Chapter 825: December 17th: Blazing Beat Up Part 8

Smoldering Great Crimson Wings "Primal Revolve"......... Pseudo-Human Form.

By imitating the system of a human being, it transformed into a gigantic infant that seemingly pierced the heavens, filled with an immense amount of energy. The slam of its massive palm was already equal to a natural disaster. It was an insult to humanity; the hopes and the strength to survive that the "Humanity" of the Divine Age had entrusted to the next generation were being wielded by none other than the entity that had destroyed them.

"Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrr......Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.........!!"

The Scorching Eyeballs that surfaced on its butterfly face—on the butterfly wings that resembled a masquerade mask—began to multiply. From the dozen or so small Scorching Eyeballs spread across both wings, scorching beams of lightlasers were fired down onto the ground. As each individual Scorching Eyeball tracked its "enemy" with its gaze, the heat and light carved through the earth in an erratic, chaotic dance.

People died just from its movements; people died just from its gaze. Faced with a monster of such super-massive scale, the attention of the players was focused on only one thing.

"Its surface temperature is at normal temperature36 degrees!!!"

"We can hit it normally!!"

The unbanning of the melee physical attackers, who until now had been nothing more than decorations or meat shields. For the close-combat physical job players who had been continuously accumulating frustration over ostensibly participating without actually being able to participate, this was wonderful news, akin to the starting pistol firing.

They are gamers — everyone is, to a greater or lesser extent, a hero who has saved the world and a specialist in slaying monsters. No matter how incredible the realism is, no matter how gigantic the monster is—to the point where you can't even see its full form without straining your neck looking up......... there is no reason to tremble in fear before an enemy whose surface temperature is normal and whose skin is only as tough as a baby smeared in baby powder. If you had to name a downside, it would be that trypophobes probably couldn't look directly at its face.

"The body has the same temperature as a human, but the face doesn't seem to be the same...... Given that, and considering its shoulders and such aren't burning, its heat resistance must be insane. In that case......... Alright, notice to everyone. If you still have extinguishing items, concentrate your attacks on its face! Otherwise, bash its limbs and knock it down!!"

Hearing the voices of agreement through his earpiece, OiKatzo deployed the equipment he had been saving up until now, turned around, and............ realized that someone was missing.

"......Huh? Where's Eternal Zero-san?"

"Ah...... over there."

Pointing ahead, they saw the figure of what looked like a five-year-old child charging headlong toward the Smoldering Great Crimson Wings with bloodshot eyes.

The sight of him sprinting at full power, driving a scaled-down body completely incomparable to an adult avatar, combined with his sheer speed, was practically a horror scene.

"You're lacking the soul for ogya-ing, you idiots!!"

"............Hey, isn't that guy bad news? Like... even assuming it's roleplay, it's just kind of..."

"It's like that saying, 'If you run down the main road pretending to be a madman,' right?" [*1]

"Yeah."

"It's fine, because that's not an act; he's a genuine madman."

"I don't think that makes it fine at all."

It was an empirical rule of OiKatzo's that highly eccentric gamers tended to gather around that specific friend.

Wondering if that friend emitted some kind of electromagnetic waves that attracted them, OiKatzo smiled as if it were someone else's problem...... completely oblivious to the fact that, to a true outsider, he himself was included in that group of 'highly eccentric gamers.'

"It's an all-out attack, Pepper. You're the type where total item quantity significantly affects your combat power, but...... what are you going to do?"

".........A stupid question. If I die hoarding things at this point, I won't be able to look in a mirror for a while because I'll look like a complete idiot."

Returning the grin to Pepper, who had pulled out numerous attack potions with a smirk, OiKatzo looked up once again at the towering infant............ the super-massive Raid Monster "Smoldering Great Crimson Wings," which was currently being swarmed and scaled by Pioneers.

"Alright. Then I guess I'll play my trump card, too."

Operating his Inventoria. What he summoned from the smallest "world" within this world was a massive......... sphere. While OiKatzo equipped his Special Enhanced Armor, the sphere transformed as if blossoming, changing its shape into that of a tiger.

A white body with Black Tiger StripesTiger Pattern. Beneath the steel, Virtual BloodPlasmana Energy surged. Its roaring figure was undeniably that of a white tiger. However, it was not the Byakko......... not one of the four prototypes leading to【Kirin】in Shangri-La Frontier, the【Byakko】

Even taking into account that there was currently only one Non-Standard Reactor available, a certain player—who had visibly grimaced at the lendingreturn of Byakko—had gone on at length about the "benefits generated by me retaining Byakko," but simultaneously presented the alternative of "reproducing Byakko's performance, albeit in a limited fashion, with the added benefit of it being a mass-produced item and therefore replaceable," resulting in the creation of...... yes, what you could call a Mass-Produced Non-Standard Tactical Mech.

"Rust-Supervised Ball-Men, 'Tiger on the Folding ScreenScreen Tiger'......... Commencing combat test."

The tiger blossomed even further. It was the second stage of transformation possessed by Tactical Mechs; the tiger, now turned into steel fur, draped over and encased its user.

The gaze of the mechanical warrior bearing the face of a tiger was fixed upon the "Red" that the civilization acting as its foundation had once lost to. Though born in the modern era......... the bloodline of technology flowing within its body had finally arrived at the time for revenge after thousands of years.

Author's Afterword

・"Tiger on the Folding ScreenScreen Tiger"

"No, it's not like I originally obtained it myself, and both mechanically and practically it's treated as shared property, but if I'm being honest, I have more confidence in my ability to use it better than Pencilgon or OiKatzo... or Sunraku. And no, I truly have no intention of monopolizing it, and I've never lacked respect for the three who obtained it, but if the intel is accurate, the strategic effects of me holding onto these armaments cannot be ignored......... Ah, then how about this? I will build a Tactical Mech with the exact same concept as Byakko. I'll cover the manufacturing costs, of course, and I will make absolutely zero compromises. And so, allow me to introduce the 'Tiger on the Folding ScreenScreen Tiger'. It's a masterpiece that successfully reproduces the propulsion and shooting power of Byakko by substituting the intake and exhaust of matter with its own energy. In exchange for removing the main body's armaments, it's equipped with a Reactor Charger, forcing what is normally a function to extend the reactor's operating time to act as a sort of magazine. This allows it to demonstrate high performance without reducing the main body's operating time. Yep, you'll be perfectly fine without Byakko. Really, really. I don't lie." (Taken in four breaths) (OiKatzo was convinced).

Translator's Notes

• [1] If you run down the main road pretending to be a madman: Yoshida Kenkō's 徒然草 (Tsurezuregusa / Essays in Idleness, c. 1330), Section 85. The whole sentence is: If you run down the main road pretending to be a madman, you are, in fact, a madman.