◆Rank 6◆
The members that were still testing met in the wee hours of the morning. Since Nachi insisted this test would take a while, she wanted to get them started before they’d even had breakfast. “We can actually only test three of you at a time since there’s a limited number of rooms.” Nachi began her explanation.
Before she could continue, the door to the gym slammed open. Itsy barged inside, running up to Nachi like an excited child wanting to show something to their parent. She presented the lightless cube from the last test with the purest glee on her face. “Hurray, you did it…” Nachi couldn’t sound more unimpressed if she tried.
“Thanks for the pre-breakfast shot, though.” Nachi opened the cube and immediately threw back the drink. A coughing fit followed after she immediately spat it back out. “I forgot. I filled. One of them. With Pure. Trapfish Oil,” she stammered as she wheezed, desperately trying to catch her breath. “Man, I was really hoping one of you would drink that.”
“Whatever, okay. Itsy barely made the deadline. Everyone applaud.” Nachi ordered, and only Rezin followed suit. “I was being sarcastic, Rez. You all killed something during the 4th test, but it was up to you how you killed it. Guessing most of you didn’t do the dirty work yourselves, but that stops here. It’s time for real combat. No more hiding or avoiding it. If you can’t handle yourself in a fight, this is where it will become obvious.”
“We have three combat simulation rooms. No clue why they only made three when there’s four of ‘em, but whatever. Conservation of space to make more room for the public side, I guess. That boy’s too damn nice. If it were up to me, civilians wouldn’t be allowed within 50 lages of this place. I’m getting off track. Fighting time.”
“While there’s only three of these rooms, they’re mawhging impressive. Even the CP’s training tech didn’t come even remotely close. You’ll basically be fighting holograms in these rooms. There’s nothing actually there, but you’ll still receive physical feedback when you hit something or are hit because… Uhh… The nerdy engineer explained this to me but holy zjik it was boring. We’ll just call it Fiend magic.”
“Through the powers of Fiend magic, it’ll feel like you’re actually fighting something. Since you won’t actually be taking damage, there’s a bunch of sensors that will measure how many injuries you sustain and fail you if you take too many. Through more Fiend magic, it apparently scans your body to allocate the proper limit for you somehow.”
“Like health in a video game?!” Rezin eagerly interjected, waving his arm like a kid in class.
Nachi sighed, “Yes Rezin, like in a video game. But way more fun because you get to punch and kill things with your real body. There will be a bar along the wall that measures your health, so pay attention. It’ll also reset each round to keep things fair. You can also take breaks between rounds or drink a revitalizing tonic if you’re getting tired. Try not to take too long, though. This will take a while for each of you, and we need to get through everybody.”
“There are currently 85 levels, though I hear they’re working on programming it up to 100. It gets harder as it goes, with the difficulty really ramping up exponentially once you make it past a certain point. I honestly can’t imagine level 100. I’m struggling in the 60s myself. For the purposes of this test, you only need to clear level 20.”
“Alrighty, guess I’ll just pick the order at random. Well, it’s never completely random, is it? Rezin, since you like games so much you’re in the first batch. Should probably let Itsy get some rest, I suppose, so not her for now. Roque, since you’ll basically be cheating you can go first too since you’ll be fast. And uhhh, guess we should slap a Lesser in there. Kaizu. You can murder as many of these people as you want. No Marks to gain though, sorry.”
The three assigned stepped into their rooms, and monitors lit up around the rest of the gym. “You can watch them if you want, but you won’t be able to see what they’re fighting. Wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise. Normally, I’d be hounding you all to get training by now, but not this time. This is real fighting. You’re not in any real danger, but I want you all to fight as if your lives depend on it.”
“Go and do whatever you need to get into the right headspace. Get some breakfast, go back to bed, train if you want to get your blood pumping. I don’t really care. Just be available when I call for you. Like I said, we need to get through these, and it’s honestly just rude to make the others wait on you. If you take more than a few minutes to get here after I call you, it’s an automatic fail.”
Nachi informed the rest of their testing order, even being so kind as to let Itsy go last. Jaid was near the front of the list with just another Fiend before her, so she wanted to at least get breakfast first. Going by what she was seeing on the monitors, two of them would probably be done soon.
Roque really was just cheating. He was standing still in the room, scrolling through his phone with his right hand. In his left was a pistol that looked like it was doing all the work itself. The gun was flinging his hand in every direction, firing without him even pulling the trigger. He was already on level 8 in just a few minutes. Though, each level was taking longer than the last.
The other one liable to finish quickly was Rezin but for the complete opposite reason. He was only on level 2 and had already lost half his health. She didn’t know what he was fighting, but he kept getting knocked over and pushed around the room. It honestly hurt her to watch, like he was getting bullied by ghosts.
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Kaizu seemed to be doing modestly. She was on level 5 and had been doing well so far. On levels 2 and 4, she’d lost a bit of health and her moves had been more erratic. On 1 and 3, though, they’d been over in a flash. She’d made quick yet subtle movements across the room, only doing single strikes with her daggers. This led Jaid to believe there were human enemies on those levels, since Kaizu was now well known as an amateur assassin.
While tempted to stick around for longer to try and gather more information, Jaid gave in and rushed to the restaurant. However, the call didn’t come even as she indulged in seconds. Jaid only got the message from Nachi when she’d given up and headed back to her room, literally about to open the door.
