Chapter 829: December 17th: Climax Heat Up (Second Half)
Author's Preface
I'm happy that it's being promoted so much in the Ancient Battlefield, but it's almost too humbling. I mean, the player taking 1st place in the individual rankings is basically a celestial being at this point, right?
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The trajectory of the mortar fired from the ground reached the face of the Smoldering Great Crimson Wings. At the moment of impact, the shock transmitted from the shattered glass bottle propagated to the chemicals inside.........
"Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.........?"
With a crisp, popping sound, a colorful flower of smoke blossomed.
".........What is that?"
"Smoke Flower. It's originally a colored smoke with a slightly pleasant scent meant to attract insect-type monsters, but............ It's a baby, right? If we want to draw its curiosity, something like this should───!?"
Swivel!! The massive scorching eyeball rotated mid-air. It was directed precisely toward the flower of smoke that blossomed in the sky, carrying a faint floral scent.........
"Hey, hey, hey! If you don't keep making them bloom constantly, an attack is going to come flying our way!!"
"Not just me, the rest of you use whatever you have to draw its attention! I didn't bring that many party tricks!!"
A number of smoke flowers equal to the consecutive sounds of mortar fire bloomed in the air, and the Smoldering Great Crimson Wings, seemingly forgetting the pain in its neck, stared at the fading flowers of smoke. But it didn't move; they had only managed to draw enough attention for it to track them with its gaze.
"If we don't somehow lure it to the crater like this......... Its head tumbling down the mountain and crashing into Thirdrema wouldn't be a joke!"
"Use whatever flashy attacks you have to draw the Great Crimson Wings' attention! At this point, I don't care if you sing or dance, everyone draw its attention!!"
Imagining the sight—which was hard to tell whether it was horror or surreal comedy—of a giant infant's head rolling down the slope of a volcano at high speed and violently plunging into Thirdrema, several players inadvertently snorted. But their expressions tightened immediately upon realizing that the victory or defeat of this impossibly massive Raid battle rested entirely on their actions.
It was then that a single player came up with an idea.
"Hey, if it's basically a baby, wouldn't showing it content meant for kids catch its attention? I have a joke magic spell that just draws pictures in the air."
"I see," the players voiced their agreement.
The Smoldering Great Crimson Wings was undeniably a game monster, not a human. But if its form and behavioral principles were akin to an infant, then content used to soothe a baby might be equally effective on it.
After all, this game was Shangri-La Frontier, boasting an obsessively high level of quality when it came to realism.
Which was exactly why the person who realized that it would be even better if it had sound...... spoke up in a small voice, sounding as though they'd rather the remark be swept away without anyone hearing it.
"............If it's Maple from the Candy Maidens, I can do the voice. It's strictly an 'imitation', though."
"Eh? Is there actually a human alive who can imitate Sumeragi Mika's voice?"
"............Maybe it's the person herself, who knows."
"What?"
That mutter was even quieter than the initial proposal. But since she was going to do it......... that person, Exploding Green Peas, cleared her throat. Or perhaps, to overlay the persona of "Maple Hotcake"—one of the absolute most popular characters from Pretty Maiden resting within her own "repertoire"—she shifted her voice just slightly and spoke.
"'Who's going to cast a sweeeet magic spell? It's Pretty Maiden, Maple-chan☆'"
"Whoa, it sounds exactly like her!? Alright, leave it to me, I'm drawing Maple-chan!!"
Drawn in the sky was a fictitious young girl. Alternatively, one could say that advanced magic meant to deploy a massive magical formation into the void was activated in the most pointless manner possible in this world, yet simultaneously during one of the world's most critical do-or-die moments.
◇
"It moved!"
"Looks like the guys below are holding the line."
By the time the massive explosion smoke created by the vast amount of bombs was swept cleanly away by the wind, the players on the Smoldering Great Crimson Wings' back realized that the hostility previously aimed at them had done a full 180-degree turn......... meaning, it was now directed squarely at the players remaining on the ground.
Had things continued as they were, almost every player up there would have been incinerated without a trace by that scorching gaze. Therefore, they were incredibly grateful for the ground team's struggles...... but even accounting for that gratitude, there was something bothering them.
