Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 22 - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Paradigm Shift

Paladin, Ray Starling

We ran and ran down a long, straight passage.

Even though we were still activating traps, they were all the kind that came with the Depths of Jealousy. It didn’t seem like we were encountering anything else that G added herself.

My guess was that since we got past the mid-boss, she had no intention of stopping us now.

It felt like she actually wanted us to reach the end of the dungeon—like she really did want us to come to her.

That was exactly what was strange about G—an ordinary thief would never act like this. If all she wanted was to complete her ult and take our arena, she could’ve done a lot more to stop us.

However, she’d set up the time limit and the obstacles in our way to make this as close as possible—almost like she was balancing a game.

I’d seen a few of her videos, and it never seemed like she was trying to create a situation where her enemies had no hope of winning. I got the impression that, while she didn’t want to lose, she was also prioritizing something over certain victory. It was much like how her brother would do anything for his research.

But if that was the case, then what was G’s main goal...?

“Hm?” As we proceeded, the passage drastically changed. Its cave-like appearance was suddenly replaced by man-made stone construction, and the lighting now came not from dimly glowing crystals, but magic lights that activated when we came closer.

The overall effect reminded me of a dark lord’s castle from an old RPG, and the lights guided us deeper in.

“I didn’t see this area,” I muttered. One of G’s videos I’d watched had been set in the Depths of Jealousy, but the Masters she’d picked a fight with had all been defeated by the fearsome traps and the rest of G’s clan.

At the end of the video, she’d said something like, “The defense has too much of an advantage here! I should really be more cautious about using this place!” It seemed like she’d decided we were the right opponents to challenge the Depths of Jealousy.

“Hmm... Lights and stone,” said Nemesis. “I do not see any traps here, but this is quite a view...”

“This must just be what G likes,” said Juliet. “It does look really good.”

She wasn’t wrong. If this hadn’t been a path leading us directly to an enemy, I would have stopped to admire the style and beauty on display here.

The passage soon ended, though, and we arrived at our goal—a strange room that seemed like a mix of the natural and man-made sections of the dungeon. The floor and walls were entirely covered in dark-gray rectangles of stone, and the light of the eerie chandelier hanging from the ceiling disrupted the shadows cast by the tapestries on the walls.

But where the wall farthest from the entrance should have been, there was instead a plunge pool with a blue waterfall endlessly flowing into it.

And enshrined right before it, there was a throne too large for any human.

“Greetings, brave intruders! I bid you welcome! You are the first to ever make it to my throne room!” Overlord Invidia, G was waiting for us. Her legs dangled as she sat on the oversized throne and looked at us in glee. “Well? What do you think? Me and my clan worked so hard to renovate this place, but no one could make it this far, so I haven’t even gotten to reveal it until now! Thanks for the opportunity!”

“Um... Uh... You’re welcome?” G’s genuine happiness made Juliet a bit perplexed. “Ummm... If you’re satisfied now...could you please stop trying to take Ray’s arena...?”

“That is one thing! This is another! We’re playing this out until the bitter end!” G denied Juliet’s request with a smile. “You got about twenty minutes left! That’s enough time for a good climax! You’ve got a dungeon! You’ve got an Overlord! It’d be a waste to end it now!”

G then hopped off the throne, stood up, and took out her weapon.

My eyes widened. It was a sinister-looking trident, perfectly suited for a devil.

However, it was absurdly large.

Its length exceeded five metels, making it over three times larger than the girl who held it. The edges and the grip were appropriately thick too—it seemed far too unwieldy for someone her size.

“What’s her fighting style, anyway...?” Juliet wondered, and I couldn’t blame her.

The Overlord series of jobs could be acquired by anyone who cleared the associated dungeons. This meant they had no prerequisite jobs, which made it difficult for Juliet to guess her powers. I’d seen some of her videos, but I wasn’t that much better informed than she was. All I knew was her basic combat style and the fact that she stole locations and added them to her Embryo.

