Chapter 712: The Murderous Intent of Enthusiasm is Malice and Goodwill

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This is bad, OiKatzo broke out into a cold sweat amidst the scorching heat.

"Katzo! This is clearly... 'Hostility', isn't it?!"

"Zippo literally just evaporated though?!"

"Right after he boasted about how much effort went into making that heat-resistant gear..."

Even feelings of pity failed to last two seconds before evaporating in this heatwave. OiKatzo had temporarily joined a fixed party of players who had met up for a shared goal, but with the tank among them evaporating, he fully recognized that the situation they were currently in was extremely dire.

"Just now... it was clearly targeting Zippo until he died, wasn't it."

It wasn't just on the level of "because the tank drew aggro" or anything like that. That butterfly-shaped flame just now made a move that was explicitly designed to "reliably eliminate a specific individual." Furthermore, it even set a trap taking advantage of his role as a tank stepping forward to protect his allies.

"Did we step on some weird flag?"

No, that couldn't be it. If there was a reason, it might be the fact that they had farmed this boss a certain number of times... but at the very least, the members of this temporary fixed party were excellent enough that the fairly efficiency-obsessed OiKatzo had absolutely zero complaints about them. While they adapted their actions based on the situation, in terms of "always ensuring the same result," this party hadn't wavered once, even though this was already their fifth attempt.

If that was the case, then was the cause the "number of attempts" after all... or perhaps, the World Story. A transition of the world that players couldn't do anything about, and within the turned pages, this butterfly flame...

Did that mean the entry for the Smoldering Great Crimson Clad was also included in it?

"What do we do, Leader?!"

"It's impossible! Throw any gear you don't want broken into your inventory and gather information! That works for you too, right, Katzo-san?!"

"Honestly, I wanted to 'thaw' one more thing, but... no? Actually, I might as well bring just this out... OK!!"

With one person dropping out, the remaining four—both male and female alike—stripped off all their equipment, leaving themselves only in their innerwear as they turned their gazes toward the Great Crimson Clad, which was blazing with a roaring sound unlike anything before.

"Maybe attacks will actually go through now..."

"Physical attacks are just going to melt; Vasco, can you hit it with magic?"

"I'm telling you, I didn't bring any magic gear that I'm okay with breaking... Ahh, whatever, I'll just use a scroll—aaaah!?"

The moment the female player (male) of the magic class in their fixed party pulled a Disposable Magic MediumMagic Scroll out of her inventory, the rolled-up parchment violently burst into flames.

"My two million Ma───"

In the next instant, the body of the female player (male)—who was distracted by the expensive scroll burning to ash without fulfilling its purpose instead of pulling off a Hollywood jump to evade like the other three—was turned to cinders by the incandescent light fired from the Great Crimson Clad.

"V-Vascoo!!"

"Wait, does this mean we can't use items made of highly flammable materials?"

"Wow, amazing, my recovery potion is boiling~"

"Wait, doesn't that mean it's too hot to drink—gyah."

"Shin Youjuuuuuu!!"

The female player (female) got caught in the whip-like movements of the flames smashing against the ground, entirely blown away, leaving only her right hand holding the recovery potion behind, leaving two remaining.

The remaining OiKatzo and the male provisional leader of this provisional fixed party finally turned their eyes to their steadily draining HP while staring down the Great Crimson Clad, which looked completely different from before.

"Flammable and... volatile? Items are unusable, and judging from the looks of it, it's heating up even more than usual, so physical attacks will just melt us instead..."

"What about your thawing attacks?"

"I've been trying to appeal to it for a while now, but it's completely ignoring me... This is no good, looks like it's completely turned into a boss now."

What OiKatzo was holding up with both hands was a single lump of rock. If the appraisals from NPCs were truly correct, it was apparently a weapon originating from a certain mercenary who lived in ancient times, known by the alias "Hundred Views"... but to get this kind of treatment just when he was about to finally thaw the rock lump he had saved for the very end.

It was true that they had repeated trial and error for strategies against the Great Crimson Clad, like dumping every bit of water magic they had on it, trying to bury it with earth magic, and throwing every unused weapon they had at it, but to suddenly bare its fangs and show murderous intent at this specific timing—wasn't that a bit too much?

This lump of rock might hold the power to become the trump card for the avatar known as OiKatzo, but if he thrust it at the current Great Crimson Clad, wouldn't the worst-case scenario be that it gets destroyed?

Such doubts held back his reckless charge, and he wanted to just put the lump of rock away in his Inventoria... but there was also a part of him holding onto expectations, thinking, What if.

(I thought thawing was a guaranteed action, like an event scene, but considering its heat output has clearly gone up...)

And then there was the white beam that blew Vasco away. That alone—yes, that alone was a "white" attack. An attack with particularly high firepower... No, was it even an attack to begin with?

He dodged it on instinct back then, but looking at the players' positioning from a bird's-eye view at that moment, the one standing in the very front was himself.

If so, a "speculation" without any concrete proof surfaced in OiKatzo's mind. Now it was just a matter of trying it and dying, or dying without trying.

