Back to the portal room, Ember noticed that, indeed, the yellow one had disappeared right before her eyes, leaving her with three portals to choose from.

And she did not feel ready for Burden and Grieve, so the blue and green ones were eliminated immediately. But she needed a breather after the Labyrinth of Greed and felt like the Labyrinth of Resentment and its extreme violence would not be any better, so it left her with the Labyrinth of Madness.

Though the Ruler of the Realm had warned her that she could do those in no particular order, she found herself going for the orange portal right after closing the yellow one and almost second guess herself. It was Madness, after all, and maybe she should go for Grieve instead. That wound was not that fresh anymore, and perhaps she could handle it better than she gave herself credit.

But in the end, she went through the orange portal anyway, thinking she might give the blue portal a try if that Madness Labyrinth proved too maddening for her taste. And so she was back to that city, with that leash around her neck. This time, however, she decided to follow the leash back to the man who held it.

He was a middle-aged, tired man with a wig in black and white robes holding a book in his left hand.

This man is your target. The city of Konisberg commissioned him to solve an important problem, and he would be executed if he couldn't. You need to help him find the answer before he loses his mind. Since you can't directly communicate, the difficulty has been adjusted.

Ember tilted her head. So it was the unsolvable puzzle this time? But how could Ember help the man find his answer if the puzzle was meant to be unsolvable? What was the catch?

First, she obviously had to meet and greet the man and learn about the problem.

Having a walk down the street of that unknown city with that man was not too bad, but she wanted to find the answer to that puzzle fast so she could move to the next test. After all, Merida kept praising her intelligence but never said a thing about her patience.

Fortunately, the man was not in good shape, and their stroll was short-lived. And so they got back to the man apartments, which were three times bigger than Ember's house. However, she concentrated on the man's living room which only contained a blackboard, a map of the city, and a chessboard with a single lonely white cavalier on it.

You found a clue about the problem the man needs to solve: the Seven Bridges of Konisberg.

Devise a walk through the city that would cross each of the seven bridges once and only once.

Then a city map appeared right before her eyes with the bridge and river highlighted. But she dismissed it quickly.

Ember's first instinct was to go back to a walk and test it, but they had just returned from the said walk, and she had been warned that the puzzle was meant to be unsolvable. Then... what was she supposed to do?

Disheartened, she rested her head on her lap and recalled the map as the man had settled down and was presently occupied, playing with the lonely cavalier on the chessboard, moving the piece of wood with no rhyme and reason.

The map was simple and had only seven interest points layer out. And so Ember started thinking about why that exact puzzle was allegedly unsolvable. She started her mind walk with the bridge on the far south and headed north to the second bridge, then followed the river west, took the next bridge directly on her left, and went back south for the corresponding bridge before backtracking, crossing the river once again to get back to the main island.

And that was when she realized her mistake. She had two bridges left on that island to cover to solve the problem, but the only way she had to solve it was to take the north bridge, then walk east along the river and go for a swim to get back to the east island and cross that last bridge back to the main island.

But she was sure it wasn't the intended solution as her current owner would not like to go for a swim. So she tried again with another path. And again. And again. Until she concluded that whatever she tried, the east island simply missed a bridge or that the main island had one too many bridges. There was no correct answer to that puzzle, so the only thing she could possibly help that man with was to prove there was no right answer.

But the only interaction she had with the man was their walk together. She could always wait for the next one and give her owner a good bath in the river to prove her point, but she was uncertain that much would be sufficient, though the system told her the difficulty had been adjusted due to the communication issue. But there had to be a way.

And so she started 'playing' with the chess pieces the man wasn't playing with and simulated the bridge on the floor. But she found it impossible to draw the path between those without making a mess. So she thought it deeper about how to simplify it even more and just picked four chess pieces, one for each land mass, and started searching for things to make her bridges.

What she found in abundance was silverware, and so she took the spoon and went to work.

Five bridges to the Central Island, two connected north, two connected south, and one connected to the east island. Three bridges to the east island, one already with the central island, one connected north, one connected south. She was rather proud of her work. But still, she took one last spoon in her mouth before she started barking at her owner to get his attention.

Woof! Arf! Woof! Arf! — 'Look, I made it!'

"I'm trying to work, Sergey!"

Woof! Arf! Woof? — 'But I made it?'

Then, finally, then man looked up and only looked at the spoon hanging in her mouth, then at her creation on the floor.

"Sergey! Look at the mess you've done!"

He raised up and came to destroy Ember's creation, but she started growling. It was okay if the man thought she was a boy, but destroying her hard work crossed the line. And so she began her demonstration.

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Arf! Woof! — 'See? One more bridge and problem solved!'

Then she removed that exact same spoon plus one other and barked again.

Arf! Arf! — 'Solved again!'

Then she started wagging. 'That’s it, system. I proved that puzzle was unsolvable and tried my best. Can I get my clear notification and move on?'

But the man had another idea and decided to ground her in her cage, although he conveniently ignored her "mess" on the floor before getting back to work. And so Ember lazily lay down until the man was reminded of her existence hours later and went with her for a walk.

She was feeling angry with the man's lack of understanding, and so she decided to get back to plan A and give the man a healthy unplanned bath right after they crossed the penultimate bridge and forced the man who could not swim on the other side of the river.

"See. I totally nailed it. Here is your missing bridge. And there is the last bridge to get back home."

