Chapter 749: Setting Sun Part 3
───A newborn's cry is a scream of grief and agony.
◆
Goldunine the Inexhaustible, or rather, the world's strongest reptile that we've been calling that Goldunine up until now. Though Siegwurm probably isn't a reptile... probably.
"What, eh, what is..."
"It's the grand boss! If you don't want to die, if you don't want to let her die, buy some time like your life depends on it!!"
I'm counting on you, Special Duty! I thrust the muzzle of the state-of-the-art Aerial PD and fire without a moment's delay. It's a quick-draw drilled into me by Bakumatsu; hopefully, she'll drop dead from a headshot...! But before the fired bullet can strike her forehead, a venomous purple sphere that seems to ooze out of thin air intercepts it... Wait, did I just hear a sizzling sound? It's supposed to be a magic bullet...
"Now then... I wonder if you've been properly updating? The current me is, so to speak, Version 5.06...!"
Games that update frequently in fraction-of-a-decimal increments are one out; having an update log that's absurdly long is two outs; and if most of it is just bug fixes, that's three outs. That's my philosophy of life; truly good things are almost entirely complete from the very beginning.
I purposely don't call out Wimp's name. Sammy-chan's perfect stealth is the Wimp faction's trump card; it'd be great if they managed to escape from here already, but... that seems difficult.
"What, what!? What is this!!"
"Fix your posture, Ougasei! And you too, Shiyu, how long are you going to stay groveling on the ground! That is 'Goldunine the Inexhaustible'; at least hold out for ten minutes before you die! Otherwise, the ones who die next will be the ones right beside you!!"
Now then, what should I do? This situation is so disadvantageous it's almost laughable.
The earth's rumbling won't stop, trees are being mowed down, and in the distance, I can see something resembling a maglev train covered in ridiculously huge scales slithering around us in circles... Even without checking, we're completely surrounded, aren't we?
"A nostalGic, unpleasant face..."
"Well, this salmon's got plenty of fat and flavor right now, though."
Goldunine the Inexhaustible's attack pattern is a generic Sword Saint. She spawns poison in the air, transforms it, and uses it for ranged attacks. Compared to a Sword Saint, who can imbue a different ability into every single ranged attack, she lacks versatility, but since absolutely everything she throws at you is highly lethal poison, her sheer brutality easily outclasses them.
Back when we fought her underground in Rabituza, even with the strength we had at the time, Rei-shi, Akitsu Akane, and I challenged her as a trio and still couldn't even put a scratch on her...
Right in front of me is the Inexhaustible... err, one Boss-dunine. And behind her is one Dragon Serpent. What about the remaining three? One Naga has turned into the outer perimeter of this special field... are the remaining two still in ambush? It would be one thing if they spawn gradually as time passes, but the worst-case scenario is getting hit by a surprise attack.
"Hm? What's the matter? It seems you're quite short on siblings... Did they oversleep?"
"fu, fU, fu..."
In the distance, the earth trembles. When I shift my gaze slightly toward the clearing created by the snakes mowing down the trees, I see a Naga casually poking its head out from the direction of the frontline base... Alriiiight! The possibility of a surprise attack is halved!!
"Heh, what an insolent little trick..."
"i will plucK thEm witH tHis hand, yoU know? me too, me too, and yOu all as well."
Whoa, that's some freezing killing intent, but in the face of my burning, scorching motivation, something like that is just slapping water on a burning stone. Stacked buffs, Energy Kaiser right after chugging a Riot Blood!!
"Wild Aura... Great Ape!!"
"Eh, a-ah, hah, 'Hustle Routine'!!"
It seems Ougasei and Shiyu finally understand that this is a battle they can't back away from. They each take a combat stance, forming a formation that surrounds Boss-dunine from three directions.
"Goldunine's attack pattern mainly consists of that Naga and ranged attacks using poison. The poison has two types: paralysis and deadly poison... Also, if the poison turns black, run. It inflicts 'Curse'."
"Understood."
"Eh, what, um..."
Sorry, Ougasei, we're doing this live. Just clutch your antidotes tightly!!
I activate Levin Trigger: Hazard and accelerate in a single burst.
Her poison bullets are a trash-tier mechanic where you have absolutely no idea what shape the attack will take until they transform. As far as I remember, there were four patterns: 'Hand,' 'Sword,' 'Spear,' and 'Bomb,' but... perhaps the flags advanced because of the Unique Scenario EX triggering? The deployed poison spheres transformed into a pattern I've never seen before.
"Hih."
Whoops, looks like Ougasei has zero horror resistance. I guess action movies with splatter elements are outside her scope?
Two arms thrust out of the poison sphere with a squelch, and then the spherical part takes the shape of a human torso while dripping poison. It has the shape of a woman... but the sight of the upper half of a human made of liquid poison floating in the air without a lower body is, to put it mildly, straight out of a horror movie. Actually, wait, why is the sculpting slightly different for every single one of them? No, don't tell me that means...
"Tch."
I fire the Aerial PD, but the half-body Poison Maidens—I have no idea what kind of propulsion system they're using—dive into the line of fire to shield Boss-dunine from the bullets. At the moment of impact, the Poison Maidens' already dreary faces contort even further in agony.
"This is way too tasteless!!"
The Poison Maidens, having taken the pain, swarm toward me with expressions of pure rage. I'm not going to be happy taking a Death Hug like that!
Basically, what is this, an attack-reaction homing type!? If the poison bombs that burst on contact are close-range killers, then these are long-range killers...!!
"Look out, Tsuchinoko-san!"
"No, this is perfect."
I continue firing the Aerial PD, and deploy the FF-45 in my other hand, firing it as well!!
