Chapter 71: Putting Feelings Into a Moment, Part 18

Author’s Note: I'm terribly sorry for missing yesterday's update. The text itself was written, but I was so exhausted from my salmon-roe-carrying part-time job and a life-or-death shachihoko-carrying battle that I passed out and forgot to schedule the post... Games really are all about moderation, seriously.

Oikatzo: "You know what's really important in modern fighting games?"

Pencilgon: "Hmm, let's hear the answer from the professional."

Oikatzo: "Well, opinions vary, but for me... I think it's 'drawing a line between the game and reality.'"

At those words, Pencilgon went "Ugh" and openly grimaced. The Kirin Armor's fist — deflected by the spear-type parry skill Maelstrom Counter Spear — slammed into the earth.

Pencilgon: "Ethics talk, at this point...?"

Oikatzo: "No, no, not in that old-fashioned PTA way. Fighting games... at their core, they're about 'realizing superhuman movement,' right?"

Pencilgon: "Well, yeah, I suppose."

Rope wound around the Kirin Armor's leg — not just the leg, but its arms and waist too. Strand after strand coiled around it, their ends converging at a single point. While Pencilgon held its attention and aggro, Oikatzo had bound the Kirin Armor's limbs. Even as his improvised plan succeeded, he kept talking.

Oikatzo: "Your arms stretch. You can jump an absurd distance. You might even have wings... sometimes you're controlling a character that isn't even human-shaped."

Pencilgon: "True. That bug game you two play apparently doesn't even keep a human silhouette."

Oikatzo: "Hmm... to sum it up: the one controlling those superhuman characters is still, ultimately, a human. So no matter what, operating them comes with a sense of disconnect."

Pencilgon: "...I'm not sure where this is going."

Oikatzo: "That's why pro gamers — especially the ones who main fighting games — absolutely need the skill to exploit that disconnect between the game character and the player. And by the same token... it also means they have a thorough understanding of how the human body moves and what its limits are."

Was he a puppeteer grasping the will of his marionette — or a fool attempting a reckless challenge? Snake Rope "Life Rein": rope gear crafted from the massive quantities of Lifestide Lake Serpent materials Oikatzo had obtained as a byproduct of power-leveling. Exploiting the trait that equipment becomes an object the moment you release it, Oikatzo had bound the Kirin Armor in great quantities of Life Rein. But naturally, the STR of a Kirin Armor standing over five meters tall was proportionally immense — Oikatzo alone could never fully restrain it. And indeed, the Kirin Armor paid the ropes no mind as it raised its right leg to take a step and crush Pencilgon...

Oikatzo: "For example, the walking animation. The instant it lifts one leg, if you pull the leg that's supporting its weight... it falls."

The moment the Kirin Armor's center of gravity shifted forward, Oikatzo yanked the rope wrapped around its left leg, and the massive frame toppled over with absurd ease.

Oikatzo: "If you pull its legs again when it tries to stand, it falls even harder."

Both hands planted on the ground, the Kirin Armor tried to rise — only for both legs to be yanked out from under it. Like a comedic clown, it crashed back down spectacularly. Then, as the stamina-drained Oikatzo recovered, Pencilgon — her preparations complete — lunged at the fallen Kirin Armor.

Pencilgon: "Weak-point candidate number one... the fusion socket with the main body!"

The spear Pencilgon wielded — the Lion's Bone Spear "Regulus Totem," its blade carved from the spine of a massive monster and reinforced with metal and ornamentation — fully unleashed its designed, system-implemented abilities as it thrust into the Kirin Armor's hollow cavity. That empty space was, in essence, a throne meant to house Wethermon the Tombguard's main body. The multi-buffed spear tip certainly pierced deep into the Kirin Armor's coupling... but what came back was a sensation that fell far short of a solid hit — unconvincing, unsatisfying.

Pencilgon: "Hmm, looks like minimal effect. Next! Katzo-kun, on its back, if you would!"

Oikatzo: "You ask the impossible...!"

The damage caused by Oikatzo tripping the Kirin Armor was, ultimately, self-inflicted damage from the Armor's own falls. Oikatzo had quite literally pulled the Kirin Armor's leg out from under it — but that act itself generated no damage. Which simultaneously meant that no aggro shifted to Oikatzo.

Oikatzo: "It's standing — the head... well, there's no head, but its back is fully stretched, the inertia's still there, and at this exact timing... both arms!"

Since the rope equipment was treated by the game system as a one-handed weapon, he could wield two at once — one in each hand. The instant the Kirin Armor stood, Oikatzo yanked both its arms straight back in one motion. The massive frame's own standing inertia combined with Oikatzo's pulling energy, and the Armor's center of gravity tilted backward. But it wasn't enough — just before it toppled, the Kirin Armor tried to plant its left leg behind it and brace.

Oikatzo: "Ah— it held?!"

Pencilgon: "Fall already!"

Pencilgon's kick — powered up by a rush and a leap — slammed into the staggering Kirin Armor's gut, and the headless colossus found itself staring up at the open sky.

Pencilgon: "Let's talk with your belly split open... something like that!"

The skill "Broken Shell" — which granted a powerful armor-penetration effect at the cost of rapidly consuming weapon durability. Pencilgon drove the Lion's Bone Spear forward, self-destructing just as Wethermon the Tombguard had, its destructive force colliding head-on with the Kirin Armor's VIT. Her target: the stomach — the very place where the armor was thickest.

