kscans

Chapter 390 - The Subjugation of Hades and the Highest Honor

The Demon Lord's Army, led by Lunaria, cut down the monsters appearing in the Dark Cave without a struggle.

Dungeons have monster rankings. There are dungeons for beginners, intermediates, and experts, but the Dark Cave was for the highest level of players. The monsters on the upper floors weren't that strong, but they grew more powerful the deeper you went.

Since rare ores could be mined even on the relatively shallow floors, there were always a fair number of players around, but the middle and lower floors were places only major clans ever ventured into.

It was said that something serving as a source of magic lay deep within the Dark Cave. The theory was that its influence strengthened the monsters and, in turn, allowed for the mining of rare ores.

Hades, King of the Underworld, who had appeared during this event, was one such threat, but there were many other dangerous monsters as well.

Among them were raid boss class monsters like the super giant slime Crimson Blood, the swarm of magical insects Night Fog, and the moving armor Theseus Paradox, which had been refitted with powerful parts until its original form was lost.

While monsters of that caliber had yet to appear, even the normal monsters were quite strong. Despite this, Lunaria's Demon Lord's Army defeated them without any trouble.

Benitsuru, who had tagged along with Lunaria's group, folded her arms. After a moment of thought, she spoke up.

"Luna-cchi, you don't think about anything, do you?"

"Should I take that as a declaration of war?"

At Lunaria's words, Benitsuru held up her hands and quickly waved them from side to side.

"N, no, that's not it. I'm talking about your fighting style. I'm complimenting you, saying it's amazing how your body moves without you having to think."

"Hold on. I need to deliberate. Rosalie-chan, what do you think? As an excuse."

"I see no issue. There is no reason for Benny-san to suddenly pick a fight with Lunaria-sama."

Benitsuru nodded her head up and down vigorously at Rosalie's words.

Lunaria closed her eyes for a moment, then snapped them open.

"Not guilty."

"Whew, that's a relief. Anyway, there's no way I'd pick a fight with you, Luna-cchi. We're best buds."

"Some people in this world get close to you calling you a friend, then just, you know, shank you."

"I wouldn't do that. Well, that doesn't matter. You're amazing, Luna-cchi."

"I am aware. But praise me more. I'm a girl who thrives on praise."

Benitsuru gave Lunaria a slightly exasperated look, but Lunaria just stuck her nose up a little, closed her eyes, and looked smug.

"I've trained to clear my mind too, but I've never been able to get the hang of it. You're a little different from that, Luna-cchi. It's like a switch flips. You don't think about anything unnecessary during a fight, right?"

"...I don't really get it. I thought when you're fighting, you're only supposed to think about defeating your opponent."

"Well, that's true, but normally your mind gets cluttered. Especially when you're facing an opponent, you usually think about how you're going to fight them. That's what creates openings."

"I think it's better to just cut them down before they can cut you, instead of thinking about all that. I recommend it."

"Thinking about how to cut them is the normal way... wait, maybe that's what clearing your mind means? Not thinking about nothing, but focusing on just one thing to eliminate distractions...?"

"Are you worrying about something?"

"No, no, that's not important. Right now, I'm thinking about the secret to your strength, Luna-cchi. But even though you're so strong..."

Benitsuru let out a breath and looked at Lunaria with a serious expression.

"Amanda is even stronger than that?"

Lunaria puffed out her cheeks and shook her head.

"Amanda isn't strong. I only lost that time because she threw a knife at Xenobia-chan. Plus, there's the issue of weapon performance. Arondight is a good sword, but it breaks sometimes. That's another cute thing about it."

"I don't really get that feeling, but her sword doesn't break, right? That's definitely a strength. There are Weapon Skills that drastically reduce a blade's durability, but having no durability at all is just unbelievable."

"But it's fine. I have Excalibur now, so I'll move even faster and won't give her a chance to attack. I've also learned a bunch of stuff from everyone else, so there's no way I can lose."

As Lunaria said this, she sheathed her sword and started throwing punches like she was shadowboxing, making shisshi sounds with her mouth. This was the boxing Cecil had taught her.

Then she said, "Kooooo," as she crossed her arms in a ready stance. This was the unarmed stance Benitsuru had taught her.

"I taught you the Azuma-ryu unarmed combat stance, but what's with that sound effect?"

"Ambiance? It feels like I'm building up my ki. I plan to release a ki-based shockwave someday."

"...The Azuma-ryu style doesn't have anything like that, you know?"

It was hard to tell if she was joking or serious, but Benitsuru figured that in Lunaria's case, she was probably serious.

As they were having this utterly tensionless conversation, one of the Ten Black Rose Saints whispered something to Rosalie.

Rosalie nodded and then spoke.

"It seems the summoned beast sent out as a scout has discovered Hades in the great hall ahead. Apparently, several people are already fighting it, but they're being defeated without even getting close."

