Chapter 50: Combat Technique Learned from the Past × Escape Technique ○
Empire Bee Worker Pollen Hair The soft hair of Empire Bees specifically tasked with collecting pollen and nectar. This fur, which accumulates powder such as pollen, is valued more in daily life than in combat.
Empire Bee Hunter Stinger The stinger of Empire Bees tasked with hunting and attacking external enemies. Due to its characteristics, it cannot use venom; instead, it damages enemies by piercing with the barbs growing from the stinger, then tearing and gouging.
Empire Bee Hunter Mandible The mandible of Empire Bees tasked with hunting and attacking external enemies. What was demanded of their jaws was not sharpness, but the sturdiness to crush even the hardest carapaces.
Sunraku: "Bugs are amazing, you know. Their evolution is just so straightforwardly brimming with murderous intent."
Compared to mammals and reptiles, they're far, far more fragile—and precisely because of that, they pursued specialization over versatility. That form holds a certain overwhelming power. Thinking about it that way, compared to tanks and frontline classes, I'm also far, far more fragile—and precisely because of that, I've pursued specialization over versatility. Isn't that form exactly me? Good lord, were those bees, in a sense, a reflection of myself...? Well, whatever. Thanks for the EXP and the drop items.
Emul: "Sunraku-san, please take a look at that and give me your thoughts, wa."
Sunraku: "I guess it's just a basic rule that if you're going to eat a mass of murderous intent, you've gotta stack even more murderous intent on top."
Right before our eyes, an Empire Bee—probably of a different caste than the Workers or Hunters—is being devoured by a flower. ...No, let me correct that. That's not a flower. I've seen the insect that must have been the motif for this thing—its name and appearance—in an encyclopedia.
Sunraku: "A Mimic Mantis, huh... I doubt anyone could see through that on their first encounter."
Emul: "The flower just went GWAAAH! and transformed, wa..."
Emul's words are no exaggeration. Even I wouldn't have noticed without the sacrifice of that Empire Bee whatever-it-was. The camouflage was that perfect. Incredible—it changes its body color like a chameleon and positions itself exquisitely hidden among the flower field. This is a problem. Can't just advance carefree...
Sunraku: "Eh, let's just hunt it."
Maybe checking the item description will tell me something. From my pocket, I pull out a throwing knife purchased at a shop—a long-range attack method I learned from the nightmare that was that goddamn Toxic Eagle—and hurl it at the spot where the Mimic Mantis was hiding.
An external impact—one that comes with damage, no less—indicates that its camouflage has been seen through. The Mimic Mantis abandons its disguise, bursting apart... wait, what?
Sunraku: "I see... So instead of poison or camouflage, the best approach is just to physically run it over and kill it."
Emul: "It's a huge bug, waaaa!!"
Its carapace is truly worthy of being called armor. The four horns extending from its head—are those the mark of a king? Though both are insects, it's decisively different from the bees. Its wingbeats are a deep, low hum, befitting a creature built to support heavy armor—a sound that shakes you to your core.
Sunraku: "A chimera of a rhinoceros beetle and a stag beetle... Mmm, fantasy."
The way its left and right mandibles clack, the way its upper and lower horns move—this is the ultimate beetle, bearing the hallmarks of both the rhinoceros beetle and the stag beetle.
Sunraku: "Hmm. Let's run."
Emul: "W-Wait, we're running, wa!? I was sure you'd say we're fighting it..."
Sunraku: "Alright then, let's fight."
Emul: "Yaaay, I'm all for escape! Allow me to demonstrate a rabbit's dashing retreat, wa!"
No, I actually do have a pretty strong urge to fight it. But after considering various factors, fighting this... beetle-stag-thing here—no, strictly speaking, this powerful mob that reeks of an FOE—has more downsides than upsides.
First: it's conspicuous. The fact that I was in Thirdrema and have already left town will come to light sooner or later, and people will be coming to this Prismatic Forest Grotto eventually. Actually, people will come regardless of whether I'm here or not. Even that Mimic Mantis gave me the feeling it would've taken about five minutes to take down. Fighting something even more troublesome than that—this Quad Beetle—would probably stall me for over ten minutes, and the odds of being spotted by other players are high.
