Chapter 10
“IT’S BEEN A WHILE since I last used this strategy,” Mira murmured to herself, summoning two dark knights to her side and promptly mutating them to dark lords.
Meanwhile, the first dark lord clashed with the Wanderer for the second time, reached the limits of its durability, and disintegrated. Given that it specialized in attacking, the dark lord had dealt solid damage, but its low defenses made it fragile in clashes with powerful foes.
After eliminating the nearest obstacle, the Wanderer closed in on Mira. Since it prioritized targets approaching the boss room, it aimed for her this time.
“Hrmm, unsurprising…” Mira muttered. “It may take a while, but it’ll break through eventually.”
Attacks continued to ring out, and countless sparks flew around ceaselessly. The Wanderer struck the holy lords like a raging storm, attempting to topple their blockade.
It launched flurries of hits, rather than single blows, but each was powerful. Such an intense onslaught would surely overcome a lesser summon eventually—but only if the Wanderer could sustain it. The creature continued to slice at the holy lords’ shields, as if those were the only things it perceived.
At that point, countless black swords appeared from the walls, ceiling, floor, and even the air between the shields. The blades struck the Wanderer all at once. Due to its single-minded focus on the holy lords, it reacted too late to the onslaught and sustained deep wounds. However, it managed to evade the ensuing strikes and quickly distanced itself from the swords.
Blocking a path with holy lords, waiting for the enemy to get absorbed in overcoming them, and then obliterating the enemy from behind with dark lords… That was Mira’s favorite strategy in a closed space with an enemy who had no way of independently destroying or repelling the holy lords. It worked to terrifying effect. During wartime in the old days, of course, players from hostile countries had shouted abuses when Mira employed that strategy.
“It refuses to approach…” she murmured.
It seemed the Wanderer had already discerned the blades’ swing range—about five meters. It waited and watched from just beyond that range. It had no projectile attacks; its only means of attack required it to approach. Still, that also meant it was most dangerous at close range.
The Wanderer moved to strike again. After slowly bracing itself, it accelerated all at once. Its ferocious slashes struck the giant shields, sending up even more intense sparks. Unleashed after sufficient charge-up time, that blow was the Wanderer’s strongest attack. It created a deep gouge in the holy lords’ iron defenses.
The enemy’s next move was awestriking, as well. The dark lords’ black blades fell upon the Wanderer, but though they inflicted damage, it wasn’t fatal; the creature moved with enough agility to get away with only shallow wounds.
After that split-second clash, the Wanderer retreated again. It knew that staying in one place was disadvantageous as long as those black blades were around, so it employed a traditional hit-and-run strategy. It was acting just like players Mira had faced before.
After the Wanderer landed, it was momentarily immobilized. Six black arms surrounded it as if waiting in ambush, and swung holy swords down upon it. The six blades struck the Wanderer in unison; with the impact, one could hear the sound of metal being crushed.
The six powerful blows, combining partial summoning with the holy sword Sanctia, struck with perfect timing. Mira had waited intently for this moment since the start of the encounter. Gazing upon the horribly battered Wanderer, she muttered to herself, “Hrmm. I must say, I’ve created one deadly combination.”
Due to her lack of skill, Mira couldn’t handle Sanctia herself, but the dark knights could use her potential to the fullest. And as befitted a holy sword, Sanctia’s strikes were extremely powerful, even partially summoned.
“The fact that I can’t fire them off as I like is a bit of a drawback, though,” Mira admitted, assessing her experiment’s results.
Partial summoning itself consumed little mana, but as a holy sword, Sanctia cost a fair amount. Mira couldn’t manifest Sanctia if she tried to suppress the mana cost in the usual way, and partially summoning the holy sword cost about the same amount of mana as a single normal summoning. Still, the element of surprise inherent in partial summoning, and the power of the holy sword, made it more than practical.
Mentally noting those results, Mira smiled, knowing they would help with her next research stage.
As for Soul Howl, how is he doing…? she wondered, turning toward the boss chamber. Just then, there was a jarring sound behind her, like metal plates scattering across the floor.
“What was that?” When she turned back to the Wanderer, there was a harsh impact sound and countless sparks. Simultaneously, the enormous holy lords blocking the hallway fell back slightly.
There was a flash of light. Through the gaps between the shields, Mira saw the Wanderer she knew. It was reminiscent of an old-fashioned android or tokusatsu hero. Gouged metal plates lay on the ground behind it, proof that the holy swords had only cut through its outer plating.
“I see…” Mira murmured. “Reinforced armor, I believe they call that.”
Black blades aimed for the Wanderer, but discarding its armor had seemingly made it more agile; it was plainly faster now, and skillfully evaded the dark lords.
It jumped back to put distance between them again. Even when Mira used partial summoning to take advantage of the Wanderer’s landing disorientation, it evaded with a perfect backward somersault, looking even more like a tokusatsu hero.
“It shed its reinforced armor to raise its speed…? Now that’s a cliché, if I’ve ever seen one,” Mira murmured, remembering all the mecha anime she’d seen.
