena’s memory.

‘How is this possible? Why is the count different?’

The number had decreased from 5 to 4. She couldn’t understand the reason at all.

‘Is it because Krom was added? Since it’s basic decoration, did it change randomly? I really don’t know.’

The biggest variable was indeed Krom. But Krom was an undead who wasn’t even counted as a party member. It was hard to see Krom as a variable.

‘The only other difference would be the date of discovery.’

Suddenly, an eerie sensation pierced through her entire body from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet like a skewer.

Serena organized the chilling realization like an ice pick.

‘Last time I discovered it tomorrow. What if discovering it a day early reduced the number by one?’

As if it wasn’t basic prison decoration, but someone really marking the days of imprisonment.

Thinking that far, a different kind of shock from being pierced by the skewer of realization struck the princess. Rather than striking, it crushed Serena like a falling boulder.

‘Ugh. Don’t tell me there’s a neighboring resident.’

Serena looked around the cell again. She couldn’t see anyone other than herself and Ralph.

But this was a labyrinth. A mysterious space where people wandered through their own individual labyrinths.

‘Is there someone imprisoned here? Are those marks left by that person? If so, since this is death row.’

The neighboring resident’s life had only 3 days left.

“Ughh.”

Thinking about it, the groaning sound she had been suppressing inside burst out.

“Princess, what’s wrong?”

“Ugh, it’s nothing. I’ll meditate for a moment. Let me know if a guard comes.”

“Yes. Understood.”

Serena deliberately went to a corner of the prison, faced the wall, and lowered her head.

She wiggled her fingers and moved all the muscles in her face while mouthing every curse word she knew with just her lips.

‘Really? Does the person here have 3 days left? Is it because of me? Are they being executed because time passed due to my observation? Should I save them?’

Serena shook her head vigorously. The situation was urgent, but it was too hasty a thought.

‘Let’s calm down. Just because they’re imprisoned in the same area as me doesn’t mean they’re on death row.’

That wasn’t all.

‘If they are on death row, it means they killed someone after entering the labyrinth. There might be wrongful cases like ours, but what if they’re not wrongfully accused?’

No matter how she thought about it, there was too little information.

Just as bad cooking requires abundant and good ingredients, a bad head needs plenty of ‘material’ to think about, but Serena had nothing.

‘There’s no choice.’

The princess bit her lower lip and erased the tally marks on the wall from her mind.

With her own problems to worry about, she had to focus on what she could do right now.

Clank clank clank.

Finally, the awaited guard arrived.

The moving armor ignored Serena and Ralph in the adjacent cell despite having them in its field of vision and passed by.

“Can’t it see us, or are we definitely safe if we’re in a cell?”

Ralph’s question was answered immediately after the guard took a few more steps.

As soon as the guard saw the empty cell, it blew a whistle.

Tweeeeeeet-!

Up to this point, it was a reaction Serena had expected. But what happened next was unexpected even for the princess on her 4th prison attempt.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

“Aah! Princess!”

The cell and the entire building shook as if an earthquake had occurred.

Ralph enlarged his shield and protected Serena by putting her under it.

Rumble, thud thud! The sounds of stone scraping and colliding were as loud as thunder.

“Good heavens!”

Serena’s view was fixed on the cell floor due to the shield and Ralph, but she heard the knight’s shocked voice.

“What’s happening!”

Since she could restart if she died, Serena emerged from under the shield. The cell was intact for now.

The wall she had worried might collapse after removing a stone also remained standing and intact.

But everything was just intact.

Serena looked outside the cell visible through the barred door and opened her single eye so wide it seemed like it might pop out.

The scene outside the bars was moving. More precisely, both outside the bars and the cell were moving.

“Is the prison moving right now?”

“It seems so.”

After a while, the vibration stopped. Serena and Ralph gaped and looked outside through the bars.

Originally, the structure of the west wing where Serena and Ralph were located was very simple.

It was a labyrinth, but structured so you didn’t have to worry about getting lost.

But now that the cell structure had been reorganized, the west wing had transformed into a maze.

Guards patrolled the maze-like corridors in pairs of two.

Ralph, who had entered through a hole in the wall, returned with a tearful expression.

“This is terrible, Princess. Our cell has disappeared.”

Serena grabbed the back of her neck. Since she had no intention of leaving the original cell, they had left both their bags and Ralph’s armor in the original cell.

They had suddenly lost all their possessions and armor!

There wasn’t just one problem. Ralph, who had broken the barred door, gone outside, made a round, and returned, came back with eyes that looked like he was about to cry.

“The structure has completely changed. What about Krom? *sniff*”

Ralph, who had suddenly been separated from Krom – no, since Krom was dead and Serena and Ralph were alive, it was a half-and-half separation – sniffled.

‘No wonder the path was easy.’

Who would have imagined that after all prisoners left their cells, the prison structure would change into a maze to prevent escape. She really couldn’t have imagined it.

‘Ah~ I think there were games that changed structure to block invaders.’

Serena pressed her head and around her eyes while unfolding the magic map.

On the blank white paper, only the cell where the two were located and the surroundings Ralph had explored were drawn like an island rising in the middle of the sea.

‘Don’t tell me the prison got bigger when it became a maze? Please, anything but that.’

Terrifyingly, seeing the cells that had been lined up together now scattered separately, it was highly likely the prison had grown larger.

Serena ground her teeth and stood up abruptly.

“Let’s go out for now.”

