by Sakon Kaidou
If that amalgam of the undead loathed all the living, then it was almost like this abomination hated only one thing...
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Franklin raised his voice, cutting my thoughts short. He was looking directly at the Broadcast Eye and acting like he was live on TV. “This is a stream for the people of Gideon and the rest of the kingdom! Hello again or for the first time! I am Giga Professor, Mr. Franklin, and I’m here to show you the climax of my game!”
Upon saying that, he took out a device looking much like a mobile terminal from about three decades back: a smartphone.
“This right here is the switch that releases the monsters I’ve set up in the duel city!”
“...Gh!” I voiced my frustration.
“This switch has a timer function, and it’s set to launch a signal to release all the monsters after 652 seconds!” he continued. “Though, we do have some early birds thanks to a bunch of hot-blooded idiots who tried to escape the arena by attacking the barrier.”
“Release all the monsters?! But wait, that’s...!” said Liliana with a tense expression, which made Franklin’s grin widen.
“Oh, yeees, 500 monsters stronger than your average Demi-Dragon will be released to the city all at once. Well, they happen to be set to attack only Masters, but they’re relentless and don’t hesitate to destroy buildings, either.”
His words and our situation here were being broadcast to everyone in Gideon. Franklin used this to heighten their fear by showing them the remaining number of seconds before the time bomb finally went off.
“Well, as for what I’ll do with this switch... Whooosh!” he said, throwing it towards the RSK.
The monster responded to the action by opening its fleshy sphere and taking the switch inside before closing again, which was a scene highly reminiscent of a clione feeding.
“So yeah, there are about 600 seconds left until the signal goes out, and the only way to stop it is to kill my boy the RSK here.” Franklin fell silent for a moment before pointing to Liliana in an exaggerated manner and speaking up again. “The ones braving this fight are these noble Paladins, the vice commander and third knight of the Royal Guard — Lady Grandria and Sir Lindos!”
After pointing to them...
“And let’s not forget the only Master here! Another Paladin, Ray Starling!”
...his finger was redirected at me.
“Can the three Paladins protect the city of duels?! It all rests in their hands!”
With excessively grandiose presentation, he was setting up the stage for the “public humiliation” he was talking about.
“So, uh...”
Thus came his final words.
“Blame them when the city’s gone, okaaay?”
Which he said with nothing but malice and glee.
“What an incorrigible bastard!” exclaimed Nemesis.
He sure is, but comments about him will have to wait, I thought.
The flesh-colored orb was already making a move. The many cracks on its surface all opened up like wounds and released dazzling streams of eye-piercing light.
Feeling as though I was barraged by countless camera flashes, I could barely keep on looking at it.
“A blinding move?!” I exclaimed.
“Ray! This light is followed by an attack!” Liliana warned us, but my Silver was already dashing away.
“Kh!” Suddenly, something hit the place I was at and exploded.
They were light projectiles the RSK fired during the blinding flashes, and their power was about three times greater than the White Lance Gems I’d used.
However, that was the extent of it.
I’d failed to evade one of them. The impact had been nothing impressive, while the damage had only cost me about a tenth of my HP.
“This isn’t beyond us!” cried Nemesis.
Indeed. We could do this, no problem. I simply had to bear its attacks, heal myself, and land a Vengeance is Mine after getting enough damage.
From what I’d seen of the Royal Guard’s fight against it, the RSK had a constantly-active barrier against physical damage and extremely high resistances against holy attacks and fire. However, the damage from Vengeance was fixed and doubled, making it perfectly capable of taking out large portions of the thing’s HP.
At least, that’s how it should go, I thought. But... why am I feeling so uneasy?
“Your intuition rarely fails when we’re in a predicament,” said Nemesis. “There might be more to this abomination than meets the eye. However...”
...Vengeance is our only option against it, so that’s what we have to go with, I agreed.
