Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 78

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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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78. Path of Light (2)

“It’s a lantern.”

What came out of the quite good treasure chest was a lantern. Olive lifted the lantern up so the party members could see it clearly.

“It’s heavy.”

Minus 1 point for getting a lantern when they already had one, minus another point for being heavier than the lantern they already had.

The lantern Olive was currently using originally belonged to Krom. Count Randy had repaired it after it broke during the fight with Lucas, and they had been using it effectively.

“Does it have any other functions besides being a lantern? It doesn’t seem to be a magic tool either.”

Olive handed the lantern to the alchemist for appraisal. Count Randy took the lantern and raised his eyebrows.

“It’s quite heavy.”

“Exactly. What should we do? Take it or leave it?”

The guide seemed disappointed that a lantern came out of such a good treasure chest, and looked like she wanted to abandon it.

Ralph stepped forward and took the lantern.

“I’ll carry it. Miss Lavenda said that while having a campfire is nice, it would be good to have a lantern too.”

“Well, in our situation we should have something for the alchemist to trade for candy or whatever.”

Olive changed her mind and handed the lantern to Ralph. The young boy also opened his eyes wide as he received the lantern.

“It really is quite heavy.”

“I wasn’t trying to throw it away for nothing~”

“Insert this magic stone.”

The lantern used magic stones as fuel instead of oil. Olive grabbed the back of her neck.

“It came from a sparkly treasure chest but still needs fuel. This is terrible. Why did we get cursed with bad luck? Was it because we were thinking impiously about frying chicken in front of the treasure chest?”

Ralph installed the low-grade magic stone he received from Count Randy into the lantern.

“You press this button here to turn it on.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“If magic stones are the power source instead of oil, it seems wasteful to use magic stones~”

Ralph pressed the button Count Randy had shown him. Perhaps because the surroundings were so bright, there was no noticeable difference when the lantern was turned on.

“Is it on?”

“If you look closely, light is coming out.”

Ralph turned off the lantern to conserve magic power.

When he hung it at his waist, the lantern and armor collided, making an unpleasant metallic scraping sound. Ralph solved this by wrapping the lantern in cloth. The advantage was that since it was a lantern that produced light with magic stones, there was no worry about it catching fire.

“A lantern coming out of a treasure chest. We must have been really stressed walking that dark path earlier.”

Olive argued that the party had developed a desire for light sources due to walking the dark path, and that desire was reflected in the treasure chest.

Everyone except Ying agreed with her opinion.

***

Grrrrowl. Gurgle.

Ralph’s stomach made a loud sound demanding food. Ralph’s freckled cheeks turned red.

“Let’s have lunch soon.”

“There seems to be something over there, so let’s just go that far.”

After traveling about twice the distance they had covered to reach the previous crossroads, another crossroads appeared.

Again, light and darkness clearly divided the intersection in half.

Olive checked the map to get her bearings.

“Hmm. If we had chosen the dark path at the first crossroads, we would have arrived here from that direction. We’re going the right way.”

Since the floor area is estimated to be wider than the 1st or 2nd floors, it’s important to navigate correctly. The guide declared a rest, satisfied with her skills.

At crossroads, there’s a risk of monsters rushing in simultaneously from four directions. The party decided to go back a little along the path they came from to rest.

Each person took out sandwiches that Lavenda had carefully packed with nutrition in mind, and fruit to eat for dessert from their bags.

Olive showed a mischievous smile while chewing the bat meat in her sandwich.

“Should we pluck just one chicken leg?”

There was so much chicken meat that they had to throw some away with tears in their eyes. Wouldn’t it be better to grill and eat it on the spot?

Ralph swallowed his saliva at Olive’s suggestion. He hadn’t said anything, but he had wanted to eat chicken.

“Let’s do that.”

“Yes!”

“Thank you, Princess!”

“Count, take out one chicken leg!”

When Count Randy took out a huge chicken leg from his subspace bag, Olive deboned the meat from the bone.

