Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 7

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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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7. Heuji’s Mausoleum (4)

As the group moved forward, they encountered the rat that had escaped by clinging to the ceiling again. The first encounter had caught them off guard because they hadn’t looked up at the ceiling (they were only watching Serena), but the second time was different.

“Hiyah!”

Hanson’s spear pierced the giant rat’s body. The rat fell to the floor with the spear stuck in it, writhing in pain. Hans quickly pulled out the spear and stabbed again to finish it off.

“Well done.”

“Not at all!”

‘At least stab gently so the spear blade doesn’t get damaged. Don’t go stabbing wildly against the stone ceiling.’

Since he had achieved results, perhaps he would do better going forward. Serena hid her true thoughts and praised Hanson.

“Look at the size of it. It could eat a person.”

Krom confirmed the giant rat was completely dead, then tied the rat’s tail to his belt. Lavenda, who had been examining the giant rat with him, asked.

“Why are you taking that?”

“The meat’s too good to waste.”

“Kyaah! Lady Serena, is it okay to eat rats?”

Philia made a shrill sound and clung to Serena. Serena forced a smile.

“We’ll be able to get out before that.”

‘Please.’

She had finally been reincarnated as a princess, but she didn’t want to eat rat meat, which she had never even tried in her previous life.

***

‘This one must have been the leader here.’

Though they hadn’t discussed it, everyone thought so. Because the dead rat had been unusually large.

There might be more rats, but there wouldn’t be any as big as this one. Everyone tacitly thought so.

Squeak, squeak!

Squeeeeak!

Keeek!

They were wrong. It was a hasty judgment.

Three rats of similar size to the dead one simultaneously attacked the group. The party fell into chaos.

“Hieek! Get away!”

“Uaah, uaaah, uaaaah!”

“Get away, you bastards.”

“Shh shh.”

The giant rats, averaging over 3 kilograms in body weight, were extremely threatening. Being large, their teeth and claws were also big and sharp. Their fur was dirty and coarse, and their eyes held a strange murderous intent and madness. The saliva dripping between their pointed snouts was sticky.

‘Won’t we get sick if those things bite us? It looks like we’d catch a disease just from their spit flying around.’

Serena pushed Philia, who was screaming in three stages while turning pale with disgust, behind her. After removing the troublesome maid from the battlefield, she commanded those with weapons.

“What are you doing! Kill those rats!”

“Yes!”

“Those rat bastards are so fast.”

As Krom said, the giant rats were quick. Dealing with small, fast animals is quite difficult if you’re not used to it.

The rat easily dodged Hanson’s stiff spear thrusts and leaped toward the rear of the party.

“Kyaaaah!”

Lavenda screamed and kicked at the rat that lunged at her. Krom struck the fallen rat’s head with his wooden sword.

“You bastard!”

The sound of the skull cracking was crisp.

“Die! Die!”

Hanson thrust his spear diligently, but perhaps lacking practice in downward stabbing, his accuracy was terrible. Krom aimed for the gaps of the rat dodging Hanson’s spear and struck.

The luck of hitting the head like the first time didn’t happen again. It took several hits, but there seemed to be no real impact.

One of the two rats that had been weaving between Hanson and Krom charged toward the rear again.

Lavenda, an experienced rat-kicker from just moments before, raised her leg again to aim at the rat. The rat wasn’t easily fooled.

Philia covered both cheeks with her hands in horror.

“Oh my! The rat is hanging on!”

The rat avoided Lavenda’s foot and bit onto her skirt hem, hanging there. If it bit Lavenda’s foot or shin like that, or jumped up to attack her upper body, she would be seriously injured.

“Give me the scabbard!”

Serena reached out to Krom. When Krom threw her the scabbard, she quickly swung it.

Serena’s strike missed. The scabbard hit the floor instead of the rat. Serena’s hand tingled.

Fortunately, the rats seemed to judge the situation unfavorable with more attackers and fled.

“Huff huff.”

“What the hell kind of rat bastards…”

Hanson, who had practiced spear thrusting to death, was breathing heavily. Krom also wiped the sweat from his forehead with the cloth wrapped around his head.

