The second course looked extremely perilous if compared to the one from the test run. In fact, the disparity was like heaven and earth. The test run course only had a few ocean monsters obstructing them but the main stage’s run had turbulent waters caused by a raging storm. Thunder and lightning struck everywhere at random intervals, hurricanes spontaneously appeared before disappearing while whirlpools and 20-meter high tidal waves churned the waters.
Maria only hesitated for a moment before she jumped over the edge of the cliff fearlessly and plunged into the waters. Even the audience looked afraid when they saw the second course’s condition but after seeing her jump, a few couldn’t help taking in a sharp breath out of worry. The casters followed Maria’s perspective and if everyone thought that above the waters it was harsh already, then under the water was like a thriller scene straight out of a movie.
Monster sharks and electrical eels were moving around everywhere. When the lightning struck, Maria and the audience could see the black silhouettes of what appeared to be octopus tentacles in the distance. Maria used [Fire] and [Blizzard] at the same time to create the spell, [Hydro], which she then used to form an oxygen bubble around her head. She then used [Blizzard] to create a whirlwind of icicles around her body to act as protection against any of the monsters that swam too close to her.
“Alright, let’s go.”
Character skills could still be used in the event though they wouldn’t be able to affect or hinder the other players. However, the monsters and obstacles generated in the Obstacle Course were exempt from this. It was written in the guidebook they received from the test run and Maria tried it out to see if anything changed by firing an [Icicle Lance] at a nearby monster shark which froze it but didn’t kill it.
She tried using [Earth Lance] but it only knocked back the shark and stunned it for a moment, not killing it as she expected. Maria repeated this a few more times before finally being able to kill the monster but after waiting a minute or so, a new monster shark appeared to take the place of the one she had just killed.
“Okay, so they can die but the spell’s impact has decreased by quite a bit.”
While Maria was experimenting, a few of the other contestants arrived at the top of the cliff and reached the second course. They hesitated for a while before steeling themselves and jumping into the churning waters down below. Maria took notice of them immediately before mumbling to herself, “Looks like I took too long testing things out. Better start moving.”
She tucked her wings in together before using them like extra sets of legs to push herself forward. She reduced the water resistance on her by trying to keep her body in a streamlined shape. If she had her wings opened, it would only slow her down. She used [Aqua] to propel herself forward even faster as she skillfully swam past the monsters in her path and avoided the electrical fields the electric eels generated.
Sometimes, a net would suddenly appear from above her but she sliced the trap apart with the icicle whirlwind that was rotating around her. Maria had to maneuver past minefields, whirlpools, traps, and scores of underwater monsters. She was electrocuted a few times even and also had mines blow up in her face because a monster got too close to it while she was swimming nearby.
The underwater mines had a larger blast radius and they would sometimes affect the mines nearby which caused an explosive chain reaction that Maria needed to defend against or avoid by surfacing above the water. A few times she did this, Maria had almost been swept up by a hurricane and struck by lightning. It wasn’t a fun second course at all and she felt like the devs had made things a little personal and were trying to get back at her for calling their stages ‘too easy’ during the test runs.
Maria was having a hard time but it was the same, or perhaps, even worse for the other contestants. Unlike Maria who had many skills and spells at her disposal, they were still trying to familiarize themselves with the game’s skills. A few of the contestants decided to team up to get through the second course because unlike the first course, the second course had monsters in them that would actually go after them if they got within their aggro range.
Just like in the test run, Maria was the first to reach the end of the second course, however, she stared up at the cliffside and began grumbling.
“Why?” She questioned as she looked up at the cliff.
In the area next to the cliff that the players were supposed to climb, clung a monstrosity which was the source of the numerous underwater tentacles that tried to grab her and fling her into the air and back towards the first checkpoint. It was a monster that was a cross between a starfish and an octopus. It was repugnantly large as it clung to the side of the cliff and in place of a starfish’s appendages, were numerous tentacles growing out of it.
