Chapter 51
Puzzling Secrets
Mary stood almost defiantly in one of the four types of special room that she had discovered during her exploration. Months ago, just as her exploration of the palace secrets had properly started, the young princess had wondered why Sylvia had looked at her with such a frustrating mix of smug amusement.
Especially when Mary had so confidently told her maid that she would soon uncover all that there was to find in those well-lit passageways.
Things had gone remarkably well at first; perhaps that, combined with Sylvias' reaction, should have been the first hint that things would not progress in the way that Mary had expected.
Discovering how to follow the hidden mana lines had proven to be difficult, but the aspiring mage had ultimately managed to do so. In the weeks following her initial success, the princess further developed her ability until she could follow the hidden mana network without physically touching the wall.
It had been so objectively simple that at the time the smug princess had not considered that Elizabeth would have long since gained such a skill.
That was the second hint.
After she no longer needed to keep a hand on the wall, it had been relatively trivial for the young mage to ensure that her connection to the mana lines was firm enough so that the slightest distraction would no longer cause her to lose her place.
Prior to that particular advancement in her capability, she would often have to start again. It had been incredibly frustrating for the princess.
But, afterwards, in the weeks following her breakthrough, in between distractions from the newly attenuative maids and after she had satisfied her need to continue her magical studies.
The princess had explored and more importantly mapped the hidden passageways.
This was something that Sylvia had actively encouraged, telling her that it would be good practice for the dungeon diving that she would almost certainly take part in when she was older. The princess acknowledged and understood from her maid's explanation that many dungeons contained difficult-to-find secrets, which often concealed valuable paths or treasures.
Or perhaps even trials with rewards at the end.
The other part of the princess had dismissed the explanation for now, correctly assuming that the battle-hungry maid would fully educate her princess on what she knew of dungeons in the years and months preceding any such expedition.
It had been another hint that things wouldn’t be as simple as she would have liked.
And yet, the knowledge that she would be avoiding the subject of dungeon diving for the better part of a decade certainly ensured that it was an easy distraction to ignore.
No matter how interested she was in learning such subjects, Mary could privately admit that she was incredibly curious about them.
This was hardly surprising, as magic was slowly becoming the princess’s passion, in the same way that biology had been for Alexander.
“But!”
Mary muttered through gritted teeth, her defiance at the annoying room taking on a frustrated tint.
Many of the rooms that she had discovered through the secret passageways were in some way directly connected to the main palace.
Most of the exits were in often disused rooms.
A handful of the exits could be found in hallways, only some of which were regularly frequented.
In the passageways there were even equally hidden ladders; if they could be found, then people could climb the hidden floors and, as such, could even reach a handful of secret palace exits.
That was how Mary had discovered the palace stables and the horrors that existed there.
Mary shook her head furiously to dismiss the nascent trauma, focusing instead on what the princess had concluded were the true secrets of the Midgard palace.
Eventually, Mary had mapped the entirety of the passages, and as such, she, by now, at least in theory, had a secret means to get to almost anywhere in the palace. And that was without being detected; she didn’t even need to use her invisibility and stealth spells that she had been working on.
But that was what had led the princess to discover what had caused Sylvia to be so annoyingly smug and amused at her princess's seemingly misplaced confidence.
Mary had discovered four different types of puzzle room, one of which she had been glaring at for the last hour.
It was something that she had done frequently since she had first discovered the room.
However, these puzzle rooms were not entirely unique.
The first type of puzzle, the type that Mary was currently standing in and that she had deemed the easiest to figure out, was, by far, the most common.
There were just shy of a dozen of the type-one puzzle rooms spread across the entire palace. But none of this had helped Mary solve any of the apparently identical puzzles and discover what her ancestor had deemed worthy of such protection.
When asked about those rooms, Sylvia had laughed in a way that Mary had at the time assumed was helplessly. The maid had told her princess that she didn’t know for certain where the type-one puzzles led.
In doing so, the maid had revealed that she had never managed to figure out even the easiest of the puzzle rooms. Such as the very room that the princess was currently standing in.
A future version of Mary would look back at the phrasing that her maid had used and realise that Sylvia had mischievously misled her, once again using what was ultimately a harmless situation to try to teach her charge something that she had deemed important.
That future version of Mary would still be incredibly annoyed at the maid despite the usefulness of the lesson.
The second, third and fourth types of puzzle room were far more unique, and Mary had deemed the puzzles associated with each not only much harder to break but also of an escalating difficulty.
For the second puzzle rooms, there were three such puzzles spread across the palace.
Mary had reasonably assumed that whatever these puzzles guarded, much like the type ones, were probably identical or at least had the same purpose.
The third and fourth puzzle rooms were totally unique and relatively close to each other.
When asked again, Sylvia had eventually told the princess that those two rooms in particular either shouldn’t exist or were in some sort of dead space in the palace floor plan.
It was with this information that Mary concluded that they were likely the most important of the hidden rooms – a conclusion that was even easier to reach when one considered that the puzzles associated with them were visibly much more complex.
All of which lead the princess back to this frustrating place.
The room that Mary was currently standing in was the most common and widely distributed type of puzzle room.
She had returned to this room in particular for weeks now, attempting to figure out the incredibly annoying puzzle that the Midgard founder had created.
