She died.
She never could have imagined that she would die there. This was her first ever death since the official launch. It was a good experience. She could test out so things she had never been able to before.
“…………”
Apparently when Rare died, all her followers would also die at the sa ti. And all those followers would respawn after an hour. In other words, she would have to spend the next hour all alone in this huge cave. Since Sugaru had also died, there weren’t even any ants around.
“………”
She was worried about the farm. With the ants monitoring it gone, she wouldn’t know if sothing were to happen to it. Since there wasn’t as much livestock anymore, nothing that crazy could happen, probably. It was only for an hour. It should be fine for that long.
“……”
Hm, maybe that was incorrect. The only one respawning after an hour would be Sugaru. If the ants’ tir only began once Sugaru was respawned, then it would actually be a total of two hours before they all revived. That kind of felt like a long ti. And it was the sa with Sieg’s undead.
“…”
She should really go check on the farm, but she didn’t really feel like doing it at the mont. Sa with Treu Forest. The only ones there had been treants. In other words, it was completely unattended right now. She also needed to check how far Kerry and the other girls had traveled. She wondered where they would respawn. All she knew was that it wouldn’t be here.
“…Well, I could say that it was a good thing this happened. Mm. I was really getting ahead of myself. I’m glad it was during this event, since I won’t lose any XP. Since I spent a ton of XP on reincarnating myself and World Tree, if I were to lose ten percent now, I don’t know what would happen to us. How lucky. Right, I’m actually quite fortunate.”
She could tell her voice was trembling.
“This was a good lesson, I always need to leave ten percent of my XP fluid. Mm, yeah. Knowing how to hedge risks is essential. Anyway, I’m no expert in investing, so I couldn’t have really known in advance. As long as I pay attention from now on—…!”
Her voice caught on the lump in her throat. This was amazing. Her ga avatar could even replicate this feeling. Technology had advanced so far.
“Nnngh…! Uuu…kghhh…”
It was frustrating. So frustrating that it felt as though her stomach had tied itself into knots. Her emotions were running so raw that she couldn’t stop the tears. Her throat was so constricted that she could barely even cry out.
She wanted to look presentable and wash her face before her followers respawned in an hour, but was that even possible? If this were the real world, her eyes and face would remain red and swollen until the next day. She didn’t have a mirror, so she had no idea how she looked. No, maybe it was better that there wasn’t one. If she saw herself now, her miserable crying face would be forever burned into the back of her eyes, an eternal reminder of her failure.
＊＊＊
Surveying the capital from the sky, what stole her attention from the magnificence of the city walls was the beautiful townscape. Ruining this city ant defiling that beauty. She absolutely couldn’t wait.
Rare was wondering where would be good to drop off the adamantite soldiers when suddenly Yoroizaka unsheathed the Kenzaki at her waist, the sound of tal on tal ringing out. An arrow had co flying at her. Sothing like this had happened before, but how did Yoroizaka notice while Rare was oblivious? They should both be sharing the sa field of vision. Was it because Rare’s attention was primarily on the city, or was there so kind of hidden stat outside of vision and hearing?
She was also concerned about the attack just now. Rare had hidden herself with [Camouflage] and was hovering in the sky above the capital. In this state, it was nearly impossible for anyone to see her. How were they even able to shoot an arrow at her?
When she looked down, a bunch of humans were gathered outside of the city wall. Every single one of them was looking right at Rare. While her eyes did et with a few of them, oddly enough, most of them felt like they were looking past her. It seed that so of them definitely could perceive her, but the rest were just copying them and looking up at the sky.
This was about the sa number of people that she had smacked around in the first event. They must have gotten stronger since then, but that applied to Rare as well. Things were probably going to turn out the sa way as they had before. Ti to turn them all into XP.