“Oh, by the way,” said Franklin. “The barrier of this darling I’m riding right now is directly linked to the RSK, so you have to beat my boy even if you prioritize saving the princess.”
...Even more reason to use it, then.
“Looks like it’s do-or-die,” said Nemesis.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “...Let’s go!”
“Certainly!” With that settled, I made Silver gallop towards the RSK.
Making sure not to stop for a second, I evaded — or purposely took — the light attacks while occasionally going on the offensive myself.
All of my sword slashes were negated by the barrier on its surface, and the same went for my Purgatorial Flames. However, due to the beast being so abnormal, I didn’t stop my fruitless attacks, hoping that I could perhaps find a source of its power or something.
Of course, I also didn’t neglect to use my healing magic or items to keep my HP up. Thanks to my 5,000+ HP, Paladin’s Aegis, my general endurance, and the RSK’s lacking offensive abilities, I was able to stack up a considerable amount of damage. It all seemed to be going very well... but my unease showed no signs of abating.
“Wait, the accumulated damage is... what?” said Nemesis. “No, it’s pretty clear it came from the abomination, but...”
“Nemesis?”
“O-Oh, sorry. It’s just that... I just felt something off.”
About the accumulated damage, right? I thought. Nemesis seemed to have an ability to “feel” the enemies that have damaged us. She’d used it during the Gouz-Maise battle, too.
“‘Off’? In what way?” I asked.
“The damage is clearly coming from this RSK monster, but it feels like it’s... scattered all over.”
Scattered?
“If I were to liken it to something from your world, I’d say that it feels as though I’m looking at an X-ray displaying the spread of cancer cells within the body.”
“...Wait.” Doesn’t that mean that the RSK is still the thing that’s accumulating damage?
“Yes, that’s correct...” she replied, and even though it was telepathic, I could easily tell that she felt uneasy about this unfamiliar sensation.
“...Let’s try using it once,” I said.
“I don’t believe we have enough damage to kill it, though.”
“And that’s exactly why we have to try. My gut and your feeling are telling us that something’s wrong. Rather than having to deal with something unexpected when we go for the finisher, we should confirm our suspicions right now.”
“...Very well!”
“Silver!” I shouted as I kicked my steed’s sides and pulled his reins, making him speed towards the RSK.
Passing the barrage of light attacks, we closed the distance between us and the abomination. Once it was within range, I swung Nemesis at one of its tentacles, fully intending to cut it off. Then we used the ace up our sleeve, our only means of fighting it.
“Vengeance is Mine!” we shouted in unison, activating the skill that had felled many of our opponents.
Our first foe — the Demi-Dragon Worm.
The tri-faced beast of flame and poison — Great Miasmic Demon, Gardranda.
The amalgam of people’s death and malice — Revenant Ox-Horse, Gouz-Maise.
With all the powerful enemies it had helped us defeat, it was small wonder why it was our most trusted
skill.
Now, we had used it on the mysterious creature called “the RSK.”
“How...?” Nemesis said in bewilderment, and not without reason, for Vengeance hadn’t hurt it in the least. My greatsword had simply slipped on the RSK’s surface, not destroying a single inch of it.
The attack had rendered us defenseless, and a light projectile that came from one of the monster’s cracks landed directly on me. It took away about a third of my total HP, but I couldn’t manage to care about that.
“Why...?” I murmured. The only thing on my mind was my skill — Vengeance is Mine. It doubled the damage I’d received from my enemies and brought it back to them, completely ignoring any defenses.
It had worked every time I’d used it on anything that had accumulated damage on me.
However, it’d had absolutely no effect on the RSK.
“Ohhh maaan, what a great expression.” I heard a voice thick with intoxication.
“Franklin!” I shouted.
His face was still in a smile, but unlike the basic grin from before, it had become a thoroughly amused sneer. “Ahahah! You look so dumbfounded. Have no idea what’s going on, huh? ‘Why? How? Wasn’t our Vengeance absolute and unmatched, Nemmy-wemmy?!’ Lol. Must’ve been hard to be cast as Nobuta just because of your glasses, eh, Ray-boy?”
