Chapter 338: O Dragon, O Dragon! Part 4

Author's Preface
The writing is gradually picking up speed.

Let me be blunt. I have no choice but to say the situation is incredibly bad.
The clunky, horrifying, horror-focused chimeras popping up one after another from the red puddles spreading beneath our feet possess a considerable amount of toughness despite essentially being trash mobs. Probably, the baseline assumption is that two or three players are needed to deal with them.

"Tch... Should I use it? No..."

I can't. Pushing my limits when I haven't even properly chipped away at the Devouring Great Crimson Clad's main body is far too risky. If we had an abundance of resurrection methods like during the Tombguard Wethermon fight, it would have been a viable option, but...

"Sunraku-kuuuun! Get down on all fours and squeal like a pig for meeee!"

"Watch your phrasing!"

"Here goes, 【Murderous Intent】 boooom!"

She rubs my nerves the wrong way every single time she opens her mouth, but Deep Slaughter's magic—properly fulfilling her role as rear-guard firepower—activated. I evaded the numerous beams of light closing in from behind with a somersault buffed by Shana-oh Possession.
Wait a second, the trajectory of that attack... If I had stayed prone, it would have hit me right in the ass!!

"My bad, Sunraku-kuuuun, it was an accident, you knooow... It's auto-homing, sooooo..."

I don't have the luxury of turning around to check, but I'm absolutely certain she's wearing a slimy grin right now. Seriously, isn't this a case worthy of divine punishment...?

However, the attack magic of a Mage player—especially one who has reached this location and has presumably removed her level cap—seems to possess enough power to completely seal the movements of the shitty chimeras.
Dashing between the weakened clones whose health had been chipped away, I cleaved through them with the Areadbhair Rebuild.

"...It shook, here it comes!"

Underground, underwater, mid-air... No matter the location, what other action could a monster that has escaped to a place beyond the players' reach possibly take other than a surprise attack?
While executing the highly effective countermeasure against homing attacks passed down by gamers since ancient times—"move so it doesn't hit you"—I gauged the Devouring Great Crimson Clad's homing performance.

"Come on, here's a prey casually walking to save stamina. If you're gonna attack, now's the time..."

"What are you doing, Sunraku-kuuuun! Come on, don't just piddle around, run! Piddle, Piddle! Or PP for short...!"

"Could you please install a decency mod or something!?"

...! It shook, the ground swelled, three steps back, adjust coordinates. Oi, oi, what the hell is this bullshit homing...!

"Kuh... Retrea— Hyooh!?"

Let me give you an analogy.
Imagine a handkerchief laid flat on the ground with a glass bead placed on top of it. Now, imagine grabbing one corner of that handkerchief and forcefully yanking it upward.

Now, here's the question: Following the laws of physics, what kind of movement will the glass bead on top of the handkerchief make?

"Zyrurururururrrraaaaaaaaaa!!!!"

"Don't... underestimate me!!"

Listen here! I've fought on top of moving trains, on top of airplanes! Hell, I've even fought directly above the thrusters of a space battleship!
Compared to a plain where buggy texture-clipping pitfalls suddenly generate... don't think I'll submit to something on the level of a sudden tablecloth pull!!

"Thanks for the momentum!"

The spot where I was standing one second ago rapidly swelled up, and as if responding to it, the red puddles gathered toward a single point.
Effectively swept off my feet, my body flipped upside down and was about to crash headfirst into the ground, but I slammed my left hand down to support myself. What about my right hand? Obviously, you use your precious right hand to strike your chest.

"Behold! Learning time: four days! Cumulative deaths: forty-three! Half-dead states: one...!!"

Finishing move...!

"Overflow Backwheel!!"

By the way, that learning time was strictly without System Skill Assists. With Skill Assists, I learned it in about three tries.

Activating Moment Sight. Within a slow-motion world, I witnessed the sight of the dragon corpse's chest splitting wide open, its massive maw spreading to devour me in a world stretched to a split second... The next moment, I executed a human great-rotation—which only looks somewhat normal because it's in slow-motion, but in reality, Emul completely dismissed it with a single, "Gyaaaaa, that's disgusting, desu waaa!!"—escaping the lethal zone.
No, no, it's literally just a gymnast's continuous back handsprings on double speed... Since the world outside of me is moving at normal speed, it just looks like a half-naked guy spinning violently backwards at high speeds.

