Chapter 271: The Beast of Lightning and Fire Confronts the Sword Wolf, Part 1

The Unique Skill of the Advanced Class "Destroyer" is [Scrap and Build]. It reduces the durability of an equipped weapon to zero—in other words, it destroys it—and in exchange, grants an attack power correction proportional to the amount of durability consumed.
And naturally, a weapon's durability in ShanFro is directly proportional to its rarity. If one were to consume something like the Brilliant Scorpion Gauntlets, which use high-rarity minerals lavishly combined with materials from the Crystal Scorpion and Golden Scorpion, they would likely obtain firepower that surpasses even Supreme Classes.

Furthermore, the "Gauntlets of the Master" is a weapon given as a reward for the final quest in the combat-oriented job build of the "Monk" class. As a guaranteed reward, its rarity boasts a remarkably high durability.

A Unique Skill for a class derived from Monk, coupled with a weapon from an endlessly repeatable final quest. It's a combination that clearly seems intended by the developers. On strategy sites, this flow is registered as the fundamental baseline for a Destroyer build.

And above all else, having fulfilled the "Bare-Handed" condition, the user gains access to all the Monk skills they've cultivated up to that point.

"Yellow, Red... Two-Color Mix 【Fist Aura: 'Great Orange Impact'】!"

An orange aura that increases critical hit damage dwelled in his fist, mixing with the red skill effect of [Scrap and Build] to make it look exactly like roaring flames.

"I'll knock you out in one minute."

"Big talk!"

The sheer number of glittering skill effects was unmistakable proof of a top-class player.
"If only I could get the Sword Saint job, if only I could use 'Quintet', I would surpass even Psyger-100"... Setting aside whether Liberios's prideful claim was actually true or not, the freezing magic sword he wielded with his Level 99 Extend stats could easily cleave away the majority of OiKatzo's HP if it landed.

"My bad, but unless you completely break my humanoid form, I basically never lose at this range."

"Why... won't it... hit...!?"

He deflected the flat of the blade with a punch, decided that the ensuing freezing debuff was a non-issue compared to his buffs, and simply punched again.
To begin with, the range where Pugilist-type jobs exert their maximum effectiveness against Swordsman-type jobs is in extreme close quarters (In-Fighting). If Liberios took a step back to open the distance, OiKatzo simply took a step forward, dealing with every attack from the magic sword while perfectly maintaining that point-blank range.

"I'll have you know, officially my win rate has never dropped below 80%... As far as I know, there are only about five or six people who can handle me when I'm pressing them this close, right?"

An intentional strike aimed away from the vitals. The very instant Liberios's consciousness shifted toward the point of impact, the true attack from a different angle smashed into his jaw.
As the Magic Swordsman staggered from the flinch motion, a spinning heel kick was driven into his hand, knocking the freezing magic sword from his grasp.

"Opening!"

"You fell for it!"

"Ah, sorry, I already knew about that."

"Wha—"

OiKatzo launched an offensive against the unarmed Liberios. In that exact moment, believing his hidden trump card would perfectly execute, Liberios swung a second magic sword—a blade of flames that burns the enemy—only for OiKatzo to effortlessly deal with it, having already grasped exactly what it was thanks to the information mercilessly leaked to him by Liberios's own boss.

"Well, how should I put this... In terms of PvP specialization, you're not gonna find many people better than me. You just drew a bad matchup."

"H-How..."

"Red, Blue, Yellow..."

The brilliant tri-color effects blended together, transforming into pitch black.
It wasn't as if Liberios had lost every means to fight. He still had other weapons in his inventory, and he still had healing items.

But on a much more fundamental level, he had already thrown his hands up in surrender, and thus, he couldn't react.

"Three-Color Mix 【Fist Aura: 'Overweight Black Impact'】!"

It exploded. The pitch-black impact that had once brought down even a mighty Tactical Horse detonated right into Liberios's abdomen.
Because he completely trusted and relied on his highly trained stats, and precisely because he had neglected his PvP countermeasures, Liberios was wearing light armor designed for aesthetics. OiKatzo literally struck right into his fatal flaw—having absolutely zero armor on his stomach.

"O, go...h!"

Was it his body that broke, or his spirit? Blown completely sideways, Liberios tumbled across the ground before slamming into the arena wall.

"Even so... as the Leader, I..."

Collapse. A victory without penalty to either side was decided, leaving OiKatzo standing alone in the arena.

"Well, I swept three of them, but..."

It was true. The Tactical Mecha was completely out of energy, and he had revealed his hidden Destroyer trump card against the third opponent. He had practically shown his entire hand.

"That being said, it's not like I can't go for a full sweep."

Only one remained. The Leader of the clan "Black Wolf," Psyger-100.

............

.........

......

"So? Why didn't you just order Katzo to sweep all five?"

At first, I thought she might have wanted him to throw the match to let the other side save face, but she didn't actually order OiKatzo to "lose," so I couldn't quite read her true intentions.

However, surprisingly—yes, truly surprisingly—it seemed I was the only one in this group who didn't understand.
Pencilgon floated a bitter smile, Kyou-timate wore a belligerent grin, and Rei-shi shrank back apologetically.

"Well, it's a simple story, Sunraku-kun. For example... Ah, right. For example, generally speaking, if you were trying to solo a ridiculously strong Raid Boss, what would you do?"

