Chapter 120
“I heard your bay laurel was stolen, but how nice that you brought back an extra one—with interest, no less. You think so too, don’t you, Nocturne?”
“...”
“Answer me.”
“Your Highness, please... spare me... I didn’t do anything...”
“Ha... Dragging things out reaaally isn’t my style. Don’t you want to see your family?”
The man seized the robed girl’s chin in one hand.
Her already gaunt, emaciated cheeks were crushed beneath his rough grip.
“Hic... sob... hic... please... I’m sooorry...”
“Looks like a slave like you managed to escape by sheer luck. But once you do, you’re supposed to live like the dead. There are always idiots who dream of revenge, aren’t there? Go deal with them and bring back the bay laurel, too. Then I’ll safely bring your family from Arseria Forest back to the Empire.”
“Hic... I... can’t fight... I’ve never... fought before...”
“Nocturne, why can’t you understand what I’m saying?”
With his other hand, he removed her robe, revealing a skeletal girl with a terrified expression.
The man slowly stroked the girl’s hair with four fingers.
“I’m giving you an order.”
The Crown Prince held a ring made from bay laurel in his hand.
As though proposing to her, the man carefully slipped it onto the girl’s finger and whispered into her ear.
“I hear the Holy Kingdom is going to burn all of Arseria Forest to the ground soon. If you want to save your younger siblings, you’d better hurry, don’t you?”
The girl’s ears, listening to the devil’s whisper, were long and pointed.
* * *
To make a confession, when I was young, I was actually more interested in swords than magic.
Even though I had been reborn in a fantasy world, magic was nothing more than a headache-inducing field of study, while knights who used aura could actually swoosh through the sky, so it was only natural that I admired them.
More than anything, the fact that I could stand upright on two legs moved me so deeply that the moment I was old enough to hold a wooden sword, I begged my swordsmanship instructor to teach me.
Marquis Bastion had a unique philosophy regarding swords. He argued that the one-on-one duels fought by knights were like playing a game of Go.
The question of why a game called Go existed in this world with almost none of its rules changed was beside the point. His main idea seemed to be that a fight was about searching for the best odds.
He emphasized the virtues a perfect swordsman needed, saying that when both sides made the best possible attacks and defenses, the person with the initiative was always at an advantage, and that no perfect swordsmanship could exist in this world—only fluid responses to the opponent’s moves.
Back then, when I thought of swordsmanship as nothing more than a kind of sport, I was so inspired by his unconventional ideas that I followed him like a disciple. Unfortunately, the time when I had to prove that the student had surpassed the master came sooner than expected, and I could only regret not getting to hear more of his lectures.
[Veixel: I’ve never done 10/10/10 either, but this boss is infamous for its brutal patterns, so above all, be careful with your HP. You know the Necromancer can only control one puppet at a time, but has two spare puppets, right?]
“Yes, I know.”
[SaveTheGradStudent: When a new puppet appears, it absorbs the user’s attack patterns from the previous phase, so you shouldn’t expect those attacks to work anymore. It would be best to make full use of Adela in Phases 1 and 2, then go all out in Phase 3.]
[LG Chaos: NoName, are you really going to use a schiavona instead of a claymore? The main penalty is gone, but the weapon penalty cuts your attack power in half, which is surprisingly crippling. Personally, I’d recommend using something with higher damage if possible.]
“I’m more used to the schiavona. And I need a handguard to keep from dropping the sword while casting magic.”
[LG Chaos: Yep, then let’s do this!]
-You really skipped the entire story
-This lets you clip through walls?
-How did he go straight into the Act 2 boss fight after parting with the knight commanderㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-All right, let’s go~
-Nocturne-chan, suki da yo♥Nocturne-chan, suki da yo♥Nocturne-chan, suki da yo♥Nocturne-chan, suki da yo♥
-Please save our Adelaㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
-What kind of pattern will Nocturne have on 10/10/10?
└ Probably 320 BPM
└ Is this a rhythm game?ㅋㅋㅋ
We entered a cave with an ominous atmosphere.