"Okay. Then I'll take the first strike. Let's carve the Demon Lord's name into Hades. Alright, from here on out, I'm getting serious. Rosalie-chan, Gilcchi, I'm leaving your respective teams to you."

When Lunaria said this, Rosalie and the others lifted the hems of their skirts slightly and curtsied, bowing their heads. Gil and his subordinates saluted Lunaria.

"As you wish."

"Hah."

The air grew heavy, as if the lack of tension from moments before had been a lie. It felt as if the tension was contagious, and the members from the Eastern Country, aside from Benitsuru and Simon, seemed to be having trouble breathing.

(Rozacchi and Gilcchi are amazing. To be able to move so close to a serious Luna-cchi, they must be pretty skilled. I'd like to have a real fight with them someday...)

Benitsuru had that thought but quickly shook her head. She drew not her usual Meitou Yatagarasu, but her Meitou Houou.

"Simon, I'm going to fight seriously with Luna-cchi, so I'm counting on you to look after everyone."

"Mmm... The princess seems unusually serious, does she not?"

"Watching Luna-cchi just made me want to get serious too, I guess. Super Assault."

Benitsuru said this and broke into a run.

"I'm taking the first spear."

"Hmph. Benny-chan, wait. That's not fair."

Lunaria dashed off after her.

And so, the battle against Hades, King of the Underworld, began in the great hall.



"And then, and then. Luna-cchi was so amazing. The simultaneous activation of Black Swan and White Lightning was..."

"Um, I think this is the third time you've told me this..."

"You're going to listen at least three more times."

"Loops are scary..."

Benitsuru, in unusually high spirits, was recounting the battle with Hades to Hayato.

The battle in the Necropolis Area was over, and the former Demon Lord's Army was victorious.

A victory celebration was being held at their base as usual, but as soon as Hayato finished his work and logged in, he was caught by Benitsuru and had been listening to the details of the Hades battle endlessly.

The reason for Benitsuru's excitement was that Lunaria had defeated Hades, King of the Underworld, but the battle had left such a strong impression on her that she had been telling the same story over and over again.

Perhaps he had been the first victim, because Simon was leaning back against his chair, looking unusually tired.

The story he had been forced to hear repeatedly was about the time Lunaria used Black Swan and White Lightning simultaneously.

These two Weapon Skills had a restriction that they could only be used against powerful enemies. And to determine if an enemy was powerful, you first had to land a single blow. It didn't have to deal damage, even if it was blocked was fine. The condition was simply that you had attacked the opponent.

Hades, King of the Underworld, attacked almost exclusively with magic. He used a random assortment of spells, from weak to strong. Normally, just getting close was difficult, and the basic strategy was to find the edge of his magic's range and attack from a distance.

Despite this, Lunaria charged in.

There were many kinds of magic in this virtual reality, but there were several ways they could be activated. The basic type was projectile-based, flying in a straight line from the caster like an arrow. There were also types that designated a target or specified coordinates.

Among these, the target-designating type generally targeted a character. It was said that once activated, this type of magic couldn't be dodged, but that was a misconception. There was a slight delay between designation and activation, a sliver of time less than a second, during which it was possible to dodge.

Lunaria did this with ease. The moment Hades's magic activated, she swiftly dodged. By the time a giant pillar of fire erupted where she had been, she was already gone.

Even Benitsuru couldn't believe her eyes.

She had thought Lunaria was charging in expecting to take a hit, but she realized Lunaria had no intention of being hit at all.

Benitsuru could barely manage it if she knew an attack was coming. Or if she was constantly moving. But Hades had activated the spell with no tell. What's more, he had used an area-of-effect spell beforehand, and Lunaria had been forced to stop at the very edge of its range to avoid being caught.

Under those conditions, Lunaria had dodged the spell.

Lunaria then attacked Hades with her dual swords. Immediately after, she activated two Weapon Skills.

Benitsuru's excitement grew even more when she got to this part of the story.

Black Swan and White Lightning, Weapon Skills that granted incredible buffs, had a much more powerful effect on movement speed than on attack power. According to Benitsuru, she couldn't even follow Lunaria with her eyes.

The two Weapon Skills left trails from the attacks. Black Swan left a black trail, and White Lightning a white one. She said she could only tell where Lunaria was by the sword trails, and she couldn't make out what Lunaria was doing at all.

Hades was a humanoid monster, about five meters tall, a vaguely glowing skeleton. The white and black sword trails enveloped Hades. It took time because he had a lot of HP, but in the end, Hades himself was painted over in black and white as Lunaria claimed victory.

Lunaria had dominated Hades so completely that there was barely any room for Benitsuru to fight.

The players who had been watching from nearby, both friend and foe, had apparently muttered, "She's a Demon Lord..." and were left in a daze.

