The ground hit me hard. It wasn’t stone anymore, but something softer and damp. I looked down and was almost shocked. My hands sank into cool, verdant grass as I pushed myself up, blinking against the sudden glow of torchlight.

  “What the–of all things? Grass? That’s healthy?!”

  This Trial thing just kept hitting me with one new thing after another. If it weren’t for my Earth memories, I would be totally adrift in a rough, alien ocean! But here I was, just casually tossed onto some sick fuck’s lawn.

  I lifted my head.

  Walls of dense, dark foliage towered on either side, their leaves glistening as if freshly rained on. The air smelled earthy and sweet, like crushed herbs, undercut by something sharper—oil, maybe, from the torches mounted at intervals along the hedges. Their flames burned too steadily, untouched by wind.

  Ahead of me was a way forward that branched into two opposite directions.

  It was a hedge maze. It had to be.

  Astounded and just driven by the instinct to ask whatever higher power existed to grant me patience, I looked up to the sky. My mouth dropped. It was a sky that Set had never seen—a starry night sky.

  My chest ached. It was beautiful. It was cruel.

  Of course they’d dangle this, I thought. Show the caged rat the open field without it knowing what it’s looking at.

  I got on my feet, still only wearing the cloak around my waist, with my pack fastened to my thigh. I started moving. I could think as I went. This miserable world clearly had a boner for just pulling back the curtain on layers upon layers of bullshit.

  Overwhelm the feeble, sheltered minds of villagers over and over—knock them into a daze from how unreal all of this is. Maybe laugh at their shock..

  The more I walked, the more I painted my mental image of whoever was in charge of all of this.

  “Didn’t even tell us what we’re supposed to do,” I spat. “What? Is it a battle royale? Should I beat everyone up?”

  I got to the intersection and studied both options. Both paths looked the same.

  “Is this a navigation challenge?”

  I stopped myself, having noticed something. I quickly spoke while Level Flickering. There was definitely something strange about the way my voice was carrying. I quickly pressed an ear against the ground. It was a longshot, but I couldn’t hear anything. No steps, no thumps.

  It was so quiet. Either this maze was huge, or they had some sort of noise suppression activated.

  “I’m pretty sure I can imagine every single thing they could come up with,” I told myself.

  I walked on, keeping my senses sharp and flickering sparingly. More thoughts popped into my head. I needed to ask the brothers about their Shadow Flame. Heck, I could probably ask about their village in greater detail.

  There was a minor shift as I walked on. There were torches sporadically placed along the hedges. They burned regular flames. My eyes kept snapping to them, until finally, I was rewarded for my attention.

  I stopped in front of one torch in particular. The flame—there was definitely some sort of bubble in there.

  “What is that?” I mumbled, trying to get a better look.

  A sudden impact. A massive weight hit the back of my head. I fell to the ground, but began flickering out of reflex. I landed on my palms and rolled off the impact. There was a sound—that of a weight crashing behind me.

  I rolled onto my feet and saw my attacker—a panting black-haired man with a club in his hands. I barely recognized him–one of the other participants.

  “Hey! What are you doing!?” I yelled. “At least tell a guy why you’re whacking him!”

  Our eyes locked. He threw his club at me in a total shock move. I backed up and caught it. He ran to the torch and ripped it from the fixture. Then, in another surprising turn, he pointed it at me.

  The torch’s flame flashed. It went out. Three blue, crystalline triangles flew out from the extinguished flame and spun above the guy’s head. In the next second, they flew at me. With a flicker’s boost, I leaped backward, and watched two of the triangles hit ground and burst into a mess of crystals. The third’s trajectory adjusted. It flew for me. Unwilling to get hit by that crystal growth effect, I threw the club at the triangle and saw the burst.

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  Beneath the spectacle of the moment, I rushed in, ducking beneath the crystal-captured club. Our eyes locked one more time. I threw a punch, going in with my Level Flicker approach.

  My punch connected and I pushed the guy back. He wasn’t as sturdy as I expected. Goron was worse.

  “Hey, you gonna talk to me, man? What’s going on? Are we supposed to fight each other?”

  The man, eyes blazing with determination, roared. He tossed the extinguished flame aside and ran at me.

  I noticed something different in him as I flickered. The pressure—or something I could barely register—around him was different.

