Genius Engineer in the Labyrinth - Chapter 41
Only Noblemtl
Cave (3)
The fun thing about the labyrinth is that you always have a new experience no matter when you go down. Even at the entrance to the labyrinth, there were many new discoveries, such as the knight and black gatekeeper that Alan had met.
Also, you will learn something new: the human body is surprisingly strong and does not break easily.
After encountering the Hextech expedition, Francois descended with an aggressive spirit. He divided them into two groups of five and trained them in combat one after the other.
When a number that seemed a bit dangerous appeared, François would take action to reduce it appropriately, and when life was threatened, he would step in, so for now, there was no danger of death.
Currently, Allen is in an empty space on the 13th floor underground. The members of Group 6 are groaning with faces like corpses.
“I feel like all the blood in my body is leaking out. I’m going to die like this.”
Kiki didn’t even have the strength to get on the cart, so she just lay down on the empty lot. Even though this was a rough stone floor, she seemed satisfied with the act of just lying down.
“There is no bleeding, but there is fluid seeping from the elbow joint.”
“What? Fix it···.”
When Alan shook his head, Kiki whined like a puppy that got wet.
“Are you asking for repair costs between us? I even made you a special soup to cheer you up.”
“That’s not soup, it’s just a hodgepodge, right? And the leak is due to wear and tear on the internal parts, so it will continue to leak until they are replaced. It’s not a big deal, so it should be fine until we get back to the surface.”
“If you say that, I have to believe you.”
Kiki just laid her head on the floor. She was too tired to move her neck.
Meanwhile, his artificial eyes continued to observe Allen. He was clearly tired, but he was touching the star characters on the soul stone and also listening to the crew’s requests for repairs.
At first glance, I thought he was going down the labyrinth using the power of money, since he was pulling around an automaton that looked like it had been modified, but that wasn’t the case.
“My Mana Sword output suddenly became strange. Do you know why?”
“Just a moment. ······. Have you ever been hit with the handle?”
“How did you know?”
“There are a lot of mana packs and magic circuits on that side, but they’re all crumpled. You just need to straighten them out, and you can fix them here.”
Even now, he can grasp the problem in an instant and solve it. That meant that the lying down leopard was also created purely with his own skills.
The leopard’s combat intelligence was more surprising than its fighting power. Since the average automaton has a simple star-shaped structure, it uses a strategy of charging forward, relying on its metal body.
However, the leopard that Alan created, despite having its outer armor coated with [Reinforcement] and [Hardening], evaded enemy attacks flexibly like a real beast and made surprise attacks stealthily.
The number of underground people who had their carotid artery and cervical vertebrae pierced simultaneously by those vicious drill fangs has long exceeded ten.
Kiki said she was watching carefully, but either because she noticed the gaze or because it was coincidence, her eyes met the leopard’s visual camera.
Kiki felt a chill on the back of her neck and crawled to Alan’s side. Her mind was at ease as the leopard disappeared from sight.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s warm here because of the fireplace.”
“The stove is off.”
“···.”
Kiki silently reached out to the rotary switch. The rune applied to the stove was [Heat]. The more she turned the switch, the more magic power went into the rune, and the temperature rose proportionally.
As the warm air rushed in, the cold stone floor felt like a stone bed. At that moment, I thought that if I continued like this, I would be able to have a good dream.
“Get up.”
Alan shook Kiki.
“Why… please leave me alone. Just for 5 minutes….”
Alan didn’t stop his arms despite Kiki’s complaints. He kept his eyes on one of the passages leading into the vacant lot. To be precise, the darkness through which François was staring intently.
‘He wouldn’t do that for no reason.’
François, who had been sitting still with his eyes closed until now, could not possibly have been bored enough to observe the passage.
Alan’s prediction was right. After a while, something was heard dragging in the darkness. It was the kind of sound that a pair of hard-heeled shoes would make when rubbing against a stone.
Finally, five gaunt-looking explorers emerged from the black fog. Their gear bore the marks of battle, especially on their backs.
“Stop.”
François’s deep voice spread like the growl of a beast. It was enough to make Alan’s body freeze for a moment, so it went without saying that it would have been the same for the explorers who were the target.
They were trembling, unable to even move their lips. François stood up completely from his seat and approached them.
“We already occupied this empty space. Why are you coming here knowing that?”