“Wh...!”
“Oh, now you look even more surprised. Man, I’m loving this to bits.”
The thing he’d just referred to was something I’d only told Nemesis... and that had been after Flamingo had left us. The fact that he knew it could only mean one thing...
“That drug you gave me had more than just the dog ear thing in it, huh?” I snapped.
“Ohhh, yeah it did,” he answered as he reached into his pocket and took out a drug bottle filled with the exact same mixture he’d given me yesterday. “The drug I gave you was a Lesser Elixir and Animal Ear Drug cocktail...” He then opened the bottle and poured the contents into his hand.
“...but there was more than just the drug in there,” he said as liquid flowed out of the palm, leaving behind a marble-sized object. “This little beauty is a PSS — a Peeping Spy Slime. They’re always in a liquid state, have no means of fighting, and get digested by humans in about 24 hours... But in exchange for being so powerless, for as long as they’re alive, they send me the stats, skill info, and the words of those they’ve been ingested by.” His grin widened. “Getting the person to not find it suspicious or stay online can be a bit hard, I’ll tell you that.”
Couldn’t you have gone with something else? I thought as I put my hand on my mouth in disgust. I can’t believe I drank a damn slime!
“I know everything at your disposal,” he continued. “Your Nemesis’s three Embryo skills, Miasmaflame Bracers, Greaves of Grudge, your real Prism Steed, your own skills — including Purifying Silverlight — and even the various tactics you used in your battle against the Lich Maise and Gouz-Maise.”
That was everything I had. Everything I could attempt to do had been leaked to him.
“And my boy the RSK here was made to counter everything you’ve got,” he finished proudly.
“...As in?”
“Vengeance is Mine doesn’t work on him, he doesn’t give any debuffs, he negates Purgatorial Flames, Hellish Miasma, Purifying Silverlight, and even Grand Cross, if you had it. Standard attacks of your level don’t hurt him, either. Against you, the RSK is completely unbeatable. After all...”
Franklin momentarily stopped talking and flashed an almost dazzling smile before continuing.
“He’s the Ray Starling Killer. Custom-made just to defeat you.”
“...Made to... what?”
It’s actually called “Ray Starling Killer”? I thought. Franklin seriously made a monster for the sole purpose of defeating me?
“So yeah, you’re losing no matter what. My boy the RSK cost me a whole 100,000,000 lir, but hey, money spent on victory ain’t money wasted, right?”
“Why...?” I burst out.
Why is Franklin — a Superior — doing so much against me? Didn’t we meet just yesterday? Does it have something to do with Hugo?
“‘Why,’ you ask? Yeah, I guess it must be strange to you. Why would a Superior like me throw such serious money to deal with such a nobody?” he said as his smile vanished. “That’s because I’ve lost against you once.” His eyes had turned scarily serious, making me feel as though they could pierce me.
“You lost to me?” I asked. “When did that happen?”
As my confusion reached its peak, Franklin pointed below... at Liliana, who was fighting the RSK.
“I had a plan to assassinate Liliana Grandria, you see,” he said. “You completely destroyed it, so I decided to single you out.”
A plan to assassinate Liliana...? Does he mean the time I...?
“If you hadn’t gotten involved, that bear man wouldn’t have been there either, and the fifty Demi-Dragon Worms would’ve surely taken care of Liliana. You ruined my plan and made me lose, Ray Starling.”
Bear man — my brother.
Fifty Demi-Dragon Worms — Old Reve Orchard.
“And then, a guy with glasses told me, ‘If you have this incense, you can go get some from the orchard outside.’” I remembered Milianne’s words from back then, and it all made sense now.
