Chapter 642: First Layer Basic Test "How Do You Pass?"
Author's Preface
I am keeping my promise. (An update exactly as announced.)
How do I put this... even though we walk to school together quite often in real life, not to mention this is just a game, there's a bizarre sense of tension right now.
Is it because the form the Armor of Twin Reason took as female equipment is a bit on the extreme side, or is it because I keep making eye contact with the half-mask covering the left side of Twin Reason-san's (Provisional) face, which used to be a full-face helmet...
Unlike when it was the male-equipment version that looked like some kind of undiscovered carnivorous beast, right now it looks more like... something mimicking a human that has had its disguise ripped off.
A monstrous eye with about three pupils inside the eyeball is clearly staring at me completely independent of Rei-shi's will, so it creates this rather peculiar tension.
"...U-Um."
"Heeh!? What is it?"
"Does this, um, outfit... look weird after all?"
"No, no, no, don't worry about it, don't worry about it at all."
To be honest, Rei-shi's left eye spinning round and round is so intensely distracting that I've stopped noticing anything else.
As we walked through the unnervingly empty First Layer, we quickly learned where all the other players had gone. Or rather, it's more accurate to say we arrived at "wherever" it was they were heading.
"Go! Right there!"
"Ahhh, he fell!!"
"Man, he made it pretty far that time."
"Who's going next?"
"Leave it to me."
"No way, a tank can't do this."
"Not necessarily. It's not like they'd make it so only light warriors could clear it, right?"
"Yeah, but this guy's AGI and DEX are absolute garbage."
"I mean, if you've got 20, that's basically capped around here, isn't it?"
"...Let's wait until we figure out a bit more of a strategy before challenging it."
My honest impression was: "What the hell are these guys doing?"
I mean... I understand the concept of players spectating others trying to clear some mysterious obstacle course that looks like a 2D side-scrolling action game converted into 3D, but something's weird. This is supposed to be Behemoth, not Leviathan.
"What is this?"
"Ah, Tsuchinoko-san... Wait, did you get bigger?"
"New version. Like a Grapple Form."
"Heeh."
That's weird, I thought modifying my character after the fact would draw a lot more attention. What's with that "Well, I guess that's a thing" reaction... I mean, it's not like I personally went and snapped my own joints into new shapes!?
"So, what's going on here, Big Sis Exploding Green Peas?"
"I've been an only child my whole life, but whatever. Apparently, you get to go to the next layer if you clear this."
"...'Ivory,' since when did Behemoth turn into an amusement park?"
『All inter-layer "tests" are examinations designed to evaluate you. This First Layer also doubles as a test of your basic athletic capabilities and fundamental intelligence.』
"I see. So basically, if we can't casually clear something on this level, we're not even worth talking to."
It seems there are already several people here who are "not worth talking to"... No, I shouldn't say anything.
From what I can see, you just have to run straight down a path and reach the door at the very end. The only catch is that the path is loaded with a massive amount of traps—or rather, obstacles.
"Spikes, lasers, doors, and pendulum blades?"
"It's almost retro, honestly."
"Hmm..."
Oh, the spikes actually stab you normally... Wait, those lasers passed right through their bodies. Doesn't that mean the only reason they didn't collapse into pieces is because it cleanly sliced them? Can you get past the pendulums if you time it right? Ah, so close.
...Is there an order to this? Or is it volunteer-based? Looking at the crowd, it seems everyone is trying to figure out a strategy by watching the vanguard sacrifices.
"I see, I see... Hey, 'Ivory,' does the test end the moment we arrive in front of that door? There aren't any other hidden conditions or anything, right?"
『This is strictly a test of basic intelligence and athletic capabilities.』
Dodging the question so sloppily, huh? But from what I can see... hmm?
"...Can I go next?"
"Ooh, Tsuchinoko-san is stepping up."
"The Speed Holder!"
"Stop it, you're making me blush."
I can directly feel my headgear trembling in fear, but I give her a light, reassuring pat. By watching, I realized that this death road is likely the type where the gimmicks activate the moment you cross a specific line. Meaning, as long as you don't step in, they don't start... and conversely, they only start running after you step in.
So what I'm trying to say is... taking into account the shapes, behaviors, and speeds of the gimmicks, with my mobility, I should be able to clear this.
"Jump, dodge, break through, dive in... Okay, the chart is completely built."
"Sunraku... kun. Um, please do your best."
"Yeah, thanks. Rei-shi, do you think you can clear this?"
"Ah, um, I'll be fine. There's something I want to test out, too..."
It seems Rei-shi also has some sort of plan to clear it. In that case, I only need to worry about myself.
I put the Levin Trigger: Hazard on standby. Just as I was mentally assembling the activation order of my skills, the player who went right before me got sent flying by a pendulum blade, meaning it was finally my turn.
