537

Defense Specialization and Puzzles

When Maple and Sally entered the game world once more, their destination was clear: the Guild Home in the Eighth Layer. The landscape was almost entirely covered in water, but the town itself was a series of buildings connected by suspension bridges above the water. With flying machines at their disposal, shortcuts were readily available, making navigation convenient.

“Maple Tree” had their Guild Home in one of these buildings, and upon entering, they found Kanade, who had just completed another one of Iz’s puzzles, waiting for them.

“Hey, you two, I’ve been waiting,” Kanade greeted them with a smile.

“Time for more puzzles!” Maple said with enthusiasm.

“We’ve got to do our best—even though our main role is in combat,” Sally added, acknowledging that their primary contribution was their fighting ability.

Kanade chuckled. “You two have fought plenty already. How about we take a break from that and explore a different kind of dungeon?”

“A different kind of dungeon? What do you mean?” Maple asked, curious.

“A dungeon focused solely on puzzles. There are some minor monsters, but no boss. The goal is to reach the treasure at the heart of the ruins,” Kanade explained.

“So, you’ve already solved the puzzles there?” Sally inquired.

“No, I knew you two were coming, so I left this one for us to tackle together,” Kanade admitted. He had seen the information about this rare, puzzle-centric dungeon and, while he could have cleared it on his own, he chose to save it for Maple and Sally. He knew they would enjoy the underwater ruins exploration, which was quintessentially Eighth Layer.

“That means we can all work together to solve it!” Maple exclaimed.

“Think we can keep up with Kanade’s pace, though?” Sally teased.

“Do your best,” Kanade grinned. “You might beat me to at least one puzzle.”

“Let’s give it a shot, Maple. It’s two against one,” Sally encouraged.

“Right!” Maple nodded eagerly.

“Oxygen levels are supposed to be pretty tight, so let’s focus on solving the puzzles quickly,” Kanade advised.

“Got it!” Maple and Sally said in unison.

Having prepared by studying the symbols used in the puzzles, the two were ready for the challenge. With items to extend their dive time, they secured as much operational time as possible and set off from the town toward the sunken ruins deep underwater.

—

After some travel, the trio arrived at the roof of a spire protruding from the water’s surface. The roof had a large hole, and when they peered inside, they could see a staircase leading downward into the clear water.

“Hey, Maple, check out the size of this place,” Sally said, pointing out the sheer scale of the ruins.

“Really? Let me see!” Maple dipped her face into the water to get a better view. She saw the vast underwater ruins stretching down to the seabed far below.

“…Wow! It’s huge! I hope our oxygen lasts,” Maple said, emerging from the water, her eyes wide with excitement.

“That depends on how quickly we solve the puzzles and avoid being too distracted by monsters,” Kanade replied.

“You can leave the monsters to us!” Sally said confidently.

“And you, too, Kanade. We’re counting on you for the puzzles,” Maple added, determined.

“I’ll do my best!” Maple said, full of resolve.

“And no shortcuts, right?” Sally confirmed.

“That’s right. The dungeon is designed to prevent that,” Kanade confirmed.

“Got it. We’ll have to go in head-on, then,” Sally said.

“Ready? Don’t worry too much—if things get tight, we’ve always got “Earth’s Cradle” as a last resort,” Kanade reassured them.

“Oh, right! I forgot about that!” Maple said, relieved.

“Yeah, Maple doesn’t use it often, but it’s a strong fallback when needed,” Sally noted. The skill, which allowed them to burrow into the ground and recover their oxygen, had proven effective in the Eighth Layer. With that safety net in place and their enthusiasm high, Maple, Sally, and Kanade donned their diving suits and began their descent into the water.

They swam down to the staircase they had seen from the roof, which spiraled downward. The trio followed it, winding deeper and deeper.

“Huh?” Maple said, suddenly stopping.

“What’s wrong?” Sally asked.

“We’ve hit a dead end already…but there weren’t any symbols, right?” Maple pointed out.

Their path was blocked by a stone wall, seemingly cutting off the spiral staircase midway. Despite the fact that the staircase clearly continued beyond the wall, no symbols or clues were immediately visible.

Puzzled, the three of them began to search the area more thoroughly, looking for any hidden clues.

“This one does seem trickier than the previous dungeons,” Kanade mused.

“I’ll check this side of the wall. There might be something here,” Sally said.

“I’ll look on the other side,” Maple agreed.

“I’ll inspect the staircase and ceiling,” Kanade added.

Luckily, no monsters had appeared yet, so Maple took her time examining the wall closely, looking for any discrepancies or hidden triggers.

“Hmm…wait, what’s this?” Maple murmured as she noticed something odd. Among the seaweed growing on the wall, there was one section that seemed to form a straight line, ending in a small circle.

“Hey, hey! I think I found something!” Maple called out to the others.

“Oh, that looks promising,” Sally said, swimming over to take a closer look.

“Maybe it’s a button? Maple, since you found it, why don’t you try pressing it? You can handle it if it’s a trap,” Kanade suggested with a grin.

