Ch.377377 – Library Expedition Team 4

<377 – Library Expedition Team 4>

Games have strategies.

It’s about remembering experiential knowledge like “If you do this, you can clear it easily!”

Of course, there must be principles behind it.

There are different types of veteran players.

Brain-type players enjoy digging into those principles.

But that has nothing to do with me, a physical-type player!

‘I didn’t know portrait puzzles had such a gimmick!’

In games with many random elements, the portrait that appears on the way to the library is a fixed element that always appears.

Just as the interesting Dragon Principal doesn’t change to a different dragon when the cycle changes, it means that the existence of Countess Mercedes is equally immovable and important.

‘More importantly, Arcadia’s observation skills have improved significantly, perhaps due to her eye-training lectures.’

In the brief moment I think of an excuse, my lies are completely exposed.

Without veteran player knowledge, she reads the stone tablet and uses that knowledge to solve the puzzle. Even without me, she would have eventually solved it given some time.

I need to remember once again that the playable character of this cycle has extraordinary capabilities.

“Oknodie. Did you tie the rope well?”

“Yes! But couldn’t we just move forward in a straight line, smashing everything in sight?”

“Even Grung wouldn’t do something so crude! Sometimes Oknodie says things like she’s some ultra-large monster without thinking twice!”

Hmph. Getting scolded by a newbie.

“Now, everyone memorize the three principles of maze navigation.”

“Hmph, I know those too.”

Zaku, the common sense holder of the lower class, stepped forward confidently.

“Keep your hand on the wall and move in only one direction, leave marks at every intersection you pass through, and only move toward paths with fewer marks.”

“That’s wrong! All wrong!”

“It’s not? That can’t be. Then what are your three principles of maze navigation?”

“Don’t make noise! Don’t follow sounds! Ignore everything except predetermined hand signals!”

“…Are those really the three principles of maze navigation? I’ve never heard of such rules.”

Dorothy answered with a serious face.

“Even though I’m just an apprentice forest keeper, I can’t guarantee your survival if you don’t follow these rules!”

“…”

Zaku shuddered with an indescribable sense of unease!

The students, thoroughly frightened, pleaded:

“Can’t we just turn back now?”

“It was fun enough for a picnic.”

“We’re satisfied, so let’s go back to the dormitory.”

Of course, such words wouldn’t work on a veteran player.

‘Was there a gimmick in this forest where you shouldn’t make noise?’

That’s strange.

That’s only in the Silent Forest where Professor Sadaco’s pet tree Poppy eats sounds.

The challenge of the third gate, the Forest Maze, began with Dorothy’s enthusiastic hand signals amid my confusion.

‘Follow me.’

‘Step on these tree roots, not the ground.’

‘Don’t touch the acorns. They explode!’

‘Follow me by doing aerial tumbling across branches.’

‘This part is easy. Let’s just climb 30 meters up this tree.’

‘What if we slip!’

Students who slipped while climbing trees, fell while attempting aerial tumbling, and caused explosions by touching acorns had tears welling up in their eyes.

What kind of forest is so hostile to living creatures!

Unlike the struggling lower class students, Dorothy, who was leading the way, began to look increasingly uncertain.

‘Oknodie. Is this the forest we went to before?’

‘Yes, it is!’

‘I thought I felt a curse!’

━━━

<Chapter 4: Silent Death, Forest of Silence>

Appearance – After the 981st Entrance Ceremony

Event Period – Summer vacation of sophomore year

Description – A terrible disaster born from accumulated curse waste. The moment you lose senses you took for granted, you realize that curses discarded by humans have returned.

Feature 1 – Sound does not exist within the forest’s domain.

Feature 2 – The forest seeks out and devours all living beings that make noise.

Feature 3 – New curses are added each time the forest’s growth level increases.

━━━

That was the state of the Silent Forest I last remembered.

But perhaps because Professor Sadaco hasn’t quit school and is still actively working, the difficulty of the Silent Forest seems to have increased.

Overall, it feels like we’re being watched.

I feel like we’re being spied on from all directions.

‘Is that monster tree going to appear again!?’

‘It’s not a monster tree. It’s Professor Sadaco’s pet tree Poppy!’

‘That’s the same thing!’

Dorothy trembled, imagining the grotesque appearance of Poppy she had seen before.

But as a veteran player, I actually feel it’s become easier than before.

It feels like something is about to happen.

The atmosphere is truly ominous.

I definitely feel like we’re being watched.

“We made it! There’s the exit!”

“Hiiing. I thought I was going to die of fear!”

We reached the exit without incident.

What’s going on??

“Titosoga has grown a lot too. Now you can handle such a scary forest with just a whimper.”

