Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 65

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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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65. Did I Really Kill Him?

‘Did he die because of me?’

Of course not. It’s just a simple coincidence.

But after constantly seeing her sibling die, receiving a report that her sibling was perfectly alive when she didn’t intervene made her extremely displeased. Even more so because she had witnessed her sibling die in seven different ways.

‘Am I some kind of grim reaper or something?’

Aside from her ruined mood, it was truly fortunate that her sibling had finally escaped the infinite loop of death. She had been considering changing his nickname from Flower Trash to Flower Sunfish.

Serena habitually reached to touch the statue but barely managed to stop herself.

‘What if this Flower Sunfish was just lucky this one time?’

What if Serena’s Flower Trash couldn’t shake off the fate of sudden death and died a miserable death while Olive’s party was returning to the lobby? Or what if he was dying right at this very moment?

If she touched the statue now, even if she later found out her sibling had died, it would be irreversible. Serena withdrew her trembling hand.

“So Seraph went down to the 4th layer chasing after Richard?”

“Yes. Fortunately, priests capable of fighting are with Lord Seraph. Since Lord Seraph acted impulsively out of emotion, they said once time passes and he calms down, they’ll persuade him to come up to the 1st floor.”

“With four priests there, he won’t die. The Priest of the Earth God is called a High Priest and looked strong. You probably don’t need to worry.”

‘But all those priests died from eating poisonous mushrooms.’

The party seemed to trust the priests, but Serena found them completely unreliable. However, when she changed her perspective, her thoughts shifted.

‘Seeing that there were no bats or condors in the ingredients, Seraph must have refused them. That pampered brat couldn’t possibly tolerate strange ingredients. When they run out of food, he’ll come right back up.’

Until now, he simply hadn’t survived long enough to exercise patience. If he didn’t die and experienced the true nature of the labyrinth, he would shudder and come up to the 1st floor.

With that thought, peace returned to her heart. The stuffy feeling that had been weighing on her cleared up completely, leaving her refreshed.

“You all worked hard. Go and rest.”

“Really~ I was excited going down, but coming up was so exhausting. Without the Princess, climbing the stairs to the 2nd layer was so boring~”

“Shall I give you a massage?”

“Of course that’s good! Please start with the Count instead of me! If I just sleep like this, I’ll become a wooden doll and won’t be able to move.”

Lavenda asked the Count about his sore spots. The Mysterious Stranger asked Philia for permission and had Count Randy lie down comfortably.

Just when it seemed like he would give an ordinary massage, the Mysterious Stranger grabbed the Count’s arm and bent it backward.

“Aaaahhh!”

‘Isn’t that a joint lock?’

It was a bold arm-twisting technique you’d only see when police subdue violent criminals to handcuff them.

Naturally, Count Randy forgot he was in front of his wife and screamed in pain. She worried whether the precious alchemist’s shoulder and wrist might break, but.

‘He must know what he’s doing. Krom said it felt refreshing last time too.’

The drug dealer whose back had been bent also suffered during the process but felt refreshed afterward. If a person could extract energy from a sword, couldn’t a massage be a bit rough?

***

Game characters controlled by players can recover from all wounds and fatigue just by sleeping at an inn, no matter how difficult and harsh a day they’ve had.

Reality is different. There’s no way the fatigue accumulated from mountain climbing, rock climbing, walking narrow paths, zip-lining, and so on could be relieved by just one night’s sleep.

However, this was a fantasy world with high limits where you became stronger and more resilient the more you trained.

Olive, Ying, and Ralph got up perfectly fine after a day had passed.

Only Count Randy was left groaning from the aftereffects of the previous day, though he was still at a level where he could move. Count Randy attributed all the credit to his master and the Mysterious Stranger.

“Now, everyone focus on the map!”

The Guide once again spread out the magic map for smooth explanation. Reflecting Olive’s perception, the zip line installed by the party was displayed as a line.

The line boldly connected peaks to reach the destination. Just looking at the map and imagining the route made one’s mind dizzy – it was such a shortcut.

“I originally thought there would be stairs here. There actually were stairs. But the priest also discovered stairs here.”

Olive’s finger moved near the expected location where Serena had pointed out that Seraph would be.

“So there are two sets of stairs.”

“Yes. I was surprised when I heard it yesterday too.”

