CH 149

[You Shithead!]

“Uhyooooooooo!” I release a scream of joy from the sense of liberation.

Since coming here, there had been many people I had to protect at all costs, stifling me.

But now?

Iris is away, and Ethel is with Ayako, so I don’t have to protect her.

About 100 enemies, Joseph and his puppet army combined, are all around me.

A large number of enemies means a large number of experience points.

In other words, if I just keep killing the enemies mindlessly, I’ll get a ton of experience points!

And if I let Joseph recycles the destroyed puppets, I may even get many more!

I don’t have anyone to protect and I can become stronger—this situation is the best!

As such, instead of uselessly trying to hide my joy, I excitedly lean forward before kicking off the ground.

While keeping my eyes locked on the enemies in front of me, I pay attention to the shadows created by the burning flames behind me.

I keep my ears open to focus on the surrounding sounds so that I don’t miss the sound effect of magic activating from a position that I can’t see.

Sure, the number of puppet armies that Joseph controls is certainly astounding.

However, unlike swordsmen, archers and mages have more monotonous attack patterns.

With a bow, it is necessary to ‘take a stance, draw back the string, aim, and shoot’, and as long as you can see that set of movements, you’ll be able to somehow tell where the archer is aiming.

A magician, on the other hand, has to point their staff at a target before casting their spell, that is, of course, unless the magician is of a very high level.

Furthermore, since all spells are skills, the casting motions and the sound effects that occur upon the activation of the spell are fixed. As a matter of course, since I have knowledge of the original game, I remember all of them.

(Since I only have to protect myself, I should be able to deal with the projectiles with Shishū’s ‘Shield Cap’. Other than that, as long as I watch out for archers ‘Archery’ skill, there will be no problems!)

The arrows curving down from above should be ‘High-Angle Fire’, and the arrows powerfully flying straight toward me should be ‘Direct Shot’. The rest of the arrows are normal attacks.

The crackling sounds that sound like they are tearing the air should come as a result of the activation of a ‘Lightning Magic’.

Given that the sounds cover an area, it’s probably ‘Lightning Field’ which rain down bolts of lightning from above.

They are all coming at me, so what I have the do is to sort out which ones that will reach me first and decide how to deal with each of them.

I use Shishū to repel ‘High-Angle Fire’ coming from above, move in a zigzag to dodge the ‘Lightning Field’, deflect the powerful ‘Direct Shot’ with my sword, then leap my body into the resulting opening to dodge the subsequent arrows.

After that, it’s just a matter of repetition. Although I get some scratches, they won’t pose a noteworthy problem.

After continuing that set of actions three times, I finally enter the enemy’s close range, and the battle becomes one-sided.

Wielding the Knight’s Steel Sword in my right hand, I slay the puppets one after another.

Archers and magicians, being rear guards, wear light leather armor that emphasizes ease of movement instead of metal armor, but they aren’t that difficult to cut through.

“Glad it doesn’t end with just slashing them away, but they sure are troublesome!”

Unlike humans, puppets don’t die by just cutting them down, as the souls embedded in them are still safe, and as long as they still have moving parts, they can act in some way.

For example, if I don’t carefully cut and dismantle the arms or fix them with strings, the arms sprawling on the floor will grab my leg—how troublesome.

Though in exchange, I will gain experience points for ‘Swordsmanship’ and ‘Shishū’ skills each time I attack, so weighing the time it takes to deal with them and the joy of gaining experience points, I lean toward the latter.

“Then how about this!”

Before I knew it, Joseph, having transferred from the magician to one of the knights surrounding me, says, ‘Morph’.

In response, the remains of the puppets sprawling on the floor begin to move as if they are being sucked into a single point, turning into a mass of flesh, and then being remade into a new puppet as if kneading clay.

A gorilla-shaped puppet is born.

It should be based on ‘Forest Kong’, a monster with small trees growing from both shoulders that appear in the academy dungeon.

Unlike ‘Forest Kong’, however, its arms are longer and its palms are as large as its trunk. Is it so that it can grab the enemy just by extending its arms, perhaps?

(Tch, since he has found out that ‘I know him’, it’s only natural that he improvises, I guess.)

