Your Majesty, Dinner Is Ready. - Chapter 2

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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 2: E-Rank Labyrinth – Hidden Ghoul Horde Stronghold (1)
《Helpful Information for You 1: A Hidden Ghoul’s claws are sharp enough to slice through a fragile human body into appetizing portions with a single stroke.》
I kept running, brushing aside the worthless text that kept obscuring my right field of vision.
I couldn’t afford to stop, not for a second.
The drunk mercenary was inadvertently buying us time, but he wouldn’t last long.
Maybe ten seconds at best.
Hidden Ghouls were creatures defined by their absurd speed, and there was no way the cultist and the children could outrun them through sheer leg power.
“Intruders-!”
Once the wasted mercenary had been dealt with, the ghouls began their pursuit in earnest, closing the distance at a terrifying pace.
The stench of rot was drawing closer by the second.
At this speed, if we’d started at the same time, we’d have been caught long ago and served up as the main course at the ghouls’ table.
I had no choice but to keep my eyes forward, but I could gauge how much ground we were losing just from the shifting expressions on the tiger-kin siblings’ faces as they glanced back.
《Helpful Information for You 2: Don’t worry—human lungs won’t burst so easily, so feel free to keep running!》
“Hah… yes, thank you…!”
I scanned the surrounding trees rapidly as I fled without pause.
‘Almost there.’
The unnaturally overgrown vegetation was gradually thinning into more ordinary forest.
It was a sign we were heading the right way.
“…How much longer do we have to run like this!”
Marlin, the tiger-kin girl who’d been sprinting ahead alongside her brother, looked back at me.
“They’ve almost caught up now!”
“Why do we have to act like cowards!”
Abel, the stubborn boy who’d been clenching his teeth as he ran, shouted at his sister.
“There are only two ghouls anyway! If we all attack together, we might be able to take them down!”
……
Marlin’s eyes met mine.
Her gaze was asking for my opinion—did her brother have a point? Couldn’t we just fight?
How could anyone seriously suggest facing them head-on after watching a muscular orc’s chest cavity being torn open in an instant?
It was true to the fighting spirit of their kind, I had to admit.
《Helpful Information for You 3: Accept the fake beasts’ proposal. If you want to become the ghouls’ next meal, it’s not the worst option.》
I dismissed the mocking—or was it advice?—and shook my head firmly.
“No. We can’t win.”
“We tiger-kin are different from humans our age!”
“I know. Still no.”
“If we just keep running like this, we’ll end up—”
Marlin faltered mid-sentence and turned her focus back to the path ahead.
“Kihihihi…”
“Come here-!”
The two ghouls had drawn close enough to be within striking distance.
“Abel, run faster!”
……
The moment the tiger-kin siblings kicked into full sprint, the gap between us widened further.
Ungrateful little bastards.
I smiled with satisfaction.
These two knew survival tactics in extreme situations so well at such a young age—they’d never die pointlessly in the field.
“Intruders-!!”
Naturally, the ghouls’ first target was the slowest—the pitiful cultist.
《Lethal Attack: The Ghoul’s claws surge toward the back.》
The moment the black text flashed its warning.
I rolled forward immediately.
With a clumsy tumble, I spun across the ground as the ghoul’s extended arm swept past overhead.
It was cutting it razor-thin.
If I’d reacted even a moment slower, I’d be reuniting with my two fallen companions in the hereafter.
《No need to offer thanks ;)》
“…Dodge?”
Perhaps its pride was wounded that the least appetizing prey had managed to evade.
The ghoul, its ugly face twisted in rage, raised its shoulders to follow up with another strike.
The middle of my back throbbed where it had first hit the ground.
I couldn’t dodge the next attack on my own, but that was fine. I’d thrown myself into this deliberately, having calculated every move.
Crack!
A stone flew from ahead and struck the ghoul’s hideous face with brutal force.
“Get back!”
Abel’s handiwork.
The tiger-human’s natural strength poured into the stone, crushing the ghouls’ nasal bones; filthy blood streamed down their faces.
Though creatures of superior regeneration, the wounds vanished quickly—but pain, once inflicted, did not fade with them.
As two ill-formed undead flinched and staggered backward under Abel’s relentless barrage, my sister Marlin came sprinting and hoisted me onto her back.
“Are you hurt?”
“Why did you come back? You could have died.”
“How could I leave you to die? Even if you are a cultist…”
She’d managed to escape cleanly, yet she risked her life to save someone she’d just met.
The warmth I’d felt moments before dissolved into a melancholy admiration for her heart.
If she’d simply fled without looking back, she might have become a truly good person in this mad world.
“I’ll move quickly. We can keep going, right?”
“No need.”
“…You mean we should abandon him?”
“No. We’ve run far enough.”
I lifted my head to gaze upward.
The forest that had cast dark shadows across the land had ended, and a bright moon hung luminous in the night sky, welcoming us.
“Ghouls are weak to moonlight.”
Crack!
Abel’s stone struck the ghoul’s chest, and its knees buckled.
Normally, such an attack should leave barely a mark.
Yet the ghouls, unable even to mount a counterattack or regain their footing, stumbled about before finally turning and fleeing.
