Max madly treaded water as he was whisked away by a strong river current. The violent current ed chaotically, flinging him around without any mercy.

  Suddenly, he ulled uer. Kig and g his way back to the surface, his head broke free, only to be instantly smashed in the face by a white, foaming wave.

  Max had paid little attention to the river earlier, because he had no pns to e. He certainly had no pns to be knocked into it via means of flying log either. As such, he was pletely caught off-guard when he became submerged.

  Between gasps of air, Max could observe a few things about this river.

  It was deepIt was wideIt was extremely fastMax felt a rock smash against his leg uer and winced. He had paio the maximum allowable value, so that really hurt.

  Wanting to escape, he started swimming perpendicur to the river flow. The river itself was actually only about 12 metres wide, but there were side currents which sought to push him back to the tre. He fought fiercely against them to reach the bank.

  Glimpsing a rge rock, he drove his arm forward. His fingers slid against it; the smooth, wet stone no grip as he started helplessly sliding bato the river’s pull.

  At the st moment, he spotted a pnt appendage of some sort, and his hand shot out, just barely grabbing it in time. As his legs were carried downstream, his grip acted as a fulcrum, swinging him out of the river and brutally smming his body into the riverbank.

  Gritting his teeth, Max checked that the pnt could hold his weight, before pulling himself up and out of the water, making sure not to slip as he did so.

  This really hadn’t gohe way he wanted. His pn was to drop off the roof of that and leap ihrough one of the windows. That orc wouldn’t have been able to follow inside immediately due to its rge size and he could’ve peppered it with arrows.

  “Ptah!” Max spat out water and ied his surrounding, making sure it was monster-free.

  It was not. He spotted the orc about 150m upstream, and to his dismay, it seemed like the orc also spotted him, as it started sauntering in his dire. He still couldn’t believe he’d already run into a ‘quasi-boss’ on his first day pying. During his seission, no less.

  Shaking his hair dry, Max took out his bow as he checked his health and notifications.

  [ Health: 120/270 (44%) ]

  [ Notice: User’s equipped item ‘Beginner Longbow’ has bee wet. No protective coatied; b esticity is impaired. Power will be temporarily reduced by 20% ]

  [ Notice: User’s equipped item ‘Iron Dagger’ exceeded maximum range of use (100m) and has beeuro the user’s iory ]

  “Damn! Power reduced by twenty pert?!”

  Max had still been carrying his bow when he was hit by the log, and it plunged into the water along with him. He had retur to his iory immediately, but it still suffered a debuff. It seemed like Virtek were trying to take a more realistic approach to this game’s dynamics.

  This wasn’t the time to throity party, however. Max started refilling his quiver while cheg the terrain. He o find a defensible position to fight that orc, which he could see was still walking toward him slowly as though it was out on a leisurely m stroll.

  Although it moved like that now, he khere was no ce of him outrunning that thing; it was super-fast. He could try wandering into the woods to shake it off, but there was no guarahat such a strategy would work, as this orc seemed quite experienced and would likely be a good tracker. ‘Though it would buy time...’

  Max looked to the river and saw there was a bridge crossing over it. Looking more closely, it was actually a rope bridge. It hung a few meters above the water’s surfad sisted of a series of half-rotted wooden pnks suspended by worn rope cables.

  He didn’t really want to stand on it; it didn’t look reliable at all.

  ‘...Wait, could that thing even hold the orc’s weight?’

  It occurred to Max that the orc was now on the opposite side of the river from him. It would o cross over somehow and would most likely attempt to use that bridge.

  ‘Actually, I don’t eveo gamble oher it hold its weight; I just cut the cables!’

  The cables which held the bridge up were anchored to small abutments at ead. If Max just cut the rope at that e point, the bridge would fall into the river and bee unusable.

  He grinned as he equipped a dagger.

  “Alright guys...” Remembering he was streaming, Max spoke to his chat, “Here’s the pn: the ugly guy upstream is a quasi-boss whom I don’t particurly feel like fighting right now, so I have a very advanced and sophisticated pn.”

  He waited a moment so the viewers would feel some anticipation, before pointing at the crossing. “I’ll destroy that bridge, and then run away.”

  Having finished detailing his sophisticated pn, Max strode up to the bridge. Holding the rope steady with his free hand, he prepared to cut it with the dagger, looking up at the orc as a final check.

  “Huh?”

  Max watched on in disbelief as the racefully bent its knees a into the river.

  ‘????????’

  Instantly, the orc was taken by the current, speedily being moved toward Max. It was somehow able to remain standing while this was happening and was tall enough that its spiky pauldrons could be seen poking out of the water.

  “...Well, that ges things.”

  Max quickly switched back to his bow and ran onto the middle of the bridge to get a clear shot. The orc was still 110 metres upstream, so it would take about 20 seds to reach him.

  However, if it would willingly expose itself like this, Max did not io allow it to survive for that long.

  Drawing his bow, he shot an arrow which fell short and dropped uer.

  ‘ht. The debuff.’

  Max aimed a bit higher and shot again. This time, the arrow sailed over the water and hit the side of the orc’s head, sliding off harmlessly.

  “Is that guy’s head actually smoother than Lemonade’s?” Undismayed, Max made a bald joke to his viewers, “It just bounced right off.”

  ‘God, I’m so funny.’

  Max wasn’t particurly ed despite his failed shot. He’d warded off aire group of orcs before they could approach him; now just one orc thought it could take him on? Sure, it was a ‘high’ orc or whatever, but that shouldn’t make it invincible. The previous arrow only slid off because it an angle, and that thing’s face was already wet; it wouldn’t tio be so lucky.

  Max let off another arrow. This time, the orc raised its axe up to protect its face, causing the arrow to bounce off, ralised.

  Max frowned and started shooting more quickly, aiming at its unprotected ned upper chest. Finally, he saw some results at the arrows embedded themselves in its skin. Although, upon squinting, he could see that the arrows did not fully pierce; half of the length of each arrowhead was still exposed to the air.

  Max started to bee anxious and fired faster again. This orc clearly had thicker skin than its terparts. bined with Max’s current power debuff, it would require a lot of shots to take it down. That being the case, he did not hold back. After ten seds, the orc became like a pore, with arrows stig out of it in every area of its upper thorax.

  Max realised this was taking too long, so he started pnning tingehe orc would have to climb back out of the river o got close to him. To do so, it would pick either the left ht side of the bridge. When that happened, he would run and cut the bridge rope at the opposite end, preventing it from reag him. Then, the orc would bee stuck at the wrong side of the river and he could tinue shooting it.

  Max furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at the orc, which had soaked up nearly a dozen arrows. If his bow had not beehis dumb guy would have already bee a floating corpse.

  ‘What’s even the point of having pauldron spikes? Is it pnning to shoulder-ram someone?’ Max pined in his mind, ahat he couldn’t inflict signifit damage.

  Even though it had reached a distance of 20 metres from him, the orc made no effort to climb out of the river, still flowing straight down the middle. Max was thhly fused. Was it going to just keep going down the river? Surely it wasn’t stupid enough to overshoht?

  Max briefly sidered that it was going after the guard patrol, but dismissed this idea as it would be shot to death before it could leave his range.

  This was the orc that used a shield against him earlier. He k had some intellige least, but if it wasn’t climbing to nd, and wasn’t tinuing downstream, what was it doing?

  ‘...’

  When the orc was only 5 metres away, Max’s eyes widened in realisation as he dashed and threw himself to the side.

  Surpriiiise!!!”