Chapter 146: Roar and Ruin as a Beacon

No, see, I didn't really mean to kill it. Sure, I wasn't planning to hold back in the fight, but the thing was clearly a massive slab of toughness. I figured I'd land a few hits, then bail. But here's the thing—these guys, or rather, everything swimming through the air, only does so because of Ctarnidd's bullshit sophistry power: "It's underwater, but the environment's the same as on land, so just act like you're in water." That whole convoluted rationalization? That's how they're swimming.

Which means their motion is calculated using underwater physics. And on our side, our motion is calculated using land physics.

When you swing that flattened body around underwater, it generates a huge amount of resistance. Even if it's charging at 80 kilometers per hour, a body that massive needs considerable distance to accelerate underwater. Meanwhile, I can respond to it under the exact same conditions as on land. And that's when the thought hit me.

Wait… is this thing actually easy?

The problem was my points of comparison: Wethermon, Lycagon, the Golden Scorpion. This thing lacked Wethermon's brutality—constantly firing instant-death attacks without pause. It lacked Lycagon's viciousness—sending invisible clones to blindside you. It lacked the sheer absurdity of the Golden Scorpion—completely immune to blades and sporting regeneration on top of it. And more than anything… I, myself—not Sunraku, but Rakuro Hizutome as an individual—knew how to fillet a fish. That was the deciding factor.

The way to deal with a giant monster that holds the positional advantage, across all times and cultures, is simple: wait for it to come to you. Its movements were so dynamic that sudden ambushes were rare. Its breath attack couldn't be spammed endlessly; most of its offense consisted of physical attacks leveraging its massive body up close. And its hide, though supple, wasn't all that tough. Everything about it was easy to handle. That's why I put in a little effort. A little too much.

Sunraku: "I mean, its openings after a charge were insanely generous…"

On its side, there's liquid resistance; on my side, there's only air resistance, and gravity actually works properly—I can run, brake hard, and jump. Moving a body that colossal consumes enormous energy, and because the game faithfully systemized that simple fact, the Giga Oarfish left huge openings. Closing in on it and attacking its belly was far too easy. And since my weapon durability doesn't drop on critical hits—meaning I can keep fighting without worrying about gear wear as long as my player skill doesn't falter—all I needed was time. Its difficulty level seemed almost inversely proportional to its size and strength.

Sunraku: "Still, a difficulty that felt like grinding meant the sense of accomplishment was…"

But even with all that, it was a long, ferocious battle. Its attacks were dynamic enough to one-shot a half-naked guy like me, and there were definitely dicey moments. It's just… in the end, "super-giant monsters become routine once you get used to them"—that's a classic truism in hunting games. And even the Giga Oarfish couldn't escape it.

Sunraku: "But… soloing it… I mean, did I get too strong…? No, that can't be it… Was the Giga Oarfish just low on toughness?"

No, I have to say that's unlikely. But one thing bothered me: several times during the fight, the Giga Oarfish flinched even when I wasn't attacking it. I don't have any weapons or items that deal delayed damage—at least, I'm pretty sure I don't. And Duxram, Blade of Aspiration doesn't have that kind of power. So the most plausible explanation is that before I got to it, it had been afflicted with some kind of poison… or a similar damage-over-time status. And when I think about what I shoved at it before our fight, the picture becomes clear.

Sunraku: "Shit… those rotten fish-paste bastards carry poison strong enough to cause food poisoning…? I seriously can't let my guard down."

Whether it was weak to poison itself, or there were fish-men with venom fierce enough to put even that colossal body into a poisoned state—like, say, pufferfish-men or scorpionfish-men—that needs verifying. But either way, avoiding the fish-men is clearly the right call. Thank you, Giga Oarfish. I've grown wiser thanks to you.

The mountain of loot before me… The enemy had been dozens of times larger than the Golden Scorpion, so the sheer volume of items was obscene. A literal mountain.

Sunraku: "Uheh… uheheheheheheheh…"

This was way beyond a bonus—it felt like unearthing buried treasure. Weapons, armor, stuff to sell, stuff to eat—a smorgasbord of riches. You couldn't blame me for letting out a creepy laugh.

Rust: "………What's with that creepy laugh?"

Sunraku: "Uwoahshyea?!"

