Chapter 366: Secret Keeper of Antinomy

A weaker opponent defeating a stronger one—giant-killing, a beloved staple of stories since ancient times—is never going to become a miracle if the weaker side does not understand the gap between them.

Speed and accuracy seem to be his selling points, but unfortunately for him, I am pretty confident in both my mobility and my critical-hit rate.

And unlike last time, if I can focus entirely on beating Julian down without worrying about anyone behind me or any of the other knights, then dodging attacks that do nothing but peck away at my vital points and carving him up in return is easy.

Sunraku: "Ohoho, your DPS simply isn't enough."

Julian: "Guh... gwoh...!!"

Julian collapses to the ground, his whole body cut to ribbons. I've unlocked my level cap, acquired triple-digit Skills, and even have buffs on top of that. His specs were never going to be enough to beat me now.

Sunraku: "Now then. It'd be easy enough to finish you off here..."

Come to think of it, if I kill him with an Avenger Skill, does that mean my Karma Value won't go up? But if I test it and my name turns red, that could cause all kinds of trouble...

Julian: "Die!!"

Sunraku: "Do forgive my dreadful footwork."

Julian: "Fugeh!?"

The heel of my high-heeled shoe punches straight into Julian's forehead as he tries to launch a surprise attack from where he lies on the ground. Too bad for him, I'm used to fighting in heels. Female-character gear tends to prioritize appearance, so you wind up with high heels and skirts and all kinds of inconvenient stuff...

Julian: "Y-you bastard...!"

My treat. Go ahead and have all the dirt you can eat... Hah! Treating somebody else to a mouthful of dirt is the best!!

Still, what am I supposed to do now...? After showing myself in front of everyone, scampering off from here would be pretty anticlimactic. But killing him isn't exactly an option I want to choose either. Hmm...

???: "I've heard the whole story, Fräulein?"

Sunraku: "Uwah."

What is with this pretentious pretty boy? Put on some glasses. Glasses. Then Ms. Iwamaki can make you one of her staple foods... in the strategic sense.

He just showed up out of nowhere and is acting way too familiar... Some IRL-hookup creep? Fool. Without even considering that the person behind this avatar is a man... Heh heh heh. Let's have a look at the name of this idiot.

PN: Arthur Pencilgon

Pencilgon: "Why don't you leave this to me... Sa-n-ra-ku-kun?"

Sunraku: "Fweee..."

Why the hell did you turn into some decadent pretty-boy type...? Akitsu Akane got turned into a musclebound old man... I don't understand Ctarnidd-kun's taste... Are his sexual preferences abyssal or something...?

Sunraku: "W-why are you here...? You were supposed to have gone back to Fifticia!"

Pencilgon: "Nfufufufu... Did you know, young lady? Ships are capable of traveling across the sea."

What are you talking about........... No way.

Sunraku: "You came all the way here from Ruluiath by ship!?"

Pencilgon: "Correct. Oh, it was one hell of a trip, you know...? We ran out of food, starved to death, revived, starved again..."

What kind of death march is that? Just go back to the old continent normally... Why the hell did you come to the New Land...?

Sunraku: "So Oikatzo and the others are here too?"

Pencilgon: "Of course. And with that established, allow me to present you with a choice... Commander Julian of the Third Knight Order?"

The true reason behind the First Prince's incomprehensible coup is now out in the open. His Conquistador-like scheme to enslave the demi-human races of the New Land has tilted player opinion overwhelmingly toward the former king... no, the rightful king, Toravante.

Of course, opinions almost never become completely unanimous anywhere, so once the information spreads there will probably be players who side with the new king too. Even accounting for that, though, there is no way the NPCs alone can force their way through this situation. In other words: checkmate.

Most importantly, there are the elves brought here by Tottori... no, by that guy, plus Pencilgon's Ctarnidd raid group, who came all the way from Ruluiath to the New Land through a respawn death march. If the clans Black Blade and Library are both backing Toravante, then Julian and the other NPCs do not have even one chance in ten thousand of winning.

Sunraku: "No matter how many times you cut them down, they just come back to life..."

An endlessly respawning horde of hardcore players is peak shit-game nonsense. I should train Scarlet Scar-kun right into them...

Anyway, with Julian beaten to hell by me, the Third Knight Order is now effectively in prisoner-of-war status.

Fortunately for them—or maybe not—none of the players here wanted to raise their Karma Value just to slaughter every last member of the Third Knight Order. Which is precisely why the demon, wearing the sleaziest grin imaginable, gets to toy with the inconvenient prisoners instead.

Pencilgon: "Now then. Shall I have you charge the lord of this jungle until the very last one of you is dead, or shall I graciously send you home on that ship...? Which option will the wise knight commander choose?"

Julian: "Y-you fiend...!"

I know.

Apparently I wasn't the only one muttering that. Looking through the crowd, I found that satellite-class crossplaying pro gamer staring into the distance with exactly the same dead-eyed expression.

