Chapter 178 – The Space-Warping Labyrinth

“Allie-sama. Brute-sama. Can I use Luke-sama here as my coachman? Instead of asking for an accompaniment, I’ll give you a reward for the quest. To be honest, you all know. Even if you die with this member, you won’t be able to break through the underground labyrinth.” Walk.”

Hannah turned around and told Allie and Brute her opinion. To be honest, I don’t know if Hannah’s party members will accept me as a coachman.
It hurts my pride to pay and be embarrassed. There are adventurers who give up rather than belittle the quest even by hiring a coachman.

“How are you? Lizardman. I’m fine. Nightma-san’s magic skills are trustworthy.”
“Hmm…”

Allie accepted the offer at once, but Brute was troubled. Being a proud lizardman, hiring a coachman seems a bit humiliating. However, Brute finally nodded his head after much thought.

“I’ll accept it. Exploration Quest, I have to break it. I need a love potion.”
“Yes? Why does Mr. Lizardman need a potion?”
“Return to my hometown. I use it to confess to my female childhood friend. If I drink the potion, I will be able to give birth to a baby.”
“Ohh, romantic cineyot-!”

A love potion? Did that baby crocodile also enter the labyrinth aiming for that? I stuck out my tongue as I watched Brute clutching the spear pole. The demand for the love potion was higher than expected among adventurers. I guess it’s because they’re all idioty guys who only know how to take risks.
Brute puts his pride aside to confess to his female childhood friend. He obediently accepted me as his coachman.

“Coachman, hire.”
“Luke-nim. It’s done. You’ll accompany us from now on.”

So, we decided to accompany Hanna and the others when exploring the underground labyrinth. My lovers didn’t have any complaints about joining Hanna’s group.
Anyway, as the number of people increases, it becomes advantageous to survive in the labyrinth. You just need to keep in check the tempo halflings who commit eccentricities.

Rebecca decided to take care of Ally, a biometric detector.

“Little boy, what’s your name?”
“It’s Allie!”
“Yes, kid.
“Huii Lee’s profit. Look at the ball.”

Rebecca, who has excellent agility, is marking it, so she won’t have an accident. I was relieved and was able to move forward with my companions. Of course, I didn’t forget to give a kind greeting as I set off like a coachman.

“Eh, dear passengers. The carriage is leaving now. As a rune mage, I will take care of you and take you to the end of the labyrinth. Please don’t just make an accident of assaulting the coachman. Anyone have any questions?”
“Mr. Mongma-! I don’t have to do anything if you’re giving me a carriage ride! I just need to clear my head and walk forward!”

I shook my head at Allie’s question.

“My wagon is a participatory wagon. Passengers must also participate in the quest.”
“Eh-. Where’s that! It’s not a wagon, it’s a rickshaw.”
“Then bitch! Do you complete the quest alone?”

When I yelled at her, Allie shut her mouth in surprise. I don’t want to grow my throat either, but I can’t help it. It was clear that the halfling bitch would get on her nerves if she let her babble.

“Be quiet before you tug on the cheek.”
“I’m sorry-!!”

Instilled with her manners, Allie couldn’t be bothered anymore. She just acted as a detector, keeping her mouth shut and her ears perked up.

“I see quite a few ghoul corpses. Who must have passed this place first?”
“Adventurers and wizards sent by the Mage Tower must have passed by. Thanks to that, there are not many ghouls around the entrance.”

Could it be because they arrived at the labyrinth late in the afternoon? When searching around the entrance of the labyrinth, there were no more encounters with ghouls. Only the corpses of ghouls scattered here and there tell us that a battle took place here.

‘It’s definitely not something I’d like.’

The fact that there are people who have gone ahead means that the results of exploration have decreased by that much. I heard that there are dozens of adventurers who started at the forefront. I had to hurry to catch up with them.

“It moves quickly. We have to catch up with the adventurers who went ahead.”
“Yes, coachman!”

We moved forward at a rapid pace. However, the moment we arrived at a fork in the road that stretched in all directions, we witnessed a strange sight. At the fork in the road, numerous adventurers were swearing.

“Sir. Is it bad again? I don’t think it’s this way?”
“How the hell did the road stretch? I want to see the face of the bastard who designed the labyrinth.”

Like an adventurer, thick curse words poured out of his mouth. The structure of the labyrinth seems to make people go crazy. At this moment, the person who designed the labyrinth had an odd number of parents, or even became an orphan.

“Hey, why are you all gathered here?”

I couldn’t hold back my curiosity, so I grabbed one of the adventurers and asked. But, of course, I couldn’t get a straight answer.

“It’s because of the labyrinth. The road is fucking complicated.”
“The road is complicated, but why are they gathered at the entrance?
“You’ll find out if you go straight ahead.”

The adventurers here are all competitors, after all. Because of the magical tool that was rewarded, they are in a position to compete fiercely over the exploration results. It would be foolish to kindly spill information to others.

“Kuh-kuh. Soon the dreamer will come back to the entrance too? I guarantee it.”

After talking with a middle-aged adventurer, I slowly looked around. I see seven roads stretching in front of the group of adventurers. Of course, you have to explore for yourself which is the right path.

“Where are you going? Mr. Hanna.”
“It’s hard to choose. It’s hard for me to pick just one because I have decision paralysis.”

