Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 77

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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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77. Path of Light (1)

The faithful servant of darkness preferred the dark path. Unfortunately, the others had different opinions.

“What? Of course we should go this way, toward the bright side.”

“We need to go to the bright place so we can fight together. Please leave it to us.”

“It’s not just ordinarily dark, it’s unpleasantly dark, so I prefer the bright side too.”

A boundary between light and darkness as straight as if cut by a sword.

All the party members crossed over to the bright side, and Ying’s eyebrows twitched as she remained alone on the dark side.

Others might not see it, but it was clearly visible to Serena’s eyes.

For reference, Serena, as the party leader, was standing with one foot in darkness and one foot in light.

If Ying’s argument was valid, she was willing to ignore the majority and side with Ying.

“It’s not ordinary light either. It’s unpleasantly bright.”

Both light and darkness were extreme.

There was a Chinese legend from her past life about nine suns, but this labyrinth was as bright as if ten suns had risen.

Both darkness and light threatened Serena’s eye health.

“You just want to take the dark path because you dislike brightness. Is there any need to go down a path that makes fighting difficult, where only you and the Princess can see well?”

“You make excuses about not being able to see, but you fight well enough, don’t you?”

“The path is too dark to find anything! Fortunately there were no traps, but what if there had been?”

“True treasure is always hidden in darkness.”

“Enough. I’ve heard everyone’s opinions.”

Watching from a neutral position, Serena could see that Ying was simply arguing for the dark path because she liked darkness.

In that case, taking the bright path was the right choice.

“Ying, does your vision deteriorate in bright places by any chance?”

“No.”

“Then let’s take the bright path.”

“Yes!”

Olive cheered excitedly while Ying seemed disappointed, slightly hanging her head.

“You decide the path.”

There were two paths of light.

When given the choice, Olive, being the guide, faithfully performed her job by investigating this and that before pointing to one side.

“This one seems shorter, so let’s try going this way! Yo!”

Serena, who had been straddling light and darkness, fully entered the path of light following Olive’s lead.

When her right eye, which had been on the dark side, touched the light, it was quite dazzling. Even with her eyes closed, the light penetrated her eyelids enough to appear red.

A dazzling world where no shadows were cast from any direction. In a different sense from the dark path, it was tiring for the eyes.

The other party members seemed satisfied to be able to see and didn’t complain much. Only Ying followed the party from the rear with dragging steps.

“Watch out for traps!”

Olive, who was walking ten paces ahead of the party, discovered a trap and warned them.

The guide lay flat on the ground and extended only her hand to trigger the trap.

The brick floor opened, revealing the interior.

“I can see a floor that looks exactly like this one. Could it be the floor below?”

“It could be, or it could be several floors down. In a labyrinth, if you break through a wall, does the next room appear? No, right? These pitfall traps are the same. From here it looks like the floor directly below, but if you’re unlucky, it could be 10 floors down.”

Olive shuddered as she secured the trap to prevent it from functioning.

“To think there were such scary things on this floor. If I had stepped on it without seeing it while walking in the dark earlier, I would have been done for.”

Since it was a trap that activated when stepped on, there was no need to worry if a competent guide took the lead.

As the party tried to continue past the trap, a new monster appeared before them.

Cluck.

It was a living labyrinth chicken, not an undead. It had been large even in skeleton form, but with muscles attached to bones and feathers added, it had doubled in size.

Unlike ordinary chickens that boasted white or brown feathers, the labyrinth chicken had puffed up feathers mixed with gray and black. While silky fowl were cool, pretty, and cute, the labyrinth chicken was hideous.

The claws on the feet that stepped heavily on the brick floor to attack the party were as vicious as the condor claws from the 3rd layer.

‘They say birds are descendants of dinosaurs. That’s totally a T-rex.’

From the red eyes dripping with murderous intent to the red beak as if stained with blood, and even the jet-black comb, the labyrinth chicken was extremely threatening.

Five such terrifying-looking labyrinth chickens had appeared.

