Hunter and Mad Scien Chapter 88

"If there's a lock, there should be a key."

At the calmly murmuring voice, Esperanza, who had only been fiddling with the trigger, whipped her head around. Cider had sohow gotten close to the wall and was turning the huge lock this way and that.

"That's usually the case... but there's no rule that it has to be in this room."

Labyrinth-type dungeons had a structure similar to escape room gas. From the fact that they mainly occurred in large buildings with room-to-room connected structures, to the solution thod of finding clues hidden here and there to safely reach the boss room.

"Who's going to sit around searching rooms one by one looking for clues? Besides, we're on a ti attack, so we have to save everyone within two hours."

Of course, the world was wide and people were diverse, so there were occasionally so perverts who only cleared labyrinth-type dungeons like playing escape room gas. But most hunters, who didn't like using their heads, preferred to cleanly break through walls whether the hoowner shed tears of blood or not.

Esperanza was that type too. Whether the duke treasured it or not, she had planned to turn the wall into a reception room door this ti as well, so she hadn't thought about looking for clues from the beginning.

'Isn't that obvious? When you have mana, why bother using your head?'

But now she had to use her non-existent brain. Esperanza irritably ruffled her disheveled hair that had half-fallen down.

"Um... I found sothing."

One of the maids who had been huddled together in the distance quietly approached. The maid with a strangely blank face pulled out a transparent box from her skirt pocket. Light flashed in Esperanza's eyes.

"Where did you get this?"

"Th-that, from the reception room we were in earlier."

"Alice! I told you not to pick up things lying around on the ground."

The maid who had been holding up the stand lamp in front of the reception room door quickly ran over. The blank-looking maid replied with an equally blank smile.

"But it was so eye-catching, and it didn't seem like His Highness's belongings."

Esperanza turned her attention away from the two bickering maids to the box that had co into her hands. It was a transparent box edged with brass. Inside was a large key.

"But this..."

"It's a puzzle."

Cider, who had rested his chin on top of Esperanza's head, finished the sentence for her.

It was exactly as he said. The box was locked with a complex puzzle. It was designed so that the lock would open when the puzzle was completely solved.

The puzzle blocking the lock on the front of the box was an intricate pattern drawn on a tal plate, broken into 20 horizontal and 20 vertical lines. A slide-type puzzle with only one empty space. If moved skillfully, it seed possible to match the original pattern.

The problem was not knowing the original.

"Fine. Let's break it."

Esperanza, who had rummaged through her inventory and pulled out a dagger, infused mana into the dagger. The maids who had been squabbling burst into exclamations at the sight of bright blue mana wrapping around the blade tip. Even living in Nine Holder where they could see clock towers, air-purifying airships, trams, and automatons every day, this was the first ti they had seen such pure mana with the naked eye.

Esperanza unhesitatingly stabbed the dagger into the box. Diagonally, so as not to damage the key inside.

Ting.

"What?"

The box that should have split in two was perfectly fine. What bounced back was Esperanza's hand, which had thrust with all her might.

Ting. Ting.

No matter how many tis she stabbed it, the result was the sa.

"Mana doesn't seem to work on it. Insulator research is active these days. It doesn't seem like an insulator I know though."

"Insulator?"

So mana doesn't work on it? Esperanza looked at Cider once, then swept over the duke and maids once each. There was no one here who could break this sturdy box with pure strength.

"I saw earlier that the lock hanging on the wall seems to be made of the sa material."

"Then we really have no choice but to break the door..."

When she picked up the gun she had placed on the floor, the duke hurriedly blocked the gun muzzle.

"It's too early to give up."

"We don't have ti."

Though she said that, Esperanza didn't want to fire the gun knowing people might die either.

"This doesn't look like it'll take long."

The duke and Esperanza simultaneously whipped their heads around. Cider, who had been turning the box this way and that, shrugged his shoulders.

"It's just a 399-piece puzzle. Not knowing the original is a flaw, but it'll take 20 minutes at most?"

"Miss Hunter, you can wait about 20 minutes, can't you? Avondale, I'm counting on you."

Esperanza nodded a beat late.

"About 20 minutes."

There was still plenty of ti. Esperanza's gun muzzle also pointed toward the floor.

Cider stood with his back to the door and brought his hands to the puzzle on the front of the box. The pattern of thick, black lines on the brass plate. While moving the pieces a few tis, a rough picture ford in his head. The pace gradually picked up.

'He's just doing it randomly without even thinking.'

Well, the cube was like that too. Just when she thought they could solve it and pass through quite smoothly at this rate. Had she been too careless?

"Kyaaah!"

Heavy footsteps. That ceiling that had dropped the mysterious stone walls now spat out a huge monster. A bull's head. Shaggy fur and two long, sharp horns. A minotaur.

'It's a monster that fits well in a labyrinth-type dungeon.'

But it wasn't what she wanted to see right now. A powerful monster that would have appeared as a boss if it were a D-grade dungeon. Esperanza pushed the trembling maids aside. The duke, who had been blankly staring at the monster, picked up the maids whose legs had given out.

Things to do stacked up one by one in Esperanza's mind.

"Everyone gather by that wall!"

It was convenient to have things to protect in one place.

People gathered toward the wall where Cider was standing, but Cider didn't even blink and only concentrated on the puzzle. As if nothing had happened.

Esperanza quickly fired her gun. With the recoil, the monster let out a roar soaked in pain. A brutal hand swung toward her body, which wasn't even half its size. Esperanza, who had jumped high, climbed onto that hand and tore at the bull's eyes with sharp mana.

