Chapter 362: Vice Is a Poison Sweet as Honey
Damn. I shouldn't have thought "let's just leave it to luck and rock-paper-scissors this once." As with dealing with deviants, I should've switched my hand at the last second. Pro tip: start with scissors. Moving to paper just takes three fingers, and to rock, only two.
Deep Throater: "Look, look, Sunraku-kuun! Being able to hold two rods at once — isn't that insane?"
The first to plunge a hand into the pool of blood — Deep Throater, as the rock-paper-scissors winner — obtained a red gemstone accessory: Hand of Craving. This accessory, by consuming two accessory slots, grants an extra equipment slot. The sight of a bright-red arm sprouting from somewhere behind her left shoulder radiates a creepiness that's hard to describe, but given how it moves in creepy sync with its owner's leering face, it's probably controlled by the wearer's will.
Sunraku: "Giving a pervert an extra hand — isn't that the insane part?"
Deep Throater: "Three places at once, yeah..."
No comment.
Next up, second place Tottori draws a pair of boots with metal parts resembling the hooked claws of a bird of prey. Why do I feel like the real prize just got snatched away from me...?
Tottori: "Necrophagy... apparently, if you kick a monster right before it vanishes, you can get an extra item separate from the normal drop."
Sunraku: "(A look that says: nice...)"
Tottori: "Also... huh. It anchors your body in unstable spots, like on top of trees."
Sunraku: "(A look that says: reeeally nice!!)"
Tottori: "Whoa, it's crazy light!"
Sunraku: "...Assassination."
Tottori: "Huh? What was that?"
Sunraku: "NOTHING AT ALL. GOOD FOR YOU."
The fact that Emul, perched on my head, twitched means she might've taken the joke seriously. A joke, I said, a joke... W-well, all I have to do is pull a reward way better than some hook boots, right!?
Sunraku: "Just watch. My LUC has reached a new horizon... Here goes, namusan!!"
Squelch!!
Eugh, it's lukewarm... Actually, thinking about it rationally, isn't my hand clearly sinking way past ground level right now...? Hm, something's touching my hand! What is it? Bumpy? No, more like a hole... whatever, let's just yank it out.
Sunraku: "Heave-ho!!"
What my hand pulled out grips a skull — big enough to easily cover a person's head — of some beast? Dragon? Some kind of carnivorous monster I can't quite identify.
Emul: "You dug up a corpse, waa!!?"
Sunraku: "Ow ow ow! C-calm down, Emul! Stop pulling my hair!!"
We were just fighting something thousands of times worse than this a minute ago, don't freak out over this much. Ow ow ow ow.
Tottori: "From the looks of it... a headgear?"
Sunraku: "...No, that's not it. This is an item."
Same type of item as the Holy Grail. Let's see, the name is... "Broad Crown... what an overblown name." Well, whatever. What matters is what's inside.
Broad Crown A reward for defeating the Great Red Devourer. A bizarre red skull crown that resembles the upper jaw of a beast. Triggered by chanting "Blood Heart," it envelops the user's entire body and activates the first stage of the Demi Conversion effect. The user transforms into a red monster for 300 seconds. Stats continue to rise as conditions are met. Killing any Mob with HP — player, NPC, or enemy — increases max HP and MP and boosts all stats. However, a berserk check triggers every 30 seconds. If at least three kills are not achieved across the ten total berserk checks, the user enters the Hunger Rampage state. This changes the user's race to Erebos Bloodroots and their avatar is controlled by AI. Additionally, after five minutes, Hunger Rampage is forced regardless, and after one minute of rampaging, HP reaches zero.
Who are you!? I am you! Wrong! I lost! I am you! I am blood! Blood! Flesh! I am "Red"!! The soul is you! I hunger! You are me! That is the end! I hunger! You hunger too! So... so I devour everything!!
Sunraku: "........."
Deep breath... Okay. Emul, let me teach you one thing about how to use this skull right away.
Sunraku: "THIS OVERLAPS LIKE HELL WITH R.I.P.!!"
Thwack! The red skull, kicked at full power, spins through the air.
Tottori: "Black drawers, huh..."
Sunraku: "Hat trick, here goes!!"
Deep Throater: "Ahn—"
After punting the falling red skull into Deep Throater with a trick-shot, I've calmed down a bit. I pick the thing — Broad Crown — back up. No, strictly speaking, the effects are different. Since it's an item, it probably doesn't conflict with equipment slots — meaning they can coexist. But that's one thing, this is another... Having the drop from a raid monster you fought tooth and nail to beat turn out to be a reskin of gear you already have stings the mental HP more than a little.
Sunraku: "Also, this quietly drops way too much major lore..."
What the hell is "Erebos Bloodroots"? Just this info alone feels like enough to knock Library flat on their ass.
Sunraku: "So basically, this is one of those 'if you use it too much, you won't be able to turn back into a human' kinda deals..."
Deep Throater: "Oh? Yours has that kind of effect too? Mine also has this fun little effect where it auto-attacks the wearer if you take too much damage..."
Tottori: "Mine supposedly loses defense and durability bit by bit... Equipment VIT ending up at 1 is insane, right? It completely stops functioning as armor..."
Sunraku: "Oh? Is that a declaration of war against me, Mr. VIT 1?"
The three of us fall silent in our own ways. Ahh, so basically... raid monster drops are items loaded with both broken-tier performance and garbage-tier demerits at high levels. That's the deal, I guess. Yeah, well... anyway, good work, everyone!!
Still, they say a field trip isn't over until you're home. Not that its existence had completely slipped my mind or anything — it was purely a matter of thought-priority relegation. Anyway, at any rate, we must go pick up the reason we're here in the first place: the king, and Arfeari— no, Aria.
Sunraku: "So, where'd the elves who ran off with the king and the others go?"
Tottori: "Huh?"
Deep Throater: "Huh?"
Why are you both making that "Wait, you don't know?" face? There's no way I'd know. If anything, you — being the hero of the elves — are the one who should obviously know... wait. Hold on.
Sunraku: "Don't tell me... the ones who ran off... got lost?"
Silence spreads across the area. No, no way. That can't be... no way...
Tottori: "At this point, they're probably inside some beast's stomach..."
Deep Throater: "No, hold on, Sunraku-kun. Tentacle attacks! If it was tentacle attacks, they might still be alive!?"
The fact that we might seriously have to bet on that possibility is way too post-apocalyptic...
Sunraku: "But what do we do? When you think elves, you've also got the orc route."
Deep Throater: "Oh no, if that's the case, the men might actually be dead!?"
Tottori: "...No, I heard orcs are extinct, at least in this forest."
At this shocking information from Tottori, the expression that surfaced on Deep Throater's face was truly beyond words.
Deep Throater: "N-no... my 'Unleash a Horde of Orcs on a Group of Fair-Looking Players and Record It' plan..."
Don't casually plot heinous MPKs, you piece of shit. Actually, even if you did that on the New Land, the player quality's so high you'd probably just get wiped out.
Tottori: "S-still... no, if we could at least find their remains..."
Emul: "Sunraku-san, operating on the assumption they're dead is not good, wa. Actually, they're alive and coming this way, wa?"
Sunraku: "Ghosts, huh..."
Emul: "Y-you're stubbornly refusing to believe they're alive, wa!?"
I mean, you're cowards and non-combatants, right? Left alone for hours and still alive... whoa, it's true. They're really alive.
Alolan Marowak, fully appealing to the original tragedy. Nice.
The one and only being to reach the extreme, and one half of the pair that brought an end to the Origin. Their clash was inevitable; the jet-black god pecked at the world with its beak so that it alone might become the one and only.