Pencilgon: "The fact that it's thick means what's underneath is important...! Katzo-kun, hold for twenty seconds!"

Oikatzo: "Impossible! Fifteen!"

Pencilgon: "Good enough!"

She chained attack skills in rapid succession, concentrating her assault on a single point. The Kirin Armor tried to rise, tried to brush Pencilgon off its stomach — but Oikatzo pulled its arms back, forcing an involuntary salute.

Oikatzo: "Since I'm only hindering movement without dealing damage or debuffs, aggro stays off me. And tripping it causes self-damage... Is it just me, or is this basically a cheese?"

Pencilgon: "Then let's clear Wethermon before the devs patch it...!"

With a second use of Broken Shell, a fatal crack ran through the Lion's Bone Spear. Pencilgon tossed it aside and pulled a different spear from her inventory.

Pencilgon: "God, this is frustrating. I know I don't have a choice, but not being able to go all-out hurts...!"

Due to a certain reason, Pencilgon couldn't fight at full strength right now. It wasn't arrogance — to borrow the key item in this battle, the Scales of Price, Pencilgon had deposited her beloved spear as collateral. That was precisely why she'd chosen to run support in this fight. She'd gathered the best and finest substitute spears she could prepare, but now, faced with the new objective of actually destroying the Kirin Armor, the absence of her beloved weapon was keenly felt.

Pencilgon: "There are still plenty of ways around this... plenty of ways to..."

Oikatzo: "Ways to spear-head the problem?"

Pencilgon: "Oof. Katzo-kun, that pun was terrible. Oof. Oof."

Oikatzo: "W-Why you...!"

When I first took that attack without knowing it was coming, I thought, What the hell is this trash game?! — but after thinking it through, maybe it's not so bad after all. In short: it's a pattern-memorization fight.

By the time I realized that, I'd died three times, with about four more deaths to spare...

Sunraku: "The techniques during Clear Sky Conquest are randomly selected. The one commonality: the final technique is always Tensei."

Sunraku: "Severing Wind, Pyroclastic Dragon, Ash Blizzard."

With Severing Wind, I can now tell where the strike is aimed from the motion of Wethermon's neck during the startup and the movement of his forward-stepping right foot. Pyroclastic Wyrm has a lag before activation, so by now it's not much of a threat. Ash Blizzard also takes several seconds to fully encircle the player — if you're caught off guard that's one thing, but if you're prepared, dodging it is simple.

Sunraku: "As for Tensei, I don't have enough data to say for sure, but it's confirmed that evasive action is impossible."

Sunraku: "Tidal Rush, Thunder Bell, Cumulonimbus."

Tidal Rush isn't as absurdly fast as Severing Wind, but it still closes in for a grab at terrifying speed. Its trajectory, however, is a simple straight line. As long as you don't get grabbed, it's nothing more than an arm swinging through empty air — a clear opening. Thunder Bell is easy to dodge; you just run at full speed. The catch is that depending on the situation and stamina management, you might not have enough stamina to run, or you might escape the lightning but exhaust your stamina and be unable to dodge the next attack. Cumulonimbus — now that one's a problem. The dodging options are all basic: outrun the sweeping arm, leap over the arm itself, or retreat into the safe zone at point-blank range of Wethermon. Every single option reliably drains your stamina. This might be the most troublesome move of them all.

Sunraku: "Minimal responses. Maintain a stance that chains into the next move. Keep three meters distance from Wethermon... The time limit until Tensei: roughly thirty seconds."

Separate your body's movements from your thoughts. Once you get used to them, the techniques up to now aren't so scary. Focus on verifying the most critical factor. Analyze it. Find a countermeasure.

The method for dealing with Tensei — the attack that locks down evasion itself. I listed candidate solutions in my mind and examined them one by one. Destroy the sword... likely impossible. At minimum, destruction itself might be possible, but I can't imagine it's built into this fight as the intended solution. Defeat the main body... not impossible, but if that were the case, Clear Sky Conquest's concept would feel off. Landing an attack while threading through that relentless boss-turn onslaught is extremely difficult. Even if mobbing him with a large group turned out to be the correct answer, something about that feels wrong. I have no basis — but gut feelings like this are best trusted.

So the strongest theory remains: find a way to take the hit and survive.

Sunraku: "...A parry, then."

And not just any parry — it has to be a perfectly-timed critical-level deflection. Against a blade swung down at a speed nearly as hard to react to as Severing Wind. But that raises a separate problem.

Sunraku: "Wait... can I even parry that?"

Parries aren't omnipotent. The critical success rate depends not just on the defender's timing and angle, but on the attacker's attack parameters too. If my body could move without issue, I could twist or reinforce the deflection somehow — but if I move my body carelessly and the system registers it as evasion, the parry success rate plummets. Which means I have to plant my feet and parry that blade... but a sloppy parry will get overpowered and slice me in half anyway. And even if I pull it off, that blade has a gear-destruction effect — taking it head-on would destroy my weapons.

Sunraku: "The optimal solution I can conceive... still needs three more elements."

I leaped away from the white-hot ground and scanned my surroundings. How to move, how to roll, how to jump — I built an improvised chart in my head and began to act.

Two more minutes. Can we hold out...?