He noticed me looking at him, turned his face my way... and quietly looked away. What the hell? Why are you pretending you don't know me, asshole?

Sunraku: "Oikatzo-kuuun?"

Oikatzo: "Don't shuffle toward me like that! It's creepy!"

Sunraku: "Don't be so cold... Why're you pretending we're strangers, huh? Hm?"

Oikatzo: "Maybe take a look at what you're wearing..."

Hm?

Sunraku: "I'm cute, aren't I?"

Oikatzo: "You clash catastrophically with the morning sun, dumbass."

Like a vampire going for a swim at the beach? Then again, the original True Quiet goes out regardless of the time of day.

Oikatzo: "Somehow, everything around you alone feels gloomy."

Sunraku: "Wouldn't a person who literally emitted negative ions be terrifying?"

Oikatzo: "There's already somebody giving off a negative aura right in front of me."

Sunraku: "...Says the guy whose entire life is in the passive voice."

Oikatzo: "All right, fight me! For a limited time, this one's absolutely free!"

Sunraku: "Cooling-off period—physical edition, asshole!"

Pencilgon: "Heeey, stop having a stupid humanities-versus-sciences fight. This is technically supposed to be a serious scene."

Be grateful your luck kept you from becoming prey to my return-policy fist... Still, demands made from a position of total inequality are never anything good. They can charge the lord of the jungle—Scarlet Scar—or get shipped all the way back to the old continent on Pencilgon's sailing ship. Wait, aren't both options basically death...?

???: "What an awful person."

???: "Seriously."

???: "And your honest opinion?"

Oikatzo: "Why not strip off all their gear and use them as fish bait? Mother Nature will dispose of the evidence for us, so it's fine, it's fine. If everybody keeps quiet, it's basically an accident."

Sunraku: "If they respawned, we could've used them as infinite leveling sandbags... Couldn't we recycle them with resurrection magic or something?"

Oikatzo: "That is some champion-grade bastardry."

Oikatzo aside, I'm a nature-loving human being who knows how to care for the natural world... Anyway, enough joking around.

Sunraku: "Personally, I'd recommend the survival voyage. If you charge Scarlet Scar-kun, you don't have even one chance in ten thousand of winning."

???: "Huh? I thought the boss of this forest was that thing called Scarred?"

Sunraku: "............IT'S A FIGURE OF SPEECH."

???: "SEIZE HIM!!"

Sunraku: "Gueeeh!"

Stop it! I've only got 1 HP, so if you're careless with me I'll die instantly!

Pencilgon: "How about you finally cough up everything you've been keeping to yourself, including that matter? Hm?"

Sunraku: "That matter............ Which one?"

Pencilgon: "The fact that there are multiple candidates is already the problem..."

I mean, yeah. I've definitely been hoarding too much information by myself. Rabituza is one thing, but when it comes to raid bosses and the like, I probably should be making the information public.

But—

Sunraku: "Is this really the attitude you take when you're trying to get information out of me for free? Hmmm?"

Demanding information from me while you've got me pinned from behind is just a little against the code, isn't it?

...I say that like it's about principle, but really I'm just pissed that they got one over on me and now I have to spill what I know.

Sunraku: "Fine, fine. I'll talk, I'll talk. So what do you want to know? This beautiful girl, Sunrako-chan, will answer your questions."

All right, you there. In honor of the courage it took to raise your hand first even though we have absolutely no relationship with each other.

???: "Uhh... what kinds of raid monsters have you encountered so far?"

Hm, sharp question... I guess players who've put enough time into this game to reach the New Land really do have good instincts. Then again, Re... Revenges? Or whatever they were called weren't much to write home about... Whatever.

Something about the movement of that player's mouth feels subtly off... Lag, maybe?

Sunraku: "Raids... raids, huh... Great Red Devourer, Crazed Horde of Blue... Ah, come to think of it, maybe that Burning Broccoli was a raid monster too. Its place in the setting kind of feels like one..."

???: "——Heeh. Now that's interesting..."

The player I had pointed to has their mouth closed. And yet the voice alone echoes through empty space, each syllable shifting its tone back toward one I know far too well.

Sunraku: "Y-you bastard—Deep Throater!?"

Deep Throater: "You let your guard down, Sunraku-kuuun..."

No way. This bastard was hiding behind them while copying their voice...!?

Pencilgon: "You know, you're acting all 'Impossible!?' about it, but you literally just let it slip yourself, Sunraku-kun."

Sunraku: "Hah!?"

Now then. How the hell do I escape from here? If they catch me, I feel like I'll be tied up for half a day.

Visually, this is completely a handsome glasses guy making a move on a widow.

Even if the avatar is a beautiful girl, it matters a lot when the expressions leaking out from the person inside are hidden...

I'd like to write the Pencilgon squad's Ruluiath conquest log someday. (I never said it would be soon.)