HP: The Dropout Who Saved the World

The two of them sprinted about 50 meters before stopping at the first fork.

"Cough... Northwest... The trophy is in the northwest..." Harry, who was suddenly pulled into a run, almost choked on his own saliva. "We need to choose a path!"

Jane Yu glanced at the two small paths, both dimly lit and with no visible end.

But from her intuition, no matter which path they chose, they would encounter the first wave of small monsters.

Perhaps they were even monsters enraged by the buff from the three warriors who rushed in ahead.

Forced to compete to correct the plot, Jane Yu was compelled to think.

She felt that whether they went left or right, it was unlikely they would catch up and let Harry win.

She decided to follow the mermaid's advice.

Silently chanting the trophy in her heart, she picked up the conch hanging around her neck and put it to her ear...

"Forward..."

She looked up at the dense, tall hedges in front of her.

No path? Is this advanced navigation broken?

Unwilling to believe it, Jane Yu tapped the conch and put it to her ear again, but received the same answer.

"Forward..."

She thought about this problem for a few seconds and then suddenly realized—

Perhaps the mermaid navigation was giving the straight-line distance, not the walking distance!

It seems she would have to blaze a trail.

"Harry, have you ever heard a Muggle saying?"

Harry looked at her with an expectant yet puzzled gaze.

Jane Yu pointed to the dense hedge, making up her mind:

"The shortest distance between two points is a straight line."

"A line segment? What's that?" Harry's mouth fell open, clearly beyond his understanding. "It sounds like some kind of arithmetic divination...?"

Often feeling that the mathematical education quality of British wizards was lacking, Jane Yu sighed.

She decided to abandon the discussion of mathematical problems with Harry, who couldn't even recite the multiplication table.

"In short, let's take a shortcut. I don't want to run around in this place where you never know when a boss might pop out."

Having made her summary, Jane Yu decisively took physical action.

She casually broke off a branch from the hedge, pointed her wand at it, and said:

"Transfiguration!"

With her incantation, the branch instantly turned into a sharp woodcutting axe!

Picking up the axe, she swung it at the hedge in front of her in a standard lumberjack stance.

"Wow—" Harry exclaimed unconsciously as he stared at the opening that appeared and squeezed through easily.

Getting the hang of it, Harry quickly took the axe from Jane Yu and said confidently:

"Let me do it, I'm good at this!"

Jane Yu handed him the axe and conjured a large pair of shears, and the two of them began working diligently.

They hacked their way towards the center of the maze.

They could hear the distant sounds of incantations, battles with magical creatures, and frantic running...

But those noises were completely irrelevant to them now; their world was reduced to just two words: hard work.

The two soon reached the central circle of the maze.

"For the first time, I feel that working is such a joyful thing!"

Harry exclaimed, swinging the axe cheerfully, feeling his previously tense mood completely relax.

He even had the leisure to notice the scenery in the maze; the gloomy, misty sky had turned into a romantic drizzle in his mind, the fresh scent of trees was more pleasant than any perfume, and the sound of branches rubbing together had become a melodious symphony.

Not having to face those terrifying monsters turned the whole competition into a vacation for him.

"This is fantastic, taking the unconventional route means we won't encounter those things!"

Jane Yu's eyes widened as a sense of foreboding brewed in her heart.

The protagonist's jinx, the flag being set...

She couldn't help but stop trimming the branches.

The next second, with Harry's swing of the axe—

A woman's face suddenly appeared!

Harry was so startled that he sat down on the ground, and Jane Yu couldn't help but take a step back.

Seeing its resemblance to a Sphinx, she breathed a sigh of relief.

"It's a Sphinx."

It was evidently also startled by the two unconventional path-takers, leaping up with all four feet off the ground, arching its back, and hissing.

Fortunately, it remembered its duty, hesitantly pacing back and forth, its eyes filled with confusion:

"The direction of the visitors is inconsistent with the predetermined one... The rules don't apply to them, I shouldn't pose a riddle... But I really want to... It's like claws scratching at my heart..."

"If you don't want to pose a riddle, then don't." Jane Yu decisively forced the separated hedge back together. "We'll take another path."

But when she and Harry hacked open a new gap, the Sphinx's face appeared again.

"Surprise!"

She expressionlessly closed the hedge, but the Sphinx seemed determined to confront her, poking its face through the next gap.

Intelligent creatures are really troublesome.

"We're very close! This is the nearest path!"

Its large paws thudded against the grass, clearly its excessive desire to pose riddles had exploded after being unsatisfied for too long, and it began using various means to tempt the two to answer its riddle.

"Since you want me to answer a question," Jane Yu lost her patience, "you have to answer my question first. If you get it right, I'll answer yours."

The Sphinx tilted its head in thought, its tail tapping the grass:

"Sounds like a fair trade, I like puzzles."

"Good to hear." Jane Yu said, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

The Sphinx's brain went into overdrive, it hugged its head with its two front paws and lay on the ground, its internal program caught in an infinite loop.

"Ah—true genius! How can there be a question that even a Sphinx can't answer! My wisdom and knowledge—completely ruined!"

It covered its face with its two front paws and began to cry in despair.

It seemed it would no longer like puzzles.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Jane Yu and Harry quickly bypassed it, cutting through one bush after another.

"Why are there so many dirty cobwebs?" Jane Yu disdainfully brushed aside the webs and spider eggs. "Hasn't been cleaned for a month? I suspect spiders could crawl on me."

But no spiders emerged, and they encountered no obstacles.

When they broke through the last hedge, the golden trophy was waving at them from ahead.

"Alright." Jane Yu breathed a sigh of relief and stopped. "It's right ahead, Harry, go get it."

Feeling she had completed her task, she drew her wand, about to shoot red sparks to indicate she was out, but noticed Harry's gaze behind her was filled with fear.

"Spider—! Get away—!"

With Harry's shout, Jane Yu felt a great force from behind, something slammed into her back!

The next second, with a crisp sound of her robe tearing, her perspective rose, and she found herself uncontrollably flying forward, drawing closer and closer to the gleaming trophy—

She was slammed straight into the trophy!

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