  I swung my arm to block the punch. The moment my arm made contact, the world boomed, with an enthusiastic announcement booming louder than all of it—

  [Fated Guard!]

  The sudden voice, like an announcer’s, almost gave me a heart attack.

  The guy was worse off. Somehow, an incredible force was generated with that block. It struck the shocked man’s body at the same time it struck mine, but where I felt rejuvenated, he was pushed back, his fist repelled.

  I didn’t lose my momentum. I refused to give it up. Flickering, I approached. Seeing the split-second of fear in the enemy’s eyes, I threw my punch—

  [Divine Smite!]

  Once more, the world boomed with the announcement and the sound of something like thunder beneath it. Wind blew from the point of contact, trails of gold rushing out.

  That wasn’t a regular punch. The man went flying into the hedge wall, a wave of golden energy flying out along the surface of the hedge upon contact.

  Fated Guard, and Divine Smite—two things that were announced like I was in a fighting game. I didn’t have time to contemplate them. I rushed up to the guy, stopping short of running into him.

  He was yelling—I hadn’t noticed. The hedges had seemingly come alive, thorny branches coming out from within them to trap the enemy as he struggled.

  He only quieted down when he saw me standing in front of him.

  “Well, look at that?”

  He squealed as he tried to bury himself further into the hedge, but he wasn’t getting away. I slapped him once, hard enough to feel the sting on my palm.

  “Mister, you better start talking.” I slapped him again. “What’s going on? Why did you attack me? Is that what we’re supposed to be doing?”

  He was really committed to being quiet, so I slapped him a few times and then tore down his pants.

  “What are you doing?!” he cried.

  “One, I like your pants. Two, I’m going to rip your balls off—“

  “Don’t! Don’t!”

  “Then talk! Don’t mess with the man that came here naked!”

  He let out a loud, frustrated cry. “The sooner you’re out of here, the less points you’ll collect! You won’t progress on the scoreboard!”

  I tilted my head. “Oh. I could have thought of that. Pretty proactive of you. I didn’t expect that kind of sharpness. That doesn’t really sound like a goal though—more like a clever strategy… How do I get points?”

  “I don’t know! They never tell us what sort of round it is!” he cried.

  I noticed that the hedges weren’t writhing as intensely as they had been a moment before. It made me think this predicament he was in wouldn’t last.

  “What was that torch?”

  “I don’t know, man. Just grab the right ones and you’ll know how to use them!”

  “Thanks,” I said, satisfied and happy.

  “Please, help me out here—gah—“

  I had him by his throat. Then, I manifested New Arm and sneered. “Why would I do that?”

  I drove my metal fist two inches into his face, muffling his cry.

  “You attacked a naked man.”

  I pulled my hand, watched him heal, and then punched him in the sternum, hearing pops and cracks all along his chest.

  “Maybe if you answered my questions faster.”

  I struck his stomach and made him spew all over himself by directing his head down with my right hand.

  “You think I like pulling people’s pants down?”

  I kicked him in the nuts and smashed his head back down when the pain woke him up.

  “I like your strategy though.”

  Done talking, I unleashed a storm of fists into his face, smashing his skull a few times before finally, the wounds stopped healing.

  “Is that enough?” I asked, holding his swelling head up by his hair.

  I let his head drop. A moment later, his body began breaking apart, fading into motes of light.

  I let out a whistle. “Fancy.”

  Something caught my eye—a mote that fell to the grass and solidified into a glass card. I picked it up to find that it was the size of a trading card and had a small puzzle piece inside it.

  “So, that’s how it goes? Beat people up until they vanish and pick up a card? Interesting.”

  Well, that was that. I walked away, content to keep navigating the maze, but now I had things to ponder—other than the card. I didn’t have to ponder that.

  The two announcements and the acts they were linked with—they were such powerful moments. It was like there was a reaction and I was an ingredient that was up close and lucid enough to feel it with every cell of my body.

  “I should have asked them what they were…”

  As far as I could tell, there was one for defending and one for attacking that produced different effects. I struck him the first time, but didn’t get the “Divine Smite.”

  I didn’t want to be here, but it would be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in trying to trigger those abilities again.

  “I wonder if anyone heard that announcement…”