Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 90

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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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90. Labyrinth Garden (1)

Serena pressed her forehead.

Olive had said that parties could be forcibly disbanded in the labyrinth.

Having just heard it on the previous layer and immediately experiencing it, she felt a thrill at this real-world foreshadowing coming to fruition.

‘I really hate the labyrinth.’

What if she had saved when she discovered the statue on the 13th floor?

Wouldn’t her mind be more at ease now?

‘I hate myself too.’

Rustle.

The labyrinth didn’t give the princess time to reflect.

Serena heard the sound of grass being stepped on. She couldn’t tell the direction or location, but being able to hear it meant it was nearby.

‘Human or monster? If it’s human and a party member, come here. If it’s a monster or stranger, go away.’

Rustle rustle.

The sound of grass being stepped on grew closer. Serena pressed her body against the wall and squeezed herself in.

The plant wall was made of various vines, twigs, and shrubs, so if she forced her way in, there seemed to be enough space to hide her body.

What Serena hadn’t considered was that pushing her body between branches and leaves would make noise.

As Serena buried herself in the wall, a loud sound erupted that drowned out the grass-stepping sounds she’d just heard.

Serena’s neck stiffened with tension.

‘What should I do? Should I summon a goblin to use as a front guard? But my mana hasn’t recovered yet.’

Summoning a goblin would consume a lot of mana, leaving her able to use only 1st-tier magic for a while.

Even then, the number of times she could cast would be limited.

And what about the trumpet sound? It would surely attract all the monsters in the area.

‘Right. Let’s not summon and try to endure with magic.’

Serena steeled herself and listened carefully for the grass-stepping sounds.

She waited cautiously for the owner of the footsteps to approach, but while the sounds grew closer, no one was visible.

‘I can tell the direction though.’

Serena looked toward where the sound came from. She saw walls made of plants and a grass floor.

Just in case, she looked up at the sky, but there was nothing there.

The princess who lowered her head felt something was off. Something was subtly different from before she had looked up.

‘What is it?’

Serena memorized what she could see now and turned her head to look behind her.

Then she heard a rustle, the sound of leaves brushing against each other.

Serena looked forward again. Searching for differences from her memory, a bush attached to the wall caught her eye.

‘Was that originally that big?’

Serena narrowed her eyes and glared at the bush.

Despite there being no wind, the bush’s leaves rustled, then the bush suddenly stood up and attacked Serena.

“I knew it!”

Thanks to being prepared in advance, Serena was able to dodge the monster’s attack.

While dodging, Serena fired a mana bullet at the monster that had been disguised as a bush.

The twigs and leaves on the monster’s exterior broke, but it didn’t deal significant damage.

Grrrowl.

Instead of fur and hide, it was covered with branches and leaves, but its overall shape resembled a wolf.

Since its entire body was made of plants, its eyes looked like acorns, and the teeth revealed between its open jaws resembled enlarged rose thorns.

‘I need to use fire magic.’

When it attacks, dodge or block with the staff, and attack with fire magic.

As the princess visualized a vivid flame burning plants in her mind, an invisible force flew over and split the monster vertically.

‘This is!’

Serena had experienced something similar before. Though it had been undone by regression, it remained very vivid in Serena’s memory.

How could she forget the sight of a large monster being pulverized right before her eyes?

Though smaller than the Labyrinth Deer, this monster was also pulverized before Serena.

Instead of the smell of blood, the distinctive scent of plants stung Serena’s nose.

Serena calmly turned her head toward the direction from which the invisible force, the sword energy, had come.

“Richard.”

Though she hadn’t heard any sound, somehow Richard had approached and was right behind Serena.

The platinum-haired mysterious stranger with an eyepatch over his right eye, opposite to Serena, greeted his cousin warmly upon seeing her.

“Did you come alone?”

Hearing Richard’s affectionate greeting, Serena felt a strong sense of unease. The question was quickly resolved.

‘The greeting is different?’

During the 7 deaths while trying to save her sibling, Serena had met Richard 4 times.

In those 4 times, Richard’s reaction when first seeing Serena was always the same.

