Chapter 139: Because It Was Originally Aquatic

"Hah! If you think you can overwhelm me, you don't have nearly enough numbers!"

"No, no matter how you look at it, you're completely surrounded!?"

"Unless the guys in the back are trampling over the ones in the front just to crush me, you're not even in the conversation!"

"Yay, when you put it like that, the encirclement looks completely porous!!"

In that regard, the Crystal Scorpions were doing a great job at being a Trash Game. Though, I sent the devs an email pointing it out after fully reaping the benefits, so it's probably been patched by now.

I twisted my body to dodge a descending saber, thrust with my left sword at its neck, and used my right sword to parry and deflect a spear thrust coming from my right.

Before I could be surrounded again, I jumped, using the snapped, leaning mast as a foothold, and leaped over the swarm of fish-men with an acrobatic somersault, aided by the corrections from Shana-oh Possession. Just before landing, a ballista bolt flew right under my feet, turning several of the fish-men who had turned around to face me into a skewer and blowing them away.

"You're not just landing shots alongside my erratic movements for show, huh? Hitting me from a fixed turret is practically acrobatics."

"One wrong step, and it's capital punishment!!"

"Oh, good one. Take a cushion."[*1]

"Ballista is out of ammo. Providing support with a bow and arrow."

"Why did you board this ship too!?"

"...I'm a 'Mid-Range Archer.' As long as I'm using a magic bow, this is my range...!"

Quietly declaring that, Rust readied a bow with no string. The moment her left hand gripped the bow tightly, a string and an arrow made of light—clearly not physical matter—were generated.

"Let me guess, it relies on MP?"

"And to add to that, it counts as a magic attack...!"

Standing at the bow of the ghost ship and balancing skillfully, Rust loosed the magic arrow. It struck one of the fish-men mid-attack animation, and as it staggered, I sliced it apart.

The fish-men tried to eliminate this newly arrived foreign element, but Rust maintained her distance, firing off rapid magic arrows without letting a single one get close. Instead of reacting to attacks like I do, her playstyle relies on predicting the enemy's attacks and movements. The way she was flawlessly pushing the aggro onto me was honestly kind of annoying.

"Guess I'll act like a proper Evasion Tank...!!"

I caught Rust's gaze practically screaming, Work your ass off, so I used the Decapitation Sword of the Flame General to sweep through three fish-men roughly my height, instantly concentrating the aggro onto myself due to the flashy move.

"S-sorry, Rust!"

"You're late. How's your side?"

"Some monsters crawled up from the sea and boarded our ship, but the NPCs and Akitsu Akane-san are managing them!"

Well, they are fish-men. Swimming through the sea is a given. Still, they're the kind of mob enemies that burst into polygons after you land two or three critical hits on their weak points, like the neck. It seems Akitsu Akane and the NPCs alone are enough to handle the defense.

I see. This scenario is probably designed to be cleared by four or five people. The optimal solution is to divide the roles: some personnel stay behind with the NPCs to defend the ship, while the rest board the ghost ship directly. Alternatively, assigning someone to a ballista like Rust did earlier is also a viable option.

And since the objective of this scenario is to raid the ghost ship, the victory condition must be the annihilation of the fish-men, or...

"Are you the captain?"

From the entrance leading into the ship—which had been spewing out fish-men in droves until just now—it smoothly emerged. If I had to describe the silhouette, a Rokurokubi[*2] would probably be the closest. A neck clearly longer than a human's and more flexible than a giraffe's, thick enough to match its massive body, slithered and swayed as it looked down on us.

It looked a bit like a snake, but the rotting, flabby, mottled skin of yellow and brown, combined with a highly piscine, expressionless face, made it clear it was a moray eel.

Its massive frame, which was as large or larger than mine even without the neck, was gripping a ship's anchor. This thing was clearly on a different level from the trash-mob fish-men.

"Now, how should I cook this..."

"Please leave this, to me."

"Ah, Rei-shi, where have you been this whole..."

