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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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A Corporate Slave Becomes a Villainous Nuisance in a Zombie Apocalypse
Episode 55
Calculating roughly the speed at which sand falls from the hourglass absorbed into my palm.
"Still, it seems like it'll take a full day before it all runs out?"
Even if my palm bursts the moment the last grain falls, at least I have a day's worth of time.
"My lady...."
I remain composed, yet my companions grow increasingly somber ‌‌‌instead.
'Truth be told, I'm not entirely unafraid either.'
What good does it do to show anxiety here? ‌‌‌
I'll say it again—anxiety solves nothing whatsoever.
Better to spend that time obtaining the sacred relic and escaping, even if it's just ‌‌‌‌one ‌‌‍second faster. ‌‌‌
"What if we ‌‌‌abandon the sacred relic and escape?"
"I'm in favor of that!"
"Then we return the way we came? The iron bars...."
"We should be able to create at least one hole to slip through somehow."
We briefly discussed the possibility of turning back like this, but.
Clang.
"...."
The moment Cyprus uttered those words, iron bars descended into the passage we'd just escaped from, forcing us to abandon the idea.
"If we'd stayed there any longer, we'd have been trapped."
"Is someone really listening to everything we say somewhere?"
"Sigh."
That's it.
Now we ‌‌have no choice but to push straight ahead.
"Yujein."
"Yes, ‌‌my ‌lady!"
"I apologize, but it ‌‌‌‌seems the God of Light and I simply don't get along."
I say it in jest, but there's truth to half of it.
'The God of Light.'
Making arbitrary bets to tear away my soul, refusing to grant people regression.
Now embedding a clock in someone else's palm?
"Ever since we arrived here, things keep happening to you, my lady." ‌‌‌
Cyprus nods in agreement.
Praha, who has been fidgeting anxiously beside me since earlier, now wears an expression bordering on devastation.
The self-reproach of having included me ‌‌‌‌in the Investigation Team seems to weigh heavily upon his broad, sturdy shoulders.
Praha, who had been rubbing his face with his hands, exhales like a sigh.
"I feel utterly incompetent."
"Suddenly?"
"Because there's nothing I can do to help."
While ‌‌‌my lady is trapped alone in the labyrinth, cursed by the clock, I can only stand here helplessly....
'Even though it's the power of a god, they're treating it like a curse.'
Truthfully, I think of it as a curse too.
But watching someone as ‌handsome as Praha furrow his brow in anguish was almost unbearable to witness.
'As someone capable of distinguishing beauty from plainness, I suppose I feel some sense of responsibility.'
I cut off Praha's self-recrimination.
"Why is there nothing I can do?"
I ‌spoke to that beautiful face, now widened with surprise.
"Smile for me."
Everyone knows that when a handsome man smiles, the world brightens ‌‌around him.
"There was once a king who tore apart silk just to ‌‌see a beauty's smile and ended up ruining his kingdom. A curse is a bargain by comparison."
"...."
"So please smile. When Your Majesty is melancholy, it breaks a woman's heart."
Especially mine, who harbored unrequited feelings for you not long ago.
"If you ‌‌don't want to smile, that wide-eyed expression you have now is charming too. You're adorable."
I flicked the dazed Praha and walked ahead.
Tangerine sidled up beside me and whispered.
"My lady! Can I use that line next time I try to seduce a man?"
"That wasn't meant to seduce him! No, wait—besides! Nobody would fall for something like that...!"
"Why not! It was amazing! 'When a handsome man cries, a woman's instinct is to comfort ‌‌him. So stop your tears and smile for me, my adorable little puppy.'"
"That's not what I said at all?!"
"I have to tell Dazling too!"
Tangerine bounded forward excitedly, dashing ahead in a blur.
"Tangerine!"
I reached out to catch the disappearing Tangerine—
"Such is my fate."
I simply ‌‌‌‌‌gave up.
"Sigh."
[Shocking! The Real Reason Lady Yusara Has Never Had a Lover: Terrible Pickup Lines!]
I just hoped this wouldn't end up as a newspaper headline.
'Let's get out of this insane place quickly.'
Fortunately, the labyrinth was a straight path with no branching routes. ‌‌‌
It was almost laughable to call it a 'labyrinth.'
Praha and Cyprus, who could grab Yujein and me and flee at a moment's notice, ‌‌‌walked beside us, while the swift-footed Tangerine dashed ahead alone, then circled back to report her reconnaissance findings.
"Tangerine, aren't you exhausted? You're moving twice as much as everyone else."
"No! It feels like I'm conquering something, so it's fun!"
Tangerine the Great Conqueror.
We walked according to Tangerine's directions, rested, and replenished our water.
After walking ‌‌for quite some time.
Finally, something that actually resembled a labyrinth appeared.
"Is that a door?"
A massive door designed to open in both directions.
Before it stood five levers, each bearing the embossed seal of a god.
Suddenly, the warning I'd glimpsed earlier flashed through my mind.
"If you place your hand upon that which is incorrect...."
You will die.
As if to underscore that threat, scratch marks ‌‌and bloodstains were carved into the stone around the levers.
They appeared to be the marks of desperate struggle.
The frantic thrashing of challengers long since erased by time, their very corpses reduced to dust.
Tangerine spoke.
"So among these five handles, one is correct, and the rest are wrong, ‌‌yes?"
"Touch the wrong one and you die."
"But which one is right?"
I don't know.
I answered, my gaze fixed upon the levers.
"It might not be just one. We don't know if only one of these five handles is correct, or two, or all five."
Even if only one were correct, that's a one-in-five chance, but accounting for such variables drastically reduces our odds of success.
"And if there's a specific order in which to pull them——"
"If there is?"