However, the 4-star thief, 4-star archer, 3-star knight, and 5-star alchemist were not intimidated by the imposing presence of the labyrinth chicken flock. Instead, they smiled brightly.

“It’s chicken. My wife will love this!”

“What, it wasn’t just undead that appeared. I’m really grateful that chickens showed up.”

“Would it be okay to make oil with magic and fry them?”

Everyone was absorbed in thoughts of frying the labyrinth chickens rather than thinking about fighting.

Cooook!

The leading labyrinth chicken spread its wings, leaped up, and attacked Ralph at the front with its claws.

Ralph blocked the claw attack with his shield and swung his sword to cut off both legs while the creature was still airborne.

Cockadoodledoo!

The labyrinth chicken fell to the ground and only flapped its wings. Serena fired two mana bullets at the labyrinth chicken’s head. The wing flapping stopped.

Ralph then struck the neck of another attacking labyrinth chicken. Red blood spurted upward.

Olive wasn’t idle either. Using her small frame, she dodged the labyrinth chicken’s jumping claw attack, slipped under its wing, and stabbed the monster’s neck.

Ying finished off the two labyrinth chickens that couldn’t join the battle due to the narrow passage with arrows.

The headless labyrinth chicken ran around flapping here and there as if still alive before collapsing with a thud.

The battle ended in an instant. The party smiled brightly, savoring the joy of victory.

“Let’s hang up the headless one first. Let’s drain the blood.”

“Even with just one, we wouldn’t have to worry about meat for a week.”

Ying silently plucked only the chicken wing feathers and asked Count Randy to store them.

Serena was about to stay still when she felt mana from the labyrinth chicken’s corpse and pointed with her finger.

“This chicken seems to have a magic stone.”

“Oh my, then we need to dismantle this one first.”

They obtained two large low-grade magic stones.

Since the subspace bag capacity was insufficient to contain all five, they decided to only take materials like beaks, combs, hearts, claws, and some meat.

The carcasses they couldn’t take due to insufficient subspace bag capacity were chopped up and left behind so it would be okay even if they became undead.

After eating rats, bipedal tool-using cattle, frogs, and condors, everyone was delighted at the thought of eating chicken meat, even though it was a monster.

“Let’s grind up the dried bread, coat the meat with it, and fry it. It’ll be delicious. Yo. It would have been even better if we had eggs and flour~”

“I like chicken legs and wings. Whether grilled, fried, or boiled, they’re all delicious.”

“Since we have fruits and herbs, I could make a sauce that goes well with chicken breast steak, right?”

Everyone spread their wings of imagination about how to make delicious food with insufficient ingredients and cooking tools.

‘Ah~ I want to eat chicken~’

Serena’s mind was also dominated by thoughts of the chicken and cola from her past life.

She had somehow succeeded in creating a similar dish by requesting chicken from the chef, but she had to settle for fruit juice mixed with carbonated water instead of cola.

On difficult and painful days, among the two black drinks that moistened Serena’s thirsty soul, she particularly missed Coke Zero today.

“According to my wife, the fried chicken dish that Lady Serena devised is very delicious.”

“There’s a fried chicken dish that the Princess devised? I’m curious. Yo.”

“I’m curious too.”

“When we get out of here, I’ll treat everyone to it.”

Whether they conquered the labyrinth or escaped, either way, the party deserved to eat chicken.

The party’s harmonious atmosphere ended when they encountered two more labyrinth chickens.

This time too, they regretfully had to abandon the chicken meat after only salvaging essential materials, and as a result of moving forward.

“It’s stairs.”

“Yes. But the direction is…”

“Ugh. It’s troublesome if the path gets this twisted already.”

Serena’s party discovered stairs going up, not down.

“What shall we do? Shall we go up?”

“The best case would be if this connects to other stairs on the 3rd layer, and the worst case…”

Knowledge and information provide people with various possibilities.

The guide, knowing too much information about labyrinths, was troubled by the countless possibilities that could arise from a single set of ascending stairs.

“Don’t worry about it so much and let’s go up.”