The parts inside the gun rolled with a churning sound. A long blue beam shot out. The minotaur swatted away the beam with its thick hand. When the mana was cut off, Esperanza spun twice in the air and landed on the ground. Thud, thud, the stone floor echoed with the sound of stamping feet.

The minotaur's huge hand lifted a rock that had appeared from who knows where. Esperanza aid at the monster's thigh, thick with yellow fur. A mont of standoff. The gun was faster.

When the long beam pierced its thigh, the monster howled and writhed wildly. The rock it had been holding flew in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, it was toward where the people were gathered.

"Kyaaah!"

"Ah! Everyone get out of the way!"

She tried to fire her gun to shatter the rock, but couldn't find an opening. The monster thrashed about swinging fists and feet as big as Esperanza's torso, so she was busy just dodging. And in that short ti, the rock blocked the door.

The maids squeezed their eyes shut. We're going to die. They couldn't even breathe. The huge rock rushed at them like death.

Bang, bang bang. Three mana bullets exploded like screams.

The shadow that had filled their vision shattered into dozens of pieces. Rock debris crumbled and fell in front of the maids. The rock fragnts grazed their cheeks and limbs, but by a hair's breadth, no one was hit by a large piece.

Esperanza, who had moved away from the minotaur toward the people to check the situation, let out a sigh of relief. The duke, who had been standing behind the maids, lowered his gun.

"Don't worry about this side."

It wasn't a loud voice, but she clearly heard it. Esperanza nodded and returned to the battlefield. The maids belatedly grasped the situation and placed their hands over their hearts. Their hearts, startled by the crisis of death, pounded wildly.

"We're alive! I really thought we were going to die."

"Y-Your Highness, thank you...!"

The duke simply placed his index finger on his lips as a response.

The maids, who had barely cald down, sat quietly gathered again. A little further away from the count who didn't even blink when rocks fell overhead, in a position shielded by the shadow of the duke's back, who had positioned himself ahead of where they were before.

It was utterly surreal.

A monster with trendous strength and a woman facing it alone. This palace, familiar as her own ho, had suddenly beco a labyrinth, and they were trapped in that labyrinth with their backs against cold stone walls.

It would be believable even if they said it was all a dream, but this sharp tension was real. A bitter wind brushed their skirt hems. Esperanza's body, flying from far away, lightly blocked in front of them. Just in case the monster might turn its attention, she fluttered her long robe to gather its gaze and charged toward the opposite wall in one breath. That series of actions was as natural as flowing water. Like a dancer performing movents practiced a hundred, a thousand tis.

Grruruk, the lured minotaur made a boiling sound from its throat. The bull's head violently ramd the wall with its horns. If it had hit, it would have been pierced instantly. If it had even grazed, blood would have poured out. But Esperanza pulled her body out at the perfect mont without even a hair being hurt. Mana bullets poured toward the thick fur hide.

'I thought it would end quickly.'

She didn't want to hold back her strength, but fundantally the monster was much stronger compared to the Mabelwood dungeon which was C-grade, and the mana Esperanza poured out at once was weaker. Worried there might be soone beyond the wall, worried a person might get hit by mistake, reducing the output and dealing with it took longer than expected.

Fortunately, the gun Cider made could finely adjust the output. Using it, she had beco accustod to that thod. When she put in a little more mana, the speed of the parts rotating increased proportionally.

Ti to finish this.

Esperanza, facing the minotaur that was clearly slower than before with the people behind her, shot a mana bullet up toward the ceiling.

The dusty chandelier fell precisely onto the bull's head. And while the minotaur was suffering from being stabbed by glass shards. Bang.

The half-exploded head rolled around. When the broken tip of the horn touched her foot, Alice clung to her friend's body in alarm. The duke clicked his tongue and pushed the bull's head away with the tip of his walking stick.

"Miss Runderford. You're hurt."

"Lily!"

Lily Runderford, the maid who had been guarding the reception room door with the duke while holding the stand lamp, dabbed at the scratch on her cheek with her sleeve, then shrugged her shoulders upon seeing the blood that seeped out.

"I think a flying stone grazed

earlier. I'm fine."

The maid was unfazed even looking at the exploded bull's head. So how terrified must she have been when she scread seeing that rock earlier? The duke looked around at the few maids whose faces he knew and let out a sigh of relief.

If Hunter Esperanza hadn't arrived at the right ti, how many could have survived this disaster? There was good reason for the queen to fear 'those people,' and only now was he painfully realizing that reason he had only half understood before.

"...You've worked hard. If we get out safely, I'll give everyone special paid leave. dical expenses too, of course."

"And the special al we only eat on Thanksgiving!"

linda Willis added with forced cheerfulness. Any story that could take their eyes off this current terror was good. The duke, guessing her intention, readily nodded.

"Yes. The special al too."

"Wow!"

The maids, escaping from the atmosphere of being crushed by the monster's shadow, burst into half-squeezed cheers, then glanced to the side with a start.

Clunk, a heavy sound ca. It was the sound of the last puzzle piece fitting together and the box's lock opening.

Count Avondale, who had taken out the brass key, opened the lock hanging on the stone wall. The door, a span thick, slowly slid aside. People who had been sitting here and there in the passage stood up as if entranced.

"Are you done?"

Esperanza, who had brushed off her robe, approached and asked. Cider pointed to the open door with his chin.

[01:34:24]

The ti it took to defeat the minotaur and open the box was only 13 minutes. It was a smooth start.