Chapter 900: December 20th: Reprise・300-Limit Riotous Rhapsody
Author's Preface
An outrageous move: the afterword got so long that I put it up here instead.
Volume 16 releases December 15th!
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The reward for defeating Orchestra, Reverberating Nether True Canon: Migratory Bird, has three main abilities.
First: using an eye-related skill stocks an “Eye-Opening Counter,” and consuming one boosts the effect of the next eye-related skill used.
Second: when HP falls to 5% or lower, one “Charcoal Feather Counter” is stocked. Up to five can be stocked.
And third: the special form “Charcoal Crow,” where consuming a Charcoal Feather Counter multiplies all stats by 1.5 for sixty seconds per counter.
To stock Charcoal Feather Counters, I have to shuttle-run my HP back and forth across the 5% line. That’s what the Circle of Harvest and Temperance is for.
Garunose’s PvP performance is high. Even in armor that heavy, he throws out attacks I cannot fully evade every so often... which makes him perfect for fine-tuning my damage intake. Fully recovering would only increase the risk of having to take myself back below 5%. If I shuttle-run the Sanzu River around the 10〜15% line, I can fulfill the Charcoal Feather Counter condition.
Wait, wouldn’t shuttle-running the Sanzu River mean I’m already dead?
Still, five minutes... five minutes, huh... Brings back memories of that time, now that it’s become nostalgic.
Though I can’t deny it feels like I’m the one in that evil bonsai’s role this time... unfortunately for him, merely knocking the weapons out of my hands isn’t enough to make me beg for mercy.
“Well then... I can at least hear you out, if you’ve got any requests?”
“...Requests for what?”
“Your cause of death.”
Kicking off empty air, I went down.
I brought Areadbhair and Antiares crashing down toward Garunose.
“Would ‘anything but getting cut down’ count as a restriction...?!”
“That just means I’ll finish you with a forehead flick!!”
Decided blocking would be bad, did he? Rather than catch the twin slash, Garunose dodged with a backstep and aimed his mace at my head.
Too bad. All stats are multiplied by 1.5... and here’s the funny thing,
“That includes HP and MP too!!”
Dual High Connection: “Mana-Purge Acceleration”!
The effect is simple: burn MP as fuel and explode into acceleration!!
Literally explosive acceleration was layered onto a single backstep, nothing more than that one motion. The blast hammered Garunose’s entire body, and though I was “stepping” while he was “being blown away,” we both retreated and opened the distance.
A magic swordsman using it with a full MP bar could probably add some killing power too, but with my “tiny bit of MP left,” knockback was the best I could manage.
But that distance was all I needed. I lightly tossed Areadbhair, launched it with a Roundhouse Kick, and, with barely more than a token zanshin, charged forward myself.
“From here on out, it’s an ultra-rapid attack, lean forward and keep accelerating!”[*2]
I fired the Retriever, aiming for Areadbhair, which hadn’t even reached Garunose yet!
With Dynamite Boost leaving my MP completely empty, I couldn’t use 【Soaring Blade Sound】. In that case, I just had to change the premise.
I yanked Areadbhair back into my hand before it hit Garunose, returned to dual-wielding, and rushed him again.
“Kh...!”
I raised my swords toward Garunose, who had reflexively brought up his shield... Multiple Circular Motion.
My straight-line trajectory instantly switched to a circular orbit centered on Garunose.
When I tried this at the start of the match, he showed off the absurd stunt of knocking me away with his elbow... time for a pop quiz to see whether he can pull it off again.
“Was the first one just a lucky punch?!”
One slash from Areadbhair, and because it was still only on low heat, it made a dull, grinding scrape, using the armor on Garunose’s arm as an instrument to produce a deeply unpleasant sound.
But that was fine. After its integrations and additions, Areadbhair’s abilities had reached an ideal level of usability.
Because it had undergone so many upgrades in such a short span, I’d been worried its handling would get worse (weapons Bilac makes, especially, have a tendency to turn into extreme builds where she chases the high roll and usability goes straight into the trash)... but once I actually opened the lid, well, look at that: it had come together surprisingly well.
Maybe because Divine Awakening is different from ordinary enhancement or True Awakening, or maybe because the performance Areadbhair itself specifies takes priority over the performance Bilac sets.
Originally, 【Blade Kindle】, like 【Soaring Blade Sound】, required shaving away MP to light the fire, but its effect had been merged with “Flame Explosion” into a passive, so now just cutting something lit the blade!
And because “Flame Sharpen” and “Fourth Radiant Spear Proof: Incineration” had been merged, the stupidly annoying conditions for the staged power-up had been relaxed, but in exchange the power now depended on the stage too!
...Though now that I thought about it, I felt like the awkwardness hadn’t changed much at all, but whatever.
Even after paying for all that awkwardness with an entire bundle of bills, I’d still get change back.
“The more I cut, the easier it gets to cut! Hotter! And then───”
After all the care I’d put into this thing, it had finally realized that it was a “sword.”
“───‘Incineration Flash’!”
Due to various circumstances, Fourth Radiant Spear Proof: Incineration had been demoted from ultimate move to gauge move, but in exchange it gained the ability to be used repeatedly and a new identity as a flaming flying slash.
A slash flew in from a distance it should never have reached; Garunose blocked it, but his movements hitched as though noise had run through them.