Based on the video of her breaking into Titania’s live concert, her stats were about on the same level as a vanguard SJ, and she was a well-rounded combatant who fought using a mix of weaponry and magic.

But that also meant that she didn’t have the kinds of standout combat abilities you’d expect from a Superior...and I hadn’t seen her use that huge trident in any of the videos I watched.

“Well, I don’t think the Embryo itself is the type that contributes to the battle directly...” I said.

“Oh? So you didn’t watch all of my videos?” G asked, tilting her head.

“Sadly, I only started watching recently. I only managed to watch the newest ones.”

“So... That means you saw the band battle and the recent dungeon raid I set up when I was bored. Well, that’s understandable, then. I get it,” she said as she let out a sigh, then smiled again. “That means...you’ll get to see everything live!”

The relaxed atmosphere instantly became one of extreme tension.

The aura of powerful creatures was something I’d encountered many times in this world. This Overlord had it too, and was directing it right toward us...

My eyes widened. Right—while she seemed like a fun-loving, mischievous type of person, someone we could have a casual chat with, there was now no doubt that she was also an Overlord.

There weren’t even double-digit numbers of her kind in the world, and she—Overlord Invidia, one of Desire’s Superiors—was among the most powerful.

“Action!”

With that word as the signal, G made her move.

She swung her treelike trident as if to sweep us away. As the massive weapon hurtled toward me at the speed of sound, I swung my halberd up to meet it.

I was empowered by seven buffs, but the weight of the attack still pushed me backward. It wasn’t enough to break my stance, though.

But as if taking advantage of this moment, Overlord Invidia held up her left hand and cast some sort of dark magic, firing ten projectiles of black light toward me.

“Blackwing Requiem!”

They all failed to reach me. As I was pushed backward, Juliet fired a volley of her own dark magic, canceling out G’s.

While their magic clashed, Juliet moved at supersonic speeds to close the distance between them.

The sight made G’s eyes widen.

Juliet had great combat instincts even by duelist standards—only the likes of Figaro could match her. Even other SJs would have a hard time countering her movements. Now, she was trying to land an attack on G before she could swing that trident again. The Overlord didn’t have enough time to intercept it.

“Ah ha ha ha ha! In that case... Take this!”

But it was Juliet’s turn to be shocked as her flight trajectory was abruptly changed.

I noticed a thread of light extending from one of the three points of the trident.

“Got you, little fishy!” G taunted, and the thread of light began winding back.

Juliet was forcefully, at a high speed, being dragged toward the tip of the trident.

“It pulls enemies into it!” That meant they could effectively negate the distance between allies and enemies—very useful in any battle.

Juliet flapped her wings, trying to fight against the pull, but then G pulled the trident back, preparing to skewer her catch.

“Not happening!” Using my enhanced leg strength, I stuck out my left hand and rushed toward G. “Purgatorial Flames!”

The bracer opened its maw, releasing scorching flames from within.

“Whoa?!” G jumped away before they could reach her, but that made the thread of light vanish, freeing Juliet.

“That was enough to break it?” The thread of light had appeared without even a skill declaration, and it had disappeared just as easily. Maybe it was the type of thing that only activated under certain conditions?

“It probably requires her to look at her target or stay still herself... I think.” Juliet answered my question.

She’d actually experienced it, so she could probably feel a little bit of how it worked. The flames had blocked G’s vision of Juliet, and she’d moved away to dodge them. It seemed pretty likely that either of those things had interfered with the thread’s effect.

“That’s a good guess, Julie! You’re right! Harodihg Gnik’s ‘Attraction Anchor’ requires line of sight to work!” And with that, G herself once again revealed the nature of her power to us—as well as the viewers who would watch the video.

It’s rare to see people who reveal their hand so casually, I thought.

“‘Harodihg Gnik,’ though?” I said, after a moment. “That name’s pretty hard to say... Hold on! Is that seriously what it’s called?!”

When I realized what the name was when you read it backward, I couldn’t help but make that comment.

“Hey, this was made for me by my clan members. What’s your problem with the name? You’re being rude.”

