Serena and the Mysterious Labyrinth - Chapter 94

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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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94. Walking Only on Flower Paths (1)

Forsythia, dandelions, azaleas, plum blossoms. Cherry blossoms and magnolias, and so on.

Serena reflected the locations of flowers the priests had witnessed on the map and drew lines according to their blooming periods.

The destinations she narrowed down to were two places.

“This is where we’d go by following the blooming periods in reverse.”

The destination Serena pointed to was the opposite.

“And this place follows the proper order of blooming periods. How about we go here first?”

Going in reverse would bring them closer to winter, while going forward would bring them closer to summer.

Since seasons are usually displayed in the order of spring, summer, autumn, winter, Serena wanted to start with the summer direction.

“The Princess is truly wise. I also knew these flowers and their blooming periods, but I hadn’t thought of this.”

‘I’m putting to use what I learned from calculating flower blooming times for hosting garden tea parties.’

Indeed, knowledge was power.

With their destination decided, Serena and the priests moved quickly.

When they found flowers, they used collective intelligence to determine blooming periods while following the flowers.

After diligently advancing while defeating pack-hunting Brush Wolves and crawling forward to avoid provoking Labyrinth Wasps.

“It’s a door.”

They discovered the exit from this tiresome Labyrinth Garden.

Everyone cheered while keeping their voices down. Serena didn’t let her guard down and observed the door attached to the plant wall.

“There don’t seem to be any traps.”

“You must be tired from finding paths and traps, so please leave the Floor Boss to us.”

Serena didn’t decline and stepped back with Rihua, the healer.

Hazel clenched her hands wearing studded leather gloves tightly and opened the door.

When the door opened, a clearing with untidy weeds growing wildly appeared.

In the center of the clearing stood a single giant tree.

Like a tree transitioning from spring to summer, green and light green leaves hung from every branch, overflowing with vitality.

“It’s a man-eating tree. It’s not a strong monster.”

When Hazel stepped into the clearing, the giant tree began to writhe. Marine, who heard Hazel’s explanation, stepped forward.

“I’ll handle it!”

The paladin who had given her vow of silence to a dog threw her axe without hesitation. The axe embedded in the base of the giant tree and spewed strong flames.

Serena made a subtle expression.

‘I don’t think it’ll burn.’

While tree = weak to fire was common knowledge, green wood doesn’t burn easily.

Especially trees like the giant tree Marine was facing, which had absorbed plenty of moisture, could withstand even strong flames.

Sure enough. The area where the axe was embedded turned blackish from burning, but the man-eating tree was fine.

Roots rose from the ground and lashed Marine like whips. Marine flew all the way to where Serena and Rihua were.

“Urgh.”

“Are you alright?”

The man-eating tree’s root attack had enough power to break all of Marine’s ribs if she hadn’t been wearing chest armor.

“The fire was weaker than expected, cough. Cough cough.”

“Don’t talk and stay still!”

While Marine coughed with difficulty, the two 5-star monks caught their breath.

“Earth!”

When Hazel cast earth magic to seal the man-eating tree’s movements, Muffin charged at the man-eating tree as swiftly as a bee.

The man-eating tree, with its roots sealed, attacked the Pink-Haired Girl with its long trunk.

Muffin lightly dodged the branch attack while striking the branch.

Crack.

The branch of the man-eating tree, which had been full of rising sap and vitality, rapidly rotted and turned black before breaking.

Seeing this, Serena shuddered slightly.

‘The decay punch is too scary.’

Armed with the blessing of decay, Muffin’s entire body was a weapon.

Muffin approached the man-eating tree more bravely than anyone without worrying about injury and threw a straight punch.

Thwack!

It’s impossible to make a tree full of vitality decay with just one hit. But what if you hit it multiple times?

Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat.

Muffin threw straight punches at the base of the man-eating tree so fast that only afterimages were visible to Serena’s eyes.

After 10 consecutive hits, the base of the great tree turned black like it was diseased and became soft.

“The tree is falling!”

Groooooar!

As soon as Muffin’s warning ended, the man-eating tree let out a terrible cry as it fell. When the giant tree fell, the ground shook and dust, grass, and leaves flew up.

Like a true monster, the man-eating tree was still alive even after its base broke, but it shattered into pieces after receiving Hazel’s heavy crushing attack.

‘As expected, 5-star priests are different.’

While other priests learned healing magic, these priests who received martial power from their god had exceptional destructive force.

The combination of physical and magical attacks was so strong it made Serena feel overwhelmed just watching.

“It’s safe now.”

Hazel confirmed the man-eating tree’s death and informed the group.

Serena closed her right eye and opened her left eye just in case.

No coin reward notification appeared. It was quite disappointing.

‘But I did guide them all the way here.’

Serena decided to at least fire a few mana bullets the next time she fought a Floor Boss.

“This branch is perfectly fine by itself.”

When the man-eating tree died, the leaves attached to its branches also lost their vitality, but the branch and leaves Rihua found were very fresh.

“It’s a branch imbued with mana. You can use it as is, but if you plant it in the ground and take good care of it, it can become even better material. Princess, you should keep it and plant it in the lobby.”

The priests also gave Serena the intermediate magic stone that dropped from defeating the man-eating tree.

Rather than having no material desires, it was more like they had no use for it, so they were giving it to Serena who had an alchemist in her party.

Serena packed the branch and magic stone in her bag and looked around the clearing.

‘There’s no sealed room, obviously. And there doesn’t seem to be a secret door either.’

In the Princess’s eyes, something that hadn’t been there when they entered the clearing had appeared. Part of the plant wall had changed shape and looked exactly like a ladder.

“Since a ladder appeared, it seems we need to climb up here.”

