by Mamare Touno
Nyanta teased. Demiquas’s face went purple. However, Nyanta didn’t let the opening escape him. His rapiers accurately punctured holes in all four of Demiquas’s limbs with a light noise—almost like the click of typewriter keys—that didn’t seem as if it could be coming from a weapon.
The four wounds left in the Monk’s arms were known as Viper Slash. By wounding the tendons in the player’s arm, the attack lowered the hit rate of their attacks for several dozen seconds. The three wounds in his thigh were Bloody Piercing. By cutting the legs, the attack reduced the player’s agility and lowered their evasive capabilities. Nyanta was working to strip away his opponent’s fighting power with a surgeon’s eye and the will to decisively execute his plan. The calm adviser who’d been dubbed “the Retiree” was nowhere to be seen.
“Gwah! Quit jumping around, freak! Fight fair and square!”
“Coming from mew, ‘fair and square’ sounds polluted.”
In terms of HP, Demiquas had the advantage. Nyanta’s HP had already been drained to 30 percent. As expected of a Warrior class, Demiquas still had more than twice Nyanta’s HP left. Right now, though, anyone on the battlefield could see that the lone, lanky Swashbuckler held the initiative. Thrust and stab, flick and dazzle—slim steel lines even thinner than a fingertip drew a lacy filigree of silver and sparks in the air, forming an ironclad defense that thwarted Demiquas. The speed and attack powers Demiquas had at the beginning of the battle were long gone. Most importantly, his HP and MP were draining away along with the blood he was losing, moment by moment, from his pierced limbs.
The Briganteers, who had been reassured by Demiquas’s activity just moments before, suddenly began to mutter among themselves. The mutter held the fear and unease that their leader might actually lose, coupled with irrepressible curiosity and a furtive joy. In all likelihood, Demiquas was a tyrant within his guild as well. The Briganteers seemed to feel an ill-natured, detached glee at the idea that he might lose in public.
Shiroe picked up on that emotion. He signaled to Serara.
Serara, who’d been watching Nyanta’s gallant fight so desperately that she didn’t even notice her fingernails biting into her palms, came back to herself with a jolt when Shiroe touched her shoulder. The voice in her ear, so faint she could barely hear it, said, “At my signal, cast a Pulse Recovery spell on all parties.”
Serara’s eyes widened. Of course, as a healer—even a very minor one—she fully intended to recover Nyanta once he won, but why “at my signal”? …And why not just Nyanta, but everybody? She was about to ask Shiroe when she heard an unbelievable yell.
“Dammit! You cocky little— Enough of your lousy duel!! Healer! Recover these wounds in my arms and legs! Assassin squad! Skin this cat bastard!!”
Demiquas, finally unable to take the brilliance of the swordsman’s techniques, ordered the Briganteers to attack en masse.
6
That angry roar caused a momentary split on the battlefield.
The Briganteers had traded non-player characters as slaves. They’d threatened and killed players and done even worse, and precisely because they had, for an instant, that order made them hesitate.
The Briganteers were a band of outlaws. However, in a true state of lawlessness, outlaws could never form a group. Complete anarchy made it impossible for communities to exist for any length of time. Outlaws had their own particular brand of order, and in extreme terms, that order was power. Violence.
The Briganteers, a band of outlaws, were ruled by power. Their leader Demiquas had had his vaunted attack power sealed, was losing his ability to evade, and was being carved up by rapiers—a weapon he normally scorned as being “for women and children”—in a one-on-one duel. In response to the reality that he was, in fact, being carved up, he had ordered them to surround and destroy the enemy with a roar that was—no matter how you looked at it—an SOS.
“Is it really okay to follow orders from a leader like this? If we obey him, will we turn into losers someday, too?” That idea made even the outlaw Briganteers hesitate.
Let them hesitate, get nervous, jump at shadows, and freeze up. If they do, we luck out.
…But the hesitation lasted only an instant.
