Chapter 66: Putting Feelings Into a Moment — Part Thirteen

Sunraku: "Man, it's like I just re-logged in, but in the middle of a game."

Oikatzo: "Yeah, I know what you mean."

We'd just experienced that sensation you get when logging in — your consciousness leaving your body and drifting through a zero-gravity void — but here we were standing in a place whose general map layout was identical to the Hidden Garden, yet whose actual scenery was its complete opposite. That entire field of blooming red spider lilies had vanished without leaving a single root behind. An ambiguous flat expanse — neither clearly soil nor clearly stone — stretched out before us. Even the sky looked like its colors had been inverted: a white night sky dotted with black stars. The result was an eerie scene — not so much dreamlike as unsettling — where it was somehow as bright as midday despite being night.

And the single dead tree that had stood alone in the "upright" zone was now entirely transformed here, in the "inverted" zone — the hidden field known as the Reverse Grave.

Oikatzo: "So... 'let's make flowers bloom on a dead tree,' is it?"

That dead tree, which had once held no trace of life at all, was now so thickly covered in silver-petaled cherry blossoms — each one faintly tinged vermilion, and blooming so heavily they couldn't bear their own weight and were falling — that the tree seemed to be in full, glorious bloom. At its base stood a simple grave marker. And most importantly...

Sunraku: "...That's it."

Oikatzo: "...That's probably it."

Pencilgon: "...That's it."

No rust, no cracks, no signs of weathering. Yet the weight of years it radiated was unmistakable. Pushing aside the swirling petals, it silently rose to its feet. Pencilgon was right — calling it a robot samurai really was the most fitting description.

Sunraku: "............"

A full-body black-and-white mechanical armor, not a speck of skin showing. Even the face was fully covered, marked only by the twin-eye cameras characteristic of heroic mecha. Light flickered to life in those eyes. Various parts of its body let out faint mechanical whirs as it silently drew the sword sheathed at its waist. Only now, seeing it at full height, could I grasp the whole picture: roughly two and a half meters tall, with armor plates here and there evoking traditional Japanese design.

Sunraku: "All right then... let's see what you've got."

I held up a hand to stop Pencilgon and Oikatzo. Alone, I stepped forward toward the mechanical armored warrior — the lover of the NPC Setsuna of Bygone Days, a Unique Monster, the "half-dead bastard" as Vash had called him. The distance between us shrank with every step. It was like a Western duel, except instead of backing apart, we were closing in — opposite in that sense, but the question remained the same: who would strike first, and when? I could feel my motivation and nerves spiking like an idiot.

Sunraku: "—!"

When the distance closed to a single meter, it adopted an iai stance. I see. Fine, then... if you're going all out from the start, I'll play along.

Sunraku: "Wethermon the Tombguard. Let's settle this, fair and squ—"

Wethermon: "Tachikaze."

A rust-corroded murmur — the polar opposite of its appearance — and with it, a hyper-speed iai slash was unleashed. His arm blurred. The only thing visible was a line — a streak of light — but my eyes definitely caught the gleam of a blade within it, and the unmistakable presence of instant death. Aiming for the neck?!

Sunraku: "NOW!"

I activated In-Fight. The moment I ducked my head, a blade like blue crystal passed just above me — and without even pausing to confirm, I closed the gap on Wethermon in an instant. And so the long, long fight between Wethermon and me began.

Pencilgon: "He actually dodged it. First try, first time seeing it..."

Oikatzo: "What do we do?"

Oikatzo asked tersely, his eyes fixed on Sunraku, who had plunged into close-quarters combat with Wethermon the Tombguard — now a swirling maelstrom of death. With a grin on his face, Sunraku kept probing the boss from every angle. Does a leg sweep work? How tough is that armor, exactly? What about the gaps, the fingers, the eyes, the joint mechanisms? Even as he slipped through a relentless chain of one-shot-kill blade attacks, Sunraku was smiling. But Oikatzo knew that wasn't a smile of composure. It was the kind of face where your mouth twists up on its own — where the sheer impossibility of the challenge leaves you with nothing left to do but laugh.

Pencilgon: "I'm going to start my 'preparations.' Katzo-kun, you stand by with the items I gave you."

Oikatzo: "Got it...!"

As Oikatzo sprinted off, Pencilgon quickly looked away from him and pulled an item from her inventory.

Pencilgon: "Please, Scales-chan...! This whole fight rides on you...!"

An anxious grin, but one that hadn't given up on victory. Where Pencilgon directed her words, a golden set of scales glittered brightly. At that exact moment, Sunraku took a single fatal blow and burst into polygons.

Honestly? I want to punch whoever designed this thing. Cut down by Wethermon the Tombguard — whose specs seemed to pursue nothing but speed, toughness, and power — I burst into polygons, and as I did, those thoughts ran through my head while I began to stand back up...

Oikatzo: "Switch! And intel!"

Sunraku: "It's impossible — just dodge!"

Oikatzo: "Got it...!"

As I fell back, I answered Oikatzo's question — which boiled down to: "Is there any kind of effective attack against this thing?" — with an extremely concise summary.

Oikatzo: "Hii... absolutely zero openings!"

Sunraku: "I know...!"

Even though it had only been two or three minutes, my Empire Bee Twinblade was already below forty percent durability. I stashed it in my inventory. As I pulled out a different weapon, I watched Oikatzo desperately dodging attacks.

Sunraku: "Four million Mani per respawn, huh..."

The reason I was standing here despite taking a full HP wipe was the item Oikatzo had thrown at me right before I burst. It's the highest-priced consumable item, bar none. Within ten seconds of turning into polygons, you throw it or slam it into a target, and it unconditionally resurrects any player with full HP. A so-called complete revival item: the "Tear of Rebirth."