“I’m being rude?! Tell that to whoever named it!”

“Hm?” G and even Juliet both tilted their heads, clearly not sure what I meant.

“You don’t even get the reference?! Damn it! First the monsters, now the weapon... Do you have anything with a normal name?!”

I mean, I get that these weird names might spice up the video, but still...!

There was one conclusion we could draw from the battle so far, though—that G actually was a combatant who used both weapons and magic, much like Juliet. She wasn’t the type who was impossible to counter on the first try, and she didn’t have any gimmicks that made her pretty much unbeatable. Sure, she had advantages like R’lyeh blocking all attacks from the outside and her ability to choose our location when we went inside, but they were irrelevant now that we were inside and fighting her.

Though, again... If she really wanted to have the arena, she could’ve just dumped us right into some instakill traps.

It really did seem like the arena and avenging F weren’t actually her top priorities.

“I already knew this from your videos, but you make a good comedic straight man! You’d be a great addition to my work. Would you like to appear in more of these? Julie can join too!”

“Nope.”

“Huh?” I sure as hell don’t wanna deal with a mischievous criminal more than I have to, but... Juliet, why do you sound a bit disappointed?

“Okay! I guess I’ll have to make the most out of...this!”

Laughing at my answer, G charged at me.

“Juliet!”

“Oh. Right!”

Juliet instantly understood what I meant and released a barrage of dark magic. Launched toward G’s head, it completely obscured her vision.

“You sure think fast! Already countering Harodihg Gnik, huh? But...!”

Though her threads of light were disabled, G didn’t falter one bit. She used dark magic of her own and swung the trident at Juliet, who met it with her sword.

G’s eyes widened. Her trident clashed with Juliet’s blade—but unlike me, she wasn’t sent flying backward.

“That sword...!” G said. While the two of them were locked sword to trident, G and I both noticed that Juliet had at some point switched her weapon.

It was a sword of a pure black color—the new weapon she’d won in her Tournament.

Its name was “Spiritblade Gleam, Gradsoul,” and it had come from Spiritblade Rider, Gradsoul—Juliet’s reward for Tournament day four and an Ancient Legendary UBM that converted grudge into power, just like the Revenant Ox-Horse, Gouz-Maise.

Adjusted to suit Juliet, the dark blade Gradsoul had two skills.

First was Curse Conversion. When cursed with the Fallen Knight’s “Darkness of Valediction,” it converted it into a buff for Juliet, giving a fifty percent increase to all her stats except HP, MP, and SP.

Clad in a dark, cursed aura, the sword had already activated this skill, empowering Juliet and giving her stats that brought her up to the Overlord’s level, if not higher.

“I saw you use that while sparring! It looks really useful! I’m kinda jealous!”

“Th-Thanks...!”

Now that Juliet was buffed too, we had the upper hand. G’s stats were very high. She was on about the same level as Juliet right now, as well as me with all my Reversed debuffs.

However...stats weren’t everything.

“G herself is not that skilled,” said Nemesis. Indeed—she was nothing like Figaro, Kashimiya, or other ranking duelists.

From our battle so far, I could tell that her fighting ability was limited by her use of sense skills—it was something that any regular player could have. Even if she had high stats, in practice she would lose against Juliet, who had both an SJ and excellent combat instincts—and her Embryo, R’lyeh, could hardly contribute to battles like this.

If we both attacked G now, we’d definitely overpower her.

Juliet demonstrated this fact by slashing close enough to slice off a bit of G’s hair.

G backed away, touching the now-shortened lock of hair. Her eyes widened as she looked at us.

“Yeah! This could be pretty bad for me!” G casually admitted that she was at a disadvantage.

“Could you stop this, then? If you turn off the ult...”

“Hm? You misunderstood, Julie. I said this could be bad for me. Not that it is.” G shook her head as she denied Juliet’s suggestion. “If anything, the fun is just getting started.”

Her smile grew wider, and a moment later, she jumped even farther back.

She was headed behind the throne—to the blue waterfall endlessly flowing from the ceiling.

