Chapter 64
Vallum Venaons's strategy is remarkably simple.
All you have to do is move to the Central Study field in the Remnant Materials Warehouse, where his beloved collectibles and taxidermied specimens are kept.
If you can somehow lure him into the study, Vallum will have no choice but to rely on the moonlight coming through the small windows to fulfill his skill's requirements.
Following Adella's advice to change locations, NoName steadily lured Vallum away while shaking off the remnants in the materials warehouse.
However, the reason the game was impossible to clear—not only as a healer, but even as a tank or damage dealer—with the sub-option difficulty maxed out lay in Vallum's unusual pattern that came next.
“Do you think cheap tricks like this will work on me!”
Vallum leaped high into the air.
The area in which the ceiling collapsed was proportional to magic energy and infamy.
Moonlight poured down. To make matters worse, all the clouds had cleared away.
And because NoName had started with both magic energy and infamy at 10,
“Nyaaaaaah! Then the inside of the building is completely useless!”
Every part of the study's ceiling collapsed completely.
-I only made him bang his head once, and the entire ceiling collapses? Where's the plausibility?
-Why look for plausibility in a gameㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Then was getting 30 kills with a flying ritual implement plausible enough?
-NoName's ritual implement is seriously a nightmare...
-Can't she just find an appropriate spell and seal the ceiling back up?
-Fucking Vallum breaks it again. Better luck next time.
-Whenever anyone does anything weird to the ceiling, he runs over and tears it offㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-The ceiling-obsessed manㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Ceiling freakㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Not the wasp guy, but the ceiling guyㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-ㅋㅋㅋ If he can't get moonlight, of course he has to worry about it
-He looks like he's about to use Time Stop, but apparently he needs to bask in moonlight like an elf. Ugh
Even if she tried to fill it with a plaster spell through the laurel, the warehouse keeper would use every bit of physical force at his disposal to smash the ceiling apart immediately.
Even the strongest character currently available, a crossbowman built for maximum burst damage, couldn't produce enough DPS to match the boss's rate of health recovery.
According to a DPS simulation made by one user, the highest difficulty that was theoretically clearable, assuming absurdly favorable conditions, was 9/10/9.
Even that sometimes proved impossible to clear depending on the boss's random patterns.
-Your mechanics are great. How about retrying 7/7/7 as a Shield Knight?
-Are you actually a girl? Aren't you an ACK pro gamer?
-Could you play a mage? I lost it when I saw that double casting earlier. I acknowledge you as a magic grandmaster.
-I told you I closed the chat!!!!! Donate, donate
-Oh, right.
[‘법법스님’ donated 5,000 won!]
-Please play an illegal mage next time!
[‘양손에흑염소’ donated 10,000 won!]
-You look like you could clear 7/8/7 as an assassin. Go go go go go go
The viewers took it completely for granted that the game would end soon.
They had already lost all interest in the game itself and were simply waiting for NoName to choose the next class.
While Adella drew his attention, NoName cast a spell to block the ceiling.
But the boss smashing it apart again was the expected outcome.
Attacking him didn't reduce his health. And because of the elixir, they couldn't even hope to deplete his mana.
Since his skills had no cooldowns, he unleashed his ultimate attacks without pause.
“How dare you lay a hand on my body!”
Adella's health dropped below half in the blink of an eye.
Though she clearly didn't want to, NoName caught Adella's flying body and helped her back to her feet.
“Nyaaaaaaa...”
-Fucking Vallum, nice shotㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-No, that was a full-body strike right down the middle!
-Watching Dark Cat get taught a lesson is more satisfying than watching her beat Vallum
-One hit took half her health? What kind of difficulty is this?
-What the hell! I'm really bummed out :<
-What?
-Foreigner?
-What the hellㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-What
-Shwang
-What what
NoName's head turned cold.
The more urgent the situation, the calmer she had to remain if she wanted to survive.
