episode_0087
by fnovelpia“There are still places that haven’t been conquered yet so I haven’t checked them out yet… .”
“Isn’t it surprising that everything is so accurate?”
“Um… That’s right.”
Everyone nodded.
One by one, the team members who had set out on a journey to check the accuracy of the map I had created returned.
They all said that the path on the map was correct, proving that my puzzle was correct.
“Do you usually like solving puzzles?”
“No.”
Puzzles were a hobby that I didn’t really have much of a connection with.
To be honest, I thought it might be a strange misunderstanding, so I just brushed it off as luck.
but.
‘I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere.’
I felt a sense of foreboding from the map fragments.
Isn’t it easy to put together something you’ve already seen?
‘Did I see this in a dream?’
If you say you saw it in a dream, then it would be understandable.
My red, swollen forehead has healed, but I was disappointed because I didn’t get anything out of it. But then I realized that maybe he had put the finished version of the map in my head.
‘Nothing happens without a reason.’
Everyone seemed motivated because they thought the map pieces I had put together had a high probability of being real.
“Isn’t this almost complete?”
“Yes. The first floor is almost finished, and the second floor is almost finished.”
“I heard the faint sound of battle earlier, but I can’t hear it now, so I think they went up to the third floor. Should we also start thinking about going up to the third floor?”
On the second floor, the first floor map and the second floor map were featured prominently.
Although a rare 3-story map did appear, it only contained 4 chapters.
To complete the map on the third floor, we also had to slowly climb up to the third floor.
“We’ve already gone up to the third floor.”
There are now several teams in the castle, not just the prince’s punitive force.
In addition to the team we met for the second time, several people began to enter the castle in earnest.
Because I had to collect the map pieces, I had no choice but to delay my advance to the third floor, but now that I know that this is not the floor where the secret room shown in the map pieces is, there is no reason to delay my advance to the third floor.
“Going up to the 3rd floor tomorrow.”
After discussion, Princess Rasiel and the leader decided to advance to the third floor.
* * *
The 3rd floor was relatively quiet, unlike the 2nd floor, where the monsters hadn’t been cleared out yet, so there was a lot of noise.
“It’s going up later than I thought.”
I didn’t think it would be possible to conquer it in a day or two, but I didn’t know that even when we stayed on the second floor for a long time, we wouldn’t be able to advance to the fourth floor.
Princess Rasiel spoke at the leader’s muttering.
“Probably went up to the 4th floor.”
“Yes?”
“He must have gone up to the 4th floor thinking he was going to throw away the 3rd floor. There’s no way that person would be in the same place as those people.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“We also go up to the 4th floor.”
“Skip the 3rd floor?”
“At first glance, the 3rd floor is almost identical in structure to the 2nd floor. If you search the 3rd floor, you’ll eventually get a 3rd floor map and a few pieces of the 4th floor map.”
When viewed from the outside, you could see that the floor space narrowed from the 4th floor onwards.
In addition, the higher the floor, the higher the probability that a secret room would be hidden, so the princess boldly chose to abandon the third floor and go up to the fourth floor.
“If we go up to the 4th floor, won’t we also have to fight monsters?”
“If I meet a monster, I will have no choice but to fight it, but I won’t go out of my way to find it and fight it. I will search the conquered areas. Without Prince Loras noticing.”
It seemed like Princess Lasiel was planning to follow Prince Loras and suck up to him.
So we stayed on the third floor until we found the way up to the fourth floor, and then we went straight up to the fourth floor.
Finding the places the prince and his party visited was easier than expected.
Because they left such a splendid mark.
“You can tell just by looking at the traces. It’s very urgent.”
“If you move too hastily, there will inevitably be side effects… .”
“Look over there.”
The corpses that appeared to be members of the prince’s punitive force were seen abandoned.
◦%
“Hey hey. You’re in front of the princess, so do it properly.”
“Ahem… .”
“ Cubs like dogs.#◦
“!!”
At that moment, harsh curses came out of the princess’s mouth.
Everyone was surprised and looked at her, but she didn’t seem to notice the gazes on her and continued to curse Prince Loras.
“You’re not even human!! You’re so blinded by greed that you abandon people on the street?”
“I, won’t you come back later to help me?”
The embarrassed nobleman made excuses to appease the angry princess.
But that was an action that rather incited the princess’s anger.
“You must have forced it under that pretext! Do you think everyone would agree if you said you would collect the bodies after filling them with loot?”