It had just looked like part of the decor at first, but it turned out that it was more than that...

“Ah ha ha ha ha!” G jumped into the plunge pool, and her skin started melting away.

It didn’t end there either. According to Reveal, she was now afflicted with seven debuffs—Poison, Magic Drain, Soul Drain, Weakness, Lethargy, Paralysis, and Frailty.

“These debuffs... Wait, that waterfall is...!”

“Yes! It’s a source of the debuffs flowing through the Depths of Jealousy! R’lyeh could only take one of those sources... But that’s more than enough! That’s exactly why this place is the goal!” Despite being afflicted by so many status effects, G was still laughing. Like an ascetic meditating beneath a waterfall, she exposed herself to the deadly torrent.

The scene made Juliet’s eyes widen and her face turn pale. It felt like she couldn’t wrap her head around what G was doing or why.

“When I first watched the Unbreakable fight the Hell General...” The Overlord didn’t seem to care about her awful condition. Instead she just kept talking to me, or Juliet—or maybe to the cameras that were probably installed all over the place here. “This was before the Unbreakable’s fight against my brother, so I watched it like anyone would watch a viral video about a newbie. And it made me think...”

G placed her left hand on her chest and cracked a smile that only grew wider and wider.

“‘Oh, someone’s doing the same thing as me.’”

My eyes widened as I instantly understood those words.

“By the way,” G continued, “do you know what dark lords in RPGs always have?”

“What?”

“Ah...!” Juliet seemed confused, but I knew exactly what she was saying.

The bad feeling I had quickly turned to panic, and I rushed toward G.

I got to the plunge pool, but before I could swing my halberd...

“Paradigm Shift.”

...Overlord Invidia’s form was engulfed in a sinister light.

◇◆◇

Altea, The Royal Capital, The Royal Castle

That evening, after having dinner, Third Princess Theresia was sitting alone on her bed. She was thought to be sickly, so neither the maids nor the knights who protected her questioned this.

However, she did have a specific reason for being alone now.

Both Altimia and Integra—Altar’s strongest tian and most skilled caster—had left the castle to go to Gideon.

Situations like this were convenient for Theresia in many ways.

“You’re here, aren’t you? Come out.”

She clapped her hands, prompting a man to appear in her room.

For a moment, he looked like a mix between a bat and a person, but he soon took the form of an ordinary human.

His name was Morter Cortana, and he was the former King of Raids, as well as a former Idea working for IF.

And now, he was a Dependent of the current The Evil—Theresia C. Altar.

“Did you finish the job?”

“The scary women leave, and you tell me to bring the info I’ve gathered so far... What’s this about?” Grumbling to his boss, Morter took out an Inventory full of documents and handed it to Theresia. From the outside, it might have looked strange that an adult was being ordered around by a child, but Theresia could actually kill him without breaking a sweat. In fact, she was so much more powerful that she might as well have inhabited a different dimension.

Also, it had been Morter himself who’d chosen to stop being human and obey Theresia to survive—he had no right to complain.

“Thanks. I can now make better future plans and think of something more specific.”

“That so?”

“I could call you here more often if Altimia and Integra weren’t around so much... Can you do something about that?”

“Please. They’re really powerful even by Superior Job standards. The only reason I could come here safely at all is because they’re both in Gideon now... It’s a real pain in the ass that your room is so deep in the castle.”

“Heh heh. Sorry. I’m all sickly and weak, you know?”

“As if. You’re like one of the most overpowered beings in the entire world...” The Dependent wasn’t amused by her joke. “Oh yeah, by the way, I heard in town that there’s been some trouble in Gideon,” he said.

“Oh? Do tell.”

“A Caldinan Superior joined The Tournaments. The gossip’s all about how he’s gonna end up fighting Figaro.”

“I see... I wonder if that’s another one of her plays. With all the scheming she does around me, I can’t help but find her troublesome.”

Theresia let out a sigh as a certain woman came to mind. She didn’t know the woman’s face, but she knew what she was all too well.