"And get this. She would instantly evacuate to the very edge of his area-of-effect spells, and she even said something like, 'Hades's MP is about ten thousand, so just a little more.'"

"Ten thousand MP? And just a little more?"

Normally, you couldn't see a monster's HP or MP. There was some general information about how much they might have, but those stats were said to fluctuate, so the exact numbers were unknown.

"Luna-cchi said she'd memorized every spell Hades used and was calculating his MP consumption. If you add up double-digit numbers hundreds of times, you'd normally lose track, right? And she was doing it during a battle. Isn't that insane?"

According to information from Diite, Hades had a gimmick where he would repeatedly cast spells until he ran out of MP. Then, he would stop moving until his MP was fully restored.

Lunaria had apparently memorized all the spells Hades cast from one full recovery to the next state of MP depletion, and from that, she had calculated his maximum MP. She had then given precise orders for an assault on the immobilized Hades.

"Well, I think Luna-cchi could have won on her own without doing all that, but giving your subordinates a chance to fight is important for someone in a position of leadership, right?"

"I think in Lunaria-san's case, she probably wasn't thinking about any of that..."

"I smell a declaration of war from Hayato-san."

At some point, Lunaria had appeared behind Hayato. Her right hand was on the hilt of Arondight.

"No, that's not it. I was just complimenting Lunaria-san, saying she does things like that instinctively, without even thinking."

"I feel like Benny-chan said something like that too... I see, then you're not guilty."

"Thank you."

"I was just telling Haya-cchi all about how amazing Luna-cchi is."

When Benitsuru said this with a grin, Lunaria closed her eyes with a proud expression.

"Hmph, you're making me blush. By the way, Hayato-san, the test runs for Arondight and Excalibur went perfectly. My timing was off at first, but it's fine now."

"Huh? Your timing was off? It looked like you were handling them perfectly from start to finish."

Benitsuru said this with a puzzled look on her face.

"At first, I was moving too fast and my attacks were sloppy, but I corrected it midway through. There are no problems now."

"I didn't notice at all. In fact, I couldn't even see you."

Hayato figured there must have been a subtle discrepancy in timing that only Lunaria could perceive.

He hadn't seen it himself, but judging from Benitsuru's high praise, Lunaria's condition was not an issue. At this rate, the chances of her beating Amanda were probably high.

As Hayato thought this, he recalled Randa's words.

(She can win without doing anything, huh. I don't know the reason, and even though it's a virtual reality, the possibility that all this effort is meaningless is kind of... unpleasant.)

Even if one said they were putting in effort, this was a virtual reality, so it could also be called just a game. Even so, Lunaria lived here as if it were reality, and Hayato didn't want to think that her preparations to win were all for nothing. That's how he felt.

"Also, I heard about Amanda from Ivan. With this, I can beat her. I'll definitely give her a thorough beating. And I'll make her say she's sorry."

"So Ivan's information was useful?"

"Yeah. He told me a lot. It seems he didn't win, but he apparently never intended to, and because of that, he was able to fight for a long time, so I learned a lot. When it comes to fighting Amanda, I'm invincible now."

Hayato felt a little uneasy at Lunaria's smug reply, but Benitsuru was looking at her with admiration.

"By the way, Hayato-san, were things okay on your end? I heard you had some intruders."

"That's all taken care of. Besides, there's no way Esha and the others would lose, right?"

Shooting Star, led by Ronios, had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Esha's group.

A generous assessment would be that "they held out well."

There was almost no difference in their stats, skills, or the performance of their weapons and armor, but their experience was on another level. Esha and the others, who had been playing this game for years as test players before losing their memories, swiftly repelled Ronios's group.

A lack of experience shows in teamwork.

At first, they fought one on one, and Cecil and Ronios seemed to be enjoying their fight, but there was no reason to go along with that. Esha and Relic maneuvered to corner their respective opponents, and before they knew it, the fight had become a group battle.

Ronios, Cremola, and Harrington were decent enough, but they couldn't coordinate their attacks with the rest of their members. Or rather, Esha and the others' positioning was so good that they never gave their opponents a chance to coordinate.

Hayato had been impressed. The clan that won the Clan War before last was no joke.

When Hayato explained the details of the battle, Lunaria nodded.

"Yeah. Now that I think about it, there's no way Esha-chan and the others would lose. Esha-chan is strong enough to beat me... I plan to get my revenge someday. I'll take Hayato-san hostage then, so you should practice persuading Esha-chan. And whatever you do, don't say something like 'take me down with him.'"

"What are you talking about? And no matter what I say, I think she'd Destroy me along with you. I'd bet on it."

"That's a blind spot. In that case, I'll take a Chocolate Parfait hostage."

"So I'm worth less than a Chocolate Parfait...? But I can just picture Esha agonizing over that."

Lunaria and Benitsuru started talking about how to defeat Esha.