True, their leader was a sorry sight, but even a violent band of outlaws had a reputation to uphold. As a matter of fact, being a band of outlaws made their reputation more important to them, not less. A big part of the reason the Briganteers had been able to do whatever they wanted in Susukino even as they exploited other players was that the guild had a reputation as an invincible gang of thugs. Unless they maintained their reign of terror by any means necessary, they’d become the hunted. This terror, peculiar to habitual hunters, decided the group’s course of action in just three seconds. Their goal was less to save their leader than to silence the three players who’d witnessed this debacle. Once that decision was made, the outlaws descended like an avalanche, war cries in every throat, hell-bent on engulfing Nyanta.
However, not one member of Shiroe’s group had wasted those three seconds. The approaching wave of eight bellowing Briganteers was blocked by Naotsugu, who’d appeared like a gust of wind. Rather than slam on the brakes at this sudden appearance from outside their field of vision, the Briganteers bore down with even greater malice.
“Anchor Howl!!”
Naotsugu yelled. It was a special skill for Guardians, the fortresses of the front line, which drew all enemies within range to them. The eight Briganteers stopped in front of Naotsugu as if they’d been nailed in place.
“Nyanta!! They’re going to—!!”
“Begin recovery!”
“Y-yes, sir! Pulse Recovery!!”
At Shiroe’s command, Serara began to chant the most powerful recovery spell she had.
Pulse Recovery was a special recovery skill unique to Druids. It was roughly equivalent to the Kannagis’ Damage Block and the Clerics’ Response Activated Recovery. In simple terms, Pulse Recovery was a spell for continuous HP recovery. It was settable, and for between ten and thirty seconds, each companion targeted by the spell would recover a certain amount of HP per second. Although it didn’t recover as much per second as a normal recovery spell, the total was far superior, and the spell’s MP efficiency was also excellent.
In addition, Pulse Recovery had one advantage even greater than its high efficiency: Once set, the caster was free to do other things. The player could use that free time to attack, defend, or do anything else necessary.
However—
“It won’t work! I can’t keep it up! My level isn’t high enough!”
Serara cried miserably.
In Elder Tales, healers’ abilities were key. Working in combination, a trained healer and vanguard warrior could cancel out the damage inflicted by four enemies on their level.
That said, Serara was currently level 19. At level 90, Naotsugu’s Defense was off the charts, but he’d never be able to withstand physical attacks from the eight Briganteers, whose levels were also high.
“Ignore Naotsugu for now. Concentrate on recovering Nyanta. Calm down and watch our allies’ HP. Don’t worry about doing the impossible. Just stay focused on what you can do.”
Shiroe spoke to Serara, his voice calm. She was very near to panicking.
His words were stronger than she’d expected, and Serara felt her strength return as though she’d been smacked on the back. What the healing classes could do was heal, Shiroe told her.
Meanwhile, on the other front line, away from Naotsugu, Nyanta and Demiquas’s battle was nearing its climax. Demiquas seemed to have received a recovery spell from the rear: The wounds in his arms had healed, and his attack power was back. Although the wounds in his legs were still there, he’d probably decided to forget evading and fight. Demiquas’s face was much calmer.
To begin with, Demiquas was a Monk, one of the Warrior classes. Even though Swashbucklers were a direct attack class, they were one of the Weapon Attack classes, and their fundamental Health was differen
t. If Demiquas was able to get help from his rear guard, he was sure he could bully his way through on Health, even if the battle degenerated into a messy brawl. The Druid chit seemed to be healing the swordsman he was facing, but there was no way the total amount could surpass the damage he inflicted. Full of confidence, Demiquas raged.
“C’mon! C’mon, c’mon! What are those swords of yours, toys?! You think a flimsy punk like you can protect anybody?!”
“I beg your pardon. Rapiers are a gentleman’s weapon.”
“I’m gonna shut that smart mouth of yours! Look, your Warrior buddy’s going down!”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
Nyanta and Demiquas’s battle grew even fiercer as they traded swords and fists, silver light and dull blows.
Enveloped in a thick cloud of dust, Naotsugu really had been driven into a corner. The continuous wave of attacks from his eight opponents had cut his HP down to 2,400. He’d lost a full 80 percent. However, even under the circumstances, Naotsugu kept his cool, maintaining his narrow stance, fielding the Briganteers’ attacks, and controlling their formation.
