Chapter 188: Connecting, Connected, The Day of Bridging the Gap

Author's Preface

I've been saying this every single day for the past ten thousand years, but I absolutely love heavily armored non-humans that look like a combat-specialized fusion of a crustacean and a beetle (I love Jikarao).

But my favorite is Shiki.

Ochazuke alone wasn't enough, so I decided to whip up something simple.
Oil in the frying pan, toss in some rice and consommé. Chuck in whatever's lying around in the fridge, fix up the presentation with some salt and pepper, and done.

"Let's call it... I dunno, Whatever Fried Rice?"

Or maybe a half-assed chicken rice without the ketchup... Alright, from today on, you're Chick Rice. Because I was completely out of eggs.

"Alright, managed to take down one of the Sealed Generals, so..."

I quickly polish off my meal while posting a report about defeating Clionea on SNS.
Clionea was a pretty tough opponent, but conversely, they really should have done something about that fatal weakness to physical attacks. Also, the durability on those buccal cones was way too low—what are they made of, agar jelly?

That being said, combat performance aside, there were a lot of things that bothered me lore-wise, like Clionea's freshness, for example.
Basically, every Fishman you encounter in this area is rotting, or they have this unnaturally strong human-like scent to them like the Mermaids do.
But I didn't really get that sense of dissonance from Clionea. It's hard to put that dissonance into words... how should I put it... hmm, like a visual display bug on the outer skin?
Like when a weapon looks like a knife and shows up as a knife in your inventory, but when you actually use it, it somehow scatters buckshot everywhere—it says "knife", but the internal hitbox coding is a shotgun. That's the kind of dissonance I'm talking about.
The Fishmen and Mermaids have that sort of mismatched feeling, like something else entirely is forcibly acting like a mermaid... Hmm.

"A bottomless pot that doesn't overflow, a closed gate you can just walk right through, an NPC who officially joined your side in the story but their internal flag is still set to 'enemy' due to a bug, thus spoiling their inevitable betrayal..."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"I'm verbalizing the conceptual foundation rooted at the core of Ruluiath; giving it form through words stimulates my brain cells."

"R-Right...?"

"It's Sunraku-san's chronic illness desu wa, worrying about it will just make you tired desu wa."

"Sick-ness?"

How rude, it's mental exercise.
Regardless, with my current build, I can't defeat a Sealed General that completely nullifies physical attacks. I'll have to leave that to magic classes like Mold and Akitsu Akane... The problem is the remaining two Sealed Generals.

"Magic hits and physical attacks go through, but sometimes they nullify both magic and physical..."

But there are plenty of hints. The key to solving the mystery here is Clionea.
As opposed to Clionea who repels all magic, among the remaining Sealed Generals is a boss that nullifies physical attacks—Skills. Existing as two bodies forming a single boss, these guys who I'll dub the "Lively Fishman Duo" impose a restriction on the player that's extremely similar to Clionea's.
But their natures are exact opposites. Water and oil, North pole and South pole... That's right, they're a pair.

An inversion fundamentally cannot exist without a front and a back; flipping a featureless sphere doesn't change its properties at all.
In that case, our perception was wrong from the very start. It's not one Unique Monster and four Sealed Generals.

"It's two sets of paired entities."

What a thoroughly nasty gimmick you've prepared for us, Ctarrnid. If you don't have a magic class, you're soft-locked, and vice versa. What's the common thread for the remaining two—no, the remaining pair? Sometimes attacks hit, sometimes they don't. What's the condition? The presence of critical hits? A damage threshold?

"No, according to Rust, both her heavy bows and magic bows were nullified, but they also hit. According to Mold, attacks started landing when the players were at a disadvantage, and vice versa. According to Akitsu Akane, her kunai attacks hit sometimes and missed other times..."

I deliver a high kick straight into the jaw of a mermaid approaching me with a beaming smile while singing, catching Emul as she takes a direct hit from the song and tumbles off my head, all while my thoughts accelerate even further.

The testimony to focus on the most is Mold's. While the other statements revolve around whether or not attacks were nullified, only his statement is framed using a different set of antonyms.

"It only hits when you have the advantage, it only hits when you're at a disadvantage..."

There's no way it's a completely psychotic nullification condition like that. Some other condition is resulting in attacks only hitting during an advantage, and creating the exact opposite situation.
I dodge a mermaid launching a rather hilarious attack where she demands a hug with an expression of pure fury, slamming my decapitation sword right into the nape of her neck. I feel like I heard a rather questionable "Pigyu!?" death cry, but my brain cells are already running at top speed; such trivial matters are left in the dust far behind my train of thought.

