Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 55

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

55. Encounter (3)

Serena knows that goats and mountain goats climb cliffs. However, she had never heard or seen chamois climbing cliffs.

Before such Serena, a giant chamois that looked like a chamois and cried like a chamois came sliding down the vertical cliff like a mountain goat.

‘A chamois climbing cliffs?’

She was so surprised that her frozen body loosened up.

Serena hurriedly tried to go to where her companions were, but a scream tied her feet again.

Kyaaah!

Serena’s leg strength gave out again. Like Count Randy, Serena nearly collapsed and fell down. Serena barely managed to regain her balance and pressed her body against the cliff.

‘That was it! Every time I hear this cry, my muscles lose strength!’

The cliff-climbing chamois had a special effect in its cry as well. It drained strength from parts of the listener’s body.

Count Randy suddenly missing his footing and Serena suddenly being unable to walk were all because of this chamois.

“It’s a formidable enemy! Princess, move quickly!”

“Can’t we attack with arrows or magic right now?”

“No. Lady Serena is right below and might get caught up in it.”

“Hey! Here! Look here! There are tons of people here!”

Olive shouted at the Labyrinth Deer, trying to divert its attention. Serena gritted her teeth and tried to move her whole body muscles.

‘Just a chamois!’

Sometimes anger becomes the source of action. When she thought her body was frozen from fear, she felt like she couldn’t move at all, but when she realized her body was frozen because of the chamois’s strange cry, her body moved well.

“Ugh.”

Serena succeeded in moving to the point where her companions were waiting before the chamois could approach her.

As soon as Ralph pulled Serena back, Ying’s arrows and Count Randy’s magic bullets poured down on the Labyrinth Deer.

Aaaaah!

The Labyrinth Deer shook its body as if the shower of arrows and magic bullets stung. Then it put strength in its legs and jumped.

The chamois lightly jumped and arrived at the opposite peak that Serena and the others could never cross without a bridge.

The Labyrinth Deer made several cries that gave a weakening effect to listeners, then climbed the steep cliff to the top.

Jump, jump again. Another jump that looked like a double jump because it was so fast. The Labyrinth Deer disappeared beyond the clouds as if mocking the humans with insufficient jumping power.

Kyop kyop!

The weakening cry echoed faintly. Serena sat down on the ground, drained not from a status ailment but in a different sense.

“Princess, are you alright?”

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

“I’m fine.”

While Serena, who nearly died to a chamois that wasn’t even a deer, goat, or mountain goat, calmed her startled heart, Olive watched the chamois’s jumping show to the end and grumbled.

“That deer bastard is mocking people? Zero! You should have blown its head clean off!”

“Can’t do it.”

Apart from weakening people, the Labyrinth Deer is a formidable enemy of the 3rd Layer. Befitting a formidable enemy, its defense was high – Ying’s arrows only shallowly embedded in its hide and were pulled out with fur when it turned, and Count Randy’s magic bullets had no impact like a massage.

To deal meaningful damage with arrows, she’d have to shoot the eyes. Given Ying and the chamois’s positions at the time, it was impossible. When Ying crossed the narrow path, Olive earnestly requested.

“Next time, definitely shoot the eyes.”

With the party all gathered, Olive led the group into the cave for now. The cave entrances on the peaks and cliffs were all small, just big enough for the Labyrinth Deer to barely stick its head in.

“Next time we meet a formidable enemy, we can hide in caves to avoid them.”

If there are formidable enemies, there are also ways to avoid them. Olive updated the map, calling it an unwritten rule of the Labyrinth.

“The cry seems to have a weakening effect. Everyone be careful.”

“That crying sound is really bizarre. What kind of deer acts like that? As if to show it’s a monster, it even has fangs like a vampire monster.”

Olive mimicked the chamois fangs with her index finger.

Serena wondered whether to correct Olive that it was a chamois, not a deer, then stopped. After all, chamois are deer relatives and it’s a monster, so what’s the point of correcting?

“It’s not a deer but a chamois.”

Unexpectedly, Count Randy stepped forward to correct the wrong information.

“Chamois?”

“That’s right. Originally chamois aren’t good at climbing cliffs, but it climbed like a mountain goat. Next time we encounter it, I’m thinking of using oil creation where it steps.”