“I, too, am a participant in this expedition.”
“···.”
“I remember seeing your face at the gathering place… Ah, I’m from Group 15.”
François asked the assistant captains, his gaze fixed on them.
“Isn’t the person in charge of 15 trillion won?”
“That’s right. They entered later than us, but it’s not strange that they’re on the same floor in terms of time.”
“I’ve confirmed your face. It matches the 15th group participant.”
The assistant manager showed the terminal screen to François. He looked closely at the screen and the injured people, then nodded.
“Okay. You gather our crew in one place, and you take out the healing potion from the first aid kit and treat them.”
After giving his orders, François gathered the wounded in a corner of the open space. His mouth was moving nonstop, as if he was blocking out sound, but he could not hear any sound from inside.
Alan moved according to the vice-captain’s instructions, glancing in that direction from time to time.
The sudden appearance of another team member, and the fact that he was injured, was so shocking that the team members’ energy disappeared. They asked the vice-captain a question.
“What on earth is going on?”
“The leader is currently investigating, so it’s difficult for me to say anything carelessly. It won’t take long, so just wait a moment.”
“All right.”
It was the correct answer. The subordinates could not act however they pleased while the superiors were doing their best.
Amid the commotion of his crew, Alan’s left eye zoomed in to watch Francois and the wounded.
Even though I couldn’t hear the voice, I could tell what words they were using by looking at their mouths.
‘Injuries, underground people, fortresses, reinforcements…’
I was able to figure out some words, although not exactly.
‘Does this mean that they discovered a fortress, but a lot of reinforcements rushed in and scattered?’
There were several open spaces in the cave where Allen and his crew could rest, and among them was a place that the underground people had decorated like a fortress.
Although it is called a fortress, it is not a huge thing surrounding the gate of a labyrinth, but rather a large checkpoint or small defensive base.
The empty lot where Allen is now must have been a defense base at one time. It wasn’t strange, since the underground people were intelligent enough to use the explorers’ magical tools. I had to assume that they lived underground.
The moment the brain, which had been awakened by the unexpected situation, was about to complain of fatigue again, François, who had finished his conversation, appeared in front of the crew.
“It looks like the other group is having trouble and they’re all scattered. We should move in that direction.”
“Are we going alone?”
“There will be another group nearby, so let’s go together.”
The fittest of the wounded walked in front with François, while the less mobile explorers were carried by carts. Allan’s cart, drawn by a leopard, was no exception.
The dwarf, with his head wrapped in bandages, gave a thank you. He stuttered, wondering if he had a head injury or if the bandages were pressing on his chin.
“Oh, thank you.”
“No, I’m Alan.”
“Me? I… Ugh!”
Suddenly the dwarf grabbed his head.
“Uh, I don’t remember···.”
“This guy is totally crazy.”
“···.”
“No, don’t look at me like that. I misspoke.”
Alan had never glared at her. He just stared at her indifferently as usual, but Kiki guessed that something was bothering her.
Kiki, who was holding a spanner, put it down on the cart, grabbed the dwarf’s shoulder, and turned him around.
“Do you see the back of my head here?”
“You got hurt there and your magicware was also damaged.”
“When you do brain expansion surgery, you connect the MagicWear to your brain. It seems like the shock from the breakdown has spread to your brain. It’s a problem similar to amnesia, but if you replace the MagicWear, you’ll recover.”
It was said that it couldn’t be fixed in the labyrinth. Even if it could be, the environment was so poor that there was a risk of secondary infection.
The dwarf forgot the name, but other conversations were possible.
“Ah, they suddenly showed up. There are too many of them, so I can’t hold out.”
“Is it overflow?”
“That’s a joke. It’s not my job to support you.”
The dwarf nodded to Kiki’s question.
Overflow was a phenomenon in which a large number of monsters in the labyrinth suddenly appeared. If left alone, they would quickly disperse, but if there happened to be an explorer there, it would be the same as facing a disaster.
“I’m hungry, would you mind giving me something to drink···”
“I did you a favor. Chew it slowly and thoroughly.”
Kiki put the biscuit into the dwarf’s mouth. It wasn’t a real biscuit, it was just an energy bar made up of nutrients.
“Can you give that kind of food to a sick person?”
