by Sakon Kaidou
When the equipment in question was an MVP special reward, it had properties that took after the UBM it was based on. Furthermore, MVPs could wear and use their special rewards regardless of level.
But of course, normally, low level players never became MVPs.
“Gheeh...”
“Hey! Drink your Elixirs!”
“Huh? B-But that’s such a waste...”
“You retard! If we fight in this state, even low-ranks could give us death penalties!”
The betrayers had lost their pace. With them being just a ragtag group of willing player killers, it wasn’t exactly reasonable to expect much coordination between them, but the unexpected turn of events made it even worse.
While most opted to drink Elixirs themselves, many of those with monsters and slaves under their command were too stingy to share and instead returned them back to the Jewel. Naturally, that reduced their numbers.
“Tch...!” Ryzac clicked his tongue in frustration.
Having more Infinite Dendrogram experience, the three with the highest levels didn’t hesitate to swig the Elixirs and remove the debuffs ailing them.
They sure got us with this one, he thought. I’m guessing those newbies got Elixirs from the high-rank players in there. They’re planning to take advantage of the buffs they got and take care of us while we’re suffering from the debuffs!
But Ryzac had no intention of letting that happen. Turning to Mohawk Red, he saw a giant sphere of fire that looked ready to be released hanging above the mage’s head.
All right! This will crush them the moment they leave! Ryzac thought as he felt something move within the smokescreen — from the direction of the arena’s entrance.
He was quick to realize that many people were leaving the barrier.
Ryzac instantly braced to face the newbies before realizing that something beyond his expectations was there, as well.
Wait... There’s something huge!
And so, breaking through the dark purple smokescreen came a dragon reminiscent of a heavy tank. A Tri-Horn Demi-Dragon, to be precise.
It was a Demi-Dragon class monster that had little in the way of unique skills, but came equipped with particularly high stats. Ryzac had defeated these before, but what mattered here wasn’t that, but the question of...
“Why does a low-rank have one of these?!”
Such a creature’s presence here was thoroughly unexpected.
As Ryzac considered that a high-rank might’ve lent it to some newbie...
“MHOOOOOO!”
...the Tri-Horn Demi-Dragon, buffed and strengthened by the Masters inside, charged with all the force it could muster. In its way were the betrayer Masters who’d yet to cure themselves of their debuffs.
“Red!” shouted Ryzac.
“Crimson Sph—” Following his buddy’s order, Mohawk Red prepared to launch the completed Crimson Sphere, the ultimate Pyromancer spell, towards the Demi-Dragon. However...
“Silence.” That clear voice came from the top of the Demi-Dragon, and was followed by the sound of someone snapping their fingers.
Once it resounded, Mohawk Red’s Crimson Sphere, which had been complete just a moment ago and had been meant to be the Demi-Dragon’s demise, vanished like mist in the wind. Then, with little resistance, the Demi-Dragon trampled the Masters who were too weak to retaliate due to the Intoxication and Weakness debuffs.
“Red! What the hell?!” roared Ryzac.
“That wasn’t me! Some guy canceled my magic just now...!”
After crushing the weakened Masters, the Demi-Dragon continued to ravage their ranks. That wasn’t all, either — a Demi-Dragon-class avian had appeared and joined the Tri-Horn in wreaking havoc. As the chaos and confusion among the betrayers grew, the newbies finally broke through the smokescreen and attacked them.
I misjudged their power and let them have the initiative, but we’re still stronger, and there are more of us! Ryzac thought, and he thought right.
Though they were equipped with unexpected items and had monsters common to relevant high-rank jobs, the difference in total power was far too obvious. When compared, the betrayers had far more than just double or triple the power. With a difference this great, there was little doubt that they would emerge victorious, and Ryzac was absolutely correct to think so.
“The low-rank Masters are here!”
“Gank ’em!”
A woman and a man among the betrayers brandished their weapons in preparation to attack the approaching newbies...
“Eh?”
“Ah?”