Even if NoName took Adella and left, Vallum wouldn't bother following them.
Her aura sense had already detected numerous troops approaching.
If they left now, Vallum knew their location, and they would inevitably be surrounded on all sides.
Rather than face a large number of enemies, a one-on-one fight with a powerful opponent was preferable.
It was wisdom she had learned through her long years of exile.
But how?
Because the space wasn't enclosed, she couldn't gather and contain the light.
Nor could she seal the ceiling by physical means.
Vallum's enormous axe came flying toward NoName.
Bang-!
Meanwhile, he was utterly relaxed.
He didn't even bother to step forward or run.
His belly wobbled as it took over the study's space.
“You won't be able to run away now. Kh-hl-hl.”
With a bizarre laugh, he charged ferociously at the two girls.
Adella had already been hit several times, so this time was dangerous.
“Nooooooo!”
Adella, held in NoName's arms, charged Vallum in an act of desperation.
It was the worst possible move.
Vallum put all his physical mass into an uppercut and slammed it into her abdomen.
“Nyaak-!”
A dying scream.
Her body struck the ceiling once before falling horribly to the floor.
‘She hit the ceiling?’
There had clearly been nothing there, yet the impact sounded as though Adella had slammed into an invisible wall.
The viewers naturally came to the obvious conclusion.
If players had been able to climb up to the ceiling, catching Vallum, who was trapped in the study, would have been simple: just bring an archer or mage.
It was an invisible wall meant to prevent a dog that had chased a chicken from staring helplessly at the roof.
But NoName reasoned in reverse.
‘If we can't leave, then you can't leave either.’
Unlike a ritual implement, Vallum was a being bound to the world of WoA.
[Advanced Casting, Circle 1: Polarization Array]
Although she couldn't cast a spell through the wall, she could do so at its very edge.
She manipulated the arrangement of the atoms along the outermost boundary of the magic-permitting space so that they would reflect light.
“This kind of glass...! I just have to break it!”
Thud!
-What? Why isn't it breaking?
-What did she do to the ceiling?
-Vallum has an attack power coefficient of +99999 whenever he headbutts the ceiling
-They put a hell of a lot of it up there
No matter what he did, he wouldn't be able to break it.
A thin membrane less than 0.1 micrometers thick.
But electromagnetic force was by no means weak.
Compared to gravity, the difference in their relative strengths was 10 to the 36th power.
At the singularity where the end of the world existed, electromagnetic force was practically invincible.
But NoName's situation hadn't improved. Even though she had cast the spell by reducing it to Circle 1 through Dimension Descent, her mana was clearly being depleted.
The warehouse keeper was the one who had been startled, but the tide of battle had not turned.
NoName attached a chain to the ritual implement.
‘I have to finish this within two minutes.’
“How dare such a tiny thing!”
Vallum Venaons's flesh rippled.
Thud-
‘I can't think of him as a human being. He's a golem.’
He sometimes used psychological warfare, but it didn't vary depending on his opponent.
Like a well-programmed golem, Vallum Venaons's movements were simple.
Every time Vallum's attacks failed, shallow cuts were left across his flesh.
‘Never get hasty.’
When the distance widened, NoName could hit him one-sidedly thanks to the difference in their ranges.
When the distance closed, Vallum swung his flail and punished NoName mercilessly.
He made full use of centrifugal force to steadily stack up effective hits.
NoName was targeting nothing but Vallum's flank.
Even if it started as nothing more than a shallow cut,
Once, and then once again.
The blade-studded flail left a definite cut.
Vallum's movements slowed.
The hateful moonlight did not enter the study.
“Fine, I admit it. I must have put my pen down for too long.”
Vallum began to pant.
He took a monocle that had been half-destroyed by the fierce battle from his pocket and put it on.
You mustn't give an enemy spouting incomprehensible nonsense time to counterattack.
NoName's body shot forward immediately.
But Vallum reached out toward NoName and chanted a spell.