"For some reason, there's a giant Pretty Maiden Maple-chan displayed in the void"
"It's an illustration with a lot of flavor, I actually quite like it...... It's the kind of rough drawing that loses its charm if you turn it into clean line art."
A girl roughly ten meters tall, sporting light brown twin-tails and a hotcake perched on her head, was floating in the sky. No, looking closely, it was completely flat with rough outlines...... a drawing. A giant drawing was being projected above the mountain peak. Naturally, since it was a drawing, it didn't blink, didn't move, and was simply displayed there in a static state...... or so it should have been. But a voice echoed, not from the mouth of the girl floating in the sky, but for some reason, from around her feet.
『"A warm and fluffy hotcake with sweet maple syrup! That child, this child, and even you! I love you aaaaaall!!"』
"Wait, it even comes with Maple's voice? Isn't pulling audio directly from the official source a violation?"
"You can't even import audio files in the first place. Isn't it just someone doing a voice imitation?"
"Isn't Mika-don's vocal cords supposed to be one-of-a-kind, like, even synthesized voices can't perfectly replicate them......?"
The voice echoing from beneath the girl floating in the sky was surely someone doing a voice imitation using a megaphone or something similar. But to those who knew the source material of that girl, that husky voice was apparently worthy of astonishment. However, regardless of whether it was the voice or the appearance......... the situation had begun to move.
"The pitch is slightly higher than the original, so it's probably an imitation—even though it sounds insanely similar—wait, it moved!?"
"So Nira-chan is a Maple oshi, huh......... Has a promising future."
Whether it was fascinated by a character that was easy to understand yet distinctly unique—just like a real-life baby would be—or simply distracted by a giant drawing projected in the sky and the voice emanating from it, the Smoldering Great Crimson Wings...... slowly moved its limbs and began approaching the projection floating over the mountain peak.
"Alright, alright, alright......! Now we just need to show our guts........."
"Hey, hey, isn't this bad?"
"Eh? What? Shiitake-sa......... Ah."
Where Shiitake was pointing, they saw the wound slowly but surely closing up............
".................."
A brief silence.
"All, all-out attack!!"
Having come this far, "It regenerated so we couldn't cut its head off, sorry" was not an acceptable outcome. OiKatzo wasn't the one leading everyone, but still, at the attack signal he reflexively shouted out, the players frantically scrambled into action. Their attacks were slammed into the "flesh"—a mass of energy that still refused to reveal the bone deep inside despite having been hollowed out by the explosion.
"It's breaking, it's breaking!"
"So bright! What is this!?"
"Isn't that the bone?"
The tangible mass of power acting as flesh was pushed aside, and what was exposed was a scorching iron rod...... No, given its size, it was a massive, thick cervical vertebra that looked like a burning "road."
"Snap it, snap it!!"
But the bone supporting a massive monster could not possibly be ordinary. What a player—who had slammed his already-cracked sword down in an attempt to land at least one more blow before it shattered—saw was his sword......... melted into sludge. Furthermore, along with a sensation akin to stepping out of an air-conditioned room into the blazing sun, he felt his HP drop.
"Hot!? Wait, my sword melted!?"
"Don't tell me this is unconditional weapon destruction......"
"No! It just takes off a massive amount of durability! Plus, the DoT isn't that big a deal!!"
Having reached this point, anyone could understand. The moment this exposed cervical vertebra was severed would be the moment of conclusion. The Smoldering Great Crimson Wings already had its hands on the crater peak; this was no longer the stage to worry about a bit of damage or loss. Attacks launched with the full expectation of destroying equipment rained down relentlessly. And while they were certainly dealing tangible damage to the massive cervical vertebra......
"No, seriously, how huge is this thing!?"
The "Tiger on the Folding Screen" had already reached its operational limit. Seeing this, OiKatzo slammed his bare fists into the Smoldering Great Crimson Wings' cervical vertebra, which was steadily being chipped away. But because it was so massive, the situation felt less like hitting an enemy's weak point and more like punching the ground itself, robbing his fists of their momentum. After all, because he was in a crouched position, he couldn't brace his legs or step into his punches.
"Daaaaaaaa......?"
『Ah, crap.』
The moment Maple (voice imitation) involuntarily let out that mutter, the chubby hand extended by the Smoldering Great Crimson Wings grabbed the Maple floating in the void.