...but instead of attacking them, they attacked each other’s vital spots.
The man’s ax dug into the woman’s shoulder, while her arrow pierced his throat.
And so, completely clueless as to what’d happened, they fell to their knees and were defeated by the newbies moments after.
“What the hell’s... Huh?!” Ryzac found the answer to his question before he could even finish speaking.
His party’s status display showed that they had the “Charm” debuff.
Charmed beings helped their enemies and killed their allies, making it one of the worst mental status effects in existence. And, due to it being mental, rather than disease-based, not even Elixirs could help protect against it.
The two who’d practically killed each other and Ryzac’s party members weren’t the only ones who were Charmed. Other Masters, their monsters, slaves... The Charm gradually continued to spread until more than half of the betrayers were fighting for the opposing side.
Indeed, it was hard to battle high-ranks while being low-rank. Emerging victorious while being weaker in both quality and quantity was truly difficult. So one simply had to borrow some forces.
From where? Why, from the opposing side, of course.
“Charm... CHARM?! There’s no way that’s possible!” Ryzac shouted.
His reaction was only natural. He and his people had high-rank jobs and were equipped with decent items. Among those, of course, were accessories that negated the effects of debuffs. For instance, despite not downing an Elixir, Ryzac was unaffected by Poison and Weakness.
However, the number of status effects in Infinite Dendrogram was vast, and it was nigh impossible to be prepared for all of them.
While making equipment selections in preparation for this battle, one of the status effects that had been disregarded first was Charm. After all, skills that applied Charm could only be learned by a handful of non-battle-oriented jobs, such as Pimp or Harlot.
High-ranks would sometimes take the Pimp job to get this skill or Female Monster Strengthening for its synergy with Tamer’s Monster Strengthening. However, none of the betrayers had expected to encounter a player that had taken it before getting to total level 50 — as one of their first jobs.
“Huuhh?! The Charm’s spreading too fast! There’s more than one?!”
“Hell if I know!”
Another unexpected thing was the presence of an Embryo that could apply Charm, just like a Pimp.
In the natural world, monsters that used Charm were powerful, difficult to tame, and cost a lot, making it unlikely for low-rank jobs to have them. However, none of that applied to a Master with a succubus for an Embryo.
Making her way through the openings in the chaos of battle, she was Charming the men, one after another.
“MYANNAAA! Use a spell already! Remove the Charm, damn it!” Ryzac called out to Myanna, his high-level Bishop friend. He believed that her healing magic skills had the potential to remove all the Charm on their side.
However, no one answered to his call.
“Hey, what the hell?! You dead or something?! Myanna!” he called out once more and again got no response.
Since the three were acting as leaders of separate parties of lower-level Masters, Ryzac was unable to find out what became of Myanna. However, the fact that she hadn’t responded was enough for him to conclude that she’d died in the chaos.
Why...? Why?! We were supposed to win this,
damn it!
Their having gone from having an absolute advantage to being even — no, disadvantaged! — troubled Ryzac to no end. Still, his experience as a player allowed him to easily cut down one of the newbie Masters charging towards him.
Yeah. We’re not done yet! he thought. There’s still me and Red!
Regaining his composure, Ryzac continued swinging his blade.
Mohawk Red completed preparing another Crimson Sphere. “HYAHAAH! YOU’RE GONNA GET IT THIS TIME! Crimson Sphere!” he shouted, and there was no one to stop him this time.
Mohawk Red’s most powerful spell went straight towards a single Master — the one wearing the bracers that covered the plaza in miasma. Red aimed to burn him down and relish the payback factor in the process.
The newbie was caught unawares, and the Crimson Sphere landed right on him.
“HYAHAAH! EAT IT!”
The Master with the bracers got engulfed in flames and became particles of light before he could even leave any ash...
...or so Red thought, but then the Master jumped out of the flames and charged towards him at full speed.
“Hyah?” Red released a weird sound, completely dumbfounded.