She said she could beat Amanda, but for some reason, she didn't feel like she could beat Esha. Hayato wondered why, but concluded that was just how Lunaria was.

As Hayato was making preparations for tomorrow while listening to Lunaria and Benitsuru, Diite opened the door from outside and came in. She walked up to Hayato without a word.

"Ah, Diite-chan, you're late today. Is something wrong?"

Diite's expression was darker than usual. Sensing this, Hayato stood up from his chair and stood in front of her.

"Hayato-kun, there's something I'd like to talk to you about, just the two of us. Do you have a moment?"

"Of course. Um, in that case, we can go to my room."

Hayato said this and then informed Lunaria and the others.

Perhaps sensing the unusual gravity of the situation, neither Lunaria, Benitsuru, nor Simon questioned it.

Hayato and Diite quickly moved to Hayato's room on the second floor.

Hayato handed a coffee to Diite, who looked as if something was weighing heavily on her mind.

Diite took it with both hands and slowly drank the coffee. Then she let out a long sigh.

"I've calmed down a bit."

"Did something happen?"

"...Hypnos has been captured by Infinity. It's possible the other AI, Curtis, did it, but at the very least, the AI named Hypnos is gone from this world."

Hayato couldn't hide his surprise, but he managed to remain calm and asked Diite for the details.

Diite calmly told Hayato what had happened today.

After hearing her out, Hayato was confused.

(What was Hypnos trying to do? He gave Diite information, told her I might be in danger, and then got captured by Infinity, or this AI that mimics the developer named Curtis... Is this also part of Hypnos's plan, a way to cause an irregularity?)

Hayato knew he was thinking cynically. But he couldn't imagine Hypnos doing something out of a sense of self sacrifice. Diite looked crestfallen, but Hayato suspected what she had heard might not be what really happened.

However, he couldn't say this to Diite. The belief that Hypnos's actions were unbelievable was based on the speculation he'd heard from Randa.

(If what Randa-san said wasn't speculation but fact, does Hypnos intend to beat this Curtis AI by winning this event? No, he told Diite-chan to protect me and win this event, so that can't be it, right?)

By disappearing, Hypnos left open the possibility that Amanda could win. That was one way to look at it, but since Randa's story was just speculation, Hayato felt that something was slightly off as he agonized over it.

Hayato temporarily stopped thinking. He realized that knowing too much made it hard to process information straightforwardly. It had been happening a lot lately, but he resigned himself to the fact that there was no point in an ordinary person like him thinking about it.

"Diite-chan."

Diite, who had been looking down, slowly raised her head.

"What is it?"

"I think I've said this before, but for now, let's just win."

"Huh?"

"I don't know what happened to Hypnos, and I don't know the details of the plan you heard about. But if Lunaria-san wins this event, you'll get your powers as an administrator back, right?"

"That's right, there's no mistake about that."

(Now that I think about it, it's strange that things are set up that way, but there's no time to doubt that now.)

Hayato nodded and then spoke.

"If you get your authority back, there might be a way to do something about Hypnos. You might even find out about the plan you heard about. So let's not think about unnecessary things and just focus on winning for now."

"...I see. You're right. Thank you, Hayato-kun. I've calmed down a little."

"I'm glad. Hey, would you like another cup of coffee?"

"Yes, please. I want to clear my head."

Hayato thought Diite was probably joking, but he prepared a coffee for himself as well.

Diite's face was still dark.

So, Hayato spoke up, trying to at least lighten the mood.

"Still, Hypnos says some interesting things."

"Was there something funny?"

"Well, telling you to write his name in a domain that will never be erased, I just thought that was a pretty interesting thing to say. Do you actually have a memory area like that?"

"No, there's nothing like that. I have two memory areas, a main and a sub, but the main one is never erased to begin with. The sub is for frequently used memories, so information I don't use disappears, though."

"Ah, the cause of your occasional forgetfulness."

"That's not very nice... but, you're right. Now that I think about it, even the main memory area is a domain that can be erased if I try. Just like with Hypnos, perhaps I'll write about you, Hayato-kun, in a different domain. Because I don't want to forget."

Diite said this and smiled.

"Is that an honor?"

"Of course. It's the highest honor in this world, you know?"

This time, Diite laughed out loud. After a good laugh, her expression turned serious.

"Hayato-kun, I'm sorry for dragging you into all this. I will protect you. I will never let Infinity or Curtis lay a hand on you, so don't worry."

"I'm counting on you. I'm weak in both virtual reality and the real world."

"...That's fine, but you're quite forthright, Hayato-kun. Isn't that where you're supposed to say something like, 'I'll be fine'?"

"Well, there's no point in putting on a brave face."

"I suppose that's just like you, Hayato-kun."

Diite finally laughed like her usual self.

Hayato felt relieved that she would be okay now and took a sip of his coffee.