Someone was whispering in my ear.
I couldn’t hear clearly what they were saying, so I focused all my attention on my ear.
[…………Ha……………ne…da….]
The voice still sounded unclear.
I felt frustrated and wanted to complain, asking if they could speak a little louder.
But I took a deep breath to calm myself down and put my irritation aside.
So, what is it you want to say?
Thud!
“Gasp!”
I was startled so much that it felt like my vision flashed.
It seemed like there had been an extremely loud noise…
I suddenly woke up and unconsciously grabbed my forehead with my hand.
“Ow, my forehead.”
It felt like someone had hit my forehead really hard.
It felt like I had gotten a “honey slap” as a punishment.
‘Maybe it’s swollen?’
I touched my forehead and took a deep breath.
Looking around, there didn’t seem to be anything unusual, even though I had stood up in a bit of a panic.
It was probably just a vague dream.
The pain in my forehead might be…
‘I must have bumped into something.’
I wasn’t sure where I had hit it, but my forehead was bruised and purple. I decided to take care of it before anyone saw. I used my divine power to heal the pain… huh?
“Why isn’t it healing?”
I definitely used my divine power and felt a cool sensation in my head, but the pain in my forehead didn’t go away.
‘Could it be a divine punishment?’
The fact that it didn’t heal even with divine power meant that it must have been intentional on that divine being’s part.
Did I make them mad by having bad thoughts?
I hastily got up and moved toward where Sister Melody was.
“Sister, are you sleeping?”
Usually, when I woke up, Sister Melody would also be awake, so it was almost the first time I had asked this. The answer came from behind me.
“Is something wrong?”
When I turned around, I saw that her hair was wet, as if she had just washed it.
“Oh! I’m relieved to see you’re awake.”
“Yes. Why did you call for me?”
“Well… I was hoping you could take a look at my forehead.”
“My forehead? It’s a little red. Did you bump into something?”
“Ah, it’s red, isn’t it? When I woke up, my forehead was hurting.”
“There’s no bruise.”
“Thanks for checking.”
It was just swollen and red, with no particular patterns, so it seemed the divine punishment wasn’t too severe.
Since it’s not something to boast about, I went inside, kneeled, and prepared to pray.
‘Was it because of what I said yesterday?’
If this divine punishment was for that, I was ready to accept it humbly…
But the problem was, it didn’t seem like that was the case.
‘It feels like I didn’t understand what they were saying, and they got angry and slapped me.’
Not hearing what they said was a sign that my cultivation was lacking.
Whenever that divine being spoke to me in my dreams, I had gained a lot of knowledge.
But this time, I couldn’t understand what they were saying, and as a result, no knowledge came to mind.
‘I need to cultivate, but how?’
I had entered a labyrinth and made much progress.
So, with the confidence I had gained from my abilities, I felt capable.
With this level of ability, I could confidently say I was the top healer anywhere.
But this incident made me realize that despite becoming stronger, I was still just a frog in a well.
‘To grow more, I need to fight many monsters and heal them.’
I decided to follow that divine being’s advice to keep pushing forward.
I don’t know what information they wanted to give me in the dream, but it’s driving me crazy that I missed it.
There was no useless knowledge in what they imparted.
I knew I would need it someday, so the more I thought about it, the more determined I became.
As more people began entering, the ice castle would plunge into chaos.
It was so large that if everyone was considerate, there might be no problems. But…
‘That’s unlikely.’
People don’t usually get along that easily.
In a space with limited rewards, the first person to claim an advantage would get the rewards.
“We will prioritize searching for maps as soon as we enter. If we encounter other teams, we’ll avoid conflict as much as possible, but if they provoke us, we’ll respond immediately.”
““Yes!!””
The leader was sharing the plan for after we entered the castle with the team.
We listened carefully to the leader’s words and let go of the tension.
“Everyone, take your positions. We’re moving in.”
In fact, there was no need to be nervous on the first floor.
Prince Lorath’s team had already cleared the first floor and moved to the second.
We didn’t go straight to the second floor, instead trying to find any hidden areas on the first floor.
“There don’t seem to be any monsters, but just in case, let’s split into pairs and search.”
“Yep~!”