Thanks to learning the basics solidly up to the 2nd tier, Count Randy knew how to cast oil creation.

If a difficult formidable enemy slipped on oil and fell to its death, nothing could be better. Everyone stepped forward saying they’d help Count Randy if the opportunity arose.

“It would be a bit wasteful if it falls to its death – the meat and hide~”

“The meat tastes bad and the hide is useless.”

“Really?”

Then there’s nothing to waste, Olive smiled brightly.

“So there really wasn’t anyone else…”

Ralph spoke with a slightly disappointed expression, then seemed to change his mind and steeled his resolve.

“I was thinking wrong. It’s fortunate there was no one in enough danger to scream!”

“Somehow~ I said it couldn’t overlap that often~”

Olive drawled her words as if deflated. She showed the completed map to the group and compared it with Serena’s magic map.

“We came down about one floor. You know.”

“We came down even though there were no stairs?”

“Don’t tell me you thought everything visible was one floor? You know? How could that be with such a wide area.”

Serena covered her face pretending to loosen her stiff body.

‘I thought it was one floor.’

Because the difficulty increased due to the penalty, she thought the entire vast area visible was the 6th Floor.

She didn’t ask Olive because she thought it would be too sad if she confirmed it was the 6th Floor, but fortunately the entire area wasn’t one floor but one layer.

‘Thank goodness.’

If she had to go down five more floors this wide and vast, it would have been really difficult. It was fortunate in misfortune.

Olive pointed to the vast 3rd Layer and explained.

“Sometimes there are layers this wide where it’s hard to distinguish floor numbers. You know. The advantage of such layers is.”

“The advantage is?”

“If you’re capable or lucky, you can quickly go to the next layer! If we could jump around like that deer relative we saw earlier, we would have reached our destination in an instant, right? You know?”

If they moved by hanging ropes on hooks as Olive first suggested, they could move quickly in straight lines.

Since this was a fantasy world where superhumans beyond normal human physical abilities appeared, it was entirely possible.

“What are the disadvantages?”

If there are advantages, there must be disadvantages too.

“The disadvantages are~ it’s hard to search thoroughly, difficult to draw maps, the paths are damn twisted, and if you’re unlucky, all the monsters in the layer can swarm you! Something like that?”

With the magic map, the map creation problem was immediately solved. Since the goal was finding stairs, not searching thoroughly, the first disadvantage was fine too.

“All monsters in this layer are flying types, so we must be careful not to get surrounded.”

“Exactly that! You know!”

“We must also be careful since the formidable enemy already spotted our location.”

“Let’s hurry before that deer relative bastard comes back! Let’s go~”

***

The path became seriously difficult to walk.

Inside the stalactite cave, bumpy and winding, bizarre stalactites and stalagmites, limestone pillars and holes created in unpredictable positions slowed the group’s steps.

They also had to carefully avoid the occasional bat dung pits. It was a dirty structure where falling into holes or sliding down slopes in bat caves led straight to dung pits.

The narrow paths were traps in themselves. The path width kept narrowing and the distance requiring crab-walking kept increasing. In severe cases, there were sections where the cliff wasn’t flat but tilted, making it difficult to maintain balance.

While moving like this, Labyrinth Condors appeared? Without Ying, the archer with perfect accuracy, the group would have been stuck on the 3rd Layer, unable to pass the paths.

Screech!

Ying’s arrow pierced through the Labyrinth Condor’s body. The condor with an arrow in its body flapped its wings with difficulty, then couldn’t endure and crashed. The feathers plucked during the condor’s death throes fluttered down later than their owner.

“Got rid of the annoying ones~ Shall we cross~”

After reaching the 3rd Layer, Olive always crossed bridges before the group and tied ropes to bridge pillars to prepare minimal safety measures.

This bridge didn’t need that. Whether because the distance between cliffs was long, or because the wind blowing in regular patterns was tornado-level strong wind, the bridge was very sturdy.

Even to an amateur’s eyes, the difference was clear. It wasn’t a dizzying, precarious swaying bridge but a sturdy wooden bridge.

“Mm~ Sturdy!”

