Your Majesty, Dinner Is Ready. - Chapter 46

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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 46 — C-Rank Labyrinth – Nightmare World (4)
The White Land, one of the clear conditions for conquering the Nightmare World, was undeniably anomalous.
A pristine white fragment cast amid absolute darkness.
A gleaming point impossible to conceal.
The dissonant color drew our footsteps forward.
“…We’re almost there now.”
Fendrick, limping as he walked, managed a faint smile.
“Just a little more effort, everyone.”
Despite not having rested in nearly two days, his voice carried an ease that surprised me.
He had to be at his own limit, yet he encouraged the other party members—a grace that, alongside his skill, marked him as the finest teammate one could ask for.
I wanted to smile back just as warmly, but found myself unable to muster it.
“It hurts so much.”
The number of expedition members moving in formation was four in total.
Myself, Rosalia, Fendrick.
And a small child bleeding from everywhere.
“Why did you leave me alone?”
The child appeared to be about thirteen years old.
Around the same age as Marlin and Abel.
“Why weren’t you there beside me?”
The child drifting like a phantom beside me asked again and again.
“These places where that awful person hit me still hurt.”
The child’s eyes filled with reproach, lips trembling, movements distracted my focus.
I wanted to look away.
I wanted to ignore the voice echoing faintly from all directions.
But I did not turn from the child.
I had no right to do so.
“I’m a bad child, so this happened to me, didn’t it?”
“…No.”
The word came out like something wrenched from deep within.
It was all I could offer right now.
“Captain, did you say something?”
“It wasn’t meant for you all.
An abnormal condition: Hallucination.
A phenomenon that occurs when one’s mental reserves are completely exhausted.
That’s all it was.”
“We’re truly almost there now.”
I moved forward with difficulty, my body ravaged by the manifold Dark Magic Curses eating away at it.
“No one among us is careless enough to let our guard down at the final stretch, I trust?”
I spoke as if mustering some artificial cheer.
“I’m sorry to dampen the mood, but arriving at the White Land doesn’t mean we’ve cleared the dungeon. Everything we’ve endured so far is only the third phase of our exploration.”
“…Well, that’s somewhat disappointing news, isn’t it?”
“But I also have hopeful news: the fourth phase won’t stretch on nearly as long as this.”
Though it will be considerably more grueling.
Tap.
Rosalia, clearly on the verge of complete exhaustion, touched my wrist weakly while staring ahead.
The gesture needed no interpretation.
“Yes, we’ve arrived.”
The White Land.
A handful of dream embedded in nightmare.
The endpoint of the third exploration phase lay directly before our eyes.
“It’s smaller than I expected?”
The size was roughly equivalent to an ordinary inn’s guest room.
Fendrick was right—it certainly wasn’t spacious.
“A portion of the dream fragments that should exist in the Great City, a Subspace, flowed here erroneously through a kind of glitch.”
Maintaining a dream-world on such a grand scale required not some artifact of great power but demonic dark sorcerers—so small oversights were inevitable.
Now we had to convert this minor negligence into a catastrophic failure.
“Rosalia, please monitor the dark sorcerers and priests for any approach. Fendrick, come here.”
The White Land was no safe haven, so there was no time for detailed instructions.
I immediately withdrew a lump of metal from my shadow storage.
A high-purity Iron Ingot purchased at a discount from the expedition supply shop.
If I hadn’t gathered this beforehand, stepping into the Nightmare World would’ve meant nothing but suffering before an inevitable death.
…It was a conclusion I’d reached after discovering every single clue scattered throughout the Great City.
‘This was almost too much to ask for.’
There was a true strategy for clearing the Nightmare World—one you could infer only by trudging through the tedious process of exploring every corner of the Great City.
I placed the iron ingot in the center of the White Land and knelt before it.
“I humbly beseech you.”
Clasping my hands together, I began to offer a sincere prayer.
“I present this iron to you, and pray that you will drive away the vile and wicked energies that oppress us.”
《The wise one notes that they themselves lack the divine power to aid you.》
Zzzt.
The Evil Deities who heard my prayer showed reluctance.
“That prayer was not offered to you two, so please remain silent.”
It would be absurd to pray for help from Evil Deities rather than Good Deities when we were already suffering trials.
Wicked gods were specialists in becoming the source of misery for sentient beings; they had no talent for extending a hand of salvation.
“I, too, humbly beseech you.”
Fendrick, catching on, knelt beside me and began to pray as well.
“We hope, and we hope again.”
“Please extend a hand of salvation to these miserable sentient beings.”
A prayer born of sincere longing was bound to reach the heavens.
It was a timeless truth passed down since ancient times immemorial.
– Groooooow.
As Fendrick and I continued our unwavering double prayer.
A pure white light shone from somewhere, and a living being tore through space and appeared in the void.
A trunk like an elephant’s, a body solid as a bear’s, and limbs fierce as a tiger’s—a Divine Beast.
《Divine Beast—Maku》
《The Divine Beast raised by Artein, the hypocrite of wisdom and protection. What in the world is this creature doing here!》
– Groow?
“Greetings to you.”
Maku was modeled after the mythical creature known as the Baku.
In Japan, it was called the Baku.
The Baku was known to repel wicked energies, and even in Japan where it had become mere folklore, this had not changed much.
“Divine Beast blessed by the protection of one who shields all people, I humbly beg of you.”
I lifted the mass of iron reverently in both hands as I spoke.
“Please devour all the nightmares in this place.”