Serena tried to cast water creation magic to wash the cut chicken meat. Ralph said he would do it and took it away.

After washing the chicken and seasoning it with salt, it was time for the important fire. Serena gripped her staff and concentrated.

What was important was not an instant flame, but a continuously burning fire.

“What I desire is a long-burning fire.”

Serena cast 3rd-tier fire creation magic.

A fire smaller than the eternal campfire that provided warmth and heat to the party in the lobby was created on the brick floor.

Fire creation was a 3rd-tier magic spell. It was different from 1st-tier ignition magic. The biggest difference was that the fire continued to burn while consuming magic power.

Since it consumed both the caster’s concentration and magic power, it was magic where both the temperature of the fire and its duration varied greatly depending on the caster’s ability.

“Princess, you’re amazing!”

“You’re really incredible!”

“Don’t talk to me. It breaks my concentration.”

Olive and Ralph skewered the seasoned chicken meat and grilled it over the fire. Chicken fat dripped down, and the smell of cooking meat was so savory it was enough to disturb the Princess’s concentration.

‘It looks delicious.’

Saliva gathered in Serena’s mouth.

“Count, please grill this instead.”

Olive, who had been excitedly grilling meat while turning the skewer, got up from her spot.

“Zero. No, Knight would be better. Zero, you keep grilling.”

The guide requested a position change from the taciturn archer and knight. Ying took the skewer from Ralph’s hand without any particular question and grilled it.

Ralph, who had gotten up from his spot unexpectedly, was puzzled.

“What’s the matter?”

“Monster. Looks like undead, let’s go catch it quickly.”

“Will you two be alright?”

“It’s enough. If we encounter undead before eating, it kills the appetite~”

Olive grumbled as she took Ralph and walked toward the crossroads.

A moment later. The guide and knight returned with ambiguous expressions.

“Sorry to interrupt while grilling meat, but you need to see this for yourself.”

“You must see it.”

‘What’s going on?’

Serena stopped the fire creation magic and got up from her spot. Count Randy and Ying also carefully set down their skewers to avoid getting dust on them and followed.

When they went to the crossroads where Olive and Ralph had fought, the Skeleton Labyrinth Chicken was still there.

The undead that spotted the Princess threatened with a murky sound.

Cock-cock-cock!

The red eyes of the undead that discovered the living were filled with murderous intent.

She tensed up thinking it would rush at her immediately and stab Serena with claws that looked longer and more hideous with only bones remaining, but something was strange.

‘What is it?’

Serena watched for a bit and immediately noticed the oddity.

The skeleton chicken wasn’t taking a single step out of the darkness of the sharply divided crossroads.

“Why isn’t it coming this way?”

“It was like that when we fought it too.”

“Right. We couldn’t see well over there so we tried to lure it over here to fight, but it seemed blocked and couldn’t come out.”

When Olive stuck her body into the darkness to show the party, the skeleton immediately attacked.

Olive moved under the light. The skeleton wanted to attack Olive but couldn’t come out to the side with light.

As if blocked by an invisible wall, it couldn’t cross the boundary between light and darkness.

“Since it’s undead, does it avoid light?”

It’s a common setting that undead hate light, but in this world, the Light God despises necromancy, so most light damages undead.

The faithful servant of darkness answered Serena’s question.

“This light is not divine.”

It wasn’t that it had a grudge against light, but an explanation that the light itself contained no divinity.

“Shall we push the undead toward the light?”

“Yes.”

Olive and Ralph became experimental assistants at Count Randy’s request.

While Olive drew the skeleton’s attention, Ralph enlarged his shield and pushed the skeleton chicken toward the light with all his might.

The skeleton chicken was pushed under the light by Ralph’s shove. The bone monster that had been moving through mysterious power without muscles collapsed downward.

“Hmm.”

Olive kicked part of the bones back into the darkness. The bones then assembled and began moving to kill.

“How fascinating.”

Everyone nodded at Serena’s words. It really was fascinating.

