Grotto Exploration - 3
Minesweeper!
Minesweeper is a strangely contradictory game. It has mostly vanished these days, but as a default Windows title it was something nearly everyone knew.
And yet almost no serious gamer had ever truly played it. With the internet installed, far more thrilling and seductive games sprawled everywhere — so what reason was there to bother with Minesweeper?
I myself had only poked at it a few times during computer lab. Of course, ever since learning about Hyeoncheonja's Grotto, my Minesweeper skills had shot up considerably.
At the very least, I was at a level where clearing something like Hyeoncheonja's Grotto was no trouble at all.
"So if this square is a three, then the mine belonging to the two next to it automatically has to be right here."
"Oh…"
Being an expert myself was one thing; I still needed Heukmyo to understand the board. If I just solved everything without her knowing a thing, it would be hard for her to find any interest in it.
It was only a mid-difficulty puzzle, but with two heads available, solving it together was better anyway.
Besides, this was my first Minesweeper in a full eight years. How badly my brain had rusted was still an open question.
"If you're not sure, just skip it. Only mark a square with one of these red stones when you're really certain."
"Hmm. Got it."
Minesweeper, surprisingly, also required luck. Stepping on a mine with the very first click was common enough, and so was blowing yourself up while randomly probing for a new cluster of mines.
So the first move mattered.
"Starting."
"Me too."
Heukmyo and I opened wooden panels at the same time. The one I flipped showed no number at all. In the original Minesweeper, empty ground would auto-clear, but here there was no such convenience. Opening panels one by one gradually revealed the outline.
"Whew. This won't be easy."
The time limit was five minutes. For a ten-by-ten board that was quite generous — but factoring in the time it took to open each wooden panel, it no longer felt so generous.
Heukmyo, following instructions, was carefully opening blank panels first and revealing the shape of the board.
"Heukmyo, start with the ones in the corners. A one on a corner is an automatic lock — narrow it down from there, one by one."
"Ah… ah! You're right!"
I started from the corner ones myself. Having gone so long without a puzzle, my brain refused to turn over properly. Still, Minesweeper was a fight against mistakes — so long as I double-checked calmly, it would be fine.
I found the corner ones, locked in the mines, and began opening the squares around them one after another.
What was the trickiest number in Minesweeper?
Personally, I would pick three. Fours and fives rarely showed up and their surroundings cleared quickly, but a three linked with a two or a one could get genuinely nasty.
"Tsk."
Working steadily, I hit a wall.
A whole row of numbers packed side by side. With only that parade of digits in a line, you couldn't pin down the mines — you had to fill in the opposite side first.
In regular Minesweeper, when that happened, all you could do was pray and open a random square.
Fortunately, I had the squares Heukmyo had already opened.
I checked her opened panels first. She hadn't locked in many mines yet — only three so far. Not wanting to interrupt her crouched, intense concentration, I headed the other way.
Luckily the lower section connected to my side almost at once, and I was able to identify mines in rapid succession.
"Hmm… if I assume it's over here… no, there's already a one here, so there can't be a bomb there too… ah! Then it has to be this side!"
Roughly three mines left. Once Heukmyo's section was done, that would be it. Checking the time, about half still remained.
"Umm… so this side is a four… and this is a two, so…"
The sight of her grunting and puzzling through it was rather adorable.
"How about looking at the other side?"
Truthfully, this Minesweeper board was small in square count, but for a beginner it was quite hard. A twenty-percent mine ratio put it at mid difficulty or higher — just shy of advanced.
Advanced boards leaned heavily on luck, so twenty percent sat right on the edge of what pure skill could still clear.
"Here — what if you start from this part?"
"Ah! Yes, I can solve that!"
Watching a Minesweeper newbie with fond satisfaction, I suddenly thought of the group chat. That bastard ReincarnationTruck.
A dark premonition flashed through me.
Back then I'd been fussing over a newbie too, and gotten dragged into all of this — was something about to happen again?
"Heuk…"
"Solved it!"
