Chapter 190: Collapsing Apex Part 1
Chapter 190: Collapsing Apex Part 1
Here’s a piece of historical trivia: rapiers were mostly used by European nobility for the purposes of dueling. Rapiers rarely were used on the actual battlefields, and even when used, they turned out to be downright useless.
However, this place right here is the game world. This world tries to resemble the real world as much as possible, while also having things that set apart and distinguish the two from one another. So even if real world rapiers were pretty much useless, this rapier here surely must be more than enough to send the players into respawn with ease.
Since rapiers are mostly long and thin, it is a given that their main way of attacking is through piercing strikes and thrusts. That makes it even more troublesome, since with thrusts and piercing attacks one must take them on from the front, where they are only a single, small point.
When attacks are forming a ‘line’ such as strikes or slashes, that makes them easier to block since you have way more space of the weapon that you can block with relative ease. Of course, there is the matter of stats and attributes in games, but in general a vertical attack can be blocked by a horizontal move and a horizontal attack can be blocked by a vertical move.
However, piercing attacks and thrusts have way smaller ‘area’ of attack, which makes them increasingly more difficult to block. It’s not impossible, but really hard to pull off.
「But surely you are more than well aware of that fact, huh!? Snail Knight-kun!?」
「………!!!」
I feel like during the past month I have been fighting with nothing more but enemies that are familiar with the rules of TAS. Hell, recently I even happened to come across a human enemy that was more like a TAS monster. I know it may sound weird or disrespectful, but I would not be surprised if she turned out to have a battery pack hidden on her back.
But thanks to that I have managed to understand the way in which enemies like that tend to work. Without that, it would be increasingly more difficult to pull this off.
That is why right now I take two steps to the side and swing my sword in the direction that I have come from, striking the rapier thrust that was coming my way. Having parried that, I throw a thrusting attack of my own, aiming towards the elbow of the Snail Knight, which was now completely exposed due to it still being locked in the attack animation.
It’s a really good thing to have a game that think about small details like that, but in the end nothing can beat action games where you can recreate any kind of your favorite actions till the very last detail.
I activate the skill ‘Utsuromi Kagami’, and then I quickly switch my weapons to a large Zweihander, and while dodging the slash from the cutlass I strike the Snail Knight right around the neck, or at least that area where it was difficult to differentiate if it was still the main body or if it was already the head.
Not only the enemies can have the privilege of using piercing attacks. The players can utilize attacks and tactics like that as well. And you can be sure that if I can use something, I am going to utilize it to its full potential. And the enemies shall suffer because of that.
「Shoot.」
「Roger that.」
Status abnormality: there was still something off in Rut’s voice even though she managed to recover from her ‘no-sanity’ mode, and then she rushed forward, jumped in the air and quickly retreated upon landing back on the ground. In the next moment, the arrow that she fired slammed into the body of the Snail Knight with a loud and dull noise.
「…… I’m afraid that those guys here are not like small fries from the early stages of the game. There is no use in hoping to finish them with a single blow.」
「I have tried it a few times before, and the shots fired at the very last minute were counted as successful. You just have to be extremely careful about the distance and you should be okay……」
「Not that I have a degree in Physics or anything, but that attack just now seemed to be effective!?」
Looking closely, the Rust’s arrow surely must have done something. However, on my end it looked like the only thing the arrow managed to do was to cause the Snail Knight to sway on his feet due to the force of impact only. Damage-wise I am afraid that it did not managed to do all that much.
「That was so-so if I do say so myself.」
「Rust, see how flames work with your next attack!」
「I get it, I get it.」
Rust backs away to the safe position, while at the same time Mold started chanting his buffs, keeping the eye out on the entire battlefield. Meanwhile, I stood up right in front of the Snail Knight, my Scorpion Gauntlets ready to be used.
「Hey, how about a little game, Knighty-kun? Let’s play some Rock-Paper-Scissors. But in order to make it a little bit easier for you, I shall put some handicap onto myself. I am only allowed to play Rock. How about that?」
However, do not think not even for a second that me being forced to use ‘Rock’ only is going to be disadvantageous to me. Rather, this will allow me to use my gauntlets in the most efficient way to parry the incoming attacks.
True, I will end up having less reach than before. But, using my gauntlets, or rather my bare fists, I have way more freedom in terms of maneuverability. This gives me some room to be creative with parrying both the rapier and the cutlass.
And while the Snail Knight is being preoccupied with me, ever so often an arrow would fly in his general direction, infused with some randomly selected power or element, landing in Knight’s side every time without fail.
Just like that, Rust managed to fire about ten arrows or so. Each was infused by Mold with different attributes, in order for us to determine what would be the most efficient one in this particular battle.
「……………, ……………」
「I won’t tell, you surely look tough, Knighty-kun. But just to let you know, if you want to hope to bring me down, you’d need to repeatedly spam an Insta-Death Skills in my general direction for about thirty seconds, each with zero seconds recast time. In the least.」
But even if this boss had the same stats as Wezaemon had, I highly doubt that it would be able to do the same level of shenanigans Wezaemon was able to pull off. I guess that this particular shtick was his and his alone.
But if there is one thing in particular that we must watch out for, it is the battle style of this boss.
(I have no idea if it is intentional or not, but…… Doesn’t that boss possess a whole lot of unnecessary movements or something like that?)