Chapter 415: Let Your Heart Die as It Wills, and When It's Time to Earn, Follow Your Heart

WIMP: "Eugh... hic... ngh..."

She was seriously crying. Real sobbing, the kind that threw away every last advantage of being a beautiful girl.

Sunraku: "Honestly, I'm sorry... I had no idea the culprit was that much of a screwup..."

The culprit—the screwup—was currently being made to dig a hole in the ground and then fill it back in as punishment. It had been glitching out about Intelligence this and Intelligence that, so it could waste some Intelligence there for a while.

WIMP: "No jelly... no jelly... motor cortex... mana... purge... extend..."

Sunraku: "Uh... want some meat? It's got some chew to it."

WIMP: "L-let me sleep..."

Well, yeah. Can't blame her. Since we went to the trouble of buying all this stuff, let's set up the furniture! Yeah!!

Emul: "Um... are you okay, waa?"

WIMP: "You rabbit... where do I look okay to you...?"

Emul: "I don't really get that steel person, but if you're going to keep dealing with Sunraku-san, getting used to it is important, waa... I've gone on so many huge adventures that before I knew it, I just started accepting things like this, waa."

WIMP: "............What's your name?"

Emul: "I'm Emul, waa."

WIMP: "Somehow, you don't feel like a stranger to me... Nice to meet you, Em-chan."

Emul: "Y-you've got a more sensible head on your shoulders than Sunraku-san, waa...!?"

I'll let it slide in light of your contribution as our fast-travel unit this time... but there won't be a next time, Emul.

Emul: "Sunraku-san! Sunraku-san! I-I'm sensible, waa!"

Sunraku: "Sammy-chan-san's even more sensible."

Emul: "Sunraku-san, is your head okay, waa?"

Sunraku: "Yep, you're out."

Emul: "Honyyaaaah!?"

I grabbed Emul by the scruff of the neck and sentenced her to a light shaking. Leaving the dizzy Emul staggering around on unsteady feet, I looked over the transformed cave once again.

Saina: "There is a discrepancy in civilization level."

Sunraku: "Hey, did you fill in the hole?"

Saina: "Affirmative."

Sunraku: "Then go dig it again."

Saina: "Ahh, Intelligence is being wasted...!!"

Leveling was basically the same thing. What mattered was having some rhythm to it.

The toughness to keep repeating simple work was essential, but anyone who couldn't take a proper breather would break mentally. Only someone who could anesthetize most of the pain with a small amount of compromise could become a first-rate worker.

Sunraku: "Still, the level itself really is going up..."

Level 79. That was still trash by New World standards, but from the perspective of power-leveling, this was absurdly good. At the very least, it was far more respectable leveling than knocking huge numbers of scorpions off a cliff.

Sunraku: "What exactly did you do?"

Saina: "Answer: I deliberately let groups of male Armlet Gargantulas notice us, lured them into the cave, and had WIMP defeat members of the same species one by one as they advanced through the passage in single file."

I see. So that was why the passage had been expanded so strangely in both width and height.

Saina: "Then I had WIMP consume the harvested Jelly Material, resume combat, and repeat the same process in a loop..."

Sunraku: "I see?"

That was one hell of a self-sustaining system. The worst part was that it actually worked.

So I tried it myself.

Sunraku: "Bring it on!!"

I planted myself halfway down the passage and cut down the Armlet Gargantulas as they came in. They formed such a nice orderly line that targets kept replenishing themselves one after another... ah, there was an explosion in the back, then a chain reaction, which meant it was coming toward the front...

Sunraku: "Wai—"

I instinctively tried to kick one back, but if they were all lined up single-file, that meant the back was jammed full...

Sunraku: "Gwah!?"

The Armlet Gargantula I kicked away slammed into the spider behind it and bounced back. Then it detonated, and the shockwave hit me head-on, sending my body flying with ease...

Sunraku: "......"

I slowly crawled out of Bryubas.

Saina: "Assurance: Armlet Gargantula self-destruction chains together. Once they have all self-destructed, a cooldown occurs, so... shall we continue?"

Sunraku: "You bet your ass we are!!"

Come on, spiders! And while we're at it, let's celebrate getting our new base set up! I'll pick a fight with every spider, centipede, and scorpion around heeeeeere!!

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A person whose heart is joyful never grows weary even after walking all day, but if the heart is burdened, even a single ri becomes tiresome.

Life's road is the same. A person must always walk through life with a bright and joyful heart.

When Mr. Takeda had said that with absolute confidence, I'd thought, Whoa, amazing! But now even the feeling I had when I later looked it up and found out it was just a straight-up stolen line felt nostalgic.

In other words, work is better when you enjoy it. Though it's more efficient if you do it with your heart in suspended animation.

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Sunraku: "............"

WIMP: "Morning... wait, why do you look totally burned out!?"

Emul: "Just leave Sunraku-san alone, waa. This is normal, waa."

Saina: "This is the result of rushing toward death even after a total of thirty-eight revivals. I see no issue."

Spiders strong... centipedes strong... no way anyone can solo those... scorpions really are where it's at, nyeh...