"Why did you stop mid-sentence to look at me? Whatever. You'd normally level up, get your gear in order, and go hunting for strategy intel, right?"

Well, I know I'm not a good reference point for this. "Farm EXP in a Trash Game and then chip it to death using Player Skill and Uniques" probably wouldn't apply to the average gamer.

In the corner of my vision, Psyger-100 descended into the arena.

"Exactly. So then..."

She pointed her golden sword at OiKatzo.

"How strong do you think a player gets when they spend nearly an entire year doing nothing but thoroughly training for the sole purpose of defeating Lycaon?"

OiKatzo was instantly chopped to pieces by four flying swords and respawned immediately.
Appearing with a look of pure shock on his face, OiKatzo opened his mouth...

"........................Eh."

This was just far too ridiculous for me to even mock him... Yeah, I'll definitely mock him later.

"What was that just now?"

"The Unique Magic of the highest-tier Swordsman Class, 'Sword Saint', called 【Servant (Subordinate Sword Play)】. She can remotely control up to four swords like that, and including the one in her hand, she uses a total of five... She also utilizes the 'Quintet' skill. As far as what's publicly known, excluding Uniques, it's considered the 'Strongest Vanguard Class' in ShanFro..."

"Furthermore, Psyger-100's 'Quintet' is led by the absolute pinnacle of Unique Weapons, the 'Holy Sword Excalibur', alongside the 'Super Cat Teaser Lv.100' crafted by the owner of the 'Holy Hammer', as well as various magic swords and whatnot... Honestly, it's a special tune-up that just makes you want to laugh."

"Wait a second, didn't you just casually mix a ridiculously funny word into that sentence?"

"It's an absolutely diabolical weapon that can apparently do up to 30 hits in a single slash."

What the hell, that's terrifying.

"Ah... So that's what was constantly shaving away my side..."

"Um... In my sister's case... She uses the full effects of the magic swords too, so... She's essentially 'A Vanguard who is strong at mid-range and also possesses Rearguard capabilities'..."

"And since she won't even let you get close in the first place, you can't even In-Fight her."

"What the hell is with that Trash Game-specific desperate balance adjustment?"

You see this sometimes. A game tries to make the ultimate weapon feel strong, completely messes up the balancing, and the result is: "If you rush to get this item as fast as possible, you can literally win while looking away from the screen."
And naturally, those are the exact games where players find a bug to obtain it early, turning the whole thing into a complete cakewalk. Then, because the story is usually boring too, it just becomes an unwatchable curbstomp simulator.

There's always that one battle-junkie character who's starving for a fight against a strong opponent, right? I can completely understand how those characters feel.
You end up thinking, "This is just a variation of a skin, there's absolutely zero joy in fighting this." It feels as hollow and meaningless as continuously writing the exact same letter over and over again in a notebook.

"Trash Game?"

"Ah~ I thought he was starting to return to normal thanks to his ShanFro therapy, but it seems there's no saving him when the roots are this rotten. Don't worry about it, Kyogoku-chan."

"I'll punch you, you punk."

"Too bad, the one who's going to punch me now is Momo-chan~... I'd really like our two main contenders to find her weaknesses, so I shall become the stepping stone!"

Ignoring the fact that she was trying to sound noble, it seemed Pencilgon was voluntarily nominating herself as the next sacrifice.
Having seemingly swapped to her serious gear, Pencilgon emerged wielding a spear that shared many design similarities with Psyger-100's golden sword. Changing into lightly armored gear that looked like it had zero defensive stats, Pencilgon stood boldly in the arena.

"Now come at me, Momo-chan! I can't really promise exactly how, but I'm going to punch you!"

"Her midriff is showing."

"I don't think I'd have the guts to wear that."

"T-That's, true..."

"The title 'The Woman Who Left Her Sense of Shame and Conscience in Her Mother's Womb' truly isn't just for show, huh."

"This was the absolute best equipment I could prepare right now~! And more importantly, you half-naked idiot over there! Even I have some sense of shame, you know!?"

What about your conscience?

Author's Afterword
Given that this is the first time in my writing where "A Player is a Long-Arc Boss," please try to imagine just how strong Psyger-100 is.

Actually, the fact that Liberios's faction in "Black Wolf" consists almost entirely of Magic Swordsmen, and the fact that half of all top players are either Swordsman or Knight-type classes, is largely due to combat videos of the Saiga Sisters leaking online. Oh, and Josette too.

• Conditions to Change to "Sword Saint":
  You can change classes by clearing the quest "Testing the Light Dedicated to the Sword," which triggers after winning an NPC-sponsored "Gladiator Tournament" ten times.
  However, because videos of the initial players who changed into Sword Saints (including Psyger-100) were leaked, the class's popularity exploded. This caused intense competition and brutal underhanded tactics between Swordmasters and Magic Swordsmen trying to win the tournament, resulting in the developers stepping in and nerfing the requirements in the past.
  (Ashura-kai actually had a hand in that chaos—charging exorbitant fees to assassinate other competitors in the dark).

Currently, the requirements are: "Place in the top three of the Gladiator Tournament at least five times," "Clear a specific Special Quest," and "Possess a Straight-Sword type weapon that has cleared a certain proficiency parameter."
By the way, Liberios is just barely short of being able to change into a Sword Saint, but he has apparently failed the qualifiers three times in a row...