In games, there are攻略 (strategies).
If you do this, you’ll comfortably clear it!
It’s all about remembering experiential knowledge.
Of course, there must be principles.
There are also types of veteran players.
The brainy players love to dig into that.
But that’s not related to me, the physical player!
“I didn’t know there was such a gimmick in the portrait puzzle!”
Even in games with lots of random elements, portraits appearing on the way to the library are fixed elements that always appear.
Just like how Principal Omoshiroi doesn’t change to a different dragon when the cycle changes, the existence of Countess Mercedes is just as solid and important.
“More than that, Arcadia’s observation skills have improved a lot, maybe thanks to the Developing Insight course.”
In the brief moment of thinking of excuses, the lie is completely exposed.
Whether it’s reading a stele without knowledge of veteran players or guessing the puzzle’s identity based on knowledge, even without confidence, if you spend some time, you’ll eventually solve the puzzle.
I have to remember once again that this round’s playable character’s power is extraordinary.
“Oknodie. Did you tie the rope well?”
“Yeah! But can’t we just smash everything in sight and move forward?”
“Even that kind of foolishness would make Grungy laugh! Sometimes, Oknodie casually talks about how he could take on a giant monster, you know?”
Hmph. I just got insulted by a newbie.
“Alright, everyone, just memorize the three rules of the maze.”
“Heh, I know that too.”
The rational Jaku from the lower class stepped forward confidently.
“Mazes are navigated by keeping your hand on the wall and moving in one direction, leaving marks at every crossroads, and only moving in the direction with fewer marks.”
“Nope! All wrong!”
“This isn’t it? That’s impossible. Then what are your three principles for finding a maze?”
“Don’t make a noise! Don’t follow sounds! Ignore all signals except for the designated ones!”
“…Is that really the three principles of maze navigation? I’ve never heard of such rules.”
Dorothy replied sternly.
“If you don’t follow these rules, even I, a trainee Forest Guardian, can’t guarantee your life!”
Shivers.
Jaku trembled from the unnameable unease!
The students were terrified and pleaded.
“Can’t we just turn back now?”
“To be honest, it was fun for a picnic.”
“Since we’re satisfied, let’s go back to the dorm.”
Of course, those words wouldn’t faze a veteran player at all.
“Wasn’t there a gimmick in this forest where you can’t make any noise?”
Strange.
That’s more like something that happens in the Silent Forest where Professor Sadako’s Howling Child Poppy resides.
With questions in mind, the challenge of the third gate, the Maze Forest, began with Dorothy’s fervent signals.
“Follow me.”
“Don’t step on the ground; just step on the tree roots.”
“Don’t touch the acorns. They explode!”
“Come along swinging on the tree branches with aerial tumbling.”
“This is easy. Let’s climb just 30m up the tree.”
“What if we slip?!”
As the students slid down the tree, tumbled through the air, and caused explosions by touching acorns, tears welled up in their eyes.
What kind of forest is hostile to living beings like this!?
Unlike the struggling lower class students, the navigator, Dorothy, wore a slightly confused expression.
“Oknodie. This is the forest we went to before, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right!”
“No wonder I felt a curse!”
━━━
[Chapter 4: Silent Death, Silent Forest]
Appearance – Post-entrance ceremony of Class 981
Event Timing – Second Year Summer Vacation
Description – A terrifying disaster born from cursed waste. The moment you lose senses you took for granted, you’ll realize that the curses thrown away by humans have returned.
Feature 1 – There is no sound in the forest’s domain.
Feature 2 – The forest seeks out and devours all living beings that make noise.
Feature 3 – New curses are added every time the forest’s growth level increases.
━━━
The last memory of the Silent Forest was like this.
But since Professor Sadako hasn’t quit and is still active, the difficulty of the Silent Forest seems to have gone up a bit.
It feels like I’m being watched all around.
I get the sense that there’s surveillance from everywhere.
“Is that monster tree coming out again!?”
“It’s not a monster tree. It’s Professor Sadako’s Howling Child Poppy!”
“Doesn’t matter which is which!”
Dorothy trembled at the ghastly image of Poppy she’d seen before.
Yet the feeling I, the veteran player, experienced was easier than before.
Something feels like it’s about to happen.
The atmosphere is genuinely ominous.
The sense of being watched is incredibly strong.
“I’m alive! It’s the exit!”
“Hing-ing-ing. I thought I was going to die from fear!”
We arrived at the exit without anything happening.
What??
“Tito has grown a lot. Even in this scary forest, he can handle it up to the hing-ing-ing level now.”