Marine burned the wall to draw an arrow, leaving a mark that Serena’s group was climbing the ladder.

“I’ll go first.”

Hazel, who could protect her body with her blessing if necessary, climbed the ladder first.

Serena grabbed the ladder third.

Climbing the plant wall, which was about 5 stories high, with a ladder was quite an ordeal.

When they climbed over the wall, a magnificent view unfolded.

A vast Labyrinth Garden with an area comparable to the 3rd Layer was revealed.

While the 3rd Layer would be wider in actual area since its paths were vertical and three-dimensional, the 5th Floor was also considerably vast.

The garden was so large that Serena couldn’t take it all in at a glance.

“Princess, if you look over there, there’s snow piled up.”p>

“That area looks like autumn foliage from all the red and yellow colors.”

“Where we were is spring, and the area we’re crossing to with the ladder is summer, autumn, winter in order. Ugh, do we have to go through all four areas in such a vast place?”

“I wonder where the Prince is.”

While Rihua worried about Seraph, whose screams had even stopped, a terrible cry came from the boundary between spring and winter.

Groooooar!

A sound similar to when Muffin broke the man-eating tree’s base was heard, then flames and smoke shot up.

“That’s good fire.”

The Fire God’s paladin was satisfied seeing flames strong enough to rise above the 5-story-high plant wall.

Serena frowned, unable to tell whose doing this was.

‘Richard said he met companions here, so there could be other people besides us.’

As she thought this, something moved on the wall at the boundary between spring and winter.

Serena narrowed her one remaining eye and examined carefully.

‘I can’t see well.’

Her single eye was already overworked, and perhaps it was because she’d been continuously attacked by blinding light on the 4th layer, plus getting hit by Rihua’s light bomb yesterday.

Her vision was blurry, making distant objects appear hazy.

She pressed acupoints that were good for the eyes and rapidly blinked, which helped a little. Meanwhile, when she opened her left eye, a new notification appeared.

[You have defeated the Spring Garden Layer Boss. Shop 1 coins have been awarded.]

“There are people there. They must have climbed up using the ladder like us.”

“Isn’t that Sir Seraph over there?”

“The archer who follows darkness is there too. They must be traveling together.”

“I can see knight armor as well.”

Ralph, Olive, Ying, Count Randy, and even Seraph were all alive with their limbs intact.

The two parties had been wandering the labyrinth with only the Princess and Prince switched.

“Meeting like this in the middle of all this. Ah!”

Serena was about to gesture to meet in the spring garden when Seraph headed down toward the winter garden.

Olive exaggeratedly acted as if her blood pressure was rising from distress. Serena also pressed her forehead.

“Sir Seraph is moving on his own, what should we do? Should we quickly go that way?”

“Wouldn’t it be faster to move over the wall? Kyaah!”

When Rihua tried to move over the wall, additional plant walls were generated to block her path.

‘This didn’t happen when Richard climbed up?’

Could it be that they only installed preventive measures around the ladder, not knowing someone could jump up to the 5th floor height?

Serena abandoned her worry about wrinkles and frowned to her heart’s content while Olive waved her arms enthusiastically.

It seemed like they would move toward the winter garden direction, so Serena should move to the summer garden.

‘Wouldn’t it be faster for us to just go over there?’

But the guide must have her own reasoning.

Serena decided to trust and follow Olive’s pathfinding skills that she had experienced so far.

“Olive is telling us to proceed on our own.”

“Will that be okay?”

“Ugh. It seems like it would be more convenient to just meet in the middle. This is all because of Sir Seraph.”

“I should have judged him in the name of light without showing mercy…”

Rihua muttered in a small voice.

Serena pretended not to hear the light priest’s plan to beat up her sibling and looked around diligently.

If they couldn’t travel over the walls, shouldn’t they at least take advantage of the high ground to navigate the labyrinth more comfortably?

Unfortunately, the flowers that indicated the direction they needed to go were blooming on the ground, so they weren’t clearly visible from above.

“This treasure chest is locked, what should we do?”

There was also a rare-grade treasure chest on top of the plant wall. However, it was locked and couldn’t be opened.

‘Why are they looking at me?’

For some reason, the priests’ gazes were fixed on the Princess. When Serena pointed to herself, Muffin spoke.

“Sir Seraph opened all the locked chests. Don’t you know how to pick locks, Lady Serena?”

“I don’t know how.”

“Ugh, what a shame. Then we’ll have to leave this one behind.”

“Can’t we open it by force?”

“That’s impossible. If you destroy a treasure chest, the reward disappears too.”

“Carrying it… it’s too bulky. It’s regrettable, but we have no choice but to leave it.”

It was quite disappointing since it was a rare-grade treasure chest.

Even after climbing down from the wall, Serena couldn’t let go of her attachment to the treasure chest and spread out her magic map. The reflected area was smaller than expected.

‘On the 3rd layer, even things I glimpsed from afar were reflected?’

While the Princess was puzzled, Muffin’s cheerful voice was heard.

“Look, hydrangeas are blooming over there! How pretty!”

“Lavender is blooming over there. It seems like we should move from the hydrangeas toward the lavender direction.”

For once, the two flowers were blooming close together, making it easy to find the way.

Hazel was about to walk toward the lavender patch when suddenly a wall was generated, blocking Hazel and creating a new path.

“…”

The group fell silent simultaneously.

‘No wonder the reflected area was narrow. It was meaningless to look down from above.’

In this damn labyrinth, nothing was easy except dying.

“At least we know the direction, which is fortunate. It seems like we should go back this way.”

Serena encouraged the priests, who had the sad atmosphere of puppies who lost their treats, and set out on the path.

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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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