Heukmyo opened the final square.
"Whew."
Thankfully, what lay inside was a number, not a bomb.
Clunk!
And in that instant every remaining square flipped open, revealing the bombs beneath. From the outside they looked like small wooden barrels, but the red paint on their lids made it obvious to anyone what they were.
Hissssss…
Somewhere, a fuse was burning down.
"What the hell?"
I looked toward the nearest bomb and saw a lit fuse connected to it from somewhere out of sight.
"No — we got it right!"
"Senior! Just get clear first!!"
Damn it, where had we gone wrong? It was possible. Wrong answers always came from blind spots in perception. No matter how carefully I double-checked, the odds of re-confirming a wrong answer as correct were high. However unfair it felt, the fuse was already lit!
Before I knew it Heukmyo had thrown her arms around me and launched us both. A rush of her scent hit me, and then we were flung clear of the Minesweeper board.
"Hide behind the rule stele!"
"Got it!"
The moment Heukmyo and I ducked behind the stone slab—
Fwoooooosh—!
BOOOOM!!
Bursts of flame rose high toward the grotto ceiling and painted the dark sky above us.
"…Wow."
"Son of a… that scared the hell out of me."
Did clearing Minesweeper set off fireworks? Maybe it had, maybe it hadn't. In the game Murim Cheonha, finishing mini-games usually came with screen effects — confetti, flower petals, that sort of thing. Even a veteran couldn't remember every last detail.
One by one the ignited bombs — no, fireworks — stitched the empty air with light. The grotto was dark enough that without torches you could barely see, so the fireworks had a real charm to them.
Fireworks.
Before the pandemic I used to see them once or twice a year. Whenever some unknown festival sent them blooming across the sky, I would finally crane my neck up and watch.
These were smaller than those grand displays, but the way they unfurled their modest little flowers of fire and then scattered into sparks still captured everything lovely about fireworks.
Even while my startled heart was still settling, they were beautiful enough to steal the eye.
I followed Heukmyo's stream of soft gasps and watched them with her.
"Ah…"
As the last spark died, she let out a regretful little sound of wonder.
"What a shame… they were so pretty."
"Yeah… they were."
It had been so long since I'd seen a real fireworks show that I had gotten completely absorbed. But lingering or not, we had no choice but to hurry on toward the Third Gate.
The grotto ceiling was fairly high, yet it was still a closed space. The acrid smell of gunpowder shoved us forward from behind.
"I wonder what the Third Gate will be like… I'm getting more and more excited. Ah, that last trial would have been fun to try again."
While Heukmyo's eyes sparkled, my own tension was steadily draining away.
Heukmyo walked the path to the Third Gate full of anticipation. Perhaps because of the scare when the bombs went off, Ho Cheon-an looked a little drained.
This is fun after all.
Heukmyo had never expected that Ho Cheon-an was hiding things other than enlightenment — and that only made it more enjoyable. What a fascinating grotto this was!
The Asura statue, the bomb-finding game, the fireworks display as a reward for finding them — all of it was interesting and beautiful beyond compare.
What kind of trial would be waiting at the Third Gate?
To Heukmyo, the test ahead felt less like a trial and more like a gift.
When they reached the Third Gate, a cavern larger than any before welcomed Heukmyo and Ho Cheon-an.
Structures?
Heukmyo raised her torch high. Spread across the space below the Third Gate were temporary structures laid out over a vast area.
"There's a stele here. Shall we read it?"
"Go ahead."
With her heart pounding, Heukmyo read the words carved in the grotto.
Challenger, congratulations on passing the Second Gate.
If the first gate tested the challenger's martial prowess and the second tested the challenger's intellect, the third shall test the challenger's luck.
Challenger, do you see the countless buildings spread before this stele?
They appear intact from the outside, yet they are nothing more than stacked wooden boards and timber.
Do you see the green orbs placed among the buildings? Destroy them using the three kinds of bombs below, for a total of three uses.