《Reference: Ghouls were once a species of elf, until the petty Moon and Hunt Deity cursed them for their treachery, exacting divine retribution.》
《Thus the wretched elf-kind fell to undeath and became vulnerable to the Moon’s essence—living proof that the “righteous” gods are nothing but hypocrites, fools, and cowards!》
Marlin stood gazing blankly at the ghouls’ retreating forms, then gently laid me on the ground and murmured softly.
“Are we… safe now?”
The question only one ignorant of their true situation could ask.
“Don’t relax. Prepare to move. The real threat hasn’t even begun yet.”
We were inside the Labyrinth.
It was the central element of the Nightmare Dungeon—a place where crossing the threshold severed all connection to the outside world, birthing countless sprawling realms both great and small.
A moment’s carelessness could kill even a seasoned veteran, and without satisfying the Clear Condition, no matter how strong, there was no escape.
Marlin’s jaw trembled.
“…If ghouls are weak to moonlight, then couldn’t we just survive here without moving until morning? The Labyrinth’s managing priest told us that himself.”
The official strategy for the Hidden Ghoul Horde Stronghold was simple: survive eight hours without dying.
The Clear Condition itself was not terribly difficult, but the Labyrinth’s environment showed no favor to explorers.
“Dawn will come soon. The night here is brutally short.”
“…What?”
“Ghouls are weak only to moonlight. Sunlight deals them no damage whatsoever. They even take regular sunbaths quite contentedly.”
……
The young siblings fell pale, their ragged breathing slowly calming into silence.
Though terrified herself, Marlin gently stroked her brother’s back and soothed him.
“Sir… what do we do now?”
“What do we do?”
There was only one thing I could tell them.
“Survive, no matter what.”
No matter how hard, it was still fundamentally a tutorial, and there was no impossible difficulty.
Merely E-Rank.
If I couldn’t breeze through a bottom-tier Labyrinth, twenty thousand hours poured into that game had been a waste.
“You’ll help us, won’t you?”
“…Yes. I will.”
Marlin nodded, and though Abel looked reluctant, he followed his sister and bowed his head as well.
“Then what should we do first?”
There was something I needed above all else.
“First, I need the corpses of dead explorers.”
***
The young siblings, each having received different orders from me, began moving swiftly across the Grassland that ringed the forest.
Roughly five minutes remained until dawn.
If we hurried, all preparations could be finished before the moon fully departed.
‘Just do it the way I’ve always done it.’
The strategy for clearing this route with the young siblings had already been perfected through long trial and error.
I could confidently say there was no more optimized method—it was that safe.
I could use even more certain survival methods if I set my mind to it, but “setting one’s mind” to something wasn’t the sort of ordinary resolve one made lightly, so I didn’t feel inclined.
《Truly essential advice: if you sacrifice two beast-like creatures, you can clear this Labyrinth far more simply.》
“Stay still.”
《If you don’t wish for information, simply cover your right eye with an Eye Patch. However, I—the eye that sees through truth—will feel slighted, so please think carefully and decide with caution.》
This text that appeared in midair was a skill of sorts, one possessed of its own will.
It had the flaw of being talkative and constantly obstructing my vision, but its value lay in the single function of detecting danger in my stead and warning me in advance.
《Information for you, the weak-willed one who doesn’t wish to survive by trampling on children: if you pierce the heart with the Short Dagger you possess, they can at least meet death peacefully.》
“Thanks for the useful information.”
As I performed the act of conversing with my right eye alone, the sound of footsteps growing closer echoed from the distance.
“Cultist sir.”
Marlin approached in quick, hurried steps and set down on the ground what she’d been carrying on her shoulders.
Three decomposing corpses.
《Explorers who died in the Grassland. They happened to discover that the Hidden Ghouls were weak to moonlight, but didn’t realize that sunlight wasn’t a weakness—and were ultimately hunted down.》
“Just as you said, there were corpses scattered all over the place. They must be explorers who entered before….”
“Well done.”
《Showing young children the sight of rotting corpses! Your true nature is unclear, but you are undoubtedly a most exemplary Cultist.》
Marlin’s expression had indeed grown somewhat pinched, likely because I’d asked her to do something bordering on child abuse.
Of course, if she’d been a naive child who knew nothing, I wouldn’t have asked in the first place.
Marlin covered her nose and spoke.
“Outside, I get paid to dispose of bodies for people, so I know—they weren’t decomposed quite that severely. I’d say they’re about halfway there?”
The way she flipped the corpses back and forth while laying out her analysis was almost like that of a forensic pathologist.
This is why early education matters.
Because learning begins in childhood, when the mind absorbs knowledge best, one develops such sound analytical ability.
“What should we do now?”
“Arrange them neatly for me.”
I had the corpses of the explorers—bearing deep wound marks at the neck, chest, and heart—laid out in a line on the ground.
“But what are you planning to do?”
“Why would a Cultist need corpses?”
The alpha and omega of evil god worship.
The essential virtue that any exemplary Cultist must become familiar with.
“I’m going to offer them to Lidni.”
The hour of human sacrifice had come.

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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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