SILVER'S POV
I was right.
The answer was water.
For a moment, I simply stared at the screen in disbelief as the correct notification flashed before us.
"You must have some kind of bond with water," Natasha said, sounding genuinely impressed.
A faint smile tugged at my lips.
Zoah, however, wasn't smiling.
He was watching me.
Suspicion lingered in his golden eyes, sharp and unmistakable.
I frowned.
What exactly was he suspecting me of?
I was harmless.
Compared to him, I was practically insignificant. He was a Dragon God, an existence capable of shattering mountains and bending the world to his will.
I wasn't a dragon. I wasn't powerful. I couldn't possibly be a threat to someone like him.
Even if I wanted to be his rival, I'd never stand a chance.
Yet the way he looked at me made my stomach tighten.
And if I was being honest with myself...
Maybe he had a reason.
I wasn't exactly normal.
Who casually floated in water without trying?
Who kept seeing strange visions of oceans and storms?
Who constantly felt drawn toward the sea as though it were calling their name?
The signs were there.
The question was what they meant.
After this mission, I was going to find Uncle Charles.
He had been helping Zoah for a long time. If anyone knew something about my past, it was him.
I needed answers.
I needed to know why those visions haunted me.
Why water felt more familiar than land.
Why I occasionally slipped into trances and saw things that shouldn't exist.
Most importantly, I needed to know who I really was.
My fingers instinctively brushed against the necklace around my neck.
The necklace that refused to come off.
No matter how hard I tried, it remained there as though it had become part of me.
My family knew something.
I was certain of it.
The half-truths.
The evasive answers.
The nervous glances whenever I asked questions.
They were hiding something about my origins.
Whatever that secret was, I would uncover it.
Just as I intended to discover the connection between Uncle Charles and the mysterious Lord Lugard.
"This time, you're the one who isn't listening."
Zoah's voice shattered my thoughts.
I blinked and realized we were still trapped inside the riddle challenge.
"Repeat the question, Natasha," Zoah said.
Natasha groaned dramatically.
"Ugh. I hate being bossed around by the two of you."
Zoah shot her a look sharp enough to cut steel.
She immediately reconsidered whatever complaint she had been planning to make.
"Fine," she muttered.
Clearing her throat, she read aloud:
"I am, in truth, a yellow fork
From tables in the sky.
By inadvertent fingers dropped,
The awful cutlery of mansions high.
Never quite disclosed and never quite concealed,
The apparatus of the dark to ignorance revealed."
Silence followed.
My confidence evaporated.
"What the hell is that?"
For the first time since entering this nightmare of a game, panic crept into my voice.
Natasha exhaled heavily.
"Looks like we've got another poem."
"This isn't a poem," I groaned. "It's a final examination designed by a psychopath."
Natasha smirked.
"Oh? Then you should be able to solve it. You're the medical student."
I shot her an irritated look.
"When did I say it was a medical exam? It was a figure of speech."
"A science student trying to lecture an art graduate on literature?" she scoffed.
"That's adorable."
"Yeah. Whatever."
I wasn't in the mood.
Especially not for another one of her condescending remarks.
The last thing I wanted was for her to start mocking my family again.
I had tolerated it once.
I wasn't sure I'd tolerate it twice.
"Are you two finished?" Zoah asked, his patience visibly thinning.
Neither of us answered.
"Good."
He turned to Natasha.
"Input lightning."
My jaw nearly hit the floor.
"Wait... what?"
How had he solved that so quickly?
The answer couldn't possibly be that simple.
Natasha's eyes widened.
"My goodness... he's right."
Her fingers flew across the screen as she entered the answer.
Only then did I notice the countdown timer.
We had wasted far more time arguing than I realized.
The answer was submitted with only seconds remaining.
The screen flashed green.
Correct.
Relief washed over me.
"I thought it was thunder," I admitted. "I'm confused."
"Aren't they basically the same thing?" Natasha asked. "Isn't lightning what causes thunder?"
"Not exactly. Thunder is the sound produced when lightning rapidly heats the surrounding air. The air expands explosively and—"
"If I wanted a science lecture," Natasha interrupted, "I would've studied science."
I stopped talking.
"Save the explanation for your future students. None of them are here."
The words struck harder than they should have.
I forced my expression to remain neutral.
No reaction.
No argument.
No satisfaction for her.
But inwardly, irritation burned through me.
I could never be friends with this girl.
She was arrogant, sharp-tongued, and infuriatingly proud.
And the more time I spent around her...
The more convinced I became that one day she was going to push me too far.
Zoah was right.
That round was finally over.
The moment the system confirmed our success, a low mechanical hum echoed through the chamber.
Then, without warning, a new elevator door materialized before us.
I didn't hesitate.
I slammed my palm against the button.
