CH 34

[Declaration of War!]

The eighth day since the game launched. I was heading east!

I mean, yesterday I had regained the strength to fight. Now it was time for me to get a lot to use as a guild house in preparation for the upcoming guild war!

For that reason, I set my sight on ‘Sacred City Helheim’, which had just been added to the far east.

As I was running through a thicket, I suddenly felt something flying in from the side, so I immediately threw a back fist toward it.

The object blown away by ‘God-Slaying Fist’ and ‘Demon King’s Surge’ was a greatsword.

Clearly, someone had thrown it with bad intentions.

“…To be attacking without a warning, what a rude fellow. Show yourself, why don’t you?”

When I said that, quite a few players came out of the bushes, surrounding me.

There were more than 20 of them in total. They wore pretty decent equipment, indicating that they were high-level players.

One of them approached me while grinning. It was a red-haired girl wearing a crimson battle dress like those so-called princess knights.

“My oh my, as expected of an ex-top player! Even though I didn’t release the slightest bit of killing intent, you still noticed my attack! Impressive instinct!”

“Your surprise attack was just sloppy.”

“Wha-?! …Very cheeky, are we? When you can no longer even fight after the update!” The red-haired girl manifested again the greatsword in her hand as she scowled.

Pointing the tip of the sword at me, she then said with a fierce smile, “My name is Seele. I’m the leader of a fairly well-known PK group!”

“I’ve never heard of you, though?”

“Could you please stop nitpicking for a second?!” The Seele girl screamed. I see, she was a leader of a PK group, eh. I’d come to love it too—PK, I mean. The last battle royale truly opened my eyes.

“Tch… unlike dungeon clearing, PKing doesn’t get announced through the world message. It’s only natural my name hasn’t gotten around much.

“But my obscurity ends today. After all, yesterday’s update came with ‘camera mode’! Now, let’s start the live stream!” She snapped her fingers, and a large eyeball with wings appeared beside her. The eyeball was staring at me with its pupil shining brightly.

I see, so it was the ‘camera’, huh? It was gross, honestly.

“Fufufu, I wanna be famous like you, y’see? So I created a channel called ‘PK Channel’. I wanted to show the world how I beat up stupid players and make a name for myself!”

“I see, and so, you’ve picked me, the event winner, as your inaugural target. …Very well, since you want to die so much, bring it on…!”

When I shouted while manifesting my bow, the surrounding PKers flinched.

Seeing that, Seele, their leader, screamed at them, “What are you guys getting scared for?! She isn’t as strong as she was during the event! Remember our objective, we’re gonna cut her to pieces and make her a sacrifice for our rise to fame!!!”

[O-oooooooooooohhhhh!!!]

Responding to her scream, the PKers immediately rushed toward me from all directions.

Well, my ‘Tenacity’ had been nerfed. They must have thought that they’d be able to kill me if they all attacked me at the same time, but how naïve!

“Activate skill, ‘Arms Barrier’!”

I deployed summoning formations around me, and then I fired swords and spears in every direction!

The PKers were pierced by them. Seele seemed to have made defensive maneuvers promptly, but those who failed to defend against the unexpected attack started suffering status ailment effects.

“Gyaaaaa?! M-my body is on fire?!”

“Cough, cough?! This is… poison?!”

The PKers screamed in agony.

My bad, but I had extreme Luck. I could almost certainly draw out the effect of weapons that had a ‘certain probability of inflicting status ailment on the opponent’. Just a graze could be fatal.

I shot one jet-black arrow after another at the faltering players. And the moment the arrows stabbed into their bodies, I ordered inwardly: Clone yourselves now!

Then.

“Ugh, ugyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?!”

“M-m-my body is tooooorned?!”

At the same time as Pontaro and the gang’s clones appeared in the bodies of the players facing different directions, the players’ bodies were torn to pieces, which flew away in different directions for a couple of seconds before disappearing.

‘Fatally Injured’—it was a status effect that occurred when the player’s body got split in half or pieces, and it would forcefully put the afflicted to death even if they still had HP remaining.

Apparently, it rarely occurred, but well…

“How was it? Amazing, right? This is one of the attack methods that I came up with after trial and error.

“You see, thanks to my ‘Demon King’s Surge’ skill, my attacks generate a tremendous impact. I’ve also noticed that I can control the direction of the clones of my arrows facing when they appear. I tried to combine the two out of curiosity, then voila! This happened.

“So, which one of you would like to get torn apart from the inside next…?”

“E-eeeeeeeeeeeeek?!” The remaining PKers paled and squealed. They went on to throw down their weapons before running away while screaming: “Fuck, she’s powered up instead, isn’t she?!”, “This is different from what you said, Leader!”, “Even if we have a pain limiter, who in their sane mind would like to experience having their body torn to pieces?!”, “She really is the Demon King, after all!!!”

Of course, I’d got no reason to let them escape, so I shot arrows into their unprotected backs and made them explode.

Flashy attacks sure are great. But man~, difficult circumstances do make people grow! In a sense, the devs raised me to this point, so if you guys want to resent someone, resent them! Hahahahaha!

“Phew… well, Seele, everybody else is dead. Now, let’s start our 1v1…!”

“Eeek?! W-what’s up with you?! Didn’t you get nerfed?!”

“Yeah, that I did. But I’m not some crybaby who would give up just because of something like that! If they tell me ‘You’re going to be a small fry from today!’ should I just obediently bow my head and comply? No! I should rebel!

“Regardless of how weakened I am, it will not stop me! Not now, not ever!”

“Eeeek…?! Y-you psychoooooooooo!” Seele charged at me with teary eyes. Oh, nice guts!

I sent flying the greatsword she swung down with the back of my fist, then I thrust a punch in front of me with my other hand.

A black gust, a product of ‘Demon King’s Surge’, burst out, blowing Seele’s red hair chaotically.

“Sorry, but let’s end this here. If you’re dissatisfied, then I don’t mind finishing you off, though. Are you?”

“…?!” Seele muttered while trembling, “I… I’m not… it’s your win…!”

I had only one reason for keeping her alive. She had said earlier that she streaming this live, right? With my authority as the hero who won the battle, I would take over her stream for a moment.

I grabbed the eyeball floating next to her and said to the camera. “Devs and players thinking that I’m now powerless. Did you watch that?

“As a result of the update, I’ve become stronger…! No matter how many times you put me down, I’ll keep rising again and seizing back the top spot. Since you guys have picked a fight with me, you’d better prepare yourself…!”

With that, I sent it flying with a flick.

And that was how I—by hijacking someone else’s stream without permission) declared war on the devs and my rivals——!

A/N:

Seele: “Fufufu, I wanna be famous like you, y’see?”

・Seele-chan became famous as ‘the girl whose stream got hijacked by the demon king after losing miserably’—!