Chapter 52: Bird Mask vs. Clown Spider
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Player Name: Sunraku LV:31 JOB: Mercenary (Dual Wielder) 200 Mani HP:30 MP:10 STM:60 STR:17 DEX:20 AGI:70 TEC:20 VIT:1(6) LUC:72 Skills: · Rush Slash · Spiral Edge · Knuckle Rush · Slide Move · Repel Counter · Loop Slash Lv.5 · Edge Climb · Accel Lv.6 · One-Boat Leap · Quick Spin
Equipment: Right Hand: Vorpal Chopper Left Hand: Vorpal Chopper Head: Staring Bird Mask (VIT+2) Body: Lycagon's Curse Waist: Splitblade Belt (VIT+4) Feet: Lycagon's Curse Accessory: None
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I've gained more skills, and I'm still dirt poor, but that doesn't matter anymore. Lately I'd been only raising my base stats, so I dumped points into Luck for the first time in a while. Still, I didn't have the guts to go all-in, so I allocated the 12 points I got from Rabituza plus the 5 points from leveling up just now, for a total of 17 points, and my preparations are complete.
Sunraku: "Well, when a new player enters, it gets fully healed, I guess."
The Clown Spider that greeted us shook its body, its flashy coloring that depending on how you looked at it could pass for clown makeup, in an intimidating display. Well, naturally—the Clown Spider that had newly respawned before we entered the boss area showed no signs of fatigue or damage whatsoever.
Sunraku: "……Hmm, just as I thought."
I looked around and was convinced—just like the Gluttonous Serpent, just like the Mud Digger... this thing is a real first-timer killer. I wonder if that swordsman trio noticed. If they didn't, this boss is going to be a huge pain.
If I were to sprint at full speed, the Clown Spider would use its astounding leaping power to move up to the spider web stretched across the top of this tree hollow... this tree cavity space. But I didn't run aiming for you.
Sunraku: "It's nasty how it blends in with the inside of the tree and is so hard to spot..."
That thing jutting out from the inner wall of the tree cavity like a spiral staircase was truly a staircase of uprising to drag down the Clown Spider from its position of absolute advantage. In this area, the ground is merely an extension of the entrance. The real battlefield is... above.
Sunraku: "Emul, wait at the edge... no, midway up the spiral staircase! You don't need to attack, and whatever you do, don't die and spill the stuff I gave you!"
Emul: "H-Hai na!"
This time, Emul isn't participating in the fight. Call it a matter of principle... no, I'll be honest. When I'm doing serious solo play, I'm the type who turns off assist NPCs. That's all there is to it!
After circling the inside of the tree cavity who knows how many times, around the point where Emul became nothing but a white dot, I reached the web stretched across the top. The Clown Spider noticed me and approached along spider silk thick and sturdy enough to match its huge body... but its steps were still slower than on the ground.
Sunraku: "The correct way is probably to station someone with ranged attacks here and knock it to the ground..."
No fire lit, no swaying in the wind, and it's not just a single strand. With conditions this favorable, there's only one thing to do.
I lightly tapped the thread with the flat of my Vorpal Chopper, which I'd switched over from the Marsh Dagger. As expected, the vertical threads aren't sticky; as long as I don't step on the horizontal ones, it's good enough as footing. I placed my foot on it, tested it with some force a few times, and then... dashed into the reach of the approaching Clown Spider.
Sunraku: "Tightrope walking isn't your exclusive privilege!"
It's precisely because I'm wearing flimsy sandals that are practically bare feet, worse than starting gear, that I can feel the center of the thread more directly. Even so, I wish I could at least wear some boots!
Sunraku: "Hard to brace myself, but... first-strike shoooot!"
Bracing normally doesn't put enough force into it, and there's the danger of slipping. So in this kind of situation, a leaping upward slash from below, using the slack of the strand, deals the most damage.
Sunraku: "Whoops, it's been a while so I almost fell. That was close... if I need to brace, I guess the center is best."
Apparently, in addition to a critical hit, I also struck a weak point. The Clown Spider, its face slashed, reeled backward so far it flipped over and fell from the web it had spun.
Sunraku: "Hope it takes fall damage too..."
With a distant CRUNCH!—a sound I'd rather not get used to—I left the Clown Spider writhing on the ground and advanced along the web, bouncing like an acrobat.
I see. So logs are hung from the ceiling with threads to drop through gaps in the web—that's how it was attacking the ground. Getting hit by one of those directly gives me the creeps... so I try cutting a thread with my Vorpal Chopper. Obviously, cutting the footing threads would mean I'd fall to my death and burst into polygons, so carefully... here goes.
Sunraku: "Hmm, tough."
It cut on the second try. If two critical hits can sever it, then I could use that... but before that, the furious homeowner returns. I see, so it wasn't just leaping power—it shoots out thread midair and climbs up like a reverse bungee. Seems to have unexpected elasticity.
Though it's an expressionless spider monster, the way it swings its front legs wildly conveys its anger at me more than words ever could. It rushes at me with quicker movements than before, but I've already taken position at the center of the web where the vertical threads are most densely packed.
With the terrain advantage, I feel twice as strong as before, you know? Note: according to our own research.
Sunraku: "Repel Counter!"
Planting my left foot firmly at the center of the web and stepping my right foot forward to adjust my stance, I deflected the Clown Spider's front leg attack.
