kscans

Chapter 3 - 3

"Hayate! You will fight me today!"

I wouldn’t be able to play with the four-sword style for much longer. Thinking I should play with all my might while I still could, I was soloing the most difficult dungeon currently available when a player using a blonde, ponytailed, beautiful girl character spoke to me.

She called herself Elena. Her real name is Shinonome Rena.

She is the daughter of the president of the Shinonome Group, one of the four great zaibatsu.

I know this because I met her at an official Farum World Online event.

"Sorry, I haven’t been doing much PVP lately..."

PVP means player versus player combat. FWO is fundamentally a game where you hunt monsters that appear in dungeons, but you can fight other players if both parties agree or in dedicated PVP areas.

"I don’t care about your circumstances. Your four-sword style is being taken away, isn’t it? I’m not going to let you get away with a win and run!"

Until a little while ago, I had climbed to 3rd place in the Japanese PVP rankings. Around that time, Elena challenged me many times, so she often ended up being a source of points for me to climb the ranks.

Elena is skilled enough to challenge this highest-difficulty dungeon, but her style is a bad match against my four-sword style, and she has never beaten me in PVP.

"I think it’ll be pointless no matter how many times we fight."

"Don’t underestimate me! I’ll show you that I’m different from the last time."

A PVP request was sent to me.

Lately, I’ve been busy clearing dungeons and have mostly ignored the PVP rankings. So there’s no reason for me to fight Elena.

I didn’t want to fight, but it seemed she would just keep pestering me if I refused. With the little time I had left, I wanted to clear as many dungeons as possible.

It would probably be better to defeat her quickly so she’d give up.

"...Alright, just one match. Are the usual rules okay?"

"Yes! You win if you disable all of the opponent’s weapons or make them admit defeat. And no streaming, right?"

"Yeah. That’s fine."

When I do PVP, I generally don’t stream unless it’s an official match.

I want to avoid revealing my hand as much as possible. Also, in Elena’s case, it’s known that she’s a female player in real life, so if I beat her up on stream, there’s a chance my female viewers might leave.

Many people who are subscribed to my videos are also fans of Elena. To avoid losing those viewers, I didn’t stream our PVP matches.

"I really want to show everyone the moment I defeat you, though."

"And I don’t want to be seen."

Incidentally, Elena is a streamer too. I don’t think she needs the money, so maybe it’s for the validation. Her subscriber count passed 600,000 the other day. I’m jealous.

Even though I can win due to the combat style matchup, Elena is not an easy opponent.

I switch from my dungeon-clearing equipment to my strongest weapon for PVP.

"Huh, wait a second. Is that from the black dragon Grandervald?"

"Good eye. I finally finished making it the other day."

Even though I said I stopped doing PVP, I’ve continued to craft equipment. Just because I can’t use it in this dungeon doesn’t mean it won’t be useful for clearing other ones.

The weapons I equipped in my left and right hands were twin swords made from the fangs of the black dragon Grandervald. As weapons for PVP, they boast what is currently the highest class of attack power. It was a real pain to make them.

Did I scare her too much with this?

Well, if she gives up after seeing this, that’s fine by me.

"Changed your mind about fighting?"

"D-Don’t mock me! I’ve worked hard to make my equipment too."

As she said that, Elena deployed her armaments.

"Oh. You increased your Gambits. You had two before, right? Your bow is new, too."

She uses a greatbow and four Gambits.

The greatbow is capable of ultra-long-range sniping and has high attack power per shot. The weakness of sniper-type ranged weapons is their low rate of fire, which creates an opening when they miss. She covers for that with her Gambits.

Each Gambit, which automatically defends its user, costs 30 million Gold. In contrast, my entire equipment set costs about 50 million Gold. I’ve managed to keep the cost down because I gather the materials myself and use my own raised blacksmithing skill to craft it.

"You still look so relaxed even after seeing these little ones."

"I’m thinking this might be a little rough. But, I’ll be the one to win."

Normally, a close-range weapon user wouldn’t be able to defeat Elena, who is accompanied by four Gambits. But that’s only if they were an ordinary close-range weapon user.

