Moon's Labyrinths

Chapter 248

In their youth, they had seen such a sight in a particular Action-Adventure movie . The movie was focused on an archaeologist who had embarked on a search for a mysterious lost civilization . That abandoned lost city had appeared in the second half of this movie .

Sungyoon remembered that scene when he saw the sight in front of his eyes .

In front of him right now was a well-planned city . The roads were constructed in a straight line as they intersected at right angle . This gave the city a neat look . It resembled a checkerboard where each square held low-rise buildings, and these squares extended into the distance .

It was a testament to how this city had once prospered .

However, that was the past . The deterioration in various locations of the city told the party that the city’s appearance was a reflection of its past glories .

“Is this still the Great Labyrinth?”

Grace observed the city . She looked at her surroundings before she turned her gaze upward . A ceiling blocked her vision . It was a bit of a suffocating sight as the city was enclosed in a large space .

However, this didn’t prove that this place was the Great Labyrinth . They couldn’t make this judgment with their current information .

“Let’s head down for now . ”

The party was standing on a platform attached to a big staircase, and beside them was a building built up high . As the party slowly descended the stairs, their line of sight became lower and another building appeared in their vision .

“That one looks like a palace . ”

Emily expressed her thoughts . As with the other buildings in the city, this building was also damaged in various places . However, its huge, grand appearance could still remind anyone of its former glory, and Sungyoon’s party was no exception .

“I think Ms . Emily is right . Even if it wasn’t a palace, it must be an important building . At the very least, I think the ruler of the city lived here . ”

Grace agreed with Emily .

When the party reached the end of the staircase, the building in question fully appeared in front of them . Admiration surged in their eyes as they looked at it . Out of the four, only Sungyoon was more interested in the building they had just left rather than the one in front of them .

The one they had left was a building built atop a truncated pyramid . It was much smaller in size than the palace-like building, but if the base was taken into consideration, it was much taller .

Sungyoon kept glancing back at the building that they had just left while his party walked to the building in front of them . When they arrived at its entrance, they found out that unlike the immense building, the entrance was very small . It made them wonder if this was the back door .

The inside of the building was as extravagant as its outside . A dust-coated carpet covered the entire hallway, and all sorts of decorations graced the hallway in strategic locations .

Tim looked up at a sculpture that was missing half of its head .

“How much do you think this costs? Do you think it’ll bring some class if I put it in my home?”

“If we’re still in the Great Labyrinth and this is proof of civilization on the Moon, it’ll be considered quite important . ”

“Really?”

When he heard Grace, a princess, give a definite statement, the light in Tim’s eyes changed . He took a closer look at the sculpture in his hands, but he soon put it down .

“You aren’t going to take it?”

Seeing his previous actions, Emily had assumed her brother would take the sculpture for himself to decorate his home . Therefore, when he gave up on the idea too easily, it surprised her .

Tim shrugged .

“I don’t know who’ll gain ownership of this place . If it’s a rare item, it might be sent to a museum . ”

“What happened? You actually thought before acting this time . ”

Tim frowned at first, but he became dumbfounded when he realized that the shock on Emily’s face was genuine .

“Hey! I’m not that brainless!”

The response he got was a guffaw from Emily . The siblings bickered once again, while Sungyoon and Grace just laughed at their antics .

“Still, we should take a couple . ”

Sungyoon spoke .

“It’ll be good to have them . Will serve as proof that we found this place . ”

“You think so?”

A twinkle appeared in Tim’s eyes as he quickly handed the sculpture to Sungyoon . Emily rolled her eyes as she saw this .

Ssssk!

As they were busy in banter, an indistinct doll appeared down the hallway . Tim, who had been glaring at Emily, turned his body and took up his shield . Emily prepared her spells . The two of them had become complete professionals when it came to clearing labyrinths . Sungyoon and Grace didn’t fall behind and also raised their weapons .

Since a thick layer of dust cushioned the carpet, the party hadn’t heard any footsteps until their enemy had gotten pretty close .

This enemy was a Skeleton .

“What the hell . ”

Tim grumbled after realizing that this Skeleton was also weak . It had broken apart when he had bashed it with his shield .

“I guess these are the only monsters present here . ”

Tim picked up the moonstone that was the size of a fingernail and handed it over to Sungyoon . Sungyoon put it away into his storage Gem and spoke .

“That’s good news . We have no idea where we are, and it would be a nightmare if this place was crawling with Leviathans and Behemoths . ”

The party once again went on a thorough search of the building . Since the building had a lot of rooms, the search was taking a long time . They could tell that the rooms had been extravagant in the past, but in the end, they were normal rooms .

The only enemies that the party encountered were Skeletons . Later, they even found a kitchen room and a living room .

Of course, the most memorable room was the throne room that was much larger than the other rooms . On the other side of its large doors lay a broken throne raised atop couple of stairs . It instantly caught their eyes when the four of them entered the throne room .

