After a few seconds, Max’s vision reappeared. Although his body had moved a few metres from where he had been previously.

  ‘I moved…? Wait, isn’t this where that bowman was standing?’

  Looking down, Max realised his clothes had also changed, along with his equipment.

  ‘Ah, so I play as Liam from now on. Meaning…’ He glanced at the hovering obstacle course.

  “Listen here, ya lil’ newwwbiee.” The mercenary captain swaggered in front of him, blocking his view. Beer splashed over the grass as he stretched his arms out wide. “This be the Gauntlettt. An assault course made by a skilled gravt… gravito-man-sir.”

  “A gravitomancer, Boss.”

  “That’s what I said, you idiot!” the captain snapped. “Anyways, some archmage guy owed me a favour, so that’s why this is all here. More importantly, are ya ready, kid?”

  Realising that he was now able to speak with the NPCs, Max thought for a moment before replying, “…Do I just need to reach the other side?”

  “Oh yeah, forgot to say the rules.” the captain muttered under his breath. “All right, here’s the deal. See that stone platform on the other side of the course?”

  “No, a large number of obstacles are in the way.”

  “Oh… well anyways, there’s a platform at the end, and you gotta reach it in two minutes or less.”

  “Ah, got it.”

  “T-two minutes?!” A mercenary to the side went wide-eyed. “But Boss, didn’t you give everyone else fou–" A tankard struck the man’s forehead, instantly knocking him out.

  Thud.

  “Shut th’fuck up Marv. Nobody asked your goddamn opinion. Now, as I was saying…” He sucked the beer off his fingers. “You gotta reach the other side in two minutes, and since you’re an archer, you gotta shoot some targets on the sides o’tha riverbank while you’re doing it.”

  “Boss really hates archers.” Someone whispered nearby.

  Getting the jist of the situation, Max looked the captain in the eye. “I understand. Then, are you saying you’ll let me join the group if I can just do that?”

  “Heheh, sure, if yer’ capable.” The captain chuckled. “Just try to be fresh fish rather than fresh fish, if you catch my drift... Bwahahaha!”

  “…”

  Scrambling in response to their captain’s words, the mercenaries began running upstream to prepare targets, half of them crossing the nearby bridge to place their targets on the other side of the river. Max saw that the course started from the centre of that bridge, next to a large, glowing lever.

  ‘…I think I’m starting to feel a bit excited.’ An anticipatory smirk leaked out from Max’s face.

  Utilising the time needed for the targets to be set up, Max took the opportunity to scout out the course. The starting obstacle was a simple series of wide-spaced floating steps, leading up to a 45-degree ramp. Beyond that, there seemed to be a dome, followed by a long balance beam and a set of large discs which obstructed the walkway. He couldn’t see beyond the discs, so he would need to get past those before he could see anything more.

  ‘Hm?’ Max noticed something strange. ‘The balance beam has supports?’

  The balance beam was the only part of the course to have supporting pillars, which extended underwater while the rest of the course was suspended midair. Max couldn’t help but to find this suspicious.

  ‘Come to think of it, that guy said this was made by a gravity mage. Maybe stuff will fall into the water the moment I step on it. Or it’ll move around all jerkily or something.’ Max made a few guesses. ‘Either way, it shouldn’t be much of a challenge, given that this is still part of the early game.’

  Although he had chosen the hardest difficulty for the trial, this was still a mission designed for level 10 players to complete. As such, there was no way it would be too strenuous. His attributes had even been decreased to level 10 values.

  “Righty-ohhh, targets are up. Pull the lever when you’re ready! Unless you can’t swim… then maybe don’t do that.” The captain started jogging up the bank.

  “…This guy thinks he’s funny.”

  Ignoring the words of the drunk comedian captain, Max pulled the lever to start the mission.

  Leap!

  Immediately, he started hopping between the floating steps, moving toward the ramp.

  “…So they don’t move.”

  Max expected the stepping stones to trickily shift place midair, but they hadn’t done so. It seemed they wouldn’t sink after he stepped on them, either.

  “Then the trick will most likely be…”

  Landing on the ramp, Max focused his senses. Hearing a faint rattling noise, he instantly turned around and jumped back onto the last step.

  Two seconds later, a line of barrels spun over the top of the ramp. Meeting no resistance, they rolled down its slope and plunged uneventfully into the water below.

  ‘…Why do I feel underwhelmed?’

  Shaking his head to dispel useless thoughts, Max quickly advanced to the top of the ramp.

  “I should start shooting some of the targ–”

  Looking off to the side, the mercenaries were standing in front of the targets, protecting them with their bodies. Most noticeably, a long-bearded man held a target tightly in his embrace, stroking the bullseye sensually with one hand.

