Chapter 275: The Sword-Wolf Faces the Thunder-Fire Beast, Part Five
The player name "Sunraku."
His first appearance was in a screenshot taken without permission by another player: "with a clothed, talking Vorpal Bunny." The next was his escape from Ashura Kai, who'd been threatening a newbie player in pursuit of a Unique.
Then, he took down Shangri-La Frontier's first defeated Unique Monster, Wethermon the Tombguard, and followed it by defeating Ctarnidd of the Abyss — making him the only player in this game to have achieved "multiple Unique Monster kills."
He'd slain Wethermon the Tombguard, a Unique that Ashura Kai had kept secret... Based on the items provided to the Library and interviews with former Ashura Kai members who'd scattered, Wethermon the Tombguard was a brutally unfair monster — ultra-high-speed draw attacks, unable to die unless conditions were fulfilled. The fact that a player with the strength to beat something like that was a free agent... Several clans tried to secure him. But Psyger-100, who knew a bit about who she was, doubted those attempts would bear fruit.
And then the clan Wolfgang was formed. A name with a painfully on-the-nose ring to it. But to Psyger-100, it wasn't something worth paying much attention to... until that day.
Three people (technically five, with two NPC Vorpal Bunnies) defeated Lycagon the Nightslayer.
More than the first Unique kill. More than the discovery of the long-sought "talking monster." Timing issues aside, the fact that they'd beaten Lycagon — the one Schwarz Vulf had challenged again and again only to fall short — hit Psyger-100 with an absolutely massive impact.
Lycagon the Nightslayer. Back when Psyger-100 was neither a Master of the Sword nor the leader of Schwarz Vulf, back when she was just a beginner, a loose connection of players who'd started right after the game launched formed a pick-up party. That monster, as if giving the shape of a wolf to that night, trampled them far too easily. Everyone respawned. As they talked over what the hell that was, Psyger-100's heart had already been stolen away.
There are two kinds of gamers. Those who enjoy the process, and those who enjoy the results. Put simply, the former are the type to complete all their weapons and side quests before facing the final boss. The latter are the type to charge in the moment they've got enough power to beat the final boss, whether they're wielding a legendary blade or a wooden stick.
Neither way of enjoying a game is wrong. In the end, if you can turn off the power thinking "that was fun" — or better yet, "let's do it again someday" — then the game has served its purpose.
And if that's the case, then for Psyger-100 — for Momo Saiga, who'd had almost nothing to do with games before this — the goal was "to defeat Lycagon the Nightslayer." That was the whole reason she'd kept playing until now.
So of course, when she learned Lycagon had been beaten first, she lost it. Lash out at her sister? Did that. Emptied five cans of beer? Did that too. But ever since high school, she's been dealing with Towa Amane (stress), so as long as she drinks and sleeps it off, she can usually cool down and bounce back. That's Psyger-100's strong suit.
Once she calmed down, the next question Psyger-100 had was: "How the hell did they do it?" She knew, from the game knowledge she'd gained by recklessly burning her blessed specs, that some boss monsters had gimmicks at their core. But Lycagon — at least the one that appears from random encounters — had no such gimmick, as far as she'd determined. So how had fewer than ten people managed to bring it down? That was her only question.
Her little sister, Psyger-0, certainly had strong firepower. But it came with a fair yet fatal flaw: the activation conditions took time, no matter what. Yet when she'd braced herself for her sister's glare and interrogated her, the information she got confirmed that Armageddon had indeed been triggered.
...Yes. Through the brute-force method of two players maintaining the front line as evasion tanks the entire time. One of those two, Akitsu Akane, joined later with two Vorpal Bunnies, so Psyger-100 set her aside for the moment. The issue was the player who'd held the front line for nearly several hours from the start of the battle... and done so almost entirely without taking damage.
Noticing the gimmick Lycagon had — a "Transparent Clone" even Psyger-100 hadn't been aware of — and countering it by physically clearing away the clouds with brute force. A player who, while one wrong step would've sent him flying like a bowling pin, stuck it out to the very end... Sunraku.
