Chapter 467: O Dragon, O Dragon! Part 44

Author's Preface

I've only been able to fight this far because Gachapin-san was here... Day one was 30 pulls with only one Gold Moon. [*1]

"I went relatively tryhard since there are no penalties... But man, to think you actually held out."

"U, ku..."

Akitsu Akane was crawling on the ground.
It was completely understandable. The leader of the Knights Tempura clan, Ten-Don, was a "Pre-Nerf Sword Saint" who had fiercely crossed blades with Psyger-100 herself. While the maximum upper limit of his manually controllable Servant was inferior to Psyger-100's, when it came strictly to "PvP," he was not the least bit inferior even to veteran PKers.

Trying to stall all the anti-Noirlind players, including a guy like him, was naturally going to result in this. The only reason she wasn't dead yet was entirely thanks to the status parameters born from a level that casually surpassed even Ten-Don's.

"Usually I'd just casually chip away at anyone who isn't a Red-Name and leave 'em be... but you're with that 'Inviting Sumata' or whatever faction, right? Gotta appreciate being able to score kills on each other without any penalties, eh? Applies to both of us." [*2]

"T-That's right... We can fight without holding back, after all..."

However, the tide of battle was already decisively settled beyond any hope of overturning. Akitsu Akane's HP was now but a candle in the wind... but that wasn't a reason to give up. After all, one of the men she admired was fighting as a blazing inferno that wouldn't go out even if you poured water on it, all while actively turning himself into a candle in the wind.

But just putting up a brave front doesn't change the outcome. Admiration alone doesn't solve everything.
Ten-Don raised his sword, and for some reason, Emi-Lia's eyes widened in surprise...

In the very next moment, a shadow covered Akitsu Akane and the others... and only a booming crash echoed out.

『Nuuuuu...』

"Whoa, Noirlind?!"

『Step aside.』

"Buh."

Ten-Don's body was effortlessly swatted away, and Akitsu Akane narrowly escaped death by a hair's breadth.
While spewing a massive amount of damage effects from his neck, Noirlind confirmed that Akitsu Akane had somehow managed to stand up, and then glared quietly at Emi-Lia and the others... at those who had united to slay him.

『Swarming insects... Seeking my head is truly insolent.』

"Noirlind...!!"

『But how unfortunate for you, I shall not offer this head to the likes of you......... However, once everything is over, I shall permit you to wretchedly carve up my corpse...』

"Huh?"

『Hmph, merely a change of pace...!!』

Spreading his wings wide, Noirlind took off high into the sky. The massive black body climbed higher and higher before doing a midair somersault, violently falling straight down.

"Hah? Did something fall off?"

Ten-Don's muttered words were picked up by no one; everyone simply looked up at the black meteor falling from the heavens...

『───!!!』

With a soundless roar, Noirlind's massive body closed in on Siegwurm...

"Ah!!"

A scream leaked from Akitsu Akane's throat.
From the sphere of light continuing to expand right before Siegwurm's eyes, lasers fired once again, piercing through Noirlind's body. And then...

The Dragon King's right hand raised directly upward. From it, a flatly expanding force field acted as a physical barrier, catching the colossal falling mass and kinetic energy that was Noirlind.
Fissures spider-webbed across the ground Siegwurm braced himself on, and seeing as his massive body noticeably sank into the earth, it probably wasn't a complete defense.

But even so. Noirlind's full-powered kamikaze attack... ended in a result that could only be called a "failure".

"Whoa, he went in neck-first..."

"Wait... didn't every bone in his body break, not just his neck?"

"Self-destruct?"

Unable to grasp the situation behind Noirlind's sudden actions, the players turned their gazes to the black dragon rolling across the ground like a ball that had lost all its bounce.
Flipped onto his back, Noirlind didn't twitch a single muscle... actually, with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, the light completely gone from his eyes, and the joints all over his body and neck bent in bizarre directions... was he actually de───

"Huh?"

To the question mark that involuntarily leaked from Akitsu Akane, Ten-Don internally sympathized, thinking it couldn't be helped.
To think the black dragon they had gone so far to support would die from a self-destruct—it was honestly enough to make anyone feel pity. After all, even the players flying the anti-Noirlind banner were bewildered, wondering if they should genuinely be happy about this.

"...Well, you know. Guess we just pulled a weird RNG pattern... Wait, he's gone?!"

"───There's no announcement."

Ten-Don's shock and Emi-Lia's mutter happened almost simultaneously. And right beside Akitsu Akane, who was running slightly further away...

『Let us go! Mgggh, what a humiliation...! My stride! My stride is far too small! My point of view is so low!』

"N-Noirlind-san........."

『...Hmph, this too is part of my stwateg─』

"You've lost a lot of weight, haven't you?"

『Fool!!』

A monster the size of a large dog, yapping aggressively, was running away from Emi-Lia and the others alongside a fox-masked ninja.

『This is my ultimate secret art... an application of Remote Emote. Originally, it absorbs mana from the earth to create and deploy clones, but it can also be used to deceive the insects blinded by my majestic presence!』

"Umm, isn't that super strong Sword Saint person... chasing us?"

『.........Kuku, to think there would be someone capable of seeing through my deception.』

"Excuse me! Won't both you and I get one-shot right now?! To put it mildly, I'm in a huge pinch!!"

