Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 54

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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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54. Encounter (2)

At the next exit, there was a bridge. As the party tried to cross the bridge, two labyrinth condors that had been waiting on the peak near the cave where the party emerged launched a surprise attack.

Screeeeech-. Shriek!

The labyrinth condor that targeted the party’s rear had its long neck pierced by Ying’s arrow and met its end. One fell down the chasm while the other fell near the party.

The condor’s corpse precariously hung on the edge of the cliff, and with its center of gravity pulled downward, it slowly began to tilt.

“Quick, grab it!”

They couldn’t let a condor, more useful than bats, slip away like this. Olive and Ralph rushed over and barely managed to pull up the condor’s corpse just before it fell.

Ying personally plucked the condor’s wing feathers, then showed the alchemist her nearly empty quiver with sorrowful eyes.

“Give me those wing feathers.”

Due to the layer structure and the types of monsters that appeared, arrows were absolutely necessary. Count Randy crafted additional arrows. This time, with only wing feathers as material, many magic stones were needed, but it was a necessary expense.

When the quiver was filled with arrows, Ying’s expression brightened. She didn’t smile or anything, but life returned to her black eyes.

“We still have some spare magic stones, but it’s wasteful to spend them on consumables, so for things like arrows, we should aim for treasure chests instead.”

“Right~ We should have rested and collected some treasure chests from the 2nd floor before coming down to the 3rd layer~”

With an alchemist present, even if strange things came out of treasure chests, they could be converted into needed items. Olive lightly knocked her own head, wondering why she hadn’t thought of that.

“When there are stairs, going to check them out first is an occupational hazard of labyrinth explorers~”

“The others didn’t think of it either, so there’s no need to blame yourself.”

Olive took the rope the alchemist had made and crossed to the other side first, tying the rope to the bridge pillar for the party.

Serena stood before the second swaying bridge and took a deep breath. Having crossed once, the second time should be easier than the first. It had to be.

“Hup!”

Just as Serena was about to run, wind blew as if mocking the princess’s resolve. She was holding the rope, which was fortunate, or she would have nearly been pushed down by the wind. Serena crouched in front of the bridge and screamed.

“Kyaaaah!”

Aaaah!

Carried by the wind, they heard the scream they had heard several times before. This time, they could pinpoint the direction of the sound.

“It’s over there.”

Serena confirmed the direction from which the sound came. It was a peak they had to pass through to reach the cave on their target peak.

If it was a path they had to take anyway, there was no need to worry whether it was monsters, humans, or who the humans might be. It was a waste of mental energy.

Serena took deep breaths until the wind stopped, then ran as soon as it ceased.

***

Perhaps awakened by Serena’s scream, this time bats attacked the party first. Even so, they were hit by Ying’s arrows and crashed before they could reach them.

Count Randy only collected the hide and wings due to his subspace bag’s capacity. Olive, seemingly envious of the subspace bag, sneakily approached and asked.

“How much did you pay for it?”

“It was bestowed by His Imperial Majesty.”

“Wow! His Imperial Majesty! You know him! How nice! I’m jealous!”

Olive watched as part of the bat hide was traded for Serena’s new leather pants while kicking the ground and grumbling.

“Ugh! I had a subspace bag too! I had one!”

The bag Olive had left at the inn was actually a subspace bag. Given Olive’s skills, it wasn’t surprising she had a subspace bag. Serena found something else suspicious.

“With your personality, you wouldn’t leave such a precious item as a subspace bag away from your body. Did you drink after putting the bag away?”

Having met the alchemist and shouted about all sorts of equipment, thereby proving to the party that she had nothing but her bare body, Olive honestly lamented.

“No way. I carried it around like a second heart, but unfortunately! Unfortunately! The tavern was crowded! I trust my skills, but what if I got pickpocketed while drinking? All the notorious thieves from across the continent must have gathered there. I’m human too, so I could let my guard down, right?”

While Olive trusted her own abilities, pickpocketing and safe-cracking were separate domains. The guide and treasure hunter, wary of finger artists, stored her bag in the inn’s safe and added her own safety devices.

“But then! But then! I meddled unnecessarily and stored Zero’s bag there too!”

Unfortunately, when the labyrinth was generated, the two labyrinth explorers fell into the labyrinth naked without their equipment.

“Was Miss Ying’s bag also a subspace bag?”

When Ralph asked, Ying nodded. Thanks to Olive’s meddling, she had fallen into the labyrinth without her subspace bag, but she didn’t seem to resent Olive.

