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Volume 3 Chapter 7.3

Translator: Adam Seacord

Editor: Weasalopes

“This oughta be close to our last one, but boy, is this one troublesome.”

“That bridge looks really rickety.”

Seeing the narrow and long suspension bridge without any handrails, Hiroshi and Haruna commented with a very annoyed expression. The fact that there were no handrails alone was enough to make them want to leave. There was a safety net below the bridge, not too far down, and even a ladder to return to the starting side, which made things even more irritating.

On the other side, they could see a building that resembled a Japanese castle, which appeared to be their goal. The bridge was about as wide as a Forest Giant’s foot. Not too narrow to call it a tightrope, but not wide enough to just walk across normally. All of the obstacles so far had proved to be considerably difficult. It seemed like a very careful balance that even the Norton sisters could have beaten them. The maze where they were being chased by a pair of wrestling-heel looking golems, for example, they had passed in one go by some miracle.

Unlike the source material, though, the element of luck had been completely eliminated, like the level where the contestants had to pick the right wall with no clue or indication after the first pond, or the level where that would come after this one, where they had to choose the right tunnel to crawl through.

“So, what do we gotta do here? If we just gotta make it across, the first pond was more difficult than this.”

“Hey, there’s a note this time.”

Apparently, the level was complicated enough that it wasn’t evident on the first glance. Everything that they had to do was laid out on a placard, with a diagram, right next to the bridge. There were other levels along the way that provide similar things, so the party wasn’t surprised now.

“Let’s see… Catch the gold ball around the middle of the bridge, dodge all of the black balls, and make it to the other side.”

“Seems pretty tough.”

“Since we’re carrying someone, we have to catch two balls?”

“That’s what’ll be, I think. Let’s give it a shot.”

Haruna took the first try, since she knew that she was the best suited for levels like these, from experience. Light on her feet, she moved halfway across the bridge with ease, and caught the golden ball that was shot out with decent velocity without a problem. By only moving her weight forward or backward as to not rock the bridge, she dodged all of the black balls and made it all the way across. Just as she did with all of the previous level, she beat it perfectly on the first try. It was a demonstration, at this point.

“How’s the bridge?”

“Not as wobbly as it looks, but it might get scary if a ball hits you and your weight shifts.”

“I see. Ya got it.”

Hearing Haruna, Hiroshi understood the gist of the level. From what he observed and from what Haruna had just said, he assumed that the bridge more twisted than shook. If they didn’t sway left and right, they should to fall off. It also seed fortuitous that the balls to longer to fire than expected. Of course, if that time was spent locking onto the target, they could very well end up with a rapid fire after them, if they move to slow.

“Got the strategy, for the most part. Different story if we can pull it off or not, though.”

“Oh yeah? Elaborate for us.”

“The key’s to walk down the center of the bridge as possible without swayin’ left or right. Judgin’ by the structure of this thing, it won’t twist left and right, and if we lose balance that way, it’ll twist around the middle.”

“Ah huh. And the balls?”

“The gold one, from what we’ve read in that sign, won’t penalize us for missin’ it. We should focus on one we can grab without losing our balance or reachin’ too far. The black ones didn’t come too fast; maybe they take too long to aim when Haruna-san was movin’ that fast. Goin’ too slow could be a problem, in the sense that you’d get rapid-fired.”

The party accepted this explanation. Mio, of course, knew this level, but had never considered a specific way to beat it. She was simply impressed by Haruna and Hiroshi’s teamwork.

“Then we better work out a strategy, so let’s start with the Norton sisters.”

“I’m so sorry. We keeping dragging you down…”

“It ain’t your forte, nothin’ ya can do ‘bout it. If this were a normal ruin or dungeon, we wouldn’t be havin’ such a tough time, either, but here we are.”

