Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 21 - Chapter 4.5

Interlude: Tournament Days Seven and Eight

Gideon the City of Duels, Central Arena

Tournament: Day Seven.

Name: Unknown (Unable to Speculate).

Core Traits: Short Distance Warping (Presumed).

◇◆

The city of Gideon would soon begin the seventh of its ten Tournament days. A UBM escaping the day before had certainly been an emergency, but it hadn’t stopped them from commencing the event as planned.

Albeit not quite as much as day five’s, today’s reward seemed like it would be quite useful in combat, and thus it had attracted many powerful participants.

And the person Death Period was sending in to fight for it was none other than...

“So it’s finally my turn, huh?” A shady-looking lady in shades—Marie Adler.

She was the bearer of the onmitsu grouping’s Superior Job, Death Shadow, as well as the infamous PK who carried the nickname “Superior Killer.” However, only her clan and a few others knew her secret.

“Well, Ray, Fujee’s trio, and the armorhead are all in school, while Rookie’s busy with his prep...” Shu and Hannya were still around, working as security, but the clan members Marie felt closest to weren’t present to see her bout. That had left her feeling a little bit down.

“I get that they have to put their education above everything...but whether it’s sports or anything else, it’s always best to see the win happen in real time.”

Marie spoke as if she’d already won—she was really counting her chickens before they hatched, though she might have had more than enough reason to be so confident. Aside from the Superiors, she was among the strongest Masters in Death Period—and perhaps in the entirety of Altar. In anything-goes fights, Marie could beat just about anyone.

On top of that, none of Altar’s Superiors were taking part today. Lei-Lei had participated in day one, Tsukuyo Fuso had gone for day five, and Figaro was slated to fight on the final day. The remaining two were only involved in the event as security. And among powerful non-Superiors, the kingdom’s strongest—Kashimiya—had already participated on day six. B3 and Rosa had also had their turn on day two. Juliet, as well as many other well-known duel rankers, had all chosen other days too.

With Marie being as powerful as she was and day seven lacking any notably strong opponents, she had reason to be confident in her victory.

“Guess I’ll just get in there and grab that win!”

Thus, Marie Adler the Superior Killer challenged The Tournaments and...

◇◇◇

Sorcerer Ray Starling

I logged into Dendro after coming back home from college and found myself on day eight of The Tournaments.

The Death Period member participating that day was Fujinon. Her Embryo multiplied her spells, and with today’s reward UBM being able to split itself, Fujinon figured that if she performed well, she could gain the ability to multiply her spells two additional times.

“For a caster, Fujinon’s a real musclehead!” said Io.

“Huh? Io, you’re the last person who should say that...” Kasumi replied.

“To be fair, casters in general do seem to have a strong focus on raw firepower,” Nemesis commented. The Pyromancer job’s Crimson Sphere was a good example. It was very powerful even by the standards of high-rank job ults, and I was under the impression that it was used pretty often because of that.

I kinda felt like I saw people who used it get defeated all the time, though.

“Anyway, looks like she made it through the preliminaries,” I said. Now we’d be able to watch her matches. Seated in the box we’d reserved for the entire ten day period, I waited for Fujinon’s turn alongside Nemesis, Io, and Kasumi.

“Heh heh heh... Fujinon sure is something, huh...?”

Actually, there was one more person here with us.

“I have nothing more to teach her,” the other person continued. “Then again, my teachings are probably worthless anyway...”

Sitting on a chair next to me, her head hanging and in awfully low spirits, there was McBlackJack—better known as Marie.

“Don’t worry, teacher! I get you lost in the first match, but don’t beat yourself over it!” said Io, who was also sitting next to Marie. Io patted her on the back.

“Io?!” Kasumi exclaimed, shocked by her friend’s insensitive remark.

Though...well...yeah, that was it.

Ignoring the Superiors, Marie was among the strongest in our clan. And yet, so far she was the only one of us who had lost in her very first fight.

“You got matched with the eventual winner, so don’t let it get to you,” I said. “That’s what happened to me too.”

Yeah—she’d fought the winner of day seven right off the bat.

Since it was the preliminaries, there hadn’t been an audience, but if I had to guess, I’m sure it had been one hell of a duel.

From what Marie herself had told me, it went like this...

◇

Marie’s opponent was King of Storms Caydence.

He was the leader of Welkin Alliance—the fourth in the clan rankings—and a pre-Superior often counted among the top five most powerful Masters in the kingdom. Boasting wide-scale extermination power matching even King of Destruction—a Superior—Caydence stood alongside the likes of Kashimiya, the strongest melee fighter; King of Light, the strongest ranged fighter; and Catherine Congou, the strongest tamer.

And the fifth among these was the Superior Killer—Marie. In battles where anything was permitted, including ambushes, she was definitely up there with the best.

The reason someone like that would lose her first fight was simple—The Tournaments were far from an “anything goes” environment.

First of all, a battle that began with a countdown and the fighters facing each other didn’t allow for staging an ambush. Marie couldn’t preemptively hide her presence, create copies of herself, or catch the enemy off guard, which left no room for her onmitsu style of combat to breathe.

And to top it all off, there was her Death Shadow ult and her strongest means of evasion, Art of Vanishing. Since its effects were equivalent to disappearing from the world entirely, the barrier treated it the same as dying. Marie had been forced to fight someone who was her equal match, all the while unable to use her trump card or any of the strategies she excelled at.

Still, she may have been able to win using just her high AGI, ability to split herself up, and her Embryo Arc-en-Ciel—but unfortunately, her opponent was too strong this time.

