[Sorry for missing yesterday's update. Some personal matters have gotten a little messy, so the update pace may be a bit uneven for a while.

Sorry for the inconvenience.]

Chapter 143: A World Turned Upside Down, Even Its Laws

I cut down a fish-man at the corner, checked that we weren't about to be ambushed, and called out to the mysterious fish-man as I ran.

???: "Why would a Birdian be here… No, wait—no wings?"

Sunraku: "Sorry to disappoint, but this is just headgear. Regular human on the inside!"

???: "A h-human… I see. My name is Araba. You saved me; you have my thanks."

Sunraku: "Sunraku! We'll climb to the rooftop from that rubble over there!"

Araba: "R-Right!"

The wall of a house had collapsed into a pile of rubble perfectly shaped for climbing. I scrambled up it, scanning carefully for enemies.

Sunraku: "Alright, jump across to that roof over—"

Araba: "Ngh… mm, my balance is…"

I turned around to see Araba—NPC, formerly "mysterious fish-man"—climbing the perfectly scalable rubble on all fours.

Sunraku: "Slow as hell!!"

Araba: "Uwaah!?"

I grabbed his arm—thicker than my slender avatar's—and hauled him up by force. Mere seconds later, the fish-men swarmed the spot where he'd been, the rear ranks trampling the front to form a meat staircase.

Sunraku: "You look like you've got more STR than me, so quit dawdling!"

Araba: "W-Well, even so… and what exactly is ess-tee-arr—"

Sunraku: "No excuses! We're losing 'em!"

I'd been half-worried he might not even be able to leap between rooftops, but when I glanced back, it turned out he wasn't quite that clumsy. He didn't look like the acrobatic type, but at least he wasn't clad in the kind of heavy armor that would sink Rei-shi like a stone. He'd damn well better manage a measly one-meter jump.

Sunraku: "Now, where to run… Hup, hah. Okay, grab on."

Araba: "Those movements… You're surely a Birdian, aren't you? Yet you have neither wings nor feathers…"

Sunraku: "Aaargh! I'll tie a rope to that tail of yours and haul you in like a damn catch!"

Araba: "F-Forgive me!"

Not that I actually had any rope. Anyway, questioning him could wait. I hadn't expected to pick up a new NPC, but this would surely help with navigating this area—and by extension, clearing this EX scenario. Just then—

Sunraku: "What the—? Singing?"

Araba: "Oh no… Mermaids!!"

Mermaids, he said. As in, those mermaids. But why would he panic as if he'd just stumbled on a monster? No way…

Sunraku: "Araba, was it? Don't tell me mermaids are… monsters…? They're not your cousins or something?"

Araba: "How absurd! Those things are fish mimicking human upper bodies! Don't lump them together with the proud Pescorian race!!"

A flood of new information. But at minimum, one thing was certain: in this game, "mermaids" were monsters. There might be mobs like Emul or Arameese—monsters that act like NPCs—but if they were full-on hostile, I'd attack without a shred of hesitation, whether they were Vorpal Bunnies, Cait Sith, or mermaids… …Hm?

Something nagged at me. Mermaids? No—in an undersea city, marine monsters like mermaids appearing wasn't strange at all. In fact, right now, personifications of fish paste well past its expiration date were chasing me from behind. Bastards. If they're fish, they should act like fish and breathe through gills… …Wait. There it is.

Sunraku: "Why the hell are there mermaids on land?!"

I looked up and saw them: mermaids gracefully swimming through the air. I see. If I hadn't been told beforehand that they were mimics, I'd never have guessed those were monsters. Exquisitely modeled beauties and pretty girls parted their smiling lips.

Mermaid: "Luuuu—"

Mermaid: "Laaa—"

Sunraku: "For a second I was worried they'd suddenly start singing hip-hop or something. Guess not."

Araba: "Gwhaa, gaaaAAAAHH!!?"

Sunraku: "Huh—whoa, what's happening?!"

Araba suddenly clutched his ears and began writhing in agony. A dark-colored effect—clearly some kind of debuff—clung to his body. I wasn't naive enough to think the mermaids' song had nothing to do with this. Without hesitation, I concluded they were hostile and moved.

How to deal with mermaids swimming through the air—an absurdity by any measure—when I had no means of attacking them from here? Simple. Like this.

Sunraku: "If I'm short on height, I'll make up for it with footholds…"

Skills activate. With the agility of a tengu and wall-running freed from gravity's shackles, I dashed up a nearby three-story building. I pushed off the wall, deliberately letting go, and dive-bombed into the sky—the mermaids' supposed advantage—shoes and all.

