Chapter 194: The Meaning of the Extreme Point
It's not like I was obsessed with carrying shellfish and scoring touchdowns (feigning ignorance). That was part of it, but the personal matters that had been standing in my way like a huge wall have finally been dealt with... Now I just need to write without giving in to the temptation of games!
A "dodge-tank" refers to a type of tank who handles enemy attacks not through defense, but through evasion. The upside is that as long as you've got the legs to dodge, you can shift to offense to some degree. The downside is that if you take a single hit, it could very well be fatal.
Sunraku: "Hey, hey, hey-hey!"
If I'd known about it when I started SLF, I might have tried out the "Ninja" job—its profession seems well-suited to dodge-tanking. But at this point, I've already assembled a variety of skills with high dodge-tank affinity, so the "Ninja" job doesn't hold that much appeal for me anymore.
Sunraku: "What's wrong, what's wrong! You're not fresh enough—hey, hey, hey!"
Changing the subject, this game does have "fishing," and it's surprisingly elaborate... or rather, as expected, it's elaborate. Astonishingly, there's even a "Fisherman" job, apparently. Even without fully specializing in fishing, the fishing rods are surprisingly authentic. In their base state, they already have the potential to reel in salmon, sea snakes, stupidly strong lobsters, and the like. But changing the hook or bait seems to affect the types of fish and monsters you can catch.
And barnacles can be used as fishing bait... Hey, "Barnacle"—maybe I can use you as fishing bait too?
Akitsu Akane: "Whoa, holy crap, water's shooting out of the barnacles on its back like a jet!"
Emul: "Byaaaah, don't come this way, wa—?!"
Sunraku: "Alright, watch your footing—!!"
By massively multiplying its barnacles, it absorbs all the kinetic energy used to attack it. A formidable ability, I see—but that ability has one clear weakness. Even if the kinetic energy is reduced to zero, the object itself hasn't vanished. Just as the fact remains that a car is still in front of you even if you nullify the energy of being slammed by it, it can't nullify a simple leg sweep.
With interference from me, Araba, and Ceecrue, the "Barnacle" takes a spectacular tumble, and every ranged attack we have is piled onto it. Apparently, they'd managed to catch a fish with an MP-restoring effect, solving Akitsu Akane's MP problem. The sight of her firing beams from her mouth is surreal every time I see it... Is she really playing the same game?
Ah—it grazed Ceecrue.
Ceecrue: "Hwoaaaaaaaahh!?"
Emul: "O-Onii-chan!!"
Akitsu Akane: "I'm sooooorry—!!"
Let's call it... the Apology Cannon. Or maybe the Sorry Breath?
Akitsu Akane: "In the end, with a big party like this, it wasn't all that hard, huh."
Sunraku: "Well, yeah—it was tripping at a level of absolute zero flinch resistance..."
Mold: "Ahaha... The second half, it just kept tripping so much it got kind of funny..."
As I suspected, the Ammone Knight dropping the cutlass was indeed an event flag. The Barnacle only dropped material items. Well, with a large party, the amount of materials each person got wasn't all that much... No, wait. But, hmm.
Rust: "What's wrong?"
Sunraku: "Nah, it's nothing."
Well, there's nothing I can do about this right now. It can wait. Emul, stop smacking my head. That makes three Blockers down. One more and we'll have taken them all out. What exactly are they sealing away, and what will happen once they're all defeated...? Honestly, the urge to take down the fourth one right now and confirm what happens is almost irresistible, but patience. Emul, stop smacking my head. If this triggers a forced transition into the Ctarnidd fight, it won't be funny. Emul, stop smacking my—
Sunraku: "What is it, Emul?"
Emul: "Above—!!"
Above? As always, marine snow drifts through the sky of the inverted seabed. And then—the colossal form of Arctus Regalex, its face beaten to a pulp, falling in accordance with gravity. With the shadow position and everything, it's going to land squarely on the one spot that'll crush just me and Emul—
Sunraku: "Dodge——!!"