But she couldn’t forget her objective here, which was to get her hands on the capital. First, she should [Summon] a bunch of adamantite soldiers here in the air and let them fall down into the city. Since Rare could cast [Summon] while flying, no matter how sturdy the city wall was, it would be useless against her. She had also learned how to “unleash” the [Summon] skill, allowing her to use it on a ton of followers at once. There was a way to select multiple targets to [Summon], but Rare was able to ntally “drag” the selection box to reach the maximum number of targets. Using it in this way caused all [Summon] skills to be unusable for a period of ti, but since she probably wouldn’t need to use it again today, she wasn’t concerned about the drawback.
Rare ordered the adamantite soldiers to take care of the soldiers and knights while doing their best not to destroy any buildings. Thinking of the powerful knights who had been in La Colline, she also gave a strict order to only engage individual knights in groups.
After she finished with that, next was to take care of the group outside the city wall. Given the motley arrangent of gear, they must have been a group of sellswords. She saw so who looked like players, but if they were, she didn’t know why they were here in the peaceful capital while there was an event going on.
Since they already knew where Rare was, she deactivated [Camouflage] to save MP, then descended down to the ground right in front of all the players. She wondered why no more arrows had been shot at her. That ant she couldn’t determine who had fired the first arrow. The group of players before her were reminiscent of the group she had pulverised in the last event. While their equipnt was indeed far superior, she couldn’t imagine they had any tal gear that surpassed adamantite. Even if they did have adamantite weapons, they wouldn’t be effective against Yoroizaka as she was now.
Compared to before, it seed that there were only the bare minimum of heavy-armored players, so-called tanks, which worried her, but, well, she may have just been paranoid.
“So this’s the ‘catastrophe.’ I can’t believe it’s already invading the capital on the second day of the event… Are the admins trying to overthrow the country or sothing?”
“I can’t believe it actually ca… but maybe this was worth gambling on! If we take out the catastrophe, we’ll get MVP for sure!”
“Well, the NPCs wouldn’t lie to us about this, and considering we’re in the middle of an event, I think it was a pretty good bet, personally. That’s how we got here, with all the top players on the server to boot.”
“And just now, it dropped a ton of undead from above, so it’s gotta be the undead boss for this invasion.”
“Do we need to worry about those undead?”
“Lawson’s group should be in the city, ready to engage them. Just gotta trust they’ll be all right.”
“But man, this thing is huge! What is it, exactly?”
“It’s an undead, right? Maybe a dullahan or sothing?”
While the players chatted, about ten of them stayed there while the rest, who looked like support, fell back. It was a trivial distance, so Rare didn’t worry about it. All they probably had were arrows and magic, so as long as she had Yoroizaka on they weren’t worth worrying about. After she took care of the ten people right in front of her, she could kill the rest at her leisure.
“It sucks that we couldn’t get in touch with Rare, the champion from last ti, but whatever. We’ve leveled up a ton, so even if a bunch of Rares ca at us, we would wipe the floor with them, so even an event boss should be easy with this group.”
Surprised, Rare’s eyebrows shot up. Even if a bunch of her ca at them, they could win? She wondered if they were saying that seriously. In that case, she would have to correct their misunderstanding.
It was ti to recreate that exhibition match.
Yoroizaka soundlessly approached the man in front with [Flash Step], then unleashed a [Slash] while pulling back. The only one who could defend against this attack to date was Sieg. Plus, Yoroizaka had gone through two reincarnations, so her stats were incomparable to what they had been before. Even if he could repel it, his shield would end up sliced in half.
“Ahhhhholy crap! If I wasn’t paying attention I woulda been offed!”
But he dodged it.
—Impossible!
If she had been on the defending side, even Rare herself wasn’t confident she would’ve been able to dodge it her first ti seeing it. Although since it was simply an attack straight from the front, as long as you knew that in advance, it wouldn’t be impossible to avoid. That ant that it wasn’t the first ti for this man. He had seen it sowhere before.
“It’s the sa move the champion used! Best to assu this thing can use player skills too!”