I leaped back into the Clown Spider's reach as it was forced into a recoil animation, and in addition to two strikes with the Vorpal Choppers in both hands, I drove in a Spiral Edge-enhanced blow.
The Clown Spider fell to the ground yet again. It was clearly taking more damage than just a hit to the face, so fall damage is definitely applying.
Sunraku: "I... see...?"
Ahh, I think I'm making a really evil face right now.
So let me record here the Clown Spider-kun's attempts to come home—the chronicle of that battle.
Come Home (Third Time) The first time it climbed, the second time it came back, so... third time. For its third return home, it extends thread toward the ceiling. It sticks to the ceiling, and to gain propulsion, the Clown Spider hangs fully from the thread—right at this moment when it's fully stretched.
Sunraku: "Here, two critical hits."
Snap. The severed thread cannot support the Clown Spider's weight. Seized by the giant palm of gravity, the Clown Spider fell to the ground, its legs flailing.
Come Home (Fourth Time)
Sunraku: "Huh, this position is..."
As the thread extends and I'm about to cut it, I notice a log hanging nearby.
Sunraku: "Whack-a-mole? Mouse trap? Well, whatever—log hammer!"
The log is pulled by gravity and falls. It's truly a battering ram from above. Unluckily for it, at the moment just before its reverse bungee, with the thread fully stretched, the log hits the Clown Spider directly in the rear. The thread extending from its rear snaps as if involuntarily, and it falls to the ground along with the log...
Come Home (Fifth Time) Falls.
Come Home (Sixth Time) Something wrapped up in indecipherable thread hits it directly and it falls.
Come Home (Seventh Time) Its reverse bungee with spider silk succeeds and it springs upward, but just before returning to the web, it's kicked down by me and falls.
Fall, fall, fall...
Sunraku: "Man, I never thought it would lock in this perfectly..."
In games where players directly control their characters, there are techniques that sit right on the border between a bug and legitimate play... lockdown exploits. A way for the weak to beat a powerful boss, and a devilish technique that denies everything the boss can do until it becomes a punching bag.
The sight of it trying so earnestly to return to the web even after being slammed into the ground over and over is pitiful... no, I'm not thinking it's funny like an old cartoon gag. Seriously.
Sunraku: "Well, looks like it's close to death now."
Well, I've knocked it down ten times, and even for a monster—an area boss at that—if it keeps getting slammed into the ground from this height, it's going to be near death.
As for the Clown Spider's condition, several of its legs are bent in weird directions from being slammed into the ground repeatedly, and its whole body is caved in—maybe from the impact of falling—and instead of bodily fluids, polygons are leaking from various parts. If it took damage that would've killed me ten times over and still looks like that, it must have been a plenty tough enemy.
But compared to when I finished off the near-dead Quad Beetle, it's somehow lacking in hype. I mean, it was fun, but it still felt different somehow. How to put it... right, not enough thrill. The fall-lock combo I pulled off is one reason—okay, mostly the reason—but I want a fight pushed all the way to the limit of one-hit-death rules.
Sunraku: "In that respect, Quad Beetle was good because it was a straightforward physical brawl..."
The Clown Spider was a strong enemy too, but it's more of a boss where the main part is figuring out the gimmick. So once you know the trick, it's weaker than Quad Beetle. Even if I went down to the ground and faced it one-on-one, I'd probably win without taking much damage.
That's exactly why it feels incomplete; the frustration of not being able to go all-out casts a shadow over the sense of accomplishment of finishing off the Clown Spider.
Sunraku: "...I'm gonna mess around a little, so forgive me."
Because it's the boss, because it's the master of this tree cavity, the Clown Spider, even in its battered state, still moves and lunges at me.
Activate Slide Move. I glide along the unstable thread—thick as a tug-of-war rope though it is—and evade the Clown Spider's charge. At that moment, I activate a new skill I learned... Quick Spin, which cancels the recoil from a sudden stop during a 180-degree turn and enables an instantaneous reversal.
Immediately after reversing, I also activate One-Boat Leap, a skill that—unlike evasion-type skills that apply a stat correction—purely enhances leaping distance.
The slack spider silk, my leaping body—behind the Clown Spider, which has entered recovery frames after its attack animation.
Normally, there's no need for these acrobatics; a Repel Counter to deflect and slash would end it safely and quickly. So this is just playing around, pure play.
Sunraku: "Overkill, maybe?"
Using the momentum of the leap to boost the power of the thrust... in other words, layering the momentum of the dive—which could be called a forced STR buff via AGI—onto Spiral Edge and driving it in.
The Vorpal Chopper stabbed into the Clown Spider's rear (I didn't quite have the courage to stab the thread-producing part) emits a spiral effect, causing polygons to gush out of the Clown Spider like a rock drill.
The Clown Spider shuddered once and froze, and then its body burst apart into polygons with great force.
Sunraku: "Whoops."
The force nearly knocked me off the web, but falling to my death at this point would be way too embarrassing, so I held on through sheer stubbornness and caught some kind of sphere dropping toward the ground through the burst of polygons.
Sunraku: "Hmm... well, it was no-damage, no-continue, so I guess it's good enough."
A perfect play and the best possible outcome, yet somehow an unsatisfying victory.