Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 21 - Chapter Pr

Prologue: Day Two Tournament

Sorcerer, Ray Starling

It was the day after Lei-Lei thoroughly defeated me, and I’d somehow ended up fighting an Overlord.

I’d gotten my clan to come pick me up from the forest and had a Bishop of the national faith treat the wounds covering my body. I still had some lasting injury-based debuffs after all the treatment, but apparently they’d go away in a few days if I just used healing items regularly. The men of faith there said that the Lunar Society’s clinics could treat my wounds better than they did, but I was afraid of getting deeper into debt with Miss Eldritch, so that was a “no” from me.

Also, I couldn’t help but note how magnanimous they were being. Not everyone would recommend their clients go to their direct competition.

So yeah, my wounds didn’t end up being a big deal, and Silver had suffered so little damage that it was covered by his auto-repair—he’d be able to gallop again in just a few days.

The way we’d been thrown into a sudden predicament had gotten me pretty worried for a bit there, but I’d say it ended well.

Anyway, I would be watching The Tournaments starting from today—which was day two.

The member of our clan participating today was B3, and she was currently waiting for the duel to start, clad in her usual combat gear—full-body armor and shields in both hands.

I was also familiar with her opponent—a wolf-eared woman dressed like a barbarian and holding a spear.

“This is the finale of The Tournaments’ second day! It’s Rosa the Bone-Eater versus Barbaroy Bad Burn the Crushing Canopy!” said the announcer.

Yes—B3 was up against the subleader of Altar’s third place clan, K&R—Nobushi Princess Rosa.

“I know these two well,” I said.

“Indeed,” said Nemesis. “We’ve fought alongside B3 many times, even before we formed our clan, and we fought Rosa once before going on to watch her fight Juliet.”

Nemesis and I truly knew what the two combatants were capable of.

“Fight!”

But that was exactly why I gasped at their immediate movements following that announcement.

Rosa used Gashadokuro’s ult to equip an exoskeleton that enhanced her STR and AGI, and followed it up with her job ult as Nobushi Princess—A Kill Supreme, the super powerful attack that could only be used as a first strike.

However, B3 saw it coming and used Heaven’s Weight to shave off some of Rosa’s power and speed. Then she used Astro Guard to increase her defense and ultimately sacrificed her shield to protect against the attack.

As Rosa’s movements became sluggish, B3 used Atlas’s ult to retaliate with an obscenely powerful strike using her remaining shield. However, Rosa avoided it by using the MVP reward she’d used in her fight against Juliet—the one that let her evade fatal attacks and teleport—to get behind B3 and attack her with Backslayer, a skill which enhanced attacks from behind.

As though she’d been expecting it, B3 aimed her left arm behind her and used Gauntlet Trigger—a skill possessed by her full-body armor MVP reward, Magnum Colossus—to fire the gauntlet and offset Rosa’s attack.

With a loud clash, the two were flung apart.

Not even a minute had passed since the duel had begun, but the battle was already at peak intensity as they played each and every ace they had hiding up their sleeves. They each knew the cards that the other had on hand, and as a result they didn’t hold anything back.

This was an exchange of blows where a single mistake could spell the end of the duel, but I felt like they’d expected everything that had happened so far. They only used moves they were both aware of, making this battle kinda align with standard shogi tactics.

And so, I expected that from this point on, they would abandon that standard and start to use moves their opponent hadn’t seen.

“GRAAAH!” Once again, Rosa was the one to move first. Using Instant Equip, she summoned a spear into her empty hand and threw the newly equipped weapon at B3.

Given the choice between evasion and defense, B3 chose her usual approach and braced herself to endure the attack. She also used Instant Equip to take out a new shield—a massive shield meant for giants that she’d used before—and held it up like a wall straight in the path of the spear hurtling toward her.

When the attack and defense met, the audience—myself included—expected a loud, high-pitched clang...but it never came.

The source of the sound had vanished.

My attention still fixed on the stage, I saw B3’s eyes widen in shock.

This was something that I wouldn’t normally be able to see, since her head was always completely hidden by her helm.

Basically...her face was fully exposed now. Her shields, her armor—all of her equipment had been removed.

“A spear that removes gear?!” I exclaimed. Was this a new MVP reward? Maybe an item custom-made from rare materials?

Rosa’s spear had vanished—but in exchange, all of B3’s gear had been removed and was now lying on the stage.

B3, now clad only in her underwear, was completely defenseless. Rosa accelerated toward her.

B3’s Armor Giant and Shield Giant were sturdy tank jobs, but they relied heavily on the defense of her equipment. With all of that removed, her toughness was greatly reduced.

