Chapter 950: To My Beloved Dawn, Part 23
Author's Preface
Happy New Year.
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"a-ha-Ha-hA-ha-HA!!"
".........!"
Three razor-sharp thrusts in succession, and the moment I dodged, a sweeping strike followed.
By switching where she gripped the shaft, she kept making the distance between us fluctuate wildly.
This wasn't just an enemy endlessly repeating preset motions; she was clearly switching her responses to match my movements... no, that's not it, I've seen this kind of movement before, the kind that loops all the way around into looking suspicious.
"She creates responses to match my movements... damn it, the turnaround on feeding the latest tech into this game is way too fast...!"
No mistake, this thing moved just like that "Ryuguin Fugaku"... it was Trace AI.
I have no idea whether this one, like that obscenely strong nonfiction geezer, is tracing the real world's strongest spearmaster, but the way she comes to murder me while cackling away is vicious enough to be called endlessly versatile.
"will yOu calL mY name toO!?"
"Warm up your tongue while you still can, because after this, you're giving the last self-introduction of your life!!"
Back off and the brute force of her reach drives me right back, but close in and she is absurdly good at point-blank combat too. Maybe if I grapple with her like wrestling or sumo......... no, locking up with someone confirmed to have the Poison attribute is suicide.
If she can pump poison out of her palms like Wimp, one slap could straight-up kill me.
"lEt me heAr it! my namE!!"
A wide sweeping strike; I jumped over it.
But within my slow-moving field of vision, from the follow-through of a move that ordinarily would have left a huge opening, she visibly forced her rotation to a halt with abnormal strength obvious at a glance and began rotating the other way, so clearly her physical abilities were not what that body made them look like.
Even so, even so, even so.
───The reason I had such a hard time against Ryuguin Fugaku, when you got right down to it, was nothing more than the fact that we were fighting under a standardized ruleset.
"hUH?"
Crack, skill effects scattered like sparks.
With her spear knocked away, Uwaa showed me a blank, dumbfounded look, but seriously, what was there to be so surprised about?
The Eye of Eternity is thought acceleration that originally branched from a parry skill. It finds eternity within a single instant, an eye that shows me the world normally visible only to the handful of people who have devoted their lives to martial arts.
And the deflection unleashed within that long instant can knock aside even a giant beast's claws.
Trace AI is absolutely monstrous, no question. To put it badly, the fact that you can buy data perfectly reproducing the skill of a dead master for under 10,000 yen has this faintly chilling feel to it, like humanity has finally started figuring out how many gigabytes the human brain can hold.
But put another way, in the end it is still only one human being's worth.
In that virtual dojo, the only win I could scrape together was an irreproducible one riddled with forbidden moves.
But this is Shangri-La Frontier. You can enchant a shinai with fire, hell, the shinai itself can fly. Therefore, let me put it like this.
"You're behind on your updates, spear master!"
My vision returned to normal speed, and the flow of time Uwaa and I perceived became the same again.
But that was all we had in common: she had been deflected, and I had done the deflecting. From here on, our startup speeds were different.
I closed the distance and gently set my fist against Uwaa's stomach... gently enough that it could not even send dandelion fluff flying.
Now that I have learned to bypass skill recasts, an Unprecedented Secret Art no longer counts as a Last Elixir for me.
Granted, because I have to repeatedly fail healing to do it, it still is not something I can casually fire off......... but be proud, Uwaa, you gave me enough trouble that you are getting hit by one more.
"gAH...!?"
The Exordinary Skill "War-Shattering Amber Display."
A high-damage strike with complete knockback negation, one that neither breaks the target's stance nor sends them flying even if I slug them with a full swing, is powerful in its own right, but its true value is obviously the ultra-powerful knockback released by nullifying the damage.
Uwaa went flying and slammed into the trunk of a great tree; I followed up.
Even while groaning, she fired a soccer-ball-sized poison bullet from her palm, but I had seen the startup, so it was not even worth treating as a threat.
I dodged the desperation projectile with one light step and equipped Sousou Togetsu from my inventory.
Too bad, but there is no race more accustomed to beating up handsome men and beautiful women than gamers. I am not going to freeze up just because she has Wimp's face!
"Let out your death cry!!"
Objectively speaking, I looked like an absolute garbage-tier villain, but I ignored that and brought Sousou Togetsu down.
"gh! GiiI!"
"The hell!?"
I had knocked the spear away, so why was this poison spearhead being thrust straight into my face... oh, so that was how it worked!?
I twisted my face aside and barely avoided a direct hit, but it gouged shallowly into my left shoulder. And the next instant, just as expected, the Poison status indicator appeared.
