Chapter 558: Subjectivity

Author's Preface

The moment Another Zi-O II intruded on the position of the "King of Time who inherits the power of all Riders," it meant that not only Zi-O but "all the Riders inherited by the Demon King" became "Another" versions, reducing all the original past Riders to mere fiction. It's so insanely evil it makes you go "I can't freaking forgive this!" which, to say the least, makes it the absolute best.[*1]

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No, wait, but still............ are you seriously telling me this? Is it actually possible to cross paths with that trigger-happy nutjob in a place like this? Or rather, did that guy actually manage to lead a decent life? I know I shouldn't say this, but Saba-Gan veterans are the kind of people who can't exactly deny it if you call them potential criminals, you know? A fellow Saba-Gan veteran is saying this, so there's no mistake. Though, having walked the illuminated path of trash games, I've already successfully avoided the route of falling to the dark side.

"Wow, this is a pretty nasty trap..."

"Eh?"

"Rei-san, if we just blindly blast away, we'll probably run out of ammo right before the boss."

"Eh!"

I actually thought something was suspicious. Categorically, this game is a rail shooter, so the sheer fact that there's an ammo carry limit was shady as hell to begin with, but the fact that you can defeat enemies with punches and kicks means "combat in the event of running out of ammo is actively built into the system."

Meaning what? If you let your guard down thinking it's a standard zombie shooter and waste too many bullets, you'll end up completely empty-handed right in front of the boss. Now that I've noticed it and think about it, the ammo pack item drops have been blatantly decreasing for a while now!!

Dammit, this completely cemented it for me—this is absolutely Yashirobird's company! Between the firearm quirks that feel like a direct reflection of his twisted personality, and the heavy emphasis on ammo management, this is the exact epitome of a gun-specialized playstyle in Saba-Gan!!

"But, they're increasing!?"

"Aim for the legs!"

Thinking about it carefully, something did feel off. This playable demo stage is a retreat battle; the situation is supposed to be the players shooting down pursuing Scrads from the bed of a moving armored vehicle. So why the hell are the defeated Scrads lingering in our field of vision? Even factoring in momentum, they're lingering way too much, so after crushing the skull of a Scrad that got too close and observing the results, it turns out that even if they're dead, as long as their legs are intact, they keep following us using boosters or something.

Conversely, as long as you destroy their legs, even if they aren't fully dead, they'll plant their faces into the ground and rapidly fade out into the distance, so unless you're hyper-optimizing for score, saving ammo while sweeping out the trash mobs is the absolute best way to guarantee a clear.

W-h-i-c-h m-e-a-n-s.

In this game with its flashy array of weapon types like shotguns and single-shot-specialized launchers, picking those is actually nothing but a long-term disadvantage. The optimal solution is to use a gun type with low ammo consumption and meticulously aim for the legs to save bullets......... That is the more conservative Walkthrough Method Number One. But doing it that way is boring, so let's try the Saba-Gan style. The Saba-Gan style—yes, that means making full use of the raw ingredients' natural flavor!!

"Rei-san, if a Scrad with a blade growing out of its head shows up, let me know!"

"Ah, right there..."

"Thanks!!"

The Scrads that have appeared so far fall into four types total; they share a clumsy humanoid shape, but each has distinct characteristics. The goblin-like Scrad whose parts can be used to upgrade to a three-round burst; the totem-pole Scrad with stacked heads that upgrades to a shotgun; the fat Scrad that has high HP and doesn't drop upgrade parts but instead boosts the output of upgraded firearms; and finally... the blade-head Scrad that drops bayonet parts. Aaaaand... I already tested it, so I know exactly how it works...!

"Your parts are the only ones that have an active damage hitbox even if you just swing them around without firing them...!!"

A bayonet in the right hand! The blade-head part pulled in by the Scavenger Glove and maintained exactly as it is in the left hand! Kukuku, there's obviously only one easiest way to conserve ammo.

"Just kill them without using bullets!!"

I stomped and crushed on a goblin Scrad clinging to the vehicle bed, thrust the blade held in my left hand right between the eyes of a leaping totem pole bastard, and then cleanly severed its dango-head from its neck using the bayonet in my right hand.

I kicked away an approaching fatty and fired off the left blade. The fat Scrad bent backward heavily as the blade lodged into its forehead, completely exposing itself, allowing me to shatter its legs with a three-round burst. Ignoring the fatty as it rapidly tumbled away into the distance, I destroyed a newly spotted third blade-head and restocked my sword! However.........

