The Second Coming of Gluttony - Chapter 119

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 119. Stage 1 Results (2)

The source of the shout was Lara Wolfe. Seol Jihoo abandoned the conversation and hurried into the adjacent room, where he found a short-haired woman with beads of perspiration dotting her forehead.
She breathed heavily as though she’d sprinted at full speed, yet her face glowed with unmistakable delight.
“I figured it out! I actually figured it out!”
Lara wiped her brow while waving a sheet of paper frantically in her grip. As Seol Jihoo drew closer, he recognized it as a map. When he glanced toward Snake Eyes, she raised both hands.
“Don’t ask me. She just grabbed the map and bolted through that door like her head was on fire.”
She jerked her chin toward the entrance—the same door they’d opened when entering this room.
‘She retraced her path?’
Seol Jihoo, harboring a suspicion of his own, spoke up.
“Where exactly did you go?”
“What did you figure out? Be quiet about it.”
As it happened, Blank Face asked the same question. Lara traced a V-shape with her fingers, then
“First, I went back to that room where we changed direction earlier.”
She folded her middle finger down.
“And I figured out where we’re currently standing.”
In other words, she had grasped the overall layout of Stage 1.
Blank Face stepped forward.
“Tell me.”
“Pardon?”
“You said you figured it out. Start with the spatial structure.”
There was a bite to it—not quite a creditor’s demand, but carrying the weight of ‘if it’s not worth hearing, I won’t let you off easy.’ Lara flinched momentarily, but she gathered herself.
“It’s simple. Stage 1 is most likely rectangular in shape.”
“Rectangular?”
“Yes. When you left that first room, you kept walking straight ahead, remember? You were trying to figure out the vertical length of the structure, weren’t you?”
“…Mm.”
Blank Face exhaled through her nose.
“So you’re not completely incompetent.”
“We’re sharp when we need to be.”
“That’s odd. You’re sharp when you need to be, but just an hour or two ago I heard you were acting recklessly on your own…”
“Tch—” Lara gritted her teeth.
“That’s—”
But Blank Face waved her hand dismissively, as if to say ‘I know, keep going.’ Lara cleared her throat and continued.
“So, taking the room where we entered as the starting point, we passed through forty rooms and the front door disappeared—so it makes sense to say the vertical length is also forty rooms.”
Snake Eyes’s eyes widened slightly.
“Oh… you’re right? So if we take that room where he turned left as the starting point… how many doors did the prince open in total?”
“One hundred twenty. As we passed through one hundred nineteen of them, we never saw a door on the right wall. And at the one hundred twentieth room, the front wall door disappeared again.”
“Ah, so if we assume it’s rectangular like you said, our current position would be the upper left corner.”
“I’m not so sure. Isn’t that jumping to conclusions?”
It was then that Blank Face spoke quietly. A thin, sardonic smile played across her face.
“If my memory serves, that room where we changed direction had a total of three doors, didn’t it?”
“Oh. Right. There was definitely a door on the right side too.”
Snake Eyes nodded, bobbing her head. Lara, who’d been staring at Blank Face, suddenly caught a strand of her own hair.
She fingered it lazily, her eyes opening halfway in a half-lidded gaze.
“Oh my… didn’t I just say where I went…?”
Her voice had grown soft and hollow—as though mimicking someone else. At this mimicry, Blank Face’s expression hardened like ice.
Noticing the shift in her companion’s mood, Lara quickly lowered her hand.
“S-so I went and opened that door on the right.”
Seol Jihoo, who’d been listening quietly, showed a flash of surprise. It seemed she’d gone back and forth during her conversation with Blank Face. But even if she’d cleared out the rooms, going back through one hundred twenty of them and returning?