『Eeei, just run! I am not used to the smallness of these wings! I cannot fly fast yet!!』

The surrounding gazes unavoidably gathered on the bizarre person and "dragon" playing a screaming game of tag.
Ten-Don, chasing after them, deployed his Servant in order to stop them in their tracks first...

"Ten-Don-kuuuun!"

"Let's plaaaaay!"

"Prepare yourself and die, you bastards!"

"What?!"

It was a total ambush. Blending into the crowd, the moment Ten-Don stepped into their attack range, players leapt out with their weapons drawn.
Ten-Don widened his eyes wondering why out of nowhere, until he noticed... every single one of the attackers had their Player Names displayed in red. The only players who received that specific processing in this game were those who had committed a "certain crime".

"PKers...?! Wait, don't tell me you guys—no, but why are you here...?!"

"Being hated is the whole point of the PK business!"

"If we're washing our hands of it, we gotta do it with a bang!"

"With info provided by our great pioneer, there's no longer any reason to hesitate!"

"Tias-tan, watch me take responsibility..."

There is a strong impression that they only have bizarre gear and pathetic weapons.
There is a strong impression that they never leave Firstia.
There is a strong impression that they only cannibalize each other and are completely harmless.

Laughable.

They are still active Red-Names.
They aren't trapped in Firstia; they simply choose not to leave.
They merely cannibalize each other purely as a means to an end.

And now, for the first time in a long while, the serious weapons they had kept hidden to escape penalties finally saw the light of day.

That's right, they are people who... find immense joy in murdering other players.

"Kukuku... Sunraku, I definitely had to wash my hands of this sooner or later, but... he probably never thought we'd take his tall tale seriously. Wonder what kind of face he's making right now...?"

An expanding pop-up branch of the famous-to-those-in-the-know cafe "Serpent's Apple" on the New Continent, dubbed "Serpent's Green Apple". Inside, a single woman was elegantly enjoying teatime.
Of course, chugging tea and tearing into a hunk of meat was vastly different from a standard teatime.

"Well, they're the kind of idiots who throw a banquet whenever their names get posted on the naming-and-shaming threads anyway... Kuku, perfect time to go out with a bang."

A player no one really knows, save for his connection to Sunraku. The name of that man playing a woman is Survival. The current second Player Avenger, and............ a player with deep ties to numerous PKers, including the clan [Dress-Up Tias-chan Squad].
Having become an Avenger, Survival had "washed his hands" of PKing as far as the system was concerned, but that didn't mean his connections with other players had been severed.

And the ones currently marching out with gleeful abandon into a battle where they forfeited all hope of survival were the members of the Dress-Up Squad who had happily accepted Survival's "request".

"I don't know what he's planning to pull, but Atobird tossed a pretty interesting scoop my way."

It's a common misconception, but the Dress-Up Tias-chan Squad doesn't exclusively exist in Firstia... in fact, most of the members had already set foot on the New Continent as part of the very first pioneer wave.
These were hardcore veterans who had made it all the way to the New Continent, only to declare, "Tias-chan won't come if we raise our Karma over here!!" and return to Firstia without a single shred of regret. That sheer dedication was exactly why they garnered a certain kind of respect despite being active PKers.

Survival recalled the time he had gone completely broke (from treating Tias to too many meals) and Sunraku had muttered a passing joke while lending him money and chatting: "If you're gonna die anyway, wouldn't it be hilarious to go on a massive rampage and get inducted into the naming-and-shaming Hall of Fame?" Having taken that joke completely seriously, Survival spat out a bone stripped clean of even the most stubborn scraps of meat and smirked fearlessly.

"The targets are Emi-Lia and Knights Tempura... Decent enough opponents for those idiots to have one last hurrah."

"Survival."

"Huh...? Lu-Luta-te-te-Terurururutia-tan?! No way, your hidden, divine visage has been revealed...?!"

His face as the mastermind behind the PKers peeled off in an instant. Sweating profusely and acting completely sus, Survival felt a hand land softly on her shoulder—the hand of Bounty Hunter Lutia.

"A little lecture."

"Eh, no way, no, wait... A lecture (reward)? Hold on, let me get my recording item ready..."

To put it plainly, as far as Survival was concerned, everything that was happening was an absolute net positive.

Author's Afterword

Remote Emote
Creates a clone composed of mana to attack. Since the clone's AI is low, it might seem like a downgraded version of Siegwurm's Dragon King Engine, but its greatest feature is that by transferring Noirlind's core, the "main body" can be swapped.
During combat, he uses the risky method of firing just the core at high speeds, but as seen here, he can also put the core into a small clone to make it his "main body". However, because all his stats drop across the board when doing this, it's strictly a final resort meant for escaping.

By the way, Noirlind's "Hazard Mode" does exist separately, but since Akitsu Akane maxed out his wild instinct, it probably won't ever see the light of day.

Translator's Notes

• [1] Gachapin-san: A reference to the Cygames roulette system in Granblue Fantasy, where a mascot named Gachapin guarantees free draws during special events. "Gold Moons" are obtained when pulling duplicate SSR weapons.

• [2] Inviting Sumata: A vulgar pun on "Scorpion Sunomata" (Sasorisunomata). Ten-Don misremembers the name as "Sasoi Sumata", translating literally to "Inviting Thigh-Job".