Chapter 41: Remnants of the Age of Gods, The Obsessed Loser

The Second: Parasite Tentacle. It turns out the main body wasn't the bear, but the tentacles. After spending five minutes per tentacle—cutting them off from the root while dodging the interference of the remaining ones—the bear stopped moving once I severed seven of them. Cleared. Attempts: 4.

The Third: Goblin Berserk. I can only describe it as a really strong goblin. But even if it was really strong, it was still a goblin, so it fell into the easier category compared to the dogs or the tentacles. Attempts: 2.

The Fourth: Dyna Boar. Shitty boar. Its ability to explode if you hit its nose during a charge wasn't that big of a deal, but its stamina was broken. I timed it, and it kept running for about twenty seconds in a single charge. If I didn't have experience with the "Rodeo" skill, it would have taken much longer... though since that experience is from in-game, I doubt I could last even five seconds in a real rodeo. Attempts: 1.

The Fifth: Toxic Eagle. You. Seriously. For real. I will not forgive you. Attempts: 32.

The Sixth: Armored Larva. No, seriously, compared to that shitty bird that just spammed poison attacks from the sky where I couldn't reach, having the armor plating burst like buckshot when I hit a specific part is nothing! Thinking calmly, this guy was pretty bad too, but because the one before it was that one, I managed to dodge and push through on pure adrenaline. Attempts: 1.

Dinner was whiting tempura.

The Seventh: Execute Panther. Fast, strong, but not hard. Its characteristic was circling around to attack from outside the player's field of view. Once I figured that out, dealing with it was all too easy. Having taken a break to recover my mental bandwidth, it was no match for me. Attempts: 1.

The Eighth: Twin Head Tiger. Neither good nor bad, just normally strong... that's all. Attempts: 2.

The Ninth: Beta Unit Golem Type-S2. For the sake of hypothesis, let's call the right arm attack 'A' and the left arm attack 'B'. When connecting A to A, it hammers in attacks with almost no time lag. However, when going from A to B, or vice versa, the core in its chest glows for a split second. This allows for a certain degree of attack prediction. Considering the difference between the Golem's height and my own, a regularity occurs in both A and B attacks. Based on this, I deduced that dodging the attack and—at the exact moment the action's hitbox vanishes—running up the arm to close in on the core was possible. When I put this into practice, I was blown away by an invisible energy field, losing 70% of my health and forcing a change in strategy. As a result of changing strategies to directly peeling off the armor to expose the weak point (I snapped around here)— Haaaah! Don't you activate some high-class crap like an anti-gravity field when your back armor is as thin as a car bonnet, you piece of trash! It's a pain in the ass, ora! If that action hadn't been a technique flagged by both time elapsed and player position, I seriously wouldn't have forgiven you... Attempts: 7.

"Emul... What is... the last one..."

"Y-You should rest a little bit, okay!? Your eyes are scary, desu wa!?"

"No... I'm fine... When I get like this, I actually move incredibly well..."

I personally call this state "Loss Time." My mind is fading, but my body is optimized... It's like when you pull two all-nighters in a game where physical fatigue doesn't exist; my consciousness is flying away, yet my body performs the grind automatically.

It's almost morning. Fighting this densely has made me more tired than I expected. The moment I achieve the task or objective, my consciousness will likely cut out like a switch, but as I told Emul, while I'm in this state, my body reacts to my reflexes more honestly than usual.

In other words, unless the final monster of this Unique Quest suddenly starts asking me riddles, I can face it with near-peak performance.

"The tenth one is... Oh, the Boss says he's going to go catch it right now..."

"What's this? You done with the ninth one already?"

Speak of the devil and his shadow appears; raise a flag and a rabbit comes. Chewing on a carrot as if it were a smoking pipe, Vash looked at Emul and me with a surprised expression—though in a way, he looked like he wanted to say he expected this. Well, he probably showed up because the flag for defeating nine monsters was triggered, so it is as expected.

"Uhh, Aniki... What's the last monster...?"

"Oh, I went out a bit and trussed one up."

Vash grinned and jerked his nose toward something. It was a gesture likely indicating the monster he had caught.

"The guy we caught... well, to put it bluntly, the you of right now can't beat it."

"Eh..."

"That's why, see, for this guy alone, I'm deciding the clear condition."

Snap. Crunching the carrot, Vash told me:

"Survive for five minutes."

"I see, an endurance run... Bring it on."

And then, it appeared before me.

An abnormally thin torso extending from four legs that resembled a four-legged stand. Surprisingly, it was a humanoid monster. Remnants of a robe that were so tattered they made rags look like high-class fabric, a staff gripped by withered skin and bone, and above all, a battered pointed hat that barely informed me that this thing used to be a mage.

"What is... this..."

"Losers' Woods (Moshu no Juma). A long, long time ago... one of the idiots who tried to survive even if it meant merging with a tree."

Now that he mentions it, although it's withered, the body lacks a strange sense of being biological; it looks like dried tree bark. I don't know if it's a mummy or a skeleton, but the hair, which seemed rather thick for something that has aged so long, is actually branches.

"You talked a big game. Show me the grounds... for that cockiness."

Losers' Woods (Obsessed Tree Demon), Lv. 120.

It would be much, much later that I learned I was the first player to fight this monster—which does not exist on this continent—out of all the players in Shangri-la Frontier.

Author's Notes & Lore:

Losers' Woods (Moshu no Juma): The Losers' Woods is a monster that is essentially a magic-specialized Treant. Monsters in Shangri-la Frontier are broadly divided into two types. This one belongs to the same category as the Vorpal Bunnies and Lycaon. I won't reveal yet what those two categories are.