Sure enough, a short little girl sprang out from the darkness and blocked our path.
[Necromancer · Nocturne Nylingk (0/1)]
She was wearing a robe that didn’t fit her body, its hem dragging along the ground and kicking up dust with every step.
“I’m sorry... I’m sorry... Sob, I’m sooorry...”
The girl openly displayed her remorse from the very first meeting.
Perhaps unnerved by the sight, Adela grabbed my waist tightly and raised her tail stiffly.
“I have a family I need to protect... I think you, who were trapped in the forest too, can understand...”
[The Necromancer ‘Nocturne’ summons a random ‘Puppet 1’.]
[Infamy Difficulty has been set to 10.]
[The Incomprehensible Explorer · Mesomia Evening (0/1)]
-We’re fucking screwed!
-A Legendary +3 appears right from the start?
└ Who is she?
└ If you take classes at the Academy in the main story, you learn the history of the founding, and she appears then
-She doesn’t even appear at Infamy 3 or lower
-Red ponytail onee-san, hnnng
└ According to the setting book, she’s 59, despite how she looks
└ Hearing that she’s 59 instead of 200 or 500 somehow makes me feel strangely distantㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-What’s her pattern?
[Veixel: Ah... You got a difficult one right from the start. Mesomia Evening has extremely high magic resistance, so you can assume magic barely works on her. You have to fight her with melee weapons.]
[LG Chaos: Nocturne’s summoned corpse is always fixed to Phase 3, so Mesomia will start with her clone pattern. Adela can’t manage her HP alone in that case, so you absolutely have to attack together.]
-When Mesomia appears as an objective in ranked games, I somehow don’t feel like fighting herㅋㅋㅋ
-Seriously, even when you’re winning, your HP drops so fast that you often get swallowed up and lose the lead
└ Why have I never seen her even after a thousand games?
└ She only appears at Platinum 4 or higherㅇㅇ
└ Wow, I didn’t know there was a condition like that
└ It’s more amazing that you’ve played a thousand games and are still Bronze, Silver, or Gold
-How far do you have to get for Nocturne to appear?
└ Diamond 4
└ ㄷㄷ
-You have to clear Nightmare as easily as eating to reach Diamond in the first place
Unlike during the Act 1 boss fight, it was difficult to expect a coordinated attack with Adela. Perhaps picking them off one at a time was the answer.
The main body was probably stronger than the clone, so I had Adela fight the illusion.
Actually, when fighting enemies in the necromancer class, the standard strategy was to attack the main body—in other words, the girl over there with her eyes closed in concentration. But there was an obvious reason the viewers were trying to stop me.
A powerful mana barrier covered the entire cave, making it absolutely impossible to reach where the girl was. It was probably some kind of illusion magic.
I gave the red-haired woman standing before me a cursory look.
Her body had developed in perfect balance, making her ideally suited to a life as a swordswoman.
Except for one thing: her breasts were far too large.
“Did you know that having large breasts reduces agility and that no matter what stance you take, you can never escape back pain?”
[Veixel: Huh?]
-????
-What did you say?ㅋㅋㅋ
-Are you trying to nerf her because her breasts are big?
-Mesomia noona is kind of bigㅋㅋ
-NoName is a small-boob guy.... Noted...
If I genuinely wanted to reach the pinnacle of swordsmanship rather than merely joke around, getting rid of them could be one way to break through the wall.
After all, there was even a tennis player who underwent breast-reduction surgery and rose from world rank 300 to number one.
You can endure pain, but the problem is that our bodies instinctively try to avoid painful positions, and that inevitably creates certain habits when swinging a sword.
I briefly wondered whether an AI could implement something like that, but for now, it was best to assume she was human and fight accordingly.
“So there must be habits—no, patterns. Let’s focus our strategy on those.”
It would be even better if those ridiculous breasts could be removed, too.
Even though she was dead, I decided to raise her to the next level.
* * *
Bae Yeonji, who played in the second division under the obscure nickname Veixel, could not believe the scene unfolding before her eyes.