“Should I carry the scabbard?”

Everyone agreed with Lavenda’s suggestion. You don’t need great weapons to deal with rats. Courage and a club were enough. Serena handed the scabbard to Lavenda.

“Everyone did well. Let’s rest for a moment.”

“Huff, I’m sorry.”

Hanson, who was supposedly part of the Security Force but couldn’t catch a single rat, apologized. Serena lightly forgave him.

Three rats had charged simultaneously, causing everyone to panic, and the weapons weren’t good either. It would have been better to swing the spear, but the corridor was too narrow and the group was too close together.

“Next time it would be better to swing the spear shaft to strike them. We should also keep our distance.”

“We’ll do that!”

“What did those rat bastards eat to get so big? There shouldn’t be anything to eat in a tomb.”

“The place where I woke up was a cave, wasn’t it? Before the earthquake, it wouldn’t have been blocked off, so they probably got their food from there.”

If it had been an ordinary cave, there would have been plenty of insects and moss for the rats to eat.

Krom clicked his tongue and collected the rat corpse with the crushed skull. With rats hanging on both sides of his belt, his waist felt heavy.

“How nice it would be if these were money pouches.”

“Once we get out of here, that’s what they’ll become.”

“Really?”

“I am generous.”

“How presumptuous! Lady Serena is famous for her generosity!”

With all the royalty dead, there was plenty of royal wealth and few people to spend it. Even among the royal family, Serena was the only woman.

Even the grandfather who scolded Serena for strange reasons never said anything about her spending money. The treasurer who managed the royal assets always asked Serena if her allowance was sufficient.

‘Richard was happy when I spent money too.’

Even that strange cousin brother constantly gave Serena jewelry as gifts. Until falling into the mausoleum today, Serena had been a truly materially happy princess.

***

“I was so scared. This is the end, right?”

Philia, who had seen rats for the first time in her life and even been attacked by them, expressed her hopes.

‘Well.’

Despite her efforts to think positively right after waking up, her thoughts flowed pessimistically.

‘Hamsters live alone, but what about rats? In games and movies, they always swarmed together.’

Guinea pigs are herd animals, so in some European country, keeping just one is illegal. If these rats were the same? Not three rats, but dozens swarming at once?

Serena forcibly redirected her increasingly negative train of thought.

Don’t forget positive thinking! In disaster situations, a positive mindset determines life and death!

‘Since they ran away, they probably won’t come back.’

In various fiction like games, movies, and novels, beasts and monsters never flee and charge with the resolve to die.

But that’s just a device to advance the plot, different from reality. In the wild, small injuries can lead to death.

That’s why wild animals don’t fight fiercely unless it’s special combat like during mating season or territorial disputes. They’re also good at running away.

‘Since they fled, they won’t attack again. If there’s a group, they’ll spread word not to mess with us.’

Serena hoped the rat network would operate quickly.

As they say, life’s fortunes are unpredictable. Where there are attacks, there are also discoveries.

Serena finally discovered a trap. The color of the corridor floor was different in one particular section.

After pushing the group back, when Hanson touched the differently colored floor with the tip of his spear, the floor collapsed downward, revealing a trap filled with spikes.

“It would have been terrible if we hadn’t discovered it.”

“That’s right. It’s all thanks to Lady Serena discovering it!”

“How do we get past this?”

“The young folks could probably jump across, but my knees are stiff, so what should I do?”

Everyone praised Serena’s keen eye, but Serena wasn’t pleased.

She had expected there would be traps on the floor or trap switches on the floor.

‘The rats were moving along the walls.’

The three rats that had attacked the group earlier had also charged along the ceiling and walls. The first rat they discovered had also moved along the ceiling.

From that point on, Serena had considered it highly likely there would be traps on the floor. She should have felt good about being right, but she didn’t because.

“The trap is so obviously a trap.”

The trap had been really easy to spot.

To use an analogy, yes. It stood out from the background as much as the parts in old cel animation that telegraphed what would move next.