【Wisdom Created in the Void】disappears upon taking an attack. Originally, one should be focused entirely on avoiding taking damage until the magic formation was complete, but in this case, the drawing needed to remain permanently. Therefore, the giant Maple drawing, completely unable to evade, was erased with the utmost ease.
"Boooooo.........Gyauuuu..............."
Perhaps wondering why the thing right in front of it vanished as if nothing had been there to begin with, or perhaps checking to see if it was a "trap," the Smoldering Great Crimson Wings swung its arm around...... But perhaps realizing nothing was going to happen, it slowly began to move away from that spot. The massive eyeballs, now locked onto Thirdrema, eloquently expressed exactly where it was heading.
"Is it checkmate.........!?"
The plan to drop its head into the crater was already falling apart. Would Thirdrema be overrun as is, or even if they cut its neck, would it just result in an urban-destruction bowling match with its head rolling down? Since that wasn't a guaranteed "conclusion" either, no one actually knew what would happen......... OiKatzo's thoughts were tying into knots, and the fists he was throwing down were starting to grow sloppy. It was then.
"Leave it to me."
"No, never mind leaving it to you, just keep attacking......... Wait, huh?"
A hand was gently placed on OiKatzo's shoulder. It was so out-of-place and gentle for the current situation that OiKatzo turned around and met the eyes of a woman wearing a calm smile.
"......Who might you be?"
It was an incredibly tall avatar. Even while crouching, her face was at a remarkably high position. If she stood up, she would likely be easily over two meters tall. Rather than a model's physique, she had the massive build of a female pro-wrestler, yet she wore a smile that radiated gentleness and a sense of encompassing warmth...... She was that kind of woman.
"The body type after a sex change using the Chalice is determined based on various parameters."
".........Hmm?"
OiKatzo's question was not directed at the mouth of the woman who had suddenly started explaining something, but further up. Just below the cloudy sky—which had perhaps been defeated by the Smoldering Great Crimson Wings' heat as the rain was now reducing to a drizzle......... above the face of the woman he had been looking at from earlier up until now. It was slightly higher.
"That is a private matter...... no, it's my life's work, but unfortunately, the physical disadvantage cannot be denied. So I thought about it, to find a destination that combines both my hobby and practical benefits...... yeah."
Players equally have their Player Names displayed above their heads. As could be understood from words carrying a sense of reality that an NPC would never utter, this naturally applied to the woman in front of him.
"Physical modifications affect the avatar even after a sex change. It tanked my level significantly, but......... I finally found it, my Ultimate Destination───!!"
The characters displayed above the woman were "Eternal Zero".
"Leave the rest to me. This is my............ filial pietyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!"
"It was YOU!?"
Ignoring OiKatzo's full-power scream, the legs of the sprinting Eternal Zero Combat Configuration became enveloped in light. Looking at his left hand, he was performing window operations. And when the light scattered, equipped there were steel leg guards that looked exactly as if a Tactical Mech had deployed as armor and erased everything except the legs.
"Time to end this! 'Declaration of Victory'!!"
That shout was not mere encouragement. It was a skill defined and implemented by the game system.
"I'm going to slam a......... 'Spinal Cord-Severing Flying Blade Kick' straight into this guy's neck!!"
Its effect was the Secret Art of the Armored Gladiator: verbally declaring the next skill to land, and by successfully executing it, increasing its power. True to its name, a skill designed for a Finish Hold to declare victory with a guaranteed-kill strike.
And the "Spinal Cord-Severing Flying Blade Kick" was a flying kick technique that gained a damage modifier specifically by landing on the target's neck.
However, due to the Smoldering Great Crimson Wings' size and posture, the neck he was supposed to aim at was basically level with the ground. Yet there was no hesitation in Eternal Zero's sprint, because............ the answer to that problem was something he had seen before.
"Directly passed down from Sunraku! (It wasn't directly passed down) Mid-aiiiiiiir.........!!"
In ShanFro, there is a skill called "Grace of Zero Gravity". Its effect alters the direction of gravity acting upon the player's avatar based on the player's thoughts. While it had been discovered previously, because it reacted even to reflexive thoughts—causing the user to suddenly fall sideways or fly upwards—it was considered a difficult-to-use joke skill. However, following the leak of a certain player's combat video, its reputation was completely rewritten into a high-difficulty practical combat skill that enabled terrifying three-dimensional combat techniques if mastered.