“Yes. We should. It’s the 11th floor now, so surely it won’t be twisted so disgustingly. Yo.”

As the Guide stepped onto the stairs, the rest also stepped on the stairs.

The intense light gradually diminished to normal brightness, then dimmed appropriately to suit a cave with blocked lighting.

When they climbed to the end of the stairs, they saw the familiar stalactite cave.

The party had returned to the 3rd Layer of Heuji’s Labyrinth.

Serena immediately spread out her magic map. There were two staircases leading down to the 3rd Layer, and both Serena’s party and Seraph’s party had used the same staircase.

The place where Serena and her party were now located was where the other staircase that neither party had used was. Olive, who had been slightly anxious, patted her chest in relief.

“Thank goodness! There was a labyrinth where the entire layer was twisted and you had to go up and down like crazy! Yo! I wanted to die while drawing the map back then.”

A labyrinth so complex it could drive one to suicidal thoughts.

Olive wrapped her small body and shivered as if the memory was still vivid.

“It’s fortunate that the two staircases connect to one path.”

“I agree.”

Count Randy stopped Olive, who was about to go back down to the 4th Layer, and looked at Serena.

“Since we’ve returned to the 3rd Layer anyway, how about using the zipline to return to the 1st Floor to empty our subspace bags?”

“It would be a shame to throw away the meat. I’m fine with it.”

Ralph readily agreed, but Olive slowly shook her head.

“I also think it’s a shame to throw away ingredients, but it’s impossible. Yo.”

“Impossible?”

“Hmm~ Since it’s not urgent, I’ll show you directly. Yo.”

Olive looked at the magic map and investigated a corner near the stairs, finding a wall that was subtly hidden from people’s view.

“Now, what’s different about this wall from other walls?”

“It’s a breakable wall!”

Ralph recognized it immediately. He was the one who had broken through walls to create shortcuts between ziplines and stairs.

“Then another question! There should be a zipline behind this wall, but can we break the wall? Or can’t we?”

“Huh? Can’t we just break it like this… The wall won’t break.”

The previous wall had broken easily even with a fist rather than a shield, but strangely this wall wouldn’t break.

Even when Ralph rammed it with his shoulder with all his might, it was the same. The wall didn’t budge.

“It can only be broken from the other side?”

“Princess, correct! As expected of an educated person! It’s structured so that you can only break it from this direction after breaking through once from the other side to open the path. Yo. Most labyrinth shortcuts are like that.”

A place where you get praised for being educated despite just playing games diligently. That place was the Otherworldly Labyrinth.

“How strange.”

“Even if it’s strange, what can we do. That’s what labyrinths are.”

The Count’s heart, wanting to feed his beloved wife fresh chicken meat, was blocked by the obstacle called the labyrinth’s mystery.

“We should have opened the shortcut in advance.”

Serena and her party went down to the 4th Layer with regret.

They passed through the path they had come and returned to the crossroads in the shape of a cross, then walked the Path of Light they hadn’t taken.

Then crossroads appeared again and the path gradually became more complex.

“This way.”

“That way.”

“This time, here.”

Trusting the Guide’s choices and passing through the Path of Light while defeating labyrinth chickens, the party discovered a treasure chest.

“Wow! It’s a treasure chest that’s better than sparkly but not as good as magnificent!”

The treasure chest shone brighter than a gold-rimmed chest but less than the magnificent chest from which Seraph had obtained his subspace bag.

“Arrows.”

“You’re talking nonsense that’ll bring bad luck. For me, it’s definitely a magic tool! Even if it’s useless, a magic tool!”

“If it were an ordinary treasure chest, I would have prayed for vinegar, sugar, or pepper to come out.”

“I’d like eggs! They’d be delicious fried together with chicken!”

“Eggs. That sounds good.”

The party’s minds had long been dominated by fried chicken.

Olive glared at the party as if exasperated and opened the quite good treasure chest.

“Oh my.”

The Guide, who was the first to check inside the chest, furrowed her brow.

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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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