“Should I do something?” Morter asked.

“I don’t know what should be done, so no. And if the matches progress as normal, the Over Gladiator will certainly be winning this. Shu has often told me how strong he is. Though, this world is full of things that one simply can’t expect, so I suppose I can’t be too sure about that.”

“...You’re not wrong.” Through involvement with things he didn’t even want to think about, Morter had fallen from grace, become a criminal, been captured, been turned into an Idea, and then become a Dependent of this girl before him.

He was starting to take the unexpected for granted.

“It is quite impressive, though,” said Theresia. “Figaro became the Over Gladiator without taking any other Superior Jobs... All that really did for him was remove his level cap and give him some extra item slots.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Over Gladiator is The Hero’s prototype Superior Job.”

“Prototype?”

“Yes. The prototype for The Hero, who can take lots of jobs and sub-jobs, then use them all together. Similarly, the Over Gladiator can use the skills of multiple Superior Jobs without regard for their groupings.”

The Hero’s “Almighty” skill let him take a hundred high-rank and hundred low-rank jobs, and on top of that, it allowed him to use all of their skills.

The Over Gladiator’s “Complete” skill didn’t add any job slots, but it allowed him to freely use the skills of his subbed Superior Jobs, and anyone could have as many of those as they wanted.

However, Figaro had no other Superior Jobs, so the job’s biggest advantage was not currently active.

“Superior Jobs had prototypes?” Having been King of Raids, Morter was intrigued by this new revelation regarding jobs.

“All Special Superior Jobs have prototypes. No exceptions. For example, the ‘General’ series of jobs—oh, with the exception of Hell General and Heaven General—were all prototypes for Conquest General.”

“No exceptions? Does that include your job?” Morter asked as he looked at the girl—the youngest and most fearsome Special Superior Job of all.

“Yes. My Special Superior Job is the key to The Demise, and my prototypes are the Overlord series of jobs.”

As The Evil, Theresia couldn’t reveal much to other people.

However, that didn’t apply to her Dependents. She could tell Morter the many secrets she knew—and that might’ve been why, when they were alone, they always seemed to have conversations like this.

“The Infinite Jobs—the creators of this world—prepared those jobs to create and individually test the many functions of The Evil. The power to turn inorganic things into monsters that I showed when fighting you is based on Overlord Acedia’s ‘Enthrall,’ while the power that made your body into what it is now is based on Overlord Luxuria’s ‘Progress.’”

“I see...” Morter said as his gaze shifted toward his hand. He currently had the form of a person, but if he wanted, he could become something that was neither human nor monster. And this was made possible by that Overlord’s...and The Evil’s power. “So The Evil has the powers of all seven Overlords...?”

“Yes. Well... Actually, it’s not quite that simple.”

Theresia nodded for a moment, but then seemed to remember something.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s one function that changed between the testing and the implementation, so I have the powers of six Overlords and one power that’s entirely new.”

“So there was one prototype that turned out to be no good?”

“More or less.” If the purpose of a prototype was to pinpoint any problems in a design, then that one was a success in its own way.

“So, which Overlord job had its function replaced?” Morter asked.

Theresia let out a sigh...

“Overlord Invidia.”

...and spoke the title of the very Overlord currently fighting in the depths, ready to use the power of her job.

“Overlord Invidia’s skill is called ‘Paradigm Shift.’ It’s a power that strengthens you the more status effects you have and the more cornered you are. Envy from the depths... It turns all status effects into inverted and empowered buffs.”

It was essentially a direct upgrade to the Flag Halberd’s “Like a Flag Flying the Reversal.”

“I can think of lots of insane uses for that. Why didn’t The Evil get it?”

“Honestly, I wonder about that myself sometimes. If I had it, I probably wouldn’t have gotten kidnapped by Sechs... Though, that’s how I met Shu, so maybe it was for the best.”

As Theresia reminisced, Morter looked at her in shock and thought, The boss of my old group kidnapped...this? Insane.

“Though, the reason I didn’t get it is simply because we’d never get the chance to use it.”