"Akitsu Akane's kunai produced the exact same results against both Sealed Generals. Rust's arrows hit when she had the advantage and missed when she was at a disadvantage... The commonality of the kunai versus the difference of the bow?"

What is the bow's advantage? The ability to land attacks from long range. Then what is the bow's disadvantage? When the enemy closes that advantageous distance.
What's the characteristic of Akitsu Akane's kunai? It's a disposable item that can be used as a throwing weapon in exchange for having lower durability than a standard weapon—a Knife.

"............It's distance, isn't it."

My thoughts break through the tunnel, illuminated by the light of an answer that, while unproven, I hold absolute conviction in.
The moment the bow user was put at a disadvantage and their attacks started hitting was because the enemy got into point-blank range. The reason the kunai only produced half-baked results was because it was utilized as a throwing weapon.

"I've reached the answer...!"

"I want you to reach a safe zone, not the answer desu waー!!"

"Hmm?"

Ah right, since this is basically a Musou game right now I completely forgot because I was so absorbed in my thoughts, but... we were right in the middle of a battle.

"Araba! Up, up!"

"Y-You ask the impossible...!"

"Do you want your beloved blade to go from 'Grand Strait' to 'Grand Crotch-Pinch' again?"

"Nuooooooooo! A climb of this level is nothingggggg!!"

An easy-to-understand thought routine is easy to handle, but it makes me anxious just watching it. You know, it feels like he's going to get abused by a certain pencil who only knows how to draw up terrible schemes...

Sunraku: 【Urgent】 Regarding the Sealed General Strategy

Sunraku: So, as per the long copy-paste text I posted just now, I believe the restrictions on the remaining two bosses, excluding the physical immunity one, are "Long-Range Nullification" and "Close-Range Nullification"

Sunraku: Therefore, my initial proposal was to have the melee classes beat the crap out of the conch shell, while the ranged users blast the barnacle to kingdom come, but I'm messaging about something else right now

Mold: Rust isn't really in her right mind right now, so I'll be speaking for her

Sunraku: What happened?

Mold: They announced a numbered sequel to Nephilim Hollow at GGC. Did you not hear?

Sunraku: Seriously? I'm amazed they gave the green light for a sequel to such a dead game

Akitsu Akane: It's break time!

Sunraku: Well whatever, what I want to propose is the timing for defeating the Sealed Generals

Sunraku: We've been hunting them under the assumption that it'll trigger some sort of special effect for the Ctarrnid fight

Sunraku: Ah, good work out there

Sunraku: There's a possibility that we'll transition straight to the Ctarrnid fight the moment we defeat all of them, but there's also the possibility that it'll automatically transition the moment we hit the seventh day

Akitsu Akane: Yes! I'll do my best again in a little bit!!

Mold: So you're saying you want to finish defeating the Sealed Generals by the sixth day?

Sunraku: Exactly, I've cleared my schedule so I can be logged in until the seventh day. So, to put it simply, I'm recruiting members

Mold: I'll somehow manage to snap Rust back to her senses by tomorrow so we can participate

Akitsu Akane: The sixth day works perfectly for me!

Akitsu Akane: I'm being called, so excuse me!

Rust: The world is truly excellent. I can't die until next year

Mold: She's in this kind of state...

Sunraku: I can't completely say I don't understand the feeling

Sunraku: It'd be great if we could regroup with Rei by the seventh day, though

Mold: I haven't run into her at all, do you think she hasn't logged in?

Sunraku: She might just be busy IRL, hopefully she logs in on the final day

Sunraku: Luckily we have a massive landmark called Ctarrnid to gather at

Sunraku: So, as for the schedule...

Well then.

"Alright, time to grind."

Boss fights are a group effort. In that case, since my schedule is wide open for this fourth day, I'm going to thoroughly enjoy every nook and cranny of this inverted city, Ruluiath itself, completely separate from any Unique Scenarios or Unique Monsters.

After all, my Storage—Inventoria—has plenty of space. An inexhaustible amount of space, in fact.

Author's Afterword
From here on out, defeating the remaining three bosses, fleshing out characters, heading to Ctarrnid, deepening the worldbuilding, describing battles...

Who will be the next prey for Yuzapa-san, who has now morphed into a meta-effective weapon?