Then, right after a broken Dragonscale Ward fell out of the newbie Master’s pocket...
“Vengeance is Mine!”
...he hit Mohawk Red — a Master above level 250 — and instantly made him vanish.
“R-REEEEED!” shouted Ryzac, and not without reason, for what he’d seen was something that simply couldn’t happen. Like himself, Mohawk Red was a high-level Master, especially when compared to most in the plaza, and yet he’d gotten one-shotted by a far weaker newbie.
“Wh-Why is this happening?!” Ryzac shouted.
He could still hold and swing his sword, but his mind was in a state of panic, causing him to mutter his thoughts.
“We were all high-ranks here... Our stats and Embryo forms were higher than theirs... So why... Why are we being overwhelmed... It doesn’t make sense...”
By that point, the forces on his side had been cut down by more than half. About 40% of those still alive were Charmed. And with them having lost Mohawk Red and Myanna — the strongest among them — it was safe to say that the betrayers were defeated.
“...N-Not yet! I still haven’t lost!” Ryzac screamed.
After forcefully encouraging himself, the high-level Strong Swordsman cut down the enemies before him.
I tried to switch to Dryfe so that I could win, he thought. Losing here is the opposite of what I want.
Vehemently, desperately, he defeated any enemies he crossed paths with. He could no longer tell whether they were newbies or ex-allies that had gotten Charmed — he fought any and all people that came to him as enemies.
“Hh...!” That was when he came across someone particularly powerful. The person wore full body armor of a silver color — no, the results of his Reveal skill said that it was a monster called “Mithril Arms Slime.”
He’s wearing a liquid metal-type slime as armor? Looks kinda tough... however...! Ryzac thought as he put his hand against his sword, a Type Arms Embryo.
“All-Slashing Blade — Durandal!” he roared, declaring that he was using his high-rank Embryo’s ultimate skill.
Durandal’s ultimate skill was different from Hræsvelgr and Poseidon, which were high-rank, as well. While those were the type of skills to unleash a single, powerful attack, Durandal’s ultimate skill was enhancement.
For a minute after activation, Durandal became able to cut anything. No matter how tough the Mithril Arms Slime was, when imbued with this power, Ryzac’s blade could easily cut through it and kill the Master within.
“Let’s do this!” he roared and charged, to which the Mithril Arms Slime responded with a swing from its blade-like tentacles.
Though its speed matched — or surpassed — that of a high-rank vanguard, it wasn’t difficult for Ryzac to see it, as he had become stronger and faster due to the side-effects of his ultimate skill. He swung Durandal twice and — with great ease — cut the tentacles off before charging close enough to cut his enemy. Then Ryzac unleashed a horizontal slash meant to split his opponent at the abdomen.
“You’re done.”
Due to Durandal’s immense sharpness, he didn’t feel any resistance. However, it was clear that it easily broke through the Mithril Arms Slime’s defense and split the person inside in half. The upper and lower half fell to the ground with half of the Slime accompanying them each. Despite that, the upper half of the Mithril Arms Slime moved to stop the blood flowing from the cut.
That’s useless. He’s as good as dea— Huh...? In order to stop the blood, the Slime focused most of its volume on the wound, causing other parts to become uncovered.
Those parts included the Master’s face.
Upon seeing it, Ryzac lost his words, for it was his friend, the Bishop, Myanna.
The Mithril Arms Slime had bound her in a way that prevented all movement and filled her mouth with enough of itself to gag her.
The realization that he’d split his own friend in half made Ryzac’s mind go blank.
Taking advantage of his sorry state, the Mithril Arms Slime hastily turned half of itself into a spear and pierced him from his nether region to the top of his head.
“Gh?” Naturally, the damage was critical, making his HP drop to 0. Though his consciousness was still somewhat alive during the resurrection period, the destruction to his vitals was great, making it obvious that he wouldn’t last much longer.
“Make them panic and they show their openings. Aim for a critical hit and they die instantly.” Before getting the death penalty, Ryzac saw Myanna get freed from the Mithril Arms Slime’s bindings and slowly turn into particles of light as the Slime, with its job done, crawled towards some boy.