Leaping, and then using a skill enabling a mid-air jump in tandem, Eternal Zero landed sideways. Consequently, the Smoldering Great Crimson Wings, which had functioned as the ground, became a wall, and this was functionally identical to an upright punching bag exposing its nape.
"【Overload Mechanism】......!"
Layering onto that, the leg guards......... the Overload Mechanism of the Legacy Weapon "Kinesis Booster L" activated its Activation Awakening function. It amplified the wearer's "kicking" motion with external reinforcement, unleashing an output far too powerful for a human body to bear.
"Enzuiiiiiiiiiii......Giriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!" [*1]
Normally, 【Overload Mechanism】 does not benefit from magic or skill modifiers. However, regarding the "Kinesis Booster," which Eternal Zero had developed assuming combat against giant Genesis Tribe or Kin, that restriction did not apply. Because, as the name implied, the Kinesis Booster was not a direct method of attack.
"Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!"
Accepting that his own leg would rupture, he exerted power capable of striking down even gods. Because it was a "reinforcement method" that fully exploited the nature of Second Humanity transcending ethics, it wasn't that "a skill was being applied to the Exceed Charge," but rather, "the body releasing the skill is being enhanced beyond its limits by the Exceed Charge."
"Just snap already!!"
Jumping within twisted gravity, the sound of the resulting strike was not the sound of flesh colliding with flesh.
The Kinesis Booster covering Eternal Zero's right leg was smashed to smithereens by the impact, and his right leg inside it vanished like a bursting water balloon. But the single strike unleashed from that right leg, which had vanished so anticlimactically,............
"Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!?!?"
Sent a fatal fissure running through the entirety of the Smoldering Great Crimson Wings' cervical vertebra.
"Do it! Shiitake!!"
With the majority of his stamina consumed by the impact running not just through his right leg but his entire body, Eternal Zero was blown back even further than the Smoldering Great Crimson Wings' back...... plummeting toward the earth's surface. However, that shout was neither a death cry nor his last words, but a roar demanding the execution of their pre-decided "strategy."
"..................Eh?"
Despite having watched the entire sequence right in front of his eyes, the sheer absurdity of it all had left OiKatzo assaulted by a mix of exasperation, admiration, and confusion......... But seeing the figure of Shiitake giving a firm thumbs-up in the direction Eternal Zero was blown away, and the brick-like object gripped in his hand, those remaining already knew what needed to be done. OiKatzo himself also pulled out every single grenade in his Inventoria...... and shouted.
"Finish it!!"
The final all-out attack slammed into the fissure. The scorching eyeballs frantically darted around in mortal danger......... but it was too late.
The Smoldering Great Crimson Wings does not die. Its inexhaustible power surpasses every threat, overwhelming them with supreme ease.
Precisely because of that, taking on the imperfect form of a human, taking on a massive form, taking on a sluggish form......... becoming innocent, naive, and above all, "ignorant."
All of this forced the Smoldering Great Crimson Wings into making arrogant, reactive choices, and now, the Smoldering Great Crimson Wings had met its "checkmate."
"Vooooo.........Aaaaa, Da, Ma? Wu?"
Roll.
The great head, fell.
Author's Afterword
・Eternal Zero Combat Configuration
His life's work of getting closer to being an infant inevitably came with a severe lack of combat power. Reversing that concept, and factoring in that the Chalice's sex-change effect—which he had already acquired from Ctarrnid—references various parameters, he transforms into the exact opposite of his usual immature, five-year-old equivalent body: a fully mature, massive female figure.
While this successfully resolved his physical disadvantages, the price was that his level dropped too low, so he forcibly augmented his output using a Legacy Weapon developed within the Behemoth.
The final result was the establishment of a combat style bordering on a suicide attack: strengthening his offensive skills with damage-increasing skills like "Declaration of Victory", and then slamming them home using the "Kinesis Booster" at an excessive output that was practically self-destruction.
By the way, he himself used Sunraku as a reference, but if Sunraku actually saw this, he would probably be thoroughly repulsed.
Translator's Notes
- [1] Enzuigiri: A pro wrestling move.
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