Chapter 867: December 20th: It's Not About Being Fast
Author's Preface
In the real world, time is being accelerated by Made in Heaven, so the progression of time in the story is the correct flow of time, while the fact that the third? or fourth Christmas is approaching in reality is the work of an enemy Stand attack. [*1]
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"......So that's 'Tsuchinoko-san', huh."
They say he's the fastest in ShanFro. They say he's a Unique-killer. They say he's a rarer encounter than rare monsters. They say his gender is unknown.
Throwing away all that prior information, as they looked at the half-naked woman who had instantly killed the giant samurai... yes, overwhelmed him to a degree that could safely be called an instant kill—they realized that all that information was merely "results" and "impressions."
"Going by rumors alone, I thought he was specialized for monsters, but... he's pretty strong against players too, isn't he."
"Judging from that stream, it seemed like he could handle PvP just fine, you know."
"Or rather, at the point where he was brawling head-on with Wethermon, he seemed like someone who was intimately familiar with brawling against humanoid opponents, right?"
───This is a losing battle.
If he said it out loud, he would be "heard" by many, so he didn't vocalize it, but that was the conclusion he had reached.
First of all, the moment "Red" and "Green" appeared, this battle favored whichever side subjugated the Raid Monsters first. After all, if you just rained arrows down on the enemy camp mixed in with the Raid Monsters, that alone would cause temporary personnel losses, whittle down the enemy camp's resources, and above all, the Raid Monsters moving towards their respective main camps would whittle down the enemies on their own.
Therefore, at the point when the Raid Monster advancing towards the New King Faction was still alive, and the Raid Monster that tried to burn down the Former King Faction was defeated, the New King Faction was two steps away from a guaranteed loss.
Secondly, their strategy was almost completely outplayed. 【Streamer Frontline】 is, exactly as the name implies, broadcasting their activities in real-time. They were prepared to have their movements read to some extent, and some among them chose to go underground to do what they wanted to do, even if it meant denying their fundamental raison d'être of streaming.
However, almost all of them were smashed. When he heard that the GUN! GUN! Mercenary Corps had been annihilated without achieving almost any results, he honestly couldn't help but laugh.
Whether it's Zhuge Liang or Han Xin, there's either a tactician capable of outrageous foresight, or—though he'd rather not think about it—someone leaking information from a much deeper place than the streams.
Whatever it is, since their offensive was completely read, they're one step away from a guaranteed loss.
And lastly.
"I can't exactly ignore 'this', huh..."
He himself, who was just about to head off to execute the New King Faction's... no, Garunose's final move, the Princess Assassination, couldn't bring himself to ignore the "event" unfolding before his eyes.
(It wouldn't be an issue for me to do it "later," but if I stop here "now"... well, we'll probably lose.)
It was a personal grudge to begin with... but having temporarily forgotten even that grudge, having his gaze stolen, and above all, having sniffed out the content yield, was it his nature as a streamer that made him stop his feet? Now, when the Royal Champion Albrecht is not by her side, is the greatest chance to fulfill Garunose's objective, but......... it couldn't be helped, he tucked a small bit of regret into his chest and observed the "grand brawl" unfolding before his gaze.
".........He's certainly fast, but not so much that the eyes can't follow him."
From what he had heard, he moved around at speeds akin to teleportation, but... judging from that archive, it probably wasn't an exaggeration. Going full throttle with sonic-speed leg strength in a PvP battle would simply be excessive. Is he holding back, or is there some reason he can't bring out his top speed?
"That being said......... speed isn't the true essence of his threat, huh..."
"What was that?"
That being said, precisely because he saw him actually fighting right before his eyes... or perhaps because it was a "PvP battle", Garunose realized that the true essence of the player named "Sunraku" did not lie in his "speed". His companion, who was accompanying Garunose, asked with a puzzled look to repeat his mutterings, but Garunose just stared intently at the battle before him.
(Including within that video: "Sword", "Gun", "Katana", "Halberd", "Empty Hands", "Shield"......... Even with his metamorphosis, the fifth, the sixth......... Even if he tossed balance adjustments to the wind, you'd think a little more reason would come into play.)
Evaluating him with an evaluation not meant for a person, Garunose stared intently at Sunraku wielding "that" right in front of him.
Almost as if he were studying another person's gameplay before actually grabbing the controller himself.
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"Even the great Tsuchinoko-san is seeing this for the first time, right?"
Hyun hyun hyun, the sound of cutting wind echoed out. Kinetic energy transmitted through the chain was further accelerated by centrifugal force, and a metal lump harboring lethality far exceeding its weight......... a weight was cleaving the sky in circles.
Following Setsugekka's surrender, the information that "if you surrender at the very edge, the demerit is only the cost of one sword" was indeed widely known, but people seemed to think, "Can I even win in the first place?", so no one immediately stepped up to follow Setsugekka. However, just as I was preparing myself for this to turn into a talk show, that man raised his hand, proclaiming himself ready.
Kama/...... I guess Kamaslash is fine, is he going to hit me with a lash of sickles? Just when I thought that, the sickle was a sickle, but a "chain-sickle" (kusarigama).
"Well, I certainly didn't know the kusarigama existed as a weapon type."
"Because it only becomes craftable after advancing the Ninja job and clearing a ton of errands within the guild to finally view the necessary scroll......... And I have kept this hidden and honed it until this very day...! Don't think of me as some amateur swinging it around blindly!"