‘Hello, Serena. So you’ve entered the labyrinth.’

The eyepatch-wearing mysterious stranger would welcome Serena with an expression of joy, gladness, or pity—she couldn’t tell which—on that beautiful face.

Since she hadn’t met Richard in the 8th attempt and had descended to the 5th layer, Richard should have greeted her the same way as on the 3rd layer.

But Richard’s words had changed. He didn’t even ask if she had entered the labyrinth.

‘So we have met.’

There had been a meeting that Serena couldn’t remember but Richard did. That’s why Richard’s greeting had changed.

‘Because Richard can also regress like me.’

But unlike the weak Serena, Richard was a Sword Master.

Not only ordinary monsters, but even much stronger formidable enemies were no match for Richard.

What reason could Richard, a Sword Master no less, have for deliberately dying to regress?

“You’ve died before, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you die?”

“I saw you traveling with companions and got envious, so I tried to take on a companion.”

“And then?”

Richard stroked his chin and tilted his head.

“They kept dying.”

“Ah, I see.”

“They weren’t particularly weak people either, but it was so serious I wondered if they were cursed or just born unlucky.”

From Richard’s slightly fed-up tone, it seemed the human he had taken as a companion had also died multiple times for various reasons.

‘It must be Seraph.’

Even so, he couldn’t beat Serena’s disaster-prone Seraph.

Richard continued talking even though Serena hadn’t asked more questions.

“Seeing them die repeatedly made me feel bad, so I’m thinking of not deliberately seeking them out. If there’s fate, we’ll meet again.”

“Are they on this layer now?”

“The first meeting was on this layer. I saved them from near death and we went down together, but every time I took my eyes off them, they kept dying…”

‘How far down did you go?’

Truly a legendary Sword Master.

Serena had just reached the 5th layer for the first time, but Richard seemed to have gone down to even lower layers before regressing and starting over.

She shouldn’t believe everything Richard said, but it didn’t seem like a lie.

“I see. Well then, goodbye.”

Serena deliberately turned around dramatically and walked away. Richard persistently followed her.

“It’s dangerous alone. Please allow me to escort you until you meet your companions.”

“I’m fine by myself. Get lost.”

“Are you really okay? You know Seraph is on this layer, right?”

“Kyaaaah! Save me!”

Right on cue, her sibling’s damn scream was heard. Richard smiled brightly.

Serena furrowed her brow and nodded.

“Seraph will cause a scene if he sees you, so let’s just go together until nearby.”

“It’s an honor, Princess.”

Richard greeted her with a gracefully flowing posture and extended his hand.

Serena struck the unfilial son’s hand with her staff.

Though he could have dodged or blocked it, the staff collided with the Sword Master’s hand.

“I don’t want to hold the hand that killed Grandfather!”

“Is that so?”

Richard withdrew his hand with a regretful expression and took the lead.

***

“This floor is similar to the rose garden in the palace.”

The Heuji Royal Palace has a huge rose garden, and there’s a labyrinth in the center of the garden.

Though the roses weren’t in full bloom, perhaps it was because freshly cut grass covered the ground and plant walls formed the labyrinth. Serena thought it was similar too.

“I used to play hide-and-seek there with my siblings. Lyla wasn’t as good at hiding as her brother Fred, so she was always caught first.”

Lyla and Fred. Both were Richard’s siblings and both were deceased. Serena had only encountered them in portraits.

“When I walked through the labyrinth holding Lyla’s hand to find Fred together, Fred would hide and then jump out to startle us.”

“What’s there to be surprised about in a labyrinth? The structure is always the same anyway.”

“Really? When I was young, the gardener constantly changed the labyrinth structure, so it was fun.”

Richard said the gardener in charge had put great effort into the labyrinth garden’s structure.

As far as Serena knew, the labyrinth garden’s structure had never changed once. Even without anyone telling her, Serena knew the reason.

‘He must have lost motivation.’

Since the children who used to play in the labyrinth garden had disappeared from the palace, the gardener must have lost his motivation.

The labyrinth garden that had been neglected became a place where Seraph would escape when he wanted someone to find him.