Recovering a body means emptying the space of something.
Who would like to throw away all the loot they’ve worked so hard to collect?
It was an act that cleverly swayed people’s emotions.
“This is why I despise that kid. What do you think of human life?”
The princess spoke, barely suppressing her anger while grumbling.
“I’m going to see that kid get all worked up and squirm later! Let’s all get moving.”
Everyone was furious at the princess’s sudden action, but they stopped midway before expressing their emotions, so it wasn’t obvious.
And since our job going forward was to suck the spine of Prince Loras and make a profit, we started to move more actively.
It was only natural that everyone would become motivated, knowing that sympathy was excessive for someone who did such a thing.
“The 4th floor is a bit different.”
When we arrived at the 4th floor, the first thing that greeted us were the corpses of those who were part of Prince Loras’s punitive force.
There may have been some casualties on the third floor, but the fact that so many people died was proof that the fourth floor was not easy.
“Ugh! This is a surprise.”
The reason the fourth floor is bound to be confusing is because of the icicles hanging from the ceiling.
“I feel really bad.”
“Is this really a godrum?”
The problem was that there was something inside the lump.
It was presumed that the beings were ‘humans’ who had entered the ice castle 300 years ago and were frozen inside the iceberg.
I tried to break the ice, but it had a circumference thicker than that of an average old tree, and no matter how much force I applied, it wouldn’t budge, as if it were not normal ice.
“It looks like the prince was trying to break it too? There’s a little crack here.”
“It seems like he ended up failing and just left.”
“How did these people end up hanging from the ceiling and dying like this?”
“Only a monster would do something like this.”
“I guess I’ll have to keep an eye on the ceiling.”
It probably wasn’t like that from the beginning.
A person was probably hung from the ceiling and left to fester.
We also needed to be careful.
“It’s horrible to think that’s what will happen if I die here. I absolutely must not die here.”
It feels like I’ve become a work of art cherished by a monster.
I wonder if the other team members felt that way too, as they were feeling uncomfortable.
‘It’s a museum created by monsters… .’
It was a noble hobby for a monster living in a beautiful castle.
“Let’s go. We need to collect the map pieces quickly.”
After passing the unpleasant grave ridge, what appeared to be a crazy staircase of dozens of steps appeared.
“Stairs? Already? Did we take the wrong path?”
“I wish that were the case, but it looks like I’ll have to go up here.”
“Don’t say such horrible things. Please.”
Several narrow steps were moving in a steady motion, as if they were the stairs leading out of the Harry Potter School.
We had to climb those stairs on time.
What if you accidentally slip and fall on the stairs?
The path is so narrow that you have to stand in a straight line to move, but if one person stumbles, wouldn’t all the people coming up from below fall down?
“If we fall, won’t we all die? When I look down the stairs, they’re so dark that I don’t think I’ll be able to come up.”
“Prince Loras’s subjugation force has also gone up, so how can we not go up?”
“Let’s be brave. You’re not a kid, so you shouldn’t be scared by something like this, right?”
Looking at the steep stairs and the things moving around here and there, I was at a loss as to how I could climb them, but that didn’t mean I had any other choice.
If the 4th floor was like this, I couldn’t imagine what would happen to the remaining floors.
We had a meeting before going up because we couldn’t help but prepare for the possibility of falling down the stairs.
“How about tying us all up with ropes and going up? That way, if one of us sprains, we can hold on from above and below.”
“Then, we might lose our balance and die.”
“Just push through with individual skills? Can’t everyone do that well?”
There are two opinions: one is to tie ourselves with a rope and help each other climb up, and the other is to trust our individual abilities and climb up quickly.
There were polar opposite opinions, and neither was welcome.
“Or how about having a skilled person go up first and lower a rope that they can grab and climb up? And secure it to a wall or something.”
Finally, a useful opinion has emerged.
I thought it would be helpful to use the same method when climbing those stairs, just like the one I usually use when climbing high mountains or rock climbing.
Everyone seemed to think it was a pretty good idea, and their faces lit up as they exchanged opinions.
“The problem is deciding who will go up those stairs first.”
“I can do that.”
Surprisingly, the person who readily raised her hand was Sister Melody.
I was so surprised that I kept my mouth shut until I made this plan.
“Sister?”
“I stepped forward because I thought I could do it best.”
I’m the type of person who rarely steps forward except for things I have to do, so it felt strange for me to step forward for something like this.
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