Paths Are Man-Made

The final passage led directly into a space filled with mirrors. 💢♣ 🐺👍

As he stepped into this space, the passage behind him vanished, leaving only one path forward.

The end and sides of this sole path were also made of mirrors.

"That guy really used his game administrator status to go through a backdoor, didn't he," Su Wu stood in place, tapping the back of his neck as he grumbled.

This space was filled with mirrors, all of them broken. Some were shattered into just one or two pieces, yet stubbornly remained.

Each mirror was broken in its own unique way.

Fragments littered the ground, even down to dust.

In the dense arrangement of mirrors, among countless fragments, he saw himself performing the same action.

"Is this a jigsaw puzzle?" He bent down, picking up a shard from the ground. He felt its sharp edges, then looked thoughtfully at the broken mirrors around him.

The mirror space was about one hundred and fifty square meters.

He estimated there were at least ten thousand mirror shards on the ground, all irregularly shaped and without any pattern.

Even with marked puzzle pieces, ten thousand pieces was not something that could be completed in a short time.

"Ah... I'm going to die from blood loss..." Su Wu looked at the shattered mirrors and the fragments on the ground, preemptively stuffing paper into his nose.

He then carefully gathered the fragments on the ground, arranging them neatly by size. He noted the shape of every fragment, even the tiny shards that were barely visible.

This process took him a considerable amount of time.

What followed was the long and tedious process of assembling the puzzle.

Since he had no marker pen and couldn't mark the pieces, he had to rely on memory to recall the shape and size of each fragment to quickly find them when needed.

This was a complex task for his brain.

Unknowingly, the paper he used to plug his nose turned deep red, but he paid it no mind, his eyes fixed on the mirror shards in his hands as he placed them against the mirrors one by one.

Once a fragment touched the wall, it was as if it were absorbed by invisible glue or something similar, so there was no fear of it falling.

Gotta be fast, faster.

He didn't know if there were more trials ahead. If there were, he had to reach Banato Port before January 1st. Including travel time and a buffer for potential accidents, he didn't have much time to waste here.

The faster his brain worked, the steadier his hands became.

Soon, it seemed one mirror was about to be completed under his hands, but he stopped.

"There's no suitable fragment for this spot..." He looked at the mirror, which was just one piece away from being complete, then at the fragments arranged on the ground.

He had memorized the size and shape of all fragments, so he was certain there wasn't a single piece on the ground that fit the final gap.

He lowered his gaze, replaced the blood-soaked paper in his nose with fresh sheets, and began assembling another mirror.

This time, too, there was a gap that couldn't be filled.

Or rather, it wasn't that it couldn't be filled, but that a piece was missing.

Hundreds of mirrors were assembled through his efforts, yet each one had a missing piece.

The blood-stained paper in the corner had piled up into a small mountain.

"Gah--" He suddenly stopped, put down the fragment in his hand, and lay on the ground, gasping for breath.

His body felt numb, and he was freezing.

The side effects of excessive blood loss, overexertion of his brain, and low blood sugar hit him doubly hard.

After a series of rapid, intense breaths, he lay flat on the cold ground, his chest heaving, his face pale, and his nose bleeding profusely. The lower half of his face and his collar were crusted with dried blood and smeared with fresh, viscous blood.

He looked as disheveled as if he had been beaten repeatedly.

"Hahahaha..."

"Hahahahahahahahahaha..." His laughter was extreme and hysterical, and tears welled up in his blue eyes.

This game is pretty good.

Sixty-four thousand eight hundred and ninety-two fragments.

It could be harder. Why not just set the number of fragments to hundreds of thousands?

As if tired from laughing, he sat up weakly and rummaged through his backpack for bread and an apple, eating quickly.

"It's been 162,891 seconds since I started puzzling..."

"Less than two days. It should be the 27th now."

"I should still make it." After finishing his food, he closed his eyes to calm his breathing, then stood up again, lighting the blood-stained paper wads beside him and burning them.

He stepped into the only passage and felt along the mirrors on either side. Suddenly, his hand felt a click, and the mirror slid inward, revealing a small space behind it.

There were tables, chairs, and stools, and in the corner, a skeleton. The skeleton was holding a small, exquisite box.

It was made of something other than iron, yet it was very hard and required a password to open.

Of course, a blast of Blue Sky should also be able to open it.

