Chapter 618: Do it yourself

"This is my top recommendation, the Multi-Barrel Blaster 'Faceless'. The price is steep, and if you're a flesh-and-blood human, the required stats basically demand you to be a tank-type odebu-chanfatty, but just looking at the catalog specs is enough to comprehend its absolute magnificence... This right here is a masterpiece."

Purchase.

"...Among the expansion parts for the Type-Men series, this is what you'd call a weapon-arm part, where the weapon and the arm are integrated into a single unit. The name is Solid Gel Unit '「Boulder Flowing-Transformation Blade」'... The concept of turning magical energy into a viscous liquid and maintaining its flow appeals strictly to the tastes of true veterans."

Purchase.

"Wait, wait, Sunraku, I need you to look at this one too. In an era where magical warheads are the mainstream, this rugged, old-school piece utilizing live ammunition—"

"...Trying to discuss this without including this piece is the kind of joke that isn't even funny. Despite its appearance, which makes it look like nothing more than dead weight—"

"Hey guys, you're not actually just making me buy the things you secretly want for yourselves, are you?"

""If that were the case, we'd have you buy everything.""

Such is the boundless nature of human desire...!! Well, whatever. I'm buying it with my own money, so it belongs to me, and I have absolutely zero intention of giving them away as presents.

The most important thing right now is mass—enough mass to make that room drop down to the Fifth Layer. Casually brushing off the two idiots whose naked greed was fully exposed, I began systematically buying every weapon that looked like it packed a massive destructive punch. Partially thanks to the "donations" I received from the card gamers... but honestly, when I casually stopped by the slots earlier and realized it was possible to eye-press the reels, I almost screamed out loud from a mixture of pure joy and sheer frustration.

By utilizing skills to interfere with my subjective perception of time, eye-pressing those slots is entirely possible. It would probably take some getting used to... but conversely, that means I'm not the only one who can do it. Anyone could pull it off with enough practice.

In other words, while no one is here yet, it's only a matter of time before other players start arriving in the Fourth Layer. And since there's currently only one "shopping basket," an increase in the number of factions will only result in delays to our conquest.

"Survival, how are things on your end?"

"I went ahead and bought a solid assortment of rifle-types. I don't know what their DP is supposed to be, but there's no way it's low."

"Um, as for me... I tried purchasing one Cube-Men."

"Nice. A Cube-Men is basically a violently speeding die anyway, so it should definitely rack up some DP."

"A violently speeding die... Pfft, fukukukuku..."

Mold has completely lost it. What am I supposed to do with this guy? Still, our preparations are complete. Let's test it out with this for now... A grand total of 130,001,500 Score. If this isn't enough to reach the bottom, we'll just have to hold an eye-pressing festival at the slots.

Shoving the purchased merchandise into the Inventoria, we all headed straight for the "shopping basket" in question.

"Now then, Isana... We've finished paying the bill. How about you guide us to the exit?"

"You didn't pay a single cent of that, Yashirobird."

"Obsessing solely over money will never lead to a fulfilling life, you know."

"Hey, the weight of those words is completely different coming from a guy who just nearly bankrupted himself."

"Ah, I'm going to get mocked for this for quite a while, aren't I?"

Show a single opening, and you become the perfect prey. Whether it's the Fiend Rules, the Isolated Island Rules, or the Bakumatsu Rules, that is an unchanging, universal truth. I'd love to live in a slightly more peaceful world for once, but since this toxic atmosphere fits my disposition perfectly, it can't really be helped.

"...Failing to plan your maneuvers for after you go bankrupt is just sloppy play."

"Hearing that from a player who actually went bankrupt doubles the irritation factor!!"

With the broke duo loudly bickering as they stepped inside the box, the entire party was finally gathered within the "shopping basket." The instant we did, the cube began moving straight up... no, straight down.

"SP and DP have been added! The SP is one, ten, hundred, thousand... One hundred thirty million. So it really is the total purchase amount."

"The DP is rising too...! Um, wait, it's... increasing at a much faster rate than the SP...!!"

*GAGONG!!* With a heavy, metallic thud, the ascendingfalling "shopping basket" finally made contact with the outer shell of the Fifth Shell Layer. As those of us with our feet planted firmly on the floor staggered from the impact—an impact that, from the outside, would look like a floating box slamming into the outer wall of the Fifth Layer—only Isana, whose feet were not touching the ground, spoke up in a loud, clear voice.

