Chapter 343: Dragons, O Dragons! Part Eight
Ahh, so I died.
I guess the second phase was foreshadowing in a way. When the third phase began, it was supposed to be just a tail, but before I knew it, a head had grown out of it.
And after the first and second phases were nothing but physical attacks, now it suddenly unlocks breath attacks. Better yet, every head it grows can fire one at the same time. Come on.
Sunraku: "...N... ...i...!"
This is bad. Now that the makeshift save point the elves built has been dismantled, the last save point that still exists is probably Skull Azuchi. Even if I want to meet back up with Tottori and the others who escaped, I would have to wander through the forest with no clue where they went.
Emul: "...Hey... wake... up... seriously...!"
And seriously, what the hell is with that third phase? Does it add and remove parts depending on the situation? Unlock new motions? More importantly, what about those mystery crystals that might as well have been screaming, "If you don't destroy these first, the difficulty won't change!" ...Ah, damn it. More than any of that, I'm furious that I lost before that freak did! He's absolutely going to mock me with something like, "Premature!? Are you prematureeeee~???" At this point I'll just MPK him or hire Kyotimate so I can get rid of him without dirtying my own hands...
Sunraku: "Ahh... Emul... help."
Emul: "Good morning wake-up kick, wa—KICK!!"
Sunraku: "Bugeeeeh!?"
Impact to the stomach...! Then the recoil folds me into a V against the ground and smashes the back of my head too. Twin impact...!!
No way. The beds at Skull Azuchi aren't supposed to be this hard... huh?
Emul: "Sunraku-san, come back to your senses, wa! The fight isn't over, waa—!"
Sunraku: "Huh? Why is Emul here?"
You left the party normally, didn't you...? No, wait. What the hell is happening right in front of me...?
Unidentified Elf 1: "Kh... stay as far away as possible! Avenge Riane and Halfon... and take back our homeland!"
Unidentified Elf 2: "Eek! It looked this way!"
Unidentified Elf 3: "Don't run! Stand and fight!"
If I had to give this scene a title, it would be something like People With Absolutely No Horror-Game Tolerance Desperately Trying to Clear One Anyway. I know it's in bad taste, but watching other people cry and scream from the sidelines is funny as hell... which means I'm having fun right now.
But that does not matter. The most important thing right now is that the elves, who were supposed to leave this place and head for the frontline base, are somehow poking away at the Great Red Devourer.
Sunraku: "What the hell is going on... Tottori?"
Tottori: "If I had to put it into words... 'To see what is right and not do it is cowardice,' maybe? Besides, if I hadn't fired that revival item at you, you'd be properly dead right now. I was expecting a little more gratitude..."
Sunraku: "Revival... seriously? Then we're still in the middle of the fight!"
I still had maybe a twenty-percent suspicion that this was some kind of dream ending, but after seeing Tottori tap the slingshot attached to his arm, I finally realized that I had actually been revived.
Wait, that thing can fire items too? I want one so damn badly. Can I get one if I threaten the elves?
Sunraku: "No, put the extortion aside for now..."
Tottori: "Extortion?"
Sunraku: "Put it aside. Way off to the side. More importantly, why are the elves fighting? Their priority was staying alive, not taking back their homeland."
I had considered the small possibility that Tottori might come back. He's a player, after all. If you take it to the extreme, there is no real need for him to stay committed to the elves, and it would not be strange for him to decide he wanted to see a raid monster for the first time.
Turns out he was more immersed in the role-playing than I expected. I never thought he would actually come back because of the flow of the role-play.
Still, now that he has come back, one thing is bothering me.
Sunraku: "Hey. I mean... I get why Emul is here. But I'm pretty sure I left two other people with you..."
Tottori: "The king is with Raymond and Lacetta... uh, two of the higher-level elves. Apparently he's being targeted? Or something. I figured it would be bad to send him to the base with only a tiny group."
Sunraku: "The king is?"
Hey, hey. The way you said that makes it sound like the princess was handled separately.
Tottori: "As for the princess... uh, well, this is really hard to say... she's being used as monster bait..."
Sunraku: "Good jo—gh! Ahem! What the hell are you doing!?"
Tottori: "No, what almost came out of your mouth just now is way more shocking..."
