Wait!? I’m allowed to use Pangaea Moon to cheat the cost of nineteen Baraghiaras today!?

Fimbul still won’t drop, so here’s an update.

Chapter 462: Dragons, O Dragons! Part Thirty-Nine

The no-Skills restriction itself is fine.

The problem is that this is a raid battle, not a solo fight.

Aggro keeps flying all over the place, making it hard to tell when Siegwurm is actually looking at me.

Sunraku: “The moon... Good, it should hold a little longer.”

Every piece of the Golden Crystal Battle Garb: Exile Cross came with a built-in function that stored MP when exposed to moonlight.

The MP stored within Lapistella Cloak could only be used to cast the spell set into it. Exile Cross had no such restriction, which meant I could use its stored MP to cover the cost of Centipede Model 8-0.5 Tausend.

It also replenished MP continuously during battle as long as it remained under the moonlight.

That was the reason someone like me, whose actual MP stat was 100 or below, had been able to keep Centipede Model 8-0.5 running until now.

Sunraku: “Damn, he’s tough... Saiga-nee! How are the other copies doing?!”

Psyger-100: “Apparently attacks go through the other copies more easily than the main body, but this battle has dragged on for too long. Even when the players who withdrew to recover return, we will still lack the firepower.”

Sunraku: “Fighting him alongside the Color Dragons really was a design mistake...!!”

Damn you, Ritsu Amachi! Are you trying to turn even SLF into a trash game?!

But I won’t let you!

Watching a game I’ve grown reasonably attached to wither, die, and disappear is surprisingly painful, even if it is a trash game.

I’ll win this through sheer stubbornness...!!

As though agreeing with my determination, a single streak of light tore across the night sky.

Just like the previous three shots, it struck Siegwurm’s head—more specifically, one of his horns—without missing its intended mark by even a millimeter.

Siegwurm: “Ngh! Again...!”

Psyger-100: “...That accuracy is incredible.”

Sunraku: “Well, with no jungle in the way, that’s about what I’d expect from him...!”

This was a guy who could casually land headshots even with a musket made from flotsam.

Letting him operate a ship-mounted weapon was bound to produce results like this...!!

Yashirobird: “Hmm... Forty points for that one. I was aiming for the same horn.”

Yashirobird quietly gave his own shot a failing grade.

He leaned back against the firing seat and confirmed that another bolt was forming within the ballista, all while keeping the distant golden Dragon King firmly in sight.

Yashirobird: “Man... This is a great ship, Bryubas. I don’t really understand the name, but making the main gun a ballista is classy.”

The ocean-conquest ship Bryubas had naturally been built with combat on the water in mind.

Its structure clearly anticipated close-range fighting: an armed ram for head-on collisions and blade-wings on both sides of the hull for slashing enemies as the ship passed them.

But like any proper warship, it also carried a main gun.

The weapon installed at the center of the deck would originally have been nothing more than an ordinary ballista.

However, its “investor” had supplied enough Lapisteria Stellar Crystals to nearly buy an entire city. That allowed it to be modified into far more than a simple device for launching projectiles.

Its name was—

Type-Six Magic Ballista: Orcalight Lepnorca.

It formed bolts using magical energy supplied by Lapisteria Stellar Crystals, then launched them with tremendous force. It could best be described as a high-output, ship-mounted magic bow.

As an aside, its creator, Norman, had named everything up through “Ballista.”

“Orcalight” had been Sunraku’s contribution.

Yashirobird: “Having so many tanks around makes aiming nice and easy.”

Player: “W-Why is there a ship all the way out here...? Does this belong to you?”

Another Player: “Can we operate it too?!”

Just as Yashirobird himself had done some time earlier, players had climbed onto the deck and begun firing questions at the ship’s apparent crewman.

Yashirobird: “Oh, this belongs to someone else. I can use it because I’m in the owner’s party, but apparently unrelated players who stay aboard too long count as trespassers and have their Karma Value raised. You should probably be careful.”

Player: “Seriously?!”

Another Player: “Oh, crap. Uh, good luck supporting everyone!!”

Yashirobird: “Thanks, thanks.”