I have a plan to defeat her.

"I’m ready whenever you are."

"...Roger."

We took our distance from each other, ready for PVP.

"Alright, here I come!"

I pushed off with all my strength and charged toward Elena.

Laser bullets were fired in succession from the Gambits. I dodged them by jumping to the right, and deflected the bullets I couldn’t avoid with the Mechanical Power Sword equipped on my left Manipulator.

Her main attack is coming soon.

Elena was drawing her greatbow. She would probably shoot if I stopped moving.

Her greatbow has enough power to obliterate half of a dragon’s body with a single shot. It’s better not to even think about taking a hit like that.

I moved left and right, gradually closing the distance.

Just as I was about to enter the range to launch my slashing magic...

"Tch!! Seriously!?"

The Gambits left Elena’s side and came toward me.

They attacked from an angle I hadn’t seen before, forcing me to halt my body for a moment to evade.

"There!!"

Not missing my opening, Elena released her arrow.

I wouldn’t make it in time to dodge. I rotated my body almost on reflex.

It was a defense that was half a gamble, thinking that if I just spun, one of my four swords would deflect the attack. But I have protected myself from many attacks with this method.

Rotation is especially strong against attacks that come straight at you.

"N-No way!? You blocked that!?"

I won the gamble.

I had successfully deflected the full-power shot that Elena had unleashed. At the same time, I had launched slashing magic from my swords all around me, so all four of the Gambits that had approached me were shot down.

There was nothing left to protect her.

"Kuh!"

As I charged forward again, Elena readied a second arrow.

But I was faster.

I closed in and placed my sword at her neck.

"Alright, my wi—"

Just as I was about to declare victory, I felt a strong sense of danger.

I hurriedly pulled back, and a laser bullet was fired into the spot where I had been a moment before.

"That was close! Elena! Eight Gambits is cheating!!"

Even though I should have shot down four of them, another four were floating there, protecting her.

"I never said I only had four Gambits."

Kuuuh...

When a rich girl is also a popular streamer, she casually throws in tons of high-end equipment that would normally seem impossible. It’s so irritating.

But I climbed to 3rd place in the Japanese PVP rankings with just my four swords.

I’m not about to lose to a long-range weapon now!

I’ll make her acknowledge once again that even a close-range weapon can beat a long-range one. That my four-sword style is the strongest!!

This will probably be my last PVP match anyway. So, I’ll show you something special.

"Hayate-Style Four-Sword Style Secret Technique, Haze."

"Huh. Why did your swords... disappear?"

It’s a technique where I operate the Manipulators at such an extreme speed that the swords become invisible. If I miss the control, I could take massive damage myself, or the swords could clash and break.

It’s not something you can do by just swinging your swords around. It’s my ultimate defensive technique, one that took me over a year to master after I conceived of it.

"Elena. I’ll take your arrow. Go ahead and shoot."

I have absolute confidence in the defense of Haze. I slowly approached her.

"Don’t mess with me! I’m going to shoot with twice the power as before!!"

A massive aura emanated from Elena and converged on her arrow.

Her claim of shooting with twice the power didn’t seem to be a bluff.

"This is my victory!!"

An arrow was released at super high speed from the fully drawn bow.

That arrow...

My swords didn’t just deflect it, they shattered it.

My swords were moving at an ultra-ultra-high speed, dicing the incoming arrow into tiny pieces. If any substance were to touch them, this is what would happen.

"N-No way."

"Once I activate this, I can block any attack. If you want to see if that’s true, you can try attacking with your Gambits. But in exchange, any Gambit that attacks will be shattered into pieces just like that arrow."

The ultimate defense can be directly applied to become the ultimate offense.

All I have to do is make contact with the enemy while Haze is active. If I attack like that with swords strong enough to chip away at the solid bedrock of a dungeon, there are no monsters or player equipment that can withstand it.

The only drawback is its limited attack range. Well, I can easily catch up to and destroy Gambits flying at that speed.

"So? Are you going to continue?"

"...I-I lose."

She must have been incredibly frustrated, as Elena declared her defeat with a tearful voice.