“If you only left the bag, what about the arrows?”

Then Olive cutely winked and raised her hand.

“That was me. I spilled them all trying to pour alcohol into the quiver.”

The arrow shortage that had made Ying give those pitiful cow-being-led-to-slaughter looks several times was also Olive’s doing.

“Olive, it’s amazing you’re still alive. If I were Ying, I would have strangled your neck with my bow first.”

“Aw, it wasn’t on purpose! Right, Zero?”

“That’s why I didn’t kill you.”

“You were thinking of killing me if it was on purpose? Is that what you meant?”

Olive widened her round eyes and grabbed Ying’s collar, shaking her.

The archer, who was considerably taller than the guide, swayed back and forth like a balloon doll every time Olive shook her.

Her expression remained expressionless, making it hard to tell if she was joking or serious.

“You both had such amazing items like subspace bags! That’s incredible!”

“Olive of the Wilderness Wind and Ying of Zero are famous labyrinth explorers I’ve heard of several times. When we exit the labyrinth, I’ll add my reward to the one Lady Serena promised, so please take care of us.”

“Hey, you were just joking, right? Right? Why aren’t you answering quickly?”

Ying remained silent until the next scream was heard.

Aaaah!

Olive, as if she hadn’t just been desperately grabbing and shaking Ying’s collar, focused on the incoming sound. Since the party was in a cave, it was difficult to determine direction, but one thing was certain.

“It’s getting closer.”

The screams were getting closer. The party had moved, but so had the other side. The party quietly hurried along their path.

***

Coming out of the stalactite cave, there was no bridge. Thinking it might be a dead end, they looked more carefully and saw a narrow path. It was a downward slope. It was a narrow path attached to a cliff, like something you’d see in Chinese tourist sites, extreme job introductions, or remote exploration videos.

The width was barely enough for one person to walk, and there were no safety devices like railings or ropes.

“Wait a moment.”

Olive ran down the slope first. She didn’t seem scared at all as her speed gradually increased.

Since the narrow path was attached to the peak, after going some distance, Olive disappeared from view due to the angle. Ying held her bow and maintained vigilance to support Olive.

As Serena waited with an anxious heart, Olive returned safely before long.

“This path is no joke.”

Saying she was tense and sweating, Olive wiped her face with her hand. She explained verbally while holding the magic map for easier understanding.

“This peak is round, and the path goes around the cliff in a circle. If you go around about two times, there’s a bridge, but the problem is.”

Olive pointed to the three-quarters mark of the path they needed to take.

“From here, the path gets narrower and narrower. From this point, you can’t go straight and have to crab-walk with your back against the wall. Zero and I are fine, but can you do it, Princess?”

Serena couldn’t answer immediately. She could barely cross swaying bridges, and now a narrow path without safety devices? And here the width would get even narrower, requiring her to go with her back or stomach against the cliff?

Just imagining it made her feel dizzy. Monsters could all be killed with one of Ying’s arrows, but only the terrain difficulty seemed to have drastically increased.

“There will be more paths like this ahead. If you’re not confident, it’s better to go back.”

Couldn’t she manage if she tried hard? As if warning against Serena’s complacent resolve, Count Randy offered wise counsel.

“You must also consider the return journey.”

Let’s say she could somehow manage to go down with effort. If they had to turn back midway, would Serena be able to do it?

Even with stairs, it was difficult to climb 5 floors at once, and she had crawled up at the end. Now that was a thing of the past, and the muscles she had built along with muscle pain had also disappeared.

‘Am I holding everyone back?’

Various thoughts flashed through her mind. Serena bit her lip.

A narrow, uncomfortable, and dangerous path. No railings or nets. Not a tourist site’s narrow path, but a real one. If she slipped, stumbled, or fell, that would be the end. She would suffer from the terror of falling for at least an hour.

After considering all these factors, the princess reached her conclusion.

‘I wasted time worrying unnecessarily. It was already decided anyway.’

Her heart, which had been as heavy as her frozen feet in front of the chasm and narrow path, became light.

‘I postponed the golden path and decided to conquer the labyrinth, so it’s definitely a go.’

The golden path to the peace and tranquility she had always dreamed of. She had refused that and returned to the labyrinth to help her grateful people. Serena’s path was already determined.

“I’m going.”

“Princess, really?”

“Yes. I’m going.”

“Lady Serena. You must not underestimate the cliff.”

“I’m not underestimating it. I have to go. So I’m going.”

