Chapter 206: United Under the Same Heavens, Part 12
Sunraku: "Haaah—god, what a pain in the ass!!"
I shout in a high pitch I haven't hit since I was a little kid and curse the Blue Chalice that's drifted out of reach. My vision flipped a few more times, but we managed to break the Green Chalice once we could see normal colors again. Fired up, we set our sights on the next one... but that's when three things became clear. Some good, some bad.
Emul: "The next flash is coming soon, wa!!"
Sunraku: "C'mon blue, c'mon blue, c'mon...!"
???: "...Indigo."
Sunraku: "RNG, DAMN YOU—!"
First thing: after letting it flash so many times, I couldn't help but figure out the timing. The chalices flash every thirty seconds. Different colors stack. Getting hit with the same color twice turns you back to normal.
Sunraku: "What swapped this—bugeh!?"
???: "Sunraku-san!?"
Sunraku: "Okay... don't need to tell me... AGI and VIT."
I dodged a direct hit, but a tentacle clipped me and sent me flying. My HP should've been wiped out in one shot—unless that luck-based survive-at-1-HP effect kicked in. Instead, about ten percent was left. Looks like this round of "Indigo" came specifically to trash Sunraku the high-speed attacker's best strength. Yeah, the second thing: what the "Indigo" light does. Color flip and gender flip are nothing compared to this. "Purple" too. The effect is disgustingly cruel—stat reversal. It swaps your stat parameters around, forcing limits on you that make you question the whole idea of reversal.
Sunraku: "Gh..."
This effect is basically the worst nightmare for anyone running a specialized stat build. Take STR and VIT off a tank? Strip AGI and DEX from a light fighter? Rip MP away from a magic user? Absolutely vicious. But what makes it extra nasty is that there's an upside, too.
Sunraku: "Rei-shi! Role swap!"
Psyger-0: "Got it...!"
Rei-shi's a tank-leaning all-rounder, so she got off light. Still, this stat swap cost her toughness but gave her speed. Me? I lost my legs, but I picked up durability matching a tank. Our roles flip. Rei-shi pulls back fast, and I step forward, messing with my status screen. I'm not the same me as before. Call it version two. For a very limited time, and with forced breakage as a trade-off... right now, I can dress up nice.
Sunraku: "You idiot—who said I can't tank?!"
It's the kind of shop-bought gear you can get just by throwing money at it—no player-supplied crafting materials needed. In Rabituza, the person closest to Vysache, and currently the rabbit closest to becoming a Divine Craftsman with both the "Master Craftsman" and "Ancient Craftsman" jobs—Bilac—made this. A full heavy tank armor set from the "Guardian's Great Armor" series. Wearing the full set reduces damage taken if you’re hit while not using a skill or magic on yourself. Honestly, in normal play, you almost never fight without skills or magic, so it's not that useful. But for me right now? It's a godsend.
Sunraku: "Ngh, guhh...!"
The potions I brought ran out ages ago. I'd been forcing HP recovery by eating whole fish—heads and all—that we caught during our stay in Ruluiath, and Ctarnidd's tentacle slams into me right as I'm crunching through one. I go flying like a soccer ball and roll across the coliseum floor, but the damage isn't nearly as bad as it looks.
Sunraku: "Dammit... they even nailed the feel of tiny bones..."
Thankfully, they didn't go so far as to simulate bones getting stuck in your throat. They probably could with the tech in this game, but chose not to. Fine by me. Dried fish would be easier to eat, but... yeah, gnawing it raw is faster for chewing-speed recovery. When I did this with the bird head on, Rust told me, "You're a bird—just swallow without chewing." I told her to shut up, I'm human. Come to think of it, people have been treating me like a bird a lot since I started this game. Araba even called me a Birdian or something... wait, shit, this is my life flashing before my eyes.
Sunraku: "ORYAAAAH!!"