“There could be two, three, four, or even ten sets of stairs. That would drive us crazy trying to map everything, but fortunately we got the magic map from the 1st floor, right? It’s convenient, right? Exciting, right? The Princess is the best, right!”

Olive danced while sitting, swaying only her upper body.

“One of the two might be a dead end. If the next layer isn’t the last one, there might not be stairs going down.”

“Yeah, that’s probably right.”

In games, it’s proper etiquette to thoroughly search even such paths to open treasure chests. Usually, treasure chests in such places contain good items or equipment.

But this was reality, and in a situation where escape was urgent, exploring dead ends would just result in a triple combo of wasted time, wasted movement, and wasted stamina.

Olive had gathered the group to discuss which of the two staircases to take.

“Since the Prince and the priests went this way, I want to go to the stairs we already discovered. The distance is similar, but this path is relatively flat, so it’s better for the Princess.”

“If Seraph went that way, wouldn’t it be better to follow and go down the same stairs?”

The Princess’s reason for suggesting they chase after her sibling was half concern for her sibling, half desire for profit.

The stairs discovered by the priests hadn’t received shop coin settlement. Either they didn’t settle because Seraph and the priests weren’t the same party, or perhaps only one staircase per layer gets settled even if there are multiple.

But if they gave coins equal to the number of staircases, following her sibling would be profitable. If they could get even 1 coin it would be exciting, and if they gave all 5 coins, it would be an opportunity to collect a whopping 10 coins!

‘I’d be an idiot to miss this.’

“You’re worried about the Prince after all!”

“When a sister is worried about her sibling, what can you do? The path is rough, so follow carefully!”

People who didn’t know Serena’s true intentions were as pleased as if it were their own business about the siblings’ affection.

The meeting seemed to be over, and as Serena stood up to go down immediately, a delicate hand grabbed hers.

“Lady Serena. They’re doing well with the strategy, so there’s no need for you to go.”

Here, one more small hand was added.

“That’s right, Your Highness. How about Your Highness stays here and practices magic?”

Grey kept pestering about magic, magic, so she had passed him off to Philia, and it seemed the two had found common ground.

The pitiful, sparkling eyes attack from the beauty and child was so powerful that Count Randy, who was nearby, complained of breathing difficulties. He seemed to be suffering a bit, apparently his heart aching because of his wife.

Anyway, their eye attack didn’t work on Serena. She had grown accustomed to Philia’s beauty and had never liked children to begin with.

“Philia, your nephew seems to need something to focus on out of fear, so have Grey learn magic. You were anxious having nothing to do anyway, right?”

“I have no talent for magic! No interest either!”

“The person who needs magic training is Your Highness! Your Highness should learn! I’ll do well for you!”

Count Randy had called him a genius, and Grey was a child with the arrogant temperament befitting a genius.

But a child is still just a child. He wasn’t a high school student whose body had become young but whose brain was that of a master detective, yet he seemed to be pestering too persistently.

‘Maybe he’s scared.’

Like Lavenda who handled all the odd jobs by herself, he might be scared of being abandoned or perceived as a burden. Serena softened her heart.

“I was planning to just find the stairs going to the 4th layer and look around the 2nd layer collecting treasure chests anyway. Let’s talk about magic then.”

“Magic is better learned as early as possible!”

Serena left the child’s protests behind and stood in front of the statue.

‘Hmm. Don’t touch it.’

Her sibling’s life or death was still unknown. A day had passed, so the possibility that he had died in the meantime had increased.

‘If I die like this, do I go back three days? I’m not thinking straight at all. This is why the regressors in novels seem out of their minds.’

The contemplating Princess’s hand trembled slightly. Serena clenched her fist to suppress the trembling and turned away from the statue. She needed a little more time.

As Serena left the lobby, Count Randy, who had exchanged a touching farewell with his wife, followed alongside her.

“If you’re planning to continue participating in labyrinth strategy, learning magic from Grey wouldn’t be bad either.”

“I studied magic theory diligently too, so there’s still a lot left in my head.”

“Not that kind of thing, but you could also learn the skills I learned.”

“Combat magic techniques?”

“Yes.”

‘Learning wouldn’t hurt, but why specifically from the kid? I could learn from Count Randy too.’

However, if he could teach better himself, Count Randy wouldn’t have specifically told her to learn from Grey. Serena nodded without much thought.

