Hard Riddles

Hard riddles with answers are a true test of your brain power, reasoning and comprehension. You are sure to find these tough difficult riddles both challenging and puzzling. While these hard riddles and answers may drive you a little crazy sometimes, they may surprise you in the way they force you think out of the box.

The Missing Servant

A king has 100 identical servants, each with a different rank between 1 and 100. At the end of each day, each servant comes into the king’s quarters, one-by-one, in a random order, and announces his rank to let the king know that he is done working for the day. For example, servant 14 comes in and says, “Servant 14, reporting in.”

One day, the king’s aide comes in and tells the king that one of the servants is missing, though he isn’t sure which one.

Before the other servants begin reporting in for the night, the king asks for a piece of paper to write on to help him figure out which servant is missing. Unfortunately, all that’s available is a very small piece that can only hold one number at a time. The king is free to erase what he writes and write something new as many times as he likes, but he can only have one number written down at a time.

The king’s memory is bad and he won’t be able to remember all the exact numbers as the servants report in, so he must use the paper to help him.

How can he use the paper such that once the final servant has reported in, he’ll know exactly which servant is missing?

Riddle Answer