Dungeon Core Number 89's, Haku's, Suffering

Hey, Shun here!

I'm not a sadist, but seeing your enemies suffer can sometimes make you feel this kind of sweet and fulfilling sensation. You know? That feeling when you see your enemy suffer.

However, I'm not a sadist, okay?

Remember that.

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(Haku's POV)

By the time Haku conquered half of the labyrinth, Shun's attack forces already conquered their third floor and are on their way to conquer the fourth floor of her own [Ivory Proving Grounds]. By now, they already cut down the number of the rodents by half but there are still over 200 of them all in all.

It looks like, after seeing their brethren be toasted by the flamethrowers, they finally learned how to avoid them. However, it is clear for everyone to see that someone is giving them detailed instructions.

But even so, thanks to all the lizardmen she had gathered in the staircase room, many of the rats had perished. In exchange though, some of them died due to continuously being stabbed by the Horned Rabbits' sharp horns.

"I can't believe that we have to climb back up by two floors now. I thought we would continue to go down but it looks like we are being led to proceed upward… How many floors does this dungeon have, actually?"

"It might be wise to employ this man not as an adventurer, but as a dungeon adviser… To answer your question, so far, we passed by two floors by now after the dungeon's entrance."

At the end of the labyrinth, which starts from the second half of floor one and ends at floor two, was an upwards staircase. The second floor ended with an exit that took them up two whole floors.

If the initial entrance was called "Floor 1"… would they now be on Floor 0? Or perhaps Floor Negative 1? In human terms, they were technically on the first floor or something, but…

"…I have no idea what to name where we are."

"He has no intention of making anything easy for us, does he? I declare that this floor will be known as the First Above-Ground Floor!"

"Yes, understood! And… I see a door right away on the First Above-Ground Floor!" The staircase led them right to a room with a large door in it.

By borrowing the vision of their monsters, they saw just how firm and durable the door looked. That, and a brightly colored sign right beside it.

"…What is written on it?"

"Umm… It appears to be a riddle. I'll read it out loud. 'Did you properly count your steps? How many stairs is there after you reached midway through the staircase?.' And… that's it."

"That's really evil… Is he really a human?" murmured Misha.

"Is this a Gate of Wisdom? If it is, I don't think he's have enough DP to build it… Still…" After thinking for a few moments, Haku woke up from her momentarily stupor.

"Did anyone of you count how many stairs we passed by?"

When Haku inquired, no one answered her in affirmation. Looks like none of them thought that puzzle door would ask this question to them.

"Fine, since we don't know how many stairs it is, we need to go down and count it from the top. Go, now!"

At Haku's urging, her retainers ordered all of the monsters to once again to down the long staircase just to count how many of them there is.

"Yes!"

After a while, they finally got back, with the number of stairs in mind. However, when they looked at the wall where the question is posted, ready to answer it, they saw that the question on the wall already changed.

"What!? Eh!? My lady, the question in the wall changed!?"

"What did you say!? So all of our effort of going up and down was all for naught!? *sigh*… Never mind. What does it say now?"

"Umm… it says, 'The answer is simple. You mustn't think too hard about this. Please tell me how to split one silver coin between three people.'"

"How to split one silver coin between three people…? Um, one silver coin is worth one hundred copper coins, so…" Haku smiled as she watched Dolce start to count on her fingers.

"I know the answer to this. First, you convert the silver coin into one hundred copper coins. Then, you hand the copper coins one by one to each individual, and give the final copper coin to whoever handed out the coins as payment for their labor. In other words, two of them get thirty-three copper coins, and the third one gets thirty-four." A question as simple as that was nothing to Haku, an experienced Dungeon Core with a long history of dealing with riddles and puzzles.

"Fantastic, my lady!"

"That answer certainly satisfies the question."

"I could not imagine a more perfect answer."

"And there you have it! Open up, door! A riddle of this level would never be able to stop our lady, Dungeon Core Number 89!"

The floor beneath their monsters collapsed.

"Eh?!"

"What?!"

"But how?!"

An uncomfortable atmosphere filled the [Ivory Proving Grounds'] Core Room. The entire floor of the puzzle room was a pitfall… and it led to the dungeon's entrance.

"But why?! My answer should have been perfect…!" Haku bellowed. Thankfully, Chloe was there to quickly try and calm her down.

"L-Let's just calm down! I-I mean, look, our entire army wasn't in the room, so we're still safe! We can solve this really soon! U-Um, how many were wounded in the fall?!"

"Ah! E-Er, one of the minotaurs broke his ankle. He won't be able to fight anymore. Two of the minotaurs died from the fall, and… all three lizardmen survived. But every goblin that fell died! To list off the survivors, we have six minotaurs, twelve lizardmen… minus the three that fell… and eight goblins left!"