“Tch, Zhang, you were so scared you even wore a mask you never normally use!”

“I didn’t wear it because I was scared.”

“Pfft. Sure, sure~”

“…”

“Ow! It hurts, stop pinching my cheeks…”

“Cheeks that say naughty things deserve to be kneaded like rice cakes.”

Even Titosoga, a small animal sensitive to danger, had lost his fear enough to joke with Zhang, so the situation was definitely over.

What was that all about?

Dorothy and I were puzzled, but anyway, I’m glad the third gate ended with us getting a free pass!

* * *

“Hmm? The gate has changed.”

At Tetrapos’s casual remark before the shortcut to the third gate, Yuie was startled.

“Really? I heard that the third one is always the Forest Maze, and if you use the shortcut, you pass through a path so straight it’s hardly a maze at all…”

“Ah, that’s probably right. Just the nature of the forest has changed. Originally, there’s a sleep-sucking grass hiding there that kidnaps people, but now I sense something different.”

“Sleep-sucking grass!? That’s the base for humanoid plant monsters, isn’t it?”

Sleep-sucking grass was an extremely lewd 18+ monster that sucked out men’s essence, necessary for the birth of monsters with human form.

Tree nymphs (Dryads) and flower fairies (Alraunes) are the most representative fairy-humans born from sleep-sucking grass.

Among these, when Gift Academy students think of the most famous Dryad, they immediately recall a seductive madwoman who is always scantily clad.

Professor Warerd.

“Senior, the person who placed the sleep-sucking grass couldn’t be…”

“I didn’t say anything?”

So it was Professor Warerd’s area after all!

True to her desperate desire to teach about the greatness of Dryads and the excellence of nature magic, she had set a very gloomy and audacious trap monster.

But now that sleep-sucking grass is gone.

“Don’t worry. There’s an unwritten rule that the maximum duration for falling victim to traps in this neighborhood is one week. Even if your essence is exploited for a week, you’ll be fine with proper recovery.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about, senior. What’s in that dark straight path instead of the sleep-sucking grass?”

The shortcut to the gate looked quite dark even from the outside.

While darkness is natural in a night forest, to Yuie’s eyes, it didn’t feel like an ordinary forest.

It was ominous.

It gave her goosebumps.

Something terribly chilling was waiting beyond that path.

A distance that looked like it could be crossed in 10 seconds at a run.

That distance looked very frightening.

“Want to go first, senior?”

“Ladies first. Women should experience good things first.”

Tetrapos just whistled and idled around.

Yuie reluctantly took out a lottery box.

“Let’s draw lots.”

Remembering the previous gates, it was only natural that there would be a sacrifice, so everyone prepared to draw lots with grim faces.

“Wait.”

One of the members of Hector’s group pointed at Yuie with a thoroughly twisted expression.

“Why aren’t you drawing?”

“Why should I, the guide, draw?”

“Tetrapos knows the way too. Even faster shortcuts than yours.”

Yuie, who had been consistently exempted from drawing lots because she was the guide, now faced unfriendly expressions from everyone.

She couldn’t hide her dismay.

* * *

“Huh?”

Dorothy, who was leading the way to the fourth gate, stopped walking and sniffed the air.

“What are you doing? Smell money somewhere good?”

“Could you not treat me like a miser…?”

“Then what smell did you catch?”

“I did smell money, but…”

“So you are a miser!”

“It’s not me. The owner of this smell is the miser.”

Dorothy pointed to the shortcut with a displeased face.

“I smelled the distinctive money scent of a merchant who loves money from over there. A very familiar merchant’s smell.”

“Giselle couldn’t come because she’s busy with Dark Commerce Guild work, right?”

“It’s not Giselle. It’s Yuie, the head of the Yuie Trading Company. That nasty brat who made you fail the entrance exam.”

This honestly surprised me.

Yuie barely clung to the academy in the lower class, not even making it to the upper class.

How did someone like that get ahead of us through a shortcut much more dangerous than the path Dorothy chose?

“Why couldn’t she? Of course she could if she wanted to. She even established a trade route through our forest to do business.”

Only after hearing Dorothy’s words did I understand.

Yuie, who had already expanded to Dorothy’s forest and obtained tickets together for the entrance exam.

As the difficulty of Dorothy’s forest increases, Yuie’s competence increases proportionally.

I had forgotten while focusing on the love triangle between two women who fell for Rockpell’s excellent skills, but the forest known as Yuie and Rockpell’s hometown has a random starting location each cycle, like Random Papa.

It could be connected to some rural village’s backyard mountain, or it could be a forbidden area where human entry is prohibited.