From the previous event. During the battle royale, she did in fact use this combo many tis. It was so convenient that she probably overused it, and now it had beco ingrained in Yoroizaka. What an unfortunate habit. Next ti, she would have to have Deas and Sieg help her practice so kind of non-skill-based technique.
However, both last ti and this ti, since she left everything to Yoroizaka, there was no verbal component that went along with the skill activation. Because of that, apparently the player thought that the entire series of actions was a single skill. In which case, if she used [Flash Step] to connect with a different skill or a normal attack, they might not be able to avoid it.
Rare conveyed this to Yoroizaka via friend chat. Just as directed, she used [Flash Step] to close in on a different swordsman, then swept sideways without using a skill. Because of the extre difference in height, Yoroizaka’s horizontal sweep must have felt like a three-dinsional diagonal slash to her target. As expected, he couldn’t dodge it, and while he was able to thrust his shield up in ti, he was sent flying by the attack. It was like a batter hitting a baseball, but while she was able to cut through it, there was quite a lot of resistance, and the cut was deflected. That shield wasn’t made of iron.
“Gil!”
“I’m fine! I ain’t dead! Dammit, I spent a fortune on a magic iron shield, and it got pulverized in one attack!”
Because the shield was too sturdy to slice through cleanly, apparently the only thing that got cut off was that swordsman’s left arm.
Things weren’t going smoothly at all this ti. When Yoroizaka had those practice battles with the adamantite soldiers, she was able to move more nimbly. While she was indeed moving better than she had during the first event, was this really all she was capable of in the wake of two reincarnations?
“Leave it to ! [dium Heal]! [Regeneration]!”
So kind of spell ca flying in from a mage in the rearguard. It hit the swordsman who had just lost his left arm and covered him in light. The light expanded to include the shape of his left arm, then, when the light disappeared, the arm was back, just as it was before. The gauntlet that went flying with the arm didn’t co back, but all the damage to the player had been neutralized.
—Healing magic! I’ve never seen it before!
Since this was a fundantally multiplayer skill, there was no point in hiding information about it. If Rare had checked the ssage boards, she should have probably been able to get it as well.
It was pure hubris. Since she earned the most XP, she already knew about the most skills. But that wasn’t true at all. Rare purposely avoided learning a lot of skills, such as lee attack skills. Thus, there must have been countless players who experinted with all the skills Rare had passed up. Rare wasn’t the only person playing this ga, after all.
—After this event is over, I’m gonna have to explore skill usage again for the first ti in a long ti. But even before that, I’ll need to hit the forums, check up on all the information that’s been making the rounds, and after looking at all of that…
“[Lightning]!”
With a boom, she felt her field of view rock. This was no ti to be thinking about the future. Apparently she had gotten hit by a magic attack. Yoroizaka had taken damage. But that wouldn’t be a problem. If it was just this much damage, she should naturally regenerate it montarily.
Wait, the problem wasn’t the amount of damage, it was the fact that Yoroizaka had even taken damage at all.
In all Rare’s testing, the only thing capable of dealing damage to Yoroizaka was an adamanmage equipped with a World Tree staff. Considering how strong adamanknights were, adamanmages should be as strong as high-leveled mage players. Those sa adamanmages needed to have the best equipnt available to Rare in order to inflict damage to Yoroizaka, and that player had just done it. She couldn’t say that it was absolutely impossible, but it was truly hard to imagine happening.
But no, she needed to save her analytical disbelief for later. Right now, she had to deal with these enemies capable of damaging her. That ant she needed to prioritize killing them first. Yoroizaka was already looking at the player who had cast that spell just now, and she used [Flash Step] to get right next to them.
However, just before that, suddenly she was subrged in darkness.
—What the hell?! I can’t see!
“Awright! It worked! It’s blinded! Now!”
She didn’t know what was going to happen “now,” but she had an extrely bad feeling about whatever it was. Rare promptly cast a spell.
“[Hellfla]!”
