Chapter 59: Putting Feelings Into a Moment, Part 7
Apparently the hole angled off like a slide partway down, and before I knew it the fall had become a slide and then a glide, until finally we slipped out of the hole's exit into the hidden area at a pretty manageable speed. But more importantly—
Sunraku: "Die!"
Oikatzo: "Ah, crap! Right, the rabbit's ears picked that up!"
I didn't want my player name turning red over something this stupid, so I attacked bare-handed — but being a pro gamer, after all, he dodged with ease.
Sunraku: "Seriously... if this weren't Shangri-La Frontier I'd have pummeled you."
Oikatzo: "And if this weren't Shangri-La Frontier I'd have kicked you into the hole while you were still thinking it over."
Emul: "Both of you get along! Get along...wa!"
Hahaha, what are you talking about, Emul? This is practically peaceful. If we were seriously playing as enemies, we'd have each killed the other five times by now.
Sunraku: "So this is the hidden area Pencilgon mentioned... 'Tearlight Lake.'"
Before my eyes, snow-like light rose from a deep blue lake that lay underground. It wasn't wildly fantastical, but it was an incredibly dreamlike sight. This was the spot Pencilgon had designated for power-leveling — the "bonus area" hidden within the Iron Ruin of the Divinity: Tearlight Lake.
Oikatzo: "Apparently fishing here doubles as power-leveling... but honestly, I'm only half convinced."
Sunraku: "Well, we'll figure it out by doing it. That's what we were told — fish and find out."
Fishing games are honestly not my thing... no, wait — that's because every trash fishing game I've played was way too obsessed with realism, resulting in a garbage RNG-fest where you'd get one bite every thirty minutes. For the record, I did complete the full bestiary and even caught the secret boss, a blue whale. How you can catch the world's largest mammal with a fishing rod in a game that's supposedly pursuing realism? Don't ask. Trash games discard "realism" more casually than a broken promise.
Sunraku: "Oh, got one, got one."
Oikatzo: "The Luck disparity is way too real!"
Emul: "A fish bonanza...wa!"
Hah! Luck is seriously a god-tier stat. As Oikatzo — still completely skunked — shouted in despair, I deployed my smuggest victory face and reeled in my sixth fish... fish?
Lifestide Salmon A salmon that dwells within the currents of life. Its flesh restores the vitality of those who consume it, and its eggs make an excellent magical catalyst. The great earth too possesses life, with blood and life flowing through it.
It was just a faintly glowing silver salmon, but it came with an absurdly grandiose description. When it comes to salmon, I like the icehead best. In my family, my dad brings back salmon from fishing trips every year, so salmon shows up on the dinner table pretty often.
Oikatzo: "Even with Luck correction, isn't this a little too many...?"
Sunraku: "Fortunately, I had a great master when it came to fishing technique."
A great master of a father who catches everything from smelt to marlin. Before I got seriously into gaming as a hobby, my dad would often take me fishing. Looking back now, that was definitely a Hikaru Genji-style scheme to drag me into the world of fishing.
Sunraku: "Well, I'm fishing for now, but..."
Oikatzo: "Sunraku, isn't that it?"
Emul: "S-Something's surfacing...wa!"
There it was. Oikatzo and I stowed our rods into our inventories and shifted into combat stance. The lake began to bubble with a roar, and it emerged alongside a pillar of water.
Emul: "A-A giant snake...wa?!"
Sunraku: "There you are — Lifestide Lake Serpent!"
This thing, according to Pencilgon's instructions, was the "EXP tank"... in this case, "tank" didn't mean a wall role but a storage tank. This was the monster we'd be farming from now on.
Oikatzo: "That's a mouthful! Think up an abbreviation!"
Sunraku: "Eel, then."
Oikatzo: "That leaves nothing to the imagination!"
It had horns, fangs, and scales — by its features alone it was unquestionably a sea serpent... well, a lake serpent, the lake version of the sea serpent monsters often classified as dragons. But my impression was that its overall form was less angular and more sleek and streamlined — like someone had stuck horns on an eel to make it dragon-ish.
