Chapter 205: Sharing the Same Heaven - Part 11

Author's Preface

I was messing around with Syosetu's features and suddenly had an idea. If it's too weird, I'll change it back.

Happy New Year, everyone. Please continue to support my humble work this year as well.
I managed to pull Hokusai, so I'm updating with a peaceful state of mind.

"Uwah!?"

The night sky is white.

The Colosseum is red.

Ctarrnid's appearance looks bizarrely white.

Looking down at my own hands, I saw pale bluish palms that didn't look human at all.

"Wh-What, wh-what is this........."

"Calm down, Rei-shi. It's just a color inversion."

"Color......... r-right, I see......"

You naturally get distracted by the literal visual impact, but the only thing that changed is the color. If this were a bug, there would definitely be some kind of GM call, and the lack of one means this situation was brought about by that green chalice.

"W-Wawah! What is this!?"

"Calm down. I said calm down... Ah geez, everybody listen up!!!!!"

Maybe it's because I'm in a female avatar now, but my throat stings from shouting so loudly. However, to counter Ctarrnid stacking panic on top of panic, the only option is to forcefully bulldoze through with enough output to blow that panic away.

"Akitsu Akane, it's dangerous, so stop flailing around! Rust, don't just freeze up either! Same goes for Mold! Color inversion is something you can easily do by tweaking a few hardware settings! Don't lose your minds over it!!"

First and foremost, I need to stabilize the situation. Since we don't know what effects the remaining two chalices will cause, we have no choice but to distance ourselves for now. I jumped up, smacked Akitsu Akane on the head, flicked Rust and Mold on the forehead, and grabbed Rei-shi's hand, pulling her to a corner of the Colosseum where we had evacuated the NPCs.

"A-Awawa, Sunraku-san! Sunraku-san!"

"Gaaah, what a pain, everybody attention!!"

Why the hell do I have to act like a kindergarten teacher when there's a literal monster right in front of us? But still, this isn't solo play. I'm not alone. If there's only one person capable of making a rational judgment, then that person has no choice but to take charge.

"Calm down, okay? Calm down. Even if you aren't calm, calm down. Deep breaths... Inhale, and exhale. Close your eyes for a second and chant 'The sky is white, my skin is pale blue.' Got it? If you understand, say 'Yes Sir,' actually no, it's 'Yes Ma'am.' Everybody say it!"

"...Sunraku should be the first one to calm down."

"It's a cool-down by negative example. Seeing someone panicking even harder than you actually makes you calm down, doesn't it?"

Alright, it looks like everyone, including the NPCs, has calmed down enough to at least listen to me. Stude rolled his eyes back into his head and went quiet after I gave him a solid chop.

"You don't need to understand the underlying principles. As long as you know 'who' caused the phenomenon, that's more than enough."

It's the same with bugs. You can maintain your sanity much better dealing with a bug where trash mobs inexplicably have final-boss-tier firepower, compared to a bug where you randomly take damage despite there being absolutely no enemies around. By the way, the former actually happened in a certain game: player volunteers analyzed the code and discovered the shocking truth that "because the developers copy-pasted the final dungeon's map data but only changed the visual textures, it looks like nothing is there, but the final dungeon mobs are actually still there, completely invisible."
Since it was an area you didn't need to visit for the main story, it was somewhat tolerable. However, if you triggered a certain event flag, an item in that area became absolutely mandatory, turning it into a point where "you absolutely must not displease the Fairy Trash," making it synonymous with pure terror in that "certain" game.

"Alright, for now, what we currently know is that 'something happens when that chalice shines.'"

"...Blue is Gender Inversion, Green is visual Color Inversion."

"Umm... you're Rust, right?"

"...My eyes are finally getting used to it."

An eight-heads-tall, handsome guy who looked exactly like a materialized shoujo manga love interest muttered quietly while pressing between his eyebrows in annoyance. If you closed your eyes to the fact that he was wearing women's clothes so tight they looked ready to burst, it would be an incredibly picturesque sight, but... well, he honestly just looks like a pervert. Akitsu Akane is out of the question; she's literally just a walking gag.

"...Ctarrnid. Wait and see?"

"Probably a game-design consideration, like a tutorial phase."

"Ugh... it's hard to move..."

I'm not going to comment on it anymore. I will absolutely not react to Mold looking exactly like a shoujo manga heroine.
Gaaah, the fact that their soul genders are reversed makes this look actually suit them way better, which is just... Gaaah, this isn't the time to be getting hyped over gender-bender tropes! I hate myself for not being able to stay perfectly calm and ignore this situation!

"ZUNRAKUZAAAN! Zumbuzing! Zumbuzing grew ob me desu waaaaa!!"