This wasn’t the ti to be concerned about people hearing her voice.
“What was that just now?! Who did that?!”
Generally, AOE magic required visual confirmation of the target area in order to activate. However, there were exceptions. Such as when you yourself were the center of the spell. Every AOE spell allowed only that one exception to successfully cast without seeing. It was kind of inane to have to look at yourself every ti you wanted to cast strengthening-type magic, after all. You are casting magic at yourself, so the fact that you know where you are without having to look is a matter of course.
“Agh! It’s fire!”
“Shit! Who cast that?! That wasn’t part of the plan!”
“No! It was the catastrophe! It cast the spell on itself!”
“It can do that?!”
This should burn up everyone within range.
However, her vision didn’t return. And since she didn’t know whether this effect was from a spell, a skill, or an item, she couldn’t counteract it either.
“H-Hey, is everyone all right?! [Area Minor Heal]!”
She heard the voice of the healer from before, and she also heard words of thanks from all around. That ant that none of the players around her had died.
Impossible… Rare’s [Hellfla] was powerful enough to lt adamantite. She had cast that spell knowing that it would deal quite a lot of damage to Yoroizaka. For players with shields that could be cut off with one swing of a Kenzaki, none of them should have been able to withstand it.
—Actually, why is Yoroizaka mostly fine?
She did in fact take damage, but it was a lot less than expected.
“—field debuff saved our asses. It was a pain to set up, but the effect is legit.”
“Good thing we all set up this area in advance and lured the boss here. If we had to fight it normally, this would’ve been totally impossible.”
“Shut up! Don’t talk about that! The event boss might have a super intelligent AI! What’ll we do if it cos up with a counterasure?!”
—A field debuff…?
That sounded like the [Miasma] skill that Sieg and Deas had. No, this was even stronger than their skills. They said it was a pain to set up. In other words, they had prepared in advance for it to activate in this area. And Rare walked right into it.
This was no longer sothing on the level of “letting her guard down” or “being arrogant.” She had been convinced that no one could possibly defeat her either way. She looked down on these players, condescendingly hoping that maybe soone could put up a good fight against her. She was full of herself.
And this was the result of that.
If it had been a normal fight, then like before, it probably would have been her overwhelming victory. But she had been baited into a field debuff, forced to fight while weakened, allowed all her attacks to be healed, had her sight stolen, and been reduced to this pathetic ss.
She was infuriated at her own foolishness. She couldn’t forgive herself; it was easy to forgive others, but it was much harder to forgive herself.
No, it wasn’t actually that easy to forgive others either. She wouldn’t let these guys off the hook. She absolutely did not want to lose to them. Rare was an extrely sore loser.
If she couldn’t see herself, then she just had to let the Kenzakis run wild. They each could see on their own.
“Its vision shouldn’t have recovered yet! And the spell it just cast should still be cooling down! Now’s the ti!”
“Leave it to ! [Fear]!”
However, right then, Yoroizaka stopped moving. Rare tried to control her, but she wouldn’t move at all. By the looks of it, it would be reasonable to assu she had been afflicted by the status effect [Fear]. However, that only applied to Yoroizaka—it wasn’t true for Rare. That was clear from the system ssage. Even if she was weakened by a debuff, it was inconceivable for the horned Rare to fail to resist [ntal Magic] from a human.
However, in reality, she was currently stuck in place. Why was that?
In all likelihood, it was because Yoroizaka was her armor, and while Rare had her equipped, she was still a monster at the sa ti. Therefore, even if she counted as equipnt, if either of them failed to resist a status effect, both would suffer the consequences. Considering that even when equipped, Yoroizaka was still able to move independently, this certainly made sense from a gaplay standpoint. In other words, right now Yoroizaka was paralyzed with fear and unable to move as an independent action.
—I never even considered that! I can’t believe there was a drawback like this! But Yoroizaka was supposed to be immune to all [ntal Magic] spells!
