#075

“There seems to be some kind of paper down here.”

Athanas fearlessly reached his hand in and pulled out a piece of paper.

‘Is there no [Regression]?’

Before I could even prepare myself mentally, Athanas looked at it, frowned, and spoke.

“…The contents are a bit strange.”

“What kind of….”

“Read it for yourself.”

Athanas handed the paper to me.

I carefully shone the lantern on it.

Written on the paper in a mess of Sacred Script—looking as if it had been written with the left hand—were these words: [Merry X-mas!]

I held my breath for a moment.

‘…The person who wrote this is definitely a player.’

However, the X was not a Sacred Script character, but a symbol, drawn similarly to a right angle, the symbol of Order.

Taking a deep breath, I continued reading.

[Do you know this greeting?

If you do, you are likely in a similar position as I am.]

‘This part is written in the common language.’

[First, I will verify through a very simple test whether you found this place by chance.

It is absolutely impossible to get this problem right by accident.

You would be very familiar with and have frequently used an object that resembles this animal. Keys-board = ‘Keyboard’ and ‘this animal’.

What is ‘this animal’?]

In this paragraph, only ‘keyboard’ was written in Sacred Script.

It seemed that proper nouns that might not be translated properly into the common language were written in Sacred Script.

‘…It’s a simple problem, but you can tell they put thought into it.’

It was evident that they had carefully chosen common knowledge that any player, regardless of their country of origin, would certainly know.

Since [Conclude] was a game serviced in various countries.

Even with common knowledge that any Earthling should know, like ‘the capital of the United States,’ there are occasionally people who don’t know it….

‘They made it so even those people could solve it.’

Learning just the pronunciation of Sacred Script can be done within a day if you’re fast, but they seemed to have added the hint ‘keys-board’ to accommodate players who hadn’t even learned that.

‘The answer is mouse.’

But the questions didn’t end there.

[Count the order in which ‘this animal’ appears in the list of animals below, and write that number in your reply.]

‘…Why add such a footnote?’

Doesn’t turning a short-answer question into a multiple-choice one actually remove the ability to distinguish? It creates a possibility that someone who doesn’t know the answer could get it right by chance.

With that doubt in mind, I scanned through the following list.

[Elephant, Raccoon, Rabbit, Yak, Cat, Horse, Rabbit, Impala, Snake, Tyrannosaurus, Armadillo, Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, Smilodon, Dragon, Frog.

*I have also hidden a hint about myself in the animal list. If you think you know who I am after seeing it, please write the animal that symbolizes you in the same way in your reply.

I repeat. It is absolutely impossible for a correct answer to appear by chance. Please consider this carefully.]

‘……?’

Even when I flipped the paper over, ‘mouse’ was nowhere to be found.

‘What is this?’

Some kind of riddle?

I narrowed my eyes and glared at the paper.

‘It’s not like some escape room game where you have to press something corresponding to that order….’

If I just had to write the answer on the paper, I could ignore the second part and just write ‘mouse,’ and that would be enough to prove I’m a player.

So why go out of the way to ask for the order?

Because only people who like riddles are qualified to be their friend?

‘What is this, Professor LeXton?’

And they mixed in a lot of strangely obscure animals.

What if the person solving it knows nothing about prehistoric creatures?

I first pondered why they would go through the trouble of creating such a riddle.

‘…Are they trying to figure out the other person’s personality by seeing how they provide the answer?’

Because if you write a long message and the other person is the type to say ‘TL;DR,’ it’s infuriating.

There would be no need to share hard-won information and ponder doubts together with someone who writes ‘mouse’ without reading to the end, or someone who doesn’t write an answer at all.

The fact that they made it so one could only find the hint about their identity by solving the problem seemed like a declaration that they had no intention of revealing their personal details to someone rash and short-sighted.

‘Whoever they are, they think way too much.’

To solve the riddle, I read the animal list again.

‘…They wouldn’t have made it too difficult.’

Since they couldn’t guess which language group the other player belonged to or what their education level was. If it were me, I would have designed the problem so it could be solved with very basic common knowledge.

‘Most puzzles like this are solved by substituting the given words with letters or numbers and then finding a pattern.’

So, Elephant is E, Raccoon is R….

‘ERRYCHRIS…TASASDF’

…It would be nice if I had something to write this down on.

I felt like my brain was cramping.

I pronounced the letters in my head.

‘Erry, Chris…’

Erry Chris…

‘…Merry Christmas!’

I almost let out an exclamation.

‘They took the M out of Merry Christmas!’

An animal starting with M is a mouse!

And there are two Ms in Merry Christmas.

Counting the order, it’s 1, and then 12….

‘Wow, the bastard who made this quiz is damn smart.’

I admired them inwardly.

‘Now that I look at it, this also serves as a perfect way to filter out NPCs pretending to be players.’

An NPC who doesn’t know the hidden meaning of this riddle would look at this and mistakenly think they could get it right since it looks like a multiple-choice question.