Haku squeezed her fists tightly and choked out her next order.

"Use the three surviving lizardmen to carry away the wounded minotaur. Ngh…! I cannot believe I failed after being so confident in my answer! This is humiliating! I'll rip apart the wounded minotaur and mount his corpse on my wall so I never forget this shame!"

"M-My lady, let's try answering the riddle again, using only a single goblin! We can move our entire army again if we answer it correctly!"

"…B-But that would be shameful, and its cowardice! You do realize that Number 695 is watching us, don't you?!" Haku replied. However, her angry reply was just met with Chloe's ice cold voice.

"I think we should prioritize winning here…"

"Th-They've conquered the fourth floor! The rats are moving like trained soldiers, we can't stop them!"

"My lady!" Chloe was silently begging Haku to realize that there was simply no time. And Haku, experienced as she was, made her decision.

"Very well… We will boldly, BOLDLY, use goblins here!"

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(Shun's POV)

Here I am, watching as Haku fail each and every time in her attempt in solving the puzzle door we made.

Actually, I only placed around six questions, not counting the trolling question that I added at the last second. Maybe I'll add some variations of that so that people may not solve it so easily.

Aside from that troll of a question, I added quite a few questions in that door.

For example, this one: 'There are twenty-two orphans living inside an orphanage. One day, the Head Mistress of the orphanage brought a basket filled with 22 apples. If the children equally distributed each apple, each of them getting one, why is there still one apple inside the basket?'

However, due to her being too intelligent, Haku fell into a quagmire that she created herself. She's way too creative and imaginative for her own good.

Nevertheless, her answers are quite amusing, to say the least.

"The child ate his and stole the other child's apple secretly before hiding it inside the basket!"

Poof, wooosh… crash!

"He stole one apple from someone else's orchard before putting it in a basket!"

Poof, wooosh… crash!

There's also the other questions like: 'What gets wet when drying?' and 'A boy and a doctor went fishing. The boy was the doctor's son but the doctor wasn't the boy's father. Who is the doctor?'.

I almost felt sorry for her. Ah, here she is again! What's the question? Oh, the silver coin one.

"The extra copper coin becomes the party's shared property, while the other ninety-nine coins are split equally!"

Poof, wooosh… crash!

Next question: Mary's mother had four children; Uno, Dos, and Tres were the first three. What's the name of the 4th child?

"…Quatro! This is so easy! Ah! Why!?"

Poof, wooosh… crash!

Next question, the apple one.

"One of the orphans is a slave so he didn't get an apple!"

Poof, wooosh… crash!

Ah, I feel bad. She's completely fallen for it.

Though, as expected, she started sending out only a single goblin after getting the riddle wrong once. Hm… should I try to block off the door if there's not enough weight on the room's floor?

"Hey, Shun… Isn't that silver coins riddle and Mary riddle the one I…?"

"Yep. Those are the ones you solved with an average time of five seconds, Rokuko. You're incredible. I'm sincerely impressed. You didn't even read the entire riddle before answering."

"W-Well, that's because it told me the answer at the start! I can't believe Number 89 is struggling so much with it…"

"This kind of riddle is harder the smarter you are. Once you get stuck, it's really hard to realize what's going on. And I mean, wow, your older sister really is smart. I'm actually really impressed with all the wild answers she's thinking up on the spot." I watched Haku's troops out of the corner of my eye while guiding the rats through her dungeon.

They were a lot easier to control now that so many of them had died. I might even be able to win this without going out there myself or sending out Tsuka…

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(Haku's POV)

Poof, wooosh… crash! Due to a wrong answer, another goblin fell down the pitfall.

"GAAAH!"

"My ladyyy!" Haku had completely fallen into the puzzle's trap.

No matter how hard or long she thought, every answer was wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong…! Everything she thought up was wrong!

"Ngh, how fearsome…! I didn't expect such a psychological attack during a Dungeon Battle like this…"

"Um, my lady… Is this truly a [Gate of Wisdom]…?"

A [Gate of Wisdom] is a special dungeon trap that tests the wisdom of invading adventurers. It was an incredibly sturdy door, but anyone could pass through it if they solved its riddle.

Haku had challenged the riddle on the plaque assuming that the door before her was in fact a [Gate of Wisdom]. However, what if it wasn't?

"…Wh-What? Do you have any evidence that it is not, Chloe?"

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※~To be continued~※

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Author's Remarks:

※ Hahaha, it's fun to think up of riddles and all but it's a lot easier to find one on the internet without breaking a sweat. I guess internet could be helpful sometimes.