Chương 46: Chapter 44-Chosen Puzzle

With a puff of black smoke, the poison is ready. I've done it. I've found the perfect concentration of poison to add to my cookies. It's just poisonous enough to enhance the flavor, but not too poisonous that it will kill the person who eats it. Well, maybe if they eat a hundred in a row, but who would ever do that? Helia cocks her head as she stares at me.

"I know I've said this before, but you do know this is the Botany club, right?" she asks as she places her book down.

"Yeah, I know that. Why do you ask?" I ask as I continue to mix the poison in the black cauldron that I borrowed from the Assassin club.

"You look like a witch who's brewing up an evil curse." I blink at her.

"And? Looks can be deceiving, Helia. After all, you look like a dried-up dead bush, but you're nothing like that," I retort back as the cauldron lets out a puff of black smoke.

"Thanks for the compliment. You can thank your friend for how tired I look," she says sarcastically.

"Friend? Are we talking about Hopper, Penelope, or Garus?"

"Hopper. He's been nagging at me all day today," she says as she leans back in her chair.

"Really? Seems out of character. What did he want?" I ask as I pour the poison into a large bottle.

"He wanted some advice on how to better utilize his [Skills]."

"Why'd he ask you?" Helia places her book on her face and lets out a sigh.

"I'm Rank 1 for the fourth years. You didn't know that?"

"Apparently not. So, did you help him?" I ask as I cork the last bottle of poison.

"I wasn't going to… but there was something in his eyes that told me he was going to annoy me until I did. I only gave him a gentle nudge in the right direction anyway. There's basically no way he learns that in less than a week. It's not even a full week, what with this year's exams coming up," she says from under her book.

"Yeah. That's- Did you just say exams?" I ask as I almost drop a bottle of poison out of shock.

"As your senior, I would really recommend a calendar of some sort. Yes, everyone has exams next week, right before the Class War. It shouldn't be too bad. It's just going over what you learned in the last month," Helia says as she lets out a big yawn. Thinking back, I remember Hopper telling me something about us having some exams, but so much happened that I honestly forgot. Maybe I should invest in a calendar. Oh, who am I kidding? I would either forget to fill it in or forget to check it every day.

The best thing to do is let Hopper remind me. Yeah, let's rely on Hopper. I see no way that could go wrong. As I finish packing up my materials for tomorrow, I look over at the sleeping Helia. Is she really the fourth years Rank 1? I almost don't believe it. I mean, she usually mopes around the greenhouse or lazes about. Not really something I would expect from Rank 1. Then again, I'm technically Rank 1, and it's not like I'm much better either. I wonder if I get any privileges from my Rank?

I'll ask Penelope later. The blinding white light fades and yet again reveals the very familiar landscape of the Whisperwood Forest. Today would be a normal day of trouncing through the forest looking for some goblins, but today is not a normal day. My gaze shifts over to the Dungeon entrance. I know we were looking for it and found it yesterday, but I was kind of hoping we wouldn't decide to go in.

Usually, I'm the tie breaker when it comes to these decisions, but Hopper suddenly flipped on me and said 'We need to get stronger. The Dungeon is the only way.' He was very serious when he said that. He almost convinced me right there and then, but alas, I'm stubborn. It didn't matter anyway, after all, when you're outnumbered, you can't really do much. Well, you can, but I didn't feel like doing that. Too much work. Penelope finishes stretching as she looks over at me.

"Come on, Charlatan, limber up. It pays to be prepared before we enter a Dungeon like this." I lean up against the Dungeon wall.

"I'm as prepared as prepared can be. If anything, I'm waiting for you guys to hurry it up."

"You know what I can hurry up? This foot up-" Hopper takes a deep breath and listens with his bunny ears as we bicker.

"I'm not hearing anything on the first or second floor. It seems we were lucky that nothing new moved in while we were away," he explains.

"Penelope, I think Hopper is ignoring us," I say with a small smile. Penelope cocks her head.

"Charlatan, I think you might be right. This is… unusual. What do you think might be wrong?" she asks. Hopper's ears twitch as we speak.

"I'm not entirely sure…" Trailing off, I give a small wink to Penelope, who responds with a suspicious look.

"It's probably nothing. In fact, it probably has nothing to do with Luna."

"Who's Luna?" Penelope asks with a knowing smile.

"Oh, she's nobody. Yeah, nobody. Definitely not somebody with raven black hair that's reminiscent of a starry night sky." The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Or golden yellow eyes that glow with the light of the moon," Penelope says with an overdramatic tone.

"Are you guys ready to go?" Hopper asks, completely ignoring us.

"Depends. How would you describe Luna's voice?" I ask.