The problem is I never saw this type of puppet in the original game.

I expected that if I continued to read his movements, he’d eventually create a puppet I didn’t know of, but this was sooner than I expected.

“————!!”

“The fact that it doesn’t produce any sound even though it’s roaring is so surreal! Hup!”

I cut down the archers in the area and capture the magicians with a string, then I use him to defend against the attacks from all around me. After he runs out of use, I throw him at the gorilla.

At that time, however, the gorilla shoots arrows—which I assume belonged to the archers forming it—from its wide-open mouth one after another.

By chance, the magician I threw at it acts as my shield, and I’m able to escape the danger. It’s when I’m a little worried about how to deal with the movements I don’t know.

“———!”

“Huh?”

The gorilla puppet slams its hands on the floor and, taking advantage of the resulting recoil, suddenly shoots toward me with its arms spread wide as though to not let me escape.

My reaction was slightly delayed because I was taking a wait-and-see approach given that I totally had no clue about it, and seeing the dangerous light being emitted from each and every hole of it, I widen my eyes.

“Huuh?! No way, no way, no way, no way, that’s bad news! How could you have such a dangerous skill?! You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

I’m so shocked, my thoughts flow out of my mouth.

After all, that light is the sign of activation of a certain skill. And the name of that skill is ‘Self-Destruct’.

As far as I know, Joseph shouldn’t have that skill, but the light doesn’t lie.

“Hold up, time up, wait, wait, wait, wait!!”

Even as I’m about to run away in a panic, the gorilla grabs and hugs me tight, doing its best to not let me go and making me get caught up in its suicide bombing.

Having ended up being swept into the chest of the gorilla along with some puppets’ remains, I’m illuminated by the dangerous light signing that the gorilla is about to explode.

“Fuck this!!”

My attempt to escape results in vain.

In that case, I stab my sword into the gorilla’s chest and manage to secure a small space, then I rapidly hit it with ‘Soul Strike’, which can be used even at point-blank range.

If I can’t escape, I’ll crush the puppet before it activates… that idea turns out a failure, and before long I get caught up in the huge explosion that occurs on the condition of the user’s death.

“—‘Self-Destruct’!”

“Wha, baga?!”

The resulting explosive blast hit me from almost zero distance, forcibly launching me into the air and sending me flying straight from the middle of the nave to the right side of the nave.

My back slams into the wall, and my vision goes black for a moment.

Although I get stuck in the dent in the wall that resulted from the collision, my body fall to the floor soon after.

“Cough, cough!”

I couldn’t hear the sound of the explosion.

My eardrums shouldn’t have been damaged, but the close-range explosion paralyzed my hearing, and perhaps my semicircular canals went out of order, I feel like the ground is shaking like I’m onboard a ship.

“F-fucking bastard… I can’t… get any experience points… if you use ‘Self-Destruct’, goddammit…!”

Even as I’m gasping for air, I try to get up while enduring the pain in my whole body.

However, my injuries are apparently more serious than I thought and I fail to get up. It just goes to show how much power ‘Self-Destruct’, which activates on the condition of the user’s death.

By the way, an enemy that dies from using ‘Self-Destruct’ doesn’t give experience points.

In other words, although the gorilla died, I didn’t receive any experience points. Faced with the fact that my experience points have gone into nothingness, I suffer great mental damage.

Dammit…… even though I’ve been patiently waiting for so long. I feel like crying.

I’m not sure if the tears in the corners of my eyes come from the pain in my body or the pain in my heart… but it’s probably the latter.

(But since I survived that, did I succeed in reducing the power of the explosion?)

The power of the ‘Self-Destruct’ skill is the sum of HP and MP times five plus the sum of the user’s stats at the time of activation.

In other words, if you reduce the user’s HP and MP as much as you can before the ‘Self-Destruct’ activates, the power will also decrease accordingly, but what I did just now was a big gamble because I had no idea if the ‘activation’ was when the light started to appear or when the explosion occurred.

I ended up winning the bet, so I’m completely satisfied despite the pain—or at least, I would have, if not for the experience points gone before my eyes. I make a signal with my hand to inform Ethel and Ayako, who should be watching from the shadows, that I’m safe.

