‘Phew, I wasn’t expecting that.’
Max pulled himself up the rope, rejoicing that he’d managed to hit the two surprise targets thrown by the captain.
‘Man, he really just yeeted them over the course, huh?’
Climbing up onto the next platform, he looked ahead to survey the next obstacle.
“...Eh? Water?”
Surprisingly, there was only river beyond the platform, no obstacle in sight.
“Did I beat it?”
Rumble.
As if in response to his question, a thick stone pillar began to emerge from the river’s surface, rising steadily until it loomed like a towering monument over the waterscape. From its base jutted a long horizontal bar – smooth, wet, and stretching dozens of metres across; it glistened brightly under the sun. Although its purpose was unclear, its presence felt unmistakably threatening. Below both structures, a red dome buzzer sat nestled atop a short pedestal, embedded in the centre of a thin stone ridge which curled outward in the shape of a long, winding spiral, extending all the way out to Max’s platform. As the colossal spiral rose up, it sent water tumbling aside in cascades, smashing into the river below with violent crashes.
“...”
“Not bad! Not bad at all, kiddo!” Wearing a deep smirk, the captain shouted across the river, “You’ve made it to the final obstacle – The Baptist’s Clock. This one’s also quite straightforward – just run and hit the shiny red button in the centre of that little spiral. That’s it! Sounds easy enough, right?”
Max narrowed his eyes. ‘It’s gonna be really hard, isn’t it?’
Although he felt that the difficulty had been moderate up until now, there was no telling how much it would scale up for the final part. Nonetheless, he was on a timer right now, so he quickly leapt onto the spiral.
“Oh yeah, nearly forgot!” the captain called out, “Don’t get hit by the sweeper!”
“The sweeper?”
Creeeeeak.
Max looked over his shoulder and saw the horizontal bar come into motion. ‘Oh. I get it.’
Spinning at high speed in a circular arc, it was clear exactly what the sweeper was intended to sweep. Watching the massive hunk of stone swivel around at him, Max felt some disconcertment. “Rather than sweeper, isn’t bone-crusher more accurate?”
The sweeping arm was about abdomen-height, so Max bent his knees, preparing to vault over it. However, spotting movement in his periphery, he changed his mind, opting to dip under instead.
A flurry of objects shot past overhead, some of them smashing into the sweeping arm with loud bangs. Max’s eyes flicked back to the mercenaries. Sure enough, they were throwing rocks again.
“Rude.”
Scanning the banks, Max saw there were exactly ten mercs throwing on each side of the river. Throwing with their dominant hands, every mercenary also held an archery target up to his chest. Seeing this, Max couldn’t help but smile slightly. ‘These crazy f*ckers.’
Not hesitating, he fired an arrow at one. The merc, upon having his target hit, frowned expressively and threw it to the ground in a huff. Kicking his spare rocks into the river, he sat down with his arms crossed and watched Max with displeasure.
‘I see, they stop throwing rocks if I shoot them.’
Take a handful more arrows from his quiver, Max burst into action, shooting three more. Clearly seeing the sweeping arm approaching to his side, he got down to his hands and knees, before quickly rising to his feet again and jumping high. Predictably, a volley of rocks came zipping past below him.
Max made sure to punish the throwers for this mistake, taking down several of them.
“Don’t slow down – you have thirty seconds left!” The captain yelled.
‘Ah, right!’ Alerted, Max checked the remaining distance to the centre of the spiral. ‘Twenty seconds sprint distance...’ His expression hardened. ‘Damn, I was complacent... It should still be doable if I try seriously.’
Kicking his speed up a notch, Max became expressionless as he entered a sprint, shooting down targets on both sides of the river. Among the chorus of flying rocks, he heard a louder whizzing sound and quickly ducked his head, transitioning into a slide. Flashing a glance at the passing projectile, his eyes widened.
‘Target?!’
Violently jerking his bow around, he loosed an arrow before it could fly too far away. The arrow stabbed into the target’s edge, making it spin chaotically in the air.
Looking over to the bank, he saw that the thrower was the burly hammer-wielder he’d seen earlier, Brutus. Locking eyes with Max, the man scowled slightly.
‘Damn b*stard; the hell did I do to deserve that?’ Breaking his slide, Max rushed to his feet. ‘Not only did he try to take my head off, but he also hurled my target away when I wasn’t looking. What a turkey coward!’
Dodging a rock, Max raced to reclaim his lost momentum. Currently, he was a third of the way to the centre, with exactly half of the targets remaining.
‘As long as there are no more– AAH!’
Dropping into another slide, Max tilted his head back in a reverse limbo as the sweeping arm came tearing past, blasting his hair with cold wind.
‘I-it got faster?!’
Max prided himself on his ability to gauge time and distances. Naturally, he’d already noted the arm as having a period of rotation of ten seconds. Only, the arm had reached him in a mere seven seconds this time.
‘The angular speed increased... Is it based on proximity?’
Logically speaking, it should have become easier to outpace the arm as he got closer to the centre, since the sweeping arm’s linear velocity relative to him would decrease in response to the lessening radius of the circle. For the opposite to be true, it meant that the angular velocity of the arm must have increased substantially.
“Damn!” Max grit his teeth.
He was now forced to split his focus to multiple fronts, needing to aim his bow, dodge rocks, and monitor the sweeper arm – which would now reach him with unpredictable speed – all at the same time.
Thwip! – the bowstring hissed as he released another arrow.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
‘The ideal solution would be to shoot all the targets before advancing so I wouldn’t have to worry about rocks, but... I don’t have time for that!’
Thwip!
Thwip!
Thwip!
