Chapter 52: Sunken City (2) - First Puzzle

On the way, while I was tracking them, Ethan came over to ask how I was doing it.

"I thought your ability was something else," he whispered in my ear.

"I’m versatile in a lot of things," I replied. "You haven’t told me everything about you either, so don’t go demanding too much from me."

"True, but if we’re going to be a team in the future, we need to know each other well."

I wasn’t so sure we’d be a team for that long. If I actually pulled off becoming a B-Rank hunter in a short time, we would probably be far apart by then.

Tom and Ethan would have a hard time following me to explore that new continent. Only if they advanced really fast. Unlikely, but I didn’t rule it out either.

I kept following the mana trails left by Mary and Maison. Eventually, we arrived in front of a house that looked exactly like all the others.

Anyone looking from the outside wouldn’t suspect a thing. Honestly, hardly anyone would enter that house to explore it. All the other identical houses had nothing of value inside.

This one, however, was different.

"I believe they went inside this one," I said.

The octopus pointed and said, "Then go ahead."

I wasn’t stupid enough for that.

"And what if there’s a trap at the entrance?" I replied. "Since I’m the one who tracked them here, maybe it’s better if you go first."

Things got really tense. The octopus and I stared each other down for a few seconds. Tom and Ethan were probably already imagining a fight breaking out at that very moment.

But the octopus still needed my help, so it went ahead as I had asked.

"No problem," it said with a smile that made me sick. "We’re on the same team, after all."

Same team my ass. I didn’t trust that bastard one bit, and I knew it didn’t trust us either.

The octopus slowly opened the door using one of its tentacles. It kept its body far back, afraid something would happen the moment it touched that door. An explosion, maybe. It wouldn’t be unusual to have traps like that.

Nothing happened. It went ahead, and we followed right behind.

The house was anything but normal. Even though it looked like all the others from the outside, the inside had almost nothing. Just an empty, square room with a staircase in the middle leading even deeper down.

We went down the stairs together, and we were greeted by several different corridors. It was almost like a maze.

I don’t know why, but those people loved building places like that. Apparently it was always like this. Why couldn’t it just be a straight path to the treasure?

Anyway, the octopus was probably relieved it decided not to fight me. After all, it would need me again to track them inside those tunnels.

The inside of those tunnels was really dark. I could see everything perfectly, and so could the octopus.

Ethan and Tom had no choice but to trust us and stay really close.

"They took the right path," I said. "Are you sure they know exactly where the treasure is? If so, let’s follow this path."

"Yes, I’m sure. But be careful. There are definitely traps around here. If they didn’t set any of them off, then we might be the ones walking into them."

I didn’t like traps one bit. With a treasure hidden in a place like this, those traps would definitely be lethal, or close to it...

We kept going through the left corridor until we reached an open room. There was a platform in the middle, and all around it, a hole. So deep you couldn’t see the bottom.

Falling in there definitely wouldn’t be a good idea.

On top of that platform were some statues. Warriors mounted on horses. Each one held a different weapon. A sword, a spear, a bow, and so on.

In total, there were 6 statues on that platform.

"So? You know anything about this?" I asked.

The octopus no longer had the info about the place after losing the key, so it was just as lost as we were.

"It’s a puzzle. We’ll have to use our heads to figure it out."

A puzzle. How wonderful. Mary and Maison had probably already gotten through it thanks to the information they had received mentally while holding the key.

There was no way they were smart enough to complete that puzzle so quickly. We weren’t that far behind them, after all.

"Let’s split up and look around carefully," I said. "There must be a clue somewhere in here."

Each of us went off to a corner to look for a clue about the puzzle. I had a pretty good clue, actually.

Mary and Maison had only stood before 4 of the statues, meaning the other 2 were there for a different reason.

The only thing was, I had no way of knowing which order they had gone in. So I decided to bring it up.

"I believe they touched these 4 statues," I said, pointing at each one. "Maybe we have to arrange them in the right order to open the passage. But usually, in puzzles like this, failing means triggering a trap."

Just a guess, of course, but it sure looked like it. Ethan and Tom started examining the 4 statues Mary and Maison had touched.

"Those 2 statues are probably just here to mess with us," Tom said. "Touching them might trigger the trap on the spot."

"I think so too. But what if we get the sequence wrong? Would that set something off as well? If it does, we only get one shot, and we have no idea what the correct order is."

I walked over to the edge of the platform, staring into the immense darkness. Even with my ability to see in the dark, I couldn’t see very far down. Maybe some kind of magic was blocking it.

And that was when I heard something strange coming from below. My senses were sharp, so even my hearing had been enhanced.

It sounded like something tapping. Like someone flicking pebbles at a rock nonstop.

"There’s something down there," I said. "Maybe the answer to the puzzle is down there."

"Are you crazy?" Ethan complained right away. "I’m not going down there, no fucking way. And besides, how the hell do you know there’s something down there?"

"I heard something coming from below," I said.

Tom and Ethan walked over to the edge, stopping beside me, trying to hear the same thing I had heard. But they heard nothing.

"I think you’re crazy," Ethan said.

I wasn’t crazy. There was definitely something down there.

Of course, jumping down there would be insanity, that much I had to agree with. The best move was to scout the place out before doing anything.

And I had the perfect tool for that: my cube. I couldn’t see exactly what the cube saw, but it was more like a radar, a connection between me and it.

So sending it down there would give me a rough idea of what was waiting for us. At least I would know for sure whether it was really that deep or less than we were imagining.

Maybe all that darkness wasn’t because it was so deep, but just a way of tricking us into thinking it was.

Anyway, I summoned the cube again and mentally controlled it to fly down to the bottom. Tom, Ethan, and the octopus waited without touching the statues, so they wouldn’t end up triggering some trap by accident.

And to my surprise, the cube didn’t fly for long before hitting a structure. It was the ground.

I shared my findings as they came.

"It’s not that deep," I said. "It only looks like it. You could jump straight down without getting hurt. Now, I don’t know if there’s anything dangerous down there, so let me investigate a bit more."

I controlled the cube to fly around every part of that hole, focusing on my hearing to track down the source of the noise.

As I got closer, I got a sense of what it was. It was another statue, endlessly hammering away at a rock with a hammer!

When the cube got close, the statue stopped hammering and attacked the cube, swinging a huge blow that sent it flying! Small cracks appeared on the cube. I didn’t worry too much, since it regenerated on its own after a while.

"There’s a statue down there too," I shared my discovery. "But it’s alive. Maybe we have to fight it to figure something out?"

Before doing anything, we decided to talk through our options.

We knew the 4 correct statues, but getting the order wrong had a big chance of setting off a trap, and that would be terrible. Nobody wanted to risk it.

It was a 25% chance for the first statue, sure, but after that we would have to get the 2nd right, then the 3rd, the 4th... Without some kind of hint, pulling that off was simply impossible.

In the end, we decided to take the risk and go down the hole to confront that statue.

The octopus, however, started showing his true intentions.

"Only you go down," the octopus said, looking at me. "We’ll stay up here and wait."

Another standoff between me and that damn creature.