Take Me Away, Dark Lord!

’She used a wooden stick to artificially narrow the terrain, forcing the numerically superior frog-flank into a single-file line of engagement, where her silver ducks have the defensive advantage. That is not how children play. Children crash things together and make explosion noises.’

Kaelus rubbed his temples, feeling a sudden, strange phantom headache creeping into his skull.

He suddenly remembered a conversation from three days ago, right before they had departed the Obsidian Gate.

He had been standing on the balcony with Archduke Leonidas Valen, drinking wine, watching Seraphina play in the gardens below.

She had been arranging river stones and flower petals into a complex pattern.

”Look at her, Kaelus,” Leonidas had boomed, leaning over the railing, his amber eyes wide with genuine awe. ”Look at the spatial distribution! She isn’t just making a pretty picture. She’s building a supply line! Look at how she protects the petals with the larger stones! The girl has an intelligent mind, you miserable icicle! She understands complex formations! You should let her play puzzle games! Teach her chess! By the Light, she could be a brilliant strategist!”

At the time, Kaelus had completely dismissed Leonidas’s observation.

He had assumed the Fire Archduke was simply being his usual, hyperbolic, loudmouthed self, projecting military fantasies onto a child playing in the dirt.

Kaelus was a fool who believed his daughter was just a sweet, innocent, slightly gluttonous little bird who needed to be shielded from the complexities of war.

But now, sitting in the carriage, staring at the absolute, undeniable tactical superiority of her origami duck army... Kaelus felt the seed of doubt blossom into a towering, terrifying oak tree of realization.

’Was that bastard Leonidas right after all?’ Kaelus thought, a cold sweat breaking out on his pale brow. ’Is it possible that my daughter is not merely a magical genius, but a cognitive prodigy as well? Have I been so blinded by my desire to protect her that I failed to see the genius sitting on my carpet?’

Kaelus’s violet eyes narrowed.

The brooding, overprotective father receded, instantly replaced by the fiercely ambitious Lord of the North.

He had to know. He could not rely on assumptions if he wanted to boast about her genius!

***

Kaelus pushed his chair back.

The heavy mahogany legs scraped softly against the floorboards.

He stood up, his dark cape swishing, and walked to a heavily reinforced, iron-bound chest secured in the corner of the carriage.

He opened it, bypassing the layers of gold and emergency medical supplies, reaching deep into the bottom to retrieve a small, unassuming object.

It was a box.

It was roughly the size of a melon, forged entirely from solid, unpolished mythril. The surface of the box was covered in hundreds of tiny, interlocking, sliding tiles inscribed with complex, ancient runic mathematics.

It was a Dwarven Vault-Puzzle.

These boxes were utilized by the Bastion’s top-tier military intelligence division.

They were designed to hold highly classified correspondence. Opening the box required shifting the tiles into a mathematically perfect sequence, solving a three-dimensional spatial equation that normally took a seasoned cryptographer at least two days to crack.

Kaelus walked back to the center of the carriage. He knelt down on the plush rug, directly across the ’battlefield’ from Seraphina.

Seraphina paused her troop movements. She looked up at Kaelus, her dark eyes blinking in innocent confusion.

’What is he doing?’ Seraphina’s adult mind wondered, suddenly incredibly suspicious. ’He usually ignores me when I play ducks unless he wants to feed me a pastry. Why is he sitting on the floor? Did he eat a bad mushroom? Did the smog in Valen finally melt his brain?’

”Seraphina,” Kaelus said, his voice a low, smooth, incredibly serious rumble. He placed the puzzle box onto the carpet, right next to Sir Quacks-a-lot. ”I have a task for you.”

Seraphina tilted her head. ”A task, Papa?”

”Indeed,” Kaelus nodded, his glowing violet eyes watching her every expression. ”Leonidas suggested that you possess a... unique affinity for spatial reasoning. I wish to observe your problem-solving methodology. Do you see this box?”

Seraphina looked at the box.

Her soul, which had spent countless hours playing high-level puzzle games, escape-room simulators, and complex sliding-tile apps on her smartphone in her past life, instantly recognized the mechanics.

’It’s a 3D sliding-tile puzzle,’ she diagnosed instantly, her eyes scanning the runes. ’The runes aren’t magic; they’re just numeric placeholders. It’s a 5x5 grid sequence. I used to speed-run these on the subway while commuting to my daily art class.’

But outwardly, she maintained her wide-eyed, childish facade. ”It’s very shiny, Papa. Is there candy inside?”

”No,” Kaelus replied truthfully. ”There is a wooden token inside. If you can open the box and retrieve the token, I will procure you three large fruit tarts at our next stop.”

Seraphina’s eyes lit up with genuine, unadulterated gluttonous zeal.

Fruit tarts were the ultimate currency!

”Okay!” Seraphina cheered, leaning forward and resting her small hands on the heavy mythril box.

Kaelus sat back on his heels, folding his arms across his chest.

’This is a Class-A cryptology test,’ Kaelus thought, expecting her to struggle for hours, perhaps even days. ’She will likely become frustrated and twist the tiles randomly. I will observe her frustration threshold and gently guide her toward the mathematical solution, teaching her patience and logic over the course of the week.’

Seraphina did not twist the tiles randomly.

She stared at the box for exactly fifteen seconds, completely silent. Her dark eyes darted rapidly across the surface, tracking the empty sliding space, memorizing the initial randomized state of the grid, and calculating the algorithmic path to the solution.

And then, her tiny hands became a blur.

Click-clack-click-clack-click.

She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t pause to think.

Her small thumbs pushed the tiles with a terrifying, rhythmic, unbroken speed. She moved the rows and columns in perfect harmony, her brain executing a 40-step sequencing algorithm without a single miscalculation.

To Kaelus, who was watching her, it looked like magic.