Chapter 884: December 20th: Fists Falsify, the Shield Testifies
Author's Preface
AC6 is too fun! Bazooka! Bazooka! BAZOOKA!!
Also, I cleared it.
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Garunose. What I know at the moment is only his weapons and armor, and that his parrying skill is considerable. Or perhaps that tower shield might be a camouflage to hide his parrying tactic.
Even so, it's not like he has the ultimate endgame loadout of an offline game like "All stats maxed! All skills and magic unlocked! Strongest gear!"
If you stretch one area, another area gets dented—that's ShanFro for ya.
Therefore, what I must do is find Garunose's dent... the "weak point" he is poor at handling.
"............"
Even assuming that tower shield was a complete bluff, it doesn't look like the guns I have on hand can pierce it. First of all, a shield with a feeling of 'resources were poured into it', combined with that behavior... there is no mistaking in thinking that he can "also" parry.
In that case, the question is how to deal with that tower shield and the parries unleashed from behind it......... Wait, can you even parry with an elbow in the first place? No, I myself already proved you can with the head....
It'd be a disaster if I poorly swung a weapon at him and got it deflected. Here...
"I'm going with Bare-Knuckle Brawling...!!"
Time to advance.
Not using a weapon is partially to observe him, but... above all, if I'm going to verify things, I have to test everything!
In the first place, "my" main weapons are fists and swords. Everything else is an afterthought or a bonus. Guns, spears, and such... they might hit, but I don't feel like they'll penetrate. I don't feel like they'll be effective.
Even if I want them to penetrate, I need an opening, I need some capital. Breaking through from the front... might be theoretically possible, but it's just a theoretical value. I know enough to understand that dedicating myself to breaking through a greatshield against Garunose is risky.
While closing the distance all at once, I separate our distance by one body's worth. Yes, the exact distance where Garunose can only interfere with me using the axe in his hand...!!
"—!!"
Playing mind games every single second isn't realistic. Being appropriately crude and appropriately delicate is the minimum requirement for a strong player. A strong hand played crudely at a perfect timing is the most terrifying thing in this world.
Infight, minus one step! I'll make this my baseline. And from here, it's time for verification.
One step into fist range, and I sink deep into my stance.
In response, Garunose readies his tower shield, seemingly aiming to block my offensive head-on. A tower shield that hides the majority of his body... but his line of sight remains clear, showing he won't make the blunder of losing sight of his opponent behind his own shield. Bring it on!!
"—!!"
Crouching deeply, I make it look like an uppercut... and then step to the right. If I deliberately show off a skill effect at this moment—!
"Gh...!"
"It's a bluff, yeah."
"!?"
Fake Multiple Circular Motion. Because I've shown it off so much, the enemy is easily misled by the motion of wrapping around. And the very moment his gaze and posture are drawn towards his back... a strike!!
Gyagigi!! With a metallic sound, my fist connects with Garunose's shoulder. Retreating with a backstep immediately, I look and see four scratch marks on his HP.
While dodging a wide yet gapless... no, a horizontal sweep from his handaxe with every opening methodically crushed, I ponder the results of my previous strike.
That attack just now... wasn't parried. Can he not parry with his shoulder, or was he unable to? Come to think of it, the head parry I pulled off during the Wethermon fight relied on my equipment. If that's the case, Garunose's elbow parry must also be due to armor... or external reinforcement from some kind of skill or accessory, right?
"...This is getting weird."
"Hmm?"
"A clenched fist causing a cutting wound... isn't a 'Rock' acting as a 'Scissors' cheating? It was the same earlier, entering a blade lock against an axe with a Knife-Hand Strike... Is the secret those claws?"
"What do you think?"
He's mostly correct.
The accessories equipped on both my hands... the Dread Dragon-King Armor: Charging Claws were crafted from the same material as the Cardinal Jaw, which converts breath-type attacks into flames.
Its effect is extremely simple: "Applies a slashing hitbox to all bare-handed attacks." Meaning, my 'Scissors' can actually cut paper, and my slap can tear open cheeks.
However, it only applies a slashing hitbox. The material of my hands... durability and damage multipliers remain exactly the same as a normal bare-handed punch or block.
In other words, the "Knife-Hand Strike" that caught his axe earlier was───
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───The "Knife-Hand Strike" that caught his handaxe earlier was undoubtedly some kind of skill. Garunose concluded as such.
(If he could use that with just the power of his accessories, there's no reason he wouldn't use it now. I should assume it's at least not a constantly applied enhancement type, but an attack for a set duration... no, a one-action application-type skill.)
What flashed through Garunose's mind was the golden lariat that had cornered the opponent roleplaying an assassin. While there were various skill effects in ShanFro, he had already seen through the fact that the "Golden" brilliance—not yellow or orange—matched between the lariat and the knife-hand strike.
(Even considering it was a jab, the damage is on a level that can be ignored. It's certain that his firepower depends heavily on external add-ons... But switching to the offensive would be a bad move.)
Just how many skills and magic spells existed in Shangri-La Frontier? It was vast enough that even the Library clan threw up a white flag, calling it "impossible."
In the first place, it wasn't strange in a "game" for a petite young girl to unleash a strike that shattered boulders. If so, unless one grasped the entirety of the Character Build known as Sunraku. every groundless fear became a justified precaution.
"Besides, this distance... is also my specialty."
Infight, "plus" one step.
Unlike Sunraku, who had separated by one step as a countermeasure, this distance—infight plus one step of blank space—was exactly... the distance Garunose excels in most. He didn't voice it aloud.
However,
"Hrrgh!!"
"Guoh!?"
The tower shield charge that suddenly accelerated by two steps' worth of distance seemed to speak far more eloquently than a thousand words, declaring, "This distance is my time."
Author's Afterword
You need no divine speed to dash a hundred ri. Pushing forward two steps' worth in a single step; as long as you have that, the shield will shatter everything.
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