"I think last time he said something along the lines of 'As sweet as the nectar of a morning dew'," Penelope says while reminiscing on the last week of Hopper's constant barrage of descriptions that he has for Luna. At first, Hopper would barely say anything when we met him, and when he did talk, it was mostly about class. Slowly, but surely, he has been opening, and then we got to last week. Right after we bought our weapons, he started to gush nonstop about Luna.

I'm not entirely sure what brought it on, but by the Gods if he didn't put his full heart into each description. Hopper's ears twitch as he adjusts his glasses.

"I would say it sounds… kind." I let out a long sigh and give Penelope a pat on her shoulder.

"I don't know what happened, but he's really focused. I say we leave the teasing for until we take a break." Penelope nods.

"It's odd. I find it unsettling that he didn't overly describe that. I think I had grown to like his flower description of her," she says as she pushes her drill hair out of the way.

"So did I, Penelope. So did I." Following Hopper into the Dungeon, it doesn't take long until we find ourselves at the stairs to the third floor.

"Still nothing, Hopper?" Penelope asks.

"No, nothing. I'm not hearing anything, not even a mouse." Looking down the stairs, I keep getting a mixture of good and bad feelings. It's the same feeling as when I first found the Dungeon. I've had this happen a couple of times in life. Once, smelly Doug offered me a bite of his sandwich. It was a good sandwich, but the moment I bit into it, silent Pete just about beat the living daylights out of us. Turns out, it was silent Pete's sandwich. Ever since then, I've called this feeling a Silent Sandwich.

Something good that will lead to something bad. I just hope whatever the 'good' is outweighs the 'bad'.

"I guess we'll have to go down and figure out what's going on," I say as I begin to walk down the stairs. Hopper nods and hops down the stairs, pulling ahead of me.

"Why is he so serious?" Penelope asks as we descend.

"I don't know, but I imagine it has something to do with the upcoming Class War. Speaking of which, are you worried?"

"Worried? If anybody should be worried, it should be you, Charlatan. What are you going to do against second years, talk them into defeat?" she mocks.

"Guess this is what I get for being nice. You know what? I don't like that we're tied for Rank 1. I'm going to take this Class War and use it to pull ahead permanently," I say, jabbing her with my words. Penelope lets out a chuckle.

"Please, Charlatan, I'd be more surprised if you didn't go so low that you were kicked from the advanced class." Hiding a devilish smile, I turn to her.

"Want to bet on it?" Penelope looks back at me with her own sweet smile, but before she can answer, Hopper gestures for us to stop. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, we look around the empty third floor. There's not a single soul in sight.

"I was expecting something living to be down here, but it doesn't really seem inhabited," I say as Hopper slowly leads us into the room. The moment we pass the threshold of the stairway, a large black wall rises from the ground, cutting off our exit. At the same time, the stairs to the fourth floor suddenly disappear behind a black wall. The low-lit interior is then flooded with a blue light.

"You just had to say something, didn't you?" Penelope asks with a prickly tone.

"Wait, something else is happening," Hopper says as his ears twitch. In the center of the room, a pedestal rises, revealing a 3x3 grid. A flash of recognition passes through my mind. The book in the library said something about this.

"It's a puzzle floor," Penelope and I say in completely opposite tones. Great. I hate puzzles. They're always overly complicated, and I never really get them. I mean, what's the fun in getting frustrated at puzzles for hours on end? I just don't see the appeal. Hopper scratches his head as he hops over to the pedestal.

"So, what are we supposed to do with this?" he asks. Penelope and I walk over to the pedestal and look at the grid. It's a simple, empty black outline grid with blue boxes. I don't even know where to start. With a wide smile, Penelope reaches her hand out and blinds us all with a white light.

"A little warning, Penelope," I say as I shield myself from the light.

"I know it. Look at the grid again," she says with excitement lacing her every word. Peering past the light, I see a grid, but this time some of the boxes have white numbers in them. What in the hells?

"Penelope, can you explain that to me?"

"Of course. The white numbers were being hidden by the oppressive blue light around us," she gleefully explains.

"Like camouflage?" Hopper asks. I nod my head.

"Blue on blue equals invisible. Nice, Penelope. What do we do now?" I ask. Without explaining anything, Penelope clicks the white numbers in ascending order. With a jolly chime, the grid flips and shifts the color and position of the numbers.

"Red numbers are usually bad, so let's skip over those. White was good last grid. Let's try white in order while skipping the red numbers," Penelope mumbles to herself. The grid chimes with a jolly tune and yet again shifts the color, position, and font of the numbers. What kind of bullshit is this? Who would even know where to start? In record time, Penelope plugs in the correct sequence. Yet again, the grid chimes, but this time, when it shifts, it also grows into a large grid with more blue boxes.

Ah, this is going to take a while; Might as well take a nap.