It was a lie.

Karma Value was masked data in the first place. There was no possible way for anyone there to know whether it was actually increasing.

But when someone stated a lie with enough confidence, people tended to believe it.

Yashirobird accepted their encouragement without hesitation, narrowed his eyes, and made fine adjustments to the fully reloaded ballista using its control wheel.

Yashirobird: “If possible, I’d like to take down at least one horn... There!”

The bolt fired, racing across the battlefield...

I raced across the battlefield, used Siegwurm’s knee as a foothold, and climbed even higher.

I was a little jealous of all those light fighters casually walking through the air, but my base abilities were already heavily boosted. If I carelessly added more physical enhancement, I might launch myself straight off the battlefield.

Still, I really wanted the ability to walk through the air...

Siegwurm: “You mean to climb upon my back! But you are naive!!”

Player: “Gwaaah?!”

Another Player: “Dragon ride failed!”

The players who had reached Siegwurm’s back before me—while I was still climbing the old-fashioned way—were blown away by a beat of his wings.

But I had spent a ridiculous amount of time climbing gigantic creatures.

If he wanted to shake me off, he’d have to start breakdancing!

Sunraku: “Hey.”

Siegwurm: “You...!!”

Sunraku: “Cleave like an axe!!”

CLANG!!

Centipede Model 8-0.5’s purple blade was knocked away.

Well, I’d only been slightly hoping it would break in one hit...

But I had definitely seen it.

Sunraku: “That chipped it a little...!”

Siegwurm: “Nghaa!!”

Sunraku: “Whoa!”

Airborne!

Thrown clear!

Twist!

Landing!!

Sunraku: “Yeah, forcing my way close and hitting it directly will break it much faster than slowly chipping away from a distance...”

But I couldn’t expect the same trick to work over and over.

The battlefield was also far too crowded.

Tanks could form organized lines when necessary, but frontline damage dealers constantly risked crashing into one another.

I briefly found myself wishing Siegwurm would wipe out every frontline fighter except me with a breath attack.

Then he actually did vaporize the frontline with one.

A few minutes later, I realized that players were effectively immortal, so it hadn’t made moving around any more comfortable for long.

That was when it happened.

[As of this moment, the defeat of “Bryleinyego the White Dragon” has been confirmed. Last Attacker: NPC “Dirnadia of the Peerless Twin Blades Mora-Beagalltach.”]

NPCs outshining the players—classic...

No, that wasn’t the point!!

Bryleinyego was dead?

Wait.

Eldranza had been dead from the beginning, Deuredhowl was dead, and now Bryleinyego was dead...

Did that mean only Blockentreed and Noirlind remained?

Sunraku: “Whoa, whoa, whoa... Can we actually pull this off?!”

Only two Color Dragons remained.

Blockentreed might have possessed exceptional durability, but it had been fighting continuously since the beginning of the final-battle phase. Even without entering Hazard Mode, it would not have been surprising for it to collapse at any moment.

More importantly, the fact that Bryleinyego—the dragon that produced huge numbers of lesser monsters—had died was extremely bad.

Sunraku: “Are the crafters coming...?!”

...Just kidding.

The time should be ripe by now.

I’ll be honest. What was about to happen would definitely leave behind some serious grudges.

But everyone had decided to do it, and I had given them at least a little assistance.

There was no point hesitating and whining about it now.

If things got too dangerous, I’d defect to Rabituza!!

Skull Azuchi-kun...

Let’s have ourselves an internal feud.

Cannibalism and dragging one another down are humanity’s specialties, after all.

[The declaration of war has been accepted!!]

[Skeletal Castle Keep: Skull Azuchi vs. One-Night Castle: Scorpion Sunomata]

[The Castle Battle will now begin!!]

[In a Castle Battle, a declaration of war can be issued when either the two structures’ Resource Values are approximately equal, or the structures become approximately equal after adding the combined Resource Values of every player belonging to the same party or clan as each structure’s owner. This is unpublished information held by the theorycrafting clan Library.]

[Scorpion Sunomata... Just how did it secure enough resources to rival Skull Azuchi...?]