In that genre, giant robots often reinforced their defenses and expanded their arsenals using bulky equipment—though the Wanderer’s armor had only allowed for the former. When such things became useless, the wielder could release them and regain their original speed. Most protagonists’ robots specialized in speed and went on to rule the battlefield afterward, becoming much more fearsome than when they’d had extra armor.
The Wanderer’s reinforced armor had worked like that. Its footwork was now lighter, and its speed had dramatically increased, as if it had just taken off training weights.
“Hrmm… Each blow is stronger too.”
The Wanderer again accelerated, slashing at the holy lords. Mira watched closely and noticed their shields becoming more deeply scratched. The boss itself wasn’t just faster; its attacks were, too, and its momentum contributed to its force. By releasing its reinforced armor, it had powered up like some kind of superhero.
You’d expect it to be weaker now that there’s less weight behind its blows… Well, maybe that goes to show the poor quality of its patchwork armor.
When she first saw the Wanderer, it had looked deformed. No doubt that had detracted from its speed and balance, leading to weaker slashes. In other words, it was in perfect condition to strike now.
“In that case, second formation!” Mira called.
The Wanderer’s blows weren’t just fast; they were forceful enough to drive the holy lords back, bit by bit. That proved the enemy was much more powerful now. At this rate, it might crush the knights faster than it cut through them.
However, Mira did not fret. She simply peered behind the Wanderer, which stood just beyond the black blades’ range. After charging up enough, it leapt forward and unleashed its most powerful blows in the same hit-and-run pattern.
Its attacks required a run-up—a five-meter run-up. That was easily within Mira’s summoning range.
Its center of gravity low, the Wanderer darted forward. Its blades dug into the giant shields, and sparks flew. Smirking at the sight, Mira began casting her spell.
As the Wanderer evaded the black blades and retreated, Mira made eye contact with it. It seemed to be watching her, no doubt waiting to evade as her spell took shape. The Mechanized Wanderer’s reputation as the dungeon’s second-strongest enemy clearly wasn’t exaggerated.
However, the Wanderer failed to notice one thing: exactly which spell Mira was casting. When it landed, it performed a cartwheel to evade the impending partial summon. However, that summon didn’t come. Instead, two holy knights appeared behind the Wanderer, facing the original holy lords.
Realizing Mira’s intent, the Wanderer attacked the new holy knights.
“It’s too late now, friend.” Mira’s lips curled into a smirk as she mutated the holy knights.
With the intense impact, sparks flew, showing that the newly mutated holy lords’ shields had stopped the Wanderer’s blades. “My trap is complete!”
The Wanderer had nowhere to run, ahead or behind. The shields blocked all paths entirely. Having caught the enemy in her clutches, Mira smirked at it from the gap between the shields.
The Wanderer struggled, running at maximum speed to drive its most powerful strikes into the holy lords. It was more ferocious than ever, surely because it understood what was happening.
But the holy lords wouldn’t let it through easily. Rather, on Mira’s orders, their hulking forms pushed forward. They faced each other as they did so, their intent clear.
The Wanderer’s space to move shrank one meter, then two, then more and more. It ran around like a beast in a cage, slashing at the holy lords. Yet the shrinking space left it less room to run, decreasing its attack force as well.
Another meter. Then another. The distance shrank until one could stretch both arms out and touch either holy lord, leaving the Wanderer no space to swing its blade, let alone run.
“Now, the final stage,” Mira murmured, giving another order to all four holy lords. They moved once more, surrounding the Wanderer with shields in hand and deftly adjusting those shields to reduce the central space. The Wanderer was flanked on four sides, not just two; its resistance echoed from inside the towering coffin.
“Even the Mechanized Wanderer can’t defend itself now.” Mira watched quietly and smiled at the panicking Wanderer from the space between the shields. Then she gave her final order.
Two dark lords slowly stepped forth. They stood on either side of the shield “cage,” ready to carry out the execution.
The dark lords unleashed countless sword swings that pierced the gaps between the shields, cutting down the imprisoned Wanderer mercilessly. It was like watching a stage magician stab swords into a box.
Initially, the Wanderer’s resistance grew louder every time the blades moved. After more swings, it weakened. By the eighth wave of attacks, it stopped.
Mira had the dark lords draw their blades out of the shield enclosure. Looking inside, she murmured, “Hrmm. This fight’s finally over? You were a persistent one.”
Seen from the outside, the Wanderer was now little more than a shapeless mass of scrap metal. As one giant shield drew back, the corpse tumbled from the enclosure with a metallic noise. It was so mangled, one couldn’t even distinguish where its arms ended or its legs began.
Given her plan’s success, Mira felt awfully smug. She’d quickly deprived the enemy of freedom of movement and struck the Wanderer down with overwhelming force. “Ah, I’m a military genius!”
“Hm! What a sight. I love your merciless fighting style.”
“I prefer such a head-on, full-strength struggle. Power against power, skill against skill. Just wonderful!”
As the voices of the spectating Spirit King and Martel echoed in Mira’s mind, the summoner chuckled at the battle’s anticlimactic end.
A player defeated by this exact “surrounding” strategy had once told his friends, “I never want to fight Danblf again.” Incidents like this were why Danblf had become the most feared of the Nine Wise Men. Mira herself, however, knew nothing about that.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login