Chapter 275: The Dragon's Calamity Endures, and the Wolf Howls ~ The Beast of Lightning and Fire Confronts the Sword Wolf, Part 5

The Player Name "Sunraku."
His first appearance was a screenshot taken without permission by a certain player, depicting him "hanging around with a clothed, talking Vorpal Bunny."
Next came a high-speed escape sequence from Ashura-kai, who were attempting to extort a beginner player for a Unique scenario.

And then, he became the first player to defeat a Unique Monster since Shangri-La Frontier launched its service: "Wethermon the Tombguard." Following that, he defeated "Ctarrnid of the Abyss," cementing his status as the only player in this game to achieve "Multiple Unique Monster Defeats."

He defeated the Unique "Wethermon the Tombguard," a secret hoarded by Ashura-kai... Based on the items provided to Library and the information gathered from interrogating scattered former members of Ashura-kai, the fact emerged that a player possessing enough skill to defeat Wethermon—an "unreasonable monster that uses ultra-high-speed draw attacks and cannot die unless specific conditions are met"—was operating as a free agent.
Several clans attempted to secure him, but knowing her personality, Psyger-100 assumed those attempts would bear no fruit.

Then the clan "Wolfgang" was formed. It sounded like a name chosen purely out of spite, and to Psyger-100, they weren't an existence worth paying that much attention to... Until that day.

The defeat of "Lycaon the Night Raider" by a mere three players (strictly speaking, three players plus two NPC rabbits).

More than the first subjugation of a Unique Monster. More than the long-awaited discovery of the heavily searched "Talking Monster."
Although there was a degree of bad timing on her part, the sheer fact that Lycaon—the monster that "Black Wolf" had challenged and lost to time and time again—had been defeated delivered an incredibly massive shock to Psyger-100.

Lycaon the Night Raider. Back when Psyger-100 was neither a Sword Saint nor the Leader of "Black Wolf," but a mere beginner. A Unique Monster that felt like the incarnation of the night it mercilessly trampled her pick-up party, which was loosely formed purely because they were all players who started right after the service launched.
As everyone respawned and excitedly discussed what the hell that thing was, Psyger-100's heart had already been stolen.

There are two types of gamers.
Those who enjoy the process, and those who enjoy the result.
To put it simply, the former is the type to complete their weapon collection and fill out every sub-quest before challenging the final boss. The latter is the type to charge in the exact moment they feel they have enough power to defeat the final boss, even if they're armed with nothing but a Cypress Stick.

Neither way of enjoying a game is wrong. Ultimately, as long as you can turn off the power thinking, "That was fun," or better yet, "Let's play again," a game has fulfilled its purpose.

In that case, the goal of Psyger-100... Momo Saiga, who had practically zero connection to gaming before this, was "The Defeat of Lycaon the Night Raider," and she had continued playing all this time for that singular purpose.

That is precisely why she spiraled into a violent rage when she learned that someone else had beaten Lycaon first. She even ended up taking it out on her younger sister and emptied five cans of beer.
However, having successfully managed her relationship with Towa Amane (Stress) since high school, Psyger-100's strong point is that she can usually regain her composure and bounce back just by drinking and sleeping.

The next question the now-calm Psyger-100 harbored was: "How on earth did they do it?"
From the game knowledge she had acquired by utilizing her blessed specs to their absolute fullest, she knew that boss monsters fundamentally reliant on gimmicks existed.
However, Psyger-100 was confident that Lycaon—at least the Lycaon that appeared via random encounters—did not possess those kinds of gimmicks. From her perspective, the only question was how a group of fewer than ten people had managed to defeat it.

Her younger sister, Psyger-0, certainly possessed immense firepower, but that came with the natural yet fatal flaw of "requiring a significant amount of time to fulfill the activation conditions."
Yet, based on the information she extracted from her sister—who looked ready to face her older sister's wrath—"Armageddon" had undeniably been activated.

...Yes, through the sheer brute force of just two players continuously maintaining the frontline as evasion tanks.
She excluded the other half of that duo—a player named Akitsu Akane who joined late with two Vorpal Bunnies in tow—for now. The real problem was the player who had maintained the frontline for nearly several hours from the start of the battle... and had done so while taking almost zero damage.

He noticed the gimmick of the "Invisible Clones" that Lycaon possessed, which even Psyger-100 hadn't realized. He used the brute-force method of physically removing the clouds to counter it, and survived a battle where a single mistake meant being sent flying like a bowling pin, all the way to the end... Sunraku.

A mobility-specialized build that completely discarded defense. While his stats were skewed, it didn't seem like an extreme min-max, yet the fact remained that even with such a skewed build, he could defeat Lycaon, a Unique Monster.
For Psyger-100, who had faintly begun to suspect that the "Sword Saint" job was ill-suited against Lycaon, this was basically good news.

At the very least, a Sword Saint should be far better suited against Lycaon than a half-naked dual-wielder, she thought.

In reality, Psyger-100 still had no idea just how thoroughly "extreme" Sunraku's build truly was—possessing fewer than five attack skills and dedicating almost everything else to mobility.

That is precisely why directly clashing with Sunraku in this representative battle was half the reason Psyger-100 went all out to pull a 3-sweep.