Scrape.
Max winced as a rock grazed his neck, leaving a red mark behind. ‘Faster... I need to go faster than this!’
Only a third of the targets were remaining, and he was halfway to the centre. Pushing himself even harder, he started shooting the seven remaining targets.
‘Huh? Did I just hear water?’
Although he didn’t have time to look, Max thought he heard a noise from the river surface. Distinct from the splashing sound of falling rocks, this one sounded larger, like a crashing wave.
‘The bar is coming soon, I need to… ???’ He caught sign of movement at the centre of the spiral. ‘What?! No, even with the acceleration, it shouldn’t have reached here that fast! Did I miscalculate?!’
Max didn’t even have time to kick off. Quickly folding his legs, he violently wrenched his feet up.
Woosh!
The sweeping arm came tearing past underneath, clipping his shoes. For some reason, it had dropped to ankle height, and also appeared to have become shorter in length.
‘Shorter? Wait, that shouldn’t be–’
At this moment, the captain’s words rang through his head:
"This obstacle is called The Baptist’s Clock."
“SH*T!!”
Immediately upon hitting the ground, he applied pressure to his toes. “TWO HANDS!!”
Exploding off the ground, Max’s spine bent back sharply as he launched himself into the air, spinning his body clockwise.
Wooooosh!
The world flipped upside down. Max’s eyes followed as a blur of stone crossed his eyes. Twisting his body, he strained to brace himself for a landing. One foot hit firmly – the other skidded, slipping over the ridge’s wet surface.
“Ghh!”
Max shook unsteadily, arms outstretched, before barely catching himself in a low crouch, one leg dangling over the river.
‘…That almost got me.’
Celebrating his narrow survival, Max hurriedly drew more arrows and continued shooting. There were six targets remaining, but only around ten seconds. With no time to spare, he sprang into a mad dash.
‘Shoot!’
‘Shoot!’
‘Jump!’
‘Shoot!’
‘Duck!’
With three targets left, both clock hands started moving much faster. The short hand, in particular, was insanely fast, with a rotation period of only a few seconds.
‘Isn’t an hour hand meant to move slower than a minute hand?!’ Max protested internally.
‘Shoot!’ Even while complaining, he didn’t stop. ‘Nearly there!’
‘Jump!’
‘Shoot!’
‘Jump!’
‘Slam!’
Slamming his hand down on the buzzer, Max collapsed to the ground, muscles pumping with adrenaline.
‘...Did… Did I do it?’
Looking over, he saw the captain – lips curved in a crescent. A smile was there, but the eyes didn’t seem to match. Max squinted.
‘He looks… annoyed?’
“Congratulations… Liam, right? You’ve done well to pass our test.” The captain scratched his head through his hat. “I honestly didn’t expect you to make it this far.”
“…”
Just as Max was about to respond, he recalled the words of the tavernkeeper, “He’s made the entrance test virtually impossible to complete, to the point where it’s pointless to attempt, even if you’re an elite fighter.”
‘Right,’ Max mused, ‘he didn’t want any new people to join; no wonder that was hard... I wonder why, though?’
Not receiving any response from Max, the captain continued, “Well, a promise is a promise. You’ve proven your qualifications to join our squad, so... welcome aboard, newbie.”
–
Abruptly, Max’s vision turned to black. After a few seconds, his vision returned – showing him the interior of the trial chamber.
“Ehh?? They teleported me back already? I wanted to interrogate the NPCs though.”
He looked at the crystal ball he’d used to enter and clicked his tongue.
“...That was really fun though.” Despite having just complained, Max found himself grinning from ear to ear. “I hope all the missions are like that.”
Unlike most people, Max was someone who disliked effortlessness. While most would choose the path of least resistance, he didn’t see the point – there was little satisfaction to be found in tasks that came without struggle, and little to gain from performing those tasks. For him, the true reward lay in adversity – the kind that tested his limits, demanded more, and forced him to grow. The harder the challenge, the deeper the satisfaction would be, and the more he could improve himself.
“Ha, if this is what the early game’s like, then maybe that’s the case.” His eyes shone. “...Anyways, I completed a mission, so I should look at the–”
Max stopped mid-sentence when he noticed a group of players staring at him from the other side of the room, mouths agape, with popcorn and drink spilled all over the floor.
“...”
He hurriedly went to the doorway and made a departure.
“Ahem. Dunno what their problem was... Anyways~ let’s see that mission reward.”
“Claim!”
Feeling some anticipation, Max rushed to the skills tab to check his spoils:
*Gaspppp* “Isn’t this just way too powerful? The hell is with the skills in this game?”
Max stared at his interface like a Christmas morning child.
“I seriously don’t get how they can give me these OP skills and then throw me a mission like ‘Oh, go hunt down a bird’.” He shook his head, lamenting. “Wait, that reminds me...”
He opened his messages.
[Gun: Are you in the city yet?]
[Depressed_Derek: Depends. How many viewers do you have?]
“...What?”
[Derek: Never mind, I looked. Meet me at the auction house]
‘This guy...’ Max’s face twitched. ‘isn’t he a bit too open about his intentions?’
Nonetheless, he had agreed to meet quite decisively. Did that mean there were a lot of viewers? Max swiped a finger to check for himself.
[Current Viewers: 28,726]
*Cough* ‘T-twenty-eight thousand? I... I don’t even have Lemonade with me; why are there so many people?’
Max hurriedly pulled up the chat panel. If there were this many viewers on his stream, there must be some sort of special reason.
“S-sorry guys, I keep forgetting to check the chat since I’m not used to streaming. What are you all–”
...
“Oh.”
