[Just coming up with weapon settings can eat half the day. This is seriously bad.]
Who the hell do you think I am? I've joined my buddies' ball-game tournaments as a piece of equipment more times than I can count, getting slammed into the ground in every possible position!!
Sunraku: "You think I'd screw up the landing on a toss this gentle...!? Sainaaa! Grab Araba and land with him!!"
Saina: "Understood:"
Araba: "Dwaaah!?"
Saina can't exactly fly, but booster-assisted jumps are possible. NPC or not, if getting a little close to death is all it costs, that's a bargain.
Now, as for me... Heh. Compared with Crystal Nest Cliff and Sigmonia Canyon Frontline, places that practically embody instability, this block-stacked object layout is so easy it's enough to give me a cold.
Sunraku: "First landing!!"
I land on a foothold made of stacked, container-like blocks. A hefty chunk gets gouged out of my HP, but it's within acceptable limits. From there, I jump... and then!!
Sunraku: "Ogh... second landing!!"
BAM!!!
At the end of my leap, I plant both hands and both feet against one face of the wall forming the maze, sticking the landing against it like a frog. While killing my momentum, I put strength into all four limbs and launch myself back into the air.
Sunraku: "Energy boost... final landing!!"
I chug a recovery potion in midair and come down onto the ground.
Plus or minus 0.1. Ninety percent of my HP is gone, but I'm definitely alive and standing... Heh heh heh.
Sunraku: "Ten points. Ten points. Ten points."
Saina: "Assessment: objectively and subjectively alike, that would be a failing grade. You also appear to be near death."
Sunraku: "I'm not dead, so it's a perfect score."
In games with limb loss, arms and legs get ripped off pretty damn easily. So simply making it back to safety in one piece is basically a huge advantage already.
In Survival Gunman, whether you're turning someone into a punching bag or using them as monster bait, taking out the legs first is standard procedure... On Phi Server, almost everyone fought barehanded, so everything they did looked way too visceral.
Don't break them. Don't crush them. Don't pull them.
Sunraku: "Everybody alive? Araba, you didn't step on Nereis and snap her, did you?"
Araba: "I-I wouldn't screw up that badly!"
Nereis: "Even though you lost me in Ruluiath."
Araba: "Ugh..."
Sunraku: "Take better care of your own weapon, seriously..."
Araba is giving me one hell of a look, but... huh?
Nope. Not one bit. Not a speck. Not the slightest clue what that could possibly be about!!
Sunraku: "Anyway, let's organize what we know. Come on out, Isana. I won't slap you for now."
Isana: "I'm a hologram, so you can't physically interfere with me anyway. And am I joining in too? Technically, position-wise, I'm more or less on the enemy side... Ah, no. This entire body, down to Leviathan's most remote compartments, is certainly an ally of humanity, but that's that and this is this, or rather..."
Sunraku: "Tutorials are supposed to be annoyingly helpful. Come on, come on. Just spit out whatever information you're allowed to reveal."
Isana: "Let's see... yes... yes? Very well, then. Ah, please wait just a moment... All right. There is a relay station a little farther ahead, so you won't need to worry about enemy contact there!"
Ah, so there really is somewhere we can stop and rest along the way.
I'd been considering the possibility that there wasn't, so that's definitely good news.
Following the locator displayed through the vaguely terrifying technology known as retinal projection, we eventually emerge into a wide-open area spacious enough to remind me of a forward base.
They've even thoughtfully lined up beds and all sorts of other stuff... Wait, is that an induction-heated campfire unit?
Isana: "Just a moment, please. I'll make you a table and chairs."
Araba: "How peculiar..."
Lines race across the metal floor, forming what looks like a 2D display of a disassembled table and chairs... In other words, blueprints are drawn directly onto the floor, and masses of metal rise along those shapes and assemble themselves all on their own.
Isana: "There, there. Please, have a seat."
Sunraku: "A chair for a sword...?"
Nereis: "How very considerate of you."
Isana has casually prepared seats for both herself and Nereis. She goes through the motions of sitting through her hologram, and our visually indescribable mixed party of human, fishman, spirit, doll, and AI gathers around the round table.
Isana: "Ah, you can replenish luxury items and food supplies over there!"
Sunraku: "A drink bar..."
The employee benefits in this dungeon are way too good.
That said, I'm interested, so I'll grab one drink right off the bat.
Sunraku: "What the hell is this 'Rapid-Refined 10,000% Tropical Juice'?"
I press the button.
