Chapter 69: Entrance Puzzle

Once the mess had been cleaned, Cyanide, Kirika, and Silverfang set out. Of course, they still could not ride the sabertooth since they had no proper saddle, but he would still be a monster in battle.

Doctor Finch, as usual, was left behind to keep guard at their base, and he was quite happy to do so too. There would be no danger here, after all—at least, it was safer than wherever Cyanide and the others were going to. This time, however, Cyanide left him with a task—to write out a list of all the potions he could make along with the ingredients needed.

Doctor Finch, of course, wasn't happy about having to do work, but he was staying at Cyanide's place and eating Cyanide's food, so he couldn't really complain. It wasn't really Cyanide's, but this world was like a massive lost and found. Whoever got to something first, it's theirs now.

Outside, the sun was shining bright, and there were no mutants on the streets. Minus the collapsed buildings, fractured roads, and flipped vehicles, one could almost appreciate the weather. It wasn't too hot nor too cold, and judging from the weather alone, Cyanide guessed it was roughly the April or May months in spring, assuming the seasonal calender followed the same as Earth's northern hemisphere.

"So, where are we off to today?" Kirika asked, walking behind Cyanide. Despite her carefree school uniform getup with her sweater tied around her waist, her hand never once left the handle of her blade, sheathed within its scabbard on her hips.

"You'll see soon enough," Cyanide replied cryptically, not giving any details just yet.

"You said it's dangerous, right?" She continued, pestering for answers.

"Yes."

"Hm… and are we almost there?"

"Yes."

"And… you'll use me as bait, you said?"

"Should the need arise, yes."

Kirika sighed at long last. "Why are you always so cynical…"

"Why do you always have so many questions?" Cyanide shot back, not even bothering to look in her direction.

At this, Kirika pouted a bit, but didn't say anything back and instead fell into silence for the rest of the journey.

Soon, the trio arrived at their destination. It looked like… a whole lot of nothing.

"Um… where, exactly, is this?" Kirika asked, looking around. There were buildings all around them, from shops to apartments, but the place Cyanide was staring at had nothing at all—just a dead end, with a sign that said as much.

"…" Silently, he walked closer to the sign, and the other two followed despite being confused. Then, after consulting his holographic map once more, he nodded.

"This is the spot. Now then… how do we activate the entrance…"

"…?" Curious, Kirika opened up her own map as well, and saw that they were currently at a POI site—a Point of Interest, marked by a star on the map. Upon zooming in, however, she saw the string of text that was the name of this location—'Underground Laboratory'.

"Huh… so it's underground…" Kirika murmured to herself, and glanced at Cyanide who was busy inspecting the sign and searching for any clues of how to open it. Then, casting her gaze towards the sky, she smiled.

"Hey, Silver. Can you boost me up there?"

Silverfang, affectionately named Silver, trotted over and gave a nod. Cyanide paid no attention to them and continued searching on his own while Kirika stepped onto the sabertooth mutant's back, and steadied herself.

"Alright… go!"

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Silver launched himself into the air with agility worthy of a tiger, and Kirika used her own jump to cover the remaining distance. With an AGI stat of 120, she performed a graceful cartwheel in the air before landing solidly on the rooftop of a nearby building. Then, standing on the edge of it, she looked down at where she had been moments earlier, a smirk tugged on her lips.

"As expected…"

Smugly, she flashed a wink at Cyanide and declared:

"I figured it out."

Cyanide looked up, arching an eyebrow. "Oh? Enlighten me."

"When looking down from up there, I noticed that there were actually some faint lines on the ground that divide this area into nine separate tiles," Kirika explained. "I think to activate it, we'll need to step on these tiles in the right order, kind of like a puzzle."

"And the right order is…?"

"Hm…" Kirika fell into thought momentarily, then suddenly remembered. "Oh! Could it be… each of the nine tiles represent a number from 1-9, and we have to spell out the letters on that sign?"

"So… A1Z26 code, huh?" Cyanide narrowed his eyes at the sign as he rubbed his chin. "In that case… starting from the top left like any normal person would… this would be 1, this would be 2…"

The area here was a road's dead end, intersecting with another perpendicular road. The square at the center of the intersection was divided into nine tiles according to Kirika, so judging from the direction facing the sign and reading like a book, the top-left corner would represent 1 while the bottom-right corner would represent 9.

Without any hesitation, Cyanide stepped onto the second row tile in the first column—4 for D. Then, he moved one tile right under the direction of Kirika—5 for E—then crossed diagonally onto the top-left most one—1 for A. In the same manner, he stepped back to the tile he started on—D, and that was that for the first half of the sign.

Now for the second…

He stepped right once more into the E tile, but then stopped. What about now? According to A1Z26 code, N's corresponding number would be 16, but there were only 9 tiles here.

Kirika anxiously awaited Cyanide to ask her where to go next, since she had no idea either, but contrary to her expectations, Cyanide didn't ask her at all and instead simply went directly for the D tile without any hesitation.

Suddenly, a loud mechanical sound triggered, and the nine tiles that made up the intersection suddenly opened, revealing a large gaping hole that led to god knows what underneath. Cyanide, having been expecting something like this to happen, quickly evaded with a backwards leap, and peered down at the newly unlocked destination below.

Cyanide's maneuver had worked. But how did he know what to do?

The answer was simple—on the sign, the N was actually scratched out. Cyanide didn't know why or how that was the case, but he simply followed common sense and skipped the letter.

"… Well then-" Cyanide began, but suddenly, loud robotic noises could be heard coming from all around them. By now, both Cyanide and Kirika were used to what this noise was, and there was only one answer:

Mutants.

"Cyanide, a large group of mutants are heading to your location!" Luna said, suddenly appearing in a hologram. "The exact number is unknown, but… this can't be good news!"

She didn't need to tell him. The aura reading technique he learned from Kirika was more than enough to discern the sheer number of mutants rushing their way from the streets.

"Tch… jump in!" Cyanide shouted, then delved into the gaping hole in the ground below.

"A-Alright, here I go!" Kirika yelped as she followed, leaping off from the roof she had been standing on, and Silverfang entered last.

The bellows of the stampeding mutants was all they heard before they fell into darkness.

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