Gravity floors have three main conditions that can trigger their gimmick.
First: deliberate destruction by a player.
Second: being destroyed from the outset.
And third: accidental destruction without any player involvement.
That shitty rain is a stage gimmick caused by either the second condition, the third, or both. Without Isana's forecast, that thing would've been a genuine instant-death gimmick...
But since we can interfere with it ourselves, the anti-gravity mechanism that makes things "fall" straight upward can function as an extremely powerful weapon.
The key to the firearms you can obtain by mowing down trash mobs isn't the weapon type itself. It's the fact that they're high-powered ranged weapons.
They let you reach places you normally can't. Even a monkey can understand that advantage.
And once you've gotten reasonably used to them...
Well, this is what happens.
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Sunraku: "Fuhahahahaha!! What's wrong, what's wrong?! Rubbing your cheek against the wall isn't gonna make it move!"
Six bullet holes scar the wall.
Repulsive force that makes things "fall" from left to right erupts from it, slamming the cluster of Technomagigelus that had been advancing toward us into the opposite wall.
We've got four meters of width to work with. If they're just mechanically coming after us, all we have to do is move up beside the wall and they'll follow us over.
Then I just trigger the wall and they go flying sideways—no, they "fall" sideways.
Sunraku: "All right, I'm getting sick of dealing with these things... Okay, Saina! Araba! We're doing that!!"
Saina: "Question: What does 'that' refer to?"
Hahaha. Whoops, my hand slipped and I accidentally put a bullet into the floor right under our feet.
Come on, hurry up. Put some momentum into it and take one step forward.
Show some courage!!
Araba: "Wai—"
Sunraku: "And faaaar awaaay!!"
Gravity beneath our feet flips from downward to upward, and all three of our bodies spring into the air with the sensation that the whole world has turned upside down.
Araba: "Could you not at least warn us beforehand!?"
Saina: "Question: Have you learned nothing from the previous experience? Is your intelligence insufficient?"
Sunraku: "Just watch."
Ground's coming up.
I point the Aguacate toward the floor, take aim, judge the timing...
And fire.
The tiny glint that shoots from the muzzle instantly wraps itself in a glow somewhere between white and yellow, then streaks through the air.
It hits.
Our bodies, which had been dropping toward the runaway gravity floor, rapidly lose their downward momentum.
Well, obviously.
It's not like we've got rocket engines strapped to our asses. No matter how high you jump into the sky, gravity eventually drags you back down to the ground.
Sunraku: "Let's kick it up a gear. Our clear speed's entering the next stage."
Araba: "This feels even harder to put into words than when we swam through the air in Ruluiath..."
Sunraku: "Who cares? We'll take a break once we reach the next save point, so hang in there!!"
A full reload costs 150 MP.
If I have to chug a potion every single time just to restore MP, that's way too inefficient.
The Golden Crystal Battle Garb can't build up mana without moonlight, and the MP stored in the Lapistella Cloak can't be diverted to anything else.
But I've got this guy.
Compared to its days as Duxram, Blade of Aspiration, it gained the ability to charge mana in exchange for the laughable drawback of having its durability cut in half—
Eska=Varallach, Final Blade of Aspiration, my boy!!
Sunraku: "Reloaded!!"
I smack the butt of the Aguacate against the pommel of Eska=Varallach, and light flows from the sword into the gun.
This sword, which bears the feat of slaying the giant centipede, stores mana—but it has no function for releasing that mana as magic.
Apparently that's why it doesn't count as a magic sword... some classification I don't really understand.
But as long as I know it can store MP and feed that MP back out, that's all I need.
Sunraku: "Six rounds... So the most the sword can hold is around 100 MP?"
All right!
Let's move on!!
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[Wolfgang]
Sunraku: Hypothetically, if I told you I was inside Leviathan and had gotten my hands on a firearm, what would you do?
Pencil Warrior: I'd say you ought to prostrate yourself and apologize to Yours Truly, who's getting hounded from every direction to cough up information because we went way too wild in the Siegwurm fight.
Sunraku: I'm basically half kidnapped and half imprisoned here, so you should be nicer to me.
Oikatzo: Scumbags trying to rip goodwill out of other people eating each other alive...
Sunraku: Some flavorless bone with neither enough fat nor lean meat to its name is talking.
Pencil Warrior: Simmer that bone long enough and you could at least get some stock out of it, couldn't you?
Oikatzo: I don't wanna hear that from a lump of flab and a fatty.