Shut up! I did not think, Oh, if she dies in an accident, that's legal and risk-free! It's her face's fault for looking like Fuckaria! Fuckaria, I tell you!!
Sunraku: "You do realize that if the princess dies, we're pretty much headed for a bad ending, right? You know that?"
Tottori: "Spare me the lecture while we're fighting... It's not like I abandoned her. That princess has some kind of ridiculously broken accessory, so I don't think she'll die that easily."
A ridiculously broken accessory?
Tottori: "It reflects the AGI and DEX of another person in the same party onto the wearer."
Sunraku: "What? That's insanely broken."
Just having me in the party would turn Rei-shi or Massive Dynamite into a hyper-speed, ultra-firepower weapon of destruction. What the hell, that's broken. Compared with that, Inventoria is not such a big deal... okay, it still is, but just because it got nerfed does not mean it stopped being ridiculous.
The fact that it can store almost anything nonliving is already insane. Actually, wait, it can put the wearer inside too, and the wearer is organic.
Tottori: "Well, she said something like, 'It's been passed down through the royal family for generations,' so I think it's probably an exclusive item."
Sunraku: "Ah, so it's bloodline-related..."
Even if there were a marriage system and I married into the royal family, I doubt I would be allowed to use it. Thinking about it again, though, maybe that item exists specifically so an NPC can keep pace with a player's movement in a situation like this?
No, wait. This is not the time to get excited about accessories. Oh, there goes Deep Throater flying through the air again... Tama-yaaa~
Sunraku: "Even with all that, don't use a princess NPC as bait... Are you fearless or just insane?"
Tottori: "No, she volunteered... and that thing keeps targeting the princess and Erina anyway..."
That thing? I'm curious what he means, but I see. She volunteered.
...If she died, it would be an accident. Not my fault. So maybe that would be fine? No, it would not. My Vorpal Soul might drop if things go badly. It seems to sink fast when you play like a coward... source: Emul's attitude.
More importantly, why does Tottori look so relaxed? Deep Throater is still getting blasted around with cockroach-level toughness, while the elves keep shouting brave things even though their bodies are committed to cautious chicken play.
Their bows are doing so little damage that even the Great Red Devourer looks like it is wondering, Which of these weaklings should I kill first? ...Ah, I get it. Their attacks are so weak that the aggro is scattering all over the place. Even a raid monster probably does not want to fire a full-power breath just to swat a mosquito.
But that unstable balance will collapse the moment the Great Red Devourer gets serious. If it decides to start crushing them with physical attacks, for example, there will absolutely be casualties. So why...?
Tottori: "How do I put this... This is just a guess, but I think the Great Migration of the Forest People: Immigrant Elf scenario has a boss monster of its own."
Sunraku: "What does that have to do with anyth—... wait. Wait, wait, wait. Don't tell me..."
Tottori: "Actually, before I met up with you guys, I made it near the frontline base a few times. But every time, that thing got in my way. If you don't seriously run for it, it'll chase you forever..."
In that case, Tottori says, baring his teeth in a nasty grin. At the same moment, vibrations from a mass moving in a way completely different from the Great Red Devourer travel up through the ground and into my thoughts.
Tottori: "So I figured, why not make it fight the raid monster?"
Tottori says the luring is already finished.
All that remains is for the two elves traveling with Aria—Erina and Hesh—to run to the designated point and lure it to the final location. Until then, every elf here only has to buy time.
And when Tottori rushed back here to explain the plan, he found me getting completely blown away by a direct breath hit from the head growing out of the tail, so he used the one revival item he had kept for an emergency.
Tottori: "Ah, let me introduce you, Sunraku. That thing has beaten back countless players, and it even defeated the joint subjugation force from Team 10PM..."
Scarred, the three-headed T-Rex. By the way, did you properly deal with that Third Knight Order person on your back with the sword whose name I forgot? The one that was something like an 'explanation sword'?
Tottori reveals its identity almost at the exact same moment that the three-headed tyrannosaurus appears amid explosive flames. Scars cover its entire body, yet it stands with the majesty of an emperor—a rex that seems to declare that it stands at the end of victory and has nothing to do with the weakness called defeat.
Scarred: "Gwoooooaaahhhhhh!!!"
Wait, isn't whoever wins this fight just going to become our enemy!?
The hero arrives late.