Staying calm, even in a situation where panic was likely, was an essential ability for a first-class vanguard. However, to Serara, who was short on experience, Naotsugu’s almost eerily smooth movements seemed filled with awe-inspiring energy.
“Prepare to cast.”
Shiroe’s voice was a whisper. With the sound of her own heart galloping loudly in her ears, Serara answered, “O-okay!” Her voice had gone shrill and nervous.
“I’m going for it, Shiroe! Castle of Stone!!”
As Naotsugu yelled, he pulled his shield in and took a solid stance. His shield, his armor, and even his sword took on the ageless sheen of marble, scattering magical power and energy.
“Wha… What the heck?!”
“Ignore it, he’s almost down. Finish him!!”
“Take that! Assassinate!!”
Apparently one of the eight Briganteers was an Assassin. He launched a lethal attack meant to inflict massive damage. With an air-scorching, grating sound, his sword sank through Naotsugu’s armor, delivering a fatal blow.
…Or that’s what should have happened. Instead, the Assassin’s attack bounced off Naotsugu’s shield with a clang.
Castle of Stone was one of the Guardians’ powerful defensive techniques. It was an emergency move, and it only lasted for ten seconds, but during that time, no attack could damage the player. Naotsugu, now a marble fortress, held the front line with an unbreakable shield.
“What did I tell mew? Naotsugucchi isn’t that easy.”
“Now, Serara! Cast a layered recovery on Naotsugu!!”
Serara took a hasty step forward, stretching her hands up toward the sky. She chanted a Pulse Recovery spell meant for individuals, layering it over the Pulse Recovery spell that was already in effect for all players, and she didn’t stop there. On top of the two layered set spells, she began to chant an instant recovery spell. Using every last drop of her limited level-19 power, she continued sending all the recovery spells she knew to the front line.
As a healer, there was just one thing she could do: Use her recovery spells to protect the players who were protecting her. The familiar voice of her guild master, a Cleric, echoed in her ears.
The true benefit of Pulse Recovery lay in the fact that once it was set the caster could use the remaining time to chant additional recovery spells. The potential of a Druid who concentrated everything they had on recovery was unimaginably high. The class’s instantaneous recovery power easily surpassed that of the other two healing classes. Even if the caster was level 19, this wasn’t a force to be taken lightly. Under Serara’s rapid succession of spells, Naotsugu’s HP, which had already fallen below 20 percent, recovered before their very eyes.
“Stalling for time isn’t gonna save you!” Meanwhile, as he closed in on Nyanta, Demiquas’s rage was growing. Castle of Stone certainly was a powerful defensive technique. As a Monk, another Warrior class, the technique was tough enough to make him jealous. However, even the most powerful techniques had weaknesses. In Castle of Stone’s case, it was the length of its recast time. The unbreakable technique could only be used once every ten minutes.
In ten minutes, he could kill the players in front of him twenty times over. In any case, the fact that the Warrior had used Castle of Stone at all obviously meant he wasn’t able to stand up to the Briganteers’ collective attack. The technique could only shut out ten seconds’ worth of physical damage in ten minutes. Ten seconds out of six hundred. Put that way, Castle of Stone wasn’t an invincible secret technique. It was clearly a last resort.
When Castle of Stone’s effect wore off, these guys would be history. To Demiquas, that future was already a fact. His keen attacks were rapidly driving Nyanta into a corner. As Serara kept an eye on her allies’ statuses, she couldn’t help lamenting her weakness.
The Guardian who was fielding eight Briganteers on the front line, and Nyanta, who’d chivalrously shielded her all this time, were getting hurt. Even if she poured all her strength into recovery, she couldn’t save the two of them, and the MP she needed for the spells were draining away rapidly as she pushed the limits of her power.
“I’d like to go soon, Shiroechi.”
“Anytime you’re ready, Captain Nyanta.”
However, quite apart from Serara’s anguish, Shiroe and Nyanta’s exchange was as cheerful as a clear blue sky.