Either way, there were no odds of winning, and no time left. The Great Crimson Clad was already preparing its next attack. Its target was... the male leader.

"Uooooh, show me your attack patteeeeerns!!"

Naked with nothing to lose, a man's charge. As OiKatzo casually backed away while watching with an "impressive," the Great Crimson Clad's response was...

"Buuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrr........."

"Wait, a homin—gyaaah!!?"

Flame patterns drawn on its widely spread "wings." From there, dozens of fist-sized fireballs fired off, surrounding the male leader from all directions and rushing in. Seeing them track him even as he tried to evade, it was unmistakably a homing attack...

"No, there's no way that's..."

He started to mutter "possible," but OiKatzo quickly denied his own words. In the first place, trying to take on a Raid Monster with just two people was a mistake. If the proper way was to share the burden of the homing attacks among a dozen, or even dozens of people, then the fact that the attack hadn't come for OiKatzo was a coincidence bordering on a miracle.

Or, there was also the possibility that the Great Crimson Clad's AI had switched to a "reliably crush them one by one" pattern the moment their numbers decreased.

"Well, I'll be following you right away, Leader..."

A beam—in other words, an attack traveling at practically the speed of light from a normal human's reflex perspective—OiKatzo did not possess the speed required to outrun it.

Even the fastest player he knew said, "I can see it and dodge it, but that doesn't mean I'm faster than the beam itself," and since that guy's case included reading ahead based on his own personal specs, it wasn't helpful as a reference at all. Meaning, the only paths left for OiKatzo were either doing something and dying, or doing nothing and dying.

".........And since the name is Hundred Views, that means there are at least 99 others out there somewhere."

The risk of losing a piece of content that only existed as one of 100 in this VRMMO game, versus the return of potentially grasping a new possibility.

Normally, he would consider the risks. But right now────

"If that idiot can pull off that much, I have to at least swallow this level of risk!!"

In that case, there was no reason to fear; all he could do was trust in himself, the Great Crimson Clad, and the lump of rock held in his hands.

"Come on, Great Crimson Clad! I'm sorry, but I need you to thaw this guy out!!"

The Great Crimson Clad had no will; all it had was its duty to fulfill. The Genesis Beast, the scorching red entity responsible for its attack mechanisms and energy production, was causing its flames to rage in response to the quickening pulse of the world.

But not yet.

It was a truly, truly hair-raising slide-in at the very last second. Right on the verge of the red awaiting its duty completely transforming into a "hostile entity"—that moment was right now.

Therefore, the scorching wings flapped their flames as if to say, "This is my final service."

"Now then... let's see who breaks first."

Instead of holding the rock lump out in front of him, he hugged it tightly against his chest. All in order to endure and catch it for even one second longer!

"Voooooooooouuuu!!!"

The incandescence was fired. The destination of that light—which had been dodged earlier—was this time driven squarely into the rock lump, exactly as intended.

"Th—"

OiKatzo's health was shaved down at terrifying speeds. No, the word "shaved" was no longer fitting. His HP was literally blown away, leaving him clinging on by a hair, but because he was scorched by the air itself—which had turned into a domain of death due to the sheer heat—his HP completely hit zero.

"───"

However, in this game, there is a truly minute amount of lag between the loss of health and the physical disappearance of the body. Most of the time, that split second is canceled out by the flinch animation, but because this was environmental DoT, and because he currently had a limited super armor buff from a skill, he was granted the mercy to move his fingers.

There was no need for the acrobatic feat of bouncing around and operating three separate inventories via blind-touching like Sunraku. Simply memorizing the motion in his index finger to store a single item into the Inventoria as fast as humanly possible... Even OiKatzo could pull that off with ease.

" "

Right before OiKatzo's body shattered and scattered, the lump of rock that had taken the world's strongest heat from the Great Crimson Clad... or rather, what was now closer to a lump of magma, vanished from this world.

Mass converted to data, stored without scattering into the world even upon death, passing through the door opened by the Key of the Divine Age...

"Folololololololololo........."

And thus, a single Raid Battle came to an end.

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Author's Afterword

・Fotom of the Hundred Views

The leader of a mercenary group whose name resounded throughout ancient times. A legendary mercenary who was said to have continuously claimed victory across a hundred battlefields using a hundred different weapons. It is said that even now, paintings of a man standing on the battlefield holding different weapons, known as "Fotom's Hundred View Paintings," adorn the Royal Capital. His final moments remain unknown, and thus, the hundred weapons used by Fotom also vanished into the vortex of history......

(Historical Truth)

It wasn't that he mastered a hundred weapons; he was just a fumble-man who kept getting ambushed or had his weapons break right at the start of battles, so he ended up just fighting with whatever he could find—picking up random things lying around or literally beating enemy generals down with his bare hands to steal their weapons, without the luxury of being picky.

Fotom-shi retired as a mercenary after his hundredth battle, lived a normal retired life, and eventually died of old age surrounded by his grandchildren.

Not everyone meets a dramatic end, or perhaps the peace attained at the very end of a life lived amidst conflict is the most wonderful reward for those who live for battle.