Furthermore, it was the closest such room to her quarters, and as such, she could reach it quickly to glare at the walls and make an attempt. The fact that Sylvia was encouraging her to come to this particular room at a certain time was suspicious, but Mary had assumed it was harmless.
There was a logical and yet annoying restriction that the founder had presumably built into all of the rooms. The restriction meant that the puzzles were not truly brute-forceable; what caused this limitation was actually quite ingenious, because the puzzles could only be attempted once every twelve hours.
Something about the magic that guards the way locked up if you failed, and it only released the lock hours later; the lock even spread across all of the puzzle rooms, further proving that they were all connected.
Part of the princess appreciated the high security that the room demonstrated; it was a good idea even. But if there were hints on how to get through the lock, then she had not found them, at least not in the palace.
But as she had explored the puzzle that she was glaring at, she realised that there was one place that she had found hints, at least for this particular type of puzzle.
And frustratingly, annoyingly, that place was in Alexander's memories.
“I still cannot believe that the founder employed a video game puzzle for palace security.”
Mary said resentfully.
{You’d be less upset about it if Alexander had actually played that old game.}
One of her second minds retorted, causing many of the others to opt in with their own increasingly divergent opinions.
{It was a century-old relic.}
{Well, it had been popular enough that we could recognise a puzzle in that century-old relic. Otherwise, we wouldn’t know about it, now would we?}
{Presumably, whatever this door hides is something that the founder didn’t mind otherworlders knowing about.}
Mary deeply exhaled as the second minds within her muttered to each other in agreement.
The real problem, as they had said, was that while she could recognise the origin of this puzzle, she didn’t know enough to solve it quickly.
Which is why she had been making attempts over the last few weeks.
Of course, as the puzzle was entirely mana based, and to solve it required a degree of mana control that she didn’t previously have.
The princess was rightly treating this room as a sort of training room for her mana perception and control, if nothing else.
Knowing that her mother, the mage princess Elizabeth, had failed to solve even the easiest puzzle in the collection of puzzle rooms, despite her far greater magical knowledge, was not at all reassuring.
A future Mary would curse herself at the arrogant thought when Sylvia eventually revealed that the type one puzzle is the only one that Elizabeth had actually solved. Even more so when the frustrating maid would eventually tell her that Elizabeth was close to solving the type-twos when she was betrayed.
As such, in other circumstances Mary would have resigned herself to only solving the type one puzzle room, as it was the only one she could recognise from Alexander's memories.
Brute forcing even the type two puzzle might very well take decades.
But she had a perceived advantage, or even several.
While Alexander had not been particularly educated or interested in cryptology, he had still received a modern education in mathematics and had still done at least some degree of modern encryption. Mary quickly became convinced that both of these truths are what will ultimately allow the princess to open this door and, hopefully, the others.
In the end, somebody with the education of the early twenty-first century might have failed to figure out these puzzles in a descent timeframe, unless they knew them by heart from their digital source.
Someone from Terra would definitely have failed, as the education on this world appears to be dire. Even a skilled mage like Elizabeth would presumably have been relying mostly on luck.
But Mary had been working hard to use all of the knowledge that she had inherited, and yesterday she had finally mapped the entire puzzle out. The final map had been internally stored so that the second minds could finish simulating a proper solution during the night.
The result was the ultimate source of the frustration that she was currently feeling; as soon as the second minds had figured out the solution, they had finally recognised it for what it was.
And the consequence of this knowledge had caused the princess to genuinely start to hate her long-dead ancestor.
“Let’s do this then.”
Mary shakes her head again and sighs.
The princess reaches out to the wall, as she had done so for months now, and carefully aligns her mana with the puzzle lock.
Distantly, she wonders if part of the purpose of these puzzles was some sort of training for her ancestors' descendants, as she had certainly learned much from the experience.
But Mary dismissed the notion; she had found no mention or record of this place. It seemed certain that the existence of these puzzles had been almost immediately forgotten upon the founder’s death.
Carefully, the young mage traces her mana through the maze-like lock, slowly forcing the vaguely animal-shaped symbols into their respective places.
The princess exhales deeply as the last of them fall into place, her mana having not once overlapped or intersected.
Distantly, Mary hears the sound of clicking mechanisms slamming into place.
The princess closes her eyes in annoyance, knowing that it was an unnecessary embellishment. Everything in this room was based on magic and not at all reliant on physical mechanisms.
The now bare wall before her, unlike the other hidden doorways in the secret passage, did not slowly and dramatically fold into themselves. Instead, the wall that she had been glaring at simply vanished.
Mary did not know if it had been some sort of solid illusion or if it had been instantly teleported away. At that moment, neither option truly mattered to her, as she heard voices before she could scrutinise the now missing wall further.
Mary locked herself into place, quickly checking to make sure that her invisibility spell was still active.
Beyond the now open portal, the first thing that Mary saw was thick steam; distantly, she realised that she immediately smelt something that was familiar – the smell of a hot bath.
Echoing through the now linked rooms Mary heard something that she had not been expecting.
The sounds of women chatting to each other. Some of them were even familiar women.
Mary closed her eyes in utter frustration as she caught sight of a group of very familiar and very naked maids bathing.
Momentarily she would notice that they had not reacted to a wall disappearing, but all the princess could think of at that very moment was something else entirely.
‘That wretched pervert.’