Emul: "Piiiiiiii!?"
Hollywood jump! That was a Hollywood jump! Are you watching, world?! From a third-person perspective, that was an ideal Hollywood jump worthy of an Academy Award! A thunderous roar echoes. If I try to break my fall, Emul will get crushed, so I have no choice but to dive into the ground and accept the humiliation of eating dirt. This is an honorable dirt-meal...! Anyway, what the hell is going on?! Did I just stumble onto another food-chain event? No, but if that's the case, why is its face so specifically battered?!
Still, I know that thing isn't friendly. I hurriedly ready my weapon and turn around—
BOOM!!
Emul: "Hyee..."
This game has restrictions on gore effects. So no matter how much you slice up a human, there's no blood, and any cross-sections are discreetly hidden by effects, so bones and flesh are never visible. But my eyes definitely witnessed the head of Arctus Regalex being crushed flat by an immense impact from directly above. And I also saw, with absolute clarity, a humanoid annihilation weapon—her face like a demon god, looking ready to exhale steam with a sledgehammer in hand—none other than Psyger-0.
Psyger-0: "Found you...!!"
Emul: "Kyu..."
Emul, who'd kept up her reaction-comedian act even against Wethermon and Lycagon, just fainted outright. Isn't this a Level-1 Danger Alert?! Honestly, this scared me more than any half-assed horror game. But since I had nothing planned for today anyway, and I'd been thinking "maybe I should do some Rei-shi creative writing!", just before that, instead of being spooked, the feeling of "Ah, there she is" took priority.
Sunraku: "Uh, h-hey there, Rei-shi..."
Psyger-0: "............"
Why the silence, Rei-shi? Combined with the effects of Arctus Regalex exploding behind you, this looks like nothing less than a boss character's intro cutscene, Rei-shi.
Nearly everyone present is speechless at this overwhelming, utterly dominant visual information. Rei-shi, standing before the scattering, vanishing polygons of Arctus Regalex, stows her crimson-black hammer into her inventory, takes a step back, and then—
Psyger-0: "I am... truly... so sorry!!"
She bowed her head deeply.
And so, the story came out.
Sunraku: "Ah—so things really were a mess in real life, huh."
Psyger-0: "I truly apologize... To have been out of contact for five whole days..."
As expected, Rei-shi had apparently been incredibly busy in real life after that. So busy that she couldn't even log in at night—you could feel it just listening to her. Rei-shi bowed her head deeply, deeply, and after we got her to raise it, we asked her again whether she could participate on the seventh day.
Psyger-0: "Yes, that's fine! There won't be any problems!"
Sunraku: "I-is that so."
Psyger-0: "Yes. All of the... hindrances... have been completely... dealt with."
A chill ran down my spine. Even though her voice is tuned slightly low for character creation, it should still be the gentle voice of a woman—and yet, for some reason, a shiver coursed through me.
Rust: "...Sunraku. I have a proposal."
Sunraku: "Hm?"
Rust: "Right now, all the players have gathered here."
Sunraku: "Yeah."
Rust: "In that case, how about we just take on the fourth one now?"
Sunraku: "...Seriously?"
No—but that might not be a bad idea. Even Ctarnidd surely wouldn't force us into a battle that takes half a day, right? If we stayed logged in that long, we'd risk getting force-logged out by the system. If that's the case, taking down the fourth one right now, while everyone's here, and heading straight to Ctarnidd—it's an option.
I think it over while looking at the faces of all the players. As the one who's more or less become the coordinator, I reach a conclusion.
Sunraku: "...It's true I'd prefer to go in at our best condition, but going ahead now is also a valid choice. So, for now, we go take down the fourth Blocker. If that transitions directly into the Ctarnidd fight, we fight. If not, we stick to the seventh day for the decisive battle... How does that sound?"
