Looking at the diagram on the wall I begin to consider what exactly it is I am supposed to do. Said diagram looks like a series of four chessboards arranged in a 'T' shape with black and white spaces that are designated with a letter and number system. Each board had various pieces in play with some that had been removed from the game set next to the board.
Though it only looked like a chessboard due to a few small details
'This is certainly not chess, instead of an 8x8 grid it's a 4x4 one. Not only that, but some pieces are on spots they would never be able to reach if playing by the rules… However, I don't think I need to pay attention to said pieces if my guess is correct and the erroneous pieces could be a red herring.' turning around and looking at the construction of the room once again I began to mentally piece together my next steps of solving the puzzle.
'If I am correct these 4x4 grids roughly translate to the four surfaces with the special bricks, that and the numbered rows continue where the last grid left off. Where board one is 1-4, board two is 5-8, and so forth. The most notable thing though is 11 of the 16 rows only have one piece on their respective rows, meaning the numerical order of rows with only one piece is most likely part of the solution.' noting this down mentally I began to consider the other details left at my disposal to solve the puzzle.
'All that is left are the squares said pieces are on which could denote which area the brick that needs to be pressed resides, the removed pieces, the color of the pieces, and orientation of this map… I believe the solution is the row numerical order and using the chess space to find what quarter of the surface the needed brick is located and the piece color denotes… well I don't know? I am pretty sure the color of the brick shows what light setting it needs to be pressed… unless that can change depending on the order you press things or the color of the pieces is a useless clue meant to distract me.' Deciding to ignore the piece colors for now I began to memorize the order of bricks I needed to press and where they were located in the room. Following this began the annoying process of turning on and off the lantern as I moved around pressing bricks until…
*bzzt* "You Awre Whrong Ser!" in perfect Engrish was a taunting notification that played over the speaker alerting me that I had messed up along the way
"Fuck me! Well… don't actually I'm not into disembodied voices of guys." I said in frustration as I stood up and looked back at the chess diagram thinking if I messed up somewhere
"..." getting no response from the intercoms I delved back into my thoughts,
'it would probably be the fact that I pressed those bricks at the start of the puzzle kinda like when you accidentally press a wrong number in before entering your passcode… I don't think it's the chess pieces as that would contradict the rules it laid down earlier by only letting certain bricks be pressed at certain light levels…' *sigh* getting back to the annoying process of re-entering the "password" into the bricks I began mentally cursing the examiner for making this puzzle
'Seriously! Entering passwords into a brick wall, the hell is this? Fnaf 3? Am I going to get some 'true ending' out of this? No, I am just going to get fucking hunted on the damned island after this!' after finishing my mental tirade against this puzzle I punched in the lass brick as I stood up again to be met with the satisfying noise of my victo-
*bzzt* "Miss me? Well better late than never?" over the speaker came the voice of the examiner
"Oh, nice to hear from you again. Anyways, did I pass? I don't see the door opening?" I said in confusion while looking at the four walls waiting for a doorway to appear
"Yeah about that… You failed again, I just didn't want to use the soundboard this time…" came the mocking voice of the examiner who most likely had the biggest shit-eating grin on his face currently.
"OH YOU MOTHERFU-" as I began to cuss him out I was interrupted
"Oh, and I wanted to alert you that you have sixty-six hours left, damn you're slow! What are you even doing? Monlouging in your head? Anyways have fun with the puzzle!" and with a click, the voice was disconnected.
*sigh* ' okay so it probably IS the piece colors even though that contradicts the rules… well that actually makes sense the examiner is a criminal and literally benefits from me wasting time. Well, let's get back to brick pressing…' for the third time I began pressing the bricks, though with a notably faster pace having somewhat remembered the layout of the bricks.
*clack* and with a heavy sound a doorway appeared on the wall with the chess boards displaying another staircase that led further towards the bottom of the trick tower.
"Thank kami for that! If I had to mess with those bricks one more time there would be hell to pay… well let's keep going it should only be around 2 o clock right now, I could probably complete one or two more rooms today at this rate." as I finished voicing my thoughts aloud I entered the next room, and much like the previous few times the door shut behind me. Although the room this time was much smaller than all the other rooms, only having a small pillar with an item atop it
'What do we have here? Another fuel canister… now that I think about it I could have very well run out of fuel earlier. Maybe a pacing mechanism where if I am not fast enough I get eliminated by being unable to progress?' though before pocketing it I further inspected the fuel canister turning it around to be met with a simple drawing of an eye in permanent marker on the bottom. Deciding to inspect my current canister I peered under the lantern only to be disappointed by the fact that it was empty.
'Well they would not place this symbol to denote the fuel if it was not needed, I probably could try switching fuels?' deciding to do just that I quickly turned off the lantern and unscrewed the fuel canister, and made the swap.
*tick* illuminating the lantern once again I am no longer met with the comforting warm light I had been used to, instead the lantern was illuminated by a ghastly light purple flame.
*whistle* "well would you look at that…" in surprise I looked at the walls of the room to be met with drawings on the wall in a luminescent white color that did not appear previously
AN: again sorry for the slow updates I'm literally having my finals next week but I have been doing a lot of work ahead of time leaving me a small margin of time to write. Additionally, I was wondering about two things, first: the transitions between chapters are often skipped. Meaning there is usually a small time skip between chapters where small dialogue or interactions are skipped and could probably be confusing for people who haven't watched HxH at all or dont remember details. So should I try to stop doing that or keep doing what I have been doing to keep the pacing somewhat quicker? Second, should I go back and edit the first 1-3 chapters? I don't really like how they are written and compared to the other chapters, if I decide to do so I would probably just skip one week of uploads and knock them all out at once with no need for a huge long hiatus. As for when I would sit down and edit them? Most likely the end of the Hunter Exam Arc as it would give me more time to plan the following arcs. Idk leave your thoughts below