Time to turn the tables—at least, that was the plan. Reality had other ideas.
The gravity shifts came way faster than they’d expected, and the extreme builds at the heart of their strategies couldn’t keep up.
“Wahhhh!”
“Maple!”
“We can’t get a second’s peace!”
“The boss keeps teleporting…and shifting gravity as soon as we land…”
They were being rolled around like dice, and they were in no state to fight.
Sally had adapted somehow and was firing spells at it, but the boss just teleported out of harm’s way. As long as Sally handled the boss’s attacks, they weren’t about to lose, but by the time they won this thing, they’d be so tired it would affect the rest of the battle.
“Maple, Mai, Yui…let’s skip this room!”
“G-got it!”
““Please do!””
Sally used one of the provided quest items, and the blank white walls crumbled away, moving them to a different area.
This time they were in a boulder-strewn zone with poor lines of sight. Sally knew this one. Conceptually, it wasn’t much different from the forest. Relieved they’d rolled a winner, she nodded.
And then Maple wailed, “Sallyyy!”
A worm had popped out of the ground and was gnawing on her. Trapped in its maw, she couldn’t move or attack but this was Maple, so that didn’t really matter.
“Sorry, Maple, stay put for now. Mai, Yui, clear out the surroundings.”
While the worm was after Maple, the rest of them were free to move. Martyr’s Devotion kept them all safe—the rest of the monsters had no skills that could threaten that.
“Just hold on, Maple!”
“We won’t take long!”
The twins sprang into action, hoping to free Maple faster.
They started their standard hammer blender, aiming not for the big worm but for the rocks all around.
Each time a hammer hit a boulder, it crumbled like Styrofoam. The whumps left just dust in the air—the only evidence these things really had been boulders.
In a matter of minutes, they’d been reduced to pebbles, and the rocky zone had gone from impenetrable jungle to wide-open prairie.
““All done!””
“Nice. Now go rescue Maple.”
Monsters with no unique defense skills couldn’t withstand the twins. The hammers went from landscaping to extermination, and only death was in the cards.
Freed from the worm’s restraints, Maple was helped up by the twins, and everyone looked around.
The cloud of boulder dust settled, and with the view cleared, they soon located the boss.
Between them and it were a bunch of worms—which would normally have made approaching difficult.
“Maple, Sally!”
“Follow us!”
“Okay! I’ll keep you safe!”
“I’ll stop it from running once we’re there.”
Emphasis on normally. Mai and Yui charged right through the worms. Unable to withstand a single attack, the worms melted into thin air.
A total massacre. Their kill score was rising with each step. Monsters after the twins’ lives were slain the moment they left the ground. As long as the terrain let them compensate for their weaknesses, nothing could slow these two down.
The boss was attacking, but Sally’s spells and Maple’s guns took care of that—leaving the twins unstoppable.
“Oboro, Binding Barrier!”
Sally locked down the boss for only a moment. But they only needed a moment. As long as the twins got within range, they could end it in the blink of an eye.
““Farshot!””
A second blow. The boss’s HP dropped below the halfway mark. At a glance, it looked like they’d need to land two more hits to win. The design might prevent instant death, but killing it in four hits was still extremely OP.
“All right, keep it up!”
““Will do!””
First they needed a good area. That would make things way easier. And if it didn’t…
“……Okay.”
Mindful of their remaining skills, Sally put together a plan.
When victory seemed within their grasp, she needed to be extra certain nothing pulled the rug from under them.
And in this party, she had to bear the brunt of the danger assessment.
It was her job to stay calm and make sure no careless mistakes led to their defeat. While the other three were reveling in the action, Sally stayed sharp.
✦ ✦ ✦
A black aura coated the world. It crumbled and reformed.
It was replaced by a dazzling red. They were surrounded by roaring flames—damage sparks started flying from Maple.
“Glow of Deliverance!”
Maple was taking fixed damage, and for all four of them at once. That meant her HP dropped quickly, and even with the skill’s autoheal, she couldn’t keep up.
Using an item to bail was an easy choice—nobody, even this party, wanted to fight while taking constant damage from the fires. That would be any party’s first impulse.
“Maple!”
“Mm-hmm!”
But intel was the greatest weapon. Sally’s eyes were locked on a black glow beyond the flames.
The boss’s glow stood out against all this red.
This area was well documented, and critically, she knew the boss stayed put for a set time here.
“Waterway!”
“Full Deploy!”
Sally webbed the twins to herself and swam through her waters. Maple blew her weapons up, flying along below them.
Maple’s job was to keep them all in range of Martyr’s Devotion. Sally’s job was to get the twins up to where the boss was hovering.
Where anyone else would go for the fast reroll, these four stayed put, going for a quick end to the battle.
“If it won’t move, this is easy!”
“Yui!”
Since Sally was just towing them on her webs, they couldn’t move much. Unable to aim their attacks with any precision, they arranged their floating hammers in a box three hammers tall, four abreast.
““On three!””
Not enough gaps to miss—together, the twins swung the hammers like one big hammer, slamming the boss’s flanks. There was a boom, and it hit the ground below.
“Cool, nicely done!”
Sally landed them safely and released Mai and Yui from her webs.
“That went well!”
“Whew!”
“Thanks. A tricky move, but you nailed it!”
If they’d failed, Maple wouldn’t have lasted much longer, and they’d have had to skip. Thankfully, Mai and Yui had delivered in spades.
“We’ve got two skip orbs left. Keep your wits about you, and let’s land this final blow.”
“Yeah!”
““We’re ready!””
If Mai and Yui handled it, the next hit would down the boss. The flames vanished, the surroundings went dark…and they were back in the original open grasslands.
The boss reared up from the ground in front of them, and the twins slammed their hammers home, hoping to end it here. The noise was tremendous. They couldn’t even see the boss behind all their hammers—but it phased right through the attack, stepping in close and generating some magic circles that fired black lasers at them.
“It didn’t work…!”
“W-we’re sure that hit!”
“Don’t worry, it can’t hurt us, either.”
““Maple!””
As Maple reassured the twins, all around them more enemies appeared, each an exact duplicate of the boss.
“Don’t worry, we’ve got Maple, and this isn’t that bad for us. We just have to find the real one.”
““Right!””
Surrounded by undefeatable enemies, spells hitting them from all directions—
That should have been dire. But if one simply had Maple along, it ceased to matter.
Now they just had to work out where the real boss was. Intangible clones were a headache, but it wasn’t all bad news.
“Just do what we do, Mai!”
“I know!”
“I’ll do my bit! Commence Assault!”
“Flash Spout!”
They put their backs together, each facing a different direction and attacking dead ahead. Mai and Yui with their hammers, Maple with her guns, and Sally with a spout of water and some items—testing each of the boss’s phantoms.
What mattered was not the strength of the blows, but how much range the hits had. Maple sprayed her guns far and wide, filling the air with a barrage until one bullet drew sparks.
“I think I got it!”
They’d figured the real one would take damage, and that theory had panned out.
“Superspeed!”
“Come with!”
Sally ran in before they lost track of it. The twins held on to Maple, and she used Cover Move to keep up with Sally.
“Mai, Yui, swing here!”
““Destroy Mode!””
They started swinging. The hammers passed through several fake phantoms and the real one. A crunch went up from the whirling blender of death, literally shattering the boss.
“We did it!”
That clinched their victory. The twins smiled, Maple and Sally smiled back, and the spreading darkness gave way to the place they’d started in.