“What? It’s dangerous. How about waiting here for the others to come?”

Actually, Serena was also curious about what would happen if they held out like this.

But there was one problem identical to the opinion Ralph had suggested in the previous cycle.

“We have no food, Count Ralph.”

“Ah!”

Since the guards didn’t know their current location, they couldn’t receive the white porridge served three times a day.

The food supplies to last until their companions arrived had also disappeared along with the cell.

“I’m sorry. I should have brought the bags.”

“It’s not your fault. I failed to consider the aftermath of the experiment.”

Where in the world would there be a prison that reorganizes its structure just because a prisoner escaped?

This was only possible because this was a labyrinth.

Should she have anticipated it since anything can happen in a labyrinth?

‘Who would prepare for something like this! If there is someone, they’d be a regressor or prophet!’

It was such a vicious gimmick that even a regressor wouldn’t know and would get caught in the first cycle.

“Anyway, let’s go out.”

‘If we get caught by guards, will we get an out judgment and automatically move to the original cell?’

Serena secretly hoped for that as she left the cell.

The cells that had been lined up were now scattered everywhere, forming a maze.

“Count Ralph. Did you happen to see the path the cells took when moving?”

“I’m sorry. The cell and outside were moving together, so it was chaotic.”

Not knowing where to start, she had hoped to at least determine a direction, but even that wasn’t feasible.

While considering whether to move along the wall, clanking footsteps could be heard.

“It’s a guard. Should we return to the cell?”

“…Yes. Prepare for battle.”

“Yes.”

Since the cell structure had changed, there was a high possibility that the judgment when in the cell had also changed.

Serena entered the cell both to confirm this and to experiment with something else.

Clank clank clank clank.

Starting to move in pairs of two, the footsteps became twice as loud as a guard appeared.

Eyes gleamed fiercely from a helmet with only eye holes. The eyes swept over the cell where the two were, but showed no reaction.

‘No reaction when in the cell is the same. Good, then.’

Serena tore the magic paper she had prepared in advance with mana and spells written on it.

It was fortunate beyond measure that she hadn’t forgotten it since it was hanging around her neck.

When she tore two pieces of paper, two electric arrows were generated and flew toward the guards, hitting one each.

Ralph waited at the door without rushing out, just as Serena had instructed beforehand.

The heads of the guards, freed from paralysis, turned toward the direction the electric arrows had come from—inside the cell.

One guard opened the barred door, while the other blew a whistle mounted on his helmet.

‘Is it two outs?’

The thought ended as the guard opened the barred door and attacked Ralph.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh, swish!

A terrifying iron ball covered with sharp spikes, bound by chains, spun around and struck the lioness’s face.

The young knight caught the fangs in the lioness’s open mouth with the chain. Using the force the guard applied to retrieve his flail, he delivered a body slam directly to the guard.

Crash. The guard fell with a loud noise. The armor couldn’t withstand the impact and disassembled.

‘We were discovered but it’s not out? It’s direct combat?’

It seemed that when the prison changed into a labyrinth, the existing unreasonable rules had changed.

‘Then it would be easier to just show ourselves leaving the cell from the start and fight.’

The former was a damned game with unreasonable rules and even forced execution, but the latter was familiar labyrinth conquest.

Her mind was busy thinking, and her senses were busy searching for the magic circle in the disassembled armor.

Her nerves were so tense that her neck became stiff. Her slightly trembling orange eyes fixed on the armor’s left hand.

“There it is!”

Serena tore the magic paper. The electric arrow hit the left hand of the monster that was writhing, trying to reassemble.

The armor stopped as the magic circle was destroyed. Serena clenched her fist tightly.

‘Yes. This is it!’

How frustrating it had been to have to hide around without even being able to fight monsters because of unreasonable rules.

It felt like something stuck in her chest was finally going down smoothly.

It was as refreshing and thrilling as drinking an iced americano after eating samgyetang on a hot summer day.

‘This worked out better. Let’s fight like this and find Krom and our luggage.’

It was dangerous since Ralph currently had no weapons or armor, and there were only two combat personnel, but since guards made loud footsteps, they could definitely ambush them. Using the fact that guards were weak to electric attributes made it worth trying.

“Haaah!”

While Serena was finishing off the fallen guard, Ralph was also dealing with another guard.

Though he had no armor, his greatly improved shield techniques blocked the guard’s monotonous attacks, but suddenly the guard’s helmet eyes flashed.

“Ugh.”

Ralph judged that the guard would use a special technique or spell and covered his body with his shield.

Shriiiiiiiiek-!

A loud whistle sound came from the living armor’s helmet. Serena’s eyes widened.

‘Damn, surely it’s not two outs after fighting?’

Fortunately, no red light flashed in the prison. No powerful attack struck Ralph either.

Clank clank.

Instead, one moving armor summoned by the whistle sound appeared.

The newly appeared armor flashed its eyes and blew its whistle.

Shriiiiiiiiek-!

Then another moving armor was summoned somewhere by the whistle sound.

The newly summoned armor also blew its whistle.

The whistle sounds were endless, and the moving armors kept multiplying.

“Princess, we must flee!”

But the position wasn’t good. Unlike Ralph who was in the corridor, Serena had nowhere to escape.

She belatedly remembered the hole in the wall and tried to crawl away to escape, but it was already too late.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh! Thwack!

The iron ball covered with sharp spikes struck Serena’s head instead of the lioness.

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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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