"Guh... this is brutal..."

Guess this really doesn't work the same way it does in VR, huh; I'm starting to get out of breath. Why doesn't real-life stamina regenerate in seconds? Is it bugged or something? More importantly, the sheer swarm isn't quite at a certain Buster's level [*2], but it's still pretty bullshit... How long do we have to fight? Isn't it about time for the boss to show up? Just as I was thinking that, the voice of an NPC who was presumably the driver echoed from the speakers built into the goggles.

"Eh, what was that?"

"He said, he's turning...!?"

"Wha—!?"

BAM! The vehicle bed... or rather, the AR object deploying a hologram to look like a vehicle bed shook violently. In reality, it probably wasn't even that intense, but caught completely off guard and suffering from accumulating fatigue, my body easily lost its balance and.........

"Rakuro-kun!!"

"Cho, oh, nuh, hah!!"

Ah, crap, no, I won't lose, falling, hold on......... hold ooon!!

"Ah,"

It's no good, I'm falling.........

"!!!"

"N-Nice catch... whoa!!"

"Hwaeh?"

Right on the verge of tumbling off, Rei-san's extended hand grabbed my wrist and pulled me up. Thanks to that, I managed to avoid landing flat on my back on the floor, but because she turned toward me, Saiga-san's back was left wide open, and a single Scrad lunged straight at it.

Moving instinctively, I stepped forward as if pulling Rei-san into me, skewered the Scrad with my thrust bayonet, and fired. I snatched a part from the completely pulverized Scrad, converted it into a Slug bullet, and blew a massive hole right through a fatty's stomach.

"Thanks, Rei-san! You saved me!"

"Hahii."

"Wha— Rei-san!?"

My eyes were drawn to Rei-san suddenly collapsing to her knees, and taking a direct hit from the fatty's palm thrust, my vision flashed deep red. Uwoh, near death! That's a guaranteed two-hit kill... wait, if I took that on the shoulder and it did this much, couldn't a lucky RNG roll one-shot me!?

"Rei-san, what's wrong!? If you're feeling sick, should we ask them to stop it?"

"No! No, no, no! I'm in perfect condition, no problems here!!"

For some reason, the image of an ancient PC spinning its cooling fans at maximum capacity crossed my mind, but it seemed there was no lie in those words. Perhaps she had been watching me defeat the Scrads with close-quarters combat, because she began annihilating them with movements vastly more refined than mine. While admiring it, I figured I couldn't afford to lose here and sprang into action myself.

Thus, although I carted once after being overwhelmed by the sheer numbers while at death's door, we charged into the boss fight in what could essentially be called perfect condition.

The NPC's screams from the speakers were noisy, but to summarize, a super-massive Scrad that had assimilated multiple fighter jets landed on the aircraft carrier was blocking our path, so if we didn't do something about it, we'd die.

"This is making really clever use of the AR goggles..."

The boss enemy, "Garjet Fire", wasn't a size you could just handwave as ten meters or so; living up to the claim that it had eaten multiple fighter jets, its size was astonishingly massive.

If they tried to genuinely reproduce it in AR, no matter how you looked at it, it was an enemy that would exceed the ceiling of the Mega-Float Site. As a test, I shifted my goggles off a bit, and it seemed that to anyone other than the players, only a hologram forming everything from its feet up to its knees was visible.

"Rei-san, since we've made it this far, let's clear it."

"Yes!"

Now then, let's see exactly what you've cooked up here, Yashirobird!!!

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Author's Afterword

Rakuro, who carelessly made a movement "like" grabbing Rei-chan by the shoulder and pulling her into an embrace as he stepped forward...

And Rei-chan, who took that "like" movement completely at face value, got genuinely flustered, realized she was wrong, got genuinely disappointed, and then put on a front of genuine fake enthusiasm to avoid being found out.

Yup, this sure is a thing.

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Translator's Notes

• [1] A certain Buster: Highly likely referring to the "Buster Quests" in the MMORPG Phantasy Star Online 2, a tower-defense mode infamous for throwing absurdly massive waves of enemies at the players..
• [2] Kamen Rider Zi-O: The author is excitedly referencing a specific plot development regarding the character Another Zi-O II from the Tokusatsu series Kamen Rider Zi-O.