Chapter 899: December 20th: That Which the Wind Kindles

Author's Preface

Ancient Battlefield Sabotage

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That tactic was a gamble for Garunose.

Because it was the exact opposite of what he himself had considered the optimal solution against the player Sunraku: "Endure and counter until every last one of his capabilities has been revealed."

(I'll deal with whatever he has up his sleeve...... on instinct!)

Turning the tables from a reactive position is the fundamental premise of counterplay. Yet even after Garunose had built a character he himself could be "satisfied" with, he still could not see the bottom of Sunraku's repertoire.

No, even if he could deal with the hands that had been revealed, it didn't mean they became unusable. Just as protecting your torso with a bulletproof vest is meaningless if you get shot in the head. That was Garunose's miscalculation.

So Garunose stopped doing it. No matter what Sunraku tried or brought out, he would handle it by instinct...... relying solely on the accumulated experience that made Garunose the player he was.

And by freeing Garunose from the restriction of having to stay on the defensive, he had drawn the correct answer against Sunraku.

(Praying Divine SwordFragarier)

He dealt with the sword that was kicked away at high speed and then attacked from behind with increased rotation, using his experience.

(Dragon-EaterValumbala)

A thin, laser-like flame—nothing his shield could not block completely. He caught it on the shield and knocked it aside.

(Twilight BladeLerisha)

The sheer speed, combined with feints, nearly made him lose sight of it; he covered the areas liable to be struck with his shield, deliberately concentrated his attention on the more lightly defended openings, and caught the attack with his mace.

"How the hell are you this tough......!?"

"Making a comeback from a slow bleed is my specialty tactic......!"

With more than half of his skills rendered unusable as the price for overturning death, he used the few STR-enhancement skills he still had to swing the Tower Shield effortlessly and smash it into Sunraku.

However, Sunraku clearly shifted his posture with a bizarre movement that would be impossible unless there was an invisible slope in the void, planting the soles of his feet on the Tower Shield and springing off.

"......!"

Even though he was seriously intending to crush his opponent, Garunose gnashed his teeth at the frustration of feeling as though he was moving according to the other party's script, and fixed his gaze on Sunraku......

(───Storm EmperorTitanion)

Click. It felt as though every piece of Garunose's accumulated experience had locked perfectly into place.

Sunraku charged straight in, brandishing two swords. Another figure overlapped with that stance and that attack motion.

That figure was Storm Emperor Titanion, the final boss of the original Lone Wolf and, for a certain reason, an enemy engraved in Garunose's memory as a lifelong, unfading recollection.

Storm Emperor Titanion's technique of charging at high speed while slashing apart everything in front of it with two swords was jokingly referred to by fans as the "Collision Incident."

And it was a fateful enemy who had continuously slaughtered him for a full fifteen hours, excluding breaks, when Garunose attempted a "Shield-Only Restricted Playthrough."

".........!!!"

Confronted with a scene overflowing with déjà vu, Garunose's brain went into overdrive.

He could not block that attack head-on—the charge seemed to give physical form to the very word "offensive," and even if he managed to stop it, it would only drive him into a corner.

Therefore,

"Wh...... owaaah!?"

At the very last possible second before his opponent could notice, he raised his Tower Shield to create an incline and slid it beneath the feet of the Storm EmperorSunraku.

And using that momentum, he scooped the opponent up onto the shield, lifting them───

"【Providence of the Wise HorseHouyhnhnm】!!!"

Garunose let out his loudest roar of the day, and Sunraku, perched atop the shield, was sent flying spectacularly by the shield's own acceleration.

Originally, it was an unprecedented clear method of scooping up Storm Emperor Titanion onto the shield, lifting him, slamming him into the ground, and beating him to a pulp with the shield.

It was the coincidental alignment of Garunose's and Sunraku's situations, the fact that Garunose possessed 【Providence of the Wise Horse】, which granted propulsion to the shield itself, and above all.........

The attack of launching Sunraku upwards was convenient for both sides.

"───Something just occurred to me."

The voice of Sunraku, dancing through the air, reached Garunose's ears unusually clearly.

"I've never done it myself, but...... when you search for 'super play' on video sites, you sometimes get a hit."

There was a time—yes, there was a time—when even Sunraku could not defy that obvious truth.

What is "up" must go "down." Objects cannot escape the restraints of a "planet." Insect wings, feathered wings, propellers, jet engines—however you cheat the rule, once you stop, you fall.

Things thrown upwards fall downwards. Such an obvious truth.

"A shield-only restricted playthrough video for a game called Lone Wolf."

Garunose saw it. He looked up and saw Sunraku standing there, facing directly forward. In other words, he was standing on the sky while positioned completely sideways.

"That looked like a lot of fun. Especially the style where you aggressively bash things with the corner of the shield at the end."

Sunraku was agile and light-footed, and above all had reached a pinnacle of speed and jumping power capable of escaping even a planet's restraints; demonstrating that with his own body, he declared casually:

"There are five minutes left in this game."

"What.........?"

"All-Out, Full ThrottleFull Power."

He noticed.

The eerie mask covering Sunraku's face. The mask of flames housing an eyeball within, burning of its own accord (since the person himself didn't seem to be burning, it had to be at least some kind of effect). Those flames were losing their vigor.

As if it had burnt out. The flame that had continued to blaze unchanged regardless of whether he was at a disadvantage or an advantage was rapidly extinguishing.

"If you survive for five minutes, you win."

The mask was dyed black. No, black flames? No, not that either.

(Smoke is coming... from his face.........)

With a moon far larger than the real world's at his back, Sunraku stood with the upper half of his face covered in black smoke.

Though moonlight shone over him, the moon at his back cast his figure into the darkness of backlighting; within the smoke darkening his face still further......... a pair of eyes burning like blood-red flames snapped open.

"───Charcoal CrowSumigarasu."

A phoenix revives from the ashes.

But ashes do not burn. It is not ash, but the black feathers of "charcoal"—with impurities removed to the absolute limit—that produce an even larger, more fiercely burning flame.

Author's Afterword

・Storm Emperor Killer

A Secret TechniqueGlitch that Garunose devised on the spur of the moment after repeatedly losing to Storm Emperor Titanion during 「All Bosses Clear, Shield-Only Challenge 〜Final Episode〜 【Lone Wolf】」, despite the accepted strategy being, "He staggers easily, so the correct answer is to attack aggressively with a focus on DPS."

He discovered that because Storm Emperor Titanion's AI had not accounted for being "tripped by a shield," it suffered a multi-second stun animation while trying to get up. He then beat it to death with the shield to clear it—one of the Garunose Legends.

Because Garunose himself used the glitch in an RTA to drastically rewrite the existing RTA record, the technique raised his name recognition so much that even people who did not recognize the name "Garunose" knew exactly who you meant if you said, "That shield-only guy who discovered the Storm Emperor Killer on stream."

So anyway, everyone, Volume 16 is here. Volume 16 goes on sale December 15th. This is probably the final tankobon deadline for this year, so I'd love to savor the feeling of "I am freeeeeee!", but in reality I have a ton of various tasks piled up, so I'm still going to be busy for the rest of the year. The thing most actively shaving away Katarina's life right now, though, is the Ancient Battlefield.

Be that as it may, seeing the text I wrote turn into a manga, then an anime, and eventually a real game is something I can never get used to no matter how many times I sleep and wake up—or rather, I keep getting visibly flustered like a total rookie. And because I am not getting flustered over one specific "point" but over the entire "surface" of Katarina's life, this has given explosive birth to a weirdo who is flustered at all times. A suspicious person grinning constantly from 4:55 PM every Sunday—that is late-2023 Katarina.