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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 11
Chapter Title: Labyrinth
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‘Ouch. Get it together, Serena. I can’t die like this. Positive thinking!’
Serena widened her eyes and shook her head. Even after reincarnating, she was still terrified of death.
She knew death wasn’t the end, which made it even scarier than before.
‘There’s no guarantee I’ll be born as a princess in my next life.’
What if she wasn’t even born as a human next time? And even if she was, what if the circumstances were terrible?
In her previous life’s homeland, just a short trip north led to a hell on earth.
Her past life had been decent enough to get by, and now she was a princess, so didn’t that mean the odds were higher for a worse life next time?
‘Look at me. I lived ordinarily before and got reincarnated as a princess. Being good or whatever doesn’t matter—it’s all just random luck.’
She’d finally reincarnated as a princess, so she wanted to enjoy the top spot in the class pyramid until she died of old age.
To do that, she had to survive and get out of here.
“Lavenda. Tell us everything you know about the labyrinth.”
Hwajichen had no labyrinths, so they were cut off from the info network shared only among labyrinth-owning nations.
Philia’s husband hailed from the empire, which had the most labyrinths, but it seemed unlikely he’d bored his beloved wife with tales of something as uninteresting as labyrinths.
So among the five trapped in this labyrinth right now, Lavenda was the most knowledgeable.
Lavenda, who’d become a labyrinth expert after a few tourist visits, opened her mouth. Everyone held their breath and listened intently.
“Vieta’s labyrinth—as those in the know are aware—is now developed as a tourist spot. It was discovered during the reign of King Rido V, the great-grandfather of our current king, His Majesty King Nido III.”
This was a story from about a hundred years ago.
A shepherd searching for a lost kid goat was walking along a mountainside when he spotted what looked like the ruins of a building.
The shepherd assumed it was just ordinary rubble and stepped inside.
But it turned out to be a labyrinth filled with all sorts of mysteries and wonders.
“The labyrinth is a wondrous space beyond our common sense. Anything can happen there, and nothing should surprise you in that unknown realm. No matter what you see, hear, or experience, it’s a place where things happen that no one who hasn’t been there could even imagine. And the shepherd walked right in to find his kid goat.”
“Your words suddenly flow like a river now?”
“That’s the spiel the labyrinth guides give tourists before entry. I memorized it.”
She even mimicked the guide’s exaggerated inflections and over-the-top emotions.
Lavenda seemed to have forgotten her tension while talking and relaxed her posture a bit.
“The shepherd wandered through a cave full of labyrinth green moss, Labyrinth Rats, and labyrinth slimes searching for his kid goat. He only had a torch and a dagger, but the boy bravely explored the cave.”
‘Everything’s prefixed with “labyrinth.” Is that really how they’re called?’
The shepherd, lost in the complex caves, used the kid goat’s cries as his compass. Eventually, he found a Floor Boss Labyrinth Rat attacking the kid goat deep in the labyrinth’s heart.
“They say the shepherd bravely took down the boss rat with just his dagger. As a reward for slaying the boss, he got some gold coins and escaped the labyrinth with the kid goat, reporting it to the guards.”
The guards immediately reported it to the king. King Rido V of Vieta at the time reportedly cheered with excitement.
In labyrinths, monsters and resources respawn. Walls, floors, and ceilings do too.
In labyrinths with trees, you get infinite wood; in ones with stone, infinite stone. Over time, gold coins replenish, and you can harvest byproducts from monster corpses.
But that’s not all.
This world has rare magic artifacts obtainable only from labyrinths.
Artifacts that wizards or alchemists—once-in-a-century talents—could craft only with national-budget-level materials pop out of treasure chests in labyrinths. Slaying a boss monster has a slim chance of dropping them too.
That’s why monarchs of labyrinth-owning nations restrict access and monopolize information.
‘Fortunately, it’s not the type that forces people in.’
Some fictional works with labyrinths have settings where ignoring them lets monsters burst out and attack people.
This world’s labyrinths didn’t have that.
‘That’s why I let my guard down.’