“If the path gets narrow, I can’t help you, Princess. You still going? Yo?”

“If that is the Princess’s will, I shall follow.”

Ralph, who believed Serena was specially chosen by the Labyrinth God, was the first to agree. Olive and Ying remained quiet, and Count Randy frowned but said nothing more.

Silence that was neither opposition nor agreement. There’s a saying that silence means consent, but it didn’t fit the current situation.

‘They think I’ll give up once I see the path.’

The three remained silent because they expected Serena would give up once she saw and walked the dangerous cliff path herself.

Serena wanted to sprint along the cliff path like a mountain goat without hesitation to prove them wrong, but.

‘Ha, this is terrifying.’

Her body froze in the middle of the narrow path, making their worries and concerns a reality.

“Lady Serena! Just one step to the side! Gently! Move gently!”

“Princess, you can do this!”

“Pick one – forward or backward? Yo? Time keeps flowing! Yo?”

Serena tensed her entire body, pressed herself against the cliff behind her, and tucked in her chin whenever the wind brushed her nose.

‘This is driving me crazy. I can’t move.’

The narrow but walkable sections were fine. She could manage by ignoring the open air visible without railings and just looking at the wall while walking.

The problem was exactly the section Olive had pointed out. Olive had stepped across the narrow path like a real mountain goat and arrived safely.

Ralph had also removed his remaining breastplate and gauntlets, and reached the destination with slow but steady crab-walking.

Count Randy had worried about Serena, but when his turn came, he moved at a similar pace to Ralph. When he was almost there, an incident occurred.

Aaah!

A sudden scream startled Count Randy, causing him to misstep.

While Serena wondered whether it would be better to jump down together and restart rather than deliver news of her husband’s death to Philia, fortunately Count Randy didn’t die.

His million-gold hands grabbed onto the narrow path. Instead of risking climbing up, he moved by gradually shifting his hands sideways and crawled up to the destination with help from Olive and Ralph.

“Thank you! Thank you so much, Master!”

Count Randy once again offered this joy and gratitude to his benefactor.

Since Ying had to block the Labyrinth Condor, it was finally Serena’s turn after returning. Serena tried to confidently walk sideways with her back against the wall, following her party members’ example of bravery and agility, but hesitated.

‘I can’t see!’

Her single eye, which had quickly adapted by divine arrangement. She needed to walk while looking ahead with peripheral vision while pressed against the wall, but it happened to be in the direction of her sacrificed left eye, so she couldn’t see anything.

Serena changed direction and pressed her stomach against the wall. She could see where she needed to go, but her chest and face scraped against the rough stone, making it difficult to walk.

‘This damn chest is just uselessly heavy!’

Serena gritted her teeth and lifted her foot.

A path slightly wider than Serena’s foot. They say anywhere a person walks becomes a path, but no matter how Serena thought about it, this wasn’t a path. She was just scraping her feet along a crack in the cliff.

Still, she had said she would go herself, and she had seen everyone who went before succeed, so she could walk. Somehow, slowly but gradually, she moved. She had come halfway like that when.

Aaaaah!

All her effort and courage crumbled with a single scream. Her legs instantly lost strength and she almost fell, but somehow managed not to fall and held on. That was her limit.

No matter how much they coaxed and encouraged from both sides, Serena’s frozen body wouldn’t move again.

“Princess! The sound is getting closer! You must move!”

To make matters worse, the screaming was getting closer. The screams clearly came from somewhere higher than the party, and the approaching speed was fast. The party was already certain it was a sound made by a monster, not a person.

“I’ll go and escort the Princess.”

“You’ll both die that way, Sir Ralph.”

“Ugh. Count, don’t you have any potion or magic that makes you good at climbing cliffs? Yo?”

“I can trade for a potion that makes one good at crawling around cliffs.”

“Then make two bottles! I’ll drink one and go give one to the Princess too! Yo!”

Aaah!

The party members, who had been stamping their feet at the increasingly close sound, looked up. The sound came from above as everyone expected. But the expected location was slightly different.

Everyone had expected a harpy or similar flying monster and only watched the sky. However, the owner of the screams revealed itself from above – not the sky, but the top of the cliff.

A deer-like face with densely packed brown fur. Fangs that grew sharp and long like stalactites in the stalactite cave. Clear, mad eyes that arrogantly stared at people.

Serena recognized the identity of the screaming monster and shouted angrily.

“It was you, deer!”

Aah!

As if grateful to be recognized at first sight, the Labyrinth Deer cried out vigorously.

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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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