Her words dripped with a distinct what is wrong with this creep energy. Caught completely off guard, I leapt backward and spun around. There stood Rust, looking at me with a mix of exasperation and… something almost like respect. Behind her, for some reason, stood Ceecrue, not Mold.

Sunraku: "O-Oh, Rust… Good to see you made it."

Rust: "……Anyone would come to check after that much noise. Didn't expect you to take down a monster that huge, though."

Ah. Right. Of course. An oarfish the size of a train swimming through the air—you'd notice no matter where you were in this city, especially if it was rampaging. And the first to figure out what had caused the "anomaly" in this city would naturally be Ceecrue—Emul's brother and fellow Vorpal Bunny. A samurai rabbit wouldn't ignore his sister in danger. Name-wise, among the A-to-Z siblings, he was probably Vash's third child.

Ceecrue: "Sunraku-dono, is Emul safe, de gozaru?"

Sunraku: "Yeah, I scooped her up while that Giga Oarfish was chasing her. She's at our temporary base now."

Ceecrue: "Is that so, de gozaru…"

A situation that forces you to summon a monster that colossal couldn't possibly be a good one. Only after hearing from me that Emul was safe did Ceecrue finally let the tension drain from his body. Ah, beautiful sibling love. Truly touching… Time to gather loot. Gather loot.

Rust: "That giant monster… did you beat it with a mech?"

Sunraku: "Nah, can't use it right now. Circumstances."

The thing was, the Out-of-Spec Ether Reactor—needed to power the Tactical Machine Beast, which in turn was needed to activate the specialized armor—was still charging. Its gimmick was that leaving it in your inventory let it absorb ambient magic to build up energy. But even after a week of charging, you'd barely get enough out of it to be usable. The item was over-technology incarnate, and since there was no upper limit to its charge, theoretically you could run it for one hour, two hours, however long. But realistically, the equipment was probably designed around once-a-week, ten-minute deployments.

Sunraku: "That said, I can at least show it to you."

Rust: "Please, yes…!"

And so: Suzaku, summoned without its battery. I could've gone with any of the other Machine Beasts, but the person who'd built a mech in Nephilim Hollow called Crimson Wing Union would definitely appreciate Suzaku more.

Rust: "Truly… truly magnificent… so, so good… the coldness of the metal is supremely comforting… SLF is the best…………"

Sunraku: "Well, most games from the Nephilim Hollow generation cut a lot of corners on that stuff…"

How many games are there where you pull up a weed and the dirt clings to the roots, and the game even simulates the coldness of that dirt? Especially games released about a year before SLF—virtual reality was still just virtual back then. SLF, with its creepily obsessive level of realism, is the anomaly. This isn't just technological innovation… It's like taking a generation that grew up with pixel art as cutting-edge and suddenly throwing them into a game with hyper-realistic polygons. What is this, a century ahead in tech?

Rust: "That Giga Oarfish is called Arctus Regalex… that name is way too cool."

Scientific names for animals, insects, and fish—look them up and you'll find tons of cool ones. Latin really dominates when it comes to monster and item names like this. German? That's a legend, no comparison. Let's see… fins, scales, bones…

Sunraku: "And meat, huh… I've heard it has a light flavor, but this is SLF, so…"

It probably tastes like nothing or barely anything. I've never even seen one in real life, but—as expected, given his insane range of connections—my dad may or may not have eaten oarfish before. Apparently it's light… Wait, if he's describing the taste, that means he's definitely eaten it, Dad.

As Rust started rubbing her cheek against Suzaku—yeah, that was happening now—I turned my gaze to the district of Ruluiath that had been reduced to a vacant lot by my fierce battle with the Giga Oarfish—no, Arctus Regalex.

Sunraku: "I should be grateful it was an aquatic monster… If it'd been a true flying dragon, we'd have had periodic hell-level raids on our hands……………………………… Huh?"

A blink. My eyelid lowered and rose in an instant. Blinking—a purely reflexive, unconscious human instinct, one that virtual reality shouldn't even require. But a blink is just a blink; my vision was obscured for less than a second.

And yet.

Sunraku: "Oi, oi… you're kidding me…"

In that single blink, the destruction—everything that had happened just moments ago—had been completely undone. The streetscape was restored to its original state, as if none of it had ever happened. Even I felt my sanity points taking a hit.

A monster that could casually pull off something akin to a system reset—Ctarnidd… No, seriously, can we actually beat this thing?