‘Well, it was a straight line.’
“And you say you’re an archer?” Seol Jihoo murmured.
Lara offered him a gentle smile and continued.
“Yes. That room had two doors, just like this one. The entrance, and one on the right side.”
Seol Jihoo opened his mouth slightly. “Ah.”
“If what you’re saying is correct, that room would correspond to the upper right corner.”
“Exactly.”
“So in terms of numbers, that’s one hundred twenty-two rooms across and forty rooms vertically. A forty-by-one-hundred-twenty-two matrix structure.”
“That’s right. If you subtract the room where we entered, you get the answer.”
Lara held the map up for everyone to see. The paper showed the route they’d covered so far, and it formed the shape of a backwards ‘C’.
Sophie, who’d been studying it intently, spoke up.
“It’s like Snake, that game.”
“What? Me?”
Snake Eyes looked confused, but Sophie—covering her mouth with a grin—shook her head.
“It’s a game I used to play on an electronic dictionary when I was little. You control a snake and eat randomly generated food.”
Sophie explained calmly, then pointed to the map.
“Of all the remaining rooms, where’s the exit that leads to Stage 2?”
“How should I know?”
“Well, then we have no choice but to open rooms one by one.”
Sophie placed her index finger on a room in the left corner and continued.
“If we open doors haphazardly, the game becomes very complicated. Since we don’t know where the exit to Stage 2 is, it’s important to decide on an order and open them systematically. Like this.”
Sophie’s finger traced downward from the left side, then turned right at the bottom-left corner, then up, then left, then down again—like a snake coiling in on itself. Her finger spiraled counterclockwise, drawing a whirlpool pattern, until at last it came to rest at a point in the center.
Snake Eyes furrowed her brow.
“Damn it. You’re saying we have to go all the way around?”
“Only if the exit doesn’t appear along the way. But it’s the most reliable method.”
“That makes sense. I think I understand how we should proceed now.”
Seol Jihoo agreed. Until now they’d been pushing through by sheer trial and error, but at last they had a clear direction. When he looked at Sophie with an expression of admiration, she twisted uncomfortably.
“Actually, we should have confirmed the direction before turning. That would have been enough.”
“Still, there could have been monsters.”
“Yes. I was really worried, but… I didn’t think it was right for only the three of you to take all the risk.”
Sophie smiled gently. Seol Jihoo glanced sidelong at Blank Face. His gaze carried the message, ‘So you’re still freeloading?’ At that,
“…Ha.”
she let out a hollow laugh, as if to say she couldn’t be bothered.
“We haven’t seen the other thirty-nine rooms yet, have we?”
Lara’s shoulders sagged and she sighed.
“Even a hollow compliment would be nice. You could at least say we did well.”
“What, no conscience? Taking credit for opening just one room?”
Lara shook her head as if she’d reached enlightenment. Blank Face clicked her tongue and turned her gaze toward Snake Eyes, who was still looking at the map.
“You.”
“…Huh? Me?”
“Come here.”
“?”
Snake Eyes was bewildered, but Blank Face didn’t bother explaining and turned to Seol Jihoo instead.
“Eighty.”
Understanding her meaning, Seol Jihoo nodded readily.
“Right. We switch after eighty.”
Blank Face scoffed, but she had nothing to say against it. Seol Jihoo had done more than he’d promised, and he’d presented a new justification.
And Lara had proven that she wasn’t freeloading.
“What are you doing? Come on.”
Watching Blank Face hurry Snake Eyes along, Seol Jihoo smiled with quiet satisfaction inside. It felt as though a wound had sealed a little more firmly.
Though it wasn’t completely healed yet.

