Tsukuyomi’s high-pitched voice summoned a coffin from the depths of the valley.
We had a reason for using Tsukuyomi’s signature move right off the bat.
Grade 5: Toy Box of Rotting Death
In addition to endless necromancy rituals and shikigami summons, Grade 3 Dark-type monsters are summoned to “devour the entire screen.”
The summoned undead are not only good as shields, but also as allies.
Even if one’s opponent is at the level cap, this magic is so evil that they can still be overwhelmed through the violence of numbers.
The only ways to deal with it are by rendering Tsukuyomi powerless before she has a chance to use it or by having an expert exorcist capable of using large-scale Purification Magic in your party.
Without a way to prevent it, you’d be dead as soon as she activated it. Since she was infamous for being unfairly broken, particularly during PvP, every player automatically had a wide-range purification item added to their inventory.
I didn’t know why I had to do this Ancient Flower event by myself, but since push came to shove, I was going to fight injustice with injustice. If this boss was supposed to be taken on by a ton of users at once, then all I had to do was prepare the numbers myself.
An uncountable number of undead flowed from the valley, all of them crawling up the Ancient Flower.
“What a horrible scene...”
The Flower looked like an island floating in a pool of black undead monsters. That was the only way I could describe it.
Even more undead came forth, adding to the horde. It was only a matter of time before the entire Flower was buried in them. But that’s when—
“Gyaaaaaaaaah!”
The Ancient Flower screeched bloody murder. Nice, it’s working! I couldn’t blame it; the undead were biting it and slicing it with their swords.
“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Its screams got even worse. Could it be...we have a chance?
“No! Shinobu...!”
“What’s wrong, Tsukuyomi?”
“My spell is being canceled by an external force! I can’t keep it open!” Tsukuyomi was struggling to speak as cold sweat ran down her face.
In an instant, all of the undead summons vaporized into black smoke that dispersed through the air.
“An external force canceled it out?”
“A voice spoke in my head, Shinobu. It said, ‘Error: Summon Limit.’”
Summon Limit? I had one for how many summons I could conjure, since that was my class, but Tsukuyomi’s spell was a fixed ability of hers that was summoning magic in name only.
I attempted to summon Bahamut to test it out. “Grade 5 Summon: Bahamut!”
He didn’t appear. I clicked my tongue and shook my head, frustrated.
We’d been had.
Because of Tsukuyomi’s Toy Box, I’d also had a Summon Limit placed onto me. I knew what that meant. Something mechanical like a game system wasn’t what determined the rules of this world.
Given our situation...the rules of this world had very obviously changed just a second ago!
“Well, Shinobu, this seems to be where the real battle begins.”
According to Far-Sight, the dryad’s HP bar had shrunk by about five percent. Kind of a misleading bummer, since its screams had been so exaggerated. It was a good first shot, though. Had it not taken even a single bit of damage from that, we wouldn’t have had anything left to work with.
“Shinobu...? Why is this happening? What’s going on with the Ancient Flower, and what’s this about a Summon Limit?”
“As far as I can tell, something really doesn’t want me to clear this event.”
“What do you mean?”
“Somebody’s actively watching this situation play out and adjusting the system in response. I don’t think the governing system of this game is a machine or a God or something. I can’t help but feel a very strong human will from this, along with malice.”
“Hm... You might be onto something with that.”
We glared down at the Ancient Flower.
“Whatever. I don’t know what’s at play here, but if they want me to solo this thing, then I will. It’s just...”
We headed toward the core of the dryad with Flight Magic.
First Raid Event: Ancient Flower.
The level cap was supposedly 50 at the time this event originally took place. At the moment, I was above level 80 and was in possession of broken skills and summons in the form of Release of God’s Might and Gabriel.
“I didn’t overcome the game scaling for nothing!”
†
Alice Cecil
The coldness of the snowy forest pierced through the fabric of my clothing. I was hiding within the frozen battlefield, the thin warmth of my breaths showing up as white puffs.
“Grade 2: Normal Fire!”
“Grade 2: Wall of Flame!”
Monsters like the Snow Spirit Jack Frost and white wolves blew around the area. As we’d planned, Ms. Isabella and her team of mages were clearing the straight path along the forest.
I was not to move.
I simply lay down along the thick trunk of a large tree in the forest, still, focusing my body on the gun set nice and firm on a tripod in front of me.
“Our magic...isn’t working!”
“There they are! The Wendigos!”
The extermination team was putting its efforts toward Area of Effect Magic, under the pretense of, well, extermination.
Master Shinobu had known these things would show up from the very beginning.
The Abominable Snowman: Wendigo.
A high-level monster, it was known as a mage killer because its fur was resistant against magic. The northern mages hated it.
Gauging it with my eyes, I guessed around three hundred of them were mulling about the path.
“Grade 3: Sword Dance of the Salamander!”
Ms. Isabella shot her spell, but to no avail. Aside from the few she’d managed to hit, the other three hundred weren’t slowed in their tracks at all.
“Urgh...!”
Seeing her grimace, it seemed she really couldn’t unleash consecutive Grade 3 spells, as she’d told us beforehand. But that didn’t make her any less impressive, since Master Shinobu and his followers were really just outliers in that regard. For people like us, Grade 3 was so harrowing that it couldn’t be used without Ritual Magic.
I’d been waiting for this moment.
Master Shinobu had left me here specifically to deal with the Wendigos.
Ms. Isabella followed her procedures and slowly but surely backed up. Once the Wendigos were convulsing enough, I placed my finger on the trigger.
I pulled it, setting off a deep boom.
Bam bam bam bam bam!
Firing a few hundred shots every minute, the M2 Browning set fire to its steel bullets.
The Wendigos’ heads blew off. Their stomachs burst open, and their internal organs went with them. Their arms and legs bloomed flowers of red meat that fell to the snow, one after the other.
They clustered together, bathing in the rain of giant 12.7-millimeter bullets powered up with magic. The bullets were traveling at supersonic speed, several times faster than usual because of the weapon strengthening applied to them.