I looked at the other party members besides Hannah, but they were all in agony at the fork in the road.
It is the hardest thing to choose. If you choose the wrong road, you’re going to get scolded. I have no choice but to choose a way.

“Take the middle road. Life goes straight.”
“Yes.”

I took the party members and moved to the middle road. The path I chose was not that complicated because it was structured to move forward. At least not in the direction to go back to the entrance.
The moment we felt relieved and continued moving forward, something unexpected happened.
At the end of the road, I heard the adventurers talking loudly. I heard the voice of the middle-aged adventurer I had a conversation with before we set off.

“Look over there! The dreamer brother is coming back too!”
“It’s not the middle road. I told you.”
Haha. Look at those guys’ bewildered faces.”

After walking all the way, the place I arrived at was surprisingly the entrance to the labyrinth. We are now back to the starting point. It was a phenomenon that made no sense at all from the point of view of walking the central road.

“Mo, Mongma-sama? Why did we come back? We just kept walking forward. We didn’t even turn around and move.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”

I just walked forward, but I came back to the starting point. Physically it doesn’t make sense, but just being surprised here won’t make progress. It will be nothing different from the losers chatting in front of the fork in the road.

“Let’s go back to the entrance for a moment. If you see anything unusual around you, tell us right away.”

I took the party members out to the entrance and slowly explored the surroundings. During my search, I found adventurers like me who went the wrong way back toward the entrance. After walking for a long time, everyone had dead skin on their faces.

“I thought that way was the right answer after seeing that it didn’t come out for a while. Wasn’t it?”
“Don’t even talk! I almost died because the ghouls were all over the place. It wasn’t even the way I was going back, so I don’t know why I came here.”
“It’s a very vicious labyrinth. If you go the wrong way, you have to walk again from the beginning.”

Most adventurers seemed completely unaware of the mysterious phenomenon. However, having taken Rumi’s class, I had some guesses.

‘There is magic that distorts space throughout the labyrinth. It’s a structure that transfers to the entrance if you take the wrong path.’

Magic that distorts space.
Modern wizards are virtually unable to handle magic. All magic that interferes with the property of space has been put into practice over the years. This is the reason why all the people of this world live as tramps or ride carriages. But surprisingly, in this labyrinth, ancient magic was unfolding.

‘I can understand why the Mage Tower pays attention to the Labyrinth.’

I finally understood the actions of the magicians of the Mage Tower. Purifying the underground waterway without being told, or ordering a quest to attract adventurers.

In the Magic Tower, they had no choice but to put their necks on the exploration of the underground labyrinth.

If you dig into the underground labyrinth, you might be able to restore the space magic that was actually used. The moment I saw the possibility, I was excited enough to feel thrilled.

Blink!

Wizards can use Blink! It means that you can cross the wall like a summoner spell in a certain disease game. It could self-destruct by flashing forward, but that would depend on the skill of the wizard.

Other than that, create a subspace and use it as an inventory. Or transferring people to a completely different area. The uses of space magic are endless. Yoensu’s labyrinth was practically a treasure to wizards.

“Rebecca. Did you find anything?”
“I can’t see anything but the floor and the bricks on the walls.”

For a long time, I searched the entrance of the labyrinth with the party members. However, after spending about 30 minutes searching, nothing was visible. It was a time when I was contemplating whether I should recklessly run into a fork in the road.

“I’ll just keep searching and the time will pass. Shouldn’t I try to fuck you first?”
“It’s embarrassing to fuck, Ms. Rebecca.”

Suddenly, Allie, who had been silent for a while, opened her mouth.

“Can you see something on the ceiling above the crossroads?”
“What do you see? Little boy.
“Heheh. It’s real, really.”

As Rebecca tried to feed her chestnuts, Allie waved her hand and she gave a look of regret. As Ally said, I looked at the ceiling above where the fork in the road started. If I opened my eyes wide and looked around, I could see something.

“It’s dotted.”
“It’s not a dot, it’s just black dust, isn’t it?”

What you see is a black dot as small as a grain of sand. If you look closely at the bricks laid on the ceiling, you can see it. However, the scenery we see and the scenery Allie sees seem to be very different.

“It’s not a dot, it’s like a very small picture-. I’ll write down what kind of picture it is and show you!”

Allie took out her writing instrument and scribbled on it, then she handed me a notebook with scribbles on it. The scenery she saw is drawn in detail on her notebook. It was as if a black dot had been enlarged.

Halflings’ senses are dozens of times more sensitive than humans. Instead of poor physical ability, it means that he has excellent senses. There is nothing strange about magnifying the surrounding objects like a magnifying glass with the naked eye.

“It’s not a picture, these are runes.”
“Is that a rune? It looks strange.”

The things Allie wrote down in her notebook were runes. A total of 7 identical runes were embedded one by one on the road.

Thurisaz.
A rune that means passage or door. The runes were all the same on the seven roads, but the directions were slightly different. There was only one rune in the right direction.

The road on the far right.
Only the runes on it are in the right direction.
Like tarot cards, primitive runes have completely different meanings depending on whether they are in the forward or backward direction.
It is said that there is only one correct passage among them.

“I found a way.”
“Yes? How?”