“Never?”

“Things were different when we were younger, but once The Evil has grown enough, it’s pretty hard for us to get status effects. We have really high stats and resistances.”

By the design of the Infinite Jobs that created this world, The Evil and The Demise were a hurdle that those who lived here simply had to overcome. They were the final bosses, after all, and they were not made weak enough to be debuffed and turned into punching bags.

“It would’ve been completely useless as it was. That’s why the Infinite Jobs didn’t use Overlord Invidia’s function and changed it, replacing it with a skill specialized against a status effect so bad not even The Evil could negate it—Death.”

“Ohhh. So that’s why...”

“Yes. That’s why The Evil grows stronger after every death.”

“I see. That sure seems different from the prototype.”

“It is. Though, because of this difference...”

The Evil—the culmination of Overlord skills—looked at her hand...

“...Overlord Invidia is the only Overlord that’s not just a weaker version of me.”

...and spoke of the sole exception.

◇◆◇

Paladin, Ray Starling

“Paradigm Shift.”

Following that skill declaration, a burst of light in hostile colors like red, black, and purple enveloped the Overlord’s body like a cocoon.

The light didn’t last long, however.

As I tried to stop this with a swing of my halberd, a hand reached out from the cocoon and grabbed it.

“Ah...!”

“Eh heh heh heh. You can’t rush or interrupt moments like this,” she said as she tossed me away along with the halberd.

I flew in a completely straight line toward the wall opposite from the pool.

“Ah?!” She’d thrown my body with strength that was simply unbelievable. I desperately hooked my halberd into the floor to slow myself down and just barely avoid crashing into the wall.

“Ray...!”

“I’m fine! But...!”

G’s transformation wasn’t over yet.

The cocoon unraveled, starting from the point where her hand peeked out, and what was inside was now bared for us to see.

“AH HA HA HA HA HA!”

What emerged from the cocoon...wasn’t the Overlord she had been before.

But she also wasn’t in a disguise like the one she’d shown me or Chelsea.

She...

“You gotta dress well, you know?”

...she looked like a real dark lord...an Overlord straight out of a story.

The horns that had just been a tiny accessory had become larger than her head. The impish tail had grown to one that was dragon-like in size. The skin on her entire body had assumed a blue-purple hue that was truly inhuman. The clothes she’d been wearing were replaced with a bondage dress that had a bewitching gleam even in this dark seabed.

And her frame had grown to over three metels in size, while her shape became more feminine.

“Eh heh heh heh heh. Ah ha ha ha ha! Surprised? Of course you are! I like those faces! This is so fun!”

If it weren’t for certain familiar features on her face, you’d hardly believe she was the same person. She’d changed that much.

It was almost like she shifted into her second form, like a classic evil overlord from an RPG.

“Ah...!” Using Reveal, we could see that the transformation didn’t stop at just her appearance—her stats were also completely different. She was affected by seven debuffs, but all of their effects had been inverted.

The HP, MP, and SP that she’d lost in the battle so far was regenerating, and the stats that the debuffs had greatly reduced were now over ten times higher than before.

“It’s like our Reversal... No... It’s stronger!”

“Ah ha ha ha ha! Like I said! We do the same thing!” Giving oneself debuffs, then flipping them for great power.

They were basically the same thing, but her buff multiplier was higher than mine...!

“So this is an Overlord!”

“Yes! Indeed! I am the Overlord! The most Overlord-ish of them all!” ZZZ’s Dreamland let him control both dreams and reality, making him nigh-invincible, and while not by the same means, she also reached the realm of Overlords.

This was the combat style—the second form of the Overlord Invidia, G the “Bottomless.”

Empowered and transformed by oppression and scorn.

As she was now, she was nothing if not an “Overlord.”

“Now! Let’s begin this! Let’s have fun!” She laughed heartily.

The liveliness and charm she’d possessed before had been replaced by fearsome, awe-inspiring power...

“Let’s enjoy this climax!”

...and the Overlord called us to dance with her.