Rosa had been planning since the start to end this battle with this gear-removing weapon. She’d played the known cards in her own hand to bait out B3’s—including her Embryo ult—and then used the spear. Rosa must’ve guessed that if B3’s armor was removed from the equation, their respective job configurations and her own Superior Job would give her the advantage in sheer physical ability, and that would allow her to win.

As Rosa approached, B3 held up both her hands as though putting up whatever meager resistance she could manage, but...

“Oh,” Nemesis and I said in unison, knowing full well what that stance meant. We also understood the look on B3’s face, which had shifted from shock to a savage grin.

Thus, Rosa came within just three metels of B3...

...and, still leaning forward in her charging stance, she was slammed straight onto the floor of the stage.

“HUH?!” Now, Rosa was the one overcome with shock. The spear that was supposed to run B3 through had instead been shoved to the ground, along with the arm holding it. Try as she might, she couldn’t raise it up—in fact, it just continued to sink farther.

I could tell by Rosa’s expression that if she were able to, she would’ve said the extra gravity from Heaven’s Weight should be easy for her to overcome.

But this wasn’t that—or rather, it wasn’t the Heaven’s Weight that Rosa knew.

This was the result of Territory compression—a trump card passed down to B3 by Fuso, and one that she’d used during the peace conference, in the battle against King of Beasts...and Rosa had no idea it existed until now. With its range narrowed, the gravity field greatly exceeded the normal five hundred times multiplier—making the gravity five thousand times stronger.

Faced with such an immense increase in weight, even a vanguard SJ like Rosa was stopped in her tracks and afflicted with the Binding debuff.

B3 looked down at her opponent, saying nothing. Using this compression technique also fixed her in place as well.

But the duel was already as good as over.

“Nnghh...ugh...ghhh...?!” Rosa spat out blood and sank farther down onto the stage.

Unable to put up any resistance against the massive increase in gravity, her body was gradually being destroyed.

Back when this effect was used on King of Beasts, it had slowed her down, but ultimately didn’t have much of an effect. That was because King of Beasts was an exception among exceptions. The bodies of animals weren’t that tough normally.

Nobushi Princess might have been an SJ, but she was specialized in ambushing and thus didn’t have the toughness to withstand this level of gravity.

Rosa wasn’t the only one who’d been trying to force her enemy to play everything in her hand.

B3 must’ve been planning to end the battle like this from the moment Rosa shed the STR-enhancing exoskeleton she created with her ult. Rosa might’ve been able to weather the five thousand times stronger gravity if she’d still had it on, but alas.

Both of them had been hiding aces up their sleeves.

However, while Rosa’s was meant to bring her closer to victory, B3’s was meant to ensure her victory.

You could say that that was the real deciding factor...

“Down, doggy.”

...and, following that insult from B3, Rosa was crushed to death.

◇

“Is it just me, or did Rosa go out wearing the kind of face you should never show in public?” Nemesis asked.

“That clearly made her snap,” I said. “Though B3 was also stripped to her underwear in public, so they’re kinda even, I guess.”

“Hrmm...both of them just keep getting their prides wounded.” This would probably be added onto the long list of grudges between them. From what I could tell, a lot must’ve happened in their shared past as PKs.

The duel’s over, but they’re still holding their weapons and glaring at each other, I thought.

“Dear me...hm? Ray, what is that in your hand?”

“A betting ticket. I put money on B3.” Just like you could at every event in the City of Duels, you could also gamble on who would win The Tournaments.

In standard duels involving just two people, you would only bet on one or the other right before the match began, but for The Tournaments, the betting took place when the preliminaries ended and the finals started. You essentially voted on who of those remaining would be the ultimate winner.

Here on day two, the absolute favorite to win was Rosa, since she was a high-ranking duelist and an SJ—but the actual winner was B3.

As a result of betting on someone who wasn’t a favorite, I got a pretty big payout. Specifically, the hundred million lir I bet became over five hundred million.

“I fear for our financial sense,” said Nemesis.

“Well, I still had a good bit of the lir I got by selling that metal material,” I objected.

“You are so... How many times have you spent such large sums on gambling at this point?”

“I mean, if I save up enough money, I might be able to actually buy the base we’re just renting right now.”

“You do understand that claiming you will save up money to buy a house via gambling is blatantly absurd?”

“Good point.”

Regardless, with B3 securing victory without issue, there would now be a closing ceremony for day two, after which we would form a party with her and challenge the UBM she won.

“We were unable to make it to yesterday’s battle. Let us make up for that today.”

“Yeah.” There were eight more Tournament days left. I didn’t know how many times we—Death Period—would get to challenge the UBMs, but I would give my all to help the members who were doing what they could in this contest.

Silently, I reaffirmed that the best we could do right now was improve ourselves as much as possible. That was what was necessary to seize the future we wanted in the coming rematch against Dryfe.