  “…Never mind, seems like they don’t want me to shoot yet.”

  Helpless, Max moved on to the next area, dropping down to a domed platform below. Next would be the balance beam, which he would need to–

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Rumble.

  “!!”

  Noticing the dome beneath him move slightly, Max’s eyes widened. Having nothing to grab onto, he quickly took an arrow and prepared to stab it down into the stone. A moment later, he decided on an alternative course of action, instead leaping into the dome’s centre.

  “…Phew, it’s only rotating horizontally.” Max exhaled. “Had me worried there.”

  Without any warning, the platform had suddenly started spinning around in circles. In order to not be flung off the side by centrifugal force, Max decisively moved into the axis of rotation at the centre of the dome, where the motion was minimal. This turned out to be a good decision, as immediately after, the dome sped up further, casting Max as a bystander stuck in a vortex. Not until 10 seconds passed did it finally come to a stop.

  “Damn, that wasted a lot of time. Are they still blocking my targets?”

  Looking over, Max saw that the mercenaries had stepped aside. Taking his bow, he wasted no time and began unleashing on the targets – which numbered five on each side of the river. For some unknown reason, the bearded man let out a loud wail as he did this.

  While shooting, Max realised the true purpose of the spinning dome; it wasn’t only to toss people into the river, but also to inflict the ‘vertigo’ status effect, which would make the player feel dizzy and prevent them from being able to cross the balance beam without losing their balance. Bow aim would also be affected. Thankfully, he had moved immediately to the centre of the dome before that could happen, so he hadn’t been affected.

  Finishing off the last target, he placed the bow back on his shoulder and started making his way across the balance beam, doing a quick head check to stay cognizant of his surroundings.

  ‘Hm? Wait, was that mercenary holding something just now?’ He did a double-take.

  …

  …

  “He figured out the dome trick.”

  “No, even if he figured out the dome, isn’t this river like twice as wide as normal? How did he shoot all the targets so fast?”

  “That was impressive.”

  The players in the spectator lounge were glued to Max’s trial on the screen, praising his performance. An annoyed swordsman, gripping his popcorn tightly, promptly silenced them, “Shush! Be quiet – the good part’s coming up.”

  Of course, this was the good part. After all, this was the part where everyone usually failed – the balance beam. Countless players had fallen prey to this segment, not primarily due to vertigo, but to one other decisive factor.

  Noticing something amiss, the archer’s eyebrows raised and he stopped dead in his tracks. Just as he did, a large rock – the size of a fist – went sailing past the front of his body.

  “Wha–?!” Someone gasped. “They’re throwing rocks?! Overarm too?! F*ck, that’s just evil!”

  “What were they throwing before?”

  “Beans. In the lower difficulty they throw cushioned bags of beans, underarm,” someone answered. “This is really too much; I hope he set his pain sensitivity low.”

  He did not.

  The archer’s progress slowed, as he needed to take a step back for every two steps forward in order to dodge the projectiles the mercenaries had started throwing. When a rock arced high, he dipped low; when one skimmed close to the beam, he lifted a foot, allowing it to pass underneath. Each movement appeared carefully calculated, cutting unnecessary movements while maintaining his speed.

  “J-just what…” Watching the archer skilfully manoeuvre across the beam, the swordsman stared at the screen in disbelief. “How hasn’t he been hit yet?”

  “Amazing. This might be the farthest anyone’s made it. That beam should only be half a foot wide, too.”

  “Is this guy like a professional dodgeball player or something?”

  Nearing the halfway point of the beam, the archer’s eyes flicked down to the water. Kicking the stone in front of him, he propelled himself backward, narrowly evading a mass of stone that shot up from beneath the beam. Though the momentum carried him into a brief slide, his balance held steady. Ahead, three pillars had begun rotating rapidly around the beam, seemingly ignoring the laws of physics.

  “WHAT IS THAT?”

  “Those– Those are the supports! The supports of the beam suddenly started swinging!”

  “Did they do that in normal difficulty?”

  “How should I know?! Nobody ever made it that far – they all fell at the start of the beam!”

  “Hey, can someone record this? I don’t have the recording add-on.”

  “…” Spilling some popcorn over the floor, the swordsman’s eyes bulged. ‘That reaction time was insane! Is he… No, he must be a platinum capsule user!’

  ‘Platinum’ capsules were the most premium game capsules available for DIVE, released shortly prior to the launch of WoH. It was a well-known fact that high-end capsules had lower latency times in DIVE games. If a sudden encounter occurred and a player was able to respond extremely quickly with their movements, it was highly likely they were using one of these premium capsules.

