Chapter 892: December 20th: Bending Providence Is That Easy, Yet the Cost Is That Severe
Author's Preface
Time left until I finish writing: forty minutes...!!
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Garunose was regretting that he couldn't finish Sunraku off in that exact moment.
That "surprise attack" could easily be called the most powerful trump card Garunose possessed. It was tantamount to a rebellion against the very rules of PvP combat, and above all, it was a precious, "absolute preemptive" strike against an ultra-light-speed attacker like Sunraku, who was normally a nightmare to land even a single hit on.
(Evading the initial strike from that position makes me want to suspect it's a joke.)
An ultra-reaction that made Garunose want to suspect if the guy had somehow read his thoughts. Seeing the spectacle of him executing a back-bridge and escaping at the speed of light right after, Garunose no longer knew whether to laugh or throw his hands up in disbelief.
However, there was one thing he could state with absolute certainty.
(I hold the advantage, overwhelmingly so.)
In this current situation, Garunose undeniably held the advantage. It was bordering on sheer conviction.
The character build of the player named Sunraku is formidable. Specializing entirely in speed while supplementing attack power through external means, and above all, the raw base player specs required to master it made Garunose suspect that Sunraku's true identity might actually be some pro gamer.
But the sheer thinness of his armor could not be disguised. Saying "he sacrificed defense to min-max into speed" sounded nice, but it didn't change the fact that a few grazing hits would drop him.
And just now, Garunose's mace swung at empty air... but the two follow-up strikes from "Deadly Decapitation Technique", despite only grazing him, had definitely connected.
Furthermore, he forced him to use that "laser-speed movement skill" just to escape. The more outstanding a skill is... or rather, the more a skill surpasses human limits, the longer the cooldown time until it can be used again.
(Tsuchinoko-san has the "Fool" Arcanum equipped... was it?)
Arcanum, pseudo-sub-jobs that grant corresponding merits in exchange for a massive cost. After much debate, the PvP forums had pinpointed Sunraku's Arcanum as the "Fool." In exchange for suffering demerits regarding HP fluctuation, it halves all skill recast times.
(No... did he discard his defense to such an extreme because he acquired the "Fool"?)
Even with the same defense stat, equipping the "Fool" Arcanum would simply halve a player's value as a tank. No matter how much you min-maxed your defense to the absolute limit, you couldn't fight without healing.
In that case, the idea of discarding defense entirely made perfect logical sense.
That was exactly why Garunose's attack power—as a solo tank who "defends himself to go on the offensive"—had pushed Sunraku's HP into the danger zone... No,
(He thoroughly avoided taking the hit... did I force him to trigger 'Endure'?)
An Endure that leaves you with 1 HP a single time when your health is depleted. The endurance granted by possessing a certain amount of luck only activates once. If he had forced Sunraku, whose durability was vastly more fragile than Garunose's, to use it, the surprise attack could be considered a massive success.
(Though on my end, this toll can't be ignored either...)
The "Slash of Light," the resounding impact, and the sloppy kick... that combo had undeniably reduced Garunose's HP to zero. He had been forced to use his Endure as well.
Despite that, the reason Garunose hadn't lost was due to a certain skill.
The Exordinary Skill "Beautiful Memory Form Loss".
Its effect was incredibly simple: "When HP reaches zero, revive with half HP, up to three times."
Garunose clearly remembered doubting his own eyes when he first saw this skill description.
In ShanFro, where resurrection was fundamentally considered the domain of magic or items, a skill-based resurrection had finally been discovered. And the fact that they were the discoverers... yet Garunose bowed his head to his party members to keep this skill an absolute secret.
───Originally, it was intended as the ultimate trump card for the assassination of Arfiliya, but here, it finally saw the light of day as the greatest surprise attack against Sunraku... Ironically, right here in this place where the Exordinary Monster General of the Lost Remains "Loss of Beautiful Memories"—the very monster he defeated to obtain this skill—spawns.
However, this game wasn't lenient enough to allow three free resurrections without any demerits, nor was this skill so convenient.
(Damn it......... my Maxell skills were completely wiped out.)
Every time "Lost Memory" revived him, he suffered two specific demerits.
First, he became completely incapable of recovering HP. This was a common demerit for equipment, items, or magic utilizing materials from undead-type monsters, and it proved that even an Exordinary was no exception to that rule.
And the other one......
(My attack skills are mostly intact, and my defense skills too...... alright, alright. If my shield skills are safe, I can keep fighting!)
The second demerit: every time it activated, exactly one-third of the total skills and magic the user had learned would be randomly locked out, becoming unusable.
Shangri-La Frontier is a game where humanity stands against monsters by demonstrating power surpassing human limits through skills and magic acquired in battle. One-third of that power is lost with every resurrection.
Clinging to life and escaping death at the very cost of one's own memories. The end result of a wandering headless knight who completely lost its head, forgetting even love, left with nothing but the ability to inflict violence despite lacking a brain.
It was a fitting skill to be left behind by an Exordinary Monster that had become twisted even from its already incorrect, yet established, original existence.
Right now, a portion of Garunose's skills and several magic spells were locked—not by the effect of Lost Memory itself, but rather placed in an unusable state by the system until he actually respawned.
If he used this skill three times, he would be reduced to nothing more than an ordinary human holding a weapon. If he couldn't defeat Sunraku before then... or if his essential combat skills were wiped out during the remaining two resurrections, Garunose would have no chance of winning.
Which is exactly why Garunose smiled.
(Bring it on...... What a fantastic PvP match.)
And Garunose noticed, his smile deepening even further.
Because he understood that Sunraku, who was wearing the exact same smile, felt the exact same way.
Author's Afterword
A General Dullahan who lost the "place where its head should be" after its "connection" to the Evil Spirit Princess of the Ruined Kingdom was severed for some reason, creating the Exordinary Monster "Loss of Beautiful Memories".
Stripped of even its beautiful memories, it is pure violence driven solely by delusion and grudge. Even if it were to face True Quiet, it would never regain its love. Slaying it is the only salvation.
The manga version of Shangri-La Frontier goes on sale October 17th!
The manga is on the 17th! The anime is on the 1st! The 1st...? I-It's today〜〜〜〜!!
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