Its opening move was a charge including a bite. Oikatzo and I dodged it with simple movements and then both began our attacks.
Oikatzo: "Testing the waters — let's go max firepower... 'Black'!"
Sunraku: "Not holding back, Oikatzo... then I'll debut my new weapons too!"
With the Vorpal Choppers — now Togetsu: Waxing and Waning — rendered unusable due to the level issue, my only usable weapon was the Marsh Dagger I'd been using since Secondale without ever properly upgrading it. The solution to that problem came from Bilac's gracious words: "If ya ever got weapon troubles, leave it to me."
Having successfully unlocked the weapon shop in Rabituza, I'd gotten new weapons made from the materials of the pitiable Empire Bees that got wiped out as collateral damage — and also had the Marsh Dagger upgraded.
Sunraku: "Their names: 'Empire Bee Twinblade'!"
Emul: "Ooh! That looks cool...wa!"
The right sword was an estoc-type blade made from the materials of the Bee Queen, with a slim blade that looked like it might snap if you swung it down carelessly. The contrast between the gold-and-black design using the queen's carapace and the silver blade processed from her stinger gave it excellent visual appeal. In contrast, the left sword was a shorter dagger, a type known as a main-gauche, designed for parrying. Made from the materials of the queen's subordinate bees, it gave a slightly plainer impression compared to the right rapier, but you could see the solidity — it was built to make the right sword's attacks shine and to protect the wielder.
Personally, I love twin swords with different shapes for the right and left hands. Though in full-dive, that makes them a bit tricky to handle.
Oikatzo: "Could you maybe stop striking poses and actually contribute to the fight?!"
Having charged in full of bravado, Oikatzo found that the level gap hit harder than expected. He'd grabbed unnecessary aggro and was running for his life from the eel's attacks as he screamed at me. I readied the Empire Bee Twinblade and closed in on the eel. Its attention was on Oikatzo — an attack chance.
Sunraku: "Now, let's see the firepower with the bonus effects!"
The right sword's thrust, wreathed in Spiral Edge's effect, stabbed into the eel's... flank? Is that a flank? Anyway, it stabbed in, polygons scattering in a spiral.
But that wasn't all. The Empire Bee Twinblade consisted of two swords with different effects on the right and left. The right blade had a damage bonus for thrusting attacks and thrust-type skills, plus one more effect.
Lake Serpent: "GEEYAAH?!"
Sunraku: "I see... Lycagon, you bastard... you had this kind of convenient effect built in by default."
The eel's flank, struck by the right sword — whose attribute came directly from the Bee Queen's stinger — was gouged out, the damage lingering unlike a normal attack. The polygons processing it so no actual blood or flesh was visible was a nice touch. This was due to the right sword of the Empire Bee Twinblade bearing "Corrosive Poison."
In this game, certain weapons, skills, and magic — and in some cases, attacks from certain monsters — carry a "Break Attribute." For example, if a weapon-wielding enemy attacks your arm, even a full-force slash from a weapon without the Break Attribute will generally just deal heavy damage without severing the arm. But Lycagon's bites, and some other attacks, exist that indiscriminately destroy a player's — and by extension a mob's — body completely. Normally, even if you keep attacking one spot with a normal weapon until HP runs out, an arm won't be severed — but a weapon with the Break Attribute can make that possible.
...Honestly, I can't think of any use for this element outside of abuse by player-killers. I'm sure the devs have addressed that with extra heavy penalties — karma points, were they called?
Anyway, back to the topic. Among Break Attributes, the right sword's "Corrosive Poison" was a bit more specialized. It contaminates the struck area, gradually applying the Break Attribute like slip damage. And the more consecutive hits landed, the further the corrosive poison spreads, increasing the slip damage. You might call it a delayed-type Break Attribute.
And the skill "Spiral Edge" is a multi-hit attack — if all hits, including criticals, connect...
Sunraku: "In other words, I can create a weak point right where I attack!"