“I can’t stomach anyone who makes me lose or yield,” Franklin continued. “Whenever someone like that appears, I set up a rematch and make sure they lose so thoroughly it’s pathetic. Then they never feel like standing in my way ever again, and you won’t be any different. Now just lose and become the laughingstock of the kingdom, will ya?” His expression and voice as he said that were thick with madness.
Though it wasn’t like he didn’t make sense. I could understand why he resented me so much. Really well, in fact.
“All right, I understand why you went and built an anti-me thing,” I said.
So he was the one responsible for that situation, huh? I thought.
“Hahahah! Good to see you get it.”
“Oh, I do,” I assured him. “And I also get... that now I have to punch you.”
“...What?” Franklin asked, looking visibly puzzled.
What? Did I stutter? ’Cause I sure as hell didn’t say anything weird.
“You know, you got a child... Milianne... involved in that incident, and when she told me about the man in glasses, a specific thought went through my mind.” I recalled exactly what I’d thought back then and put it into words. “‘I’d like to punch that idiot for sending a kid to a place this dangerous.’”
I hadn’t known the culprit, and both Milianne and Liliana had been okay. Due to that, I’d shelved the sentiment, but I sure as hell hadn’t forgiven the bastard.
“So yeah, now that I know that you’re the one responsible, I’m gonna settle this.”
“Kh...”
“I’ll say it again...” I raised my bracer-covered hand and pointed my index finger directly at him before making my proclamation. “My fist is going straight into your face. Keep it clean for me, Superior.”
“Do your worst... newbie!”
Following that exchange, the RSK moved to stand between me and Franklin.
This thing was a monster a Superior had made for the sole purpose of defeating me. Thus, it made perfect sense that Liliana and her knights had had such a hard time with it.
“It’s because they’re Paladins...” I murmured. The countermeasures made against my job were fully functional against them, as well.
Damn shame, I thought.
Still, if they hadn’t been Paladins, Franklin would’ve probably released some other monsters.
He could actually do so now, if he so desired, but he didn’t, because he wanted to break my spirit by making me lose completely and create a show where those protecting the city got defeated by a single monster without anyone leaving as much as a scratch on it.
Franklin probably would summon more monsters if we defeated the R
SK.
However, with the RSK gone, we would stop the monster release in Gideon, and the disappearance of the barrier would give us a chance to save the princess.
“There’s no change to what we have to do, then,” I said. “We kill the Ray Starling Killer... Man, what a damn stupid name.”
“For that, we must find out why Vengeance doesn’t work on it,” added Nemesis.
“I think I know why.”
“Eh?”
“Let me just see if I’m right,” I said as pulled on Silver’s reins, making him stop.
“Ray?!”
I closed my right eye and made my left one open wide before placing my left hand on my face and looking at the RSK through the gap.
The thing was still releasing flashes and light attacks through its many cracks. Naturally, looking directly at it would burn my eyes as effectively as looking at the sun through a telescope. However, I ignored the searing sensation on my left retina and strained to see into the sources of the light — the cracks.
The brightness was literally blinding, and making anything out was a real challenge, but I kept my eye open with the intention to see what I was certain was there.
And so...
“Thought as much.”
...a light projectile hit me the very moment I saw it.
Combined with the damage from the previous attack, my HP was now below half.
“Ray! Force Heal!” Liliana cast a healing spell on me from a short distance away. It was more powerful than the spell I had at my disposal, and it instantly got my HP up to 90%.
“Ray... You fool! That was nothing if not suicidal!” Nemesis screamed.
“Ray! What you did just now was far too careless!” Liliana chastised.
Nemesis and Liliana telling me off at the same time produced a stereo-like effect.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said. “It was worth it, though, ’cause I saw it.”
Even after the effects of Liliana’s healing magic, my left eye was still somewhat damaged. However, I’d gotten something really good in exchange.
“I saw a name in the light,” I said.
“A name?” asked Nemesis.
“In one of those shining cracks, I was able to make out the name display of a different monster than the RSK.”