“How surprising. To think you would survive that, with your limbs intact, too.”

“But my clothes became rags, you shithead.”

Joseph, now possessing a male knight with trimmed blond hair, says some bullshit while looking at me, and I curse him.

My fighting style is supported by the pillars that are the original game knowledge. When an enemy uses a new, unknown tactic, I will always be one step behind.

(He keeps transferring around his consciousness. Looks like ‘getting stronger’ will be quite a difficult task…)

Perhaps because the rearguard puppets got caught up in the explosion, the only ones left around me are the sword-wielding knights.

On the other hand, my armor is in tatters, my sword has flown off somewhere, and though it’s settling down, I can still feel like the ground is shaking.

Furthermore, the knights are positioning themselves so as to bar my way to Joseph, and I’m short of potions because I played the chicken game with the ‘Bully Clown’.

That’s not to say I run completely out of potions, though; I still have 4 left. I down one of the potions, so that’s 3 left.

The longer the battle drags on, the more disadvantageous it will be for me.

(Hmm, should I do it now? But will it work?)

Joseph Asanaga—a being exist in soul form, a ghost-type demon-kin difficult to kill due to his physical resistance and immortal trait.

I’ve prepared a way to kill him, but it requires Ethel, Ayako, and I to work together, and we have to finish him on a one-hit kill surprise attack.

That’s exactly why I’m creating this situation where I’m taking all of Joseph’s aggro. It’s so to reduce his heightened vigilance and make him think that since I failed in my desperate surprise attack, I won’t do another surprise attack.

And by bearing the full brunt of his aggro and keeping his attention on me (by leveling), I deprive him of the room to think about Ayako and Ethel. The only thing left to do now is to launch the real surprise attack, but…

(No, it’s not gonna work. He’s gonna use ‘Self-Destruct’, and I won’t be able to get close to him…!)

In order to carry out the surprise attack, the prerequisite is that I must have Joseph within the reach of my sword. Because the killing blow is what I release with my sword.

But now that ‘Self-Destruct’ has proven to work effectively against me, Joseph will definitely use it again, making it difficult for me to approach him.

“F-fuhaha. It seems that the information you have about me is somewhat outdated. I knew it, you aren’t my illegitimate son. False bond bore sham understanding.”

“Huh…?”

Seeing my injuries, Joseph begins to regain his composure and says some nonsense.

However, I’d like to recover with ‘Qigong (Medium)’, so I don’t pry, and just stare at him.

In battles, you’ll normally deliver a killing blow when the opponent is down, but Joseph is fundamentally a technician and researcher, so his judgment ability when it comes to battle is lacking.

“You not only defiled my dear pure daughter, but you also posed as my illegitimate son. You evil incarnate, receive my wrath, and cease your existence!”

One of the knights surrounding me, a puppet Joseph is possessing, swings down his arm.

Then at the same time, several knights rush toward me. Their eyes, mouths, and noses are releasing light.

The precursor to the activation of ‘Self-Destruct’.

It is a ‘kamikaze attack’ using humanoid bombs that can only be performed by Joseph, who still has quite a few puppets even after most of the initial 100 has been destroyed.

I expected he would bombard me with his puppets’ ‘Self-Destruct’ seeing that it was effective against me, but when it became reality, I still can’t help but grimace.

I mean, there’s no way I’ll get out unscathed, it’ll be difficult to get close to Joseph, and worst of all, the experience points will go to waste. My heart can’t take it.

“‘Self-Destruct’.”

“H-hang on!? We can talk this out!”

“‘Self-Destruct’.”

“You fu-!! Stop! Stop it, will ya?!”

“‘Self-Destruct’.”

“Aaaaaaaaagh!!!”

Boom, boom, ka-boom, multiple sounds of explosions overlap and echo within the cathedral.

They’re sounds of the experience points that should have been mine exploding and disappearing along with the puppets.

“You damned bastaaaaaaaard!! Stop iiiiiiiit! How-how could you do such a horrible thing to people (experience points)!!! You shitheaaaaaaaaaaad!!!!!”

Faced with it, I cry and scream in grief, which echoes as loudly as the sounds of the explosions.