She Professed Herself The Pupil Of The Wiseman (LN) - Volume 11 - Chapter 11

Chapter 11

AFTER STABBING the Mechanized Wanderer to death, Mira dismissed her dark lords and holy lords and began to make for her true destination. Then the Wanderer’s remains shook.

She turned and gazed at the piled remains, realizing something. “Come to think of it… Could it be?” Fishing through the pile, she eventually pulled out a red orb, a black metal fragment, and the swords the Wanderer had swung. “I knew it! That ought to be at least a whole five million ducats!”

Those were the Mechanized Wanderer’s three most expensive drops. Blinded by the thought of money, Mira gingerly placed the objects in her Item Box. Then she realized something else. Video game drops were cursed by probability—was that still true now that this was real life? 

Back in the game, you obtained materials monsters dropped via butchering. When you defeated a monster, its corpse received a special Item Box slot. At that point, you either took it to a specialized butcher someplace like a town, or butchered it yourself using a learned skill. That would finally turn the carcass into usable materials.

A single carcass generally yielded a couple of materials, although that number fluctuated based on the butcher or player’s skill. The materials’ rarity was most important, and that depended on proficiency. Clearly, the higher your proficiency, the likelier rare drops were.

Now, anyone who’d played a similar video game had probably thought the same thing if an enemy’s rarest drop by far was its horn, but the player got something else: Just cut off the horn!

The video game medium itself made probability a limitation. Now that this was reality, Mira realized she could in fact essentially “cut off the horn.” The result of this revelation was all the loot she’d located amid the wreckage: the Wanderer’s red orb power source, the black metal from its vital machinery’s protective plating, and its blades, undamaged despite its frantic fighting.

In short, drops that had been rare long ago could apparently be obtained consistently now, as long as no conditions actually required luck—for instance, things randomly forming inside the body.

“In that case, the Machina Guardian…”

The Machina Guardian could drop ten unique items. The drop from each part of the machine differed in rarity, but even the most common among them was very unusual.

If Mira could sort through the Machina Guardian’s remains, as she had the Wanderer’s, maybe she’d obtain even its rarest drop. Based on what she’d heard in-game, its drops included things she’d never even seen before.

As I recall, Soul Howl did say I could have all the loot. Yes—of course he did!

Happy to have received his word, Mira smiled and darted toward the boss chamber, full of vigor and excitement.

Although obtaining rare materials from monsters was easier now, a realistic limitation accompanied this change: if you wanted a monster’s hide, you had to defeat it without damaging the hide. In a video game, you merely defeated a monster to obtain its parts, but that aspect was much more complicated now. You needed a discerning eye to know which parts you could obtain as drops, but the summoner charging forth only knew the materials’ names and descriptions.

***

When Mira arrived at the boss chamber, she surveyed the room and murmured in satisfaction, “Oh ho. Things are ready, I see.” It was an entirely different battlefield from the one she’d witnessed yesterday.

For one thing, there was a giant castle gate about fifty meters from the entrance. A wall ran from either side of it to the end of the room, perfectly separating one half from the other. One look at the great walls revealed their awe-inspiring weight.

Furthermore, the walls were equipped with countless artillery batteries. Golems operated them in perfect unison; indeed, they had fired ceaselessly for some time now. It was like a castle siege, which proved that Soul Howl was following the previous night’s strategies. Admiring the growth in his power, Mira used Air Step to run to the castle wall’s highest point.

Landing on the towerlike top of the rampart, she met up with Soul Howl. “Is all well?”

“So-so,” he answered, peering at the Machina Guardian below. “It seems to have learned more, as you can see. We can assume head-on bombardment is useless now.”

Beyond the huge walls, in the main battlefield, stood the enormous Machina Guardian. Its many legs easily fended off the cannonball barrage—not blocking the cannonballs but parrying them entirely. No doubt it knew direct impact would detonate them. It repelled the endless projectiles deftly, delicately, and surprisingly quickly. The cannonballs missed their mark and crashed into the ground, sending pillars of flame upward with loud explosions.

Unlike the previous night’s scattered turrets, the ones on the castle walls were strong enough to blow away even A-rank monsters. Yet amid the explosions and swirling flames, the Machina Guardian shook their attacks off and watched them quietly. It was an eerie sight.

“Even if you fire all at once?” Mira suggested as she gazed upon the raid boss. 

All four of the Machina Guardian’s legs were deflecting cannonballs, so as far as she could tell, its reaction speed was limited. As someone who believed strength lay primarily in numbers, she wondered whether a simple simultaneous volley would do the trick. Surely the Machina Guardian couldn’t fend so many cannonballs off at once.

