episode_0085
by fnovelpia
Someone was whispering in my ear.
I couldn’t hear what was being said very well, so I focused all my attention on my ears.
[… … Ha… … Yes… All… .]
A voice that is still heard unclearly.
I felt frustrated and wanted to throw a tantrum and ask if I could speak a little louder.
But I took a deep breath to calm down and let go of my frustration.
So what are you trying to say?
Exactly-!
“Ouch!”
I was so shocked that everything flashed before my eyes.
I think there was a really loud noise….
I woke up with a start and unconsciously grabbed my forehead with my hand.
“Oh, my forehead.”
I feel like I’ve been hit in the forehead really hard by someone.
It’s like getting hit with a honey bee because you’re being penalized.
‘It looks a little swollen?’
I took a deep breath, resting my hand on my forehead.
Looking around, it seemed like nothing had happened despite the fuss I had been making about getting up from my seat.
It’s just that I had a confusing dream.
My forehead hurts, maybe… .
‘It looks like it hit something.’
I don’t know where I hit it, but my forehead was bruised so badly that I decided to get it cleaned up before anyone else saw it.
I poured divine power on my forehead to relieve the pain… Huh?
“Why isn’t it getting better?”
It was clear that the divine power had cooled my head, but the pain in my forehead did not go away.
‘Is this really divine punishment?’
The fact that it didn’t get better even after using divine powers could only be seen as His intention.
Did you really think bad thoughts and punish me?
I got up in a hurry and moved to where Sister Melody was.
“Sister, are you sleeping?”
It was almost the first time I said something like this because Sister Melody was always with her eyes open when I was open.
And the answer came from behind.
“What’s wrong?”
When I looked back, I saw that her hair was wet, as if she had just washed up.
“Ah! Thank goodness you’re awake.”
“Yes. Why were you looking for me?”
“That’s… I wanted you to look at my forehead.”
“Is that your forehead? It’s a little red. Where did you hit it?”
“Ah, it’s red. When I woke up, my forehead was sore.”
“I didn’t get a bruise.”
“Thank you for watching.”
Judging from the fact that it was just swollen red and had no special patterns, it seemed like the level of punishment wasn’t that high.
I didn’t want to brag to anyone about receiving divine punishment, so I went inside, knelt down, and prepared to pray.
‘Did you find what I said yesterday offensive?’
So if this is the punishment you have given me, I intend to humbly accept it… .
The problem was that that didn’t seem to be the case.
‘No matter how I look at it, it seems like he got angry because I didn’t understand what he was saying and hit me.’
Not hearing his words was proof of my lack of practice.
Every time He spoke to me in my dreams, I gained a great deal of knowledge.
But this time, I couldn’t understand what he was saying, and so my mind was blank.
‘I have to do it, but how?’
I have grown a lot since entering the labyrinth.
So, I was confident in my ability that had improved significantly recently.
With this level of skill, you can confidently say that you are a senior healer anywhere.
But this incident made me realize that although I had become stronger, I was still a frog in a well.
‘The only way to grow further is to fight many monsters and heal yourself.’
I decided to follow his words to work hard.
I don’t know what information you came to me in my dream to tell me, but I’m going crazy because I feel sorry for you.
None of the knowledge He gave was useless.
The more I thought about it, the more strength I put into my hands because I knew that I would definitely use it someday.
* * *
As more people start coming in, the ice castle will fall into chaos.
Because it is so large, if we are considerate of each other, there may not be any problems.
but.
‘That can’t be true.’
People don’t get along so well with each other.
This is especially true in a situation where rewards are limited and the first person to attack is rewarded.
“We will search the map as soon as we enter. When we meet other teams, we will try to avoid conflict as much as possible, but if they start a fight, we will respond without mercy.”
““Yes!!””
The leader was sharing his plans with his team members after entering the castle.
We shook off the tension by listening to the leader’s words.
“Let’s each keep our positions and move in.”
Actually, there was no need to be nervous on the first floor.
Because Prince Loras’ team had already swept the first floor and gone up to the second floor.
Instead of going straight from the first floor to the second, we tried to find a secret space that might be there.
“It doesn’t seem like there are any monsters, but just in case, everyone should split up into pairs and search.”
