Chapter 269: Against a Schwarz Vulf That Knows No Rules, Slam a Mechanical Punch
There's a saying: "an oni with an iron club." In gamer terms, it'd be a high-DPS build with a firepower buff, or a tank with a high-multiplier counter.
...I'll say it outright: "Oikatzo with Byakko" is a bullshit pairing on the same level.
Pretty much every game with combinable elements has ideal combinations—best matches. Those synergies become viable combo pieces.
Some gamers will even insist that searching for combinations like that, from the ones the developers intended to the ones they never saw coming, is the real joy of gaming.
So what makes me so certain Oikatzo and the Tactical Machine Beast Byakko are a perfect match?
Just look.
Oikatzo: "Uhh... how do you read this? Musen Inshoku?"
Dyne Dacherr: "It's †Dyne Dacherr†! You seriously don't know Brave Shadow-Sword...?"
After diving into the sea of his memory for a few seconds, Oikatzo recalls that there was some anime or something with that title that got popular a few years ago and was still going strong.
(Ah... right. If I remember correctly, the protagonist had one of those total red-flag names, didn't he?)
Games let you become someone different from who you are in real life. And making that other self into "someone you admire" is nothing unusual. But copying a name or appearance doesn't somehow make your skill match the ideal too.
It's not that every last one of them is an inferior copy, but depending on the age group that likes whatever the name came from, you do sometimes end up with "that name = a player from an age bracket whose skill doesn't live up to it."
Oikatzo: "So? What's this Dine and Dasher guy like?"
Dyne Dacherr: "Huh? Well, if you don't know, I guess it can't be helped... Dyne Dacherr's a lone dual-wielder who races through the night."
Oikatzo: "I see. Then I guess your main weapons are dual blades too?"
Dyne Dacherr: "Ah..."
†Dyne Dacherr† makes a face that says he screwed up, but it's already too late. Oikatzo's mind has already started dredging through his memories and estimating the cards in his opponent's hand.
(My memory's fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure that character was the standard dual-wielder type. When I saw him in a commercial the other day, he was using attacks that looked like he was controlling shadows. So, a magic swordsman? In this game, magic swordsmen come in two types: manual types that keep magic and physical attacks separate, and auto types that let their magic swords handle the spells. The advance info says he's an auto type, but if he's in a no-life clan, there's a good chance he's taken the cosplay build as far as it can go. Looking at him, though, it doesn't seem like one of those stupidly extreme builds... yeah.)
Without changing expression, Oikatzo's brain spits out its conclusion: "downgraded Sunraku."
Rather than downgraded, though, it'd be more accurate to call him a "general-purpose Sunraku"—the sort of build you get by taking Sunraku's absurdly over-specialized stats and making them sane. Even without knowing every card in his hand, once you know the deck type, countering it is easy enough.
That is exactly why Uomi Kei—Oikatzo—is hailed as one of Japan's top professional gamers.
Dyne Dacherr: "Just so you know, I've already done a level-down build, so I'm crazy strong."
Oikatzo: "Oh, really."
A level-down build is a style of play where you deliberately consume items that lower your level in order to train up your skills.
Among no-life players, the number of times you've leveled down becomes a kind of status symbol in itself.
People want to show off any record that's ridiculously far above the norm, even when the thing they're bragging about is completely stupid.
Oikatzo: "Well, I don't really care about any of that..."
The MMO system itself isn't especially compatible with Oikatzo.
By its nature, unless the system forcibly equalizes things, it's difficult to arrange a fight where both sides have equal power.
That's why Oikatzo focuses less on analyzing his opponent and more on tuning himself, pouring his effort into perfecting ideal movement.
If he can move his body exactly the way he wants—and, as a bonus, get a rough read on how the other guy will move—
Oikatzo: "I can handle a dump truck with legs...! All right, pro ga— ahem! Let me show you the power of Wolfgang, Byakko!!"
He has no problem with the Tactical Machine Beast series being shared within the clan. But the reactor originally belonged to him, and yet that half-naked bastard had casually beaten him to the first use. That had never sat right with Oikatzo.
From what he'd heard, Suzaku had been activated, while Seiryu had even gone as far as combining. In that case, using the same machine would be boring... so he'd chosen Byakko. And Oikatzo can say this with total confidence:
"If I could take this into GH:C, I could beat Sylvia too."
Dyne Dacherr: "A r-robot?!"
Oikatzo: "Cool, right? This was the reward for beating Wethermon... and there!"
The clan-sharing process completes, and the Out-of-Spec Ether Reactor that had made its way back from Sunraku to Oikatzo through Inventoria is loaded onto Byakko's back.
