Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 347

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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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347. Empty Armor

“Aaaahhhhh!”

It was horrific. An agony that could only be described as horrific overwhelmed Serena.

Serena clutched her head and rolled from side to side.

Her head, which should have been caved in and shattered to match the shape of the spiked mace, had regained its round, pretty shape, but Serena’s soul still remembered the pain.

“Oh my. It must hurt quite a bit.”

The Minotaur God gently stroked the princess’s head with a tone that genuinely worried for Serena, not mocking her.

“It’s all undone now. Forget about it.”

“Aaaahhhhh!”

Serena continued to roll on the ground and struggle, avoiding the deity’s touch.

‘Undone? I remember everything and my soul is screaming in pain, so how is it undone?’

Her head hurt too much to even have the mental capacity to curse the deity.

Fortunately, when it became somewhat bearable, the princess returned to reality.

‘Thank goodness. If I had been clutching my head and rolling around in reality, it would have been hard to convince Philia.’

Her head still throbbed painfully. Her back and scalp suffered from phantom pain, drenched in cold sweat.

Serena ground her teeth, ignoring her dental health.

‘As expected, blades are the best when it comes to dying.’

Actually, the dark divine magic that let her die like falling asleep without any pain was the best, but it was regrettable that she couldn’t always use it.

She had thought this when she climbed the guillotine too, but wouldn’t it be a regressor’s virtue to commit suicide less painfully rather than die in agony?

Serena fumbled at her chest where she kept her dagger. She couldn’t use it on the 12th Layer because her weapons were confiscated, but this dagger’s purpose was actually for suicide.

Instead of the dagger, she grasped a hard, round object. Serena furrowed her brow.

It was the coin that Baldy had given her.

‘Effort, huh. Committing suicide to die less painfully wouldn’t count as effort, would it?’

In another sense, she could argue that she made an effort to die less painfully!

But somehow she had an intuition that heavenly effort wouldn’t recognize that kind of effort.

Recalling what the Effort Priest used to say when encouraging dying patients made her more certain.

‘Effort. Effort to live. That is the duty of living beings.’

There are lives in this world where existence itself is nothing but pain and tragedy.

She didn’t like how it seemed inconsiderate of such people.

But Serena knew too.

If someone living such a tragic life didn’t give up and made an effort, not only heavenly effort but everyone who witnessed it would praise them greatly.

Are we talking about Richard?

No way.

‘The deity told him to give up.’

How many pitiful lives are there in the world where existence itself is pain and a series of tragedies?

Children who suffer from mortal danger and starvation from birth simply because they were born in conflict zones existed in both her previous and current lives.

Richard, whom the deity personally advised to give up, had no place among them.

“Ugh.”

Serena got up while massaging her temples. The princess’s orange eyes turned toward the Undead Crone.

“Krom. I need you.”

“What?”

Krom, who had been treating the labyrinth conquest as someone else’s business, blinked his dry eyes.

***

Because her head hurt, Serena gave orders without lengthy excuses or groundwork.

But this worked surprisingly well.

The guide, who would normally have asked for reasons, was thoroughly mistaken.

“Princess, are you still communicating with the deity? Huh? Quickly, before the communication ends!”

Olive misunderstood the princess’s headache as a price paid for communicating with the deity.

The guide thought the Minotaur God was delivering a 12th Layer strategy guide to his apostle and silenced others.

Thanks to Olive’s complete misunderstanding, Serena achieved what she wanted.

Krom joined the party, and Count Randy and Count Alpha ended up carrying all the party’s weapons.

‘This way I can receive weapons during visitation.’

It was really convenient how they followed whatever she said. It was regrettable that she couldn’t keep using this.

‘I could keep doing it if I wanted to. It would be possible if I died three times in advance every time we conquered a floor.’

She would also have to deal with Grey’s rational suspicions.

Serena decided to give up and only use this when her head hurt a lot like now.

Events after arriving at the 12th Layer flowed similarly to the previous round.

Of course, there were some differences.

First, she had Ralph hold Krom’s hand, confirming that the knight and Peddler were transported while holding hands when automatically imprisoned in cells.

Also, the biggest difference was receiving weapons during visitation.

Since she had told Krom in advance about things that shouldn’t be discovered by guards, the cell wall was already pierced when he returned with weapons.

Serena left Ralph in the cell and moved to the adjacent cell with Krom.

“I looked before Princess came. Nothing special.”

“….”

The princess’s single eye fixed on the empty wall.

Krom glanced at the wall, wondering what the princess was looking at.

‘Not a damn thing there.’

There was something there.

Four faint lines someone had scratched into the stone with something hard.

By Krom’s standards, it was the same as having nothing there.

“What’s wrong?”

“…It’s nothing. Please check this cell too.”

Krom disappeared through the toilet hole, leaving Serena alone in the cell.

Serena didn’t return to her own cell but stared at the lines scratched on the wall for a long time.

‘Four lines again this time. I’ll check again tomorrow.’

Clank.

Time had passed somehow, and the sound of a guard’s footsteps could be heard.

For safety, Serena decided to return to her original cell after the guard passed.

The guard who passed the cell where Serena was looked into the cell where Ralph was alone.

She expected patrols to be strengthened with the annoying whistle sound, but surprisingly, the guard just glanced at the cell and passed by.

‘Huh? Why did he just go? Why!’