“Rather, since you are injured, you should eat food that is full of essential nutrients. Think of hospital food.”
“···.”
“Right? Am I right?”
The dwarf was so hungry that he had already eaten the biscuits Kiki had handed him. He even gave him a look that said it wasn’t enough.
“Drink. If there’s any left···.”
“I’ve never seen someone like this before.”
Kiki smiled and handed over more biscuits. Alan thought that the explorer who said that biscuit was delicious was not a person, but now that he looked at it, the world was wide and tastes were diverse.
The floor of the cave was flat, as if someone had made a path there on purpose, so the dwarves riding the cart were able to move quite comfortably.
After moving slowly for a few hours, we were able to meet up with another group, just as François had said.
The gray-haired man who was the leader stepped forward. He was holding a magic wand, and the tip was particularly bright red, indicating that it could also be used as a blunt weapon.
“You were carrying the injured person too?”
“Is the casualty on your side also 15 trillion won?”
“That’s right. The number is three.”
“It was said that it was a number that was too much for even the captains and assistant captains to handle.”
“That’s exactly what I heard. But there’s no way it’s as good as his skills.”
“It’s true that I feel burdened because I couldn’t protect my crew members.”
“Then you?”
“If the same problem happens to me, it’s because I lack the ability. There are no exceptions.”
“It’s strict.”
So the two groups moved together. The combat force was 26 people, 34 including the wounded, so it was bustling.
The underground people and automatons that tried to block the path disappeared pitifully quickly.
The defense base that we arrived at was empty. The light that appeared in the center only illuminated a clean, empty space.
The man who had waved his magic wand, which had broken several heads of the underground people, winked at François.
“Am I right? I told you that it wouldn’t be too difficult if you just talked. I guess you finished cleaning up and went out to find your crew members.”
“···.”
“Do you really need to frown like that? I understand what you’re worried about, but the Chairman is here, and the Hextech guys went down before us, so they’ll get beaten up first…”
“stop.”
When François glared at him, the man raised both hands and smiled awkwardly.
“Okay. I’ll watch my mouth, so stop being so angry…”
The man who had been speaking closed his mouth. This was because the injured people had approached the place where the two leaders were talking.
“What’s going on?”
“that is···.”
The injured person’s speech was slurred. And his appearance was strange. His previously healthy skin suddenly began to shake, and his joints began to dance at strange angles.
The dwarf sitting on Alan’s cart was the same. Suddenly, drool started flowing out of his wide-open mouth, and his face swelled up.
Ever since hearing the story about the Collector, Alan had been looking into what kind of black magic there was. Why did ‘corpse explosion’ come to mind now?
Kiki was holding on to the dwarf who was trying to get up from his seat.
“Kiki!”
Alan grabbed Kiki, who was still blankly staring at his call, and threw the shield generator he had modified at the dwarf’s body. At the same time.
Boom!
A loud explosion rang in my eardrums. Eight bombs, thought to be the casualties, exploded together. Instead of flames, red steam rose, and instead of iron, bone shards shot through the air.
Fortunately, no one died. Each explorer was individually surrounded by a protective shield, presumably created by the wizard leader.
The explorers were taken aback by the sudden turn of events, but they clung to the walls of the open space. It was an instinctive act to first grasp the situation from a distance.
François and the man who had been standing in the middle of the explosion were unharmed. Flesh and blood gathered around them.
A flesh-made flower bud popped its head out of the pool of blood, and soon opened wide. And then a voice was heard.
[Did you think I didn’t know?]
It was a thick, dark voice that made it seem like pus would come out of your ears just by listening to it.
François quickly approached and trampled the flower. But the voice did not stop. This time, the puddle of blood transformed into the shape of a face and laughed.
[It’s so trivial for inferior things to gather opinions.]
“It must be on the 20th floor, but how did you reach all the way here? Even magic can’t interfere with the floors.”
The wizard leader stepped forward, but the puddle just laughed, not showing any intention of answering.
François pulled the wizard back.
“It’s a waste of time.”
[If I were nearby?]
“If that were the case, you would have already shown up. You wouldn’t just talk about it.”
As François reached into the pool of blood, a whirlpool formed and the water level gradually dropped. Before the pool completely disappeared, François asked.
“What if we were just unrelated explorers?”
[What does that matter?]
With those words, the puddle completely disappeared.
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