Second: it's a purely disadvantageous matchup. If this were a ground fight, I'd have plenty of options. But that thing can fly, and it can exert enough horsepower mid-flight to pulverize a Mimic Mantis in a single blow. Acrobatics like jumping onto a speeding car with this equipment is a bit much. And even putting that aside, that heavy armor... a flying enemy where your attackable spots are too limited, and my only ranged weapons are throwing knives and one other thing? That's way too unfair. At least, not while my throwing knife supply is finite.
Sunraku: "So, regarding our escape route... Whoa!"
Emul: "Pyaa!"
A full-body Spiral Edge... no, I should call it a full-body Spiral Jaw (Bite) & Horn—the Quad Beetle charges while rotating its entire body in a spiral. I dodge it. Emul, meanwhile, clings to the back of my neck with movements truly worthy of the phrase "fleeing like a rabbit." Has that spot become your regular position or something?
Sunraku: "Hahaha! I'm not about to lose to a one-trick straight-line charging punk!"
At that very moment, the Quad Beetle—which had made an emergency stop, reversed, and re-charged—passes by just a head's width away.
Sunraku: "Correction: that's a little dicey."
Emul: "Kyaaaaa!!"
Wow, its attack intervals are shorter than I thought. If I mess up my stamina management, I'm getting run over.
Being the penny-pincher I am, I scoop up the drop items from the Mimic Mantis—now shattered into polygons—and start running. The Quad Beetle turns around again and charges at me, but I'm already gone.
Sunraku: "Where are you aiming, dumbass!"
Emul: "Stop taunting it, waaaa!"
Oops, force of habit.
Personally, I don't dislike "sea of trees" stages. They're treasure troves of obstacles and footholds—incredibly convenient fields for running and hiding.
I run across tilted trees, use bending branches as lifelines to jump from high places.
Large trees are both shields and roads. Honestly, if it came to a game of tag in this area, I'm confident I'd never get caught. But I've been keenly feeling, this whole time, that the definition of "obstacle" differs between players and monsters. Because...
Sunraku: "Oi oi, you're kidding me—you don't even care about obstacles? Just how much of a straight-line punk are you...!"
I've been hearing the sound of things getting smashed behind me for a while now. I glance back—large trees snapping, and the Quad Beetle doesn't seem to have taken any damage, just shaking its head slightly... The fact that it's abandoned detours for straight-line pursuit has even me gaping.
No wonder this area has so many fallen trees... So you're the culprit.
Emul: "What do we do, wa!?"
Sunraku: "Thinking."
I think while running without hesitation across the flower carpet. Why is this thing so stubbornly chasing me? I've tried pawning it off on random monsters several times, but they've all failed. No matter how you look at it, this is way too persistent. Dismissing it as just bad luck seems a little off—it's highly likely I've unknowingly fulfilled some kind of condition.
Sunraku: "The things I've done since coming to this area... Oops."
Emul: "Incoming, wa!"
While dodging the bombardment of bizarre nuts—something I can only describe as armored apples, like a cross between an apple and a pinecone that had been growing on the large trees snapped by the Quad Beetle's charges—I catch a few and stash them in my inventory. Well, that saved me some gathering effort.
Sunraku: "Butterflies, bees, gathering... insect-types... rhinoceros beetles... stag beetles... tree sap? No, considering this area, maybe..."
What comes to mind is the nectar-filled abdominal pouch that dropped from the Storage Papillon. Since both bees and butterflies are actively collecting it, there's a high probability it's set as the staple food for monsters in this area.
So then, assuming nectar is the staple food of this beetle-themed monster—a creature whose massive body is clearly unsuited for busily gathering nectar—what would be the smartest way for it to efficiently collect nectar?
Sunraku: "An assassin from Unite Rounds, is that it!?"
Okay, so that's how it is. No wonder my attempts to pawn it off on Storage Papillons without stored nectar, or on Empire Bee Workers, all failed. Its target is the nectar in my inventory! Aren't you ashamed of trying to steal from others? If you're gonna do that, go do it in Unite Rounds!
