Sudoku

"Alright. Can we continue the journey now?"

About an hour after Elijah and the others started to rest, Quirin finally asked them to continue their journey again. Everyone except Gazel stands up after taking a deep breath. Meanwhile, Gazel stands up with a frightened expression on his usually arrogant face.

"Your Highness, as always, can you-"

"No! I won't use my magic for anything silly again!"

Before Quirin could finish his sentence, Gazel had already cut him off in a panic. The others didn't want to push when Gazel had already said so. Quirin let out a long sigh while Damian suddenly coughed lightly to get the others' attention.

"I don't think we need any more light this time. I can sense it with my magic. If we do this...."

Damian paused his sentence to move forward and disappear into the darkness. The others waited nervously, as Damian didn't make any more sounds after that. But, not long after, the room suddenly shook and almost made everyone alert again.

Fortunately, the vibration this time was because the runes on each side of the room began to activate and emit light that illuminated the large room. Damian, who was previously invisible, was now seen standing a few meters away from them. The elf let out a sigh of relief. Damian felt really lucky that his Six Senses magic was working well this time.

"Looks like I got lucky this time," he murmured to himself.

"Wow, was that Six Sense magic you used?"

Damian looked at Quirin, who asked excitedly, then answered the question while dragging out his sentence.

"...Yes. Unfortunately, this magic is a bit uncontrollable when I'm the one using it. I've been trying to use it ever since. However, this is the first time this magic has been able to work properly."

"Still, what you did was pretty good. Thank you for your hard work, Your Highness."

Damian gave a brief nod to Quirin but had no intention of changing the way Quirin called him, even if he did not particularly like being called that. Damian waited for Elijah to come closer to him before he walked with the teenager.

Unlike the previous rooms, this last room was a large space surrounded by shallow pools on both sides. Elijah and the others had made sure that the water in the shallow pool did not have any poison. Thus, even if they accidentally fell in it, no harm would come to them.

"There's another door?"

Henrik subconsciously let out an annoyed tone as they were confronted with another door, though this time, the door did not have any carvings on it. Quirin and Henrik tried to open the door with their strength. But the door did not move an inch, a sign that the way to open it was not with that kind of strength.

"Hey, I think we should work on this puzzle to open the door."

The attention of the others fell on Damian, who was standing by the stone table at the end of the place. They approached the elf after that. Everyone's expressions were immediately filled with confusion, especially when they discovered the strange foreign letters on the table.

"...Can anyone tell what this is?"

Quirin asked, and the others shook their heads confidently. "Some of them seem to have the same symbol. However, I don't understand what they mean either," Damian informed.

The others despaired as this was the first time they had seen numbers used by humans on Earth. However, Elijah recognized the numbers and even knew how to solve the puzzle with his knowledge.

The puzzle wasn't actually anything complicated. From the model of the board and the numbers provided, Elijah knew that he only had to solve the sudoku game that was quite famous on Earth. In the past, Elijah had completed the simple game so many times that solving it no longer seemed difficult to Elijah. However, in front of NPCs who didn't know who Elijah really was, Elijah was weighing whether it was wise to reveal his knowledge in front of those people.

On the one hand, the system not saying anything meant that the system itself already knew that Elijah had to use knowledge from his old world to solve the puzzle. However, on the other hand, Elijah still didn't want anyone to know his original purpose for traveling to this world.

"Now, what should we do? This time, I really have no idea how to solve this puzzle."

Quirin glanced at Elijah, then called out to him to get the teenager's attention.

"What about you, Elijah? Can you solve this puzzle for us?"

Elijah looked back at Quirin while furrowing his brow. Initially, Elijah was reluctant to add to Quirin's suspicions about his origins. However, he now had no other choice if he wanted to complete the mission immediately. Thus, Elijah could only play into the man's palm for once.

"I'll give it a try."

Elijah stepped forward, then began to work on the puzzle. Elijah deliberately slowed down his speed in solving the sudoku because he didn't want the others to suspect why he could understand a puzzle he had never seen before. Elijah solved the puzzle in an hour. That long enough time should have been enough to make the others not have any suspicions of Elijah.

CLACK!

"Wow, you can really solve it, Elijah!"

Damian exclaimed excitedly, while the others gave Elijah a strange look when the door that had been tightly closed opened just as Elijah finished his riddle. Elijah tried to ignore the stares and invited the others to continue their journey. However, Elijah still seemed to be too naive. Even though he had delayed solving the puzzle for so long, his ability to solve something no one had ever seen before still seemed to raise suspicion in the minds of the other members.

"How can you think that was the way to solve the puzzle, Elijah? Most people would think that we just need to group the same symbols on one box."

Henrik asked first. And his question made the others start thinking the same thing. Quirin smiled as he looked at Elijah. It seemed that, of all people, Quirin was the most satisfied with Elijah's decision to reveal his identity in front of them.

"Yes. Can you tell us how you did it, Elijah?"

Elijah looked at Quirin, then let out a long breath. He was already thinking of what excuse he should make when they became suspicious of him. Elijah tried to put on as confident a face as possible as he answered the question very calmly.

"This place is an ancient ruin that was deliberately made impenetrable by whoever made it. Collecting the same symbols in one box is too easy, so I don't think whoever prepared the puzzle could have done it. Instead, I deliberately looked for the hardest possible way to solve the puzzle. Keeping each symbol from being in the same row with the same symbol seems to make more sense, right?"

Elijah's answer was acceptable, so Henrik did not say anything more after that. Quirin also did the same because she did not want to upset Elijah too much. Quirin still needed Elijah for her plan, so she stopped bothering Elijah after that.

"Let's end the talk about the puzzle. We should get on our way because we still have a lot of things to do in this place."

"You're right."

This time, the others finally followed Elijah's words obediently. Quirin again led the way to enter another room while the others quietly followed behind him.

DING!

[Side mission: The Lost Legends

1. Enter Latham Ruins and discover the secrets within. (COMPLETED)

2. Reach the last room in Latham Ruins. (COMPLETED)

3. Defeated the final boss, the Giant Knight.]

BOOM!

Elijah had just set foot in the new room when the system notified him of the mission's progress. A loud resonance sound coming from inside the room made Elijah's feelings turn bad. Whoever could have caused that loud sound, Elijah was sure he must not be an ordinary final boss.

[Intruders must be eliminated.]

The room lit up by itself. And now, in front of everyone, there was a giant armored figure that had previously blocked their way.

Unfortunately, this time, the figure in front of them was the real thing with a big sword pointed at them.