The glass-like barrier separating the inside from the outside vanished. The moment my headgear and I entered, the barrier reappeared, sealing us inside. Wait, is Emul seriously okay to bring? It's not like the game actually treats her strictly as just a piece of headgear... or should I be praising the ShanFro system for exactly that?
"Hold on tight, Emul... well, don't worry."
It's roughly 50 meters...
"Five seconds."
"I-I'd prefer if you went a little easier on me, desu w—"
I started running before Emul could even finish her sentence. Sorry, but the starting gun went off inside my heart. If you really wanted to hear it, you should've learned telepathy.
"Tch!!"
The first obstacle: a set of crushing rollers meant to turn a human into minced meat like a paper shredder. I cleared it in exactly two steps by stepping only on the very first and very last floating platforms suspended above them.
With only five seconds, no matter how staggered my skill activations are, their duration times will overlap. The rest just depends on how cleanly and unhesitatingly I can mentally execute them.
The second obstacle: a tunnel of death where spikes shoot out from the top, bottom, left, and right. Skill activated. I cleared it by relying purely on speed to force my way through before the spikes could even fully extend. I had thought the speed at which the spikes shot out was strangely slow, and sure enough, I was able to breeze right past.
The third obstacle: lasers blocking the path in an X pattern. Which inversely means you can pass through the top, bottom, left, and right. I opted to slide right underneath it.
Because Overflow applies to all actions, the motion of pushing my body back up with both hands after slipping under the lasers was amplified by the black lightning, transforming into an action where my body "violently sprang upright."
Right around the time I was already sprinting toward the next obstacle, the lasers finally formed an impassable wall behind me a full beat too late. Too slow, way too slow.
Next, the fourth obstacle: a door that repeatedly opened and slammed shut with tremendous force... no, it's more like a shutter. Its speed is nothing to scoff at. Given that one full open-and-close cycle took roughly a second, no matter how fast I was running, stopping for a moment might have been the smart play, but...
"Naive!!"
Eye of True World Observation activated. I don't care how many times a second you open and close—my master is the fastest little girl in the world. Speeds like this are so slow they make me yawn! And utilizing the window I had prepared the exact moment I bolted from the starting line, I activated a Disposable Magic Medium!! The executed spell was...
"【Instant Teleport】!!"
My body vanished and reappeared. Even if it's a spell that can only teleport short distances, crossing a single door takes zero effort. And the final obstacle... several dozen violently swinging pendulum blades! And the annoying part is that there's no set pattern to how they swing.
It might be possible to dodge them if you played it perfectly, but each blade likely swings at a different speed. I realized this from watching the sacrifices before me... Every obstacle up until now could be bypassed with brute force, which is exactly why a simple timing-desync trap serves as a slow-acting poison.
But it's naive, naive! So completely naive!! The Disposable Magic Medium from earlier was taken out of my "Inventory," which I controlled with my right hand. But because they are entirely separate storage systems, I can operate "Inventoria" with my left hand! Behold the fruits of absurdly tedious practice, the Secret Art: "Double-Blind Touch"!!
"Did you know? You can chain a Magic Scroll with your own personal magic seamlessly."
Because the activation formats are different, the concept of a recast timer doesn't apply. I kept the cloak unequipped out of fear that it might snag on a gimmick behind me, but this single instant was the deciding moment.
I wrapped myself in the Star Cloak of Lapistella I pulled from Inventoria... and fired off the 【Instant Teleport】 spell I had stored inside it! It doesn't matter how many instant-kill pendulum blades there are. The only thing that matters is that the absolute edge of the spell's range extends about a head's length past the very last blade.
In other words, by skipping all dozens of blades with a second Instant Teleport, it doesn't matter how fast they're swinging. They're worth about as much as—or less than—background objects.
"With this, clear—"
"Sunraku-san, above you, desu wa!?"
"What!?"
I looked up, and right there was a guillotine falling from above, woahhhhhh!!?
......
............
".........Emul, you alive?"
".........I don't feel like I'm alive, desu wa."
If I had stepped even slightly further forward... literally, if I had been one step off, this instant-kill trap would have bisected me along with Emul. But as it stood, it grazed right past the tips of our noses and embedded itself deeply into the ground.
And when that final obstacle vanished like a phantom... the only thing remaining was the door leading to the Second Layer. I threw a gesture toward the audience who had witnessed the events of these past five seconds.
Excuse me for going ahead!!
Author's Afterword
The Armor of Twin Reason isn't moving on its own, by the way.
It moves the eye sprouted from the mask by referencing the equipped player's heart rate and other vitals. So in short, because Heroine-chan herself is acting highly flustered , Armor of Twin Reason-san ends up glancing at Sunraku repeatedly...
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