A mobility-focused build that discards defense. His stats aren't a pure min-max dump, apparently, but even so, the fact remains: a skewed build like that can beat Lycagon. Can beat a Unique Monster. That was good news — well, somewhat good news — for Psyger-100, who'd been vaguely suspecting that the Master of the Sword job wasn't suited for fighting Lycagon.
At the very least, she thought, a Master of the Sword had to be better suited against Lycagon than some half-naked dual-wielder.
In reality, Psyger-100 didn't yet know just how extremely "extreme" Sunraku's build truly was — with fewer than five attack skills and almost everything else devoted to mobility.
And so, in this showdown, the direct confrontation with Sunraku was... half the reason Psyger-100 intended to sweep all three opponents at full force.
The other half of the reason was Momo Saiga, not Psyger-100. Her little sister clearly loses her cool whenever Sunraku comes up, and apparently she has recently fallen in "love" — practically a historic achievement for a woman of the Saiga family. And in all likelihood, Sunraku and that "someone" are the same person.
If that's the case, then as her older sister, there's only one thing to do. She would judge for herself what kind of person this "Lycagon" who had captured her little sister's heart really was.
Psyger-100: "Well... I realize it's a strange time to say this, but I've been looking forward to facing you."
Sunraku: "Oh yeah?"
Psyger-100: "Sunraku... Your name and general appearance are known, but how exactly you fight, what weapons you carry... almost none of that has been made clear. The most anyone can say is that you apparently possess firepower rivaling Armageddon."
Now that she mentions it, I guess that's true. Almost every player I've done party play with up to now belongs to Wolfgang. Which means even info on the Gilta Brille has barely leaked outside, and on top of that, I've updated my gear even further since then.
Glancing at the spectator seats, I can see players who're clearly neither from Wolfgang nor Schwarz Vulf, scattered here and there. Like that fake magical girl over there. So basically, I'm about to publicly reveal all the details I've been hiding until now... Well, so what?
Sunraku: "Also, I've got something I want to try first, so I'm prioritizing that."
Psyger-100: "...Oh? Could it be related to a Unique?"
Sunraku: "Nope. A playstyle thing."
I grip twin Duxram, Blade of Aspiration — and take a stance. Whether this stance has a name or not, I don't know. I'm just copying the look. There's no true essence or any of that fancy stuff. But what I want is the result of the motion that follows from this stance.
Sunraku: "Quell the fire in your heart, and master the rivers of your own being... was it?"
Psyger-100: "That's an unfunny joke... but I'll take that provocation head-on."
Provocation? Why? I'm tilting my head, fairly seriously, when the swords come flying at me — faster than they did against Kyotimate earlier.
The secret to Ryuguin Fugaku's strength is simple. He reads the opponent's movements from experience and returns the perfect answer. That's it. It's exactly what you'd call TAS-worthy — his greatest enemy being his own self, the one who might screw up the answer.
The first two are bluffs. The real deal is the high overhead from behind.
I lightly twist my body to dodge the sword aimed at my left shoulder. I slap away the Super Cat-Teaser aiming for my right flank with the right-hand blade. And then the real one — the magic sword Pega-something, circling behind me and falling from directly above to strike my head — I intercept with the left-hand blade.
Weapon Breaker effect? Bring it. Try me.
Aspiration doesn't shatter.
As long as the path of my blade doesn't break, Duxram, Blade of Aspiration — won't chip!
Blade crashes against blade. The Weapon Breaker effect deals damage directly to a weapon's durability. But Duxram, Blade of Aspiration, loses no durability the moment it lands a critical hit. Doesn't matter if the opponent is a scorpion made of crystal, a half-energy orca, or a magic sword with a Weapon Breaker effect.
The magic sword Uni-something gets knocked away. Duxram, the blade that conquered a weapon-killing edge, is unblemished. Its luster, undimmed.
Sunraku: "Tough luck. I've got resistance to the Aerial Ambush Group Beatdown: Divine Punishment."
If you seriously want to kill me, you'd better at least bring the Aerial Human-Shield Piercing Ambush Group Beatdown: Divine Punishment. The passion Bakumatsu players put into Divine Punishment is so intense they'll even work friendly fire into the strategy.
The light greetings are over. Now the real thing begins. Clan Schwarz Vulf versus Clan Wolfgang, head-to-head. The clash of the leaders.