Full power. Every ounce of STR poured into one leap. My foot catches, and I spin like a skipping stone—frisbee-style—but my HP somehow stays above zero. The moment I realize the indigo light has flooded my vision, I tear off all my gear at top speed. Half-naked female avatar—basically an exhibitionist—but I don't care. I just sprint full speed and put distance between me and Ctarnidd.
Sunraku: "Close one... crunch."
Mold: "Um, maybe put on some more clothes...? Actually, gnawing raw fish head-first is..."
Sunraku: "Mold, don't get fooled by appearances. I'm a guy, and if it's for efficiency, I'm fine tossing aside some common sense."
???: "That’s not common sense you’re throwing away. That’s basic humanity."
Oh, shut up. Humans eat smelt heads all the time, and baby sardines go right in your mouth—bones, heads, and all—without even noticing. If you're gonna freak out now just because a big-chested loli is half-naked and crunching a fish head-first, you need to get a grip.
Rust: "...Sunraku, do that somewhere less visible. It's bad for Mold's upbringing."
Sunraku: "Once I'm healed, I've gotta charge the front line. Pulling back further just wastes time... Look, 'Purple' is coming down! That one's top priority!"
The four chalices that self-destructed the moment the second form started probably match up with the Blockers. I don’t even want to think about it, but their effects probably match too. Meaning if we hadn't beaten the Blockers, we'd be dealing with physical nullification, close-range nullification, and all that. That thought alone gives me chills. But just as bad—we absolutely cannot let the "Purple" chalice's effect go off. Yep, that was purple. It just flashed.
Sunraku: "Right as I said it...!"
Akitsu Akane: "Sorry! We couldn't finish breaking it!!"
Sunraku: "Like hell I'm letting it regenerate! Who's still got potions?!"
???: "...I’ve still got some."
Psyger-0: "I do... too!"
And the third thing—and this one's the worst by far out of everything we've figured out so far. The "Purple" chalice's effect. What it does, in short: "damage reversal." The words alone sound like a counter effect, but that's not it. It flips "HP down from damage" into "HP up from healing." What happens then? Our attacks start regenerating the chalice. But that's not all.
Ctarnidd raises a tentacle. The one it's holding is the Blue Chalice, the one that's just a hair away from breaking. And Ctarnidd slams the tentacle down—not to hurt us, but in a way that clearly deals damage to the chalice itself. A thunderous crash. The Blue Chalice hits the ground, and the cracks that were about to split it in half start sealing back up. Yeah. That bastard Ctarnidd—with all his overwhelming strength—deliberately regenerates the chalices himself. That's so damn cheap, you octopus! Shit, insulting him just confirms the facts, so it's useless... damn you, Ctarnidd.
But we're not just standing around watching either. If damage becomes healing, then the reverse also flips. A thrown potion slams into the chalice and spills its contents everywhere. What should've healed wounds instead eats away at the chalice like acid, undoing the regeneration that had just begun.
Sunraku: "So that's why we were able to grab a ton of fish to use as potion substitutes..."
First-timer traps don't get much worse than this, but what really pisses me off is that they actually built in a way around it. Not that anyone could've guessed "let's save our potions to use as throwing weapons to stop regeneration" without knowing ahead of time!!
Emul: "Thirty seconds, wa—!"
The timer—or rather, Emul's voice rings out. Honestly, aside from me and Rei-shi running decoy on the front line, everyone else is pretty damn bored. We can't change formation since keeping our attackers in the back is the only way to max out damage when we hit the chalices. So when Emul's voice tells me the next flash is coming, all I can do is pray this shitty RNG pulls a good number for once.
???: "It’s indigo!"
Sunraku: "HELL YEEEEAH! SMASH IT!!"
If we can't break it now while our stats are back to normal, it's back to praying to RNG. Rei-shi, back to her old toughness, and me, back to my old speed, take off running to bait an attack from the tentacle holding the Indigo Chalice.
My chest bounces. It hurts.