Aurora, Ruby, and Lumi got out of that small house. Rita, who had been keeping watch outside, glanced at them.

"Are you done, miss?" she asked.

"Yup, we have an agreement," Ruby said. "Lumi will come with us now."

Lumi nodded. "Yes, as she said."

"Alright," Rita said. "Then what are we going to do now?"

"First, let's collect some materials," Aurora said, her eyes scanning the area. "That was one of the reasons we came here, after all."

"Yup, and I had something I wanted to look for too," Ruby said, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

"Now that you mention it," Aurora said, turning to Ruby with a quizzical expression. "You never told me what you were looking for."

"Well, it's a secret!" Ruby said.

"Why though? Wouldn't it be easier to find if you told me?" Aurora asked.

"No, it's a secret!" Ruby insisted.

"Fine," Aurora sighed. "Then let's go to the second layer."

They made their way north, their steps light and purposeful. As they approached another giant door, guarded by two fierce-looking dwarves, the group slowed to a stop.

"Halt," one of the dwarves said, his voice gruff. "If you want to pass this door, you must solve a puzzle."

"Alright," Aurora said, her eyes flicking to the other members of her group. "What puzzle do we need to solve this time?"

The guard handed them a puzzle, a jigsaw with intricate pieces that looked daunting at first glance.

"What is it this time?" Ruby asked, her eyes lighting up with curiosity.

"Here, why don't you try it," Aurora said, handing the puzzle to Ruby. Rita looked at it with interest while Lumi looked at it with disdain.

As Ruby began sorting through the pieces, her mind raced with excitement, and the rest of the group watched her with varying levels of interest.

"Miss Ruby, that piece was going in this part," Rita said.

"Oh, you're right," Ruby said.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

After a few moments, Ruby finished the puzzle.

"Well, that was kind of fun," Ruby said.

Rita nodded in agreement, and Aurora smiled, while Lumi looked disbelieving that Ruby could have enjoyed such a task.

"Congratulations," the guards said. "You can go in now."

The guards opened the door, leading them into a long hallway. They walked until they reached a junction.

"Left or right?" Ruby said. "Do we need to choose?"

"Well, this was a labyrinth," Aurora said. "We wouldn't be going straight to the second layer."

"That's right," Lumi said. "You needed to pick the right way to reach it. If you weren't careful, you could get stuck in this place for days. Or so I heard."

"Then what do we do?" Ruby asked.

"Hmm... I heard you could solve a labyrinth if you picked one side of a wall and kept following it," Aurora said. "We would reach the exit eventually."

"Alright! Which way do we pick then?" Ruby said.

"Let's go left," Aurora said.

"Why?" Lumi asked.

Aurora smiled. "No reason really. Just feel like it."

"Alright, left it is," Ruby said, and they started walking again. Unfortunately, they hit their first dead end.

"No luck, huh?" Aurora said.

"Wait, what was that?" Ruby noticed something on the side. There was a small chest with a puzzle as a lock.

Aurora looked at it more closely.

"It's a sliding puzzle," Aurora noted.

Hearing that Lumi was stepping back in disgusted, while Ruby's curiosity was piqued.

"Can I try?" she asked, looking up at Aurora.

"Sure," Aurora replied with a smile.

Ruby got to work, sliding the pieces around until they fit together perfectly. Behind her, Rita watched in silence. It took her a few minutes, but eventually, she heard a satisfying click and the lock popped open.

Ruby opened the chest and inside found some metallic materials.

"Huh, just this?" Ruby said, kind of disappointed.

"Well, you shouldn't expect something amazing from something easy to do," Aurora said as she opened Serena's bag and put the materials inside.

"Fair enough," Ruby said, pushing her feeling of disappointment aside. "Let's continue then."

They went back to the junction and chose the right path. Not long after, they arrived at a small room with two new paths.

In between the two paths, another chest with a puzzle in it lay on the ground.

"Another one!" Ruby exclaimed, excitedly getting close to it. Rita followed her.

"I can't believe she loves it," Lumi said, looking sick.

Aurora giggled. "Yes, but mostly because it's still easy though," she said. "When she gets hit by a harder puzzle, I wonder if she will stay that excited."

"Aurora, come here," Ruby called. "What do you think it is?"

Aurora came close. On the chest, she saw three rows with numbers. The first row had 8, 1, and an empty space. The second row was empty, 5, and 7. The third row was empty, 9, and an empty space.

"Magic Square?" Aurora said.

"What's that?" Ruby asked.

"You need math to solve it," Aurora said. "In a magic square, every row, column, and diagonal adds up to the same constant. So in this case, you can see that the second column has the numbers 1, 5, and 9. In other words, it's the number 15."

"I see!" Ruby said. She then immediately tried to solve it.

While Ruby was trying to solve the puzzle, Aurora noticed that so far the puzzles they found were classic puzzles that could be played without an electronic device. It was quite different from how it was in the "Puzzle Empress" game. That made her think that probably the puzzles in this kingdom were adapting to the technology in this world. So there wouldn't be a puzzle that needed advanced technology like a game console or something. That made things easier.

"I'm done!" Ruby said as the puzzle made a clicking sound. The chest opened up. Inside was a stone with blue colors. Aurora put it inside Serena's bag.

"Alright, now which one should we try next?" Ruby asked as she looked at the two paths.

"Left," Aurora said.

"You really like the left, huh?" Ruby said.

Aurora smiled. "Maybe."

They continued their journey. Like before, at the end of the path was another junction, and they chose left again. They kept doing this until they reached a dead end.

As Lumi said, they spent hours trying to find the right path. While they found more and more dead end, They found more chests with similar puzzles but with harder difficulties. Ruby happily solved them. Until at the end of the day, they finally reached the second layer - the second town of the dwarf kingdom.

"Finally!" Lumi said. "I thought we would never find the exit."

"You're over-exaggerating," Ruby said. "We were only inside there for a couple of hours."

"You think that because you're having fun!" Lumi retorted.

"Did I really?" Ruby grinned. "I do admit, though, I'm tired after walking so much."

"Want me to carry you, miss?" Rita offered.

"Don't even joke about that!" Ruby snorted.

Aurora smiled. "Then let's look for an inn first."

As they looked around trying to find a place to rest, Aurora noticed that someone was keeping an eye on them. Not only her, but Rita noticed it too. They looked at each other and nodded.

Ruby noticed their exchanged glance. "What? Did something happen?" she asked.

"It's nothing," Aurora said. "Anyway, how about that? I believe that building was an inn, right?"

Lumi looked at the same place. "You're right," she said.

"Okay, let's check it out then!" Ruby said, pulling Aurora along.

***