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A ‌‌‌Corporate ‌‌‌Slave Becomes a Villainous Nuisance in a Zombie Apocalypse
Episode 53
"Me? You're asking me?"
"Have you given up on life?"
I opened my mouth at the cold words falling from above my head.
I'd often heard ‌‌Praha speak to others—usually terrible people—in that tone.
But this was the first time he'd directed it at me.
At least in this lifetime.
Praha, who had retrieved the bag that had been lying discarded over there, stood before me.
Without asking permission, he lifted my palm and, seeing the wound there, his expression darkened.
His face looked so menacing, as if he were about to kill someone.
Praha pressed me for answers.
"What ‌‌‌on earth were you thinking?"
What was I thinking...
"I was trying to escape, but the wall's resistance was too ‌‌strong. I thought if I didn't do something, both Yujein and I would be trapped here."
"And so?"
"I wanted to save at least one of us."
"So you're saying you've abandoned your life as a ‌‌‌noblewoman."
"It's not quite like that..."
I was conscious, but Yujein wasn't.
If I stayed here alone, there ‌‌‌was a chance I'd survive, but if Yujein had been left alone, she would have died.
How could I escape on my own, leaving an unconscious girl behind?
"I ‌‌made the most ‌‌rational judgment I could."
After voicing that opinion, everyone's expressions only grew worse.
Praha clenched his teeth.
"You could have died."
"Everyone dies eventually..."
"Not everyone—you! You could have died!"
He raised his voice, then flinched and stepped back.
After the silence passed, Praha's voice emerged so faintly I could barely hear it. ‌‌‌‌
"You could have died... might have died in there. I can't stop thinking about it."
Only then did I notice that Praha's lips were trembling.
His lower lip, faintly stained with blood.
As if he'd bitten it hard, unable to contain his anxiety.
Cyprus, looking like someone in shock, placed a hand on Praha's shoulder and crouched before me.
"Yusara."
He calls my name and smiles. Brightly.
"This is probably only the second time in my life I've said something like this."
"..."
"If that's what rationality looks like, then I'm an emotional person."
"...What?"
"As the princess's childhood friend, I'm emotional, sentimental, irritable, and oversensitive—in short, someone far removed from reason. So don't ever do that in front of me again."
"...."
"If I see one more person who isn't even a trained soldier throwing their life away while spouting nonsense about reason, I honestly don't know what I'll do."
They're saying this to me because I'm the one who made the sacrifice right now.
If I'd abandoned Yujein and escaped alone, I think they would've killed me the moment we got out.
I swallowed that ‌‌‌thought before it could escape.
Either way, they're genuinely worried about me right now.
I simply nodded quietly.
"I'll be careful." ‌‌‌
"Good. Now get up. If you keep sitting there with your legs stretched out like that, I'll want to carry you."
"For heaven's sake. I need to get up right now."
I brushed off my knees in disgust and ‌‌‌stood.
Praha, ‌‌‌‌who had been kneeling on one knee beside me examining my wounds while I talked with Cyprus, rose as well.
He asked without meeting my ‌eyes.
"Are you alright in the head?"
"My head?"
"I saw you hit it earlier."
"Oh. I'm fine."
My neck was a bit stiff, though.
Isn't my neck always stiff anyway? ‌‌‌
Let's refrain from using electronic devices in poor posture.
'But Praha is what's bothering me.'
He seems upset. He won't even look ‌‌‌at me.
I craned my neck, trying to catch his gaze, and asked Cyprus.
"By the way, Grand Duke, is your shoulder alright?"
I'd seen the broken blade graze Cyprus's shoulder earlier.
At my question, ‌‌Cyprus pressed his hand against his bleeding shoulder.
"It's just a light graze. I'll apply some medicine ‌‌and wrap it up."
"Right! We need to treat everyone. Let's get organized!"
Tangerine, who had been keeping watch, shouted.
"The princess must be treated first!"
"I'm not injured...."
"My heart is wounded because of you, princess!"
Shouldn't Tangerine be the one getting treatment then?