Hiroshi offered in consolation to Primula. He really had not expected this ancient ruin to be a carbon copy of a game show. In a normal ruin, Primula and her knowledge as a clergywoman would have been extremely useful for analyzing and understanding things. In the first place, an ordinary dungeon could be traversed with a few tricks, like using a rope, to make up for the lack in athleticism. In that sense, this ruin that didn’t allow tricks was much more difficult to beat while having people like the Norton sisters in tow, who didn’t seem to have much speed. In exchange, there was almost no threat to their lives. You win some, you lose some.

“I mean, there’s gotta be more things after this. Maybe ya can make it through this one?”

“…Okay. I’ll try my best to make it across.”

With some resole, Primula began crossing the bridge. As advised, she stood by, waiting for a ball she could definitely catch. She managed to catch one coming from directly in front of her, albeit with a little loss of balance, before moving on with a forward lean, trying to make it across as quickly as possible. She might have moved too fast for the mechanism, as the first few shots completely missed her. After the aim became accurate, she dodge the first three black balls with miraculous timing, somehow carried on through the fourth one that hit her foot. When she was two steps away, the fifth ball hit her straight on the face. While she almost lost her balance, she countered the weight with her force of will, and powered through the last two steps like she was falling down. Just before her face fell into the ground, Haruna caught her. Primula managed to make it across in one try.

“That was amazing, sis!”

“She has some guts.”

“You gotta have some too, Judith.”

“I know!”

After watching her sister’s courageous attempt, Judith took her turn, invigorated. She made it halfway across on a surprisingly light foot, and fearlessly caught the golden ball with ease. She walked through the rest of the bridge as if it was a normal path, completely fearless. She had made it across so smoothly that only three black balls had been shot. Her attempt displayed that these obstacles were worse off if you became timid.

“Now that the Norton sisters are through, we better get started.”

“I mean, the worse is probably for one of us to re-do it once.”

As Makoto had mentioned, the only failure was Tatsuya, who had took a hit from a ball that ricocheted off the bridge. The most noteworthy things about this level, though…

“Yikes…”

“What is he doing…?”

“He’s ignoring everything the game’s about.”

Was Hiroshi, of course, who activated Fortress, and walked across with complete balance, taking hits from all of the black balls along the way without losing any of his balance.

“You all survived, my elite challengers!”

They in front of the castle, where a humanoid mole wearing an army uniform called out as soon it saw Hiroshi’s party.

“Survived? No duh, we re-did everythin’ until we all made it.”

“Formalities, my man. No sense is bring semantics into this.”

The mole politely responded to Hiroshi’s reaction. It seemed that they could hold a conversation.

“You must have many questions, but the show is not over. You must beat all of the levels, first.”

If they really were filming a game show, that sounded exactly like the thing he should only off-camera. If they were recording all of the levels until now, everyone filming and watching would have a lot of patience.

“Yeah, yeah. What’s the last level?”

“Crime aboard that, and fight against the defending army of the castle.”

The mole answered Makoto and pointed to the beautifully cheap-looking and perfectly out-of-style go-kart. On the front, it held what appeared to be a gun barrel, and there was a total of fourteen karts. It seemed that their opponent would be a team of the same number.

“Controls should be self-evident. Use those to eliminate the enemy!”

The mole declared with an annoying sense of authority, and the party was over it. What was the point? Who cared now?

“So, where do we have to hit them?”

“On the target on the front of their vehicles.”

“Are these safe?”

“Even if a stray bullet were to hit any of you, I guarantee that no one would be injured.”

That’s all Makoto had to hear. Having given up, she climbed into a kart. It seemed to have similar controls to a forklift, where the gas pedal on the right propelled them forward, the steering wheel on the left did exactly that, and a button on the right fired bullets.

“I think we should practice a little.”

“Practice in combat. The defending team have as much practice as you do.”

The mole turned down Makoto’s idea with a piece of information that might have been left unsaid, for his sake.

“Is everyone onboard. Now, begin!”

On the mole’s call, the party reluctantly began driving the karts. To avoid the ordeal of a collision, they first scattered. Just as the mole had said, the enemy, wire-like golems seemed very unfamiliar with the controls. They clumsily took their time to scatter, and came at the party in lurches. Watching that in the corner of his eye, they moved to surround the enemies, and made sure no stray bullets would hit an alley before Tatsuya pressed the button to hit the first golem.