“Okay!” Maple swam up to the circular formation and pushed it. Just as she expected, it was indeed a button. The wall blocking their path slowly receded into the surrounding structure, revealing the continuation of the spiral staircase.

“We did it!” Maple cheered.

“Looks like we’re on the right track. Great job spotting that, Maple!” Kanade praised.

“Off to a good start. Let’s keep it up,” Sally said.

“Yeah!” Maple agreed enthusiastically.

With the first puzzle solved, the trio continued their descent deeper into the spire.

“*

As they descended, they encountered a few small fish-like monsters, which Maple easily wiped out with her beams. This reaffirmed that the dungeon was primarily puzzle-focused, and they wouldn’t face significant combat challenges here. Reassured, they pressed on.

At the base of the spire, they found a large iron door. Opening it revealed a hallway that split into two directions. The first thing that caught their attention was the inscription of encrypted text on the wall directly in front of them.

“Oh, look! There are symbols here!” Maple pointed out.

“Yeah, let’s read them. Hmm…” Sally began to decipher the text, concentrating hard.

“Hmm… I see,” Kanade said, reading the text almost as naturally as Japanese.

Both Maple and Sally soon finished their translation, but the resulting string of letters didn’t make any sense.

“Wait… Sally, I think I made a mistake,” Maple said, frowning at the gibberish they’d deciphered.

“No, I think it’s not us. Right, Kanade?” Sally asked, glancing at Kanade.

“Yeah. The text doesn’t make sense as is. There must be a clue somewhere to shift the letters or substitute something,” Kanade speculated.

“Okay,” Maple nodded, understanding.

“Maybe the hint is hidden somewhere, like last time…” Sally wondered aloud.

“Oh!” Sally exclaimed, spotting something as she glanced back toward the iron door they had entered through.

Maple followed her gaze and saw it too—small symbols etched into the door itself.

“Look! There’s something here! It says… ‘Step back thrice and survey the scene,’” Maple read aloud.

“That must mean we need to shift the letters by three. We can try shifting them in both directions to see which one makes sense,” Sally suggested.

“Got it!” Maple agreed.

The two of them adjusted the letters accordingly, and this time, they produced a coherent message.

“‘The left path leads to death and bones,’” Sally read aloud.

“Which means…!” Maple exclaimed.

“The correct path is to the right,” Kanade confirmed.

“You knew that all along, didn’t you?” Sally teased.

“Really?! Did you figure out the hint before us?” Maple asked, impressed.

Kanade hesitated, smiling sheepishly. “I knew the answer, but I didn’t spot the hint. That’s the truth.”

“How… How did you do it then?” Maple asked, genuinely curious.

“Well… When I see the text, I automatically think of shifted versions in my head. So even without the hint, I figured it out,” Kanade explained.

“I see… Well, that’s Kanade for you,” Sally said, amazed but not entirely surprised. Given Kanade’s track record, she knew it wasn’t a lie. Kanade’s processing speed was as extraordinary as Sally’s evasion skills.

“That’s incredible! Really? So, if I asked you to shift something by five letters, you could do it?” Maple asked, her eyes wide with amazement.

“‘ぷづわぴぜびやてゅごをぇゐふぐわ,'” Kanade said instantly.

<T/n: The string “ぷづわぴぜびやてゅごをぇゐふぐわ” appears to be a sequence of Japanese hiragana characters, but it does not form a meaningful word or phrase in Japanese as it is. It’s likely intended to be an example of a cipher or code, where the characters are shifted or substituted according to a certain rule.

In the context of the story, Kanade was asked to shift the characters by a certain number of positions in a cipher. Without the specific rule or context for the shift, this string doesn’t translate directly into anything meaningful.

If you have the cipher rule (like shifting each character by a certain number in the Japanese syllabary), we could decode it. But as it stands, it doesn’t have a direct meaning.>

“Wow,” Sally muttered, unable to hide her astonishment.

“Uh, uh… let’s see…” Maple said, slowly working it out. “It’s correct! Wow! Amazing, Kanade!”

Kanade had effortlessly recited the correctly shifted text, leaving Maple and Sally in awe.

“Yeah, we should just leave the brainwork to Kanade,” Sally laughed, impressed.

Kanade chuckled, a warm smile on his face. “Haha, thanks. But I don’t want to spoil the fun. We’re here to solve these puzzles together. It’s more fun that way, right?”

“Yeah, thanks for being considerate. Let’s only ask Kanade for answers when we’re truly stuck. I’m sure he’ll come to our rescue,” Sally said, grateful.

“Alright, I’m determined to solve at least one puzzle before Kanade does!” Maple declared with renewed enthusiasm.

“Yeah, but maybe we need a bit of a handicap?” Sally suggested playfully.

“Hehe… sure. Try to beat me to the answer. I’ll even increase the handicap as we go along,” Kanade offered with a grin.

“The ruins are long, so maybe our chance to win will come eventually,” Sally said, hopeful.

“Right! Let’s give it our best shot!” Maple agreed.

With a new goal in mind—reaching the dungeon’s end and solving at least one puzzle before Kanade—the three of them headed down the right corridor, as the decrypted message had indicated.