Caydence used his power as a wind magic Superior Job to flood the arena with a storm the moment the fight began. Moreso than the mundane weather phenomenon, the winds of this magical tempest brought unbridled physical destruction. Prevented from dispersing into the atmosphere by the barrier, the storm ravaged everything within.

The duel stage became a vortex, and the deadly winds made short work of the copies Marie created.

She herself watched the flow of the storm and tried to move in a way that minimized the damage, but she couldn’t entirely prevent it. Gradually, her health was chipped away. On top of that, the storm carried a poison debuff that afflicted her and further accelerated the DoT.

In the end, she tried to turn it all around with a bullet that killed without fail—but before she could, Caydence finished his preparations and cast a spell that destroyed the entire stage, leaving Marie with no room to evade. Finally, she was defeated.

◇

“An attack that covers everything within the barrier... Whatever could I do against the likes of that?” said Marie.

“Now you’re talking like Io was...” said Kasumi. Apparently, losing after barely being able to fight back had hit Marie pretty hard.

I know how that feels, I thought.

“It appears that she was overcome by both her lack of compatibility with her opponent and the rules of the event,” said Nemesis.

“Yeah.” If she’d been able to use Art of Vanishing, Marie might’ve survived the final attack and delivered her certain death bullet. After all, she’d been inside Noz Forest while Shu bombarded it and lived. Caydence was nearly as much of a destructive force as Shu, so being unable to use that one skill had put her at a major disadvantage in that matchup.

That one skill’s usefulness didn’t mean that Caydence wasn’t a fearsome foe, though. He’d covered the entire stage in a storm while simultaneously preparing a spell that was even more powerful. Whether that was his own prowess or the work of his Embryo was unclear, but it took some awfully refined magic skill. As a caster he was considered the same tier as King of Light, and I could clearly see why. I’d come to know every Superior of the kingdom, but this made me realize once again that they weren’t the only powerful people out there.

“But it’s a good thing you dropped out in the preliminaries, huh?” said Io. “Now you can’t damage the Superior Killer’s name.”

“Well, that’s...good? I’m not really sure,” said Marie. “I mean, most people don’t know that Marie Adler actually is the Superior Killer anyway. B3 does though, and she sure made fun of me.”

B3...is she still holding a grudge against Marie for ambushing her? I wondered. No...I think they’re just not compatible as people.

“B-By the way, teacher, why do they call you the ‘Superior Killer?’” Kasumi asked.

“Huh?” Io tilted her head and answered before Marie could do so herself. “It’s because she beat a Superior despite not being a Superior herself.”

“B-But our leader’s beaten Superiors too, hasn’t he?”

Well, it was true that I’d beaten Franklin and Logan, but...

“It wasn’t like I did it by myself,” I said. I couldn’t have won against Franklin without the help of the three here—and many others—and I would’ve completely lost against Logan if Veldorbell hadn’t destroyed so much of his forces.

“You beat your Superior all by yourself, and that made all the difference, right?” I said. The “Superior Killer” name was created because she’d defeated a fearsome, wanted Superior without anyone’s help. That was my assumption, anyway...

“Hrmm...”

...but Marie herself was making a somewhat dubious face.

“Marie?”

“Well, I was certainly the only person who beat it, but...how should I put this...?” Whatever it was she wanted to say, Marie wasn’t being clear about it. “And honestly, being solo or not wasn’t really relevant to why I got the title.”

“Hm?” We were so curious that question marks were practically popping up over our heads, but Marie remembered something that put a tired expression on her face.

“The reason I’m called the Superior Killer is because the one I beat left that big of an impression. Yes, even by Superior standards.”

The Superior she defeated was...King of Plagues, right?

“It happened before you three began Dendro, so I doubt it means that much to you, but the King of Plagues incident is among the biggest catastrophes that have ever happened in Infinite Dendrogram. It was actually on about the same level as Gloria.”

“Huh?” I said, shocked. That was the name of a mighty, fiendish dragon that had attacked Altar—an SUBM that had brought immense devastation to the kingdom and required the combined efforts of Altar’s Superiors to defeat. Was I really supposed to believe that a single Master had been able to do something similar?

“You can find the details about the event in the back issues of the DIN newspaper. I put them all in the library of our base in the Eighth Arena. Go look at them if you’re curious.”

“Oh yeah! I almost forgot that DIN also releases actual newspapers!” said Io.

“Personally, I remember them better as the group that held an event with the truly nonsensical name of ‘Ba-Thump Kyahah’...” said Nemesis.

“Hearing about that already makes me feel kinda nostalgic,” said Marie. “Enough about the past though—let’s cheer for Fujee. The first fight’s about to— Oh. Looks like she’s going first.”

The conversation seemed to have made Marie feel better, and she suggested we focused on the duel.

“Whoa! That’s awesome! Get them, Fujinon! You can do iiit!”

“Oh. Looks like she’s up against Riser...”

“Huh?! For real?! Get her, Riser! You can do iiit!”

“Io...” She’d instantly switched from cheering on her friend to cheering on her fave. From what I’d heard, after cooperating during the recent attack on Altar, Io had become a big fan of his.

Yeah, I’m not surprised that Io likes Riser’s battle style, I thought.

I wasn’t saying a word. My eyes were fixed on the stage, but my brain was focused on the King of Plagues incident.

A Master had caused a disaster that matched Gloria itself in scale. You could barely compare that to common crimes or even actions taken during wartime.

What had happened back then? And why?

I felt like that was something we Masters had to know.