Chapter 277: The Sword-Wolf Faces the Thunder-Fire Beast, Part Seven

"You can practically feel the setting details being created without end!" (image omitted)

To be honest, that last update was pretty much an input mistake, but the author's mental state is running a little wild right now.

Not because I'm mentally cornered or anything. I just read something really good and my creative drive exploded.

Everything included, it all started feeling like too much of a hassle, so I've decided to hold a consecutive-posting festival. Forgive me if I don't update tomorrow.

Among the weapons in SLF are some that, despite being classified as entirely separate weapons, produce a shared effect when used together in the same place — like the Blade-to-Blade Sword, whose separate weapons combine into a single weapon.

Take the five swords Psyger-100 deployed with Fivefold Ensemble: Quintet.

These five swords, all sharing the name "Imperial," activate their effects during combat processing when they are in the same location and fighting the same target.

Psyger-100: "Each weapon raises the stat it corresponds to. But I'm using every one of them by myself. In other words..."

Sunraku: "You're hogging every single bonus!"

STR, DEX, AGI, TEC, VIT.

A spada bearer becomes stronger.

A cutlass bearer becomes lighter.

A rapier bearer becomes faster.

A main-gauche bearer becomes more skillful.

A falchion bearer becomes tougher.

So what happens if a Master of the Sword is holding all five and can master every one of them? Goddammit — she's getting a straight-up boost even without her sacred sword!

Psyger-100: "Haaah!"

Sunraku: "Guh... damn it!"

No damage, but the sheer force knocks my fist away. I barely evade the follow-up, but I'm forced to open some distance. And once I do, the Sworvant swords come at me with their fangs bared.

Sunraku: "Don't underestimate me! Dammit! Toh! Haaaai!"

Psyger-100: "You move an astonishing amount... Are you some kind of acrobat in real life?"

I jump over the first sword, use Flit Float for a midair triple axel to avoid the second, knock the third aside with a swinging fist, then forcibly bend my body and damage-control the fourth as it tries to catch my landing. I lose my balance, but get back up immediately and return to guard.

Psyger-100 recalls the Sworvant swords to her side and asks that in open disbelief. I do my best to act like I still have plenty of breathing room while my head races through ways to turn this around.

Sunraku: "Come on. If you're fighting Lycagon, this much is mandatory, isn't it? If you're going to bring your evasion tank along, they need to be able to do at least this much."

Psyger-100: "No... asking for that level of skill is a little..."

Oh, shut up. Spend three hours playing tag with a giant monster, get hit by Divine Punishment from every direction, and learn to react to surprise attacks from interstellar weapons, and anybody can do this much. Look at the top-ranked Bakumatsu players. Those freaks have gone so far off the deep end that they're starting to build guaranteed-kill Divine Punishment tactics by combining mathematics with psychology. "Sunny, with occasional horse-slaying swords aimed at the top of your skull" is a perfectly valid weather forecast in that age of carnage.

That said, while I stall for time with my natural-born talking skills, my brain is rapidly sorting through equipment and tactical options.

A long fight won't work. I've fought Lycagon and the Golden Scorpion through an entire night before, but at the end of the day they were AI-controlled monsters built on the premise that they could be defeated. Their behavior patterns had limits, which meant I could construct delay loops around them.

That won't work against Psyger-100, standing in front of me with thirty-five swords and who knows how many possible attack patterns. The longer this goes, the more her sheer number of options will overwhelm me. So it has to be a short decisive fight... except that's difficult too.

Now that I know she has cards besides Arouse, charging in carelessly would be the worst possible move. If I have no idea what she might throw at me, then blindly charging permanently invisible Lycagon without a plan would actually be easier. So what do I do? Truthfully, I've already reached the answer.

Sunraku: "Seriously... Don't tell me your real objective is to drag the Uniques I'm holding out into broad daylight."

Psyger-100: "Oh? Are you going to show me something?"

Sunraku: "Yeah... Tell me, Psyger-100. You understand that what's carved into my body now is something different from 'Lycagon's curse,' right?"

Psyger-100: "...Yes. It is extremely frustrating to admit, but when it comes to Lycagon, you are ahead of us... no, ahead of me. If you were willing to explain, I would be very grateful."

I put away the Crimson Sea Fistband: Regalex Cestus and switch weapons. It feels wasteful when its effect still has time left, but if I'm going to use this next thing, there's no point keeping it out.

Sunraku: "This is Lycagon's Contusion. After I knocked that shitty wolf flat, I told it to 'do something about the curse,' and the bastard went and updated it. I can wear clothes now, but after three minutes they explode."

