Chapter 72: Putting Feelings Into a Moment, Part 19
First priority: recover the discarded Togetsu: Waxing and Waning. The Marsh Dagger [Revised II] and the Empire Bee Twinblades would get overpowered. The only thing that might serve as a trump card was that.
Sunraku: "The timing... now!"
In the instant Pyroclastic Wyrm chained into Ash Blizzard — the brief gap where Wethermon the Tombguard was completely fixed in place by his own technique — I bolted at top speed toward Waxing, still stabbed into the ground.
Sunraku: "One recovered!"
Wethermon: "Tidal Rush."
Sunraku: "Hah! Anything that isn't Cumulonimbus is practically a dere move!"
I ducked under Wethermon's arm and sprinted toward Waning. No time to look behind me — I had to predict from the skill names he so kindly announced.
Wethermon: "Thunder Bell."
Sunraku: "Thanks!"
The ultimate dere move — I'm on a roll now! Lightning hammered the ground behind me as I ran at full speed, and in that gap I reached Waning and snatched it up. First stage cleared... good, it's charged. I immediately stashed the Togetsu blades in my inventory, then clutched a revival item and checked my skills.
(One hundred seconds left. Four lives... heh. So it's an endurance battle after all. I'm getting fired up.)
Nothing gets the heart racing like an endurance battle where the end is in sight. A test of patience against a boss character, a dead-heat final sprint. Call it whatever you want. Right now, even if it meant collapsing later, I was going to push my brain to its absolute limit. Clear Sky Conquest: a thirty-second blitz capped off by Tensei. A frenzy mode, more than a technique... whatever. I'd stall the clock to the limit and scrape out a hundred seconds.
Sunraku: "Brace yourself, Wethermon the Tombguard. Even if I die... you're going to keep me company."
Wethermon: "Thunder Bell."
Dodge the lightning. Slip past the instant-death iai slash. Deflect the palm that reaches for my life. And then, the thirty seconds arrived. Wethermon closed in before my eyes and raised his blade high.
Sunraku: "Here it comes...!"
Wethermon: "My ultimate... Tensei."
No need to succeed here. This was a dry run for the moment that mattered... I'd gladly die for the cause. With my self-resurrection prepped, I attempted to parry the descending blade bare-handed. My fist arced in from the side — a hook meant to crash against the sword. If my fist is at this position at this timing, then I have to move it a little fast—
Sunraku: "Whoa, respawn!"
Wethermon: "Clear Sky Conquest."
Pencilgon: "You don't need to push yourself quite that hard... oops, careful."
All right, next set. Ninety seconds left!
At the very moment Sunraku's battle with Wethermon entered its final phase, Oikatzo and Pencilgon's fight against the Kirin Armor was also reaching its climax.
Pencilgon: "I mean, who would've guessed that smashing its stomach open would reveal a beam cannon inside?!"
Oikatzo: "Thanks to that, it's in frenzy mode now! What do we do?!"
Pencilgon's accumulated damage had finally shattered the Kirin Armor's sturdy abdominal armor, exposing what lay beneath... and what emerged was a beam cannon spewing an overwhelming torrent of light and heat. Worse still, deploying the beam cannon seemed to be the Kirin Armor's own trump card. It tore through its restraints, and every weapon across its body began firing wildly and indiscriminately. As they pulled back from the giant — now the eye of a storm of missiles and lasers — Oikatzo and Pencilgon pondered what to do next.
Pencilgon: "The one silver lining is that it's rampaging without regard for aggro, so as long as we keep our distance, we can rest and prep... but if we screw this up, it might barge into Sunraku-kun's fight."
Oikatzo: "Then there's only one thing to do. We keep going until that frenzy armor shuts up, Pencilgon."
Pencilgon: "Yeah, yeah. So, do you have some kind of plan?"
Oikatzo wasn't showing it as openly, but Pencilgon felt the same way. From a big-picture perspective, as long as Wethermon was dealt with, the battle itself was a win. But these two weren't the type to be told "give up on what you've pushed this far" and simply reply, "Okay, understood." And there was one more reason they refused to abandon the Kirin Armor.
Oikatzo: "My prediction: 'So you're telling me you couldn't even take down a glorified mechanical horse while I was over here solo-tanking the Unique Monster's main body?'"
Pencilgon: "My version: I'd just say nothing and laugh through my nose."
The image of a certain trash-game hunter wearing the most infuriating smirk imaginable, silently laughing through his nose, floated vividly through both their minds. After all, each knew with absolute certainty they'd do exactly the same thing if positions were reversed.
Pencilgon: "My lord, your humble servant has conceived a brilliant stratagem."
Oikatzo: "Let's hear it, master strategist."
Pencilgon: "For starters, I'll..."
Plans proposed by Pencilgon — barring situations with zero room for frivolity (like this Wethermon the Tombguard extermination battle) — almost invariably came with a prefix attached: "COMPLETELY UNHINGED." Thus, upon hearing her explain, with her usual grin, the "certain-kill strategy to annihilate the Kirin Armor in a single blow," Oikatzo wore an incredibly complicated expression — yet still agreed.
Pencilgon: "By the way, Katzo-kun, do you have any rope left?"