Isana: "That beverage is made by rapidly growing fruit from preserved seeds in ten seconds, breaking it down at the atomic level, compressing it, and liquefying it!"
Sunraku: "It's heavy!"
Wait, so they liquefied the flesh, the peel, everything, then compressed it even further and crammed the whole thing into one cup?
Isn't this basically the kind of concentrate you're supposed to dilute with water?
Sunraku: "Z-zuzuzo... zuzozo-gblblbl..."
Since I've got a salmon head, I can't put my mouth to the cup, so naturally I have to use a straw.
And now I'm having the bizarre experience of the liquid I'm sucking through the straw being physically heavy...
Only in a game, I guess.
The aftertaste was basically extra-strong fruit juice. Got any water to dilute this with?
Araba: "This is incredible, Sunraku! Fresh fish came out!!"
Saina: "An energy-replenishment beverage for Conquista Dolls... I see. An intellectual beverage—an 'Intelligence Drink.'"
Ahaha, ohoho...
............
Sunraku: "WHAT IS THIS, A FAMILY RESTAURANT?!!!"
I come back to my senses just as I'm making a concoction out of every single drink on the menu.
Damn it. As a pure entertainment facility, this place is just way too fun...!!
Sunraku: "The main topic! We're getting back to the main topic!!"
Araba: "Sunraku! This soy sauce stuff is incredible! Revolutionary!!"
Sunraku: "—Oh, yeah? Eat it with this green paste too. It gives the sashimi a nice sharp kick. That's it, that's it. Use plenty."
Araba: "I see! What a completely new sensa—GUBWAAAAAAAHHHH!?!?!"
Holding his nose, Araba tumbles out of his chair.
I look down at him with cold (fish) eyes and begin the strategy meeting.
Sunraku: "For now, there are three things we've figured out. First, this First Shell Layer has a gravity mechanic."
Saina: "Affirmative: yeah, that's right."
Did somebody install a Kansai-dialect mod in this piece of junk?
Whatever.
The nasty part of this gravity mechanic is that something happening somewhere else, without us being involved at all, can come falling down on us over here...
Literally.
Sunraku: "Next, we can deliberately make the gravity mechanic go haywire by damaging the floor. Isana, can I basically assume that when that floor takes damage, its vector flips to the 'opposite direction'?"
Isana: "Partially, no. Gravity-control systems are installed in places other than the floor. If excessive impact causes one to enter a runaway state, it exerts a repulsive force toward its exposed surface."
Not just the floor...
Ahh, so they're built into walls and other objects too.
Isana: "And to add one more detail, the gravity-control systems that make up the First Shell Layer 'Welcome Gate' are divided into two-by-two-meter sections."
So it's a block structure.
Just eyeballing it, the corridors looked around four meters wide. Which means we can probably think of them as being built two blocks across.
Sunraku: "If you step on a gravity floor while you've got momentum, it'll blast you along that vector. Is direct contact absolutely required?"
Isana: "The strength of the repulsive force is proportional to the impact applied to the gravity-control system. The system was repurposed from armor originally designed to repel space debris... Ah, fragments of stars. As for contact, no. Taking the aforementioned conditions into account, once the repulsive force exceeds a certain threshold, merely approaching it can affect you."
You don't have to rephrase it for me. I'm a modern human. I know what space debris is.
Still, I won't press the point.
Not everything needs to be viewed through a meta lens.
Araba: "M-my nose..."
Sunraku: "Wasabi's something you're supposed to enjoy in moderation, dumbass. Are you even listening?"
Araba: "I'm listening. I am listening... and even after listening, I don't understand any of it."
Good. At least he's honest.
Sunraku: "Basically, the harder you smack it, the stronger the 'launching force' gets."
Araba: "I see..."
At the very least, we've already proven that if Saina slams one with a booster-powered hammer at full force, it can put out enough power to launch multiple people several hundred meters.
Sunraku: "And third, the gravity floors affect friend and foe alike. If we can trigger them manually, we can pull some dirty tricks."
More specifically...
Yeah. This has been bugging me for a while, so I might as well ask now.
Sunraku: "Hey, Isana. That stuff sitting all nice and casual in the vending machine over there... does it have enough 'firepower' to make a gravity-control system go haywire?"
Isana: "—Wonderful. Next-generation primitive human, you understand exactly what those are meant for."
Sunraku: "If I put my mind to it, I can even go air-to-air with a Panzerfaust."
I did a double take, then doubted my own eyes.
Because right next to the drink bar, handguns, rifles, and the like were being casually sold from a vending machine.