Maku was a Divine Beast who aided those suffering from wicked dreams by consuming the nightmares themselves.
“And as a bonus, if you could also heal us a little, we would be even more grateful.”
– Groow!
The Divine Beast swallowed the Iron Ingot in one gulp and began to dance merrily, casting radiance over the head of our party member.
A light imbued with the warmth of protective grace.
Its effects were felt immediately.
“…Goodbye.”
The child who had remained at my side faded away softly.
“Go well. See you next time, Yunji.”
《Your vitality and mental strength have been completely restored!》
《Furthermore, all ailments and Dark Magic Curses afflicting your body and mind have been healed!》
Complete recovery, including the removal of status abnormalities.
Maku was a flying biological healing center.
Bringing Fendrick into this labyrinth had been entirely for this moment.
– …Huh?
Astremia voiced her bewilderment in a crystalline tone.
– The Curse of Oblivion just… disappeared!
No matter how high-tier a Dark Magic curse was, it was ultimately just a status abnormality.
“Astremia…!”
– Fendrick!
While the two lovers shared a tearful, quasi-embrace, Rosalia tapped my back and checked my complexion.
“Thank you for your concern. All twenty-two curses that were afflicting my body have been healed, as well as my mental abnormalities.”
The Divine Curse known as the Filter of Divine Will remained intact, but that was actually a relief—better that it didn’t disappear.
…….
The assassin, surprisingly attentive to the wellbeing of her comrades, finally gave a slight nod as if relieved.
– Groooow!
Maku drew in a deep breath through his long snout.
Whoooosh—!
The fierce vortex stirred up by the Divine Beast’s profound respiration began to tear through everything, and the nightmare started being sucked away entirely.
The heavy darkness that had settled over everything was vanishing in an instant.
“This is the final stage.”
The expedition was not yet over.
“We have fifteen minutes. We must hold off all the enemies pouring in from across the entire Nightmare World until the Divine Beast finishes consuming it all.”
The fourth phase of exploration.
Hold the line to the end.
“Fair warning—it won’t be easy. Possibly harder than surviving these past two days.”
“So the real trial begins now.”
Fendrick, his eyes glistening with tears of joy, took his stance and aimed Astremia forward.
“Captain, might I save my thanks for after the expedition is complete?”
“Of course.”
Rosalia, dagger in hand, bloomed crimson death roses across her entire body.
“…Strength.”
“Understood. I feel my will rising already—you speak just one word and somehow it kindles fire in my chest?”
I rallied my own resolve and prepared for combat.
I was readying myself to draw all the aggro.
“Here we go!”
As we all steadied ourselves, enemies began advancing from the distance.
The nature of this battle would be somewhat different from what had come before.
“Their bodies aren’t whole, are they? Their limbs seem to be twitching strangely.”
– They’re not the living.
Astremia, her voice brighter now that the curse had been lifted, gave a small flick of her blade.
– The undead. The members of the Solitary Silence Cult raised all the enemies we’ve defeated using their Mystery.
A flawless assessment.
The fourth phase of the Nightmare World expedition was a kind of Defense Game—repelling waves of undead legions.
– Grooooah!
Maku, regarding the undead with disgust, let out a cry as he glanced back at us.
“Um… Captain, what did he say?”
“He encouraged us to endure to the end, saying he will aid us with the light of protection.”
Maku’s radiance also served as a kind of buff.
Without it, we would have had to remove Astremia’s curse through far more difficult means.
“Let’s move. Moon Exploration Party.”
I charged forward toward the undead that had closed to melee range.
Crackle!
I wreathed my entire body in Black Thunder Bloom, incinerating zombie priests and dark mages.
The Spark of Glory, which had seen little use against flame-wielding enemies, now erupted with constant cascades of fire.
“Astremia, let’s go!”
– Right!
The wave of starlight that my lover and I released together swept through the undead ranks.
A technique of flowing Aura like water—something normally only knights and martial artists of Level 6 and above could use.
A combined strike that proved why the Emotion Series was the artifact every explorer coveted.
“Solitary Silence descends!”
“Crush that crazy blond bastard first!”
Among the undead legion, plenty of living demon priests and dark mages still remained.
Tier 5 and higher Dark Magic Curses and the Mystery of Solitary Silence rained down relentlessly, tearing through my body, burning it, piercing it.
Still, I only laughed.
The agony coursing through me was nothing but a sweetener to brighten the expedition.
……
While I absorbed every blow with my body, Rosalia, merged with shadow, moved with perfect subtlety.
Whisper.
In this battlefield, even with Maku’s buff, there was no enemy capable of stopping a Level 6 assassin’s quiet death.
Demon priests and dark mages.
The heads of the formidable foes that had tormented us so relentlessly all this time fell helplessly to the ground like scattered grain.
“Ahahahaha!”
Perhaps it was because I wore the Sacred Priestly Robes that Sue had emptied all her faith to grant me.
A laugh as thunderous as that of the one who gave them burst forth unbidden from my lips.
Without restraint, I bellowed with exuberant laughter, burning enemies indiscriminately with lightning and flame.
“…that monster!”
“How lamentable!”
Whatever the enemies cried out, I pressed forward without pause, my body pierced by the mysteries of Dark Magic and scorched by the mysteries of the Priesthood, yet ceaselessly regenerating.
The philosopher Nietzsche said it once.
That which does not kill me makes me stronger.
He was right.
“Aha, aha ha ha ha!”
I was growing stronger without end.

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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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