Not wanting to find out what Nachi considered ‘a few minutes’, Jaid rushed over right away. It seemed Roque had finished super quickly since the next contestant was already on level 10. Kaizu was nearing her completion as well, on 18, and seemed to be doing fine.
Rezin had made it to level 14, much farther than Jaid had expected, but had ultimately failed. He was putting on a brave face but obviously holding back tears. Jaid had to resist the gnawing impulse to console him, since that would probably burst the dam. He should be proud, though. She doubted anyone expected him to make it to this ranking test to begin with, so he’d already proven himself in her eyes.
Jaid entered the simulation room, sword already drawn. The walls shimmered for a moment around her, and the fabled health bar appeared—fully green for now. A big ‘Level 1’ appeared on the wall beneath it. In front of her spawned a small smiling child. Is this a sick joke? While a child was one of the easiest things to beat, this was still a cruel way to start off this test.
As if sensing her hesitation, the child pulled out a hammer and their face turned aggressive. What’s worse is that it worked. Most of Jaid’s reservation vanished right away, and she was able to cut down that child with minimal effort. The feedback didn’t help. While it didn’t feel quite the same as tearing through flesh, she could certainly feel her sword cut something on the softer side. Before she could linger on the complicated atrocity she’d just committed, the next level started.
To continue with its cruelty, this time it was a medium sized friendly-looking dog. It didn’t take long for the dog to start foaming at the mouth and lunge at her. Once more, it was dispatched with a single swipe. Jaid could easily see why someone as hesitant as Rezin struggled here.
Next on the docket was a stumbling drunk with a bottle of beer in her hand. As soon as she noticed Jaid, she broke her bottle against some invisible solid object and charged. Another simple slash was all it took. These early levels really were easy for anyone with experience.
Level 4 really wasn’t what Jaid expected, taking forever for her to even notice her target in the first place. It was a spider, which didn’t seem rather threatening at first, but as it got closer, it was evidently poisonous based on the markings. Jaid stomped on it as it got close but narrowly missed.
What’s worse, the spider took that opportunity to climb onto her shoe and charged up her pant leg. She managed to swat at it and squash it before it made it much further, but that level had been genuinely terrifying. Jaid wasn’t really scared of spiders, but one so aggressive and quick was another story.
After that bit of heart pounding, the next level didn’t even phase her. It was three… bullies? ruffians? bored people with nothing better to do? who just had their fists and were eager for a fight. Just to make things simpler for herself, Jaid summoned two clones to match them, cutting them all down mercilessly.
Level 6 almost caught her off-guard. A horse spawned facing away from her, and it kicked at her with both legs a moment later. Such a devastating force could easily maim or even kill a human. It’d still seriously hurt a Fiend. Jaid managed to quickly skirt out of the way. She was back to feeling remorse as she sliced the violent yet majestic animal.
So far, Jaid had been making quick work of this. Besides the spider, it had been stupidly easy for someone of her level. However, the escalation of difficulty was obvious. If it kept going at this rate, she may even be challenged a bit before hitting level 20.
Level 7 wasn’t that spot, though, as a mugger spawned in with a knife. At least the fake man immediately took a jab at her that she had to block with her sword. These fictional entities were certainly becoming more aggressive and quick to react, but it still didn’t take much to dispatch him.
It was obvious that the pattern was human, animal, human, animal and so on. Jaid wondered when she’d get to an actual monster, because there was no way that wasn’t coming. Still seemed she had a ways to go when two snakes spawned and started slithering towards her. Not wanting a repeat of the spider, Jaid activated the railgun in her sword and blasted them from a distance.
The three thugs were back on level 9, but they all had bats this time. While it certainly made them more dangerous, it still didn’t prove to be any more difficult for Jaid. Her oversized sword sliced through the bats like they weren’t even there, taking the thugs with them.
It ticked over to Level 10 on the wall but nothing happened for a while. Jaid started to wonder if the room had broken somehow. She was contemplating stepping outside to ask Nachi, but knowing her, that could lead to an automatic fail. Still, it was taking quite a while. Just as she took one step towards the door, she felt a rumbling near her feet.
The next thing she knew, her foot was in pain. She looked down. It hadn’t been stabbed or anything, and the pain subsided a moment later. There was no sign of whatever had done it, and for the first time, her health bar on the wall had decreased a small amount.
Clearly, whatever it was didn’t do much damage, but that didn’t matter when she still couldn’t find the damned thing. There was still no sign of it, so she tried moving to a different spot in the room. After another step, her foot was in pain again. She took another, not taking her eyes off her feet. Her assailant popped out the moment her foot touched the ground.
Everything made sense now. It was a Groundpecker: a combination of a groundhog and a woodpecker. She’d never seen one but had heard the tales. They attacked solely based on vibration in the ground. That’s why she was only getting hit when she took steps. It didn’t know where she was otherwise.
The solution was clear, and Jaid readied her sword. Before her foot fully hit the ground again, she was already swinging. The Groundpecker went flying as it was scooped out of the ground and died on impact against the wall with a splat. She’d never played golf, but had often been forced to caddie, now wondering if this was the satisfaction they felt with each swing.