Chapter 72
72. Strategy
The skill Mana Enhancement, which greatly amplifies all stats, including attack power and defense, in proportion to Intelligence.
Mana Enhancement is literally a cheat skill that can turn your life around simply by learning it.
You can tell just by how much of a boost I’ve gotten from the [All-Out] skill.
[All-Out] only temporarily boosts a single stat, but Mana Enhancement boosts all stats at once.
What makes it especially broken is that it doesn’t just boost the four basic stats, but also attack power and defense separately.
If Strength is boosted, attack power goes up, and if Durability is boosted, defense goes up.
And on top of that, it boosts attack power and defense once more, separately.
My practical combat power would skyrocket.
On top of that, the fact that the boosting stat is Intelligence is incredibly broken.
The three stats of Strength, Agility, and Durability can be roughly estimated while trading blows, but Intelligence doesn’t show outwardly.
Because of that, you can’t predict how much your stats will be boosted the moment you use the skill.
There’s also the fact that it lets a warrior-class character make effective use of Intelligence, a stat that’s normally half-wasted.
Or the fact that, in practice, raising Intelligence alone is almost the same as raising all stats.
As you can see, the list of reasons Mana Enhancement is broken goes on forever.
-Rumble!
I could feel an overwhelming pressure coming from Mercedes as she slowly walked toward me cloaked in a white glow of mana.
This wasn’t just my imagination. My newly awakened mana sensitivity was feeling the pressure of mana pouring out from her.
I took out a large shield and brought it in front of me to prepare for a sneak attack. I also drew the best weapon Erwen had made for me.
Then a fist came straight at me.
[Iron Wall]
[All-Out]
-BOOM!
Even though I quickly raised my shield and strengthened my durability to the limit, I couldn’t withstand the impact.
This wasn’t like getting hit by a truck; it felt more like a collision with a plane.
As expected, when the physical gap is this huge, blocking it doesn’t really count as blocking.
And damn it, I think my head got hit by the shield that was shoved back the moment the fist landed.
There’s blood on my forehead. The bleeding itself isn’t a big deal, but it could block my vision at a crucial moment.
Just as I thought I should use a potion to recover—another attack came crashing down.
I can’t even tell whether it’s a sword or a fist. All I can see is something flashing.
-BOOM!
I somehow blocked it with my shield again, but my body was still shoved straight back.
My left arm was broken.
The potion I took out of my inventory was swept up by the shockwave, shattered, and scattered across the floor.
So she won’t even give me a chance to recover? If she’s that strong, she ought to let her guard down at least once.
But this is more manageable than I expected.
If this had been me right after entering floor 7, I probably wouldn’t have been able to react at all to the first attack.
There’s no way I can follow that with my eyes no matter what she does. I have to predict her attacks and block them through mana detection.
It’s absurdly fast and strong, but that woman’s sword style isn’t all that different from that guy Berit or whatever his name is.
You might say what’s the point if blocking it doesn’t really count as blocking, but I’ve already got a plan.
-Zing.
Mercedes’s presence, now empowered by Mana Enhancement, was picked up by [Instinct] and mana detection.
I can predict the path of the sword she swings. I lightly gesture along that path and open my inventory.
‘Item Drop.’
I dumped out a huge amount of armor and shields I’d been stashing away for ages.
**
I’d been looting treasure chests and items all the way up to floor 7, and I’d acquired dozens of items.
Equipment can be obtained not only from treasure chests but also from monster drops. And most of them are actually useless.
Some can’t be equipped because of restrictions, and most of the rest just have mediocre stats, so there’s no need to bother with them.
But in case of emergencies, I’d strengthened even these spare backup pieces of gear to some extent.
Naturally, to full [Durability].
I dump out all the armor, shields, weapons, and whatever else is sturdy that I’d strengthened and never even taken out.
-BOOM!
Mercedes’s attack thundered as the equipment I’d taken out flew through the air like styrofoam scraps.
But simply flooding the attack path with obstacles greatly reduces the impact.
Mercedes’s attack isn’t magic or an area skill; it’s just a brutally powerful slash and strike.
By creating a physical wall like this, I can somehow block it.
“What is this, spatial magic...?”
Mercedes, whose attack had suddenly been blocked in such an absurd way, muttered.
An NPC would naturally see it that way, since a huge number of objects had suddenly been summoned out of empty air.
The dark elves, Eleanor included, had interpreted me pulling things out of thin air as a magic spell called “Item Box.”
But this isn’t magic; it’s just the inventory function built into the system, and using it doesn’t cost anything.
So yes, I can do this too.
-Clack!
I stepped on the items I’d scattered and leaped high into the air.
Mercedes quickly spotted me and tried to launch an attack upward.