"Come at me, Poison Girls, I'll manage your flags by the second and drag you to a harem ending!!"
The poison spheres basically transform in response to our actions. In other words, if I force all the spawning poison spheres to become Poison Maidens and draw their aggro, it creates an opening for the other two to attack!!
Having suddenly come out of the closet as a Gori-Sapiens clad in a mysterious gorilla-shaped battle aura that can only be described as a Gorilla Aura, Shiyu-shi slams his slender arms into Boss-dunine───
However,
"yoU will kill me?"
"!!?"
"Wha—"
Why did he cancel his attack!?
Stopping his movement right before his fist connects, Shiyu-shi gets blown away like something out of a gag manga by Boss-dunine's slap... Oh, right, despite that appearance, she has boss stats inside, so she can effortlessly lift boulders and stuff.
"Tch...! Ougasei! How long are you going to stand there!!"
"Eh, ah, a..."
"caN't movE? fUfufu, wHat arE yoU doinG heRe, i wonder? iS theRe aNy mEaning to your presence?"
"Kyaah!?"
Someone please praise me for using reason to clamp my mouth shut before I could accidentally mutter, "Useless." Full-Dive is basically a world of thought; if you let your guard down, you end up vocalizing everything you're thinking.
Temporarily forgetting about Shiyu-shi, who got sent flying by a slap, and Ougasei, who crashed into a tree just from a light shove to the chest, I move to deal with the swarming Poison Maidens myself.
Guns lack finishing power after all. I ready the Iron Katana 【Swirling Vortex White Waves】 and stare intently at the number and movements of the rushing Poison Maidens... Number: five. There's some slight deviation, but it's a straightforward homing pattern charging in a straight line.
"Irregular Pseudo Mibu Wolf Single Sword Style!"
Like hell a mere five people can stop a Bakumatsu Patriot; my personal best is twenty-five!! A group of five charging in a straight line isn't just a piece of cake, it's easier than sitting up in bed after waking up!!
"Melee Piercer... Divine Punishment Custom!!"
A type of passive skill in Bakumatsu, "Melee Piercer," which optimizes the movements for continuous attacks. This is a move invented by Bakumatsu players who freely modified it into an "offensive escape method used to slash through everyone and dash past when a large crowd approaches in a straight line"!!
I cut down the first one from a high stance, immediately flipping the katana into a reverse grip.
I swing my arm out as if drawing the blade, severing the second one with the reverse-gripped edge.
Without stopping that momentum, I spin around once, bisecting the third one with a horizontal spinning slash.
And at that very moment, I forcefully stop my rotation, supporting the pommel of the reverse-gripped katana in my right hand with my left hand, and...
"To top it off, Dango Divine Punishment!!"
I thrust forward! Piercing the fourth one, I bury the blade into the torso of the fifth one using that same momentum.
Namely, the fundamental Divine Punishment of skewering multiple targets like a dango! *This* is the original Dango Divine Punishment; it absolutely does *not* refer to throwing the dango skewer and piercing an eye.
Slashed vertically, slashed diagonally, slashed horizontally, and skewered x2... Unable to maintain their shapes any longer, the five Poison Maidens fell to the ground with a splat alongside their death cries, reverting to mere puddles of poison.
"I see, so the difference from the bomb type is that they have individual HP bars."
The fact that I can whittle them down entirely with 【Swirling Vortex White Waves】, which has no damage multipliers, means they aren't something I'd struggle against heavily, but the fact that the homing is annoying hasn't changed.
"Now, what will you do? The current me is different from back then... Call it Version 5.08. A man always living on the cutting edge, updated by 0.02 in this very moment..."
"i wiLl noT entErtain yoUr nOnsense... bEsides,"
───You're not the only one getting stronger right now.
At those words, the exact moment I furrowed my brow under my mask... a massive weight dropped from the sky. Looking up, there was the fourth Naga... For some reason, it's staring at me with a passionate, heated gaze, but... I wonder what that's about, I don't recall doing anything.
But the real problem is likely the thing this fourth one dropped from the sky.
"Ga... hah, hyu...!"
"hE, ll , O"
"Hih."
The true identity of the massive weight was... the headless corpse of a snake. Judging from the way the neck was bitten off while fighting the Naga, it was probably a multi-headed snake type like a Hydra or Yamata-no-Orochi, but now it's nothing more than the base of a multi-headed snake.
And the thing groveling on the ground near that snake's corpse is likely the reason why such a thing was slammed down from above...
"aHh, how glaD... glaD i am. witH this, one more me vanisHes, the me that is me, i mYself!!"
Goldunine the Inexhaustible. If "Goldunines" just kept multiplying endlessly, the New Continent would have long since been completely buried under albino beautiful girls.
Some percentage might have become the foundation of the natural environment, but why is it that the Goldunines, who possess some level of tenacity for survival, are so few in number?
"farewEll, my unpleasaNt me."
"wAit───"
From the hand that Boss-dunine placed on the head of the pitiful "Goldunine," a dark, viscous poison overflowed. Her expression of terror, her pleas for her life, and even the wails of her death cries vanished into the horrifying poison...
Amidst the squelching sounds coming from the black poison that should absolutely not be coming from a healthy physical body, the terrifying serpent laughed at the two Goldunines present, who had forgotten to even hide themselves and were frozen in terror.
"whIch onE shAll be nExt, i wOnder?"
Author's Afterword
・Cannibalism of One's Own Kind
A taboo. How much more so, when one devours oneself.
Volume 1 of the materialized comic adaptation "Shangri-La Frontier" is finally on sale. The world of the ShanFro comic adaptation, rendered in extremely high quality by the Great Mage-class manga artist Ryosuke Fuji-sensei—please be sure to pick it up and see it for yourselves!
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