Pencil Warrior: Call me fat one more time and I'll make sure you can never show your face on the public stage again.
Oikatzo: Sorry.
Sunraku: Knock off the witches' sabbath before my little sister gets conscripted too.
Sunraku: Anyway, are we the only ones here?
Pencil Warrior: It is three in the morning, you know?
Sunraku: ...?
Oikatzo: Normal, respectable people are usually asleep at this hour.
Pencil Warrior: Only the brain is getting worked to death, so if the body gets its rest, it's fine...
Sunraku: Hearing that from people who are awake somehow pisses me off, but whatever.
Pencil Warrior: Anyway, back to the point. I've got random people swarming me from all directions, so things are pretty rough over here.
Pencil Warrior: Akitsu Akane-chan had it even worse.
Oikatzo: She was doing her best at damage control—or more like redirecting the heat... Though I guess if everyone thought she was just the resident oddball and then suddenly found out about that super-ninja technique of hers, that's what happens.
Sunraku: Did she pull something?
Pencil Warrior: She fused with Noirlind.
Sunraku: ...Wha?
Oikatzo: You don't get to act confused after changing sex and turning into some red monster yourself.
Sunraku: Shut it, you androgynous amphibian-face.
Oikatzo: Oh? Wanna fight?
Pencil Warrior: More importantly, what's it actually like inside there? How hard is it to get firearms? Think you could buy them in bulk?
Sunraku: The First Shell Layer... Oh, that's the first area. The monsters that spawn here are around level 30. Kill enough of them and you build up points called "Score," kind of like EXP. You exchange that for stuff.
Sunraku: Because of the restrictions I'm under, slaughtering trash mobs too much would screw with a bunch of things, so bulk buying isn't happening.
Pencil Warrior: Useless.
Oikatzo: Does entertainment taste good when all you do is gorge yourself without contributing anything to the organization?
Sunraku: Yummy!!!!!
Oikatzo: T-this guy...!
Sunraku: That aside, I can't go home until I clear the area, so this is actually kind of desperate.
Pencil Warrior: If nothing but trash mobs spawn there, then hurry up and clear it already.
Sunraku: Hint: First "Shell" Layer.
Oikatzo: A continent-scale dungeon...?
Sunraku: I wanna go home.
Pencil Warrior: Realistically, how long do you think it'll take you to clear it?
Sunraku: Nah, this thing looks like it'll eat at least a week. Full completion isn't even worth thinking about.
Sunraku: I've saved at the second relay point right now, but...
Pencil Warrior: By the way, is there really no way for anyone besides you to get in? I've heard the people trying it can't even get onto the back of that continental whale because they just get repelled.
Sunraku: Apparently it won't open until I clear it.
Pencil Warrior: Truly, you say?
Oikatzo: And how is that supposed to work as a game, pray tell?
Sunraku: Ohoho! It seems it will open if I retire or stop challenging it for a certain period, but I have no intention of doing either!
Pencil Warrior: Should we capture you the moment you come out and send you to the guillotine?
Sunraku: Hey, cut that out.
Oikatzo: Well, you'd better clear it fast or people's hatred toward you is going to get ridiculous. Though I think we can buy you some time for a while.
Oikatzo: Between all the new races that showed up during the Siegwurm fight and the Conquista Dolls suddenly appearing out of nowhere, the frontline base is a complete madhouse right now.
Pencil Warrior: Specifically, a singles mixer?
Sunraku: I'm kinda pissed that your side sounds pretty fun too.
Sunraku: I'm over here stranded with some fishfolk I know and a doll in tow.
Sunraku: And the guide's kind of annoying.
Oikatzo: Are you bragging to us in an incredibly roundabout way?
Pencil Warrior: By the way...
Sunraku: Hm?
Pencil Warrior: You can use Inventoria right now, can't you? A ton of weird bottled stuff has been showing up in there.
Sunraku: Yeah, I can use it normally... Ah.
Oikatzo: We can just meet up normally inside Shangri-La Frontier...
Sunraku: Should we send in a nerf request? Inventoria really is way too busted.
Pencil Warrior: Things like that eventually get fixed through the tireless efforts of the people running the game, you two.
Pencil Warrior: So if we happen to thoroughly enjoy Inventoria right this very moment, that's merely the result of insufficient corporate effort.
Sunraku: Conclusion?
Pencil Warrior: It's not even a cheat, so there's no problem using it! Everybody gather in the storage space for now!!
Sunraku: Woo!
Oikatzo: Woo!