Chapter 37: Chapter 37 – First Trial
Kyle picked option one, the big two-handed mining weapon.
The other two were nice, but Kyle just didn't vibe with them.
He liked big clubs. Even when he played actual Monster Hunter, he enjoyed using big hammers.
The one with the shield was nice and reminded him of his new mentor, Nervon, but he didn't like one-handed weapons.
Also, wasn't a pickaxe supposed to be used with two hands? Using only one hand to mine ore sounded unreasonably straining.
The one that could be split in two was nice at first glance, but the issue was that it split into two different weapons instead of two identical ones.
Sure, he could fight with that, but he would still only be able to mine with one of them since only one had a pick at its ends.
The other one would just awkwardly lay in his hands.
Kyle imagined himself swinging at the wall with his two-handed mining weapon before imagining himself smashing the head of a Spitter with the flat side.
He lifted the big mining weapon and gave it a couple of test swings.
He could feel the air being split by the flat side, and when he swung with the pick, he noticed it moving much faster.
Despite its seemingly crude design, it was surprisingly aerodynamic.
'I fucking love this thing!' Kyle thought.
It was difficult for Kyle to estimate the weight since his body had become quite a bit stronger within the two weeks he had been in this world.
Things that were heavy before were quite light now, and Kyle had no idea how to estimate weight anymore.
'I just know this is fucking perfect!'
"I'm taking this one," Kyle said to the golem.
"Mining weapon has been chosen," the golem said mechanically before extending its hand.
"Place your hand here," it said.
Kyle looked at the hand awkwardly before putting his hand on top of it.
CRK!
The golem's hand tightened, and Kyle's eyes widened in fear.
But before he could do anything, the golem's hand let go again.
"Realm one, level two," the golem said. "Adjusting settings."
A moment later, the wall made of normal stone vibrated for a couple of seconds.
"Trial one prepared," the golem said. "Entrant number 69, your job is to reach the other side of the wall. The wall is 20 meters thick. There is no time limit. There is one restriction. The entrant is not allowed to deliberately destroy the wells."
"You may begin."
'No time limit?' Kyle thought. 'Wait, didn't the stone guy say that only 52 people got through trial one? How are you supposed to fail the trial if there is no time limit?'
'Also, what the fuck do you mean with well in this context? Is there a fucking spring in there?'
Kyle shrugged.
'Oh well, they probably damaged the wells. Guess I should be careful.'
Then, Kyle properly looked at the wall.
It was made of grey stone. At least, it looked like grey stone.
However, there was a yellow shimmer in a couple of parts.
Kyle scratched the back of his head a bit.
'Well, guess I should get going.'
'Sometimes, despite all your best efforts, you can't escape your destiny, and my destiny is becoming a blue-collar worker.'
'I mean, what am I gonna do? Refuse? Pfft, I'm not turning into a fucking puddle!'
'Alright, boys! Time to get back to work!'
Kyle pulled his new hammer back.
Technically, it was a mining weapon, but Kyle just decided to call it a hammer from now on since this was what it was to him.
Then, he swung forward with the pick.
BANG!
Half of the hammer's head buried into the wall, and Kyle's eyes widened.
'Brah, that was easy!'
He pulled the buried pick back to him, and a big chunk of the wall was pulled off.
'This is so much better than that shitty fucking drill!'
'I wanna test the other side too.'
Kyle turned the hammer around and swung with gusto at the wall.
BOOOOOM!
The hammer's impact echoed throughout the entire hall, and Kyle's eyes widened as he saw cracks forming across the wall in front of him.
He also noticed something very peculiar.
'There were no vibrations in the hammer!' he thought as he looked at it with wonder. 'I was prepared for my entire body to shake when I hit the wall, but there was just nothing!'
Kyle might not have gone to college, but he still completed high school and knew the fundamentals of physics.
'Every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction, right? That was the phrase. So, if I strike this wall, I should also feel the strike, but I didn't.'
Whenever there was something suspicious that didn't seem to fit Earth's physics, there was only one explanation.
'Probably more of that Ether shit. I mean, the drill could go crazy by using my Ether, and this thing is much better. It probably uses my Ether to weaken the impact or shit like that.'
After a while of looking at his new hammer, Kyle looked at the wall again.
'Wait a fucking second! There were more cracks before, right?' he thought.
Then, he looked at the hole he had made earlier.
'Did the hole shrink?'
Since there was no time limit, Kyle decided to wait a bit and watch the wall.
Over the next few minutes, he saw the stone recovering like it was a living organism!
Five minutes later, the entire wall had recovered, and there was no trace left of his earlier two strikes.
'How the fuck is stone just regrowing?! What is this magic bullshit?!'
Slowly, it dawned on Kyle how 16 people failed in this trial.
He gulped.
'Are there corpses in there of trapped entrants?'
Kyle imagined himself in the middle of the wall, the way back blocked.
He was exhausted, and the walls were closing in.
He couldn't swing his hammer anymore.
Slowly, the walls encompassed him, and he became part of the wall.
Sweat ran down Kyle's back as he nervously looked at the wall.