A streamer who had appeared like a comet in World of Arseria.
Watching her creative play made Yeonji consider trying a Nightmare clear again for the first time in a while.
However, as the battle gradually became familiar to her, it did not take long for her to realize that every single one of the streamer’s movements was extraordinary.
‘She’s learned how to use a sword.’
One of her team’s starters had contracted Yato disease, so she made her second-division debut. Like most rookie pros, she had spectacularly ruined the game.
She could not describe how much it had hurt when the hate comments poured in.
Despite feeling a wall even against second-division pros, let alone those in the first division, she wondered whether she had any right to offer this person advice.
Veixel had lived with the pride that, no matter how poorly a professional played, a pro was still better than an amateur.
That belief was being smashed to pieces by this streamer.
The two women in her field of vision charged toward each other.
Mesomia was an enemy whose pattern was nearly impossible to decipher.
That very Mesomia had appeared as the third objective—the neutral legendary boss—in Yeonji’s debut match.
In a fierce six-on-six team fight, Veixel had been the only one left alive. If she killed Mesomia, she could lead her team straight to victory, but she had been so nervous that she was helpless against the boss’s barrage of attacks.
‘People said all sorts of things, starting with, “Does it make sense for a pro to die to an NPC?”’
What kind of performance would she show?
NoName was the one trying to seize the initiative.
Even while running forward, she changed the sword’s trajectory several times.
Just as Veixel thought it was a pointless action that only wasted stamina, Mesomia’s response was set.
Then Mesomia saw that NoName’s sword was pointing behind her and quickly closed the distance. She had judged that it would take time for the sword to return to its proper trajectory.
Female humanoid bosses were generally fast.
Veixel’s thoughts raced.
She would have deeply regretted it if failing to tell NoName the enemy’s weapon movement speed became the reason for a defeat. Bae Yeonji genuinely loved Adela, after all.
That was when it happened.
[LG Chaos: Now! Parry!]
“I know...!”
Ting-!
Mesomia’s sword struck the handguard jutting up from the sword NoName was holding and ricocheted away.
‘She parried with the handguard instead of the blade?’
What was more, following her parry, the tip of the sword that had been pointing behind her had already reached above Mesomia’s head.
The initiative shifted to NoName.
The advantage of broad sword types like the schiavona was initiative.
Once an attack began, even if it was blocked, the attacker retained the initiative. Some techniques could even exert such overwhelming pressure that, even if the opponent successfully parried, both players’ positions were reset without the defender gaining the advantage of initiative.
And NoName was not someone who would overlook that.
The sharp sound of metal striking metal rang through the cavern.
Although it looked as though they were fiercely exchanging blows, NoName was steadily inflicting bleeding on the boss.
Feeling that she had to help somehow, Veixel watched the fight intently.
Then she noticed that NoName’s attacks were overly focused on thrusts.
If thrusts and slashes were not mixed appropriately, the attack pattern would become monotonous.
She must know that, right?
But Mesomia’s response to those thrusts was far slower than expected.
Compared to her usual sword speed, it was nearly half as fast.
Veixel soon figured out the reason and let out a hollow laugh.
Among two broad swords, thrusting attacks could only be blocked with dynamic defense.
To deliberately use static defense, you had to identify the exact point where the thin blade would thrust, which was difficult. Even if you predicted it accurately, the attacker could simply change the impact point mid-attack.
The reason Mesomia’s dynamic-defense activation took so long was that her arms kept catching on her breasts whenever they moved from side to side, preventing them from gaining any speed.
NoName was impressive too, persistently targeting only her breasts.
Having completely forgotten that she was on Discord, Veixel muttered without realizing it.
“Wow, this is seriously fucking amazing...”
“More.”
“...Huh?”
“Is that all you have to say? Don’t you have any other compliments?”
“Ah... NoName, you’re the best! You’re really amazing! You turned the cave upside down!”
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Ah, if you can’t give backseat advice, at least compliment herㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