The test run has shaved a little off its operating time, but energy surges from the reactor, recharged after what was consumed in the abyssal city, and light fills the white steel tiger.
Oikatzo: "Unlike a certain idiot, I don't personally come with a time limit. I can keep it up right from the start without holding anything back, so brace yourself."
A tiger-styled head shell—a helm—and a slender torso contrasted by four heavy limbs that look perfectly capable of serving as blunt weapons by themselves.
Wearing the Non-Standard Specialized Armor [Banbu] and accompanied by a steel tiger, Oikatzo looks like he belongs in a completely different game.
But this is Shangri-La Frontier too. People simply don't know it: this world has robots, powered suits, and science fiction.
Oikatzo: "Combine, Byakko!"
Byakko: "Yeah!"
An unusually enthusiastic voice answers Oikatzo, and Byakko moves.
Its body folds over him almost like a blanket being thrown on top of him, then comes apart.
The limbs containing a certain mechanism are reinforced even further, while the torso—thin and weak-looking by comparison—is strengthened to match.
Then, despite being a machine, it takes what looks exactly like a living creature's deep breath.
Combination complete.
Dyne Dacherr: "Wh-What...?!"
Oikatzo: "Even a top clan hasn't seen this before? Perfect. Go ahead and get killed by something you've never seen before."
Byakko: "Compressed Intake!"
The atmosphere roars.
Air churns like a raging typhoon, gathering around the white pugilist at its center. It is drawn through intake ports in all four limbs, into both arms and both legs, and compressed. A deep growl like that of a tiger rolls from the machine, giving off an unmistakably dangerous pressure.
†Dyne Dacherr† is completely cowed. Byakko has already seized an overwhelming advantage capable of overturning the difference in their stats.
No matter how superior your stats are, once you're intimidated, victory gets farther away. And the victory that slips away from you lands right in your opponent's hands.
Oikatzo: "Breathing means that if you inhale, you've obviously got to exhale... You should probably clench your teeth."
Byakko: "Release Exhaust!"
Inhale, then exhale.
By giving the compressed air direction and blasting it outward, Byakko gains propulsion and launches forward.
Even though Oikatzo is normally bad at robot games, a powered suit makes up for that weakness because it functions as an extension of his own body.
And Byakko's exhaust acceleration is a half-manual, half-auto system. The Tactical Machine Tiger [Byakko] executes its wearer's thoughts, giving Oikatzo—no, Uomi Kei—the one thing he had lacked compared with Sylvia Goldberg and Rakuro Hizutome, Sunraku:
The ability to overwhelmingly seize the first move.
Dyne Dacherr: "Fas—bwuh?!"
Oikatzo: "Man, this is nice... With this, beating Sylvia might actually be easy... no, she'd probably just adapt normally..."
If you had to compare it to something, it resembles the huge mass-acceleration stunt some masked maniac once pulled on the big stage with five motorcycles. Byakko is lighter than that, but the punch it throws can still send a human body flying like a scrap of paper with absurd ease.
The blow howls and shakes the air as it lands cleanly on †Dyne Dacherr†'s jaw.
At that instant, the Out-of-Spec Armament: Piercing Fist Type [Battering Ram] activates. Four plate-shaped components rotate around Banbu's arm assembly, and an impact very obviously not designed for use against people twists †Dyne Dacherr†'s face in a direction faces are not supposed to go.
If it had been a human fist—even one strengthened again and again—†Dyne Dacherr†'s stats would probably have reduced it to nothing more than a brief flinch.
His misfortune is that this is the perfect combination: the Non-Standard Tactical Machine Tiger [Byakko], the Non-Standard Specialized Armor [Banbu], the Out-of-Spec Armament: Piercing Fist Type [Battering Ram], and, above all, Oikatzo inside them with enough skill to use the entire package properly.
To give the conclusion first—
Dyne Dacherr: "Whuh— what's goin' on with my head...?"
Oikatzo: "Right angle?"
Dyne Dacherr: "It's brok'n..."
Kyo the Ultimate: "It's a game, so you're fine!"
Dyne Dacherr: "Bwegh."
With a sickening crunch, his neck is forced back into place. The opening blow took sixty percent of his HP, that just took another thirty percent, and now †Dyne Dacherr† is completely caught inside punching range. There is nowhere left to run.
Pencilgon: "Ah! If you kill him here, there's no penalty!"
Oikatzo: "Hell yeah."
Dyne Dacherr: "Fini—bweh?!"
A fist buries itself in †Dyne Dacherr†'s face, and his body collapses with a crunch.
As the jet-black dual-wielder scatters into polygons and disappears, Byakko begins inhaling again and quietly declares:
Byakko: "Next."