Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 82

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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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82. Falling Behind (4)

“When I hit the crystal, the darkness disappeared and the world became bright. The Skeleton became ordinary bones like it did on the upper floors, and I was able to escape from danger.”

Thus ended Sir Ralph Hanson’s brief but perilous adventure.

“There’s a crystal over here.”

Ralph stood up, saying he would show them directly.

The young boy who had been walking confidently stopped and turned around awkwardly.

“I’ll guide you, so please lead the way, Miss Olive!”

“That’s a proper attitude. There are many fools who don’t come to their senses even after getting thoroughly beaten, but the Knight has become a proper person.”

Olive exaggeratedly checked for traps. No traps were found during their journey to the crystal Ralph had mentioned.

“This is the crystal.”

A crystal the size of a human head was embedded in a plain brick wall with no decorations.

The crystal was white and opaque, suggesting low quality.

‘I don’t sense any magical power.’

Except for being oddly placed in the brick wall, it looked like an ordinary, unremarkable crystal.

“You’re saying touching this switches the state?”

“Yes. I’ll show you right away.”

Ralph immediately punched the crystal with his fist.

Clang-!

A clear, far-reaching sound rang out, and the world became dark.

Clang-!

Ralph hit the crystal again. The dark world became bright.

“It works like this.”

“Oh, how fascinating.”

“Very fascinating indeed.”

Olive and Count Randy gathered around the crystal and took turns tapping it.

Each time, the crystal made a clear, beautiful sound while changing the surrounding state from light to darkness, darkness to light.

“It’s safe, right? How interesting~”

Olive excitedly tapped the crystal. The world flickered like club lighting.

“Yes. It’s incredibly fascinating.”

When Olive stopped, Ralph began tapping the crystal.

The crystal-hitting speed was so fast that clear clang sounds created a rhythm, and the lighting was so dazzling it seemed like they should be dancing.

‘A common gimmick.’

Serena wasn’t particularly surprised.

Light and darkness state switching. It was an occasional gimmick when playing games.

“Wasn’t there something else you said you’d show us besides the crystal?”

“Ah, right. This is it.”

Ralph struck the crystal to change light to darkness and pressed the lantern button. The lantern brightly illuminated the surroundings.

“This is!”

Lanterns are originally used to brighten surroundings when it’s too dark to see. The party was amazed by something different.

As explained multiple times, the light and darkness of the 4th Layer of Heuji’s Labyrinth are peculiar. Darkness rejects light and light rejects darkness.

On the Path of Light, not a single shadow could be found, and on the path of darkness, no matter how much they brightened lanterns or created light orbs, barely illuminating what was right in front of them was the limit. As if darkness could not tolerate light, it devoured most light.

But the lantern Ralph lit turned the labyrinth’s mysterious darkness into ordinary darkness.

The range of the lantern’s light was wide, like illuminating surroundings with a bright lantern at night.

“I can see far into the distance!”

“There was a reason it came from the treasure chest!”

“I almost threw away this treasure without recognizing it! You mouth! You bad mouth!”

The lantern they had almost discarded for being big and heavy was a useful magical tool on the 4th Layer!

Olive slapped her own mouth repeatedly in regret.

“Without this lantern, I would have gone mad with fear. I’m really glad we kept it.”

Ralph stroked the lantern like handling a puppy. In a way, it seemed he had grown attached to it as his life’s savior.

“Hmph.”

Perhaps recalling the terror of being left behind, Ralph wiped his nose.

“Honestly, I was really scared after falling. Even when thirsty, I had to conserve water, but I didn’t know how much to drink, whether it was okay to eat bread. Even with the lantern and brightening with the crystal, I kept having bad thoughts about dying alone.”

Count Randy patted Ralph’s shoulder understandingly.

“I didn’t expect you to come rescue me this quickly. Thank you so much!”

Ralph expressed his gratitude once more. At the young boy’s pure thanks, the adults smiled warmly and looked at each other.

It was a moment when the party’s camaraderie was rising.

“Ah! There are several more crystals. I fixed all the other surrounding crystals to darkness and only kept this one bright, waiting for you all.”

The warm smiles disappeared from the adults’ faces. The boy who had been speaking excitedly realized his mistake and stiffened his expression.