Olive got on the bridge and jumped up and down. The bridge didn’t budge. If it had been a swaying bridge, it would have shaken enough to make a magnitude 9 earthquake look trivial.

“We can all get on.”

Ralph was so moved by the ordinary bridge that he sniffled. The labyrinth drove people to extreme situations, making them touched by ordinary or common things.

“We stayed here long observing the wind patterns, so let’s hurry across.”

The wind was so strong that even Olive didn’t dare attempt to cross the bridge. They had been delayed quite a while waiting for the wind to calm down, and also taking care of potential dangers in advance.

“The Princess is right. Hey. If those deer relatives suddenly appear from above, it’ll be dangerous, so let’s hurry across.”

The party crossed the bridge all together. Having previously crossed the terrifying swaying bridge alone, it felt refreshing to cross safely with party members.

“I hope the next bridge is like this too.”

“Yeah! I agree with the Knight!”

Olive, who had been walking ahead, turned around and walked backwards. I thought it was just a prank and she’d turn forward soon, but she didn’t turn back around. The smile disappeared from her face as she listened to Ralph’s words and laughed.

“Everyone. Stay alert.”

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s happening?”

“Run!”

“What!”

The party didn’t know the reason, but they ran at the guide’s signal. The reason for the guide’s serious expression was soon revealed.

Aaaaah!

A scream that instantly drained strength from parts of the body was heard right behind them.

‘We eliminated all dangers while observing the wind patterns, so where did it come from?’

Curiosity kills the cat, but Serena, who had more lives than a cat, couldn’t resist her curiosity and looked back. A Labyrinth Deer was climbing up from below the cliff, not from above.

“Don’t look back and run quickly! Hey!”

“I’ll use oil.”

“Don’t do it, just run! Keep running! If that thing gets on the bridge and jumps, the bridge will collapse!”

Look at the size of that Labyrinth Deer. Whatever it had been eating so well in the labyrinth, its fur was thick and it had gained weight. With that weight getting on the bridge, even a sturdy bridge wouldn’t withstand it and would collapse.

Olive urged Count Randy and Serena, who were far behind. Ralph, who had already reached the other side, tried to come back and help but was scolded by Olive.

“Don’t come!”

Olive, as if she had no intention of dying together, lingered in front of Count Randy and Serena before instantly running to the other side.

“It still has far to climb! Don’t worry about it and run!”

Ying shot arrows to interfere with the Labyrinth Deer’s climbing. The arrows couldn’t penetrate the dense fur and stuck shallowly in its back or legs, falling off whenever the deer shook its body.

“Almost there! Keep going!”

Whether the deer was almost there or I had almost arrived. Was it wrong that I was running frantically and couldn’t see ahead properly?

Aah! Ooh! Oooh!

The Labyrinth Deer’s triple fear attack drained strength from Serena’s knees and she leaned forward.

“Princess!”

Count Randy, who was running slightly ahead of Serena, was startled and twisted his ankle. Seeing that, rage boiled up inside Serena.

“Who would be intimidated by such sounds!”

The Princess leaning forward was to gain momentum again.

Serena put strength into her excessively bent legs, and using the falling speed and rebound, she got up and continued running. She lowered her posture and helped up Count Randy who had fallen.

“Well done, Princess! Keep running like that!”

The finish line was right ahead. Behind them, along with the sound of wood breaking, the bridge that hadn’t budged even when Olive hopped on it began to shake.

It hadn’t collapsed yet, but if the deer jumped once more, it would 100% collapse. Assuming it had already jumped, there wasn’t much time left until the goat-like legs would land on the wooden bridge.

The Princess and Count barely succeeded in crossing the bridge.

The cave entrance was narrow enough for only one person to barely pass through and somewhat long. Serena pushed Count Randy, who had sprained his ankle, in first and tried to enter herself.

“It’s dangerous!”

Count Randy, who had entered first and was trying to pull Serena in, pushed Serena away. Serena fell backwards and the Labyrinth Deer landed where she had been.

As the massive body jumped and stood, dust rose.

The Labyrinth Deer turned its body and blocked the cave.

“Oh no…”

Serena, who made eye contact with the Labyrinth Deer, stepped backwards.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————