Chapter 163: The Children And The Nymph Thieves (4)

Chapter 163: The Children And The Nymph Thieves (4)

The desert was large and wide.

Cariote looked at the empty water bottle and reported the situation to me. Two days had already passed since we left the oasis village.

“Oh, holy shh...! Another ammonite...!”

One thing that was good at least, was that the children weren’t exhausted by this desolate and vast desert.

Hina even played by catching desert scorpions.

“Just stick out your hand....”

There wasn’t anything special to it.

Maybe there was a magical kind of mana that flowed abundantly in the blood of desert royalty which allowed them to befriend desert animals.

Not only that, Hina was good at finding cactuses.

“This desert cactus.... stores water.... If cut at the bottom with the dagger... we can get water....”

I did as Hina said and sliced the lower trunk area of the cactus with the dagger.

When I did, a clear liquid started gushing out like shwaaa–, looking like someone had opened the faucet in the school field all the way on a hot summer day. 1

“That’s cool. Hina, how did you know?”

“I just.... feel it.... The desert....”

Hina acted in the desert like she had returned home. Whether the desert was favorable towards Hina or Hina was compatible with the desert, I didn’t know, but that was helpful anyways

“That’s awesome, Hina.”

I scratched at Hina’s head and chin.

“Aww... yeah...!”

She must be happy about being commended.

“Did you see? Hina’s this intelligent!”

... It’s an innate sense so what does that have to do with being intelligent?

“Naru, what can you do?”

“Naru can find ammonite! Naru already dug up 5 today!”

Naru pulled out five ammonite fossils from her pocket and showed us. The small and round fossils looked rather cool but Brigitte saw them and tsked.

“... That isn’t very helpful.”

Though Brigitte said it wasn’t helpful, I thought Naru was amazing, too. Ammonites were cool. Something about them stirred up one’s innocence and romantic side.

I’m going to ask Naru for one.

“Whew, can’t be helped, then. Everyone get on this carpet.”

At Brigitte’s words, everyone stopped walking.

Voooom—

“Mage, if you had this, couldn’t you have used it earlier?”

That was true.

n

“... 44?”

“Fantastic.”

The Sphynx nodded and accepted the answer.

“This is the second question. Pink-haired girl, I ask you. What is 44 times 25?”

A multiplication question?

“1100.”

“Oho? That is correct!”

Ooh.

“Black-haired girl. The keeper of royalty asks of you. 「When n>= 3, no positive integers x, y, z can satisfy the equation xn +yn =zn.」 Prove this.” 2

... The hell did it just say?

“This is the last theorem of Fermat who was the first Archmage! How does it expect this question to be answered? Why did it give such a difficult question only to Naru? This is unfair!”

Brigitte got upset on behalf of Naru. It looked as if she was a parent bringing her child’s test paper which was marked wrong because of a misprinted question to the teacher and complaining.

But the Sphynx remained strict.

“To question is the first step towards the truth. Archmage Fermat’s conundrum is like a shortcut to the truth. The one who cannot solve this will not be allowed a single step inside the pyramid. Solve it now!!!”

What’s going to happen now?

Since it’s a question with an answer, that meant there was a method of solving.

“Naru knows the answer to this problem!”

What.

As everyone looked on this situation tensely, Naru inhaled deeply.

“Naru Style, Hydro Pump!”

Phoooooooo—

“Guwaaaa—! How did you know that my weakness is water—! I cannot maintain my foooooorm...!”

The Sphynx simply collapsed into a pile of sand.

As everyone remained silent, Naru spoke.

“Dad once said! The answer to all problems is great power! He said if the problem wasn’t solved, it’s because you’re weak!”

Indeed, that sounded like something I’d say.

In my opinion, the world’s ‘problem’ meant the state of powerlessness.

I say this now but if Archmage Fermat had ground-breaking muscles like Hercules, he probably wouldn’t have studied math.

“Oh, holy shh...! Naru got it right...!”

Fsssss—

Ah, summer. /genesisforsaken