"Then we're finished." ‌‌
It's just a death sentence, plain and simple.
I looked around desperately for any hint, but found nothing.
"I should have brought the Prome Family knights with us!"
"What would you do with them, Tangerine?"
"Have them test the handles instead!" ‌‌
"But touching them means death?"
"Exactly!"
"Kyaaaah!" ‌‌‌‌
Praha, listening from beside me, shook his head silently.
"What about ‌‌this?"
Cyprus, who had been examining the surroundings, deftly produced an insect he'd caught from somewhere.
It was one of those creatures that had been scattered sparsely across the walls, startling me repeatedly.
'A bat or an insect.'
From the moment ‌that dark thing entered my field of vision, I'd squinted and deliberately looked away, so ‌‌‌I couldn't tell.
"The warning said your hand would ‌‌die, not that failure itself would occur."
Cyprus sought agreement from the group, then placed the insect resting on his index finger upon the first lever.
"Your Highness, are you comfortable touching the insect?"
"Yes. We have many of these in the ‌‌‌Southern Region where I grew up. The weather ‌‌‌is warm there."
At that very moment.
Whoosh.
The insect burst into flames.
Black ash swirling through the air...
"...."
"...."
Cyprus raised both hands awkwardly.
"Is there perhaps someone here who loves insects?"
"...."
"...."
"Doesn't seem like it. Thank goodness."
Tangerine, who had been watching the massive insect ‌fall to the ground as charred ash with a clear gaze, offered her opinion.
"What if we keep catching insects this way and placing ‌‌‌them on the handle?"
"Unfortunately, there was only ‌‌‌this one creature nearby."
"Really?"
"Yes. It was clinging to my bag."
"What?!"
"I was going to remove it, but I thought you'd be terrified."
Cyprus smiled at me with his eyes crinkling.
"Anyway, thanks to that, it worked out well."
"Excuse me!"
Since when did he start worrying about me like that!
Cyprus chuckled lightly as he caught my wrist as I rushed toward him indignantly.
After that, ‌we each searched for insects, but.
"There were so many just a moment ago, but now I don't see a single one."
"Isn't that because I was ‌‌only half-opening my eyes to look?"
"It was for my mental health."
I didn't want to see the insects clearly.
"What if we throw something like a rock ‌‌‌to test it? See if it catches fire or not."
"I already tried ‌‌‌that earlier, but it didn't work."
"Should I try firing my sacred power?"
"Unfortunately, everything around here is stone. If lightning strikes here, we'll all be electrocuted."
"I see... I didn't know that."
Watching ‌‌Yujein's spirits fall, I racked my brain.
Still, someone must have escaped alive, so the Ancient Labyrinth would have been ‌‍‌‌‌known to the outside world.
There must be a way.
Think harder.
"It's either this one or this one."
"Why do you think so, my lady?"
"If you touch the wrong handle, you die immediately, right? So there wouldn't be time to pull with force. But these two are somewhat worn."
"Then."
"Yes. These two handles ‌‌‌‌‌‌won't kill you even if touched."
The traces of the lever worn down by the people who entered this labyrinth pulling it with force over the course of hundreds of years.
The problem is that I have no evidence whatsoever—it's merely my deduction.
Either way, that's also ‌‌a problem.
"If we search every nook and cranny, we might uncover even ‌‌a single additional clue, so shall we look around a bit more?"
As I spoke those words and scratched my forehead, the hourglass in my palm continued to emit its ethereal glow.
Praha, who had been observing me intently, whispered something to Tangerine.
He strode forward with heavy footfalls, examined the two levers, and without a word, grasped one and pulled it down.
"Wh—!"
In that ‌‌‌same instant, Tangerine, who had been standing by, swiftly poured water from a container onto Praha's hand.
But no flame ignited, and moments later, ‌‌accompanied by a sound, the door began to open.
Praha shook the water from his hand with ‌‌‌‌quick flicks and spoke.
"The handprint on this side was considerably more distinct."
"Still, even so, to act so recklessly... Wait, what is that?"
I gazed beyond the wide-open door.
There stood a cliff.
More precisely, there was a cliff, and on the opposite side, another cliff as well.
A river flowed between them.
A cliff? Here? So suddenly like this?
"It appears we must cross that bridge."
"That bridge that looks like it's about to collapse?"
That wooden bridge, clearly constructed when this labyrinth was created and never repaired even once?
I followed the group hesitantly toward the cliff's edge.
Standing precariously at the cliff's rim and peering down, Tangerine spoke.
"At this distance, we could probably just jump across, right? Oh, wait. There are sharpened stakes embedded in the ‌‌riverbed. If we fall by mistake, we'll become skewers."
"As long as we don't fall... Ugh."
Cyprus, who had been speaking so casually, suddenly caught an ‌‌‌arrow that came flying from the opposite side without warning.
"Oh. A barbed arrow. If it hit, it would tear the flesh clean off."
"...Let's dodge quickly, shall we?!"
We retreated.
We pressed ourselves against the wall where the lever had ‌‌‌been, moving swiftly.
Cyprus, who peeked out only his head to gauge the source of the arrows, spoke.
"I'll cross first. Once I'm across, I'll destroy the firing mechanism."
"What about ‌‌the arrows flying at us in the meantime?"
"That's nothing."
Cyprus shrugged and looked at Praha.
Why was he looking at Praha?
"...You can shoot down the incoming arrows and make them fall?"
"Yes."
"That's insane!"
At ‌‌‌my exclamation, Praha's ears flushed red.
"It's nothing special."
"That's beside the point!"
Praha, your ‌‌‌‌‌surname wouldn't happen to be Ko, would it?
Ko Jumong?
[Ancient Labyrinth: Cliff]
- Yusara, Praha, Insect Slayer 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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