Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 87

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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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87. 4th Layer of Heuji’s Labyrinth Conquest (3)

“Wow, this lantern! We almost threw it away because it was heavy, but it was exactly what we needed!”

‘This function existed too?’

Serena was surprised even though she was the one who tried it.

‘I shouldn’t dismiss ordinary items from treasure chests carelessly.’

From now on, when paths are blocked in the Labyrinth, she would reconsider the treasure chest rewards from that layer.

Serena’s Labyrinth knowledge increased by one.

‘Why didn’t Olive or Ying think of this?’

Why couldn’t the best Guide think of such an obvious solution?

Serena asked Olive, who was inserting lockpicking tools into the keyhole made of shadows and fiddling with it.

“There was an easy answer when you think about it. Haven’t you experienced something similar before?”

“Got it open! Something similar?”

Olive spun the lockpicking tools in her hand while searching her memory.

“There was a time when the treasure chest reward was disappointing, so I wandered around looking for a Secret Room for a while, then accidentally spilled a potion from the treasure chest, and the moss and stone melted away revealing a secret door.”

Why on earth would moss and stone melt from a recovery potion?

The Guide pouted and grumbled, then looked directly at Serena.

“Princess, don’t tell me. Are you doubting my abilities?”

“That’s not it.”

“It’s not? It seemed like you asked because you doubted me? I told you I focused on quick conquests! If you give me plenty of time, I’m good at exploration too!”

“Right. You’re the best Guide I know.”

“But Princess, you found all the Stairs to get here, didn’t you? Crisis of a Guide’s existence!”

Olive pretended to scream, then pointed to the hidden Door.

“But I’m good at opening doors, right?”

When Olive opened the Door, it opened smoothly.

Count Randy approached leisurely, and Ying stopped at a distance, perhaps due to the lesson learned from the teleportation magic circle.

“Drumroll! What will come out!”

When the hidden Door opened, a small Stone Chamber was revealed. The first thing that caught the Party’s attention was a treasure chest.

Inside the hidden Door was one ordinary treasure chest.

Since it was getting complicated to keep describing treasure chests as good, better, and so on, Serena decided to grade the treasure chests.

Common, Advanced, Rare, Magic, in that order.

‘It seems like Magic grade is needed for useful magical tools to appear.’

The brilliant treasure chest that produced the subspace bag was Magic grade.

“After making us go through all this trouble, it’s just an ordinary chest? Really?”

“I like eggs!”

“I like eggs too. Pepper is fine as well.”

While the Party’s attention was fixed on the treasure chest, Serena’s gaze was fixed elsewhere.

‘It’s a statue.’

In the secret space, there was also a god’s statue characterized by crimson eyes.

The crimson eyes drawn on the statue seemed to narrow as if smiling when they spotted the Princess who discovered it, then returned to normal.

When she first met Olive, she had said upon seeing a statue that they were often found in the Labyrinth. It wasn’t strange for a statue to be there.

What Serena wanted to know was exactly this.

‘Will the regression point be updated if I touch this statue too?’

The next floor, the 14th Floor, was a section where you’d regret it if you didn’t understand the gimmick beforehand or save right before it.

The presence of a statue right before such a 14th Floor felt meaningful to Serena.

‘It seems like it would save if I touch it. The Minotaur God originally said that me touching statues was the criterion.’

The Labyrinth conquest had been smooth so far. Saving here wouldn’t be bad either, but.

‘Saving too frequently wasn’t good either. It’s not hard to get here, so let’s hold off.’

The treasure chest was also next to the statue, and she felt an urge to check if the treasure chest rewards changed each time she died, but she barely restrained herself.

“The person to open this chest is~”

“You open it.”

“Then I won’t refuse!”

Drumroll. Olive made drum sounds with her mouth to focus everyone’s attention, then opened the treasure chest with all her might.

The treasure chest was packed full with rewards. Even from a distance, you could see what the rewards were.

“Clothes?”

“It’s full of clothes!”

The chest was packed full of new clothes.

“We all lacked clothes to change into, so this worked out well.”

“That’s right. I can use alchemy for anything that doesn’t fit.”

“It would be wasteful to use materials, so we can just alter them directly.”

Rather than losing money, magic stones, and even parts of clothes to transaction fees, it was better to create thread and needles with alchemy and alter them directly.

“I needed fabric, so this worked out perfectly.”

Count Randy was delighted as he stuffed the chest full of clothes into his subspace bag. Watching him discard chicken and take clothes, Olive lamented.

“If someone said clothes came out of a Labyrinth treasure chest, I would have laughed my stomach off! I’m scared of myself for being happy for a moment!”

Since they couldn’t leave and supplies were cut off, common sense was collapsing.

The Guide complained of dizziness and leaned against the Knight’s shoulder.

“We finally found a secret space, but damn it, ahem. Sorry, Minotaur God! Just the statue and clothes?”

“There’s a stone tablet fragment that Grey requested over there.”

“There’s nowhere to spend money even if we got it, so it’s boring.”

Olive picked up the stone tablet fragment with a dejected expression.

‘Is there really nothing else?’

Serena also agreed with the Guide’s opinion that something was lacking, so she examined the Stone Chamber.

No Sealed Door was visible.

‘Do they use this here too?’

Serena illuminated the inside of the Stone Chamber with the lantern. Then shadows appeared on the wall again. The group exclaimed in admiration, but the admiration didn’t last long.

“What does this mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can’t tell just from this.”

Two shadows were generated. One had shadows dotted throughout, and the other was just painted black like a silhouette quiz, making it difficult to understand what it was trying to convey.

“Just copy it for now.”

Olive said that thinking was other people’s job and diligently copied the shadows onto paper. Serena, who had been squinting her one eye at the shadows, soon figured out the answer to the silhouette quiz.

