An odd box

Looking at the description of the mission, Ensen was baffled.

[Chain Mission 2: Testing the water]

[To ensure the safety of your future students, you must test the water quality by swimming in the lake for 1 hour before returning to land. After all, an unsafe lake would be detrimental to the future growth of your academy.]

[Rewards]

[One EP]

[Access to next chain mission]

'This is the worst excuse you could have come up with! You just want me to swim!' Ensen yelled in his mind, unwilling to swim in the lake even though it was beautiful.

'Plus, look at me. Does it look like I'm ready to swim?' He said, trying to elicit sympathy from the system. Regrettably, the system was having none of it.

[Time to enter the water: 30:00]

Deciding not to fight the system any longer, he slowly started his car up and made his way back to the plot of land. After arriving and noticing there were no cars in the area, he felt a little better about himself.

After gradually bringing the car to a halt a short distance away from the coast of the lake, he got out.

Pondering about what he should wear while swimming, he decided to take off his blue t-shirt. Although he debated with himself in his mind, he soon resigned himself to his fate and slowly took off his jeans as well.

Unwilling to let people see him like this, he quickly charged into the lake. But he forgot to factor in one thing, the sheer ice-cold water. While it was very hot in the surrounding area, the rather large lake coupled with the surrounding forests absorbing much of the radiating heat from the sun left the lake with very little heat to use.

Although the temperature had minimal effects on the lake, it was different for Ensen.

After jumping into the lake, Ensen felt his body quickly freeze up from the sudden change of temperatures. He decided to sit near the coast where the water was shallow, allowing up to half of his body being underwater. After waiting a few minutes, he began to recover, and it even started feeling a bit refreshing.

Assured that the water was safe to swim in, he used his feet to launch himself deeper into the lake. The water now covered nearly his whole body, but it didn't feel as cold as before.

Ensen spent the next while swimming around the section between the swallow end and where the lake began sloping much deeper. He didn't particularly like swimming over such a deep area, even if he knew in his heart that it would be completely fine.

He began to relax inside the water. The water seemed to have healing effects on his slightly sore body, as the aching feeling was swept away.

'Maybe these missions aren't so bad.' Ensen muttered under his breath while floating on his back, looking up at the collection of small clouds overhead.

After a little longer, a message finally showed up. The message Ensen was waiting for.

[Mission Complete: Testing the water]

[Rewards]

[One EP]

[Access to next chain mission]

With a satisfied smile, Ensen was proud that he earned yet another Education point. Although he still had no idea what their purpose was.

As Ensen decided to get out of the water, he noticed something behind the blue box as it gradually faded away. There was a small old wooden chest underwater, near where he was swimming.

After closer examination, there appeared to be locked. Although it appeared severely rusted and nearly falling apart after being submerged in water for so long. There was no guarantee that Ensen would be able to get it open, but he wanted to try it at least.

Ensen slowly swam over right above the location of the chest. After taking a deep breath, he began to dive down towards the chest. While he did struggle to get there, he eventually arrived next to the chest. Picking it up with a firm grip, he began to return to the surface. As he was swimming upwards, he noticed that the place where his hands were holding onto the chest began to slowly crumble apart.

Small pieces of old, rotten wood constantly broke off the chest and began floating on its own. Feeling like the chest wouldn't last much longer, he began trying to return to the surface even faster. Luckily, after a few more seconds he surfaced.

He quickly returned to the coast of the lake, near his car. After closely analyzing the chest, his face lit up in embarrassment after realizing he was standing in the open with only his underwear.

Hastily running towards the car, he quickly slipped on his pants and shirt disregarding he had not dried himself off at all. After slowly analyzing the surroundings, he breathed a huge sigh of relief after he did not detect anybody nearby.

Slowly approaching the chest, Ensen first tried to open the chest the actual way. He firmly pulled on the rust-covered lock, hoping the rust would assist him in breaking the lock. But surprisingly, while it did manage to crack a slight bit, it was still very firm.

After that, Ensen began winding up a kick when he realized his stupidity. While whatever was inside of the chest was likely ruined by now, his kick would only serve to make things worse. Thinking of his options, he swiftly walked towards the old schoolhouse and found a thin piece of wood.

Returning to the chest, he wedged the small wooden piece where his left hand previous was while he was carrying it. After a quick show of force, the board on the left side of the chest slowly began separating from the box. Now, only a few long nails were keeping the left-side of the chest attached. After a bit more pressure was applied, the board shattered into dozens of pieces. It littered the ground coupled with the nails.

An obvious safety hazard, Ensen slowly sorted the mess of his creation and found 16 individual nails in the pile. Putting them in his pocket, he returned to the box, his curiosity blazing.

He slowly lifted the right side of the box to force the contents out onto the bright grass.

After hearing an audible sound, he dropped the right side of the chest onto the ground and looked at what came out.

An old, tiny metal box was lying in the grass. The box itself was almost entirely covered by rust, with just a couple small spots of what appeared to be a grey metal texture. There was a little hole for a key to be entered at the center of the box.

Ensen looked at the box curiously. Unlike the chest, the box seemed like it was still pretty sturdy after all those years.

After analyzing the rest of the box, he did not find any flaws he could use to open it. Deciding to take it back home, he glanced at the pile of rotten wood on the ground. Figuring that it would be cleaned up later on before the academy opened, he assumed it would be fine to leave it there.

He slowly wandered back to his beaten-up car trying to hold back his rising curiosity. He placed the box on the floor of the front passenger's seat and quickly walked back towards the chest. Picking it up, he slowly walked around the coast a little before finding an area that went quite deep. Carefully throwing the chest into the water, he watched it slowly sink into the water, never seeing the light again.

'Nothing good would come of people knowing about this.' He reasoned with himself, although he felt a bit bad that he was destroying an old chest, even though it wasn't significant to history in any way and severely rotten. It would probably fall apart within hours even if it had tried to keep it.

After slowly returning to his car, he began his journey home. The ride towards the city but short and relatively traffic-free. But the city was a completely different story. Due to an accident on the main road through the city, traffic was severely backed up. Because of this, it took Ensen nearly double the amount of time it took previously.

Cooped up with a mysterious box that he couldn't open, Ensen's curiosity began growing even more. After a long drive, he finally made it home. With the rusted box in hand, Ensen quickly entered the building, went up the elevator, and entered his apartment. Luckily he hadn't met anybody, although it wouldn't be too bad if he did it simply saved some awkward looks.

After arriving in his apartment, he quickly entered the bathroom and yanked his clothing off, which at this point was stuck on him due to still being wet from the water. After his usual hot and long shower, he dressed in some random pajamas from his dresser. Afterward, he proceeded to head to the kitchen with the metal box. Taking out an old cloth from a drawer, he slowly rested the box on it.

Next, he began brainstorming on just how to open the box. He theorized many ideas and even tried some of them out. First, he took inspiration from movies he had watched and found 2 tiny metal rods to act as lockpicks. But that idea was thrown out quickly.

He also tried getting a knife wedged between the opening for the box, but noticed it was too small to achieve so. After thinking about just finding a hammer and smashing it open, he realized that it would defeat the whole point of trying to open it in the first place.

Slowly staring at the box, he admitted defeat temporarily and decided to head to bed. After crawling under his warm, comfortable sheets, he quickly dozed off.