"I'm not asking what grew on you. Next!"

"I had not heard that Ctarrnid possessed such an ability!"

"That just means it wasn't taking you seriously at all. Next!"

"Kugh... To suffer such humiliation...!"

"Yeah, yeah, 'Kuh, kill me,' 'Kuh, kill me.' Next!"

"I don't particularly feel any changes."

"That just means you don't have a gender. Next!"

Damn it, everyone's in a state that could provide enough joke material to laugh at for half a day, and it's incredibly frustrating that we don't have the time for that right now.
As we were doing that, the chalice Ctarrnid held shone once again, dyeing our vision entirely orange. Wait, since the colors are inverted, is this actually orange? Then what color chalice just shone!?

"No, it's not orange... it's blue...!"

"I see, so taking the same light again reverts you back to normal...!"

The old man turned back into the fox-masked girl, the shoujo manga duo turned back into the youth manga duo, and after looking over the group—who had all returned to their normal genders, including various other things—I turned back to Ctarrnid.

"For now, unless we make it use the 'Green' chalice again and return our vision to normal, there's nothing we can do. And the moment our vision returns to normal, we'll test if we can destroy those chalices."

Ctarrnid's tentacles are constantly holding the chalices, even when using physical attacks like slamming its tentacles down. Plus, there's a somewhat long recovery animation after it uses a tentacle for a physical attack. I'm fairly certain those chalices can be destroyed. The crucial thing to note here is that "destroying the chalice" probably won't cancel the effects of the light you've already been bathed in. If we screw up, we might have to fight the rest of the battle with inverted genders or inverted vision.

"I'm curious about the effects of the remaining two chalices, but we'll launch our attack at the exact moment a 'chalice' is used and we return to a normal state. Rei-shi and I will bait out tentacle attacks, so the moment a chalice gets close to the ground, everyone launch an all-out attack!"

Actually, if the condition for destruction is pure firepower, Rei-shi is our lifeline. Don't tell me she brought the hammer specifically anticipating object destruction...? No, surely not. But it's a fact that a hammer is far more advantageous than a sword when it comes to "shattering objects." As expected of a hardcore player, she probably has the skills to manage within a limited inventory, unlike me with my infinite storage space.

"Rei-shi, let's destroy the Gender Inversion chalice first. It's too much of a hassle if the NPCs panic every single time it goes off."

"Understood."

Out of everyone here, having Ceecrue—who can act as a main attacker second only to Rei-shi and me—blatantly cower in fear is a massive loss. And having to constantly adjust how we move our bodies is honestly worse than having our vision bugged out.
Rei-shi and I dashed forward, reaching Ctarrnid. Because our vision was inverted, Ctarrnid looked completely white. Even more troublesome was that the colors of the chalices were also inverted, meaning we couldn't rely on color and had to identify which tentacle was holding which chalice.

"Which leg was it!?"

"Umm... I think it's the opposite of blue, so that chalice is... Gender Inversion, and... that leg is Color Inversion!"

"Let's go for Gender Inversion first!"

We can safely assume that slashing it won't deal any actual damage, but it can draw its attention. Even if it doesn't cause damage that makes blood spurt, you can't help but notice if ants are crawling on your skin. My weapon and Rei-shi's weapon slammed into one of Ctarrnid's tentacles—the one holding the chalice that, under normal colors, would be "Blue".
The effect is... well, it's hard to say it actually did anything, but Ctarrnid's giant eyeballs definitely turned toward us. The hollow tentacle filled with power, and danger closed in on Rei-shi and me. But even with inverted vision, we aren't senile enough to get hit by an attack of this level.

"It's coming...!"

The descending tentacle violently smashed into empty ground. The blue chalice lowered close to the earth, and at that exact moment, the others waiting in the back sprang forward, weapons, magic, and arrows readied, descending upon the blue chalice. Now then, exactly how much durability does this chalice have...?

"It's no good! This thing is super hard!!"

"Can it actually be destroyed!?"

"It cracked! We can do it!"

Even as Araba shouted after slamming his Grand Strait into it, Ctarrnid apparently didn't intend to leave its tentacle pinned to the ground for very long. Though Rust's final arrow managed to land a hit, it was impossible to completely destroy it in a single attempt, and the blue chalice retreated back to a height out of reach for close-range classes.

"For now, we've figured out the strategy pattern! We'll keep baiting out attacks and destroying the chalices one by one!!"

Ah, it shone again. Damn it, Gender Inversion again! This unequipped underwear doesn't firmly secure my chest, so it bounces around like crazy and it actually hurts!!

"Uoooh, this is just a massive pain in the ass!"

Author's Afterword
Barun-barun!