Project: Death for Classroom Zero

Chapter 28: Ciphertext

The students were terrified. 

Seeing the horrifying twisted neck of Professor Buenaventura, the students were surely terrified. They all ran towards the back portion of the classroom, shaking, crying, begging not to see her dreaded form. 

Professor Buenaventura laughed from the terrified reactions of the students. She was laughing while her neck was twisted which surely was not a satisfying thing to witness. 

“What a pleasant expression!” she shouted in the midst of her laughing. “It is always satisfying to see the terrified and face-shrilled expressions on the students’ faces.” She smiled. Soon after, she decided to return back the position of her face. The popping sound of the cracking bones on her neck made the students wince everytime that they would hear it. 

When Professor Buenaventura finally arranged back her body, she looked at the students back again with a smile, as if she did not do anything terrifying. 

“Now, if you may, can we now start our discussion?” asked her.

The students nodded. They knew that it was a trick for them so that they will be back to their senses that this place is no ordinary High school setup. They knew that it was one of the professor’s weapons in her arsenal that she  could grab, so that when disarray and disrespect happened inside the room, she could immediately gain control towards them by just twisting her neck. It was so effective that the students silently and warily walked towards their seats. 

“Okay, now that everyone is settled, let’s start the class!” Now her energetic voice swirled into the whole room. She was the only one that had the energy inside the class. Everyone, including Tristan, has a sulked aura lingering around their faces. 

“Who among you can read the sentence below,” she asked. Her smile was wide and noticeably full of excitement. There was a long stick she was holding in her hand. This stick was pointing to the ‘sentence’ that professor Buenaventura wanted the students to read.

Yet, no one among them was able to read the sentence. It was not because the students didn't have any high reading capacity skills, but because  … it was … simply incomprehensible. 

Professor Buenaventura laughed. “Seriously, the easiest way to read a sentence is incomprehensible to all of you? Were you all real scholars?” she asked with a challenging tune. 

But Tristan’s chest was pounding hard. Seeing the ‘sentence’ that the professor says, he knew that there is a big chance he could read it. 

Decrypt it. 

He has been sent an encrypted message in a card last day. It was with the use of Morse code that he was able to decode it and read. That message has been useful for him to recognize someone who had helped him yesterday, during the Titan Arum task, when they were having a dire time of being eaten by a flesh eating specie of Venus Fly Trap. 

Now he had the chance, once again, to decode a message. Seeing the sets of scrambled letters, he could not hide his curiosity and excitement. 

“Alright, since you cannot get to read the sentence, I will give you a special help,” said Professor Buenavista. “We are aware that you have your group. Alliances. But we’re not restricting you to do it because that’s actually a fun way of having this class. So instead, I want you to go with your group, and discuss. First to read the text will be rewarded of one hundred thousand dollars each, on the registered bank that was on your enrolment papers, and a special coin,” she showed the coin, “which you can use as an advantage for the next school task you will solve.”

“Man, the additional dollar reward is too good a reward already,” said Timmy as she arranged her chair towards the forming circle of their group. There are eight members in their group: Tristan, Rain, Blaze, Amara, Timmy, Tammy, Seven, and Caspian. All of them, just like all the students in another group, were eager to decode the message of the encrypted text. 

“But how do you think we’ll be able to read that message. It seems … vague,” said Tammy who is staring at the board, trying to read the scrambled letters that Professor Buenaventura wrote.

On the board, the encrypted text was sore to the eyes of the students, because they could not easily read it. Also, this kind of trickery was never taught in school. Only in this class zero was it taught.

The letters were all written in uppercases: THODEAENBKKTEEIEHATNTRNHG

“It’s difficult yet challenging,” said Seven. 

“Maybe we could take clues from the letters that can be easily read from those scrambled letters?” asked Caspian. 

“What do you mean, alpha?” asked Amara. Her eyebrows are colliding with each other, eager to know what possibility Caspian was telling. 

“I am not certain, but maybe we can take a clue from what can be read from it? Maybe the other letters are just a form of … joker in the sentence?” 

“But what can we read from those jumbles?” asked Timmy. 

“Uh… ‘tho’, ‘ode’, ‘tee’, and ‘hat’?” 

“Alpha dude, that doesn’t make sense,” said Timmy. 

“Yeah, maybe it wasn’t that way,” Caspian agreed, dismissing what he had suggested. 

Now, it was the time when Blaze—their new member, s***h, the man who helped them in the valley of flowers—started to speak: “It was a ciphertext,” he said, “a form of jumbled letters which at first doesn’t makes sense, but with the use of encryption algorithms, the jumbles of the letters would make sense, and through that, it could be easily read.” 

“But then how are we going to read it? My gosh, I’m starting to have a headache,” said Amara. 

“We just need to apply a deciphering method that would make this message in sense,” suggested Rain, “But the problem is that … what kind of method?” 

For a minute, silence fell through the group. And even to the class. They could not find how. 

Having full confidence, Tristan knocked the wooden armrest of his chair. From this, it caused his groupmates to look at him. Seeing his smile, the group started to feel excited. Their attention was brought into him, feeling the sudden end of the deciphering tunnel. 

“You get it, don’t you?” Seven asked in whispers. 

“Come on, man, tell us!” 

Rain was also looking at him, intently. For a moment, they set aside the tension that they earlier felt.

“What do you got, Tristan?” Rain asked. 

“It’s quite easy, to be honest,” he said. And then, he dropped the bomb: “Caesar box.” 

Hearing the word, Blaze's eyes grew wide. “Hey, that is possible.”

“Huh? What’s this Caesar box?” asked Tammy. 

“It is one of the earliest known ciphers in the world, along with Caesar’s cipher. There was a bit of confusion between Caesar box and Caesar Cipher, but they were two different types of message-hiding methods that Julius Caesar had developed. Caesar Cipher is now sometimes called ROT13 in the modern day, and is easily crackable. While for Caesar's box, it was also called the ‘Columnar Transposition Cipher’ which was said, though not clear, was designed to help Caesar’s nephew, Augustus.” 

“Wow, you’re quite familiar with it,” said Timmy.

“But how can we find the message?” Amara was frustrated now. She was holding her head, and her hair was frustratingly disorganized as well.

“Simply count the number of the letters, and find its square root.” 

“Hey, I’m not aware math is included here,” complained Seven. 

“Well, simple mathematics were sometimes needed in identifying the code’s algorithm,” reasoned Blaze.

Tristan continued his explanation. “You will be using the square root of the numbers of the letters to make a box which through it, the message could be read. You should take note that you can only box it according to the perfect square root. It’s hard to explain, but luckily for this message, it has a perfect square root.” 

“Twenty-five letters which means the square root of it was five,” said Caspian. 

“Which also means that we will organize the letters in a box of five rows and five columns.” 

“Okay. Proceed, uhuh,” said Amara, pretending that she can understand it. 

Tammy handed Tristan a paper and a pen. Tristan willingly got it, and started to write the letters on it. When done, he showed it to his group. 

Everyone, including Rain, had skipped a heart when they finally read the hidden message organized in a box-like fashion. 

Written was the following: 

T H O D E 

A E N B K

K T E E  I

E H A T N

T R N H G

“The Caesar box,” said Tristan, “can be read downwards, from left to right.” 

Now he raised his hand. Seeing it, the students look at him with a surprised and fascinated look. 

“Oh, Mr. Tristan Fauxier! Can you read it now?” Professor Buenavista asked. 

“Yes. I’m quite confident about it.”

“I can see it! Now, care to read it to the class?” 

He looked on the board—at the jumbled letters. Then, with the use of deciphering method he applied, he read:

“Take the throne and be the king.”