Chapter 15: The Seal Method and the Idiot Method
Overjoyed, Matthews immediately gave the order.
“Find the dumbest guy in the group! Remember, the one with the worst memory, the kind who can’t even remember what they had for breakfast!”
His confidants quickly set out and soon brought back a mercenary with messy hair.
“It’s you, Gretel.” Matthews also recognized this guy. He was a decent fighter in Free Wind, but his intelligence seemed to be a bit lacking. Other mercenaries often complained about the difficulty of communicating with him.
“Hello, Captain,” Gretel said with a silly grin.
“I’ll give you some paper.” Matthews put his arm around his shoulder. “You write the secret code on the paper, the code on each piece must be the same. You decide what to write, but don’t tell anyone.”
“But Captain…” Gretel stammered.
“What?” Matthews asked.
“I can’t write,” Gretel said.
“Then draw!” Matthews said impatiently. “You can draw, right?”
“Yes,” Gretel said agreeably. “I like drawing big cats.”
“Then draw big cats!” Matthews waved his hand dismissively, urging him to leave quickly. Talking to this idiot made him feel like his own IQ was dropping.
So they quickly brought him paper and pens. Gretel picked up the pen with a grin and started scribbling on the paper.
His confidants surrounded him, their backs to him, preventing other curious mercenaries from coming over and seeing the code Gretel was drawing.
Gretel would sometimes space out, sometimes chew on the pen, sometimes giggle and scribble on the paper. The Free Wind mercenaries stood about ten paces away, looking at Gretel’s artistic endeavors with bewildered expressions, completely clueless as to what Captain Matthews was trying to do.
“Well, well, Captain Matthews.” Seeing this, Asker walked over and greeted him. “Have you come up with a solution?”
“Of course,” Matthews said with a smug and proud smile. “Just a little trick, just needs a bit of brainpower.”
The implication was: You actually wanted to charge me for such a simple thing? Are you kidding me! Small mercenary groups really are inexperienced and stingy.
“Oh.” Asker glanced towards Gretel. Several confidants immediately straightened up, blocking Asker’s view.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Matthews, afraid that he would suddenly rush over, quickly pulled him back. “Captain Asker, we can’t reveal our team’s secret code to you. Once you know it, this anomaly will also know it, won’t it?”
“You’ve thought it through quite well.” Asker smiled. “The method is actually quite simple, it’s just a bit of a waste of paper.”
“A waste of paper?” Matthews asked.
“Yes,” Asker said. “You know, the difficulty of this anomaly lies in the fact that ‘whatever is known by anyone is also known by it’.”
“In other words, once you open the slip of paper and verify the code, the anomaly will also know the code.”
“Next time, this code won’t work.”
“So, we have to prepare several different code schemes, in case the anomaly creates multiple replicas and tries to infiltrate us again.”
“That’s true.” Matthews muttered. “How many code schemes have you prepared?”
“Three, from Scheme 1 to Scheme 3,” Asker said. “Of course, I don’t know what each code is.”
So we have to prepare multiple sets of codes… Matthews thought to himself, his expression quickly turning blank.
Wait, everyone had to have a copy of the code, so preparing multiple sets of codes meant multiplying the amount of paper used.
Azure Longsword only had 9 people. Preparing two more sets of codes only meant using 18 more pieces of paper.
Their Free Wind had brought more than 40 people this time! How much more paper would that require?!
Matthews called over a confidant: “How much paper do we have?”
“44 sheets,” the confidant replied. “Just enough for one per person.”
“That won’t do.” Matthews explained the situation, leaving his confidant dumbfounded.
“…So, once the code is verified, it becomes invalid, and we have to prepare more sets of codes. First, use Scheme 1. After Scheme 1 is used and invalidated, use Scheme 2 next time, and so on.”
“But…” The confidant smiled wryly. “We don’t have that much paper.”
“No paper?” Matthews glared.
“We’re a mercenary group, not a group of professors!” The confidant argued. “What kind of mercenary group carries so much paper! These 44 sheets of writing paper are the toilet paper we use!”
“What about the other mercenaries?” Matthews said. “Don’t they bring their own toilet paper? Ask them to spare some.”
“Mercenaries aren’t so refined,” the confidant said. “They just find a bush, do their business, and then wipe themselves with some leaves.”
Matthews: …
Then he remembered Asker was still there, so he asked tentatively:
“Captain Asker…”
“We don’t have much paper either.” Asker said with a smile, finally revealing his intention. “If you need it, we can sell some to you.”
“Fuck!” The word “sell” was the last thing Matthews wanted to hear. He immediately put on a stern face and said, “It’s okay, we don’t need paper. Let’s think of other ways.”
Then he turned to his confidants and said with a smile:
“Do you have any ideas?”
The confidants looked at each other. Saying they had no ideas in front of another group’s captain would definitely lead to repercussions from Matthews later. So even if they couldn’t think of anything, they had to pretend they could!
So everyone started brainstorming.
“Fold each sheet of paper in half and cut it into two pieces, that can save half the paper.” One confidant tried to solve the problem by reducing paper size.
“I’ll go find Gretel!” Another confidant hurriedly ran over.
“Just ask him, don’t look at what he drew!” Matthews quickly reminded him.
But when they asked, they learned that Gretel had already finished drawing the secret code and had used up all the paper.
“Or, use something else instead of paper?” One confidant suddenly had an idea. “Like cloth strips?”
“You’re a genius!” Matthews exclaimed. “Go get some cloth.”
Compared to paper, cloth was much easier to find. Basically, no mercenary would wear armor directly against their skin; they would wear a layer of linen underwear inside.
So after stripping the underwear off a few mercenaries, a second and third stack of linen strips were urgently produced.
“Ah, I have to draw again?” Gretel was also a bit speechless.
“Draw different codes this time. Remember, the code on each strip must be the same, but the codes for different schemes must be different.” The confidant instructed.
“So complicated.” Gretel scratched his head and suddenly looked confused. “Hey, what did I draw for the first code?”
The confidants exchanged glances and breathed a sigh of relief. This Gretel really was an idiot, he actually forgot what he had just drawn. Then the anomaly probably wouldn’t be able to read his memory. Very good, very good.
Matthews watched as his confidants quickly wrote the number 1 on the back of each strip, representing the first scheme. Gretel had already begun drawing the second scheme, so he raised his head smugly, wanting to see the expression on Asker’s face.
“Huh, where is he?”
Asker had returned to the girls. Medea immediately came over and asked:
“How did it go?”
“They decided to figure it out themselves,” Asker said.
“Tsk,” Medea clicked her tongue. “Cheapskates.”
“But it seems their method has some problems,” Asker said doubtfully. “They didn’t close their eyes and stamp a seal, but had someone hand-draw the code.”
“Huh? Wouldn’t the code then enter the drawer’s memory?” Thira asked in surprise. “Wouldn’t that render it useless?”
“I’m not sure.” Asker shook his head. “Forget about them.”
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