"And finish!!"

Stabilizing my posture with a double-speed backflip resulting from desperately tracing a gymnast's movements, I glared at the Devouring Great Crimson Clad, which had fixed its form once again.
I immediately deactivated Levin Trigger: Hazard... Tch, ten seconds passed. Even if I want to recover the lost HP, the Arcanum "The Fool" forces me into a coin toss. My weakness is really starting to show here... As I thought, I'm weak when forced onto the defensive for extended periods. Plus, I'm forced to use sword skills one-handed!!

Even without Overflow, with the skills I've trained and assembled, there's no hindrance to the speed at which I can close the distance.
Utilizing mid-air maneuvers incorporating Flit Float, I slammed the Areadbhair Rebuild into the Devouring Great Crimson Clad's neck, which was riddled with cracks and exposed red bone.

"...Ooh?"

I was surprised for a second when the dragon corpse's head fell off so easily... but seeing the severed head drop to its feet, splatter onto the ground, and turn into a red puddle, I understood.

"Isn't this an impossible game?"

Part destruction is meaningless. The fact that the severed head turned into a red puddle means that if it does that puddle-transformation from earlier, it'll just fully regenerate again.

"Kuh..."

I need to exchange opinions with the rearguard. I have no choice but to put in a temporary pause here, huh...

Activating Vorpal Secret Art 【Fading Mirror】, I severed all the aggro I had accumulated so far and gained distance. Using hand signals to call Deep Slaughter over, I dove into one of the abandoned houses where the Forest-folks likely used to live to hold a strategy meeting.

"Oi, oi... A man and a woman alone in a locked room... Suspension bridge effect... As if nothing's going to happen!?"

"The only R18 flags popping up here are the gore ones."

Like in shark movies or zombie movies, the ones where the monster busts through the wall and attacks.

"Now then... honestly, what's your take on this?"

"Forcing our way through with pure power is impossible, isn't it? I mean, it flinches, sure, but I can't even tell if we're actually dealing any damage... A dead fish?"

"Its entire body is red meat... Doesn't look like it has any fat, though."

Then is it a gimmick fight? No, the chances of that are low. It's hard to imagine this game making a boss that potentially up to forty-five people have to play jump-rope with.
Since it's a Raid Boss, meaning unlike Wethermon it's an entity guaranteed to be fought multiple times, there's no doubt a "clear method" exists, but...

"Say, you attacked that liquefied Crimson Clad earlier, right?"

"Mmm... I slammed a decent amount of firepower into it, buuut I didn't get the feeling it actually Did anything, you knoooow..."

Okay, flat my heart, just convince yourself it's a dialect, my heart. A spirit of tolerance is important, otherwise you can't survive playing online games.

"...So, we're soft-locked?"

"Oi, oi, pulling out halfway through is practically torture, you knooow...? That being said, if that conclusion is true, then even if we increase our numbers and pass it around, we still won't win..."

So there really is a clear method?
Her words and actions are completely unhinged, but her brain seems to be functioning properly. She's just a broken printer that only prints in hot pink.

"Nnnn... Hey, hey, Sunraku-kuuuun, wanna try entrusting your body to my master fingers...?"

"Hah?"

"Oi, oi, don't look at me like that, you're making me cry so hard I'm getting wet."

You mean your cheeks, right?

"Good grief... Even if we're in the same boat, it feels like I'm carpooling with a demon... but fine, let's do this!"

Enjoying the worldbuilding is the flower of a gamer, but simultaneously, thoroughly exposing every system of an enemy is also the flower of a gamer.
A profusion of blooming flowers. This is exactly why I can't quit gaming!!

"It's testing time!!"

Author's Afterword
Unique Monsters fluctuate in stats and clear methods depending on the number of challenging players or NPCs.
Raid Monsters have fixed specs, but theoretically possess a clear method that allows them to be defeated even by a single person.
Alias-bearing Monsters simply have their specs vastly enhanced, so if you can't beat them with pure skill, they will crush you whether you're alone or with a hundred people.