If there had been such a thing, she’d have trembled thinking, “Is this why I was reincarnated—to conquer a real labyrinth?” and prepared accordingly. But since there wasn’t, she slacked off.
‘Even if I didn’t have protagonist syndrome, I should’ve prepared since who knows when or how something might happen.’
Her family was full of discord, but the world was at peace. So she let her guard down, and who’d have thought she’d end up thrown into a labyrinth? It was so unfair.
‘No wonder possession stories are popular. Reincarnators with no prior knowledge have it rough.’
In any case, King Rido V was thrilled at the prospect of resources from the labyrinth and gathered elite soldiers to order a conquest of Vieta’s labyrinth.
The result was disastrous.
Not that the conquest team was wiped out. Vieta’s labyrinth simply had nothing for a conquest team to conquer.
“You’re saying it’s fine to just wander around in a labyrinth?”
“Not other labyrinths, but Vieta’s is okay. It’s already been fully conquered.”
“I heard labyrinths are hard to conquer, though?”
“I heard Vieta’s labyrinth only has one floor.”
Vieta’s labyrinth was a single-floor one. The Floor Boss Labyrinth Rat the shepherd defeated was its boss monster—the lowest-grade labyrinth on the continent.
The rarity of resources from a labyrinth scales with its grade. Vieta’s single-floor labyrinth was grade 1 difficulty.
King Rido V couldn’t believe his kingdom’s newly discovered labyrinth was such a pathetic grade 1 and had it searched top to bottom.
It was a waste of resources. All they confirmed was that Vieta’s labyrinth was the continent’s only grade 1.
The resources from Vieta’s labyrinth were limited to herbs, low-grade potions occasionally respawning in treasure chests, and very rarely—extremely rarely—a bit of gold.
Great expectations lead to great disappointments. Unable to bear the letdown, King Rido V passed the throne to his successor, his eldest daughter.
The new queen thought differently. Vieta was already renowned as a tourist nation back then.
She opened the labyrinth as a tourist attraction.
Vieta’s labyrinth was fully conquered: maps, traps, monsters, treasure chests, herb habitats—all perfectly charted.
Since it was conquered, monster and trap respawns were slow, and the rarely regenerating monsters were easy enough for regular soldiers to handle.
Every two years or so, they’d close it off, wipe out the monsters, and disable the traps. Done.
All that was left was charging admission to tourists coming to see it.
“People pay money to see that?”
“Of course. It’s a must-see spot. Visitors come from all over the continent.”
“Mercy, they must be swimmin’ in cash.”
“Truth be told, I wanted to visit too!”
“I was planning to go with you, Lady Serena.”
Indeed. After the Founding Festival ended, she’d planned to take leave and visit Vieta’s labyrinth. It’d be odd for an unmarried royal to travel alone to the continent’s edge, so she’d intended to tag along with the married Philia and her husband.
‘Who’d have thought I’d end up touring a labyrinth right in front of my house.’
Serena sighed inwardly.
Chrome grumbled about why anyone would pay to see such nonsense.
Hanson’s eyes sparkled at tales of foreign lands he couldn’t easily access due to his status.
“That’s all I know.”
Her mimicking of the guide’s speech had made it entertaining, so the group felt a pang of regret when Lavenda finished.
“Isn’t there more? When you first mentioned labyrinths, you talked about them eating people or swallowing them up.”
“Oh, that? It’s just a rumor...”
Lavenda glanced around, reluctant to spoil the brighter mood.
“Tell us the rumors too.”
“Well... Do you know of Mesa’s Labyrinth? The one on Mesa Island north of the empire.”
“I’ve heard the name.”
“Me too.”
“Ain’t that the first labyrinth that comes to mind?”
“Lady Serena, I know of it too.”
Mesa’s Labyrinth. It was famous enough that not just Serena, but everyone had heard of it at least once.
If Vieta’s was the world’s weakest labyrinth, Mesa’s was the strongest.
Estimated at a whopping grade 9 difficulty, it was the legendary labyrinth the empire—the brute-force powerhouse of the continent’s center—had failed to conquer for 200 years despite throwing endless resources at it.