The other half was a reason stemming not from Psyger-100, but from Momo Saiga.
Her younger sister clearly lost her composure whenever Sunraku was brought up. Apparently, she was currently in "love"... experiencing a romance that was practically a monumental achievement for the women of the Saiga family.
And she strongly suspected that Sunraku and the object of her affection were one and the same.
In that case, as an older sister, there was only one thing she had to do.

She had to determine exactly what kind of person this Lycaon—the one who had captured her sister's heart—truly was.

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

.........

......

"My... Well, it might be strange to say this now, but I've been looking forward to a match against you."

"Hoh?"

"Sunraku... Your name and appearance are well known, but exactly how you fight, or what kind of weapons you possess... Almost none of that has been revealed. If I had to guess, the only thing known is that you possess firepower rivaling 'Armageddon'."

Now that she mentions it, that might actually be true. Almost every player I've partied with up until now belongs to "Wolfgang."
Meaning, practically zero information about my Brilliant Scorpion Gauntlets (Gilta Brille) has leaked to the outside, and on top of that, I've updated my equipment even further since then.

Glancing at the spectator seats, I could spot a few players scattered about who clearly weren't from "Wolfgang" or "Black Wolf"—like a certain fake magical girl.
Does that mean I'll be revealing the details I've kept hidden until now in a public setting...? Well, so what if I do?

"Besides, I've got something I want to test out first, so I'm prioritizing that."

"...Hoh? Does it involve a Unique, perhaps?"

"Nah, it's about my playstyle."

Gripping my two Aspiring Blades of the Hero (Duxram), I took a stance. I have no idea if this stance actually has a name. I only copied the visual appearance, so it lacks any true essence or deeper meaning, but all I need are the results produced by the movements that follow this stance.

"Calm the fire in your heart, and govern your own river... was it?"

"While that sounds like a joke in remarkably poor taste... I accept your provocation."

Provocation? Why?
While I genuinely tilted my head in confusion internally, a sword flew at me faster than anything during the previous fight against Kyou-timate.

Ryuguin Fugaku's strength relies on a simple trick. Read the opponent's movements based on empirical rules, and return the perfect answer to it. That's all.
It's truly a fighting style worthy of being called a TAS (Tool-Assisted Speedrun), which means your greatest enemy is yourself potentially making a mistake in the answer.

"The first two are bluffs. The real attack is a high overhead strike from behind."

I lightly twisted my body to dodge the sword aiming for my left shoulder, and deflected the Super Cat Teaser aiming for my right flank with my right sword.
Then, turning toward the true threat circling around to my back, I intercepted the Magic Sword Pega-whatever dropping straight down at my head with my left sword.

Weapon Breaker effect? Bring it on. Let's see you try.

"Aspiration cannot be broken."

As long as my sword trajectory doesn't falter, the Aspiring Blades of the Hero (Duxram) will not chip!

Blade clashed against blade. The Weapon Breaker effect deals damage directly to the weapon's durability value.
However, the Aspiring Blades of the Hero (Duxram) do not lose durability upon a successful critical hit.
It doesn't matter if the opponent is a scorpion made entirely of crystal, an orca made halfway of energy, or a magic sword imbued with a Weapon Breaker effect.

The Magic Sword Uni-whatever was violently repelled. The Aspiring Blades of the Hero (Duxram) that triumphed over the blade designed to kill weapons suffered no chips, and its brilliance remained completely undimmed.

"My bad, but I've got resistance to Aerial-Ambush-Style Gang-Up Divine Punishments."

If you seriously want to kill me, you'll need to use at least an "Aerial Meat-Shield-Piercing Ambush-Style Gang-Up Divine Punishment." The passion Bakumatsu players pour into Divine Punishments even incorporates friendly fire into their strategies, after all.

With the light greetings out of the way, the true clash between the Generals in the representative battle of Clan "Black Wolf" vs Clan "Wolfgang" finally begins.

Author's Afterword
Momo-chan's feelings toward Lycaon are somewhat akin to a Graham Aker-style twisted love or sense of destiny.
It is absolutely not a "I can't find love with real people, so I directed my sexual urges toward a beast in cyberspace" kind of deal.
In the first place, despite Momo-chan being a highly capable female boss type in real life, she's such a perfect superhuman that she never shows any "Wait, she actually has a cute side" moments, which is basically the main reason she has terrible luck with men.

• Aerial Meat-Shield-Piercing Ambush-Style Gang-Up Divine Punishment:
  A Divine Punishment devised specifically to gang up on top rankers.
  It begins exactly like the Aerial-Ambush-Style, using the roofs of longhouses to launch a surprise attack from above while the target's attention is drawn by a decoy. However, because any decent ranker will naturally deal with that much, it utilizes a "Second Ambusher" who isn't even revealed to the first ambusher. The first player to jump down is used as a meat shield, allowing the second to ambush the target from behind it, ultimately leading to the target being beaten down by multiple hidden players in a three-stage Divine Punishment.

Due to its nature—stabbing the first ambusher in the back without telling them anything—it comes with the fatal flaw of earning you a genuinely unfunny amount of hatred. Because of this, while enemies casually teaming up against a common foe is standard sense in Bakumatsu, it has become an unwritten rule to "send an apology wrapped in a bribe under the table once the deed is done" in this specific exception.