“Damn it.”
Snake Eyes cursed. Her complexion looked somewhat weary as she stared at the door ahead.
“Forget this Snake game nonsense. If we’d just come straight to the center, we wouldn’t have wasted all this effort.”
Sophie looked embarrassed and lowered her head. They had indeed spiraled around opening doors, but she’d never expected the entrance to remain hidden all the way until they reached the center.
“That’s not necessarily true. There’s no law saying the entrance has to be in the center, and there might be a condition where the entrance only appears after opening every single room.”
When Seol Jihoo defended Sophie, Snake Eyes narrowed her eyes.
“Wait. You’re saying there might not be an entrance ahead either?”
“We’ll have to check the thirty-nine rooms on the right side.”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaa!”
Snake Eyes clutched her temples and let out a scream.
“I was looking forward to this Banquet, and it’s like this!”
……
“Normally for something like this, right? People are supposed to kill each other, right? Maybe betray someone, right? Shouldn’t it be more hardcore to be fun?”
Seol Jihoo was about to say that didn’t sound quite right, but he realized there was no point in engaging, so he stayed silent.
From the way she spoke, it was clear she really was far removed from anything mundane.
“Ah, damn it. I want to forget all about this Banquet and everything else. If Stage 2 is going to be like this, it’s going to be absolutely soul-crushing.”
After venting all her complaints, Snake Eyes pushed past Blank Face and burst through the door. Lara, startled, moved to stop her but then froze.
If Snake Eyes possessed the skill she did, she’d likely have already sensed the trap and moved to intercept; besides, her eyes glittered with the unmistakable gleam of a hunter waiting for prey to stumble into her sights.
Moments later, a cry of “Damn!” erupted from within the room. The six who had entered belatedly all wore expressions of bewilderment in perfect unison.
The space they’d entered was utterly ordinary—no different from any other room.
“Where are all the doors?”
The only peculiarity, as Snake Eyes had noted, was that three of the four walls bore no visible exit.
‘…Wait.’
As Seol Jihoo slowly surveyed the interior, something nagged at him—an inconsistency he couldn’t quite place.
‘There’s only a door where we came in?’
Which meant you couldn’t have entered this chamber from any other direction.
Then it happened.
Screech!
A sound he recognized rippled through the air, and
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
A tremor coursed through the room. The same phenomenon that had occurred when all eight of them had entered.
“The door’s gone!”
Maria cried out. Seol Jihoo spun reflexively, his eyes narrowing.
Sure enough. The entrance had vanished without a trace, dissolved into the wall as if it had never existed at all.
…….
Blank Face drew her longsword, its blade flashing silver, and began a slow retreat.
Damn.
Snake Eyes, too, raised her crossbow for the first time and backed away deliberately.
Seol Jihoo gripped his ice spear tightly, easing backward as well. The five others formed a defensive formation centered on the two instructors.
The room fell into silence. Only Maria’s quiet murmur of incantations broke the stillness.
Tension crept in gradually, but Seol Jihoo decided to wait and see. Activating Nine Eyes, the room flooded once more with golden radiance.
‘I’ve done everything I could.’
The process hadn’t satisfied him, but in the end, he’d kept the team intact and brought all seven through.
One had perished, though she’d been half-dead when they’d entered—an inevitability he couldn’t have prevented.
Yes. I’ve done what needed doing.
Assuming Nine Eyes hadn’t deceived him.
Assuming this place truly was the Golden Law.
Now came the time to accept the consequences.
At that moment, a cool breeze brushed the crown of his head. Seol Jihoo’s eyes flew open wide.
But it wasn’t just that. All seven of them stared upward in disbelief as the ceiling began parting slowly outward on both sides.
Like opening a massive paper box. Or like a bird spreading its wings.
When the ceiling had fully opened and a clear sky became visible,
Screech! Screee-eech!
A grating noise clawed at their ears.
And then, without warning, their sense of balance went haywire—their bodies tilting precariously.
“Whoa—!”
Seol Jihoo caught Maria as she nearly stumbled, watching in alarm as the wall before them descended.
No. Wait.
“What? It’s going up?”
Snake Eyes had it right—the floor beneath their feet was ascending. Like an elevator, they rose at an angle toward the gaping ceiling.
The moment they burst through the ceiling, the exterior landscape revealed itself. Seol Jihoo stared down numbly as a rectangular structure shrank rapidly below them, just as Lara had predicted.
“What in the world is happening…”
Someone’s murmur. But no one had an answer. They could only speculate.
“Ah, I see…”
Lara muttered to herself, and all eyes snapped toward her. She hesitated, caught off guard, before finally managing to speak.
“A—a Banquet. I’m certain now.”
“Certain of what?”
“Well, there are various theories, but… isn’t it most likely the Legacy of the Empire?”
Jang Maldong’s words flickered through her mind. Some said it was a stage built by an ancient god worshipped in the old Empire for some form of test; others claimed it was the whimsical game of a great sorcerer; still others theorized it was a Lair constructed by an extinct dragon as a decoy.
Lara tapped the floor insistently.
“Think about it—the Kingdom’s technology couldn’t possibly create a stage like this. Only the Empire, at the pinnacle of Magical Engineering, would have the means, wouldn’t it?”
‘There’s logic to it, I suppose…’
Seol Jihoo looked around skeptically. The building, now a mere speck below, sent a flutter through his stomach.
He wasn’t prone to acrophobia, but ascending endlessly did nothing to calm his nerves.
After a few deep breaths, the landscape around him finally began to register clearly.
The first thing that caught his eye was an enormous mountain soaring endlessly skyward. Even as they continued their unbroken ascent after leaving the building, its peak appeared as nothing more than a distant point—impossibly high.
“Hey. Is that… a person?”
At Snake Eyes’ words, Seol Jihoo turned his gaze at once. The place she indicated lay several hundred meters away at minimum, too distant for his eyes to make out clearly.
Yet Lara Wolfe and Snake Eyes seemed to perceive the matter differently, both of them staring intently at the same point.

(To be continued in the next chapter)

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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