As beautiful as a winter fairy, he talked to the Mithril Arms Slime in the same clear voice Ryzac had heard at the beginning of the battle.
“Don’t miss an opening, and you can kill those stronger than you,” he said. “It’s just like we learned in the practice matches. Except this time, we were successful, Liz.”
Though no doubt beautiful, Ryzac found the smile on the boy’s face to be scary beyond words.
Aahh... Damn it... he thought as he vanished. If I’d known we had newbies like this... I wouldn’t have done this shit...
Overwhelmed with regret, Ryzac got the death penalty.
◇
Soon after they’d lost their leaders and three strongest, the rest of the traitors gathered in the central plaza were quickly annihilated.
Then, having passed that hurdle, the newbies spread out to help fight the monsters ravaging the city or to search for Franklin.
Though this fight was merely the beginning for them, it should’ve been something they couldn’t win. While the betrayers had been presented with many unexpected things, in the end, it could all be boiled down to the existence of a mere two extraordinary entities — Ray and Rook.
Chapter Three: The Movement on the Board
Paladin, Ray Starling
“That’s one barrier cleared,” I said.
“It appears so,” agreed Nemesis.
We’d escaped the central arena and fought the player killers that’d awaited us at the plaza.
Thanks to Rook’s plan, we’d been able to beat them with few casualties, despite them being far stronger and more numerous than us.
When I’d needed to use Hellish Miasma, I’d been worried about the prospect of involving innocents who still happened to be in the plaza, but a high-rank Master with a radar-like Embryo had shown me that it was all good in that regard.
After that, thanks to Rook using his Touch of the Silencer to cancel an enemy’s spell, and then him and Babi both using their Charm skills like they had in the battle against the goblin horde, we’d gotten an upper hand against the player killers.
I’d thought that the caster’s surprise attack was gonna kill me, but I’d survived thanks to t
he Dragonscale Ward Shu had given me before we left the arena. The fact that I hadn’t seen it coming had left me without a chance to use Counter Absorption, but that skill’s stock was extremely scarce right now, anyway. Only one use had been restored since my battle against Gouz-Maise yesterday, so having saved it could work out in my favor.
This battle and my encounter with Xunyu before The Clash of the Superiors had made me aware that the skill wasn’t without its flaws. It was ineffective in situations where I didn’t see the attack coming or just couldn’t use it fast enough. Sooner or later, I would have to find a way to make up for these flaws.
Skill problems aside, we’d defeated the player killers in the arena’s plaza.
After the battle, we newbies split up in all directions. I chose to go west, and Rook and a few others accompanied me.
Riding Silver, I led our little group forward. I’d avoided using my mount in the battle at the plaza because the brawl had been too melee-oriented, and I was satisfied with my decision, since the spell that had hit me might’ve actually melted him.
Following behind me, Rook and Babi were riding Marilyn, and furthest at the back, there were three girl Masters. All of them were staring at Rook, making it pretty certain that his being the ultra pretty-boy was the reason why they had come with us. Not that I could fault them for that, really.
“So, Ray,” Rook spoke up. “Sorry for the belated question, but why are we heading west?”
“Well...” Indeed, I was the one who’d decided to go west, and he was right to assume that I’d had a reason. I’d chosen to go there because of the words gnawing at my mind.
It’s west.
Hugo had told me this just before we’d separated. He was a Master from the Dryfe Imperium and a member of the clan known as “Triangle of Wisdom,” which he’d described as the biggest clan in Dryfe, meaning that it was the one owned by the top of Dryfe’s clan rankings: Franklin.
Back then, Hugo had tried to play it off like it was nothing, but I felt that...
“Something’s up in the west,” I said.
Unless he’d predicted that I would think like this and lied in order to mislead me, we should find something there. Since I didn’t think that Hugo was the type to lie like that, I was going straight to the west.