Jobless Transmigration: I'm the only one who loves monsters.-Chapter 113

Chapter 113:

There was something about this first stage that nagged at him, seemingly refusing to settle into place no matter how he turned it over in his mind.

To him, it looked too easy, straightforward and very much lacking for a test of this so called Witchers Academy. As if he was on the bring of finding the hidden depths that institutions like this one were famous for.

Princess Lucinda, he noticed, had also remained motionless for some time after the test began. She stood near her own chosen pedestal, her beautiful features twisted into an expression of suspicion that mirrored his own internal state quite closely.

But as she watched the other examinees making seamless progress on their puzzles, observing puzzle after puzzle approaching completion all around her, her hesitation finally crumbled.

She approached her pedestal, opened her wooden box, and began to work, while she had started quite late, her sharp and precise movements allowed to quickly catch up with some examinees who’d started earlier.

One by one, all those who had initially been suspicious, as if they’d sensed something off about this apparently simple test, eventually set aside their doubts and joined the fray. The pressure of watching others succeed and seeing puzzle after puzzle near completion while they themselves had not even begun, proved too much for them to resist.

Within a relatively short span of time, one person remained standing apart from the general frenzy of activity.

Lucuis stood alone now, positioned at a distance from everyone else, watching everything unfold in silence with a perplexed expression firmly etched upon his features. He observed an examinee who was already perhaps forty percent done with their puzzle, pieces constantly fitting together and the look on his face grew even more troubled than before.

"Is it really that simple?" He asked himself the question silently, his mind racing through possibilities and probabilities, still trying to figure out the countless ways this could still go wrong. "Is there truly nothing more to this than what appears on the surface?" 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Something told him that the answer to that question was no. He firmly believed that the academy would not make anything this easy, and that there was a trap here somewhere, a hidden layer that everyone else was too busy to notice. But for the life of him, standing there in that ancient hall surrounded by hundreds of busy, focused examinees, he could not yet see what that trap might be.

Just when he was about to give up on his suspicions entirely and convince himself that perhaps the academy really had decided to be merciful this year, Lucuis noticed something peculiar that caused his eyes to shimmer with renewed interest and attention.

Some of the examinees whose puzzles had been nearing completion, who had been fitting pieces together with confidence and speed just moments ago, suddenly began to frown in confusion and frustration, their hands rummaging desperately into their wooden boxes as if they had hit some unexpected bottleneck that none of them had anticipated.

At first he paid it no particular heed, assuming that these individuals had simply encountered a difficult section of their puzzle that required more careful thought and attention. But as more and more time passed, and as the frustrated sounds spread throughout the hall like ripples across a pond.

he noticed the exact same reaction coming from several other examinees as well, then dozens, then what seemed like hundreds of them, all wearing the same expression of bewildered frustration as they dug through boxes that apparently no longer contained the pieces they needed.

That was when the thought crystallized in his mind, the realization that had been hovering at the edges of his consciousness since this test first began. It was not that these examinees were running out of pieces in the sense that they had used them all, no, that wasn’t quite right since he could see their boxes were overflowing with pieces.

He shook his head lightly as the thought in his mind became clearer and more focused, the pieces of this meta-puzzle finally clicking into place just as the physical pieces on those pedestals refused to do for their frustrated owners. It was not that they were running out of pieces at all, but rather that they did not have the specific pieces they were looking for. Their boxes, for whatever reason, simply did not contain the final components needed to complete their individual puzzles.

His eyes shimmered even more brightly as this realization took hold, a slow smile spreading across his features that spoke of understanding dawning and a sudden plan forming in his head.

’ So that was it! That was the hidden layer, the true test beneath the apparent test.’

’ The academy had not made this easy at all. They had simply made the trap invisible to those who rushed in without thinking, for all those who assumed that the straightforward path was the only path. In a way, this test could be said to be a test of ones cognitive thinking and observational skills.’ he concluded to himself.

Without wasting another moment, he approached a pedestal to begin his own attempt at the puzzle, and strangely enough, the only available one within easy reach happened to be positioned not too far away from where Princess Lucinda stood working on her own scattered pieces.

Seeing him draw near, settling into place so close to her personal space, Lucinda shot him a glare that could have melted steel, her eyes promising all kinds of retribution for his continued existence in her vicinity.

Lucuis simply ignored her completely, not out of any desire to provoke but because he genuinely had no choice in the matter.

The pedestals had clearly been fixed in number based on the total count of examinees present, and this was the only empty spot remaining. If the princess chose to interpret his presence as some further insult, that was entirely her own problem to manage.

Taking a deep breath to center himself, Lucuis began attempting to complete his puzzle, his mind focused rather than spread out.