[Myriad Phenomena Attraction]
NoName's avatar was thrown backward as if it had been hit by a truck.
-???????
-That's not even Pain's Shinra Tensei, so why is this pig using magic???
-He's on a completely different level from the old fart at the observatory. Fucking Vallum-senseiㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-It's not a body slam or even hugging and rubbing against her—he's using magic?
-Is this... the hidden charm of a nerdy guy?
-He's such a damn nerdㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-He's secretly scholarly. I heard his hobby is reading
-Now I get why the quest is called The Young Noble of the Studyㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
The viewers were left speechless by this shocking revelation.
But there were others who were even more surprised.
-No, that's not what's important right now
-How did she get through Phase 3? Why isn't he recovering?
-Did she really fight just now without interrupting his casting?
It was Vallum Venaons's Phase 2 pattern, which had been considered impossible to clear.
NoName had now surpassed that limit.
NoName got back to her feet. She had 141 health remaining out of 1,592.
The boss had 1,600 health remaining.
-Does it end here? Ah, what a shame
-How did she beat Phase 2!!!
-Of all times, her healing skill is on cooldown. She'll definitely die to the next Myriad Phenomena Attraction
-Isn't this basically the first time anyone has even seen Phase 3?
“Consider it an honor. A mere beast will die while basking in the splendor of moonlight.”
The young noble even delivered a line implying that anyone struck by the skill would die without exception.
There seemed to be no hope left.
[Myriad Phenomena Attraction]
NoName's body floated into the air and was drawn toward Vallum.
“It's over.”
-It's over
-Vallum Venaons, sir, I will never judge someone by their appearance againㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
-He's seriously such a broken character. How did Waresoft expect anyone to beat him?
-He's got tons of health, an unlimited-cooldown buff, and now he can use magic too
-If you get hit by Myriad Phenomena Attraction, you just die
-But why did it suddenly turn wuxia-style after going along so well as fantasy?
-Waresoft's largest shareholder is a Chinese company
-Business is business
-Can't she heal through it?
-It has a real cooldown...
NoName dispelled the magic she had been maintaining on the ceiling.
Moonlight that had been beating uselessly against the coating membrane poured down.
“Kwahahahaha! Have you given up?”
All of Vallum's skill cooldowns reset, and starting five seconds later, once all the moonlight had poured in, he would recover 10% of his health every second.
Strictly speaking, he was supposed to.
[Synthesis: Lanthanide Neodymium]
[Cast: Melting]
[Cast: Forming]
[Cast: Sintering]
[Cast: Magnetization]
Even Dimension Descent couldn't allow her to use a Circle 4 spell.
So NoName took a detour.
A hexahedron.
She assumed an arbitrary four-dimensional shape by adding one point to a regular tetrahedron.
She calculated the hyper-solid angle obtained by integrating the trihedral angle and substituted the result into each congruent magic circle.
Each of the five vertices was surrounded by six faces.
Thirty second-order homogeneous linear differential equations were solved in just two seconds.
Finally, she used all the mana she had stored and synchronized it with the laurel.
-Something's happening... Something's happening!!!
-Are there four magic circles?
-What are you doing, streamer!!!
A permanent magnet made by sintering and alloying neodymium, boron, and iron in a ratio of 2:1:14—the most powerful permanent magnet currently existing on Earth.
The attraction of Vallum's Myriad Phenomena Attraction and that of the neodymium magnet combined.
“What...!”
The positioning was perfect.
Wasn't Vallum standing right in front of a vault made of steel?
Whether the hit detection of Myriad Phenomena Attraction came first, or whether the neodymium drill pierced Vallum's body,
KWA-GWA-GWANG-
It was a future that the more than 2,000 viewers could easily predict.
Along with the sound of a massive explosion came the familiar quest-clear jingle.
[You have defeated The Young Noble of the Study/Warehouse Keeper · Vallum Venaons.]