In a movement as smooth as a willow in the wind, Nyanta stepped right into Demiquas’s chest. Although he was momentarily startled, Demiquas raised his knee in a kick intended to send the thin swordsman flying. However, in the next instant, Nyanta had launched himself into the air, using Demiquas’s raised knee as a foothold.
Silver light flashed.
The rapiers Nyanta held in both hands sliced the wind, dancing with the speed of indigo lightning. Three, four, five— That was as far as Serara managed to follow. Nyanta’s swords, which seemed to have generated countless copies of themselves, slashed with pinpoint accuracy through the bright blue brambles that had abruptly appeared all over Demiquas’s body.
Swashbuckler attacks were the fastest of all twelve classes. Nyanta’s multistage two-bladed attack was further sharpened by Shiroe’s attack ability reinforcement, and on top of that, he kept triggering the Sewn-Bind Hostage trap that Shiroe had set.
Nyanta’s swords.
Shiroe’s Sewn-Bind Hostage.
In less than two seconds, the double-layered attack was executed ten times. With each slash from Nyanta, the activated spell burst like a flashbulb, sending a shock wave across the area. Just as the explosion that occurs in the tight chamber of a gun magazine is made more destructive by its compression. Demiquas, who had frozen in his tracks, staggered as if he were being shoved from all sides by invisible enemies and expired before he had time to utter a word.
“Wha—?!”
“The guild master just—”
Confusion spread rapidly.
A level-90 Warrior with a healer supporting him had dropped like a stone in the blink of an eye. The more experience the players had with Elder Tales, the greater the superstition and despair the sight instilled.
“Nyanta…”
The emotion was echoed in Serara’s dazed murmur. She couldn’t understand the lightning-fast battle she’d just seen unfold.
“Drop your swords, people!”
Naotsugu yelled. The Briganteers looked at each other, then went pale as a scream rang out behind them.
At its source, they saw their fallen healer and the guild’s second-in-command, the gray-robed Rondarg, cowering, one of his arms severed. The black-haired girl—the player who’d made the most efficient use of that empty three seconds—had sheathed her delicate form in the merciless aura of a lethal weapon, and her short sword was pressed to Rondarg’s neck.
7
Akatsuki, who had seen exactly what Serara saw, did have a fairly good idea of what had happened. Adventurer
bodies were high performance, and apparently that performance wasn’t limited to agility and physical strength: Their kinetic vision was also better than it had been in their old world.
Akatsuki had studied kendo since she was small, but she was absolutely sure she wouldn’t have been able to follow the speed of those swords in the real world. Even here, she’d only been able to follow half of the maneuver at best. It would be more accurate to say that she’d “seen” it by mentally piecing together the multiple fragments of visual information she’d managed to pick up and revising them through deduction.
Akatsuki was an Assassin, the Weapon Attack class with the highest attack power, and even her ultimate attack wouldn’t have been able to take out a level-90 Monk. Of course, Akatsuki had neutralized the healer who’d been supporting Demiquas, and his HP probably hadn’t been fully charged. Even so, it should have been impossible to defeat a Warrior that quickly.
Battles in Elder Tales tended to be battles of attrition. In this world, “certain-kill moves” were only a figure of speech and were almost never literally lethal. In a fight between players of the same level, even the strongest player would have to pay out several dozen attacks in order to win. If healers were standing by, battles could go on indefinitely, and it was rare for there to be a victory at all. The more experience a player had in Elder Tales, the better they understood that fact. Where the game was concerned, it was just common sense.
The secret behind the freakish damage Nyanta had inflicted was probably the shining blue brambles. Shiroe’s Sewn-Bind Hostage was a settable trap spell used by Enchanters. The spell set five briers on a target’s body, and each brier worked with an ally’s attack to inflict about one thousand in damage. However, even if all the briers were triggered, it would only inflict five thousand in damage. That would have been a bit more than a third of Demiquas’s HP. Even with the damage from Nyanta’s attacks added in, it wouldn’t have been enough to defeat him.
In all the group training they’d done together, Akatsuki had become very well acquainted with the spells Shiroe used most. Sewn-Bind Hostage was one of Shiroe’s best spells, and Akatsuki recognized it just by seeing those bramble-like effects. The spell’s recast time was fifteen seconds.