"Princess!"
"You're back to yourself, Yujein. Are you hurt from the impact?"
"Of course! The princess has been trapped here alone ‌‌for over ‌‌an hour now, so naturally I've come to my senses!"
"Oh."
Has ‌‌‌that much time already passed?
I thought about five minutes had passed.
'I must have lost my sense of time in the panic.'
"But you're a priestess—why are you the one making the sacrifice!"
"Yujein, you're quite resourceful, aren't you."
"Yes! ‌‌‌I'm good at things like that!"
Yujein, tugging at my arm with tears ‌‌‌in ‌‌her eyes, poured her holy power into my neck and palms.
Now that I looked, my knees and elbows were utterly scraped up.
Thank goodness ‌‌I wore long pants.
"After the Grand Duke, and now me too—aren't we using far too much holy power?"
"This space is saturated with divine energy, so this much is manageable."
"I see."
The white light bursting from Yujein's hands was indeed stronger than I remembered.
If it once healed wounds like paper cuts, now it was more like wounds from a utility knife.
After receiving adequate treatment, I stood up.
"Shall we head back in then."
"Are you certain you're alright, my lady?"
"I have to be. We're running out of time."
"Perhaps you should rest ‌‌a bit longer...."
"Tsk. If you're going to say weak things like that, look at that ceiling instead."
"Oh! The ceiling has risen back up!"
"It seems the structure works so that when the entrance ‌‌‌closes, the ceiling descends ‌‌‌‌and walls form! And in doing so, it's still cleaning out any foreign matter that was inside!"
I nearly got ‌cleaned out myself.
"Should we have prepared more thoroughly?"
"But we didn't have enough time. We did our very best."
Sigh.
Forcing my head to stop turning back, I ventured deeper into the maze.
"So you completely destroyed the mechanism, then?"
"Yes! The Crown Prince climbed up the wall and smashed that device to pieces!"
"Ah...."
I glanced at Praha, who still hadn't uttered a single word, as we walked.
As we strolled along, we eventually reached the spot where Yujein had been trapped.
I tapped Praha on the shoulder as he walked silently beside me.
When Praha stopped without a word, I pointed with my hand to a small crevice created by the split in ‌‌‌‌the cave wall.
Two people could never fit through, only one.
And only someone as scrawny as me at that.
"I was planning to send Yujein out and then slip in there myself."
I wasn't the type to throw my life away recklessly without any plan.
Only then did he turn his eyes to look at me.
I gave him the brightest smile I could muster.
"I ‌‌‌‌apologize for worrying you. At the next banquet, I'll come find you first—as an apology. To escort you, Your Majesty."
"...."
"If you'd rather not have dinner with me...." ‌‌
"No."
The response came so quickly it was startling.
'That rejection must have hit harder than I thought.'
I laughed inwardly and changed the subject.
"When we came in earlier, and even now—these walls don't seem as sturdy as they should be. If things go south...."
Clang.
"Huh?"
An ominous sound from behind cut off my words.
I turned around.
The path we'd just traversed—iron bars fell across it, sealing off our retreat.
"...."
"...."
Praha, stepping closer, tried cutting ‌‌through the bars with his backup sword ‌and a magical ‌rope, but it was hopeless.
Instead, he had to stumble backward as sparks erupted violently.
"Are you alright?!"
"Yes. But we can no longer return the way we came."
"...."
Whoever designed this labyrinth certainly loved closing doors. ‌‌‌
A isolationist at heart, apparently.
"Fortunately, there's a breeze coming from the opposite direction. We'll find the sacred relic and exit from that side."
"This place is so humid and hot and unpleasant...."
"Bear with it, Tangerine. Think of it as moisturizing your skin."
I ducked behind Cyprus to avoid a massive insect fluttering down, and took in my surroundings anew.
A dark cavern ‌‌where I couldn't see an inch ahead without fire. Stone walls glimmering faintly. Gravel crunching beneath my feet.
'I ‌‌‌can't even see ‌my own palm unless I'm close to the flame.'