But the man did not get it. And so they went back home, and Ember went back to her cage.

And the man went to sleep.

Only to wake up two hours later and walk on one of the two spoons she had thrown away, leading to the man's decision to finally cleaned her mess. But when he approached Ember's work, something wrong happened, and the world froze.

You defied the madness of an unsolvable puzzle and successfully helped the man solve the seven Bridges of Konisberg mathematical problem! For achieving it on minimal difficulty, the difficulty of the remaining Labyrinths had been increased.

Then, the orange portal appeared at the bottom of her cage, and Ember happily left the imaginary man to his cleaning while she went back to her life. In the end, this experience had not been half as bad! But she did not want to deal with another owner and another cage already.

So she had to choose between facing a raging battle of the labyrinth of Resentment and meeting her late imaginary pack and whatever "Burden" she would have to face there.

If her previous tests were of any indication, trying to win that battle, whatever side she was on, would be a bad idea. So it was probably a freaking diplomacy test between two enemies determined to kill each other. As a dog and with the increased difficulty, there were fat chances of this happening. And even if she could not beat this challenge, she wanted to make it as far as she could, if only to spite on those men who laughed at her for even thinking of attempting it.

But she also realized something else from her previous tests. Each time, the test should have been unsolvable, and she knew it. Yet she passed those tests while she had no idea what she had been doing. Each time she was confident in her ability, she either died, got injured, or failed. But yet, both Labyrinths had let her pass. Why? I had to be because of that one rule the man warned him about.

She was tasked to try and figure out that rule. Then follow it. But she never figured it out. She supposed she wasn't eliminated for breaking whatever rule it was because she did not know it yet. But with the increased difficulty, she had a feeling she had to figure it out fast, or she would fail. She did not want to know what would happen if she passed all the tests but failed to understand what the rule was.

And so she went for the green portal, hoping that she would find the answer to her question in the forest.

★☆★

Reuniting with the pack had been everything she ever wished for. And she felt herself wanting that 'test' and her dream would never end so she could stay there forever. But the pack had fallen ill only hours after Ember returned, and she could now tell the tell-tale sign of a disease.

The pack was always tired, especially the other females and their youngs. But then, the younger one started vomiting and bleeding with no apparent wound, growing weaker at an alarming rate. She knew what she was supposed to do: find the source of the disease killing her pack. Hopefully, the system would be merciful and reward her efforts with a cure. But she did not know where to begin.

Ember had checked everything everyone had been drinking and eating, going as far as to track the remains of their preys eaten by scavengers to see if something afoul at happened while she was gone but nothing. As far as she knew, the pack had been fine until she returned, and then, everything had spiraled to the worst.

Even worse, the system did not ask her to find a cure or promise her a cure for her efforts, only asking that she should see to the source of the disease, suggesting that the disease might be incurable or, at least, beyond her capability. And worse: more and more members seemed to be contaminated while she failed to find the cause.

Then, the first puppy had finally died, then another and another, over and over again. Each time Ember went back to the pack after yet another fruitless search, she would either learn about one of the puppy's death or that an adult had fallen ill. So she did the only thing that made sense and growled to the few last sane members of the pack to make them leave. They had to stay away until she found out what was wrong with the pack. It broke her heart to do it, but she had to do so to save their life.

You successfully prevented some members of the pack from falling ill! Congratulations, you are one step closer to find the source.

That was when it hit her like a stone. She banished members of the pack to save them, and the system just told her it was a clue to find the cause. So it had to be something within the pack. Could it be?

The first puppy to contract the disease and die. He had to be the one to transmit it to his siblings and his mother, then from the mother to the other females, and then to the other puppies. That much she could deduct without trouble but tell her nothing of the source.

You successfully found the chain of contamination and are one step closer to find the source.

That message again. So it confirmed it: that puppy was the first to fall ill and contaminate all the others, but where did the disease come from? It progressed rapidly and killed all its juvenile hosts. The adults had seen better days, but the first mother to be contaminated finally showed encouraging signs of recovery, although she was grieving her entire litter.

It had to be something that happened shortly before she arrived or that did not make sense. But that puppy only ate was his mother gave him, and the food had been cleaned. Could it be that an adult transmitted it to the pup instead of the other way around? But that did not make sense. No other adult had shown signs of the disease except those in contact with the puppies, and the mothers had not participated in the hunt for weeks. She was the only female without puppies cause she had not been there for the mating season.

So she tried hard to recall everything the puppy had done since the moment she saw him.

She remembered he was a biter for the way he greeted her when they met...

You found a clue and are one step closer to find the source.

Wait, what? She was merely recalling memories. How could that be related...

Then she thought deeper. The puppy welcomed her with a bite and managed to draw blood from her. And then he fell hill hours later.

She was the source of the disease.

You found the source. Now is the time to experience the burden of responsibility.

What was she supposed to do? Her pack was dying. Those who survived were stranded away from those who escaped the disease.

She had brought doom to her pack, and there was nothing she could do to repair the damage she had caused.

Call back those she had scared away and risk to contaminate them? Take care of the remaining members of the pack until they recover? No. She had only one option left, and she knew it.

To leave the pack and never return. That was the best chance she could give them.

She was about to abandon the test and the challenge altogether when another notification popped out:

You made the right choice and gave the pack a chance to heal. For bearing a Burden no one should have to live with and persevere, you passed the test.