“The catastrophe is stopped in its tracks! [Fear] worked!”
“Even though it’s been debuffed, how much min-maxing did you do to bust through an event boss’s resistance?!”
“It’s because of Blind! Targets affected that can’t see have lowered resistance to [Fear]! Plus, I used one of my soul stones! I knew this thing was undead!”
This was news to her. So [Fear] had a modifier like that. But this wasn’t sothing she would have ever realized on her own, since Rare had never gone out into any bright places. She always used [Fear] when it was already dark. She knew that her [Beauty] characteristic boosted [Charm]’s effects, but apparently [Fear] had also always been buffed by the environnt. Although, since each of them were buffed by different things, there was no point in comparing them to each other.
She didn’t know what a “soul stone” was either, but from the na it seed to have a similar effect to [Necromancy]’s [Bind Soul]. [Bind Soul] lets the caster store souls for later use, but that item might function as an expendable replacent for a soul.
Yoroizaka wasn’t undead but closer to a homunculus or a golem. Both of those beings required the consumption of another soul in order for [ntal Magic] to affect them. Since Yoroizaka and the Kenzakis were immune to [ntal Magic] and couldn’t cast magic, Rare hadn’t spent any XP on raising their MND stats. All they had was the boost granted by Rare’s skills. Since they had been further debilitated by the field debuff, of course they would fail a resist roll. The Kenzakis similarly weren’t responsive; if Yoroizaka failed to resist the [Fear], then it was unthinkable for any of the Kenzakis to resist it either, aning they were all paralyzed by fear too.
“Now! All-out DPS!”
Magic ca flying at her from every which way. However, Yoroizaka only took chip damage from it. If they just tanked all the spells and waited for [Fear] to wear off, Yoroizaka probably wouldn’t die, but Rare didn’t want to do sothing la like that. She had decided that these people were all going to die, after all.
With both her vision and movent sealed, there was nothing Rare could do from inside Yoroizaka. Considering that they were only blasting her with magic right now, that ant that there should be no one right near her. She assud no one was in range of the self-destructive spell she had cast at herself earlier. This was no longer a situation where she could be concerned about letting herself be seen. She wanted to crush them with all her might. See them with her own eyes, then rip them apart with her high-level magic.
“[Whiteout].”
“Whoa! What the heck?!”
“What’s that light?! I can’t see!!!”
This [Light Magic] spell blinded everyone in an area, although it didn’t last very long. Rare used this opening to co out from inside Yoroizaka.
She opened the hatch in the back, quickly erged, then put a hand on Yoroizaka’s shoulder and crawled up. She used the wings on her back for balance and propped herself up with one foot in Yoroizaka’s hatch.
“Sothing ca out!”
“So soone was inside it?!”
“Calm down! This is just the boss’s second form!”
The players had already recovered from [Whiteout]’s effects. Its duration was extrely short. This debuff thing was sure putting in so work. If possible, she would’ve liked to have taken care of so people before it wore off, but the spell had actually affected Rare as well.
The sun was dazzling. She couldn’t open her eyes without squinting, which made it hard to survey her surroundings.
Co to think of it, how long had it been since she had been outside with her real avatar? Last ti had to have been in the forest, where the trees shaded her from the sunlight, so it hadn’t been as radiant. But now, there were no obstacles in the way. Even though the sun had fallen sowhat from its zenith, that didn’t change how much she suffered from direct exposure. The only penalty to her vision should have been [Poor Eyesight], but maybe it interacted with [Albinism] to unlock so kind of additional special effect.
“Wait, that’s…”
“Sweet Jesus, now that’s what I call a queen…”
“What is it?”
“There was a boss kinda like that in a really old ga. It was the ant queen. Well, that boss looked like an ant except for its wings.”
“More like, isn’t that just an angel? So what was behind all the undead outbreaks was an angel all along?”
“I see, so it was an angel… It really is too beautiful for words. You can’t even say its beauty was sculpted; it’s so overwhelmingly gorgeous that I can feel it in my soul.”