The contents inside would likely turn to dust along with the box.

Recalling the missing fragments on the mirror outside, Su Wu instinctively knew he couldn't break the box by force.

He ran his fingers over the box, feeling a string of uneven small characters on the bottom.

[How many mirrors are there in total?]

How many mirrors? Did individual fragments count as mirrors? If not, how many complete mirrors were there?

"The password is... five digits, so the answer should be..." Su Wu's fingers moved as he turned the dial.

Adding the ones on the ground and those not on the ground, there were a total of sixty-six thousand six hundred and sixty-six pieces.

What a demonic number.

Most people probably wouldn't bother counting the fragments.

With a click, the box sprang open.

Su Wu looked down and saw a fragment placed inside the box.

His memory quickly matched this fragment to the gap in one of the mirrors outside.

"Meaning, the other rooms should also have a fragment like this waiting for me to find..." He put away the fragment, left the room, and stepped into another.

The second box had no words carved on the bottom, but rather four strings of letters from the Hunter world.

The password was four digits.

It was simple: write down the complete table of the Hunter world letters in their original order, then connect the four strings of letters from the bottom of the box with lines. The resulting pattern would be the answer.

2733.

The second box opened successfully.

The third box had patterns of unknown meaning at the bottom. He tried overlapping and canceling them out, which failed. He tried dividing and moving them again, and succeeded.

The fourth box had twelve patterns carved at the bottom, and the password was four digits.

This one only required grouping and connecting different symbols to form a four-digit number.

Without pausing for even a second, he moved on to the next room.

The fifth, sixth, seventh...

Finally, he walked through all the rooms, collected the fragments, and returned to the starting point, filling in the gaps one by one.

Once all the mirrors were complete, the walls began to move.

They rotated and rearranged themselves. The original passage disappeared, and the now complete mirrors vanished. In their place, a massive door appeared.

→

The door was huge and heavy, but the keyhole was extremely small, and... there was no key.

"After the puzzle is solved, it's time to find a key?" Su Wu looked at the door before him, a faint smile playing on his lips.

These time-wasting trials were endless.

"Well, let's see if my skills have dulled..." He released his Nen at his fingertips, forming a thin thread, and then extended the Nen thread into the keyhole. He pressed his ear against the door, using his Nen to enhance his hearing as he listened for any sounds.

Using the Nen thread as a lock pick, he was now... picking the lock.

Back when he was trying to cosplay Dazai Osamu, the "Yokohama Lockpicking King," he had specifically learned lockpicking skills. Wires, hairpins, cards, stiff paper... in his hands, they could all become lockpicking tools.

With a click, he pushed, and the large door swung open completely.

"I'm out." He slung his backpack over his shoulder and stepped through the door.

However, behind the door wasn't the exit he expected, but merely an empty lobby.

"...No matter what kind of trial it is, I'm not interested in playing anymore." Su Wu looked expressionlessly at the impassable lobby and promptly changed into a clean, blood-free set of clothes.

"I have to forge my own path. In that case--" A wicked smile suddenly spread across his face, and he raised his hands.

ROAR--

A black and blue energy glow instantly filled the entire lobby. The dark underground space seemed to be hit by an endless barrage, as if artillery fire was repeatedly bombarding the surrounding walls, destroying every obstacle in sight.

Fine sand began to flow in from the cracks into this underground labyrinth. Accompanied by a crunching sound, the walls completely collapsed. The yellow sand, previously sealed outside the maze, surged in with the crumbling walls, threatening to engulf the entire labyrinth.

"Whoa." Su Wu's expression remained unchanged as he immediately shot forward.

Utilizing the teleportation ability of Azure, he forcefully shot upwards through the heavy yellow sand.

He stopped in mid-air, brushing the sand off his hair and clothes. Looking down at the swirling vortex of collapse, he let out a sigh of relief.

"Geez, I almost got buried alive, a posthumous burial by my own hand." He muttered to himself with the carefree air of someone who had narrowly escaped, subconsciously using the catchphrase of a chuunibyou otaku: [Geez].

"What did you do down there--!" A voice filled with confusion and disbelief echoed from not far below.

The leader, who had always maintained the demeanor of an optimistic and wealthy uncle, finally lost the relaxed air of someone with money, leisure, and status.

What had this white-haired kid done in the desert labyrinth?! Why did it collapse?!