Including the hit from 【Soaring Blade Sound】, the flames coating the blade were red, the lowest damage multiplier, but that also meant it could be fired almost immediately; this stage excelled at rapid fire.
A sturdy shield... in other words, a punching bag that wouldn’t break after a little roughing up.
“Don’t die on me too easily... we’ve got five whole minutes, so let’s enjoy every second!!”
Author's Afterword
Radiant Spear Proof Areadbhair
Its previously scattered abilities have been consolidated and adjusted, and abilities as Dragon Destroyer Gear have been added on top of that.
・“Blaze”
Strictly speaking, a passive skill formed by merging 【Blade Kindle】, “Flame Explosion,” and “Flame Sharpen.”
Each slash adds “Flame,” coating it in four stages of fire (red → blue → silver → gold).
At the initial stage its sharpness is abysmally low, but the higher the “Flame” stage rises, the hotter the blade becomes and the sharper it is honed.
Strictly speaking, this “Flame” is magical energy stocked inside Areadbhair.
・“Incineration Flash”
A burning projectile, a budget version of Fourth Radiant Spear Proof: Incineration, fired by consuming the magical-energy stock “Flame” accumulated through “Blaze.”
Basically Spirit Blade: build the gauge, then let it rip.[*3]
Sunraku mistakenly believes that Flame Sharpen was merged with Fourth Radiant Spear Proof: Incineration; strictly speaking, however, Fourth Radiant Spear Proof: Incineration was adjusted to fit “Blaze,” the merger of the three existing abilities.
・【Soaring Blade Sound】
Throw → hit → reactivate → return. Using it through Servant can suddenly switch it to autopilot, so it is surprisingly awkward to use.
・【True Legend Unbound Flame】: Tomahawk
Its effect is the same as 【Dragon Soul Unbound】. In short, it is a declaration that says, “I’m releasing the limiter now.” Is it too late to give it Final End as ruby? It is? Right, okay.
The dragon mirage floating behind the wielder is, in ordinary Dragon Destroyer Gear, a product label saying “this has that thing’s power inside it,” whereas here it is a show of force saying “I beat this thing to a pulp.” It is a trophy head held aloft—in other words, it is boasting, “I have taken Tomahawk’s head!”
・【？？？？？】
Weapons turned into Dragon Destroyer Gear are basically granted two abilities.
There are two types of direction those added abilities can take when a weapon becomes Dragon Destroyer Gear. Garunose’s Supreme Trampling Dragon Hoof follows the pattern where the skills themselves form an ON/OFF pair (technically High & Low).
For Areadbhair, it is one small move and one big move. In other words, this is the one sitting in the ultimate-move slot in place of Fourth Radiant Spear Proof: Incineration.
And suddenly, we’ve reached chapter 900, so here is a slightly deeper explanation of the worldbuilding.
This setting was conceived with the manga adaptation’s depictions in mind: in the ShanFro (game) world, monsters can be divided into a still broader category above species groupings such as insects and beasts.
While looking at the manga’s monsters, have you ever thought, “Doesn’t this one kind of look like it was drawn in a different art style?” Like, some monsters look a little stylized, while others do not.
That is because they belong to different categories at a stage even earlier than species, earlier than how they arose as living beings.
Readers caught up to the latest original chapter probably already know this, but this world’s planet has Julius-kun’s brain jammed suppository-style right into its dead center, and its “thinking” makes the flow of mana rational. Without Julius-Brain, the Genesis Beasts start getting lively.
Juli-Brain’s main function is as a wedge against the Genesis, but at the same time, it also influences the “next ecosystem.” Goblins, Dullahans, Yetis, and all the other so-called “Earth-made fantasy” monsters exist because they are influenced by memories, or perhaps records, inside Juli-Brain.
In other words, most present-day ShanFro (game) monsters are products of images extracted from Juli-Brain.
That is why dinosaurs exist in a world with dragons and wyverns.
If one side is “monsters influenced by Julius’s images,” then what is the other? It goes without saying: “the ones that aren’t.”
Unique Monsters, Raid Monsters, and entities like the Obsessive Treants, which have origins independent of the ecosystem.
Compared to those born from images, the ones that feel a little more... high-resolution, or more densely rendered, fall outside the ecosystem in that macro-category. Put badly, they are “foreign objects.”
True Dragon Species are a little complicated in that respect: they belong to the “ecosystem” while possessing elements of Siegwurm, who is himself a foreign object—or, strictly speaking, perhaps they are another category that arose from within the “ecosystem”... damn these troublesome things, whose appearances and origins are both a pain to put into words...
Oh, humans and the Vorpal Bunnies are in the latter category, by the way. Foreign objects through and through.
Translator's Notes
- [1] Riotous Rhapsody: Chapters 42–43 used 300-Limit Rhapsody, written with 狂想曲, the standard word for a musical rhapsody. This reprise changes it to the identically pronounced 狂騒曲, replacing “rhapsodic fantasy” with “frenzied commotion.”
- [2] Ultra-Rapid Attack: 急戦 is a shogi term for launching an early offensive before either side has completed its defensive formation, trading security for immediate pressure.
- [3] Spirit Blade: A reference to the Long Sword’s Spirit Blade attacks in Monster Hunter, which consume a built-up Spirit Gauge; the comparison is to charging Areadbhair’s Flame stock and cashing it out on Incineration Flash.
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