“Hey, Jiang was so scared that he put on a mask he doesn’t usually use!”
“It’s not because I was scared.”
“Pfff. Sure, that’s how it is~”
“…”
“Ow! It hurts! Don’t pinch my cheeks!”
“I’m gonna torment this cheeky cheek like sticky rice cake!”
Even the danger-sensitive small animal Titosso was joking around with Jiang, so it was clear that the situation had ended.
What was it!?
Dorothy and I were baffled, but anyway, I’m glad the third gate ended without a hitch!
*
“Hmm? The gate has changed.”
In front of the shortcut to the third gate, Tetraphos casually remarked, startling Yui.
“Really? I heard the third path was definitely the Maze Forest, and that taking the shortcut would lead through a straight path from entrance to exit…”
“That should be true. The nature of the forest just changed. Originally, a Sleep Succubus that puts you to sleep and kidnaps you was hiding in that shortcut, but something else feels off now.”
“Succubus!? That’s the one that serves as the base for human-shaped plant monsters.”
The Succubus was a very sneaky and erotic 19+ monster that sucked the essence from men required for the birth of human-shaped plant monsters.
Dryads, tree fairies, and Alraunes, flower fairies, are the most classic examples of fairies born from Succubi.
If you had to pick one of the most famous Dryads, Gift Academy students would always think first of the alluring wild woman in scanty attire.
That would be Professor Weird.
“Senpai. You don’t think the one who left the Succubus is…”
“I said nothing.”
So, it was indeed the area supervised by Professor Weird!
True to his anxious nature of wanting to show the greatness of Dryads and the superiority of nature magic, this trap monster is very dark and daring.
But the Succubus has disappeared.
“Don’t worry. Generally, the maximum duration for getting caught in traps around here is a week. Even if you have your essence drained for a week, as long as you take care of yourself, you’ll be fine.”
“What worries me is the other side, Senpai. What’s lurking in that dark, narrow path?”
The shortcut to the gate looked pretty dark from the outside.
While it’s normal for a night forest to be dark, to Yui, it felt different from an ordinary forest.
It felt ominous.
It sent chills down her spine.
Something extremely spooky was waiting on the other side that shouldn’t be approached.
A distance that seemed like I could cover in 10 seconds with a sprint.
That distance looked frightening.
“Do you want to go first, Senpai?”
“Ladies first. Good things should happen to girls first.”
Tetraphos just whistled and continued to lounge.
Reluctantly, Yui pulled out the lottery draw box.
“Let’s just draw lots.”
Recalling the previous gates, it was only natural that there would be a sacrifice, so everyone had a gloomy expression as they readied for the draw.
“One moment.”
Hector, a member of the Heir group, pointed a finger at Yui with a twisted expression.
“Why aren’t you drawing?”
“Why should I draw as the navigator?”
“The path is something even Tetraphos Senpai knows. It’s just a faster shortcut than yours.”
Although Yui had been exempt from drawing lots all along due to being the navigator, the expressions of everyone looking at her were not kind.
Yui couldn’t hide her embarrassment.
*
“Wait a minute?”
Stopping in her tracks, Dorothy sniffed the air.
“What’s up? Is there a good smell of money?”
“Could you please not treat me like a miser…?”
“Then what smell did you catch?”
“I did smell money.”
“Then you are a miser!”
“It’s not me. The owner of this smell is the miser.”
Dorothy pointed with a frown toward the shortcut.
“There was a familiar merchant’s smell of money coming from over there. A very familiar merchant’s smell.”
“Jezel is busy with Dark Trading Company work, so she couldn’t come?”
“It’s not Jezel. It’s Yui, the leader of the Yui team. That rotten girl with whom you competed at the entrance exam!”
Honestly, I was surprised.
Yui barely clung to the academy as a member of the lower class and couldn’t even make it to the upper class.
How did she surpass Dorothy on such a dangerous shortcut?
“Why wouldn’t she? If she wanted to, she could definitely do it. She cleared the trade route here to do business in our forest.”
After listening to Dorothy, I understood.
At the starting point, Yui had already advanced into Dorothy’s forest and was acquiring tickets to show up at the entrance exam.
As the difficulty of Dorothy’s forest increased, Yui’s competence also rose proportionately.
While I was so focused on the love affair of the two girls enamored by the superior skills of the man Rockbell that I had forgotten, the forest they hailed from was randomized to set their starting location each round like a random papa.
It could be connected to a countryside hill or a forest designated not to allow human entry.