"Are you sure about this, even though I'm streaming? Your information is going to be massively broadcast."
"To be totally honest, someone else leaked it on the Ninja BBS the other day, so there's no point in keeping it hidden anymore!"
I see, since it's already been acknowledged, he's no longer "the only one who knows it" but rather "a skilled user who has mastered an under-researched weapon."
"Heh......... Then, I'll face you with something like that too."
This show wasn't just something I came up with a moment ago. It's a plan I scheduled in advance, having made meticulous preparations and readied everything. A PvP battle is a fight to keep the opponent from realizing how deep your limits are, and a fight to hide how shallow your limits are!
The item I pulled out from the Inventoria... If a kusarigama is a sickle and a weight connected by a chain, then this is a club and a club connected by a chain.
There's no point comparing the range, but its flexibility and the sound it makes cutting the wind are no inferior to the kusarigama. Swinging it as if making it crawl along my body, twirling, catching, and taking a stance...
"Nunchucks.........!?"
"If you don't know about them, I guess our advantages are even? Let's have a brawl between eccentrics relying on first-time killer moves!"
I learned the movements by watching Kung Fu movies.
Setting aside how many people I'm going to beat, if I'm facing five or ten opponents, the more moves I have, the better. Not DPS... well, DPS is a prerequisite... but the number of moves in terms of variation. To obtain that, I utilized various "connections" to acquire a massive amount of new weapons.
These nunchucks......... A work by the blacksmith Gundack, who made weapons for me after I earned his trust by dropping Araba's name in the hidden village of the Ore-Folk... The Nunchaku, which was a major weapon type in the hidden village of the Ore-Folk where blunt weapons were highly developed. Its name is "Twin-Winged Iron"!
Kusarigama and nunchaku — with neither of us knowing what the other would do, even after Saina's starting gun fired, neither Kama/ nor I moved. A kind of deadlock......... However, the one who broke the silence of equilibrium was my opponent.
"Cheeey!"
The fact that he had honed it meant he had also mastered the skills corresponding to that weapon... as I had predicted, and it seemed I was right. Converting the rotational energy of his swinging directly into propulsion, the launched weight dragged a glowing tail of chain—a skill effect—and aimed right for my head. At first glance, you could call it a snake... but if a snake flew like an arrow like this, it'd be the end of the century!
"Tch!!"
Repel it, or dodge it. I chose the latter, but the weight that pierced the empty space where my face had been a few seconds ago... curved.
"What!?"
"Kusarigama Skill, 「Neck-Wrapping Coil」! I've got you!!"
Homing... no, Making a hanging? A skill specialized in wrapping around the neck!
It shouldn't be absolutely guaranteed to hit, presumably dodging it is possible if I accelerate. But our mutual caution and attempting to take a reactive stance had backfired. The thought-acceleration skill is an active skill, not a passive one; it doesn't activate unless you consciously will it... and even if you use a skill with unaccelerated thoughts, there's a slight delay of a few seconds between activation and execution. In other words, because neither my thoughts nor my body were accelerated from the start, I could dodge the initial strike aimed at my head, but I couldn't escape the actual main attack—the hanging!
"I'll be taking that head and the treasure behind you!"
He certainly earned his self-proclaimed mastery. He had probably constructed a sure-kill combo with the kusarigama by combining a few more skills. The chain was sharply pulled, but simultaneously, the "reeled in" Kama/ charged towards me with tremendous momentum. A mutual rapid approach caused by pulling and being pulled, which means the finishing blow would naturally be the sickle at the other end of the chain connected to the weight!!
There wasn't a moment to spare. Both he and I were closing in, so if I didn't respond immediately, my artery would be cleanly sliced. Given my HP, if he hits a vital spot, there's a high chance I'll just drop dead right then and there! I have one, maybe two actions I can take!
"Laziji!"
I chanted those words with a spirit that could rend silk. And at the same time, the Twin-Winged Iron I held in my hands... I lobbed it straight up into the air with all my might.
"Sorry about that. The truth is, I can only do 'that'. I made it when I was level 149, so no skills popped up for it."
For just a little bit, just a brief instant, Kama/'s gaze and consciousness were drawn to "the nunchucks tossed upwards while chanting something"... and in that moment, a fist shining in gold slammed right into Kama/'s jaw.
I see, I certainly didn't make it in time against the weight's homing chokehold... but it's not like I wasn't using them. 「Eye of Eternity」 to accelerate my thoughts, and 「Eye of Destiny」 to guide the correct path of attack. And......... 「Divine Strike of Certain Victory」 to multiply the number of hits by three while maintaining the same damage.
In the end, within my accelerated thoughts, the uppercut that accurately smashed his jaw depleted Kama/'s HP in one strike.........
"Sure-kill, Nunchaku Punch."
"That was bare-handed........."
As a first-rate warrior, it is only natural to have mastered the art of fighting even without a weapon.
Author's Afterword
Laziji: Super summarized, spicy stir-fried karaage. Naturally, shouting it does absolutely nothing.
Volume 11 of the manga adaptation of Shangri-La Frontier is now on sale.
Translator's Notes
- [1] : "Made in Heaven" is the Stand of Enrico Pucci that accelerates universal time toward a new cycle.
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