I can't use Conversion, strong monsters are drawn to me, and probably not even Saint-chan can remove it. It's a challenge run loaded with shitty bonus features, but the fact that there are still relief measures means I can't really complain to the devs either.

Sunraku: "While I was progressing a certain Unique, I actually found a way not to erase this 'curse,' but to cancel it out."

Psyger-100: "Cancel it out. That is interesting."

Sunraku: "Consider it repayment. I'll give you a demonstration too."

What I take out is a strange weapon. If I had to describe it, it would be "a dagger with the blade removed." Like a ballistic knife after its blade has been fired, something that has lost ninety percent of what makes a dagger a dagger — less a weapon than a simple stick meant to be gripped.

But if you look closely, there's a strange crystal mounted in the center of the guard, exactly where the base of the blade should be. Needless to say, it is a crystallized component of the "curse" originating from the self-proclaimed Goldhuneenay I encountered in that underground-tunnel death match... the Unique Monster Goldhuneenay the Inexhaustible.

Sunraku: "Apparently it's called Shakkotsu Breaker. This thing has the curse of the Unique Monster... Goldhuneenay the Inexhaustible built into it."

What those words mean is very simple: I am already fighting a fourth Unique Monster. Everyone here except Rei-shi reacts with palpable shock.

Sunraku: "And then you do this...!"

I squeeze the grip hard. A nonphysical blade forms on the bladeless dagger, turning it into a vicious cursed weapon capable of inflicting a mild curse even with an ordinary swing. Then I reverse its point and drive the blade into my own body.

Sunraku: "And over here too!"

I yank Shakkotsu Breaker out of my torso and drive it down into my right thigh. Incidentally, once I stab the right thigh, the effect apparently spreads to the left side too, so there's no need for a third stab. Such incredibly tiny consideration brings tears to my eyes. Ptooey!

Psyger-100: "I may have to change my plans..."

Sunraku: "Meaning?"

Psyger-100: "Just how much Unique content... are you hiding...?"

Sunraku: "...Heh."

I wasn't laughing at Psyger-100. I just stopped and thought about it: I skipped even the tutorial, immediately moved into a Unique Monster's stronghold, and from there all the way to now, just how many unique experiences have I piled up? The answer made me laugh at myself.

Sunraku: "Come at me with everything, Master of the Sword. From here on, I'm shifting up about three gears."

Psyger-100: "...That... appearance..."

Crack. A sound that clearly does not belong inside a human body. Starting from the wounds where I drove in Shakkotsu Breaker, fissures spread across my torso and legs. I'd been wearing a fish mask so she couldn't read where I was going to teleport, but from here on even the slightest obstruction to my vision would be irritating. I switch to the Lacedaemon Helm. The spreading wounds stop just short of reaching my face and waist — and flames leak from the cracks.

Sunraku: "You know, 'shakkotsu' — burning bones — is another name for bokkotsu, an ancient kind of divination."

Burn the bones, crack them apart, and read good fortune or bad omens from the way they split. A primitive game of chance. Cancel a curse with another curse, break your own body, and divine what comes next. Who will be the good omen and who will be the bad? Or maybe... whose bad omen will I become?

You hear that, Netherlight? Today's the day you make your debut.

Sunraku: "Yeah, I definitely prefer fighting by setting my heart on fire instead of paving a river. Let's make it a game of chicken and see which of us burns out first!"

In the end, the way to deal with Psyger-100 and her huge hand of cards is simple.

She can have a hundred cards. If I blow her away before she can use them, they're the same as no cards at all. Even if she has an answer to me, I'll crush her head-on with a trump card pushed so far that answering it is the only thing she has time to do!

If I'm fighting a player with boss-character specs, then I've got no choice but to give myself boss-character specs too!

The gears are still going up. Brace yourself!!

Shakkotsu Breaker

A cancellation dagger that temporarily nullifies an already-established "curse" by deliberately applying a materialized "curse" to the user's own body.

It activates when used to stab the user, nullifying the "curse" applied to them for five minutes.

In exchange, the user's bodily VIT — excluding additional values granted by equipment — is halved.

It is hatred. It is fury. It is the serpent's fang that bites down even upon curses, and the venom within that fang. The body cracks. The curses devour one another. Should the wielder's will submit to the curse, that body will shatter.

It's a genuinely harsh drawback, yet for some reason it barely functions as a drawback at all.

Even Goldhuneenay probably never imagined someone could have VIT so pathetic that its malice would be completely ignored.