  ‘Damn b*stard.’ This thought made the swordsman swell with jealousy. He himself only had a ‘gold’ capsule – the median of the three models available on the market. ‘I want one of those.’

  Still dodging rocks on the screen, the archer carefully weighed his timing before dashing past the first pillar. The mercenaries threw more rocks the farther he advanced along the beam, so when he reached the second pillar, he feinted a run forward before nimbly doubling back, baiting half of the mercenaries into missing their throws. With an opening created, he darted through and attempted to keep a sprint for the remaining distance.

  Just as he passed by the final pillar, he jumped high with his legs tucked into his chest. A large tankard – somehow still containing beer – passed under his feet at twice the speed of the rocks, narrowly shaving his toes. From there, he finally reached relative safety, as the balance beam transitioned into a bigger platform, a few metres in width. It would be substantially more difficult to knock him into the water now.

  “C-crazy…” One of the players muttered. Several players let out breaths they hadn’t realised they were holding.

  Not stopping there, the archer kept running, approaching the next obstacle – a spinning stone disc with a circle-shaped hole near the centre. Not missing a beat, he dove through the hole to reach the other side.

  “Whuh– Did he just dive-roll through it???”

  “Woah, that looked really cool. Like an action movie.”

  On the other side, he approached a second disc. It contained a smaller hole which was closer to the spinning edge. As if it was a matter of course, he did the exact same thing as before – another dive – landing cleanly on the other side in a forward roll.

  ‘????!!!!’ The players stared at the screen in bewilderment. That one looked much harder to pull off.

  For the final disc, it could be seen that the hole was now even smaller, moving around rapidly on the disc’s edge. Cracking a smile, the archer pressed his hands together and, with a small run-up, executed a flat, spinning dive, slipping through to the other side with finesse. Landing ungracefully on his stomach, he quickly got up to survey the rest of the course.

  Despite the incredible display they’d just witnessed, the spectating players all forced themselves to focus, hoping to burn the final obstacles of the course into their retinas. This was valuable information which had not yet become public knowledge.

  The new obstacles were a set of climbing bars and a long vertical net of rope which led up to the next platform. Players would need to use the climbing bars to propel themselves over to the rope, only, there was a problem: The climbing bars were too far from the starting platform – they would be out of reach even when jumping, and an archer would undoubtedly fall into the river if he made an attempt.

  “Not bad, kid!” The mercenary captain could be seen calling out from the riverbank. “I didn’t think you’d make it this far, but this just means I get to show off my cool bounce pad. Look down!”

  The camera angle tilted to show a floating square of what seemed like jelly down near the water.

  “Behold, the pad! Made by a strange but skilled artisan, that bounce pad contains the condensed gelatins of two-hundred slime monsters! I managed to obtain it by– Oh, you already jumped down. Right, I only gave you two minutes…”

  Dropping several metres onto the bounce pad, the archer’s momentum formed a deep depression in its surface. After only a few moments, the pad stopped stretching and instead exploded upward with a powerful recoil force, launching the archer skyward in the form of a trampolining motion. At the peak of his rebound, the archer reached out and caught hold of a climbing bar with both hands.

  Immediately, he began advancing across the bars like a monkey, moving his arms in unison. However, he only managed to cross four bars before a dense rock slammed into his ribs, accompanied by a loud crack.

  “Ghn.” His groan could be heard through the transmission. One of his hands was forced from the bar with the strong impact, and he briefly dangled over the river before recovering.

  One of the girls grimaced. “They’re still throwing rocks? This is so brutal.”

  “If this is meant to be brutal, then how is he charging through it all like it’s his regular Wednesday afternoon? I swear one of his ribs was broken just now and yet he just shook it off like nothing happened and kept going.”

  “Forget Total Wipeout, this is like that Ninja Warrior show.”

  “Agreed.”

  “They don’t throw rocks at you in Ninja Warrior.”

  “Tch, technicalities.”

  Reaching the last bar, the archer swung a few times to build momentum before launching himself at the rope wall. Managing to catch it fairly high up, he only needed to climb a short distance to reach the top–

  “Here, kid, shoot these too!” The captain yelled suddenly.

  The perspective turned to show the mercenary captain throwing two targets into the air, sending them flying toward the climbing bars like frisbees.

  “Aaah!” The archer let out a flustered scream and flipped backward, hooking his legs around the rope to stay suspended. With his hands freed, he quickly grabbed his bow and a few arrows from his back and aimed, releasing two low-powered shots – then rushed to grab the rest of his arrows before they could slip out of his quiver. Seeing the shots make their mark, the archer was visibly relieved – enough to relax for one second before wrenching his torso back up to avoid an incoming rock.

  “…” The players gaped at the screen in dumbfounded silence.

  “What the f*ck was that?”