“It pretty much guarantees that this place is a palace . ”

Sungyoon combed through the room . A long carpet led the way from the entrance to the throne . Large pillars surrounded the throne from either side, and a large chandelier decorated the ceiling .

Tim walked to the throne . He brushed aside the dust and checked the throne’s structural integrity . The throne was basically carved out of stone, so it was still in good shape . Finished with his observation, Tim sat on the throne .

“What do you think? Do I look like a king?”

“You look like an idiot . ”

At his sister’s ruthless statement, Tim stood up with a sheepish expression .

Sungyoon and Grace, who had been searching the surroundings, also approached the throne .

“There’s nothing out of the ordinary here . ”

“It is just an audience chamber . ”

The room was a special place, but it held no clues as to where they were .

“While we are here, let’s call this place The Palace . We’ll keep it simple . Even though it’s big, I doubt we’ll find anything meaningful in The Palace . ”

Sungyoon sounded a bit letdown . Since it was the largest building, he expected to find here some pertinent clues about their location . The others felt the same .

“Should we head outside then?”

Tim’s gaze headed to the window on the wall, and he saw the sprawling sight of the city .

“That’s a decent idea, but I would like to suggest going back to the place where we came out of . ”

“Where we exited? Ah!”

Grace let out an exclamation as if she had realized something .

“Now that I think about it, we didn’t really do a thorough search of that place . ”

Their first thought had been to exit the building . And when they had found and exited the entrance, their attention was stolen by the city and the magnificent building in front of them . The thought of searching the place where they had teleported to slipped their minds .

It should have been the first place to search . After all, it was the building that had allowed them to teleport .

“After we completely search The Palace, we can go back and check that room . ”

With these words from Sungyoon, the party’s next destination was determined .

***

Unfortunately for them, they found nothing noteworthy inside The Palace .

Before the party returned to where they came from, they decided to check the immediate surroundings of The Palace . Large walls surrounded The Palace, and it reminded them of the ramparts around a castle .

The dirt outside the building was arranged in a neat manner . It seemed there had been some kind of landscaping here, which implied this area had been a garden . However, that was it . There was nothing special even in the surroundings . Although they saw small buildings nearby, they decided to search them later .

The party moved toward the building where they had teleported to . When they arrived at the long staircase, they bent their necks back to look up .

“If the previous building was The Palace, what is this one? Since it’s behind The Palace, it must be very important . It also had the room where we were teleported to . ”

“From a commonsense point of view, this building is probably very important . Normally, a palace signifies the power and authority of the king, so it’s usually the largest and fanciest building . However, this building was placed right next to it, yet built higher . ”

Sungyoon silently listened to the conversation between Emily and Grace . Grace was right . No king in his right mind would let someone construct a building that looked down on the symbol of his power .

The party climbed the stairs, and they entered through the entrance to reach the lobby once again . Two hallways leading to opposite directions and a staircase that went upward greeted them . The left hallway led to the room where they had been teleported, and the party had thoroughly investigated that region in their rest . Therefore, they party looked to their right .

When they went down the right hallway, they reached a room that looked the same as the one they had teleported to . Like they had done in the previous room, the party searched every corner, but they still found nothing . They had seen a sculpture that looked like a flower, but it didn’t react to Sungyoon’s Gold Gem .

Having gained nothing, the party exited the room and took the stairs . When they climbed all the way up, a large door appeared in front of them .

This door was larger than the door of the other rooms . The party didn’t have to move much as they opened the door .

“... What is this?”

Sungyoon mumbled .

Odd and mysterious equipment were lined up on the wall of the large room, and a large circle made out of stone lay slightly raised from the ground in the middle .

This room looked very different compared to the other two in the building .

“We found it . This place definitely holds something!”

Grace spoke .

The party dispersed to check out the equipment . However, they had no idea what these devices were used for or how to activate them . The equipment looked and worked in a different way than the machines they were familiar with . It almost made them think that they were looking at odd sculptures instead of equipment .

Sungyoon moved closer to the center of the equipment that looked like an operating device .

Woo-oong!

“Huh?”

He felt a slight tremor . Sungyoon immediately unsummoned his armor . He had felt the brooch clasped near his chest vibrate . To be precise, the mysterious Gold Gem was reacting to the device .

‘Can it be?’

Sungyoon allowed his magical energy to enter the Gold Gem .

Woooooooooong!

The operating device started to vibrate .

The other three, who were investigating the equipment, turned to look at Sungyoon in surprise . However, Sungyoon didn’t pay attention to their gazes as he stared at the operating device .

The operating device was slowly awakening from its sleep, and blue light started to surround it . As if a brush made out of light had appeared, unknown characters were being written in front of Sungyoon, and he saw several holographic windows appear in his sight .

Tim, Emily, and Grace gathered around Sungyoon . Their eyes fell on the screen that displayed the building they were standing in .