The deck shook. It was caused by an armored warrior leaping across the gap between the two clashing ships and landing on the ghost ship. But this wasn't the knight of dirt clods. It was a samurai warrior wearing armor with distinct Eastern designs, topped with a helmet that looked like the furious visage of a Hannya demon—as if an enraged ogre had been turned directly into armor.

In her hands wasn't a greatsword, but a reddish-black iron hammer... a sledgehammer. In a way, the sheer brutality of it made her look even more terrifying than if she were holding an obvious bladed weapon.

"The status debuffs are hard to deal with, but please leave this level of enemy, to me."

"O-oh... Got it. I'll cover you."

I'll keep it a secret that for a split second, I thought she was a new monster.

"Koah, Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!"

The moray eel fish-man let out an indescribable screech and swung its incredibly heavy-looking anchor down at us. Rei-shi and I dodged in opposite directions, repelling like magnets, and moved to fulfill our respective roles.

"Emul, prioritize the fish-men trying to interrupt Rei-shi's 1v1 with the eel-bastard, and look for openings to attack the eel-bastard itself."

"T-that's actually a lot to ask for...!"

"Basically, just go wild!"

It seems the deployment of the moray eel fish-man was proof that they were getting pushed into a corner. Honestly, the movements of the fish-men, which had been as sluggish as a zombie panic earlier, seemed to have sped up a bit. But that speed didn't come from refined movements; it was a straightforward, emotionally driven speed born of desperation.

"If that's the case, we can overturn the numbers disadvantage...!"

I hit one of the fish-men with a flying kick, making them think I was focusing my aggro there... only to slash at a different fish-man instead. Hahaha, not good at handling this kind of feint? Then take this lesson to heart for your next battle... Oops, if you die here, it won't mean anything. Too bad!

I threw a Duxram into the nape of a fish-man trying to head toward Rei-shi. As it turned around, I hit it in the flank with my other Duxram, causing the fish-man to recoil heavily.

Seeing me unarmed, the fish-men swarmed me like it was their big chance, but unfortunately for you fish-heads, players carry multiple weapons.

"Guaranteed in four hits, likely in three!"

With a magic chant carrying the meaning that four hits guarantee a kill, and three hits might do it if I'm lucky, the right sword of the Twin Swords of the Emperor Bee [Custom 4] flashed.

Through repeated upgrades, the infliction rate for "Destructive Poison" had increased. The thrusts of the rapier pierced four times, completely shredding the shoulder of a salmon-headed fish-man that carelessly approached.

Screaming... or rather, letting out what was probably a scream as it clutched the base of its shoulder, which was crumbling apart like pie crust, the salmon-head staggered. I bashed it with my left sword as I ran past, stowing the Emperor Bee swords into my inventory while simultaneously kicking the pommel of the Duxram sticking out of the flank of the fish-man I had thrown it at earlier.

Aiming for the moment its rotting body stiffened from the blade fully piercing it, I pulled out the sword stuck in its nape and unleashed a continuous flurry of slashes.

As its HP depleted, the rotting body burst into polygons. I caught the falling blade mid-air as it lost its target, ignored the fish-man clumsily charging toward me, and dashed toward the moray eel fish-man, which had been forced to one knee.

"Emul, hit its neck."

"Yes, sir!"

Amazing. The cooldown for the Shana-oh Possession I used just a moment ago is already done... The Fool is pretty damn useful.

A blade of magic power scarred the moray eel fish-man's neck. Before the eel-bastard could even turn its attention toward it, I reactivated Shana-oh Possession and ran straight up its massive body, using it as a foothold.

"Don't hold back... take this!!"

Flowing Flash Dance, activate.

For every single slash, three slashes erupted, and the consecutive attacks bloomed into a flurry of slash effects three times that number.

The battle was overwhelmingly in our favor...

But this was where the true scenario began.

Author's Afterword

There are unique NPCs involved, so of course they’ll actively participate in the scenario... (Evil smirk)

Translator's Notes

• *[1] Take a cushion: Sunraku is referencing Shouten, a classic Japanese comedy TV show where the host awards comedians a floor cushion (zabuton) for making a clever joke.

• *[2] Rokurokubi: A type of Japanese yokai (demon) that looks like a normal human but possesses a neck that stretches to incredible lengths.