Chapter 69: C-Rank Labyrinth — Sanctuary of Restful Purification (2)
Chapter 69: C-Rank Labyrinth — Sanctuary of Restful Purification (2)
“These patients have already received all essential treatment, but since their conditions show no sign of improvement, you must be extremely careful.”
Priest Elion avoided our gaze while looking over the patients lying in their beds.
“I’m sorry, but there will be no distinction between day and night. Meals, rest, and sleep must all be handled inside this ward.”
“We have to sleep here too…?”
Even Pendrick—the monster of positivity—looked taken aback by the harsh working conditions.
The middle-aged priest nodded while still avoiding eye contact.
“We are desperately short of personnel, so please understand. After you serve for five days, another volunteer team will arrive to relieve you.”
Elion bowed deeply.
“I’m very sorry, but until then you must remain on duty in this ward.”
“…Well, it can’t be helped. It’ll be exhausting, but at least it will be rewarding!”
“When your service ends, we will grant you a modest blessing.”
The labyrinth-clear reward.
Not merely the humble phrasing typical of clergy—this was genuinely a small blessing that slightly improved health.
It was even temporary, lasting only a week before disappearing.
— Five days of work is the strategy condition? The reward seems a bit small for the effort….
“It can’t be helped. You can’t expect great compensation from volunteer work.”
Pendrick, who didn’t even worship Arteine, earnestly defended the Guardian Church’s disappointing treatment.
Even so, Astrimia whispered quietly.
— Kar, isn’t the reward completely different from what you said before entering the labyrinth? What’s going on?
“I never lie about exploration.”
— …I see. I think I understand the feeling.
“As expected of Lady Astrimia.”
I raised my thumb.
A dry mental laugh came back in response.
“As I said earlier, this will be extremely exhausting work. But if you work with enthusiasm, hardship eventually becomes a memory.”
I spoke warmly like a self-help book and looked at Bartimir.
“Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yep!”
“The road of hardship is shining brightly.”
“To think there are this many calamities of body and mind here…!”
To us, this place wasn’t a hospital ward.
It was paradise.
“A labyrinth should always be full of hardship and suffering. What meaning would a safe and boring exploration have?”
“That is truly the correct mindset.”
“I may lack common sense, but I’ve diligently learned the knowledge of an explorer.”
“That’s admirable. Shall I pat your head?”
“I’d rather not.”
When he firmly refused and I turned away in obvious sulking, Elion returned.
He was carrying an enormous stack of documents.
Setting them on a desk near the entrance, he placed a hand on his chest and spoke in a subdued tone.
“These documents contain the illnesses of the patients and the precautions you must follow. You must memorize them. Just this month alone, more than ten people died after becoming involved in conditions they hadn’t memorized.”
“…More than ten?”
“Twelve, to be exact. Members of the previous and the team before them met unfortunate deaths….”
The decisive reason the Sanctuary of Restful Purification was classified as a C-Rank labyrinth.
If you failed to respond correctly when the various disasters of body and mind afflicting these critically ill patients produced abnormal phenomena, you could die.
After confirming the dark expressions on everyone’s faces, Elion clasped his hands and prayed.
“May Arteine illuminate your lives….”
It was far too solemn a prayer for something described as nursing duty.
“I will take my leave now. Please do your best.”
As soon as the middle-aged priest departed with a face full of worry and guilt, Valentin stepped forward.
His expression had turned serious.
“You heard the priest. Twelve people died this month alone. All of them Harmony Church believers who entered for service. If we lower our guard, we may end up the same way.”
Sanctuary of Restful Purification.
The time period: the era of the Great Holy War, when large-scale extermination campaigns against demons, cultists, and monster armies were being carried out.
The location: a facility founded by a compassionate saint to heal the sick arriving from across the continent.
“I’ll emphasize this again. This labyrinth will likely present more life-threatening dangers than any C-Rank labyrinth you’ve experienced.”
“….”
Tension and fear filled the faces of my companions.
What expression was on my own face?
A spirit of challenge and anticipation.
Or excitement and enthusiasm.
Either way, my mindset was already decided.
“Since Sir Kar is the leader of this service, would you like to say a few words before we begin?”
I spoke immediately.
“You must not let your guard down for even a moment. This facility is full of infectious disasters—horrific plagues, spreading curses, sentient toxins, madness that infects you simply by looking at its host.”
I was not especially afraid of death.
But I had no desire to die meaninglessly in some dull, unstimulating way.
This labyrinth was the perfect environment for exactly that.
Which was why a faint smile appeared.
“If you do not wish to participate in the service, say so now. Priest Elion will guide you outside the temple. You may remain outside until the strategy conditions are fulfilled.”
Naturally, none refused.
I nodded broadly and looked around the ward.
“Let’s start by ventilating the room and cleaning the floor.”
Nursing was extremely exhausting work.
Caring day and night for patients who could not live independently was not something an ordinary mindset could handle.
It required a support pillar to withstand the burden—burning love, professional dedication, or devotion born from respect or faith.
Without something like that, emotional collapse could easily occur.
“Everyone, move quickly!”
For explorers who had never dreamed of becoming caregivers, the Sanctuary of Restful Purification, where they did nothing but treat patients, was a nightmare labyrinth.
“Brother Lucius! Patient 53 is in distress!”
“I’m coming…!”
Priest Lucius rushed over and slowly shook a black-and-white bell wrapped with an olive branch.
Ding.
A refreshing bell tone rang out.
“Arteine, protector of all innocents. Support this fragile wildflower groaning under violent affliction with your shield.”