No objections. And so, our complete party—the large-scale team now joined by the ultimate weapon that is Rei-shi—set out toward the fourth Blocker... the tower where the two-in-one fishman "Married Couple" awaited.
What is a hardcore gamer? A hardcore gamer is one who pours even the bare minimum of time that a human should spend as a human into a game. What is a hardcore gamer? A hardcore gamer is one who reaches, or seeks to reach, the very upper limits the system allows. What is a hardcore gamer? They are the ones upon whom the expectations of all the strategy-site lurkers converge the moment a new boss is unlocked: "If we leave it to that person, the strategy info will come out, right?"
Then what is it that a hardcore gamer possesses? It's obvious—power.
Psyger-0: "Physical attacks won't work... isn't that right?"
In SLF, there are three methods of activating magic. The first is activation through incantation. This allows the spell's full effects to manifest up to the limits permitted by the player's stats. That said, there aren't many players who can recite long incantations from memory, so the mainstream approach is apparently to use a grimoire—a magical book, essentially a cheat sheet—during combat, like Mold does.
The second is incantation-free activation, completely cutting the chant. This is probably the most common method. It offers overwhelming spell speed, but effectiveness and firepower decrease accordingly. Magic swordsmen and other players who have things that take priority over chanting, or players who simply struggle with chanting due to enunciation issues, use this method heavily.
And the third is proxy activation via scrolls. The attenuation is even worse than incantation-free, but as long as you have MP, even a monkey can use it—and for spells like Teleport, where firepower doesn't matter, only the advantages remain.
Psyger-0: "O flame, rage. Thou art the roar of a wild beast that shakes the throat with waves of heat. Thou art the fangs of a wild beast that tear through darkness with brilliance. Rage against the enemy reflected in thine eyes—let the resounding beast-howl shake the foe, let the thundering fierce-fangs tear out the enemy's throat. O flame, become a beast and rage. [Beast Doom Flare]."
Completely memorized. Completely memorized. She recited the entire lengthy incantation—I have no idea how many times the words "rage" and "beast" came up—without stumbling once, in flawless, fluent pronunciation. And she did it while being attacked by the husband of the Married Fishman Couple.
From the palm of the demon-warrior she held before the husband-fishman's face, heat erupts. The flame-beast, manifested by devouring Rei-shi's magic, isn't satisfied with her magic alone—it devours even the very air and lets out a roar. The flame-beast sinks its fangs into the upper body of the husband-fishman, who'd tried to guard with his hands at the last second. The slimy mucus—that troublesome mucus that, by some principle, causes all physical attacks to slip off—doesn't even last a second before evaporating. The husband-fishman's scream echoes through the tower.
Sunraku: "Being a devoted married couple is a fine thing... Emul, aim for the throat."
Emul: "[Magic Edge]!!"
At her husband's scream, the wife-fishman—who'd been about to crush me, and by extension Emul who's using me as her legs—freezes in place. Without missing that opening, Emul's attack, fired through the line I'd cleared, gouges into the wife-fishman's throat. Without delay, an arrow loosed from Rust's magic bow pierces the wife-fishman, and looking over, I see the reproduced breath of the golden Dragon King Unique Monster slamming into the husband-fishman as well.
Sunraku: "Hardcore gamers are terrifying."
In the world of MMOs, where countless nameless masses jostle and clamor, each insisting "I am the protagonist," the true strength of the player who claims the title of "maximum firepower" is the real deal. Having it demonstrated so plainly before my eyes, I can't help but be spurred on myself. Even though only a single person had been added, the final Blocker fell faster than any of the others.
And then, all four Blockers had been vanquished...
Kleio Cthylla: "I got User-Para'd, but I did get to decorate the prologue alongside Sylvia-chan!" Ammon Otume: "I was holding a key character's flag item, for what it's worth." Barshud Mernakrul: "I tripped so much my knees hurt." Sleybeer Dargoon & Hydora: "I got roasted." "I got filleted." Ctarnidd: "Good work lololol"