Because the answer seems to be one of the numbers between 1 and 16.

But the actual answer is 1 and 12. Two answers.

‘Even with [Regression], you couldn’t get this right.’

Even if they secretly watched the other person’s reaction upon checking the reply and turned back time to fix the wrong answer, they could never get it right through trial and error since they wouldn’t even know there were ‘two’ answers to begin with.

The creator could be confident that it’s impossible to arrive at the correct answer by chance.

‘Then the remaining letters are….’

ASDF….

‘…That’s just what you get when you mash a keyboard.’

That sequence often used for lazy nicknames or passwords.

I read the explanation above once more.

[…I have also hidden a hint about myself in the animal list. If you think you know who I am after seeing it, please write the animal that symbolizes you in the same way in your reply.]

Is this the hint about the creator?

I frowned.

There must be countless people with nicknames consisting of asdf followed by some random numbers.

My own Main World nickname is ‘qwerasdf’….

‘…Wait a minute.’

What are the odds that a person who created a problem capable of filtering out NPCs with [Regression]… also likes prehistoric creatures and has ASDF in their nickname?

[…It is absolutely impossible for a correct answer to appear by chance.]

I read that sentence over and over.

‘It’s the kind of thing I would have written, but I have no memory of writing it….’

“Do you understand what it says?”

At Athanas’s voice, my heart nearly jumped out of my chest.

“Ye-yes?”

“You must have a hunch, otherwise why would you be thinking for so long?”

Athanas’s face, illuminated by the lantern, looked exactly like a ghost.

“Oh, no. I was just looking at it for a while just in case. Haha….”

‘Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, stay calm….’

I didn’t notice anything.

I know nothing.

Nothing….

“Is that so?”

“Yessir. I kept reading to see if there was something meaningful, but I have no clue at all.”

“I see.”

Athanas nodded at those words.

“…However, that wasn’t the reaction I got when I wrote a list of words that truly had no meaning.”

‘Shit!’

The moment I felt I was screwed and tried to grab my necklace, Athanas quickly approached and twisted my arm behind my back.

“Agh!”

I reflexively screamed and immediately regretted it.

Because Athanas shoved his finger into my mouth.

‘Shit shit shit!!’

Keeping me pinned in that position, Athanas slammed me against the wall.

I felt the cold touch of the wall against my cheek.

Since my face was pressed against the wall, I couldn’t move my head even an inch.

‘Think, think, I have to think….’

“Ack, huff….”

I tried to twist my body to escape, but the pressure only intensified. I couldn’t breathe properly.

Was it said that the most fundamental fear an organism can feel is suffocation?

I gasped for air however I could. But the more I tried to inhale, the worse the dizziness became. My vision blurred, and I felt like I was about to faint.

“…Calm down, take a slow, deep breath.”

Anger surged at the soothing voice.

Who is the one who made me unable to stay calm right now….

“I am not strangling you. The reason you feel suffocated is because you are trying to breathe too quickly. Inhale deeply, and exhale slowly.”

Athanas began to count, one, two.

I struggled to regulate my fragmented breaths.

‘Hyperventilation happens because the carbon dioxide concentration in the blood drops too low, causing dizziness….’

The more I tried to breathe, the more miserable it became. I actually needed to breathe less. I exhaled on even numbers and inhaled on odd numbers. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten….

When the dizziness subsided slightly, Athanas spoke.

“…I thought you were going to faint again.”

At the voice tinged with a bit of relief, I felt like my stomach was turning.

‘Again?’

This son of a bitch?

It’s only ‘again’ for you!

Filled with rage, I bit down hard on the finger in my mouth.

But no sound of a painful scream followed.

‘…This should definitely hurt like hell?’

Why is there no reaction?

I bit down hard again with all my strength, but all I heard was a low sigh.

“…Stop it. It doesn’t even itch when you bite.”

‘What the fuck?’

I stopped gnawing with my teeth for a moment.

No, but teeth are the hardest part of the human body.

‘And he says it doesn’t even itch?’

Does that make sense?

Does the material of the skin change when durability increases?

‘This guy wouldn’t even get infected if he got bitten in a zombie apocalypse.’

Forced to give up on biting, I screamed frantically.

“You son of a bitch!”

How many tries is this for you?

How many tries has it been for this to be possible!

“I truly give up on you. You didn’t write the answer in there.”

‘How the hell do you know that!’

Did you measure my pulse while reading them one by one while I was pinned down?

“I really struggled to memorize all of those contents….”

The sound of the sigh tickled my ear.

Goosebumps raced down my spine.

“You bastard! You bastard!”

“…I want to have a conversation with you too, but whenever I allow you to speak, you just call out the apostle’s name.”

‘Fuuuuuuck.’

Seriously, which number is this guy on right now?

No, ‘which try’ it is now isn’t the important part.

Since when has he been deceiving me?

From the very beginning?

Chapter 76