For several tense seconds, nothing happened.
Then the doors slowly slid open.
A chill crawled down my spine.
Something about what waited beyond felt... wrong.
We stepped inside, and moments later the elevator carried us upward into silence.
When the doors opened again, I immediately understood why.
This room was enormous.
No.
Calling it a room would have been an insult to its size.
It was a hall, vast enough to swallow every chamber we had encountered since entering this nightmare.
And for the first time since the game began...
We weren't alone.
Puppets.
Hundreds of them.
My breath caught.
Some were elegantly dressed, suspended from invisible strings as though waiting to perform a grand dance.
Others stood motionless with painted smiles stretched across their wooden faces, their mouths frozen in expressions that somehow felt disturbingly alive.
A few clutched musical instruments.
Others appeared designed for singing.
But it was the final group that made my blood run cold.
Warrior puppets.
Rows upon rows of them stood along the walls.
Each wore ancient armor.
Each carried a bow.
And every arrow was pointed directly at us.
Waiting.
Watching.
Ready.
As if they only needed permission to turn us into pincushions.
A shiver raced through me.
Whoever designed this place had a terrifying imagination.
My gaze swept across the hall until it landed on something at the center.
A glass enclosure.
Protected by layers of glowing barriers.
Inside rested a single herb.
Green mist curled from its leaves like poisonous breath escaping from the mouth of a sleeping monster.
The moment I saw it, my heart skipped.
Herb C.
It had to be.
Zoah had described it perfectly.
The poisonous herb.
The final ingredient.
The reason we had endured this insane game.
For a brief moment, hope surged through me.
We had found it.
After everything, the traps, the riddles, the near-death experiences, we had finally reached our destination.
I almost laughed from relief.
Soon we would leave this place.
Soon I could return home.
To my room.
To my bed.
To a life that didn't involve murderous puzzles and supernatural nightmares.
I could already picture myself curled beneath a blanket, writing every ridiculous detail of this adventure into my diary before sleeping for an entire week.
Unfortunately...
Herb C wasn't going to surrender itself so easily.
The giant system screen flickered to life above us.
A familiar sense of dread settled over my shoulders.
Another challenge.
Of course.
Why would the game let us win without making us suffer one last time?
As lines of glowing text appeared across the screen, realization dawned on me.
This wasn't an ordinary riddle stage.
This was something entirely different.
Puppet Riddles.
I frowned.
The rules appeared immediately afterward.
The puppets would perform demonstrations.
We would observe.
We would interpret their actions.
And then we would submit our answers through the system.
Simple in theory.
Terrifying in practice.
As I studied the room more carefully, I began to understand the purpose of each group.
The singing puppets were responsible for creating songs and clues.
The dancing puppets acted out performances that accompanied those songs.
A twisted theatrical production designed to hide answers behind symbolism and movement.
Entertainment, perhaps.
Or psychological torture.
At this point, the difference was becoming difficult to distinguish.
The warrior puppets served a much darker purpose.
They weren't performers.
They were executioners.
The system made that abundantly clear.
Wrong answers would be punished.
Immediately.
The arrows weren't decorations.
They were weapons.
One mistake.
One incorrect interpretation.
And those puppets would fill the room with arrows.
My throat tightened.
This was easily the most dangerous level we had faced.
The previous riddles had threatened failure.
This one threatened death.
And the cruelest part?
Herb C was right there.
Only a few meters away.
Close enough to see.
Close enough to touch.
Yet impossibly out of reach.
It would be a cruel irony to die staring directly at the very prize we had fought so hard to obtain.
"We need a strategy," I murmured.
Because guessing wasn't an option anymore.
Guessing would get us killed.
My eyes moved toward the final group of puppets.
There were five of them standing on a raised platform.
Unlike the others, they weren't dancing.
They weren't singing.
They weren't carrying weapons.
They simply stood there in silence.
Waiting.
Observing.
I studied them carefully.
Something about them felt important.
Different.
Special.
Then understanding struck.
These were the ones responsible for the riddles themselves.
The others existed to support the performances.
These five were the main actors.
The centerpiece.
The storytellers.
Though I doubted they had been built to speak.
No.
This challenge would rely entirely on demonstration.
Movement.
Symbolism.
Interpretation.
Which meant every gesture could be a clue.
Or a trap.
A heavy silence settled over the hall.
The singing puppets remained still.
The dancers waited motionlessly.
The warrior puppets held their bows at the ready.
And the five display puppets stared at us with lifeless eyes.
Waiting for the show to begin.
Waiting to test us one final time.
The final stage.
The last obstacle between us and Herb C.
A game where survival would depend not on strength, speed, or magic...
But on intelligence.
And for the first time since entering this cursed place, I had the unsettling feeling that raw intelligence alone might not be enough.