“It’s so lovely that I can’t even be jealous…”
“Actually, isn’t this really bad? If it’s an angel… it won’t work on it…”
“No, it’s clearly working.”
“It may look like an angel, but we already know that it’s undead! It’s probably so kind of angel zombie, I bet!”
Even though this was a battle, they were just happily chatting away. They must have thought they could afford to do that since Rare hadn’t done anything yet. But that wouldn’t be true for much longer.
The sun was still way too bright, but since the players spent so much ti talking her eyes had been able to adjust to it. She could at least open her eyes a little bit now. Enough to make out where her targets were. Their front liners weren’t as far away as she thought they’d be. They must’ve thought it would be fine to be this close since their target had been both blinded and paralyzed.
—They’ll regret letting their guards down.
Because Rare originally had [Poor Eyesight], it was hard for her to properly attack enemies who were at mid-range or further away from her. Plus, with her vision further impaired right now, it was much harder for her to aim her magic than she expected. So, she would just have to get up close and beat the shit out of them.
Rare swiftly jumped down from Yoroizaka, darted to the closest lee-looking player, and aid a roundhouse kick right at her neck. Even though she was weakened by that debuff, as long as her opponent was humanoid, the thods for incapacitating a body had been ingrained into her muscles.
Actually, speaking of the weakening debuff, Rare’s regular stats were too high, so it was difficult to control her avatar since it was too responsive. Due to all the long years of training she had gone through, she felt most comfortable moving her body when it hadn’t been strengthened with any stats whatsoever.
However, even though an avatar closer to her real body would allow her to perform at her peak, this was the ga world. A regular person could never compete against a monster whose specs were multiplied by their STR and AGI stats. Most in-ga attacks were impossible for an average human to avoid, and given the difference in raw power, even if it seed possible to turn one aside, a glancing blow would still result in a broken limb.
Suppressing her sense of disorientation, her reckless kick was ant to rob her target of consciousness, but instead it robbed the woman’s spine of its vertical integrity. The unfortunate player crumpled on the spot. She would probably disappear shortly after in order to respawn, but Rare didn’t have the luxury of watching the show.
Grabbing the fallen player’s arm before she hit the ground, Rare haphazardly tossed her in the direction of the mages in the rearguard. The flying corpse, thrown with her ridiculous STR stat, spun wildly in the air; after it had gone far enough to turn blurry in her eyes, it turned into light and disappeared. The system must have respawned them.
“Tch!”
“This thing is way stronger than she looks!”
“I thought she’d be a mage-type!”
“What kind of angel bludgeons people to death?!”[1]
“Did the Fear already wear off?!”
“Her status effects probably cleared when she ca out of the armor! Anyway, front liners, get as close as you can! Don’t let her move around so much!”
Rare dashed toward the voice who shouted just then, cracking open her eyelids just a bit when she got near to check their position. She dropped her hips, then drove her palm right into the center of her target’s trunk. In the real world, she would’ve broken her hand with this move, but the Rare here with her ludicrous stats would never lose a joust like this. However, the place her palm strike hit was much softer than she anticipated and her hand pierced right into the player’s body, montarily stopping her in place.
The other players weren’t about to let that opening slip them by.
Sothing ca flying at the side of her face, but because of her nearsightedness, Rare couldn’t tell exactly which direction it had co from. She twisted instantly with her arm still inside the other player, pivoting him to be used as a shield against the projectile.
“[Fear]!”
It was no use. [ntal Magic] wouldn’t work on a demon lord.
“It didn’t work!”
“God dammit, but the leader…!”
“Shit, she blocked the Squid Ink Ball! But now we know for sure! We need both Blind and the field debuff in order for [Fear] to land!”
“No, wait! I used six soul stones on that first cast, but I’ve only got four left now! They might not be enough!”