Sunraku: "Huh? Ah, so 'throw' means that..."
In other words, the nectar-filled pouch has the role of an item that diverts aggro away from yourself. Well...
Sunraku: "I'm not throwing it, though."
Emul: "Why not, wa!?"
Sunraku: "Emul, remember this... Surrender is wiser than defeat, but more shameful than defeat."
Emul gazes at me with a blank expression as if she'd just heard a quote from some great sage. But to summarize, that's just something from a certain kusoge: "Surrendering and handing over your items on your own while getting taunted is several times more infuriating than losing, getting all your items stolen, and getting taunted."
That Quad Beetle already stole the Mimic Mantis's EXP from me. And now I'm supposed to hand over a rare item I lucked into on top of that? ...Pisses you off, doesn't it?
Sunraku: "I'm escaping no matter what...!"
I've already come up with a plan for that. If I can't shove it off on trash mobs, I'll shove it off on a monster of equal rank.
That's why, while running away, I've been chasing something this whole time... Alright, Worker-kun, allow me to meet your boss...!
If there's one trait bees and ants share, it's forming a society with a queen at the apex. Throughout history, in all sorts of entertainment—and especially in games featuring bee-type mobs—the one designed as their boss is, of course, the Queen.
The presence of the black wolf emanating from the Curse (Marking), and the beetle—a superior predator that, based on the law of the jungle, targets the fruits of labor along with their very lives. If both of these appear simultaneously, the natural course of action would be to return to the nest.
The Empire Bee Worker fleeing back to the nest serves as a locator for me as I simultaneously flee and pursue. And data designed as mere insects—game though this may be—cannot comprehend that it is being used as a guide to its own hive.
Sunraku: "I see it, I see it... Thanks for the guidance!"
The moment I visually confirm the giant beehive—a massive hexagonal aggregate—I sprint at full power with the momentum of burning through all my conserved stamina, overtaking the Bee Worker. Likely tasked with defending the hive, bees that look different from the Bee Hunters—probably Bee Guards or Keepers, something like that—shift into combat stance against me, an entity attempting to invade the hive.
Sunraku: "Ah, no need to worry about me. The guest of honor is this one... here!"
A full-power, no-deceleration, right-angle turn incorporating Slide Move's correction... Not an evasive maneuver—a move to yield the path. And then, far more than the pitiful nectar I'm carrying that wouldn't even count as a snack, the Quad Beetle—still carrying the momentum of its charge—plows into the Empire Bee hive, pulverizing bees as it crashes through.
Sunraku: "Hahaha, look, Emul. That right there is what you call a real 'Charge! The Neighbor’s Dinner.'"
The Quad Beetle can't react to sharp directional changes. It can't perform rapid turns without sufficient space. And in that case, it has to crash into something to kill its momentum before turning around... Hypothesis, testing, verification—all complete.
Faced with the Quad Beetle—a threat so overwhelming they can't afford to pay attention to me—the Empire Bees swarm it all at once. It's not a giant monster battle royale; it's an insect battle royale.
Emul and I hide in the shadows of the trees, spectating the great war between bees and beetle. To put the scene into perspective, it's like one of those Sengoku-era RTS games where the CPU sends a ridiculously overpowered enemy general charging straight into your main camp right when all your allied generals are away... Stop spawning enemy generals right in the middle of the battlefield, dammit.
Emul: "W-We did it, wa! You brilliantly shoved it off onto the Empire Bees, wa! Let's hurry up and run—"
Sunraku: "Hey, Emul. That..."
Where I'm pointing—there, each time the Quad Beetle pulverizes the bees swarming it with its horns, its mandibles, its brute strength, its sheer weight, massive amounts of drop items come clattering to the ground...
Emul's face—saying "Are you serious? Are you actually serious right now?"—leaves quite an impression. Sorry. Plans and schemes—the strategy-type somethings I come up with—are usually wrecked by improvisation.
There's no sign of the other players I was worried about, and the Quad Beetle is starting to wear down, hit-and-run tactics included. The bees, needless to say, are currently suffering catastrophic losses... So how about a little hyena play? Give it a shot?