“A water gun!?”

It was definitely water that fired out of the barrel. While it did have a decent range, it wasn’t going as nearly as forceful to injure anyone. It wasn’t like it had the force of a firehose, but more like a pipe leak. There was no way anyone could get hurt by this. While this was as safe as it could be, it was especially cheap-looking and anticlimactic. While this was true for the rest of the ruin, they were just in a very elaborate arcade, at this point.

“Ahh!”

Haruna, after taking down one enemy kart, albeit a little too relaxed, took a direct hit from a water gun. While the target on her kart didn’t take a hit, she ended up being soaked.

“It’s cold…”

The ruins had a lot of penalties that soaked them, but Haruna had avoided all of them up until this point. Seeing that she ended up drenched in the end, it seemed that Lady Luck didn’t pick favorites, after all. Of course, while Hiroshi had been covered in powder, he had not been wet just yet.

“One more to go!”

The party, when it was all said and down, with the help of their opponents’ inexperience, steadily took down their opponents. While the Norton sisters had been eliminated, they had taken down three enemies in the meantime, netting them a profit. Even when they we taken down, they had served as decoys. They were much more useful than Mio, who had been struggling with the controls and messing around at a safe distance.

“Woah! Aghp!”

Just as she was about to pull the trigger against the last enemy, she notice her opponent make a move, and hurriedly turned the kart, just in time to avoid being hit on the target, but not in time to get soaked all over again.

“Gotcha.”

Using Haruna’s honorable sacrifice, Mio swooped in for the end. She really knew how to steal a show.

“That’s it!”

The mole declared, once he saw that the golem team had been eliminated.

“I’m soaked down to my underwear…”

Haruna groaned sadly, now that she was splashed head-to-toe twice. The water seemed to have an effect of penetrating through enchantments. While ordinary water would have been repelled by her clothes, this water left Haruna a wet cat.

“I bet my blouse is see-through if I took off my armor right now…”

“Save it for when Hiro’s not around.”

“All right. Well, Primula-san. Judith-san. What did you do after falling in water?”

“We dried them right away with a spell. Why don’t you do the same, Haruna-san.”

“This water’s magic repellent…”

It was no ordinary H2O. They turned to the mole, who said:

“What fun would it be to have you shield your karts with a spell? The water has the ability to permeate low-level enchantments and repels magic. No need for concern. It only passes through the enchantment, and it doesn’t destroy any enchanted items.”

“H-How annoying…!”

As he desperately rung water out of her hair, Haruna gave the mole a stink eye. The only solution now was to change, but there really wasn’t any spot for that. It would be extremely uncomfortable to keep her soaked clothes on, not to mention that it would chill her with every minute. She could take off her armor and dry it, but the rest she had to get naked to dry, one way or another.

While this could have been her punishment for the slight lack in judgement from her affection, but this seemed too harsh in more ways than one. This seemed like the kind of thing Artiem would fall victim to, not Haruna. Since she was the only one to take a hit on her body from the water guns in the last stage, it almost seemed on purpose.

“I-I’ll go change over there, I think…”

“You got it. I’ll start a fire, so go change before you catch a cold,” Tatusya answered.

Haruna walked away to turn the corner of the castle, her shoulders sunk. After watching her turn, Mio whispered like a serpent:

“Sensei, Tatsu. Aren’t going to peek?”

“So you want me to die, huh?”

“Yes, Haruna is attractive. But, to be honest, I’m not interested in seeing anyone but Shiori naked.”

Wasn’t the cliché to fall for their lust and go peek, ending in them being beat up by the women in the party? Where was their sense of adventure? No sensing expecting these two to act like normal men.

“Mio, did actually want us to go peep or not?”

“Sensei, yes. Tatsu, I’d hate you for it.”

“You…”

The girl knew what she liked.