Well, mutual kills and other nonsense had gotten me materials from the dead spiders and centipedes, so I was in the black overall. Along the way, I'd been turned into artillery shells together with the Armlet Gargantulas and forced to go for a ride in a way that was kind of hard to put into words.

Front-row seat, too. I got bitten by the centipede's mouth, then it went scrape, scrape... heh. All I could see was dust clouds and flying stones.

Sunraku: "Fortress Gargantula Armored Wall Carapace, Anchor Hairs, Turret Mechanism Fragments... Treynor Centipede Gustaf Heavy-Strike Carapace, Charging Legs, Mortar Carapace Cannon Fragments... and all kinds of Alexand Scorpion materials... Nice. Things are getting good."

The carapaces looked like they'd make excellent armor, but I'd already thrown defense away. If I used them for a weapon, though, what would work... a shield? A tower shield would be hard to use with my build, and fist weapons would overlap with Gilta Brille. Man, what a luxurious problem...

Sunraku: "All right, I'm going scorpion hunting."

Emul, WIMP, and Saina—three people of three different species—all gave me the exact same exasperated look... but I wanted an Alexand Scorpion's Twin-Core Treasure. The drop rate didn't seem that bad, and I already had two, but I wanted one more.

Tomorrow... or rather, technically today was my day off, so I wanted to clear Fuuun Prejiden over today and tomorrow too. This had turned into one hell of a long detour.

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Pickaxes excel at breaking specific parts, while fists can land effective blunt hits.

I'd already figured out eighty percent of the attack patterns. The remaining twenty percent were for when I was completely at range, so I didn't need to worry about those right now.

Sunraku: "We're in the home stretch... Hand over that heart—your core."

A laser fired. At the outer edge, the light would only flow away into the distance.

After I'd defeated several scorpions, the territories within Crystal Crown had shifted. At the very least, if the total number of scorpions had dropped, each remaining territory had probably expanded.

Which meant I had more freedom to move too...! (Five losses.)

Sunraku: "There!!"

I dodged the Alexand Scorpion as it whipped around the tail I'd dug through and severed halfway down and charged its massive body forward with only one claw left. I swung the point of my pickaxe into its leg head-on, meeting its own momentum.

A sharp crack rang out, and the scorpion's leg shattered, scattering fragments through the air. A nasty creaking sounded all through its body as though speaking in place of the voiceless scorpion's groan.

The moment of the finish seemed linked to the arrival of dawn itself. From the far, far edge of the horizon, the sunrise reached us as though repainting the night-colored world...

Sunraku: "Whoa!?"

At that instant, as if someone had started knocking over dominoes, the Tsaberil Imperial Treasure Crystals growing throughout Crystal Crown all changed color at once, shifting from blood-red to a mysterious azure.

For one brief instant, every color in my vision was dyed azure. For one brief instant, the environment itself matched the scorpion's body color. That was the signal for the Alexand Scorpion's final counterattack.

With Crystal Crown now nearly identical to it in both body color and physical makeup, the scenery became a paradoxical form of camouflage. Moving its many missing, gap-toothed legs, the Alexand Scorpion circled around to my side at tremendous speed, then turned crimson.

It thrust its one remaining claw forward and unleashed a strike that wrung out every last bit of strength left in its body.

Too naive. Too naive, Alexand Scorpion...! The True Eye Bird Mask applies visual correction to whatever I look at directly. But conversely, that means I can also feel the wrongness when my target leaves my field of view.

Sunrise. Scorpion. The finish. In that fleeting instant that stirred a sense of fateful déjà vu, my body dodged the beam and twisted into a throwing stance.

Sunraku: "A parting gift for the finish! Like hell I'm giving you one!!"

The pickaxe I hurled with a full swing spun end over end as it tore through the air. Its point, packed with all the energy of the throw, buried itself in the Alexand Scorpion's forehead?

The scorpion's huge body twitched once and froze. Then the legs supporting it buckled under its own weight, and the instant it collapsed to the ground, its body burst apart into drop items and vanished.

Sunraku: "I won..."

I'm used to this now. All right, first I deactivate Levin Trigger: Hazard and collect the items... Huh? Is something flashing behind me...?

I turned around. Among the crystals shining azure in the morning sun, one alone was blinking red and azure. The flashes came faster and faster... n-no way.

Sunraku: "The beam's properties... change between day and night...?"

Right. Like a bomb set to detonate after a delay...!!

Sunraku: "Wait—"

The azure-and-red crystal exploded. Crystal shards stabbed into my body, and the impact blew me away.

The last thing I saw was the Twin-Core Treasure split cleanly in two by the blast...

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My motivation hit zero, so I'm going to play Fuuun Prejiden as a breather from my breather. Wait, is that backwards?

Q. What happens when one coward comes face to face with another coward?

A. A victims' association gets formed.

The reason Tsuchinoko-neen hated the Vorpal Bunnies and the reason Bossdunine hates the Vorpal Bunnies are, strictly speaking, different.

WIMP doesn't particularly hate them because, given the underlying emotional dynamic, there is no longer any reason to hate Vorpal Bunnies.

People say, "If you hate the priest, you hate even his robes," but is stomping on the robes actually fun? That's the idea.

The Art of Delayed Yuzapa Cancel: Depicting the Final Phase of the Scorpion Fight!!