Saaah.
White energy flowed from the bell.
The patient who had been twisting in agony gradually calmed.
“…Please rest for a moment.”
“Brother Lucius! 199!”
“Understood!”
The role of Priest Lucius:
To calm and protect the minds and bodies of patients suffering from various afflictions.
Ding.
“Arteine!”
Every time the bell rang, another patient regained stability.
Despite the constant consumption of divine power, Lucius still looked merely sleepy.
“Ilia! Patient 393!”
“Understood.”
Holy Knight Ilia infused divine power into a round sacred instrument.
— Arteine watches over us! Let all fear withdraw!
A clear hymn spread through the ward, which had been filled with screams and the pounding of beds.
White waves of Arteine’s energy swept through the air.
《The rate at which the patients’ bodies and minds deteriorate has significantly slowed. The Wise One finds it disgusting but admits the efficiency is impressive!》
A hymn so powerful that even an Evil God took interest.
Ilia’s role was to slow the worsening conditions of patients by continuously using sacred sound instruments.
《No matter how one thinks about it, nursing only harms the patient. Would it not be better to enter eternal rest rather than writhing in agony and prolonging life?》
From the Evil God’s perspective, it was a rational argument.
Closing the window I had opened for ventilation, I shook my head.
“If they can endure long enough, the saint—a high-ranking priest—can heal them completely with higher-order mysticism. Though she’s also expending divine power defending the temple, so she can treat only about twenty patients a month.”
And this ward alone contained one thousand patients.
Other wards were just as full.
The burden on each volunteer kept increasing.
“Sir Pendrick, patient 220! Sir Bartimir, 461! Sir Kar, please check patient 33!”
“Understood!”
Pendrick and Bartimir ran off immediately.
I hurried to check my assigned patient as well.
“555, 302, 17!, 920!”
As soon as I resolved one emergency, another appeared.
It had already been happening for three hours straight.
“Whew… this is a bit tiring.”
— A bit? You look completely exhausted!
“Astrimia, instead of saying that, please cheer me on.”
“Yeah!”
The roles assigned to us three—Pendrick, Bartimir, and myself—were simple:
Respond appropriately whenever a patient showed abnormal symptoms.
In a sense, it was the most important task.
If we failed to respond in time, the illness could spread to other patients with weakened immunity—and even endanger us.
…I’m already getting tired.
Work that exhausted both mind and body.
Far more draining than expected.
But—
The sense of fulfillment was greater than any other good deed.
Honestly, I was extremely satisfied.
This is it. My profession.
I felt like I had discovered my true calling.
The nursing continued.
“Sir Kar, please check patient 888!”
After calming the seizure of a patient infected with a parasitic curse created by the mysticism of a now-extinct Evil God, another emergency arose.
This time, a spirit possessing the patient’s body due to resentment from failing to reach mastery as a swordsman in life.
Clapping and praise were enough to calm it.
“Well done—…Patient 221 is critical!”
Before one problem ended, another immediately began.
“I’ll go!”
Bartimir rushed toward a patient whose skin was rotting while still alive.
He lightly waved the bandage wrapped around his hand—Devotee.
The smoke that spread the disease upon contact was absorbed directly into the bandage.
“How was that?”
“Well done.”
“But this place is really dangerous!”
Bartimir clicked his tongue.
Even though he was building a calamity-collector build, he wasn’t a demon who went insane just from seeing curses and diseases.
“Captain.”
Pendrick, still energetic despite the exhausting work, spoke.
“Did you ever work at a treatment facility before? You’re doing the work of a hundred people.”
“Would a treatment facility accept a cultist?”
“Ah… right. Then how are you so good at this?”
“I simply know a lot.”
One thousand patients.
One thousand different symptoms.
In the game, Sanctuary of Restful Purification was a notorious labyrinth consisting of one hundred consecutive multiple-choice questions related to the disasters of body and mind afflicting patients.
If you selected a wrong answer even once, you had to start over from the beginning.
A labyrinth everyone hated.
And I was the player who first created the strategy guide for it.
《Someday I should remove your excessive knowledge from your head. Then you would have no choice but to rely on me!》
“That’s harsh.”
Relying entirely on the Eye That Perceives Truth wouldn’t be a bad idea.
But if I relied on it too much and stopped thinking, my judgment and analytical skills would rust.
And that possibility was strangely appealing.
“Sir Kar, patient 447!”
While I was briefly lost in thought, another crisis appeared.
I stared into the many grotesque eyeballs sprouting from the patient’s fingers.
Afterward my own eyes ached terribly, so I rubbed them and leaned against the wall.
“Are you alright?”
Priest Lucius asked quietly while shaking his bell nearby.
“Of course.”
“You seem very happy. I’m embarrassed. When I first came to volunteer, I nearly died from exhaustion and spent all my time thinking about excuses to rest.”
“I’m not completely happy either. One mistake could cause serious consequences.”
If one of us responded incorrectly, everyone could be endangered.
Especially the patients whose immunity was extremely weak.
It felt like walking on a tightrope.
Which meant I was satisfied.
“It’s exhausting. That’s why I like it.”
When my body and mind were violently shaken and left in tatters, I finally felt that I truly existed in this world.
Abnormal.
A freak.
A monster.
No matter how others viewed me or what words they used, I didn’t care.
“And even if you beg, I won’t switch roles.”
Sanctuary of Restful Purification pushed people to their limits mentally and physically.
Which made it—
The finest labyrinth for experiencing real exploration.