They were wildly off base, but she had no obligation to correct them. The six soul stones must have been used for each of Yoroizaka and the five Kenzakis. But she did learn sothing useful just now. The thing that was thrown at her was the sa thing that had blinded Yoroizaka. They called it a “Squid Ink Ball.” It must have co from the ocean. Once this was all over, maybe she should head there herself.
“[Lightning Shower].”
As thanks for the information, Rare glared in the direction of the voice who had cast [Fear] and unleashed so AOE magic in recompense. Since her accuracy would tank when she couldn’t see her target clearly, it was next to impossible for her to hit soone at mid-range with magic. However, AOE spells could sowhat cover for that in exchange for larger MP costs. Since the range of her vision stopped a bit before being able to see the source of the voice, that was where she was forced to cast her spell. Because of that, she couldn’t hit them directly, but based on the cries she heard, it seed she had barely caught them inside the area of the magic.
“Gaaah…”
“She got ntaiList!”
“Even weakened, she can still one-shot the rearguard…”
“She ain’t a warrior-type or a mage-type! She’s stupid strong enough to be either! Rearguard, you guys back up even more!”
“[Area Minor Heal]!”
Apparently other players also got caught in her spell, so soone had cast AOE heals within that area. However, that was a bad move. From the start, Rare had only heard one voice casting healing magic. In other words, they probably didn’t have another healer. In which case…
“[Snowstorm]! [Prominence]! [Earthquake]! [Hurricane]!”
Before their AOE heal cooled down, kill them all by piling on spells. Rare was prepared to hit herself by casting them with her own position as the nexus. It was the quickest way to cast them consecutively. This way she didn’t have to squint to designate a position in order to cast the spell each ti. Aside from the damage from her own spells, her skin had been feeling prickly for a while now. That must be due to her weakness to sunlight. She couldn’t afford to waste any more ti; she needed to finish this up quickly. Unless they had sohow managed to slip in a heal between one of her attacks, all the players near her should have been wiped out.
She could have perhaps cast an even more powerful spell instead, but since she herself would be at the center of it, she wasn’t sure if she would have been able to withstand it.
Plus, she still hadn’t taken any real damage from an enemy yet. After getting rid of all the front liners, the rearguard would probably start pelting her with magic, but she really couldn’t imagine such a barrage doing more damage than she had already done to herself with her own spell. She could ride it out.
Between all the offensive spells, the healer did cast so heals, but their AOE heal must have been on cooldown. Even if they were able to heal, it would only affect one or two people at a ti. If that was all, then she could leave them alive and not run into any problems.
However… Rare wondered why this player she gutted hadn’t respawned yet. He was convenient as a shield, and even after she switched to mainly casting magic she had just kept him around, but she wondered exactly how long he intended to decorate her arm. Just as she thought it was about ti to pull out her arm and throw him aside, she felt soone else cling to her waist. If she rembered correctly, this was the guy whose arm she had cut off, a player nad Gil. He had taken on the rare tank role in this raid. Just as a tank should, he must have had a lot of stamina in order to stay alive for this long. Well, no, even putting the weakening effect aside, Rare’s magic was powerful. Which ant that between Rare’s casts, the healer was deliberately healing this guy… But why…?
“Now! Break it!!!” he suddenly yelled.
With Rare’s vision, she couldn’t really tell, but the rearguard players were doing sothing quite far away. Then she heard what sounded like a crystal shattering, and suddenly her body beca a lot heavier. She knew exactly what this was: the field debuff. But why did it get stronger all of a sudden? At the sa ti, it felt like strength was being drained from her body. She almost couldn’t stay standing. The man holding onto Rare’s waist ca loose and his feet began to drag on the ground. He was probably dying. This wasn’t just a debuff; it probably also drained LP. And unlike before, it also affected the other players now. That was why this Gil person also died. And this dead body hanging onto her arm was heavy; Rare was forced onto one knee. This was why he didn’t respawn. She had to escape from this field as soon as possible. It wasn’t dealing damage, but it was reducing her maximum LP instead. And the damage she had already taken before this new effect wasn’t being maintained as a percentage of her current LP, it was a fixed value of LP lost. That was probably the primary reason for Gil’s death.