"We have enough flint and oil, don't we?"
"Yes. Plenty."
I didn't know then.
That in this labyrinth where I couldn't tell one direction from another, I would fall behind 'again'—alone.
Me. Yusara.
The type to drive my companions to madness.
"Fortunately, there haven't been any forks in the path so far."
"How much further do you think we have to go?"
"Given that it's called a labyrinth, I didn't expect it to be small, ‌‌but...."
Without the sun, I couldn't gauge the passage of time.
Cyprus occasionally pulled ‌‌‌out his pocket watch to tell me the time, but knowing the time was useless when I didn't know how much further we had to go.
As we ‌‌talked back and forth in the darkness, afraid someone might vanish without anyone noticing, we eventually drifted into talk of the gods.
"Each god has domains and powers they oversee. They can only exert their strength within their assigned domains."
"So ‌‌‌‌gods aren't omnipotent after all!"
"That's correct. For instance, a god who governs the afterlife cannot exercise power in this world...." ‌
"There's no need for them ‌‌‌‌‌while humans are alive."
"So that's why there are so few temples."
"Yes. But since all humans eventually die, the faith is sustained by the sick and elderly who cannot help but contemplate ‌‌‌what comes after death."
"But the sick and elderly are."
"Mostly impoverished. That's why temples dedicated to the god of the afterlife are also poor."
This neighborhood really does need better welfare policies ‌‌‌for the elderly.
"Oh, but didn't the Emperor say he'd destroyed several temples of the afterlife god not long ago?"
Is he not afraid of death?
Cyprus frowned at my question.
"The Emperor is searching for a means to live eternally."
"Gasp."
If you don't die, you'll never ‌‌meet the god of the afterlife, I suppose.
I nodded and asked each member of our group which god they believed in.
Yujein, well, her very profession is serving as a priestess of the God of Light.
"I don't believe in gods."
Praha says he doesn't believe.
"I believe in the god of strawberry cake and cream coffee!"
"Is there such a god?"
"No! I just made that up!"
"...."
Tangerine also says she doesn't believe.
The surprising one was Cyprus.
"I believe in the god ‌‌‌of beauty and marriage."
"Oh...."
You too? ‌‌
My mother also....
"But my beauty is not divine grace. It's something I was born with."
"I see. How admirable of you."
I thought he wouldn't believe in ‌‌gods, but this was unexpected.
We walked on, chattering away like this for some time.
Suddenly, a question occurred to me, and I looked up at Praha.
I was merely looking at him when ‌‌‌he immediately leaned his body toward me.
"I have a question."
"Please, ask away."
"It's common knowledge that there's a Divine Maze on this mountain, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Of course it's dangerous, but ‌‌‌‌‌it's not so perilous that one absolutely ‌cannot approach it... (I pretended not to hear Praha's muttering about how he nearly died in that supposedly not-so-dangerous maze) So why ‌‌‌doesn't the Prome Lord sell this maze as a tourist attraction?"
The territory doesn't exactly have other means of making money anyway.
Was there insufficient demand because people didn't travel as much as they did on 21st-century Earth?
"Could they have other sources of income?"
"They're ‌certainly wealthier than their territory's size would suggest."
Praha nodded thoughtfully, his expression showing he was carefully considering my words.
But we didn't have time for a prolonged conversation.
"The space suddenly opens up ahead!"
I turned my head at Tangerine's cry.
Indeed, a spacious cavern stretched out before us, wide open and clear.
An inexplicable light poured from the ceiling, illuminating the cavern's interior brilliantly.
Beneath the light like stage lighting, crimson characters carved into the ‌‌‌‌walls were rendered perfectly visible.
"...."
"It's frightening, isn't it?"
"Indeed."
It felt like something North Korea would carve into Mount Kumgang—propaganda praising their leader.
Let me see what it says.
What's written there?
[Ancient Labyrinth: Chamber of Revelation]
- Yusara, Praha, Cyprus, Yujein, Tangerine (Alive)

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Brought to you by ‌Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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