Though this wasn’t the labyrinth garden, something jumped out in the labyrinth too.

A labyrinth bush wolf that had been disguised as part of a thicket or wall was cut down by sword energy before it could jump out. The same happened to a man-eating flower hiding in the wall.

‘Why is he talking about his dead siblings? It makes me feel bad.’

The Serena and Seraph siblings only had memories of fighting in the labyrinth garden.

There were no tender, longing sibling memories like Richard’s.

“Let’s not talk about old times.”

“Shall we? We can’t have our princess getting bored…”

Richard observed Serena’s reaction and changed the subject.

“Aren’t you curious about the first person I took as a companion? It’s someone you know.”

“I can tell they’re someone with terrible luck.”

To have met Richard as a companion of all people, they had worse luck than even Seraph.

Richard looked like he wanted to continue the conversation, but seeing Serena’s reaction, he changed the subject again.

“Is it true that there’s a fountain and bread tree on the 1st floor? I’m really envious.”

“You didn’t have them?”

“It would have been nice if I had.”

Judging by how he spoke of the pain of starving to death, he seemed to have starved to death multiple times.

Serena hesitated, then probed further.

“Didn’t you have such blessings? Like coins or shops?”

“Right, about that. They suddenly appeared, so when I died and asked about it, this is what he said.”

“What did the Labyrinth God say?”

“He said it seemed like I had suffered too much before, so he added them to adjust the difficulty.”

“Ah.”

Things like coins and shops were added this time.

In other words, Richard had to conquer some labyrinth without shops and coins.

“So? Are you planning not to use the added features?”

“We made a bet on who would reach the final floor of the labyrinth first, didn’t we? Since this is your first labyrinth, for fairness, I’m thinking of not using the shop.”

Richard smiled amiably, then quickly blinked his one eye.

“I think it would be okay to buy a hot spring though. Would that be alright?”

“Why are you asking me? Do whatever you want.”

Richard stopped and closed his left eye. He seemed to be trying to open his right eye covered by the eyepatch to look at the shop window.

Serena wanted to stab a dagger into his ribs during this opportunity, but unfortunately she didn’t have a dagger.

‘I should carry one next time.’

“I bought the hot spring.”

“Oh, I see.”

Since it could only be installed in the lobby, it would be stored in the warehouse.

Serena was trying to ignore Richard who kept wanting to chat, but something occurred to her and she spoke first.

“Don’t you speak similarly to the Labyrinth God? Not when you talk to other people, but only when you talk to me.”

Richard’s face went blank upon hearing Serena’s observation.

Then his lips parted and he began to laugh. Richard couldn’t contain his bursting laughter and covered his mouth.

“Really? Does it sound like that? I suppose it could. Ahahaha!”

Finding something so amusing, Richard clutched his stomach and laughed.

He bent over laughing so hard that he contorted his face in agony.

“Similar, you ask? Of course! I missed those few words exchanged after death so much that I even committed suicide multiple times.”

“Richard. What exactly are you…”

When, where did he enter the labyrinth and how did he conquer it. How many times did he die in the process.

Just as Serena was about to inevitably mention Richard’s past that she had been deliberately ignoring, Richard raised his head.

His single eye fixed on Serena.

Perhaps because she was directly facing orange pupils that she would never encounter unless looking in a mirror, Serena was at a loss for words.

“I’m sorry, Serena. This isn’t the time to be so leisurely, I need to save you quickly.”

“Save me? Not kill me?”

“I’ll save Seraph, Uncle, and Grandfather too. Don’t worry.”

“Hey, Richard.”

“Someone’s coming. I hope we can meet again next time.”

Richard jumped up onto the plant wall. Without any reward for looking up, the Sword Master quickly disappeared from sight.

Serena maintained her position looking at the ceiling and pressed her temples.

Her head always hurt whenever she met Richard.

Rustle.

As if having no intention of letting the princess rest, the sound of footsteps on grass could be heard.

Though Richard had said it was a person, Serena didn’t let her guard down.

People were the second most dangerous after monsters, and depending on the time and situation, people could be the most dangerous.

As the sound of footsteps on grass grew closer, someone appeared around the corner.

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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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