Chapter 798: December 15th: Heat Up Edge

"Eat shit and crumble!!"

What sends the approaching rebooted feather missile flying is Survival's roundhouse kick, executed as he moves while letting out a roar-like shout.

Even if it is a spur-of-the-moment reaction, there is a heaven-and-earth difference in the resulting conclusion between simply standing still and waiting for the flying blade, versus betting on a sliver of hope and unleashing a kick.

As expected, Survival's kick miraculously explodes against the "flat side" of the feather missile, and due to the forced trajectory change caused by external interference, the murderous spinning guillotine edge gouges through the earth as it veers off right near us.

"We're saved!"

"Don't just space out! Tomahawk hasn't even flinched!!"

Guh, even if you say that, for some reason my stun still hasn't worn off. Survival and Ur Idim-shi can move for some reason, so why are Yashirobird and I still stunned? Are there some sort of conditions?

"...The stun wore off!"

"Ah, I can move."

"What?!"

Impossible, DeepSlo is the fourth to recover!? Even if a pure mage is squishy, escaping from a bind that presumably scales off physical stats faster than a specialized attacker? What are the actual conditions?

"Probably, a separate category of stun is overlapping at the same time as the normal stun."

"What?"

There are separate categories for stuns? Perhaps feeling the need to explain it to my dubious face—since I am ultimately in last place to recover from the stun (and currently, given my equipment, the many eyes floating within the flames are probably all half-lidded)—Overwerke explains Tomahawk's high-frequency stun.

"Normal stun, specifically acoustic-type stuns, require an opposition roll against VIT. The higher your VIT, the shorter the time it takes for the stun to wear off. But there's another type of stun... one that scales off STM."

"Stamina?"

"You could call it a state of exhaustion, I suppose. It's the type of stun that instantaneously and forcibly drops your STM to zero, making you unable to move until the gauge fully recovers."

I see, in other words?

"This is just a guess, but... it's probably a combination of two things: a stun that checks against VIT, and an exhaustion-state stun that lasts until stamina is fully recovered. DeepSlo-san is a pure mage who continuously fires off magic even if she draws aggro, right? She must have at least enough VIT so that taking one direct hit won't kill her, wouldn't she?"

"That's riiiiight."

I see? So basically, since my armor is paper-thin, I'm almost guaranteed to fail the VIT opposition roll, and because my STM bar is long, it takes a long time for the stun to be lifted.........

"I absolutely won't forgive that bastard!! I'll shave him down with a file until his surface is smooth!!"

"The file will break, Sunraku."

"I'll shave him with this fileAreadbhair!!"

"That's a sword, right?"

"No, it's a spear."

"Hm????"

It's a spear, but it's a sword, and against DeepSlo I use it as a bat, and from now on I am going to use it as a file.

Anyway, getting back to the topic at hand, that move Tomahawk just showed off can only be described as troublesome. Stunning us and then accurately finishing us off with strongly homing feather missiles... Calling it an instant-death combo wouldn't be an exaggeration. This time we are saved because Survival barely won the RNG game... but if it's going to keep using it from now on, some kind of countermeasure is essential.

"I wonder if we can block it by covering our ears."

"Probably impossible, right? It looks like the type that makes your whole body vibrate."

"Then as expected, the file..."

"No, shouldn't we just destroy those feathers?"

You make a fair point. But Tomahawk's meat quality is absolute garbage. Because I have Areadbhair, I can gain a certain degree of an advantage, but.........

"I don't think there's any need to destroy them. I have a plan."

".........I see?"

"? What is it?"

"No, nothing........."

Isn't this guy way too convenient of a character? We're not talking about just being a lubricant here; he's basically a Swiss Army knife...... Is this generally the performance level of a Mystic Sword going all out? Or is it just that Overwerke has way too many tricks up his sleeve?

Overwerke, who has suddenly and rapidly climbed the ranks as a highly convenient character in my mind, pulls out some kind of... seedling?

"It's an item called the Cage Seedling of Vengeful ProtectionMistilteinn... Ah, I'll skip the explanation. To put it simply, it's a barrier item, and we'll use this to protect the blade wings so the slashing wave can't hit them."

"Okay, so we just need to buy some time, right?"

"Well, yes, but... setting this up takes five minutes per seedling. There are about ten steps in the procedure."

Five minutes... That's long. For a sports club member, that's enough time to make and completely finish eating a cup noodle. Even so, its effect seems to be powerful; apparently, it will completely block at least normal physical attacks.

"However, the acquisition difficulty for this is incredibly high, so I only have three of them."

"If ten missiles become seven, that's plenty. Still, fifteen minutes, huh..."

There is no guarantee that Tomahawk won't launch a reboot-slash within those fifteen minutes. Or rather, considering it's highly likely to prioritize firing at enemies doing something suspicious, the execution difficulty is high, just as Yashirobird's difficult expression suggests.

"For now, everyone except Overwerke should go full-attack to stall..."

"No, if it's stalling for five minutes, I'll do it."

At the declaration made by Yashirobird, who has been participating in the meeting while firing his grenade launcher to support Ur Idim-shi and Survival holding down the frontline, the gazes of the three of us, myself included, turn toward the smug cyber cowboy.

"I failed to use it earlier because of that sudden first-time move, but I can probably buy you about five minutes."

"What's your reasoning?"

"This."

.........What's with this tiny bento box. No, that's not it, is it a magazine?

"If I can land this, I can probably stall it for that long."

"I see, should we support you?"

Whatever that magazine is, since he says he can do it, he probably can. When I ask if we should cover him... Yashirobird flashes a fearless smile and actually spits out these words.

"No need? Just make sure you don't get in my line of fire. No matter how wildly it thrashes around, I won't miss."

It is the guaranteed-hit declaration of the man who, on a certain isolated island, launched expeditionary invasions across numerous servers using every conceivable shooting method, from sniping to dual-wielding handguns.

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Author's Afterword

Cage Seedling of Vengeful ProtectionMistilteinn

A sapling that generates a barrier practically invincible against physical attacks when placed following a specific procedure.

Eh? Isn't the name too disturbing for an invincible barrier item?

.........Do you happen to know what an Absolutely Safe Capsule is? (To get out, you just have to attack the Cage Seedling of Vengeful Protection, but as compensation......... yeah) [*1]

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Translator's Notes

• [1] Absolutely Safe Capsule: A reference to the infamously horrific item from the game Mother 3. Once inside the capsule, the user is perfectly safe from all external harm, but they can never leave.