After a moment, I asked, “What do you want from me?”
“Those people you’re with—they’re Gods, aren’t they? You’ve got strange weapons too. I’ll get straight to the point—give us your ‘in-game items.’”
They tricked me! I completely understood what their goal was as soon as he said that. They’d even lured me out to this remote area because... No. They’d been waiting for this moment the whole month.
What should I do?
These guys were only somewhere between levels 25 and 30, but that was still higher than me. That wouldn’t be a problem so long as I had my weapons and some distance, but I couldn’t do anything sprawled out on the ground. They were far too close.
Joachim grinned at the panic coloring my face. “C’mon! Give us the in-game items already!”
“In-game items? I don’t...have any.”
It was true. I wasn’t given anything except the guns. That’s why I was mystified when the two of them started laughing even harder.
“You know what that means, Nathan?”
“It means it’s torture time!”
“It’ll be different from messing up those high-class ladies just for fun. Now we have a purpose.”
“Even if she really doesn’t have in-game items, these weapons of hers should bag us a fair price.”
“In that case, why don’t we start with the fun, less-painful part first?”
I heard the clanks of their belt buckles coming undone.
It was obvious what was about to happen. Their glares were full of scorn and sadism... I’d seen them before. They were the same looks I’d gotten at the magic academy, vilifying me for being a useless, indigenous savage. An unbelievable amount of hatred from one person to another.
†
Shinobu Iijima
Flying through the farthest part of the northern territory with Flight Magic, Gabriel launched the first attack.
Her full-power kick exploded into the tree of the Ancient Flower, accompanied by a shrill noise. A crater opened up in its outer bark with pieces flying every which way. The giant monster wobbled a few large strides backward.
Cerberus, in his beast form, took advantage of the opening to breathe fire at it. He aimed directly for the core, the dryad. Too busy with Gabriel’s unstoppable barrage of attacks, it took the flames head-on. Once the whole core was engulfed in flame—
“Grade 5: Flame of Abyss.”
Tsukuyomi’s Bomb Magic added even more fire to top it off. I wasn’t going to stay quiet either.
“Grade 5: Holy Nuclear!” I sprinkled a spell full of light atop the explosion of darkness.
With that, we’d hit it with physical, Holy, Dark, and Fire magic. How do you like that?!
Just as I checked its HP, the vines crawling all over the humongous tree began to slither, gathering into one spot to form a giant whip. It swung at me, the sound of the wind being sliced following it. I kicked downward to air step away, barely managing to evade it.
“Damn, it’s fast! I can’t dodge it at that speed every time!”
I had to let out a dry laugh after complaining to myself. Sensing something behind me and turning around, I saw ten vines of identical size rushing toward me.
I don’t have enough time to dodge.
Without a moment’s delay, I created a physical wall with magic. It took all ten giant whips at once, but I myself didn’t lose any HP and wasn’t in pain. This was because of Cerberus’s skill, Substitute.
There were several reasons why Cerberus was called the Gatekeeper, but it was mostly because he was a frontline tank. His most efficient and practical ability was being able to take on attacks aimed at his allies.
Wait... This is bad.
I clicked my tongue and shook my head after checking my stat screen. That one attack had shredded Cerberus’s HP down to half. Had I taken that on myself, I would’ve been dead for sure.
One-hit death.
The only person on this whole field capable of withstanding that attack was Cerberus. Everyone else would die instantly.
I was almost stumped. Jesus... This was what a counterattack from a raid boss was like? And also...
“This is just insane!”
The HP bar to the upper right of the Dryad had only gone down a few millimeters after two direct Grade 5 attacks. If the whole bar was a meter long, then there were still ninety-five centimeters left to go. I’d had us go all out from the get-go to try and fight unfairly, but if this method wasn’t going to properly whittle down its HP, then we’d go crazy if we kept it up. Plus, just one hit from the vines had taken out half of our collective HP.
“I underestimated this thing. We’re in trouble.”
If this came down to a battle of endurance, then we were seriously doomed. If we forced Cerberus to keep tanking all the damage, Gabriel’s and my MP was going to dry up real fast healing him. I also wasn’t confident we could deal damage to the Flower in between tens, maybe hundreds of vine whips. No one’s MP could handle tens or hundreds of Grade 5 spells either.
Gabriel noticed me panicking and spoke with a grave expression on her face. “Master Shinobu. I’ll—”
I cut her off knowingly. “Do you plan on using Grade 6: The Final Judgment—Armageddon?”
“Yes, sir. That’s our only hope for escaping these dire straits.”
Grade 6: The Final Judgment—Armageddon. A spell that opened the gates to Heaven and shot a gigantic laser beam called “the Final Judgment” down to the earth. All enemies would be defeated without question. Every upper-level archangel was able to use it, but the downsides were immense. The beam itself exchanged the archangel’s soul for God’s wrath, meaning...
The archangel would die.
Event bosses were immune to it, and it would only deliver a set amount of damage to raid bosses, so no player actually bothered to use it.
But... Wait... That set amount of damage was scaled up every update. Wouldn’t it be able to deal the maximum amount of damage to this Ancient Flower, since it’s from an old event? But...
“This is an order. Don’t cast that spell no matter what.”
“But sir, I have determined that this is the only realistic path to our victory.”
“Think about it. Raid bosses aren’t supposed to be able to counterattack us, but this one does. Do you know what that means?”
“I believe I do.”
“Tsukuyomi’s Toy Box of Rotting Death had a limit put on it, so we don’t know how far that signature move of yours will be allowed to take effect. There’s no guaranteed path to victory for us.”
“However, Tsukuyomi’s Toy Box still had some effect. In the same manner, there’s a high chance that my Armageddon will still deal a set amount of damage to it.”
“I understand, but...” I trailed off for a moment, then steeled myself and spat it out. “I need you. For future battles... No, I just don’t think of you as a disposable game character anymore. So...I don’t want you to die. I’ll never let you.”