“Good question. Firing everything in one volley could deal some damage.” 

However, according to Soul Howl, he’d already done that twice. He explained the battle from the start to now. Since the turrets had been in use until last night, the Machina Guardian had figured them out. From there, Soul Howl figured it wasn’t a big leap to the raid boss learning to deal with castle-mounted cannons. That said, he’d noticed its limited reaction speed and tested simultaneous volleys.

“Those did deal damage. Seemingly a lot. The problem is what happens afterward.”

Gazing at the ceaseless cannon fire, Soul Howl explained that a simultaneous volley meant simultaneous reloading as well. The Machina Guardian was hoping for that moment exactly.

“I tried twice, just to make sure. There’s the result.” Soul Howl pointed out a part of the wall visible from their vantage point. A large dent had indeed been gouged in the sturdy-looking castle. If the Machina Guardian kept attacking that spot the same way, it would soon obliterate it. “Anyway, I’ve taken two Rampages from that thing. That’s a sample size of only two, but I still know it’s guaranteed to Rampage if I try again.”

“Rampage” was an attack the Machina Guardian sometimes used. It was among its strongest moves—second only to the laser beam they’d seen last night—and could blow away even a holy knight in a defensive posture with every defensive buff possible cast on it. As long as there was a risk of the Machina Guardian using Rampage, it would be best to avoid simultaneous volleys. Losing the castle walls, which played a major role in their strategy, would be disastrous.

“Anyway, at this point, bombardment is basically useless,” Soul Howl emphasized. “That’s the bad news. As for the good news, look at the wall damage itself. What do you think, Elder?” He’d told Mira things were “so-so,” so the battle hadn’t initially sounded good at all. Yet strangely, the necromancer was full of confidence.

“Hrmm. Indeed, this structure seems to be working well. If that’s all the damage it took from two whole Rampages, it must be extremely tough,” Mira said, impressed, as she gazed at Soul Howl’s damaged great wall. It had withstood two blows from the Machina Guardian, a testament to its sturdiness. “I’ve heard of giving golems special traits, but what you’ve done to your castle golem is outrageous.”

The castle golem was the source of Soul Howl’s title, the Great Wall. It was one of the highest-level necromancer spells, and extremely versatile, although it had to be positioned very carefully. As the name implied, the spell summoned an enormous golem as big as a castle. That structure was a fortress meant for fighting. It was outfitted with various weapons, including over a hundred cannons.

Those were meant to be operated by human hands, but Soul Howl had created golems to act as cannoneers and run his fort without other humans’ help. As a result, he could force people to conquer his castle before they besieged a real one. Players who attacked the Palace of Alcait often stared at the castle golem in amazement, then burst into stunned laughter.

The giant walls towering over and dividing the battlefield were simply part of the castle golem. One advantage of golems like this was that they could be used in parts, so they were surprisingly helpful in closed spaces.

Mira gazed at the castle golem’s slowly recovering wall and recalled what she’d heard from Snake, an Isuzu Alliance elite. The magical item “mystic dagger” could extract special souls from undead monsters and attach the resulting traits to golems, giving them various buffs. That was rather new technology in the field.

“You said you planned to add Sturdy this time, didn’t you?” she asked Soul Howl. “It seems your castle golem can do justice to nearly any upgrade now.”

“Nah. It just happened to be a good match for Sturdy. When I added Fleet-Footed and Leap, they were useless.” Soul Howl had apparently tried various things before his advanced magic was sealed. He recalled his experiments with a wry chuckle, adding, “Frankly, I didn’t know what would happen this time either.”

He’d never had an opportunity to test a Sturdy-affixed castle golem’s limits. However, now that he had a perfect test subject—a large-scale raid boss—he’d figured out just how good the combination was. Since it was much stronger than he’d expected, he confidently declared that he could engage the boss and defend their side. That would be a considerable advantage. Hiding behind the castle golem’s sturdy wall, he and Mira could safely “meditate” via Cerebral Flux.

“I suppose I’ll be relying on your castle golem as usual,” Mira said wryly.

Soul Howl’s castle golem, which was key to their defense, had often served as their base and shelter when fighting big bosses.

“Yeah, but the offense is all yours.” Soul Howl was in a great mood, probably because he had access to advanced necromancy again. Elated, he began using his magic to replenish ammunition, creating special castle golem weapons. “I ought to mix some time bombs in with the contact-based explosions,” he muttered to himself as he had transport golems carry the ammo.

Mira chuckled at the smirking Soul Howl and jumped back down behind the castle gate.