“Wandering around alone. That was far too dangerous. Never do that again.”

Ralph bowed his head.

“I’m sorry. I had the lantern and the crystal was so fascinating…”

“This floor has traps too. Solo actions are dangerous, so avoid them.”

“Yes, I understand.”

Ralph held the magic map. The mapped area was considerable, showing how diligently he had wandered around alone, panting.

“Knight~?”

Olive called Ralph gently. Honestly, not getting angry immediately and being gentle made it scarier. Ralph hunched his shoulders and apologized.

“Hmm, hm. It looks like almost half is filled in.”

After scolding the Knight, the Guide stared at the map.

The Guide pursed her lips, thinking about something, then broached a topic to the party preparing to return.

“I’ve been thinking.”

“Don’t beat around the bush, just say it.”

“How about going down instead of struggling to go up?”

When the Party stopped their actions and focused on her, the Guide revealed the basis for her argument.

“From my calculations, teleportation magic circles are almost every 5 floors, you know?”

1st Floor, 5th Floor, 10th Floor. These were the floors with teleportation magic circles. Since the magic map called the first floor of the 4th Layer the 11th Floor, if the 3rd Layer was roughly the 10th Floor, it matched perfectly.

And the floor Serena’s party was currently on was the 14th Floor.

“Instead of struggling to go up to the 10th Floor, how about going down just one more floor and using the teleportation magic circle?”

Olive’s opinion seemed reasonable at first glance. But there was an important blind spot.

“There’s no guarantee there’s a teleportation magic circle on the 15th Floor.”

If there was no teleportation magic circle on the 15th Floor, it would be a waste of time, movement, and stamina.

Though the Princess pointed out the blind spot, the Guide didn’t back down.

“No. From my experience, this layer will end in at most two floors. There will definitely be a magic circle.”

“Didn’t you say earlier that this exploration was unlucky and we should return quickly?”

“That ended when the Knight rejoined us after falling behind!”

“We can’t go into deeper floors when it’s uncertain. Sir Ralph must be quite tired even if he doesn’t show it.”

“I’m fine!”

Princess and Guide. Usually the Guide leads the party, but the party’s leader is the Princess.

Normally when the two gave opinions, the remaining party members would side with whichever they thought was right.

If Serena wasn’t jumping into dangerous situations, Ralph usually sided with Serena. That Sir Ralph was rebelling.

‘This guy?’

“I’m fine! My fatigue was completely relieved by that nap! If the Princess is okay with it, I’d like to go to the lower floor as Miss Olive suggests!”

“The Knight is full of enthusiasm too! Originally when you start labyrinth exploration, you go straight for days and days. The flow seems good, so let’s go~ Our food and water are all fine~”

Serena looked at the taciturn archer to confirm the facts. Ying nodded. When she looked at Count Randy, the Count politely bowed his head.

“I will follow Serena’s opinion.”

“Please, Princess! Because I almost died! I want to see more of the end of this floor!”

‘I thought he’d be discouraged, but his spirits are up instead.’

The desire to understand the opponent and shake off fear because he was scared. She could understand that.

Serena wiggled her toes in her leather boots. Sensation returned to her toes that had grown dull after resting for a day.

‘This should be enough.’

If the flow was good, they should ride the flow. Serena ultimately agreed with the guide’s opinion.

“Great! Then I’ll estimate where the stairs should be based on the map! Yo!”

Olive analyzed the atmosphere and overall structure of the layer, the road structure and crossroads patterns, and narrowed down the likely locations where stairs might be.

She had set out confidently, but even after searching all the candidate locations for stairs, they couldn’t find any.

“This can’t be right!”

The guide who had boldly led the party saying “Let’s go to the next floor, the stairs will be here!” was now stammering and staring only at the map.

The party’s gazes watching the guide became very sharp.

Especially the Princess’s orange eyes were terrifying, combined with her characteristic charisma.

“This can’t be right! Really, this absolutely can’t be right! There should be stairs somewhere around here!”

Olive couldn’t withstand the pressure and began denying reality.

“What a waste of time. We’d better go back quickly and eat some stew. If we’d spent as much time as we did looking for stairs, the bones would have made a rich broth.”

“Agreed.”

“Wait! It’s not over yet! This is that thing! Yo!”