The red bomb is the most versatile. The blue bomb splits into three smaller bombs upon detonation. The yellow bomb is light and can be thrown far.
The green orbs can be destroyed by nothing more than the structures shaking or collapsing, so remember that bringing down the structures themselves is also a valid method.
"Luck, huh…"
Ho Cheon-an gave a short snort of laughter. How many people had taken that line at face value and burned through Save & Load divine techniques on this Third Gate? He had been one of them. Adjusting angles, picking bombs, all for the sake of smashing just one more green orb…
All of it had been pointless.
Ho Cheon-an asked Heukmyo, who was examining the bombs.
"Which ones do you want to throw?"
"Hmm? Don't you already know something about this, Senior?"
"This gate is luck, remember? Besides, I'm too weak to throw anything far."
"But it looks fun — you should throw some too, Senior!"
"No. Just throw them all yourself."
Ho Cheon-an smirked at the way Heukmyo's whole posture screamed I want to throw every single one! even though her face wasn't visible. Yielding the throws didn't suit him at all — and yet.
"If that's what Senior wants, then fine! Shall we start by throwing the red ones one at a time?"
Heukmyo, who had been quietly fretting over which bomb to choose, lit up the moment she realized she could throw all three. She cleanly picked up a red bomb first.
"Hmm. There's no fuse. Don't we need to light it?"
"If you throw it down, the impact will set it off."
"Then here I go!"
Heukmyo hurled the bomb with force. Power worthy of a Peak Realm expert sent it arcing in a clean parabola straight into the middle of the largest building.
A moment later—
KRAAAANG!!
A massive explosion, and the building began to collapse. Pillars toppled, floors gave way, and the whole structure crumpled in on itself!
Rumble. Ruuuumble!
"…Woooow…"
A structure that looked about the size of a four-story pavilion, brought down by a single bomb!
Heukmyo's mouth fell open in awe. Even knowing it had been designed to collapse, watching a massive structure crumple under her own hand was thrilling enough to send a shiver through her.
"Senior! This is incredible! Are you really not going to throw any?!"
"Yeah. I told you — throw them all."
Ho Cheon-an's own heart was pounding at a demolition scene that put anything he'd only seen on a screen to shame. Somehow, though, those bombs felt less like "those birds" and more like grenades — and he had no desire to throw them himself.
Heukmyo, delighted, threw bomb after bomb. The blue one she lobbed at another structure exploded and launched three smaller shells, each of which struck a different building and brought parts of them down.
"Senior! Senior! Look — I'm going to drop this yellow bomb right into the middle of that cylindrical structure!"
"Yeah, sure."
A giggling Heukmyo and a half-hearted Ho Cheon-an made for a thoroughly mismatched picture — but Heukmyo was happy because she was having fun, and Ho Cheon-an was happy because he would get his hands on the rare treasures.
True to her boast, the yellow bomb slipped neatly into the exact center of the cylindrical structure and, with a blast, brought it crashing down.
"Oh, this is straight out of a movie."
"A movie? What's that?"
"Something that exists. Anyway… ah, over there."
Ruuuuuumble.
Having let the comment slip without thinking, Ho Cheon-an changed the subject. Heukmyo, too, gradually shook off the afterglow of the demolitions and came back to herself.
"Ah, what a shame. I wanted to take one as a souvenir."
Seeing that the compartment holding the bombs had closed, Heukmyo clicked her tongue. Whether the maker of these mechanisms was truly Hyeoncheonja or not, the craftsmanship was impressive enough that even Hyeoncheonja would have nodded in approval — damaging the mechanism would almost certainly end badly.
"As if they'd just let you walk off with something that dangerous."
"Well, true."
Heukmyo accepted it without argument. Anything that could blow apart temporary buildings that thoroughly was genuinely hazardous; taking one would have raised problems starting with how to even handle it.
"Well, the souvenir collecting starts now."
Ho Cheon-an fixed his gaze on the open doorway beyond.
The grotto's trials were over. It was time to harvest the fruits.