And why did he get out so quickly?! Even though he had high hopes for the kid's strength, he never expected him to finish this quickly.

After all, the desert exam site, due to its extreme difficulty, had never had a single candidate pass since its creation...

But they actually came out! It hasn't even been three days yet!

The leader of the group questioned frantically in his mind as he ran.

"Well..." The white-haired youth suddenly disappeared from mid-air, reappearing beside him. He clasped his hands behind his head and ran alongside him on his own two feet.

While running for his life, the leader also turned his head to pay some attention to the other person.

"Because I was too lazy to play a puzzle game, I just blew a hole straight through."

"Speaking of which, I don't have to pay for the destruction of the exam venue, right?"

The smile on the white-haired, blue-eyed youth's face was incredibly bright, showing no hint of his arrogance and... malice.

The demonic nature and malice emanating from that smile overshadowed the divine aura of his appearance.

It made one feel that he was... a thoroughbred— a wicked child.

The commotion behind them finally subsided, and the two stopped running.

The leader glanced back. The desert was still the desert, with nothing but yellow sand as far as the eye could see.

"A rather unconventional method..." The leader scratched his head, looking somewhat troubled.

Oh well, there are plenty of hunters who don't play by the rules.

"There's no need for compensation; the Hunter Association will cover all losses incurred during the exam," he sighed, finally answering the youth's question.

After all, the funding wasn't his problem to worry about.

"Then there's no problem. By the way, do you know how to get to Banato Port?" Su Wu nodded and asked naturally, with an air of righteous entitlement.

Although he knew from the map that the Gordo Desert was east of Banato Port, he...

He didn't know where he currently was in the Gordo Desert.

"...Banato Port is that way," the leader said, casually pointing in a direction.

As a guide, pointing the way for a candidate was no issue.

"I got it. See you later, then." The white-haired youth glanced in the direction he pointed, nodded slightly, and his figure once again disappeared abruptly.

"I'm actually a little curious to see what this kid will be like when he starts his activities as a hunter," the leader said, shaking his head with a smile, not even seeing the youth's disappearing back. His words were full of anticipation.

Using Azure Sky, Su Wu traversed the Gordo Desert in the shortest possible time and arrived at the nearest city.

"It's currently... December 28th."

"There are three days left until January 1st."

"Hmm... There should be some form of transportation to Banato Port..." he mused, walking into a jewelry store in the city and heading straight to the counter, dumping all the "picked-up trash" from his bag onto it.

The gold and gems sparkled brilliantly under the store's bright lights, exuding an air of opulence.

"Does the customer mean..." The lady behind the counter, slightly surprised, quickly regained her composure and spoke politely.

"To buy it?" The impatience in the white-haired youth's eyes was almost palpable.

"This..." The counter lady made a phone call, and soon a man in a suit arrived.

Three minutes later, Su Wu left the jewelry store and walked directly towards a hotel that looked very expensive.

He booked a luxurious suite, freshened up, changed into brand-new clothes, and looked at himself in the full-length mirror.

White hair, blue eyes, snow-white skin, black facial markings.

Apart from his facial features, which still bore some resemblance to his past self, everything else had changed drastically. He could no longer be considered the same person.

"Still very good-looking," he said, brushing his teeth while looking at his reflection in the mirror, nodding in satisfaction.

As expected of me! A cosplayer with over a million fans!

While it's true that cosplaying doesn't rely solely on looks, you need both good looks and quality to become popular. If I weren't good-looking, I wouldn't have been able to gain a million fans.

Of course, there are also those who can fake it with Photoshop and scams. For example, some people I knew back then had profiles that were completely unrelated to their actual appearance; you could say they were two different people, unrecognizable when you met them.

Su Wu shook his head, sat on the edge of the bed, and used the bedside phone to call the front desk downstairs.

"Please schedule a breakfast service for tomorrow morning to be delivered to my room. Also, please book me a ticket for a train or other transportation to Banato Port for tomorrow..." he instructed while turning on the TV in the room.

After hanging up the phone, he immediately lay down on the bed and fell asleep.

PS: [Today is also a two-in-one chapter.]

雾雾子: I'm done playing, I'm flipping the table (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻

PS: Please hit me with recommendations, investments, and monthly passes. Also, increase the read-throughs.

When will I ever get a hundred investments? The double digits look a bit pathetic.