“What thing?”

“There’s no way they would have pointlessly included the function to change light and darkness with crystals! We’ve been lighting up crystals as soon as we find them! There must be some rule instead of lighting them all up! Yo!”

‘Ooh.’

Serena was impressed inwardly.

‘I was thinking the same thing.’

No stairs in the area the best guide predicted? One could be like that, but none in all the candidate locations? Serena had been suspecting it might be related to the crystals based on her memories of playing games in her past life.

‘As expected of the best guide.’

She wasn’t a skilled Labyrinth Explorer for nothing.

“I also think Olive is right. I suspect the stairs will only appear if we do something with the crystals.”

“Ooh, Princess! Are you taking my side? Yo?”

“The problem is. We don’t know that rule. Do you have any guesses?”

Olive stared at the map with bloodshot eyes, then confessed honestly.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

Serena sighed. Olive flinched as if hit by the sigh.

“Let’s go back up.”

“Princess, didn’t the god give you any hints?”

Still having some lingering attachment, Olive looked up at Serena with tears hanging in her round eyes.

When the Princess shook her head, the guide drooped her shoulders and declared defeat.

“Sorry. I’ll make the stew broth. Yo.”

Her attitude of taking on the troublesome role in the cooking process as an apology was admirable. The party generously forgave the guide and went back upstairs.

From the 14th floor to the 13th floor. From the 13th floor to the 12th floor, then the 11th floor. After resting briefly in between to eat lunch and diligently walking, fighting, and climbing stairs, the party arrived at the 3rd Layer of Heuji’s Labyrinth.

“Hmm, there should be clues somewhere.”

“Let’s look for clues from the top during the next exploration.”

“Yes. There might be something we missed because it was dark. Yo.”

Now that they had magic lanterns, the darkness of the 4th Layer couldn’t hinder the guide. Olive burned with motivation as she rode the zipline.

“Kiyaahoo!”

***

Serena’s party reached the Labyrinth 1st Floor, 1st Layer.

Perhaps wanting to quickly make chicken dishes for his beloved wife, Count Randy ran to the lobby.

“Honey! Ugh! This is!”

“Everyone? You’re back! You were alive! This isn’t a hallucination, is it?”

“What on earth is this?”

The conversation between Count Randy and Lavenda was ominous. The party ran to the lobby without anyone taking the lead.

The scene in the lobby they arrived at was devastating.

The door Count Randy had installed had fallen, and bread and fruit hung abundantly on the bread trees and fruit trees, but there were no signs of them being touched.

The drying racks for making bread and jerky were also nowhere to be seen.

No, the important thing wasn’t the state of the lobby.

Lavenda’s condition was the most serious.

Whatever had happened in those two days, the Mysterious Stranger was dried up with only bones left.

Despite plenty of food on the bread trees and fruit trees, only bones remained and her eyes were sunken.

Her hair was disheveled and matted as if unwashed, her skin was blotchy. Her clothes were worn out and smelled bad, and most importantly, her beautiful lavender-colored eyes were dull and hazy.

“You came, you came! Why did you come so late!”

Lavenda raised her fists and ran toward Serena. The surprised party couldn’t stop the Mysterious Stranger.

Lavenda’s fist hit Serena. It was very fierce, filled with resentment.

“Miss Lavenda. What on earth happened? What about the others? Where are Philia and Grey?”

Only Lavenda was in the lobby. The other two from the remaining party were nowhere to be seen.

“Too late! You came too late!”

“Miss Lavenda! I know something serious happened, but Philia and Grey!”

“They left! They all went to die saying they’d look for you! I was alone… only I was alone! I wanted to go with them too, but they said someone had to stay…! They abandoned only me!”

Lavenda, who had been continuously hitting the Princess, burst into tears and collapsed.

Serena caught the collapsing Lavenda and looked around, her gaze caught by the lobby wall.

Since she kept regressing and the dates got confusing, Serena had once asked Lavenda to mark the dates.

Lavenda had marked each passing day by drawing small lines on the lobby wall.

Those lines filled the lobby wall densely. Even without counting precisely, 300 days had passed.

“Hueng-heng-huh-eoong.”

The Mysterious Stranger who had been left alone in the lobby wailed in grief.

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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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