Shoulders count as the torso under the game system, and since the Scar did not counteract it, this must be pure Poison.
"Was filling the ring with healing potions a mistake...?"
I watched the second antidote potion fizzle with a bitter look, then looked farther ahead and saw Uwaa with a spear growing out of her torso.
Boss-dunine had done the same, and come to think of it, so had the Tsuchinoko-nine that molted out of the black tsuchinoko I encountered beneath Rabituza.
Goldunine can create poison weapons out of nothing, and in this one's case, she can also grow them directly from her body.
"Lucky it was a poison antidotes work on, but..."
The third antidote potion finally did its job.
Three items and 40% of my HP in DoT just to heal a scratch, "not worth it" does not even begin to cover it.
An enemy that can spring a poison-weapon surprise attack from who knows where, and on top of that she is not Boss-dunine herself but a clone, so you cannot blame me for wanting to complain and ask for a break.
Because I do not have time to waste on something like her.
"To finish her in seconds... firepower, huh."
The Brilliant Scorpion Gauntlets are... out of the question, those alone are an irreplaceable trump card. I cannot burn them every single time on something that looks like a boss add.
Which means... spamming the Imperial Gold Sword's "Radiant Sword of Devoured Blades." When it comes to firepower that leaves the least lasting cost, this is probably my best option right now.
That said, it devours resources at an insane rate too, and there is one major problem.
...What if this thing's HP is balanced around a party clear?
Seriously, no, seriously, I do not want to believe she has as much HP as Siegwurm or Wethermon.
Siegwurm spent an entire night being focus-fired by at least a hundred players, and he still rampaged the whole time.
But this thing is basically a clone created by Goldunine the Inexhaustible, so her HP might be on par with Boss-dunine herself, who is a Unique Monster.
On the other hand, Wimp is a Goldunine too, and I cannot picture her having that much toughness, so maybe this one will die surprisingly easily.
".................."
No, enough with the rationalizations... because there is only one thing that matters.
───Ever since I came up with "that," it has remained constantly in the back of my mind while I play ShanFro... no, even after I log out.
And "that"... never disappears. To compare it to something, maybe it is a locked treasure chest. I already have the key; all that remains is whether I choose to open it. Except the key is made of diamond and will shatter after a single use.
In other words, it is irreversible. I cannot undo it, and there is no going back... but I can do it. And it absolutely cannot produce a bad result. That much I can state for certain.
"...Damn it, Last Elixir, you sure know how to tempt me!"
I shouted as though rallying myself, as though giving up on giving up.
It cannot be helped! Once I have found it, I have no choice but to press the suspicious button—I cannot stop myself from checking what is inside the treasure chest!!
I sent Sousou Togetsu from my hands back into the inventory, took the Imperial Gold Sword in my right hand... and gripped "that" in my left.
"The Crystal Emperor and the True Dragon of Steel......... 'Do Not Mix: Dangerous,' huh!?"
The deathmatch that day, the reward I earned half-naked.
A mass of power that failed to become gear that had annihilated a dragon!
If it has taken the physical form of a "crystal," then!
"I'll feed you some top-grade steak...!"
I had thrown away hesitation, and so without wavering I slammed the Imperial Gold Sword's needle into the crystal... the "True Dragon's Treasure Proof: Half-Body Entrusted with Feelings."
Author's Afterword
Why does this guy called Sunraku have three items that are such a pain in the ass to handle?
・ True Dragon's Treasure Proof
For one who has defeated a True Dragon Species, the things they wield and wear are likewise nothing other than weapons that have defeated a True Dragon Species.
However, some things cannot have their nature overwritten by praise on that level.
For example, something that signifies a cry from the distant past.
Or something that fulfills the desire life possesses simply by virtue of being alive.
And for something that bears the mission of killing dragons, a result like "it killed one" is only natural.
When the power that should have overwritten the equipment that defeated it into "equipment that killed a dragon" is repelled by a greater power, it condenses into a single mass to prevent itself from dispersing.
It is a treasure proving a great feat, and a dragon's proof that, without question, "I existed."
Separately from that, an adjustment was implemented by the god with Very Strong Feelings about ShanFro so that the same Treasure Proof could also be obtained after fighting for a long period with no equipment, on the grounds that "it would be bad for a disparity with other players to arise when someone's equipment breaks during battle and they do not change it," so the other god with Very Strong Feelings about ShanFro got pissed off.
The god who was neither of them got a stomachache.
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Otherwise I’ll forget the chapter number
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