419 The last theory

Hera's idea about the items seemed to have worked. The quest tracker was now showing 2 out of 3 additions complete. But the next part was giving her some trouble. Ten hours had already passed by, and Hera was feeling dizzy. She went through so many books that it was hard to keep her focus, which made her feel weird.

"Are you OK, kid?" Peaches asked after noticing that Hera was rubbing her eyes too often.

"I think so. My eyes are just weird," Hera replied without looking back.

"You are probably tired. Just take a break."

"Tired from reading? I used to spend the whole day reading before I became an explorer."

"Was it for research like this?" Peaches asked.

"No, it was just for fun."

"Then it's a completely different thing. Reading for fun lets you turn off your brain a bit, and you can skip some words without a problem. Here you should be paying close attention to everything and thinking about every sentence in the book. I'm exaggerating, but you get the point. Take a break to drink some coffee. Do you want cake? I can make it."

"Cake?' Hera perked up and turned around, "Can you make a cake here?"

"Well, technically no, but nothing stops me from making it at home and bringing it here."

"But… During the other tests, I didn't get any cake. It was just the fruit."

"I know, it's because I am told to bring fruit, but nothing says that I can't bring something else."

"So why didn't you give me something else the last time?" Hera gasped as she walked over to her private room.

"What are you talking about? During your last test, we ate popcorn. Where do you think that came from?" Peaches scoffed.

"Oh… right. I kind of forgot about that."

"Really? You forgot the time you spent with me?" Peaches pouted to tease her.

"No, I forgot that we were eating together. That's different," Hera slumped on the couch by Peaches' side with Daskka still on her shoulder, not noticing the guide's attempt to play around.

Peaches looked back to the kitchen, "I know you just sat down, but the cake is back there."

"Couldn't you have told me like, five seconds ago?" Hera sighed and got up, but Daskka had already left her shoulder and was now on the couch.

"Sooo… do you eat?" Peaches asked the snake and got a nod as a reply, "Really? Does it do anything for you or?"

Daskka tilted her head, but the guide couldn't understand her.

Seeing that it was taking too long for Peaches to reply, Hera explained from the kitchen, "She's saying something to the effect of 'it helps me recharge my mana.'"

"You can understand her like that? Really? Usually, those items don't have that effect."

"I don't think it was the item. I got a skill called Naga Poison, and that seems to allow me to talk with Daskka and Chika, who was a giant snake that lived in the room where I got her."

"Oh really? You could even talk to Chika?" Peaches gasped.

Hera poked her head from the kitchen, "You know Chika?"

"I know about her, not her personally. What did you two talk about?"

"It wasn't really a conversation. It was more like an exchange of feelings. Chika was really lonely, and she was happy to connect with someone else. I wish she were still around, but then again, if she were, I wouldn't have gotten Daskka, so I'm conflicted," Hera came out of the kitchen with three slices of lemon velvet cake.

"It's best not to dwell on things like that. We can't change the past," Peaches moved the fork with magic and took a bite of the cake Hera just brought.

"Yeah. I know," Hera patted Daskka's head before placing her plate in front of her.

They ate in silence for a while. Peaches wanted to give some time for Hera to rest, but the explorer had other ideas, "Oh, right. I was thinking about the thing with Talpa and Nina. You can try to call them over to watch a movie or something they liked to do when they were little… Or I guess younger since you guys don't actually grow. Or get something they are both passionate about, like a show or a book. Something that will make them discuss theories."

"That is an idea. If I do that, maybe the nostalgia will kick in, and they will actually have a conversation instead. It's not a fix, but it's a step in the right direction. Thanks, kid," Peaches smiled. A little bit of the white frosting was in the corner of his mouth.

Hera gestured to her face, "You got a little something here."

"Oh, hang on," Peaches moved his tongue. And got the dirt out of his face, "Better?"

Hera nodded and continued eating. Despite trying to rest, her mind was still on the test. She looked towards the library again, it was filled with hundreds of books, but they were all the same three subjects that were in the red book that started all this. Adding to the theories should be easier, but she had already made a new one.

"Hey, stop that. This one is mine," Peaches tried to move his plate away from Daskka, who was trying to get a piece of his cake even if her own plate still had some left, "Fine, I'll take yours then!" Peaches moved his fork to the snake's plate, but she stopped it before it could reach the last few pieces of the cake.

Seeing that scene made Hera smile. Daskka almost never interacted with other people. Sure she could help during a fight, but she never did things like that with anyone. That kind of thing made Hera worried. In a way, it was like she was raising an anti-social pet, but maybe the issue was something else. Maybe Daskka just couldn't find anyone else that was similar to her, and that's why she never felt comfortable playing around with other people. Could the guides be mana constructs like her? Looking at Peaches, another idea came into mind.

"Peaches. What I write here will be shown to someone else?" Hera asked.

"Yes, it will. Other explorers who are doing the same test can see your additions, without the author's name, of course. All the books in here were written by someone who came here. Well, they were conceived by them. Like, they did a small dissertation about the theories like what you did, and the system used their knowledge to complete the book."

"The system is writing books now?" Hera chuckled.

"Yeah, go figure," Peaches smiled.

"OK then. Next question. If I write about the guides would that be considered a strike?"

Peaches flinched, but Hera didn't notice that. "As long as you don't mention the names or the rooms where you can find certain guides, it will be fine. Books about guides will only appear for those who already have the guide skill."