There were 8 appendages in total and at the halfway mark of each appendage, they began to split into 8 tentacles that squirmed and swung out randomly. The tentacles of 7 of these 8 appendages reached into the waters while only one of them had its tentacles clinging and squirming around the cliffside as if to ward off anyone that was trying to climb it.
Maria couldn’t fly yet while she was in this course so she couldn’t just move past the tentacles that were obviously placed there as the last obstacles the contestants would have to overcome before getting to the final course of the event.
“Hmmm...I guess I should probably kill this thing, right?”
Maria didn’t like thinking too hard when the most obvious solution was right there in front of her. She emerged from underwater and stood on the water’s surface using [Aqua]. She grabbed only her Calamity and swapped it to its second form which had a long-range attack and experimentally sent out a [Calamity Cleave] at the mutant starfish monster. Maria struck the monster’s body and caused it to screech out in pain. She even sent a few [Fire]s at the monster and after seeing her attacks working, a wide smile crept onto her face.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
This was supposed to be an Obstacle Course so she should be moving past the obstacles, not destroy them. She had a different idea now that she saw her attacks working. She jumped into the air and began attacking the mutant starfish who immediately retaliated by retracting all of its tentacles from under the sea to attack her. By attacking the starfish, she attracted its attention entirely which only made things hard for her.
“Ahhh...Yun Chi, can you explain to me what I’m looking at right now?” A caster asked when he saw Maria start attacking the monster.
“Well, it’s like what you see, Tim. Player Maria is attacking...the monster…”
“Wouldn’t it be easier for her to just get past the obstacles in front of her than antagonize the beast? Look, all of the monster’s tentacles are attacking her now and─”
“KIIIIIEEEEEE!!!”
The caster’s words were cut short as the sea monster’s screech of agony drowned out all of the noise inside of the stadium. To the audience’s surprise, Maria had suddenly used a skill that spawned a tree in the middle of the ocean and she was now standing on it. She had used the new skill she received from Gaia, [Gaia’s Force].
This was the [Nature’s Verdure] sub-skill that came with [Gaia’s Force] that created a territory around her. With the area set up around her to act as a foothold, she even used [Nature’s Call] to summon a few treants which she used as shields against the numerous monster tentacles that were attacking her. Lizzy and the others took notice of Maria’s new skill but they all sighed in amazement when they saw their friend’s battle-crazed look on the screen.
“Even in a race, she wouldn’t pass up on a fight, huh?” Lizzy said with a wry smile.
“Well, it’s Mary we’re talking about. In the game, she just loves to fight and hunt,” Emily added.
“She’s letting the other contestants catch up to her…”
“Mary probably forgot she’s in a race,” Amanda said before chuckling. “Hehehe, this is so funny. At least this makes a good show for everyone to watch!”
Back to the fight, Maria was cutting up the monster’s tentacles with her Calamity while her treants helped by blocking a few of them as she sent numerous spells straight at the mutant starfish. Her treants were sending out branches and roots to support her while she continued to launch attacks at the monster and since she couldn’t fly around yet due to the second course’s restriction, Maria had to make use of the treants’ extended branches and roots as footholds to move around in the air.
The people that were watching her were so caught up in the fight that they stopped paying attention to the other contestants in the race. Maria masterfully used her skills and techniques to dodge or cut down all of the tentacles trying to assault her while she used various spells to damage the monster that was clinging onto the cliff.
The players watching were intrigued by the number of spells she used and how they seemingly had very short cooldowns. They wondered just what kind of class she had to be able to learn and spam so many spells at once.
“I thought she was a Priestess or something.”
A few of the monster’s attacks did hit her but Maria healed herself with [Cure] or [Hi-Cure] immediately.
“Oh, there it is. That’s a [Cure] and a [Hi-Cure] used in succession.”