But once again, I poured a large amount of items out of my inventory. This time, just a bunch of random junk.
She can probably sense her surroundings through mana, but if that many obstacles are summoned at once, even that gets difficult.
How do I know? I tested it myself after learning mana detection.
-Clang! Clang!
Mercedes quickly swung her sword to knock the obstacles away, but I kept reclaiming the scattered items and throwing more out.
It’s not only items I can scatter.
Just like I did at the forge, I can also scatter gold in the form of millions of gold coins.
“Do you think you can buy time with those cheap little tricks, human!”
-Clang! Clang!
Even while knocking away the many obstacles, Mercedes seemed to be roughly tracking my position.
Well, I expected that. Her mana detection is probably higher than mine.
But this much is fine.
Even if she can roughly estimate my position, it seems she doesn’t know what I’m doing.
Right now, Mercedes is wary that I might suddenly burst out from among the obstacles and launch a surprise attack.
She isn’t paying much attention to the barrage of thrown items; she’s only watching for me to charge in.
Which means she won’t be able to stop this thing flying at her out of nowhere.
-Whoosh!
The hand axe I threw passed precisely through the gaps between the obstacles.
**
A strong mana-bearing being is easier to pick up in mana detection.
Conversely, lifeless objects that don’t possess strong mana aren’t easy to detect.
She probably thought the many lifeless objects pouring down were just a simple decoy and focused all her attention on my position.
So it was only natural that she’d be late noticing a rapidly flying inanimate object.
-Crack!
“Ugh!”
Mercedes, caught completely off guard, was hit by the hand axe, though the wound wasn’t severe.
Of course, Mana Enhancement would have boosted her defense a great deal too. A single thrown strike wasn’t going to become a decisive hit that easily.
-Whoosh! Whoosh!
I kept reclaiming the items that hit the ground and dumping them back out, kicking junk around and tearing up the ground to keep adding obstacles.
In between, I kept throwing more projectiles—metal balls, daggers, hand axes, and the like.
“What a cheap trick!”
Maybe because she’d taken one effective hit, she wasn’t letting her guard down anymore and was blocking properly now.
But the more she does that, the more rattled she’ll get, and the harder it’ll be to track my position with mana detection.
Then the move she’ll choose is obvious. She’ll force her way through the mountain of items, even if it takes some effort, and come for me.
-KRAAASH!
And as expected, Mercedes blasted through the pile of items with a charge loaded with tremendous force.
But what now? That’s not where I am.
“W-what...!”
“What, dumbass.”
I sprang out from behind Mercedes, swung my sword, and slashed her arm.
-Shhk!
She counterattacked the instant she was cut, and I got my arm slashed too, but that doesn’t matter.
If we both suffer wounds of the same level, then I’m the one with the advantage, because I have [Combat Healing].
The reason Mercedes misjudged my position is simple.
The bait I used was the [Light Gathering] skill, which gathers the surrounding light and creates a light source.
From the moment she started paying attention to the thrown weapons, Mercedes’s mana detection had no choice but to lose accuracy.
[Light Gathering] is also a magic skill that uses mana, so mana naturally gathers when it’s activated.
By switching off [Lightning Charge] at the same time I used Light Gathering, I made her misread things for a split second.
“To think you’d use such dirty tricks in a sacred duel...!”
“Oh, and what you guys did was clean, then?”
Mercedes trembled, furious at being fooled by such an absurd trick.
I kept pressing the attack with a sneer.
I keep dumping items out like crazy, throw weapons in between, and use [Light Gathering] decoys to fake my position.
But before long, Mercedes was gradually getting used to my tricks and surprise attacks.
Still, stalling itself has meaning.
[Mana Enhancement] is powerful, but after all it’s a sustained skill, so maintaining it naturally requires mana.
Of course, I’m also spending MP to pull this off.
But she ought to be spending more mana on Mana Enhancement than I am on [Light Gathering].
You can call it petty and cowardly if you want. That’s what strategy is.
You analyze and exploit every weakness to bring down an enemy stronger than you.
I almost got beaten by this woman the moment I entered floor 7.
Forced-loss event, the special nature of solo play, the epic quest route.
A number of special conditions had piled up to make this happen, but in the end, I still ran into a formidable threat.
Then naturally, I should’ve thought up a way to deal with it.
-Whoosh!
Once again, I got behind Mercedes and swung my sword at the opening.
But as if she’d anticipated it already, her sword came at me even faster.
-Thunk!
I thrust out my already-broken left arm to forcefully block it, and brought my sword down all the same.
What do you think I spent the last few weeks training so hard for?
“Didn’t I say I’d rip your ears off, you bastard!”
-Shhk!
The slash cut across Mercedes’s left ear and shoulder.