And Rare had taken a huge amount of damage from her own spells. Furthermore, she had been also been debilitated by that powerful weakening effect. Her LP was already in the red zone, and she only had a sliver left. To make things worse, the [Light Burns] from her Albinism were starting to gradually shave even more LP off. This… was bad. But the man at her feet was in her way, and she couldn’t even take a single step.
—God, his armor’s so heavy. But in the worst case, I can just use [Castling]…
No, wait, she couldn’t. Before she got here, she had frivolously used it up, and it had a 24-hour tir. She also couldn’t use [Summon Caster] to escape. There was still more ti before she could use any [Summon]-type skills. Plus, with all these corpses coiled around her, she didn’t even know if she would be able to activate it.
Everything she had done today ended up backfiring on her. This was all because of her arrogance, because she didn’t consider the consequences of her actions.
It was galling, but she had to run away. She could just cast high-level magic from the sky to carpet-bomb the entire area.
She used [Flight] to float up in the air and used all her strength to shake off the corpse on her arm. At that mont, her eyes swept across his face. She knew him. He was—
Suddenly, she felt the sharp tang of bloodlust. She spun around reflexively. Right before her eyes, there was an arrow.
—Oh right, soone fired an arrow at right at the start…
It would probably pierce her right between the eyebrows. A headshot.
Author’s notes
The only thing I had decided before I started writing this chapter was that Rare would die. If that hurts your impression of this chapter, I think that’s a fair response. Thank you very much for reading.
The ones who benefit the most from the reduced death penalty are the ones at the top. This is a ga where the more experience you gain, the greater the cost of dying becos, so since the top players can’t afford to die, as they get stronger, they also beco more careful. At least, the players who have experienced death do. The admins would never directly interfere in the ga, but if they ever felt that progression was stagnating, they could use these kinds of bonus weeks to help stimulate things. They’ll record the data on the reduced death penalty during this event and probably refer to it in the future.
Tomorrow’s chapter will be even longer than today’s, which I am very sorry about, but it’ll be another single story. For the most part, it’ll be the events that led to today’s story in a Pythagosothing Switch[2] type of thing, it won’t be the next part of the story.
TL notes
The na of this chapter is 身を知る雨の味. The first part, 身を知る雨, is an old poetic rendition for “tears;” from what I understand, it’s kind of archaic Japanese, i.e. the construction doesn’t make sense in modern Japanese, but it roughly translates to “the rain from one’s own body.” So all together it would be either “the taste of tears” or “the taste of rain from one’s own body;” as an English title, though, the first one is boring, and the second makes no sense. I decided to go with a more abstract English title to try to retain that feeling of poetry.
[1]: 素手で撲殺してくる天使かよ！; not sure if this was supposed to be a reference, but 撲殺天使 pretty clearly brings to mind Dokuro-chan…
sen.wikipedia/wiki/Bludgeoning_Angel_Dokuro-Chan
[2]: Pythagora Switch is a Japanese educational TV program that features “Pythagorean devices” throughout the show, which are more commonly known as “Rube Goldberg machines” in Arican English.
sen.wikipedia/wiki/PythagoraSwitch
Wow, so how about this chapter? The person who recomnded this series to said this was the chapter that made him change his evaluation of this series; “That’s when it finally kicked in for . After building up her invincibility, it felt like it broke my expectations in a good way.” I have to agree; based on how everything leading up to this chapter was going, there might have been little hints, but I never thought it was going to lead off this way, with her respawning in dias res, then flashing back to the actual battle. I’m excited to find out how the author is going to explain how this happened.
Next chapter is the 19k monster, so I’ll be taking a full week to work on it as well. See you on Wednesday the 11th!
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