The skill "Gravity Zero" negates gravity calculations for climbing actions on walls and ceilings for (skill level × 10) seconds. Indoors, you can literally move in any direction. Using this skill, my wall-launched jump carried far more distance and momentum than normal, sending me hurtling toward the mermaids floating in midair.

The mermaid, for her part, had been singing what seemed to be some kind of debuff magic, and her eyes widened in surprise at my movement. But then, realizing I was falling short, she narrowed them as if to mock me—

Sunraku: "Yo."

Mermaid: "?!"

Flit Float, activate. A single step becomes the launch point for all distance. Every skill I have sacrifices HP to extend just one step into a leap.

Sunraku: "Just so you know—I will kill anything. Pretty girl, hot guy, zero hesitation, zero mercy."

Mermaid: "K-hyu…!?"

After all, seventy percent of player-controlled avatars are hot guys, pretty girls, or silver foxes. The remaining thirty percent are robots or joke characters. Even setting that aside, there are countless games where boss characters are handsome men or beautiful women. Headshotting a pretty girl is just another Tuesday, and if the face is a weak point, I'll beat an ikemen's mug to a pulp. That's gaming.

My blade, having exploited the mermaid's blind spot with an aerial jump, slashed across her throat. Polygons scattered. The mermaid, her song forcibly cut off, let out a sound like leaking air. The other mermaids, their sister's voice stolen, ceased their singing and fixed their gazes on me as I began to fall.

Sunraku: "Alright! Who's next?!"

I grabbed the wrist of the mermaid I'd throat-slit. As I descended, I used her—swimming desperately to avoid a mutual crash—as a parachute, and roared at the other mermaids. Once I'd dropped to a height where fall damage wouldn't do me in, I released the mermaid I'd been clinging to.

I would've preferred they retreat, but perhaps my clear attack had enraged them; the mermaids showed no sign of leaving. I was hoping they'd switch to close combat, but as I weighed my options, an eerie gogyo sound came from right beside me.

Sunraku: "What the—"

Araba: "NWAAH!!"

A mermaid with her neck bent at a clearly lethal angle dropped lifelessly onto the roof where I stood, polygons gushing from her nape. Her expression was one of utter incomprehension as she scattered into light. And then, from between teeth—no, strictly speaking, fangs far sharper than any human's—now wreathed in the blue glow of a skill effect, Araba, eyes bloodshot and fangs bared, glared at the remaining mermaids.

Araba: "Come, then, you fish wretches! If you wish to be crushed between Araba's jaws, step right up!!"

Sunraku: "Uhh…"

Just a moment ago, you were writhing on the ground clutching your ears… Exactly like a shark hauled out of the water… Wait, this guy has ears?

The mermaids stared at Araba and me as if reassessing the threat—then swam away. Damn it, if only I had some kind of ranged attack…

Sunraku: "You fight wilder than I expected."

Araba: "Th-That was purely a last resort… I've lost my own weapon, you see. Ah, that's right—have you seen a single-edged sword about this big?! A masterwork forged by a renowned Dwarven smith…"

Sunraku: "Sorry, haven't seen it. I only just started investigating this undersea city myself."

Araba: "Undersea city? What are you talking about?"

Sunraku: "Huh?"

The giant fish-man tilted his head, blinking.

Araba: "This is Ruluiath, the Abyssal Capital—a city literally flipped upside down beneath the sea."

Sunraku: "………Alright, hold on. Let me sort this out."

Point one. I pointed at the pitch-black sky—and, now that I thought about it, at the snow-like particles falling upward—and asked:

Sunraku: "That isn't a cave ceiling?"

Araba: "That's the seafloor. Look, marine snow is falling down there, isn't it?"

Point two. I hopped in place a few times, then stood on my hands to confirm the physics engine was oriented correctly, and asked:

Sunraku: "So shouldn't we be falling upward?"

Araba: "It's the power of the Ruler of the Deep. The entire city is saturated with the Ruler of the Deep's 'inversion.'"

Finally, I took a deep breath, exhaled, confirmed my breathing was unobstructed, and asked:

Sunraku: "I'm breathing normally."

Araba: "The Ruler of the Deep's 'inversion' has rewritten 'places with no air' into 'places with air.' The Ruler of the Deep's power can overturn even death, after all."

Sunraku: "I see. I see… I see…………"

Ctarnidd of the Abyss… Can we actually beat this thing?

[In short: just a little above the seafloor, an entire city is fixed in place, completely upside down underwater.]