Sunraku: "A tear from some god of fate or whatever — I don't know, but I'm grateful...!"

Somehow, Pencilgon had bought up twelve of them. On top of each of us carrying four, we were also loaded with the light-version revival item — "Divine Elixir of Life," which resurrects you at half HP — up to the per-person limit of five each. That gave us a combined total of twenty-seven extra lives with which to challenge Wethermon the Tombguard. Zombie tactics, pure and simple. If our opponent was a monstrously huge danger like Wethermon — the kind of thing that could probably take a rocket launcher to the head and shrug it off — then the only way to fight back was to go zombie ourselves.

His attacks looked nonstop, but there were brief moments between them — barely seconds, but they were definitely there. With a Marsh Dagger [Revised II] in each hand — their durability vastly increased by Bilac's smithing — I slipped through those tiny windows of time and switched with Oikatzo.

Sunraku: "Okay, I'm swapping!"

Oikatzo: "Die and I'll take over again!"

Sunraku: "Right... hup!"

I ducked down so low I was practically on all fours, dodging a slash that would've cut me clean in half at the waist. Just to be sure, I tried grabbing his leg to flip him — already half-aware it was pointless — but... what is this, am I pulling on a telephone pole?

Sunraku: "Whoa?!"

A thrust came straight for my head, no hesitation whatsoever, aimed to skewer me from above — I rolled to dodge, scrambled upright. The victory condition was vague. Our "time-elapsed" hypothesis was just that — a hypothesis — and we had no clue how long we had to keep fighting. But there was one thing I could say for certain.

Wethermon: "Cumulonimbus."

Sunraku: "Just hoping our death count stays under ten..."

I couldn't help muttering that as I searched for a way to survive the giant cloud arm that swept through, intent on mowing down absolutely everything.

And then seven minutes had passed.

Wethermon: "Thunder Bell."

Pencilgon: "Incoming!"

Oikatzo: "I can see that...!"

One second, five guaranteed instant-death lightning strikes. For five whole seconds. The DPS was so ungodly it felt broken, and I literally skated through the rain of thunderbolts using my evasion skill Skate Foot. Precisely because the DPS was so insanely high, running at full speed was enough to dodge it. The other two seemed to have survived as well.

Sunraku: "Don't underestimate me!"

The moment Skate Foot ended, a thrust came flying at me. I managed to deflect it with Parrying Protection — a counter skill that's supposed to deflect attacks and deal back five percent of their damage. Taking that head-on? The only future I could see was getting skewered. I didn't even have the breathing room to test it.

He shifted his sword behind his back and came with a shoulder tackle. I dodged that, and right after, he twisted his hips to aim at where I'd just landed — a diagonal slash meant to cleave from my shoulder through my right arm. I avoided that, then backflipped over an upward slash that followed the moment he flipped his blade. These moves looked like acrobatics, but this wasn't about showing off. A normal jump would get me killed on landing. You had to use backflips — fast ones where your feet barely grazed the ground for a tenth of a second. Even if it ate up stamina, you had no choice.

Sunraku: "Dodging machine-gun fire would be easier than this...!"

Oikatzo: "Switch!"

Sunraku: "Take it!"

I swapped with Oikatzo. In the same motion, I hurled a Tear of Rebirth at him — Oikatzo's head had just been taken off by that hyper-speed iai slash, Tachikaze. As I did, I carefully but rapidly untangled my scrambled thoughts. I fell back to where Pencilgon was continuing her mysterious preparations at the rear, making absolutely sure the aggro didn't shift her way.

Sunraku: "Still not even ten minutes..."

Pencilgon: "In terms of nobody dropping out, this is the best performance out of any attempt so far."

Sunraku: "If this thing lasts an hour, it's straight-up impossible."

Pencilgon: "Accounting for that, I'm thinking the limit is more like twenty minutes — thirty at the very most..."

We'd have to do this two more times. And with the difficulty ramping up by stages, that meant another twenty minutes of this...

Sunraku: "Can I officially designate this a trash game?"

Pencilgon: "We're screwing around by going in with only three people, so no."

Oh, okay... Wait, what is Pencilgon actually doing? She's been looking between a set of scales and a window, doing something. She must've noticed my gaze, because she flashed a grin.

Pencilgon: "This is the Scales of Compensation — a Unique Item. I worked pretty hard persuading the owner to lend it to me. Its effect is... oh crap, it's been ten minutes."

Sunraku: "Oikatzo! Time's up, switch out!"

I knew full well I wasn't dealing damage. The goal was to steal aggro. I slammed into Wethermon's back as he pursued Oikatzo with a Drill Piercer — the multi-hit thrust skill — confirmed Oikatzo's disengagement, and turned to face the boss.

Sunraku: "It's round two, right? Send 'em out, horsey. Our pro gamer here needs a rodeo practice dummy."

Wethermon: "...Mass Transfer (Export), followed by Deployment (Summon Call). Tactical Mount [Kirin]."

The rusted voice — not something I'd want to keep listening to — chanted those words, and geometric patterns unfolded across a patch of empty space on the four-person battlefield. It was as if a 3D printer were constructing matter from the feet up, transporting and summoning a massive mass into this place.

Sunraku: "A horse...?"

Oikatzo: "I mean, you can't call it anything else, shape-wise."

Sunraku: "It's a dump truck with legs, no matter how you look at it!"

Pencilgon: "I said that already!"

Wethermon resumed his attacks the moment the summon finished, so I only caught a glimpse of it — but even that was enough to understand that "dump truck with legs" was no exaggeration. What the hell is that thing? Easily over five meters. Oikatzo... you okay, man?