She thought she had roughly figured out the judgment rules, but here was another different result!

‘This damn prison!’

Serena was shocked and as soon as the guard left, she crawled through the hole where the stone had been removed to return to her original prison.

Ralph grabbed her hand and pulled her out like a root vegetable.

“Count Ralph. What happened in the cell while we were away?”

“Huh? Nothing happened.”

The Young Knight who had been guarding the cell alone looked puzzled when Serena urgently asked the question.

“No. Something must have changed.”

‘Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense that the guard passed by.’

Serena rolled her single eye diligently to examine the cell.

Since it was a narrow cell with no particular facilities, it took only one second.

The princess’s orange eye trembled slightly.

‘Really nothing changed? There’s no X on the wall either.’

The only change was the mat laid on the floor to hide the weapons received from the Count.

To prevent the weapon smuggling from being discovered due to visible outlines, the bag was placed under the mat, making the bulging shape look exactly like a person curled up lying down.

‘Wait.’

That’s right. It looked like a person lying down covered with a straw mat.

Looking closely, what kind of person was that? It was such a shoddy disguise that even a goblin wouldn’t be fooled.

‘They fell for that?’

It seemed the brainless moving armor could be deceived by even such tricks.

“Ugh.”

Serena grabbed the back of her neck and groaned. Her anger surged, and her blood pressure rose along with it.

‘Is it strict or lax? Make it consistent!’

They say a child’s emotions become unstable when parental discipline isn’t consistent.

The prisoner’s blood pressure became unstable because the prison rules weren’t consistent.

“Princess, are you alright? If it hurts too much, please take some painkillers.”

“No, I’m fine. More importantly, Count Ralph, take off your armor.”

“Pardon?”

“There’s something I need to check.”

At the princess’s words to remove his armor, the symbol of knighthood, the young knight didn’t object or question but obediently complied.

While Ralph removed his armor, Serena took out a blanket from her bag.

About 3 hours later, by her estimation.

The three waited for the guard to come, not in their own cell but in the adjacent one.

Clank clank. The guard approached with their characteristic sound.

Two people and one undead opened five eyes and met the guard’s gaze. Three eyes were dim and cloudy, while two sparkled brightly.

The guard ignored the five eyes and passed by.

Gulp. Serena swallowed dry saliva. Would the whistle sound or not! Would the cell move or not! The moment when only Serena was tense!

Clank clank clank. The guard looked indifferently at the empty cell without prisoners and passed by.

Krom couldn’t hold back and spoke.

“Look at that idiot. Are their eyes crooked? They fell for that?”

Though Krom was beyond the stone wall and couldn’t be seen, he pointed at the shoddy deception the princess had made and clicked his tongue.

Title: Two People Lying Under a Straw Mat.

It was a work that sloppily bunched up the blanket from the bag and covered it with a straw mat to disguise it as people lying down.

It was created with the intent to insult the aesthetic sense of the brainless armor.

‘They really fell for it. This is why brainless fools are…’

Serena inwardly agreed with Krom.

The young knight’s reaction was quite different. Ralph’s eyes sparkled brightly as he rejoiced.

“Deceiving the guard! It’s like a novel!”

It seemed like pages from several prison break novels were flipping through the freckled boy’s head.

But reality and fiction are different. Krom, who had prison experience, snorted.

“Wake up from your dream. If you lie around doing that nonsense when a real guard comes, you’ll get beaten and sent to solitary.”

“Oh my, is that so?”

“You have to show the guard your hands and face completely.”

“I’ve been curious about this for a while, but why is solitary confinement portrayed negatively? Wouldn’t having a room to yourself be nice?”

“It’s not a room, it’s coffin-sized. They don’t give you food either.”

“Oh my.”

While the curious boy asked the prison-experienced person various questions, the prison lights went out.

“Let’s return to our original cell now. We need to have visits tomorrow too.”

“Understood.”

Ralph took off the armor he had been wearing again. It was pitiful to see him repeat what would have been finished with a single click in a game.

“I don’t need to sleep, so what should I do? Should I go out and check that corridor over there?”

“No. Rest for today. You worked hard.”

Krom had moved all day, checking every cell in their group’s cell line except for the rightmost end room that was too narrow due to the sewer hole.

Despite not eating or resting all day, the undead was perfectly fine.

“Aren’t you short on blood?”

“Used two drops.”

Krom touched the magical tool with rough hands, seemingly fascinated by it.

“Something like this must be expensive, right?”

“The value of magical tools isn’t judged by money.”

“Hehe.”

The undead crone revealed her sparse, rotten teeth and missing dental arrangement as she laughed.

“It’s something you couldn’t buy even if you did dirty work your whole life, right?”

When the undead crone spoke provocatively, Serena was about to snap that she was a peddler who sold drugs, but fortunately the crone didn’t provoke further and just chuckled.

Since it felt strongly self-deprecating, Serena didn’t say more.

Returning to her cell, Serena lay down using her bag as a pillow.

Though her body wasn’t tired, her mind, which had been awake for days and repeated death, called for rest.

She wasn’t tired enough to faint, and being somewhat tense, the princess repeatedly dozed lightly and woke up.

Since Krom didn’t need to sleep, he sat leaning against the wall.

Though there were three shadows, only two people’s breathing could be heard in the quiet cell night.

The young knight suddenly threw out a question.

“Why did you become a peddler, Krom?”

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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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