“Yes~!”
The team members split up and searched the first floor.
I don’t know if it was the prince’s punitive force or the party that was sent first, but there were traces of a rough search on the first floor.
“It looks like they didn’t search properly and went upstairs?”
“You must have been anxious. You must have wondered what and how much the people who went up to the second floor took.”
Moreover, looking at the monster corpses left behind, it seems that they did not even take the byproducts carefully.
“I guess they misunderstood that there was a jackpot upstairs and they left something valuable there?”
“It hurts our pride. Is this something we should be concerned about?”
“Just leave it alone. Other teams will see this and misunderstand it.”
“Ah! Haha, good. That method.”
We just left the monster alone and focused on searching the surroundings.
The ice castle was much more beautiful on the outside than it looked on the inside.
However, because it was a habitat for monsters, there was a lot of dirty waste and many places were broken as evidence of battle.
Still, it was impossible to damage the beauty of the ice castle.
‘I wish I had a camera.’
If this castle weren’t a labyrinth, it would be a huge tourist attraction.
I found it absurd that it looked more beautiful and sacred than most cathedrals.
Some nobles looked at the ice castle as if it were a work of art, perhaps because it impressed their aesthetic sense.
“If it were possible, I would like to take this castle itself.”
“Okay. I’ll keep that in mind and build a villa like this.”
“How do you keep something made of ice?”
“Some compromise is necessary. Like changing to white bricks.”
“That level of emotion doesn’t come out.”
When people like us look at a work of art, we just think it’s pretty, but it seems like nobles want to own that work of art.
After searching the entire first floor, we were able to obtain one more piece of the map.
“This looks like a 3rd floor map.”
“Okay. Just being able to get more map pieces is a huge achievement.”
“We will continue to collect in the future.”
“Please note that there may be map fragments on the other side as well.”
“Then shall we slowly go up to the second floor?”
“That’s right.”
On the first floor, there were many paths leading up to the second floor.
Those who came before us probably didn’t know this, but at first we were excited, thinking we had discovered a secret passage, but were disappointed when we found out that we were on the second floor.
But the disappointment was short-lived.
“Looking at the fact that the monsters on the second floor path we found weren’t cleared out, it seemed like the Prince’s subjugation team’s attack wasn’t going as planned.”
The mood in the group changed completely when they learned that the prince had not yet finished conquering the second floor.
“They’re all big in size, but they seem to be full of idiots on the inside?”
“Or maybe being so big is a disadvantage in a place like this.”
As you walk down the hallways in the castle, you will often come across narrow paths.
There are quite a few rooms, but it is obvious that having a lot of people is useless when fighting monsters in such a limited space.
There are monsters in the room, so you can’t put 20 of them in there, right?
Of course, since there are a lot of people, we can attack at the same time, so it’s true that we’re faster than others.
“But if you still haven’t cleared the second floor, that means your personal skills aren’t that great.”
That was only possible when the team members’ skills were supported to a certain extent.
What if the skill gap is too big and there are only a few real combat personnel?
“That’s a plausible guess.”
“Is it really true, not just a guess?”
Just because you put armor on a man who was a farmer only a few days ago and give him a sword doesn’t mean he’s a proper soldier.
“Then we go up to the second floor and catch monsters?”
“We’ll go up to the second floor and clear a few rooms, but we won’t make that our main goal. Our real goal is to perfectly fit the pieces together.”
Even though circumstances had changed, Princess Rasiel seemed to have no intention of changing her goals.
I revealed that I only try to clear rooms to check out the reward boxes that appear in each room as if you cleared a game, and that I have no intention of making that my main focus.
“If a map piece comes out of the reward box, of course we will focus on clearing the room. Everyone, don’t look at random places and focus on your original goal.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I will keep that in mind.”
Our goal was to collect the map pieces, so it was our job to focus on that.
It was a good thing that I got my team members to have a purpose in mind again.
This is because the team members, obsessed with the idea that it might not be as late as they thought, tended to forget their original purpose.
When Princess Rasiel took the lead in organizing things, everyone seemed to have let go of their greed and come to their senses.
After going up to the second floor, we saw a much wider variety of monsters than the bat monsters we had encountered.
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