『Score Points: 130,001,500. Danger Points: 380,006,800. Now, O next-generation primitive humans who have reached the door, take up your arms. The sentinel standing before "Wisdom" is none other than the final trial to grasp that very wisdom with your own hands... The one holding the reins must stand higher than the beast!!』

Even while watching Isana suddenly start spouting lines like a mastermind villain, we were too busy panicking over a completely different anomaly to fully process it.

"...Wait!?"

"My Chestoria!?"

"The weapons we bought are coming out on their own...!?"

"Ogogogogogogo!!?"

"S-Sunraku... -san!?"

"Sunraku, something crazy is happening to you?!!"

Ah, from my arm... no, wait, from the Inventoria I have equipped, a massive quantity of weapons and armor is... Wait, don't tell me "Danger Points" doesn't represent the hazard level of the individual weapons, but rather the threat level when they are all combined...!!

『Let us name it the Wisdom Guard: Type-Stinger.』

Using the Cube-Men Rei-shi purchased as the core frame, the guns, swords, armor plates, and countless other pieces of equipment we bought forcefully merged together, striving for a distinct "shape." The fact that this form was completely contrary to what the weapons were originally designed for was blindingly obvious, creating a mismatched, grotesque monstrosity that made Frankenstein's monster look like a supermodel.

And yet, standing firmly on the ground with rifles acting as its "legs," aiming massive blasters as its "pincers," and with some sort of gel blade attached to the tip of its tail, that silhouette was undeniably...

"Wait, that's just a scorpion."

"...Sunraku, I need you to listen to me without freaking out, but human beings usually aren't able to accept the existence of a scorpion larger than themselves this calmly."

I know that already! But more importantly, the real issue right now is the DIY weapon of mass slaughter standing right in front of us. Whatever its shape is doesn't matter right now. The problem is that, since it's the sentinel of Wisdom... we obviously have to fight it, right!!

"Everyone, scatter!!"

The pseudo-minigun Yashirobird had been boasting about earlier—the one that could supposedly change its properties as a firearm or something—was now serving as Stinger's right pincer. Roaring to life, it violently spewed a chaotic storm of bullets.

No one was foolish enough to get hit by it, but for the slaughter-weapon amalgamation Stinger-kun, a Gatling-style scatter-shot barrage was apparently nothing more than a casual greeting.

"The tail's coming! Duck or jump!!"

With a heavy *guon*, the air was sliced open as a viscous, gel-like mana blade—similar to the ones used by the First Layer's Gel Golems—swung violently toward us. Because I'm so used to this kind of thing, I can somehow react in time, but the rest of the party is failing to keep up with the creepy, unnatural agility entirely unique to arthropods. Oh yeah, it was the exact same deal with the Crystal Scorpions—despite having ridiculously tough cores and outer shells, these guys have an absurdly high level of explosive agility... Yep, yep.

"It seems to be incredibly well-oiled...!"

"Wait, this thing is accurately targeting the rear support first!!"

"Hold on a second... do the weapons from the First and Second Layers even work on this? Going by the flavor text, they don't seem like they'd do much damage!!"

"Like hell you can scratch it with those vegetable pistols! Use your bow, Yashirobird!!"

"Noooo! I want to pull the trigger, I want to—gubeeeh!!"

"Y-Yashirobird-saaaaaaan!!"

What do we do? This murder-mech scorpion... is really strong!?

---

Author's Afterword

・Wisdom Guard

The Fourth Shell Layer Boss. It possesses no specific base form. Its morphology changes depending on the Danger Points of the items purchased and brought inside the "shopping basket" by the players.

For the record, Score Points represent the "participation quota based on the number of players challenging the boss," while Danger Points represent the "difficulty quota per individual player." The more players in the party, the higher the required Score Points become, forcing the party to buy more items to meet the Danger Point threshold.

In short, the better the weapons you buy, the more dangerous the boss becomes. The more people you bring, the more you are forced to buy... And if you buy a bunch of weak, low-tier weapons to compensate, you end up needing a massive quantity of them, which ultimately summons the absolute worst variant: the Type-Hedgehog (a monster machine that wildly bounces around the enclosed space while unleashing a never-ending, bottomless barrage of bullets).