“Just what kind of class does she actually have? I heard it’s a hidden class but it seems absurd. She can use magic spells, heals, and various battle skills on top of wielding a transformable weapon for melee attacks.”
“Unfortunately, no one will know as she’s kept this piece of information strictly confidential! She has never divulged any information regarding her class through her streams or social media posts at all!”
“So it’s a mystery then. Oh my, what’s this skill?”
Maria had activated her class-specific skill, [Gehenna’s Eye], which caused 8 flaming eyes to appear on her wings as she spread them out before she shot 9 lasers at the monster she was fighting. 8 of those lasers came from the eyes that appeared on her wings while the ninth came directly from her pair of eyes. She targeted the monster’s 8 appendages with the first 8 lasers while the final laser struck the humongous eye that was located at the center of the monster’s body which had opened up after she had first attacked it.
The eye itself had a passive [Charm] skill but unfortunately for the monster, Maria was completely immune to the status-affecting skill since she possessed Lust’s Sigil. With Maria burning holes in all of its appendages, the monster shrieked in pain before falling into the water.
“Oh my gosh, she’s actually done it!”
“She’s chased away the monster, now the path ahead is completely open to player Maria! This is her chance to get ahead of her competition now!”
The audience thought that with this, Maria was finally going to ascend the cliff but, to everyone’s surprise, she plunged into the waters and tried chasing the monster.
“Wait, what?!”
“She’s...she’s chasing after it!”
“Oh no, a few of the participants have caught up and are overtaking her as they’re now scaling the cliff!”
When Maria arrived underwater, she looked around and couldn’t find the monster. The casters followed her perspective and saw her frowning for a moment before seeing her do something. Maria began charging up a [Dark Ray] before she fired it in a random direction. The magical ray of dark energy created a long chain of explosions as it passed through the water but it didn’t hit anything in the end.
Maria frowned before looking around her and fired off multiple buckshot-type [Dark Ray]s to try and see if she would be lucky enough to hit the monster because with it being injured, it wouldn’t have been able to run away too far. However, to Maria’s dismay, she got no reaction besides causing the waters to gush into the air in a grand explosion. She clicked her tongue after seeing that she had let the monster escape. With no other choice, she holstered her weapon on her back before swimming to the surface.
“Tsk, I let it escape.”
“...”
“...”
The casters and audience could only laugh or be shocked speechless when they heard her words. Normally, one wouldn’t pick a fight with such a gruesome beast since it wasn’t a target or anything in the first place. Maria swam towards the cliff and started scaling it. When she got to the top, she found that there were a few contestants already there at the second checkpoint and were getting ready to start the final stretch of the map.
Since this was the part of the map where she could fly, Maria had a dismissive attitude when she saw people already ahead of her because they had taken advantage of her battle with the sea monster to get ahead.
“Oh no, because of Player Maria’s needless battle with the sea monster, she’s fallen behind! All of the other contestants have caught up and a few have even gotten ahead of her!”
“Wait, what’s this? Why is Player Maria not starting the course yet?”
Maria was still drenched and cold from her run through the watercourse of the race so she stopped and began using [Fire] to dry and warm herself up. There was no way she would fly with her body wet since it would be even colder with the winds blowing against her while she flew.
“I guess she’s...warming herself up?”
“Yeah, it seems that way. However, isn’t she wasting her time by doing this? Some of the contestants have already completed a third of the course!”
Maria paid no mind to the people getting ahead of her. The last course was supposed to be difficult because you needed to fly through it to make it to the end but to her, flying was already second nature and it wasn’t something she was going to lose to anyone. Once she was dry and warm, Maria stood up and floated to the air. A few of the contestants had messed up and fell to their deaths so they reappeared at the checkpoint to see her getting ready to start.
“Alright, I’ll use that here and see how fast I can go.”
Maria activated her new racial skill, [Bahamut’s Wings], and her crimson red wings began transforming to everyone’s surprise.