“The opposite case might be the same. Labyrinth chickens might not be able to go into the darkness, or they might die if they do.”

“Yes, I think so too. Next time we encounter a labyrinth chicken, we should lure it here and experiment.”

“I agree!”

“I agree as well.”

Fortunately, they didn’t need to go out looking for a labyrinth chicken.

Perhaps it had smelled the scent of its kin’s meat cooking. A labyrinth chicken attacked the party from afar, crowing noisily.

“Come here, over here!”

“Hyup!”

Again, Olive drew the monster’s attention while Ralph pushed the monster.

The labyrinth chicken that had been under the light and was then enveloped in darkness scattered its feathers as if thrown into boiling water and returned to the light.

Olive confirmed that the labyrinth chicken was suffering from extreme anxiety and fear, then stabbed a dagger into its neck.

“The territory division is clear~”

“It’s good that we don’t have to fight living chickens and dead chickens at the same time.”

“That’s right. It’s a bit scary just imagining it.”

Ralph tried to chop up the labyrinth chicken with his axe. Olive waved her hand.

“There probably won’t be any undead under the light. No need to waste energy unnecessarily.”

“That’s a relief then. It was a bit… uncomfortable chopping up something we wouldn’t even eat.”

“There seems to be a magic stone.”

“We should take that out.”

Olive split the chicken’s chest with the axe and extracted the magic stone near the heart.

The chicken skewer they ate after catching the labyrinth chicken was delicious, except for the chicken’s fishy smell.

Perhaps because they grilled the tender thigh meat, it wasn’t tough or chewy and went down smoothly.

‘It’s a taste that calls for beer.’

Serena wasn’t the only one who thought so. Except for the teenager who didn’t know the taste of alcohol, all the adults smacked their lips.

“We have bread and fruit. We could brew alcohol.”

“Absolutely not.”

When the Princess spoke strongly with emotion, Olive tucked her tail between her legs.

“Yes. That was a bad joke. I was wrong.”

Since the guide quickly apologized and admitted her mistake, Serena said nothing more.

After filling their stomachs heartily, they set out on the road again.

Whenever they came to a crossroads, Olive chose the path according to her own criteria.

The group arrived at a clearing with an area similar to the lobby before expansion. Again, at the end of the boundary split half and half between light and darkness, there was a large stone gate.

“It looks like a leader’s chamber.”

“Hehe~ This is my level.”

“You found it quickly again. It seemed quite wide, so we could have gotten lost.”

“It’s all thanks to me. Yo.”

“What’s your secret?”

“Hey~ It’s no good trying to steal someone else’s trade secrets.”

Before fighting the floor boss, the group warmed up and prepared for battle. Since Olive had worked hard finding paths and traps, instead of sitting out the battle, she copied the code carved on the door.

“I’ll open the door.”

Ralph, who had enlarged his shield, carefully opened the door. While outside the door was divided between light and darkness, the leader’s chamber was bright like the Path of Light.

Cock-a-doodle-doooo!

Screech!

As the door opened, the floor boss that had been waiting for enemies inside began trying to seize the initiative with a battle cry.

Glossy jet-black feathers and bulging eyes. A sharp beak that could smash a head in one blow and claws that would tear off body parts if scratched or stabbed.

A large and magnificent comb that swayed majestically with even small movements. The boss labyrinth chicken with overwhelming presence put strength into its voice and crowed.

Cock-a-doodle-doooooo!

Screech, screech!

At the end of the chicken’s crow that seemed like it could raise the sun even indoors, other sounds mixed in.

As soon as Olive heard the sound, she recognized what it was.

“It’s a goblin. There’s a goblin riding on the chicken!”

As if wary of the sharp-eyed and sharp-eared guide, the goblin riding the chicken blew something like a tube.

When Olive dodged to the side, spit fell where she had been standing.

“The goblin is shooting poison darts! Everyone be careful not to get hit!”

“Thank you for the warning!”

Ralph blocked his face with his shield and charged at the boss labyrinth chicken and goblin.

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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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