“If we had been walking while looking elsewhere or fighting rats, we would have fallen into the trap. If everyone had been looking at the ceiling to watch for rats, we all would have stepped on it.”

Lavenda sensed the princess’s discomfort and defended Serena. Philia also chimed in.

“The masseuse is right. Seeing how old-fashioned the trap is, the mausoleum must be quite old. Right, Lady Serena?”

‘I should have kept my mouth shut.’

What did that make Serena, who had been worried about that old-fashioned trap and made the group nervous and cautious, slowing down their movement speed?

Serena wanted to slap that pretty mouth of Huji’s greatest beauty a few times.

“That’s right! And this could be a trap deliberately placed to make us underestimate the other traps.”

Lavenda defended Serena again. But like food that had gone bad once, Serena’s pride had also soured and lost its freshness.

“Lavenda is right. Everyone stay alert as we move forward.”

Serena smiled, hiding her bitter feelings.

***

After helping Krom with his stiff knees past the trap and walking for about 5 minutes, the group stopped.

“Another crossroads.”

A crossroads appeared before the group again. This time too, there were 5 possible paths. Serena began to feel anxious as the mausoleum seemed larger than expected.

“Which way should we go?”

“How long has it been since we fell down here?”

“How would I know?”

Portable watches were expensive items, so no one in the group carried a watch. The only people who might have carried one were Serena and Philia.

Serena? Have you ever heard of a princess walking around checking her watch?

Philia, who should have checked the time for Serena? She usually carried one, but she happened to be on vacation. Philia’s pockets were full of gold and jewels, but no watch.

Serena kept her mouth firmly shut and calculated the time.

‘Since I ran away during breakfast, it was roughly lunchtime when we left the massage parlor. I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but it didn’t seem like I was out for very long.’

Her body and mind felt like they had been working non-stop for 24 hours, but the actual time probably wasn’t that long.

‘At most three or four hours?’

After much deliberation, Serena decided.

“Let’s go back to where the fountain is for now. If the paths get more complicated from here, we’ll need a map. And all of you, including myself, desperately need rest.”

Hanson’s condition was particularly serious, having worked day and night throughout the founding festival period. His freckled eyes were sunken and his gaze was hazy.

His lips were so parched they had cracked and formed scabs, and the hand holding his spear was trembling.

Escape was urgent, but if they pushed forward, Hanson wouldn’t be able to hold out. In a situation where they didn’t know how much of the path remained, they couldn’t afford to waste their only military force.

No one objected. The party retraced their steps.

Though it felt like they had walked all day, the actual distance they had traveled wasn’t much.

They passed the trap and the place where they had fought the rats. When they reached the first fork where they had left the cart, the group noticed something strange.

“It’s dark? We could see light coming from here before.”

“That’s right.”

Hanson, Krom, and Lavenda, who had awakened near the first fork, had walked toward the bright light and reached the lobby. But near the crossroads, there was no light brighter than the corridor lighting.

“The fountain side is dark.”

It was actually dark. Tension began to circulate among the people.

Serena brought her index finger to her lips, signaling the group to be quiet.

As they got closer to the lobby, the corridor lighting grew more distant and it became progressively darker. Krom carefully searched through the cart.

“I have a lantern.”

Krom found a lantern in the cart and skillfully tried to light it.

“There’s not much oil, so we need to conserve it.”

“I know light orb magic, so it’s fine.”

Light orb magic was basic magic learned when entering the study of magic.

‘I only used it when learning and never used it since. It should be fine. It’s introductory magic. It’s like a tutorial.’

Magic was also done with the body, so she trusted her body would remember.

‘If I mess up, it’ll be embarrassing. Get it together, Serena.’

Fortunately, the magic succeeded. Serena received quiet cheers from the group as she moved the orb of light forward.

The group carefully headed toward the lobby.

Aside from being dark as night, there seemed to be nothing particularly wrong. Serena moved the light orb around to illuminate the lobby.

Only the sound of water flowing from the fountain could be heard, and nothing else happened. Krom asked Serena for permission and then shouted loudly.

“Is anyone there?”

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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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