***

The sky of the 3rd layer, encountered again after several days, was still vast. Though not a real sun, the light shining down from the sky was dazzlingly brilliant.

After being trapped in the labyrinth all this time, seeing the wide sky and the open space, though it was a cliff, made her feel like her heart was expanding too.

The Princess, who had been looking up at the sky with a gentle expression, caught something strange in her one eye. A small dot crossing the sky.

She thought it might be a Labyrinth Condor, but a sound followed.

Aaaahhhhh!

It sounded like a human scream.

“Didn’t you defeat the formidable Labyrinth Deer?”

“We didn’t encounter any.”

Uwaaaaaaah!

Then was this the cry of a Labyrinth Deer? The voice was too familiar for that to be the case. It was different from the unlucky deer’s cry.

“Save meeeee!”

A young boy’s voice calling for rescue. It was Seraph.

That bastard who had already died seven times and updated his sister’s peak blood pressure was in mortal danger again.

“Did a condor catch him? No, that thing is… quite big?”

The condor that had snatched Seraph and was flying was ten times larger than the Labyrinth Condors that appeared on the 3rd Layer. It appeared as a tiny dot flying through the distant sky, but in reality it was as big as a house.

“It’s a Floor Boss.”

The Boss Condor lowered its altitude to show off its imposing size to Serena, then soared upward again, disappearing into the clouds before flying somewhere.

She lost sight of it in her vision that was half as good as others’ due to it hiding in the clouds, but fortunately she knew its destination and caught up.

The Boss Condor landed at the summit of the highest peak on the 3rd Layer. It was the very top that required craning one’s neck back to look up at, even from the current location which was the second highest point on the 3rd Layer.

“Wow, up there. How do we get up?”

The party’s spirits were crushed not by the question of how to face the Boss, but how to climb up to face the Boss. Serena didn’t even feel any fighting spirit.

‘Is it really because of me? Did I kill him?’

Why did her sibling, who was supposedly alive and well and had gone down to the 4th Layer, come up to the 3rd Layer, and why was he caught by the Boss Condor of all things? Why was that scene being broadcast live when Serena was present?

‘Am I really the problem?’

Was Serena a grim reaper limited to her sibling, or a harbinger of misfortune whose appearance made her sibling’s luck drop to zero? There was no way it could be this unlucky otherwise.

‘Or that thing. Schrödinger’s cat.’

Until Serena observed, Seraph’s life and death weren’t fixed. But the moment Serena the observer appeared, Seraph’s fate was fixed as death.

‘I know that can’t be true. This is too much.’

It was so absurd that Serena briefly escaped reality into delusion. Even her delusions were filled with ridiculous thoughts.

“We must rescue him quickly!”

“That’s true, but how do we get up there?”

“Let’s get closer first.”

To reach the Boss Condor’s nest, they had to go down quite a bit more. The party that arrived below the peak faced a problem.

“There’s no path.”

They had expected narrow paths, makeshift ladders, or caves leading to the nest, but near the peak there was no climbable route no matter how hard they searched.

Instead, there were cracks and protruding parts scattered across the vertical cliff as if telling them to grab on and climb. The arrangement was so nicely done that at first glance it seemed climbable, but.

“It’s too high. We’d run out of strength halfway and fall to our deaths.”

“Even if we made it all the way up, we’d be too exhausted to fight the Boss Condor.”

“We can’t rule out the possibility of the condor flying elsewhere. Though it probably isn’t that evil.”

The peak that required craning their necks to look up at even from near the second highest stairs on the 3rd Layer. They had gone down from there to reach the vicinity. It absolutely wasn’t a height they could climb up the cliff.

“Is there a secret door?”

“Rather than that, it would be better for Ying and me to shoot arrows and magic from another peak to lure the condor elsewhere.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

An unfamiliar voice stopped the party. Since they had sensed someone approaching by their presence, no one was startled.

“Huff, huff, huff.”

“Your Highness, if you get caught. By the name of light, huff, I will, judge. Huff.”

“What if Prince Seraph’s face gets scarred? That’s his only good point. Ah, Lady Serena! That was just a joke.”

“Ahem. I am Hazel, who serves the Earth God. I will open the path to the Labyrinth Condor for you.”

The party’s expressions brightened at the welcome news, then.

“Gasp!”

The path Hazel opened was an infinite stairway hell, making their faces darker than a night during an eclipse.

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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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