The team members scattered to search the first floor.
I’m not sure if it was the prince’s hunting team or the party sent earlier, but there were signs of hasty searching on the first floor.
“This seems like they didn’t search properly and just went up to the next floor?”
“They must have been in a hurry. They were probably curious about what the people who went up to the second floor took.”
Moreover, looking at the monster corpses left behind, they hadn’t even taken the byproducts carefully.
“It looks like they misunderstood, thinking that there was something great on the upper floors, so they abandoned the valuable stuff.”
“Is it embarrassing? Should we take care of it?”
“Let’s just leave it. Let the other teams misunderstand when they see this.”
“Ah! Haha, that’s a good idea.”
We decided to leave the monsters as they were and focused on searching the surroundings.
The ice castle was far more beautiful from the inside than it appeared from the outside.
But since it was the monsters’ habitat, there were many dirty messes, and there were a lot of broken places here and there due to battles.
Still, it was impossible to ruin the beauty of the ice castle.
‘I wish there were a camera.’
If this weren’t a labyrinth, this castle would be an incredible tourist attraction.
It seemed absurd how much more beautiful and sacred this place looked compared to most cathedrals.
Even the nobles seemed deeply impressed by the ice castle, as some of them were admiring it as if it were a work of art.
“If only it were possible, I’d want to take this entire castle with me.”
“Yeah. I’ll remember it well in my mind and maybe build a villa like this.”
“How are you going to maintain something made of ice?”
“Well, some compromises would have to be made. Maybe change the walls to white bricks.”
“That wouldn’t have the same feel, though.”
While we, as ordinary people, admired the beauty of the place, it seemed like the nobles wanted to own it as an art piece.
After thoroughly searching the first floor, we were able to obtain another map fragment.
“This looks like a map of the third floor.”
“Great. Just getting more map pieces is already a big accomplishment.”
“We’ll keep gathering them.”
“Let’s keep in mind that there might be map fragments on other sides too.”
“Shall we head to the second floor now?”
“We should.”
There were many ways up to the second floor from the first.
The people who entered before us probably didn’t know, but we, too, were initially happy thinking we had found a secret passage, only to discover we ended up on the second floor and felt disappointed.
But that disappointment was brief.
“If the monsters haven’t been dealt with on the second-floor path we found, it seems like the prince’s hunting team isn’t progressing as smoothly as they thought.”
Realizing that the prince hadn’t finished clearing the second floor yet completely changed the mood of our group.
“Their size was huge, but it seems like they were completely weak on the inside.”
“Maybe their huge size actually became a disadvantage in a place like this.”
While walking through the hallways of the castle, there were often narrow passages.
There were also a lot of rooms, but when fighting monsters in such confined spaces, having a lot of people doesn’t help much.
You can’t just throw 20 people into a room with monsters, right?
Of course, if there are enough people, simultaneous attacks would make things go faster than others.
“But if they still haven’t cleared the second floor, it means their individual skills are lacking.”
That was only possible if the team’s skills were somewhat balanced.
But what if the skill gaps were huge, and only a small number of people were capable of real combat?
“That’s a plausible guess.”
“It might not just be a guess, it could actually be true.”
Just a few days ago, a farmer who had been given armor and a sword wouldn’t be able to perform like a proper soldier.
“So, do we go up to the second floor and hunt monsters?”
“We’ll go up to the second floor and clear a few rooms, but that won’t be our main goal. Our real goal is to complete the map pieces.”
Although the situation had changed, Princess Lasiell didn’t seem to want to change her objective.
Now that we knew that reward boxes appeared in every room, we would try clearing them, but it wasn’t going to be our main goal.
“If map fragments come out of the reward boxes, of course, we’ll focus on clearing rooms. Everyone, don’t get distracted, stay focused on the main goal.”
“Yes, Princess. We understand.”
Since our goal was to gather map fragments, that was what we had to focus on.
It was a good move to remind the team members of the goal again.
They had almost forgotten the original goal because they had gotten greedy, thinking it wasn’t too late.
Once Princess Lasiell clarified the situation, everyone seemed to abandon their greed and refocus.
When we reached the second floor, we saw a much wider variety of monsters than the bat monsters we had encountered before.