Oikatzo: "That frenzy earlier one-shot all of it. I knew ropes were a low-durability weapon type, but I wish they'd made them a little sturdier..."
Pencilgon: "Spoiler, but you can make the highest-durability rope weapon currently available in Tenbert."
Oikatzo: "Hahaha, if I can't use it right now, it's worth less than a pie in the sky!"
Oikatzo downed his last MP recovery potion in one gulp and applied yet another round of self-buffs — he'd lost count of how many by now. Pencilgon checked her remaining spear stock and selected one from among them.
Pencilgon: "Ahh, what a waste, what a waste. Do you know how much money it takes to make just one of these...? Definitely over a million, I think. Well, it's an old hand-me-down of mine, so I'm not... not attached to it at all! Yep! Not at all!"
Oikatzo: "That inner conflict was visible as day. All right, let's do this!"
And so the final operation began. The ground, ravaged by missiles and lasers. The shadow of the Kirin Armor — somehow maintaining its pitch-blackness even under the black moon shining in the white night sky. Into that shadow — just as massive as its owner — a spear was hurled, piercing deep.
Pencilgon: "O thou who art stitched and bound. I, who art tethered and held. Cling to all creation, yet pierce the black that embraces none. Shadow Wedge!"
Oikatzo: "Full incantations give bonus damage, right?"
Pencilgon: "I don't normally bother, but this time I want every last one percent chance I can get...!"
Shadow Wedge — a magic that, like Broken Shell, consumed the weapon's own durability. Its effect: by piercing the enemy's shadow — and with that restriction — it could literally and completely immobilize the shadow's owner. That said, upon initial implementation the effect had been so overwhelmingly powerful — binding everything from goblins to wyverns with zero counterplay — that it had been nerfed.
Pencilgon: "Against something this size... five seconds, tops! This is our one and only chance!"
Oikatzo: "Okay! I'll match the timing on my end, just don't miss!"
In the handful of seconds where the Kirin Armor's rampage was fully halted, the two moved in different directions toward the same goal. Oikatzo lunged toward the Kirin Armor, while Pencilgon pulled back.
Pencilgon: "This is my last weapon... and the fact that this is what's left — I don't know if it's fate or something else entirely."
The final spear remaining in Pencilgon's inventory. One of a series bearing the same name across different weapon types, every required material sourced from monsters larger than the player — living up to its designation. Its name: Giant Killing Skewer. True to its name, a spear that gained bonus damage against monsters physically larger than the player.
Pencilgon: "Please, Giant Killing... I'm counting on you!"
She wound up with her right hand, Giant Killing Skewer poised to strike. Her target: the Kirin Armor's exposed abdominal cannon.
Pencilgon: "Honestly, everything about this is so dramatic... All or Nothing!"
The name of the throwing skill — and the perfect expression of Pencilgon's current state of mind. The heavy spear, hurled with every ounce of strength she possessed, tore through the sky trailing a comet's tail of effects as it flew toward the Kirin Armor. And just before the tip of the thrown Giant Killing Skewer struck home — a single shadow raced in behind it.
Oikatzo: "Red, Blue, Yellow... three-color blend. Fist Spirit: Overweight Black Rush!"
If one were to line up the multiple events that occurred almost simultaneously, they would go like this:
First, the spear used for Shadow Wedge shattered, releasing the Kirin Armor from its bonds. Next, the thrown spear struck the Kirin Armor just as it tried to go on the offensive. Yet the blow fell short of a decisive strike. Then, at nearly the same instant the spear landed, Oikatzo — with the highest firepower he could muster — drove his fist into the butt of the Giant Killing Spear.
Oikatzo: "I call it... the Human-Powered Pile Bunker!"
Pencilgon: "It's about time... go down, you hollow shell!"
The spear, which should have gained its penetrating power solely from Pencilgon's STR, received a second-stage boost from Oikatzo — driving it deeper, deeper, deeper into the Kirin Armor. The reckless maneuver sent cracks racing across the spear's entire length from the strain of pushing through the Kirin Armor's interior — not as tough as its armor, but formidable nonetheless. Yet the Giant Killing Spear undoubtedly delivered the result its name promised.
The cracked spear tip emerged from the Kirin Armor's back. The giant's movements stopped. And then — an explosion. The Giant Killing Spear shattered, but the blast that followed was far beyond acceptable parameters. The Kirin Armor convulsed two, three times — as if in its death throes — then reached out one final hand... and crumbled.
Oikatzo: "...I'm wiped."
The recoil from Overweight Black Rush had drained Oikatzo's body to the point of combat incapacity. He slumped to the ground and let out a heavy breath. Pencilgon too relaxed her shoulders — but the real fight wasn't over yet. She tightened her focus and turned toward Sunraku.
(Sunraku-kun's still alive... but he's running? No — stalling for time. I see.)
Watching Wethermon the Tombguard relentlessly hammering Sunraku with attacks while Sunraku dodged — no, fled — Pencilgon thought for a few seconds, then voiced the question he surely needed most right now.
Pencilgon: "Sunraku-kun! How many seconds do you need?!"
Sunraku's answer was simple, yet absolutely clear.
Sunraku: "Fifty more... no, twenty seconds!"
Pencilgon: "Switch!"
Sunraku: "Can you do it?!"
Pencilgon: "I'll make it happen!"