Off Work, Then I Become a Magical Girl

Book 2: Chapter 187: Puzzle Solving

Vol 2 Chapter 187 Puzzle Solving Standing before the wall, the three members of Veronica’s team exchanged glances. They all noticed the incredibly conspicuous sight, but none knew what it actually was, so they silently hoped that someone else might have a clue.

But obviously, no one did.

Even Veronica, who had participated in previous examinations, was completely clueless because the practical examination projects changed every year. Perhaps this maze-walking project had appeared in some previous year's exam, but definitely not in the year she took it. Now, although her abilities and experience as a Magical Girl surpassed these kids, her knowledge of the exam rules and accumulated information was no different from that of ordinary peers.

“What should we do?”

“Let’s go study it.”

“...Okay.”

After a brief decision, the three stepped forward together and stood next to the wall.

For the sake of team safety, they didn’t investigate it together. Valerian silently took the lead, placing her hand on the wall and activating magical resonance.

In Veronica’s sight, Valerian’s magical resonance instantly overlapped with the glowing light on the wall. Besides the change in magical energy, Valerian herself froze in front of the wall, as if she suddenly turned into a statue, completely motionless.

This process lasted a moment. Just as Veronica began to doubt if something had gone wrong, Valerian withdrew her hand.

“How is it?”

Veronica asked, watching her.

“I roughly know what’s going on.”

Valerian’s expression was somewhat inexplicable. “This is an extra checkpoint.”

“Extra checkpoint?”

“Yes. There’s something buried inside this wall. I tried to extract it, but it didn’t seem to have any effect,” Valerian said without holding back.

After realizing it wasn’t some kind of trap, Veronica and Dogtail Grass no longer hesitated. They stepped forward and used magical resonance on the wall as well. With a stretched and distorted sensory feeling, a rather complicated image appeared in Veronica’s mind.

At the center of the image was a glowing orb radiating light and magical resonance. Judging by the characteristics of its energy waves, this orb was likely the reason the wall was constantly shining.

Veronica tried to touch it with her magic. The orb trembled slightly under the touch of her magical energy, proving it indeed existed within the wall before them. However, when Veronica tried to push it further using magic, the orb seemed locked in place by some force, completely immobile.

Taking a closer look, surrounding the orb were plant stems and branches forming a “passage” as wide as the orb’s diameter. These passages collectively formed a pattern that was unmistakably a “maze.”

Such a complex design could not be a coincidence. The glowing orb inside the wall and the small maze imprisoning it were most likely the "extra content" the head examiner had not explicitly mentioned, hidden within this round of the practical exam.

From the visual cues, to complete this extra content, they would probably have to find a way to extract the orb from within the maze—so how exactly?

It was known that magic couldn’t move the orb inside the maze, so to take the orb out, one would clearly need to pass through the maze surrounding it. But how to do that? Was there some undiscovered mechanism nearby to move the orb? Or was it the other way around—the wall itself could be moved?

Veronica pondered this as she walked back and forth along the glowing wall but found no controllable mechanisms. She tried pushing the wall with magic again, but it showed no reaction.

Just as she was about to try further, Dogtail Grass hesitantly spoke up:

“Could this... be a treasure map?”

Her suggestion immediately drew the attention of the other two.

“You mean... look, the maze on the wall has a long exit at the upper left corner. Judging by the scale and position, it’s quite similar to the wall in front of us. Could it be possible that the wall here... is the exit shown on the map for the orb?”

Under the gaze of the other two, Dogtail Grass nervously tried to organize her words: “Then, if we work backward from this point... maybe the orb on the map corresponds to something real, and it actually exists inside the maze beneath our feet?”

“A treasure map, huh...” After hearing Dogtail Grass’s analysis, Veronica couldn’t help but look up and scrutinize the wall again.

“Sounds somewhat possible.” Valerian, however, was more action-oriented. Finding Dogtail Grass’s reasoning reasonable, she immediately followed the maze map on the wall and turned sharply to the right—

Bam!

A few seconds later, under Veronica and Dogtail Grass’s watchful eyes, Valerian firmly collided with another wall.

“...Well, seems like that was wrong.”

With a red mark on her face, Valerian calmly returned to her original spot, as if nothing had happened, and continued analyzing: “Although the exit’s position on the map is roughly the same as the wall in front of us, the maze on the map doesn’t match the actual layout we’re in. For example, the path on the right side—it shows on the map as a clear route you can walk all the way down and then turn...”

She pointed to the right side. “But in reality, there’s a dead end on our right.”

“No, it’s obviously a dead end just by looking, why did you have to run into it?” Dogtail Grass couldn’t help but object. “I was just suggesting a possibility, don’t be so reckless!”

“But until we actually run into it, we can’t rule out the possibility that the dead end we see is an illusion, and the maze on the map is the real route.”

Perhaps because the collision had hurt a bit, Valerian rubbed her forehead: “Unfortunately, I tried, and the maze drawn on the wall probably isn’t a real map.”

“Even so, that was way too reckless...” Dogtail Grass muttered quietly, then offered another possibility: “Then, could it be a map of another floor? The same position on a different level or something?”

“No, there’s still a pretty good chance it’s the map of this floor. Also, if the wall showed a map of other floors, and this maze has so many levels, it would be too difficult to find anything, which doesn’t fit the nature of an ‘exam.’ A question that can’t be solved through logical reasoning but requires exhaustive trial doesn’t appeal aesthetically to the examiners.”

At some point, Veronica had placed her hand on another wall, using the maze’s magical technique to sense the surrounding area, then withdrew her hand: “I think what you said makes a lot of sense, so I checked the actual maze map again and compared it with the map on the wall. I found something very interesting.”

“What is it?” Dogtail Grass couldn’t help but ask. Valerian also showed an expression of eager analysis.

“Here, here, and here.”

Veronica sketched a map in midair with her magic and placed it beside the wall so the two maps could be compared side by side. “Although this is only part of it, there are some exits that are common to both maps.”

She didn’t hide her discovery, because the other two had already provided plenty of analysis. She was just building on that foundation. As she spoke, she layered the map she drew onto the wall map, completely overlapping the two: “Look, if we want to get through this part, although most paths are dead ends, it’s not completely impassable.”

“In other words, it’s not that the wall map conflicts with the actual maze map...” Dogtail Grass whispered.

“...But that overlapping the two maps is the real treasure map?” Valerian already understood Veronica’s meaning.

“Yeah, and on this basis, other guesses can be made. But that depends on us actually finding the locations on the map first.”

Veronica retracted her magic and looked at the other two: “Anyway, let’s set off first. If this really is a treasure map, we don’t want other teams arriving here before us and beating us to it.”