Well, things don't always go that smoothly. Applying the Break Attribute requires dealing decent damage, and rather than going through the trouble of cutting off a monster's limbs, it's usually faster to just keep hitting the head until it dies. Besides, neither the Break Attribute nor Corrosive Poison works unconditionally on all mobs or players. At best, it's a tool that's... useful on bosses where part-breaking is built into the fight from the start.
That's my understanding after digesting Bilac's explanation — mixed with Hiroshima dialect and world-building — and translating it into player terms. I get that in lore terms, "a mob's resistance" gets rephrased as "the monster's physical toughness," but it's such a pain... Remembering the hassle of translating Bilac's words, I felt a bitter taste spread through my mouth.
Emul: "Sunraku-san! Sunraku-san! Come back from the world of thought...wa!"
Sunraku: "Hm? Ah, combat— whoa, dangerous!"
I'd have been dead if I hadn't leaped sideways on instinct. Thinking deep thoughts mid-battle is a no-go! Yeah!
Sunraku: "Lost focus for a second. My bad."
Oikatzo: "If you die, the battle line falls apart, so cut me some slack... here!"
Sunraku: "Got it... hah!"
Our simultaneous Repel Counters slammed the eel's jaw upward, triggering knockback.
Sunraku: "Now, how much EXP are you gonna drop... time to fillet this eel."
Oikatzo: "I'm blunt-type, so I'll be pounding the eel instead."
Sunraku: "Pounded eel's great with Japanese ginger."
Oikatzo: "Quit the sudden food flex!"
...So yeah, it looked cool and all, but as befitting a hidden area, taking down this eel — the Lifestide Lake Serpent — with just two weaklings whose average level was under 30 was seriously grueling. We finally managed to beat it with Emul's help. Mentally drained, we slumped to the ground and watched the eel burst into polygons.
Oikatzo: "Toughness... so much toughness..."
Sunraku: "That was clearly... not an opponent meant for two small fries..."
Emul: "Honestly, when it was still going strong even after taking my magic... my heart almost broke...wa..."
But the reward matched the effort. I looked at the ten newly acquired stat points and smiled. It seemed Oikatzo had also earned a hefty amount of stat points from leveling up.
Sunraku: "I see. Yeah, this is juicy."
Oikatzo: "I went up four levels... Even accounting for our low levels, it gives a ton of experience."
And with that, the little bit of suspicion lingering in my heart cleared up. If I kept fighting here for two weeks, reaching level 50 — the cap imposed by Wethermon the Tombguard — would definitely be easy.
Oikatzo: "Oh, learned a new skill."
Sunraku: "Nice."
Oikatzo: "Once leveling's done, I gotta check if I can link it at the Skill Gardener."
Sunraku: "Whoa, hold on — suddenly talking about a different game?"
Oikatzo: "Huh?"
Sunraku: "Huh?"
Huh?
A strange silence fell between me and Oikatzo.
Oikatzo: "No, wait — in Shangri-La Frontier, naturally combining your learned skills to create combination techniques is basic, right? It's a skill game, after all."
Sunraku: "Combination... techniques."
Oikatzo: "Huh?"
Sunraku: "Huh?"
Huh...?
The strange silence shifted into two very different emotions and expressions. Oikatzo's was a mix of shock and disbelief — "Is this guy serious?" — while mine was the shock and dry, humorless laughter of realizing I'd made a catastrophically huge oversight.
Oikatzo: "...There was a tutorial for this in Firstia, you know?"
Sunraku: "...I... didn't go to Firstia."
Oikatzo: "Huh..."
Could it be... that I've missed something absolutely crucial?
Sunraku: "Uh... honestly, just how important is this Skill Gardener thing, on a scale?"
Oikatzo: "It's not... essential, I guess? The naturally learned skills are mostly pretty solid, so you can fight well enough with just those. In fact, some players apparently do Skill Gardener-restricted runs... but having it roughly doubles your options. Like, feels like double."
Sunraku: "Double..."
Ah, this is bad. I'm feeling dizzy.
With the revelation of this monumental screw-up here and now, a sense of heartbreak in more ways than one washed over me, and I looked up at the ceiling. Right now, I couldn't help but resent this cave where neither sky nor sun was visible.