Imperial records were said to be full of rare treasures from it.
Once Mesa’s Labyrinth appeared, the empire shifted its national policy from conquest wars to labyrinth raids, making it even more famous.
“Mesa Island was a large island close to the continent with a magic stone mine, so it had a big population. Right before the labyrinth appeared, the island had nearly 50,000 residents...”
Even accounting for rumor exaggeration, that was a huge number.
“50,000 people? Hwajichen has 100,000 citizens!”
“The island’d sink.”
“The empire sure has a lot of people.”
Was it exaggerated for rumor’s sake, or just the empire’s typical oversized scale? While Serena pondered, Lavenda continued.
“But 200 years ago, one day, a labyrinth generated on the island and swallowed the 50,000 islanders and the whole city. Rumors say that even now, islanders swept up when the labyrinth formed still turn up inside Mesa’s Labyrinth. Sometimes as corpses, sometimes as undead.”
Lavenda’s voice grew quieter. Everyone held their breath, focused on her tale.
“And sometimes as living people who remember events from 200 years ago like they happened yesterday.”
Everyone was speechless. Then, one by one, they voiced ominous guesses.
“So, Lady Serena, does that mean we were swallowed by the labyrinth too? Not that we fell into an underground one due to an earthquake?”
“It wasn’t an earthquake? We got eaten by the labyrinth? It was a big one. Surely not all of Hwajichen!”
“That’s impossible.”
Serena spoke firmly on purpose to dispel their anxiety.
“I’ve never heard of a labyrinth swallowing people or cities. As Lady Landry said, it was an earthquake, and we fell into this underground labyrinth. Don’t entertain such wild notions.”
“Yes. It’s just a rumor. That’s why I hesitated to mention it.”
Lavenda tried to reassure them. But it wasn’t nearly enough to quell the grown anxiety.
“Everyone, look at me.”
Serena deliberately raised her voice to draw their attention.
“Lavenda’s wild tale might sound similar to our situation and bother you. But we need to focus on the clear truth she mentioned earlier.”
They’d all been sitting while listening to Lavenda. Serena stood alone, looking down at them.
“Lavenda just said a lone shepherd conquered Vieta’s labyrinth. He was probably not even an adult yet, armed with just a single dagger.”
“Yes. His outfit from back then is even on display in the exhibition hall.”
“And it didn’t take long. How long was it?”
“Half a day. He went in at lunchtime and came out at sunset.”
“Did everyone hear that? A younger, worse-equipped kid conquered and escaped the labyrinth in half a day. That means we can too.”
“But... there must’ve been an exit open for him.”
Serena was deliberately hiding harsh truths to boost morale, but Chrome ruined it. Serena almost lashed out with elder abuse instead of the elder respect drilled into her in her past life but held back.
“Ahem. From what I know, some dungeons have escape passages or magic circles leading outside from within. I hear labyrinths can too.”
“Oh, yes! He said that! Some labyrinths have outward teleporters or relocation artifacts!”
“So Count Landry mentioned that. Anything else you remember?”
“I half-listened since it was boring... Um, let’s see...”
Philia wrung her fingers, desperately recalling. Count Landry had prattled on endlessly to capture his beloved wife’s interest.
She’d let most of it go in one ear and out the other since he never shut up, but who knew she’d regret it like this.
‘Darling, I’m sorry! Next time you tell boring stories, I won’t tune them out—I’ll just say they’re boring!’
Philia apologized to her absent husband and dug deeper into her memory.
“Oh, right! He said they’re usually in the boss room! High chance after beating the Floor Boss or Stratum Boss! But what are Floor Bosses and Stratum Bosses? Do you know, Lady Serena?”
“Of course.”
They’re just bosses. She’d seen plenty in games.
Now that Hwajichen’s Royal Mausoleum had become a labyrinth, it was time to change their goal from finding the burial chamber.
“From now on, we conquer this floor.”
Serena and her group began conquering the first floor of Hwaji’s labyrinth.