"Really? Why is there no guide-related book here already?"

"Are you sure about that?" Peaches asked.

"Wait? Really?" Hera got up without even finishing her slice of cake and rushed to the index. She flipped the pages for a while until she found about ten entries, one after the other with books about guides. Hera quickly went to the shelf where they were located and took them all out.

Every single one of those books was discussing the guides, and some even had a list of questions one could ask to find if there was a legacy in the room or if there was a missing dungeon and a few other options. Yet, none of the books mentioned anything about using the guides to find secrets in the rooms, not directly at least. A couple of them talked about asking guides about secret rooms in dungeons and such, but nothing about the rooms specifically. There was another weird thing about all the tomes. On a random page inside each of them, a number was written down in a different font from the rest of the book in an odd place on the page. Aside from the number 1, the numbers would never repeat, and they were 1, 2, 21, 13, 5, 55, 8, 3, 1, 34. For some reason, those numbers seemed familiar, but Hera wanted to focus on the task at hand.

She sat down back on the table with the pile of books and started reading to double-check if there really wasn't any mention of asking the guides about secrets, and she didn't miss anything. Among all the books there wasn't a single passage suggesting asking the guides about secrets inside a room.

"Peaches. Is this all the information people put here? I mean, just ten books about the guides seem way too low, and these ones barely have anything useful for the test."

"How many books did you find?" Peaches asked.

"10."

"Then that's all of them."

"But there is so little information. Or at least everything seems to be just repeating itself. Does that mean that no one else made a book about finding secrets with the help of a guide?"

"They probably did. Those books are just not here."

"So… does that count for what I have to write? I mean, it is talking about the guides," Hera asked.

"Is that one of the theories you got in the quest book? The one you picked up, I mean."

"No."

"Then you have your answer."

"Wait… are you telling me that any theory that wasn't part of the three in the quest book would be enough to pass the test? Even if I just copied something a book was saying?" Hera stopped looking at the books and turned around.

"I'm saying that the quest asks you to add or expand the three theories in the book. Nothing else, kid," Peaches smiled.

"Then why am I killing myself to figure out something new?" Hera gasped.

"C'mon, kid. You know for a fact that going above and beyond these tests does not go unnoticed," Peaches shook his head.

Hera sighed with annoyance. She was struggling a lot on this test. Despite her time being great, the way this place was set up was taking a mental toll on her. Still, she knew that Peaches was right. Every single role test she did had some special rewards as long as she did her best. It would be very unlikely that this place was any different.

Going back to her writing, she used the books as a base to explain this new theory, one about how guides could show people where the secrets of a room were located. She tried to make it simple, but the words kept pouring out. Hera talked about the rooms she was in and how the questions she asked the guides led her to several discoveries like Boothudurn, the temple in the Waperath Jungle, and some information that otherwise no one would know in the Moon Base. Even Lantra's journal and how talking to a guide helped her find the Naga temple.

Her theory was enough to fill about ten pages, and that was more than enough. Looking at the book, the test was over. All three objectives were complete.

"Well done, kid. As usual, I can say you finished the quest already, or you can try to push for the bonus reward," Peaches said as Hera closed the red book.

"The other times, I already was able to go for the bonus round. Do you have another quest for me?" Hera got up, carrying the books about guides.

"Not yet. You still need to do the right things to trigger the extra stage," Peaches explained.

"OK, hold off on the quest. I want to rest for a while before trying to find something else to do here," Hera walked up to the empty shelf, and she was about to put the book in place when she remembered the numbers and felt that this might be a secret in itself. She double-checked the numbers and placed them in a crescent order, but nothing happened. Then, she picked one of the two number 1s and placed it at the end of the shelf. Again, nothing happened. She placed the book again in the beginning and even tried to swap the two 1s but nothing, "I'll deal with this tomorrow," Hera sighed.

Daskka stopped her from leaving and gestured to the first and last books.

"Oh, you think I have to put them in the inverse order? OK, It's worth a shot," Hera did as Daskka asked and when the final book was in place. There was a noise, and the entire bookshelf shifted to the side. Revealing a staircase heading down, "That was a great idea, Daskka!"

Hera peeked at the staircase but just saw the spiraling steps heading down. She could be tired, but after seeing this, she wouldn't be able to sleep or rest properly anyway, so she just started heading down. Five minutes passed before she reached a large room filled with vials, some odd pieces of equipment, and more books. Hera walked inside carefully, not to trigger any possible traps or something like that. This place looked like a magic laboratory but an old one. There were no computers, just metal equipment and some medieval-looking cages. Going to the center of the room, she found a table with a few scrolls and books. Each of them talked about guides, about tests to increase the time one would have to speak with them, and how to trick them into answering the questions they wanted. Hera started reading; even if the ideas here felt very sleazy, it was a bit surprising that they seemed to work. One suggestion said to trick the guide into answering a wrong question near the end of the time to force them to return a few minutes worth of questions like an apology.

Suddenly, Hera heard a groan coming from somewhere in the room.

"Who's there?"

The noise stopped.

"Hello?" Hera used her pulse, but everything here was made of mana. It didn't help at all, "Where are you?"

"Either kill me or let me go. Please. I can't take this anymore," a voice came from one of the cages in the corner.