Afterlife Dream

I cursed loudly when the information finally came. The mechanical voice spoke languidly as if it was telling me what was on the menu for dinner. Or maybe it really was, because what else would the dinner be if not me and Sue!

"Adventurer, the first hurdle [Wild Boar Attack] is here. Please make sure to keep a healthy distance between yourself and the wild boars, as being hit would automatically drain your and Little Sue's HP to zero."

"Great! Wonderful!" I yelled sarcastically at the mechanical voice without stopping to run for even one second.

It was indeed a horde of wild boars. Ironically, on one hand, their light brown skin and white coats did not come off as menacing. On the other hand, their eyes twinkled dangerously and their pairs of tusks looked like they had recently been sharpened. The awful beasts charged forward with only one goal in mind - to run down everything in front of them.

"AAHHHHHHHH...!!!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs in exasperation.

Honestly, if they had gotten to us, Sue and I would both die. It did not even have to be in a game, alright? I challenge any of you to prove me wrong.

In my frenzied escape, I spotted a rope ahead of me and I climbed up without wasting further thought on it. The rope was cold and slimy, but I held on to it with all the survival power that I had.

A plot twist would make the boars stop charging and look up. One might ask, "Yo, Antares, what the hell are you doing up there?"

Good that there was no plot twist. I was still safely hanging down from the cold, slimy rope with Sue at my back.

It took some time for the horde of wild boars to pass through. I was about to climb down from the rope when I heard a hissing sound. I looked up in an instant and saw a pair of yellow eyes. They did not seem to be there for decorative purposes. A snake head appeared in front of me, hissing angrily. I had been holding onto its body instead of a real rope.

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"Oh my God," I said in horror.

"Congratulations on passing the first hurdle, Adventurer. Unfortunately you picked a shortcut in order to do so, which activated the bonus hurdle [Poisonous Viper]. The game would like to advise you to quickly release the poisonous viper to prevent an unwanted attack."

The snake hissed loudly. The next second it sprayed my face, and with that also Sue's face with something green and smelly. I gagged at the horrible smell and saw my HP decrease rapidly. The blood in my veins froze right away. I quickly jumped down and healed myself and Sue frantically.

A cloud of green smoke rose from our heads incessantly. Sue's face was a little green. I suspected that I looked the same. We had been poisoned. The poison caused our HP to go down by 100 every second. I had around 3500 HP so it was still manageable, but Sue's HP was only 300. I had to practically heal us both every second while chugging down MP potions bottle by bottle. That would not have been a problem if I had brought enough potions. I didn't know how far I could go with the potions that I had, or how long we would stay poisoned for.

And that, boys and girls, was how I learned the importance of bringing enough potions with me. You could be sure that I would be bringing a whole store of potions and food for the third job advancement test. Just wait and see.

At any rate, it was not advisable to charge ahead to face the next hurdle while we were still being poisoned. I dragged Sue to a safe corner and healed us both every second while waiting for the poisoning effect to disappear. After a while, the blasted mechanical voice spoke up again.

"Adventurer, you only have twenty minutes to complete this test. You have wasted seven minutes on the first hurdle. Please take note that you still have two more hurdles ahead of you."

...

Wonderful.

"Can you not notify me in advance? And how am I supposed to know how many minutes I have left???"

I could not accuse the game of being unresponsive. A giant digital clock immediately showed up in the sky and started to count down the remaining time I had inside the testing ground.

Twelve minutes and forty seconds.

Twelve minutes and thirty-nine seconds.

"Thanks!" I yelled in anger.

Either the game felt sorry for me or the poisoning period was over, but we finally got rid of the poison. The green smoke dissipated and we were no longer losing HP. I was finally able to continue moving ahead with confidence.

The game was unreliable in giving information about impending danger, so I made sure to squint in every direction to see what was going on as we proceeded cautiously.

The forest was creepy. There was the rustling sound of leaves, the sudden gusts of bone-chilling wind, and also mysterious sounds that I could not put my fingers on. It went like this : woo woo woo.

Woo...

Woo, woo...

I glanced around in panic and pulled Sue closer to me.

"Hey, Afterlife Dream, what is that??"

"Adventurer, please prepare for your second hurdle, [Attack of Forest Ghosts]."

...

Oh, so I had to ask before I could get a piece of information in time? Great. I would like to submit my complaint about the poor customer service. If the game asked me to rate the game before I exited, I would have given it a one-star rating. If it were possible to go below, I would even do that.

Nevertheless, ghosts?

My first instinct was to run away. I carried Sue on my back again, cast Divine Guard on both of us, and ran off from the mysterious woo woo sound. It did not take long for the "Forest Ghosts" to sense that I was fleeing. Dutiful as they were, they quickly flew down and surrounded me and Sue. While Sue was busy sniffling at my back, I opened the skill tree and checked what attacks I had to fend myself with. The game had given me one point for each skill, so I could at least spam all skills to kill the ghosts.