‘Is that it?’

Serena secretly checked the 14th Floor map with her magic map so others couldn’t see. About half the outline matched the silhouette quiz.

‘Did it give a hint about how to match light and darkness on the 14th Floor for the Stairs to appear? But the Stairs appeared when we made everything bright, so what does marking everything dark mean? What are the dotted parts?’

It would be nice if the shadows were perfect, but now they were half incomplete, making the intention difficult to understand.

‘It’s not urgent, so let’s think about it later. We’ve barely explored the Path of Darkness side. The other half of the hint might be there.’

Others seemed to think similarly to Serena, as Count Randy also finished his business in the secret Stone Chamber by copying the shadows like Olive.

Serena lay down on her sleeping bag. Even covering her face with her hands, the light was too strong and penetrated through, causing her to have another restless night.

The next day, the group finished a simple breakfast and went down to the 14th Floor.

There were a total of 10 crystals on the 14th Floor. Half were divided between light and darkness, so you had to hit all the crystals in darkness state to change them to light state for the Stairs to be generated.

The minimum number of times to hit crystals was 5. The Assault Team on the 14th Floor would feel like only a few hours had passed, but in the Lobby, two and a half days would have gone by.

Serena first guided the group to the nearest Crystal.

“You can switch between light and darkness states with that Crystal over there. You need to make all crystals on this floor light state for the Stairs to the 15th Floor to open.”

The Princess, whom the Minotaur God had made his apostle, presented the conquest method for the 14th Floor. The Party exclaimed in admiration and followed the Princess’s revelation.

Of course, there was someone who had doubts.

“But you’re the Minotaur God, yet you freely tell us Labyrinth conquest methods? Is that okay?”

“Surely Princess must have asked the Minotaur God to help us escape the Labyrinth quickly without suffering!”

“Olive’s words certainly make sense. Serena, is it okay to share conquest methods as the god told you?”

“Of course it’s okay.”

‘I learned it by dying. What revelation.’

If Serena received some kind of divine revelation from somewhere and conquered the Labyrinth, the god would be furious about using cheats.

However, Serena personally ran around (?) to figure out the strategy and told the party about the path she had directly experienced.

Since she was utilizing the blessing obtained by offering sacrifices to the Minotaur God, everything Serena did was within the range permitted by the god.

As they avoided traps, faced monsters, and steadily hit crystals following Serena’s perfect strategy, an unexpected situation occurred.

“Huh?”

Olive, who had hit the crystal to change the Path of Darkness to light, tilted her head and hit the crystal once more.

Serena barely managed to suppress a scream that was about to escape.

“What are you doing!”

“No, I had something to check. You know.”

“Tell me beforehand when you’re checking something!”

“I’m a bit quick! Kyahaha!”

The Guide said that and hit the crystal again. A whole day flew by like this. While Serena was struggling to manage her expression, Olive gestured to the group.

“Look, look. You know. There’s a trap here.”

When Olive triggered the trap, a massive blade fell from the ceiling, embedded in the floor, then disappeared.

Judging by the falling speed and the blade’s sharpness, if someone else had triggered it, their body would have been split vertically.

“Ugh.”

Ralph, who had quite a rich imagination, trembled as if imagining himself caught in the trap.

“But if I make it dark.”

Olive hit the crystal and stood on the trap. The trap didn’t activate.

Olive touched the crystal. As soon as the light switched, the trap activated and a blade fell from above.

The Guide lightly dodged and shared the experimental results.

“Traps don’t work in the darkness state. You know.”

“Amazing! How did you notice that! Incredible!”

“That’s right. I really love compliments on my keen eye!”

“So the Path of Darkness had advantages too.”

It seemed like a path better avoided unless you could conquer it perfectly, being too dark to see anything and having Undead roaming around, but the Path of Darkness had its advantages too.

‘There’s no law saying you must die.’

If traps activated on the Path of Darkness without lanterns, most adventurers would have died entirely on the 11th Floor.

The traps not working was appropriate difficulty adjustment.

“Places that were dark but brightened with crystals might have traps I couldn’t detect! You know! Everyone be careful!”

“Sir Ralph, be especially careful. You mustn’t charge forward just because monsters appear.”

“Huh? Yes! I’ll keep that in mind!”

The Ralph from the previous cycle seemed to have learned a lot from his mistakes, but since that never happened, it was somewhat disappointing.

‘There’s a lot to learn from failure and loss too. Is it really okay for the strategy to keep being so smooth?’

The Princess’s leisure was short-lived. When they changed the entire 14th Floor to the Path of Light, all the monsters on this floor knew the party’s location and chased them like ghosts.

“Monster gathering seemed easier on the 3rd Layer! Why are the creatures that were docile even on the 3rd Layer causing such chaos here!”

“Probably! Creating the stairs seems to have provoked the monsters!”

They could handle one or two parties, but with monster parties swarming in groups, fleeing was the best option to prevent any possible mishaps.

It would be very troublesome if a stray arrow shot by a Goblin hit Serena.

“Ahhh, run! Escape to the stairs! Monsters can’t cross floors! You know!”

“There are monsters that cross floors too!”

Ying corrected the Guide’s misinformation.

“Zero’s right that they exist, but usually they can’t cross! Run!”

Since Serena’s running speed was slow, Ralph carried the Princess on his shoulder like a sack of rice and ran.

Sometimes she was carried in a princess carry, now she was loaded like a sack. Such is life.

Serena arrived at the 15th Floor carried on Ralph’s shoulder. Light from the crystal illuminated the Leader’s Chamber and the Floor Boss was generated.

Serena narrowed her eyes upon seeing the monster that appeared.

‘The composition is different?’

The composition of monsters that appeared was different from Serena’s memory.

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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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