The forest suddenly grew restless.
Just as Darwin had guessed, when Joey canceled his Shrink Magic and reverted to his giant form, the surrounding environment responded in kind.
The trees at his feet began to grow frantically, like dozens of venomous snakes lunging up from the ground to strike at various parts of Joey's body.
Knees, wrists, shoulders, back, chest...
Any spot that could easily become a weakness or a point for an opponent to restrain him in combat was within their attack range!
The attack speed of these trees was incredibly fast, evolving to heights of forty or fifty meters in the blink of an eye. Each trunk was as thick as a house, making them nearly impossible to guard against or avoid.
Facing the trees attacking from all directions, Joey didn't panic at all; he simply threw punches and kicked out.
However, with his giant physique, even a simple movement was enough to make the entire forest shake.
In an instant, massive sounds echoed through the sky above the forest.
Bang— Crack— Boom—!!
Accompanying those thunderous noises, a massive amount of splintered wood and falling leaves cascaded from the air like a torrential rainstorm.
"Look!"
Darwin shouted: "Mr. Joey is indeed being targeted!!"
"As one of the few A-rank wizards in the guild, he already had a high probability of receiving 'special attention' in this examination. To think he'd actively expose himself now—he's far too impulsive!"
Erza nodded, finding Darwin's reasoning very sound, so she asked: "Then, should we go help him now?"
"Help him with what?!"
"This is the guild's ranking examination; we can't just step in and help others at will!"
"Furthermore, with our strength, the help we could offer would be very limited anyway!"
"What we need to do now is take advantage of the fact that he's distracting Uncle Warrod and hurry up to find the 'Golden Lion Coin'!"
Oh, right!
Erza came to a sudden realization.
Even if the battle before her eyes was exaggerated, in the end, it was just guild members fighting each other!
Does a day go by in the guild where members aren't fighting?
They weren't fighting enemies from a Dark Guild, so what was there to worry about?
Thinking this, Erza breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
"Then, Darwin! Do you know where the 'Golden Lion Coin' is?"
"About that... I haven't a clue!"
While answering, Darwin flew away from the range of the forest labyrinth and landed on the top of a large tree. He reverted to his true form and sat down, joining Erza in trying to figure out the true nature of the examination's key object: the "Golden Lion Coin."
"I've never heard of something called a 'Golden Lion Coin,' so nine times out of ten, it's a name the Question-Setter made up."
"The Question-Setter... that would be the Guild Master, then?!"
"Yeah, most likely!"
Darwin nodded with certainty: "Since it's an exam, they won't set a puzzle without an 'answer.' It's unlikely they'd make everyone in the guild search a forest for an object that no one even knows the appearance of."
"So, to determine what the 'Golden Lion Coin' is, we have to analyze it from its name!"
"The name?"
Erza's eyes flickered as she lowered her head to think: "If we go strictly by the name, it could be a 'gold coin with a lion pattern engraved on it.' And since the exam allows multiple people to pass, there's likely more than one coin..."
"In other words, the Guild Master might have prepared a large number of those coins and scattered them throughout the forest!"
"But even if that's the case, it's not much easier than finding a needle in a haystack!"
This forest wasn't small. Without more specific clues, trying to find "gold coins with a lion pattern" with just two people wouldn't be simple.
"Besides, even if we find a Golden Lion Coin, we don't know who to give it to!"
"We still have no clue who the Question-Setter for the second stage is!"
The air fell silent for a moment.
A few minutes later, Darwin decided to try a different approach.
"Or, could we break down the 'Golden Lion Coin' into parts to analyze it?"
"What do you mean?"
"If we treat the three words 'Gold,' 'Lion,' and 'Coin' as the answers to three questions: 'What is it?', 'Where is it?', and 'Who do we give it to?', then it becomes much simpler!"
Eh??
Is there such a way to solve it?
Come to think of it, it might actually work!
"That's it! It has to be like that!"
The more Darwin thought about it, the more he felt he was right, and his voice grew excited.
"If my way of thinking is correct, then 'Gold' represents the answer to 'What is the Golden Lion Coin?'!"
"Erza, when you hear the word 'Gold,' what's the first thing you think of??"
Erza was momentarily stunned: "Well... it would be the color gold, bullion, or metal. Then there's sunlight, the beach, and wheat."
Darwin nodded.
His associations were similar to Erza's.
"And 'Lion'?"
Erza replied instinctively: "For 'Lion,' it should be the animal, right? So we could associate it with 'felines,' 'King of the Savannah,' and 'mammals'..."
Darwin frowned: "None of those feel like concepts that link to a specific 'location.' Is there anything else?"
"If we look from another direction, there's power, courage, authority, confidence, the sun, fire, the constellation Leo..."
"Ah, that's it!!"
Darwin's eyes suddenly lit up, and he loudly interrupted Erza.
"That's the one: the constellation Leo!"
"Since my family has several Zodiac Celestial Spirit keys, I know a little bit about constellations."
"When observed from Magnolia, Leo usually hangs in the southern sky!"
"In other words, the thing we're looking for is in... the southern part of this forest!"
Following Darwin's powerful deduction, the expression on Erza's face was gradually replaced by excitement.
Looking at the girl's reaction, Darwin couldn't help but feel smug.
"Well? How about that?"
"You seeing through the forest labyrinth earlier was definitely impressive, but I'm not bad myself, right?"
"Mhm, mhm!!"
Erza nodded repeatedly, her eyes full of admiration. "You really have some skills. Sometimes you're actually quite smart!!"
"...You can leave out 'sometimes' and 'actually.' I was already smart to begin with, okay?!"
"Now we know the true face of the object and its location. That just leaves who to give it to, right?"
Erza continued the analysis: "'Coin' refers to money, currency, property, or economic concepts. Currently, I only know of two types of currency: the money we use in daily life, and the virtual currency used on magic phones..."
"There's no need to make it that complicated!"
Darwin chuckled: "The person in the guild who loves money the most is Uncle Yuri!"
"The person we're looking for must be him!"