Chapter 203: Reaching the Heavens Part 9 Part 2
Chapter 203: Reaching the Heavens Part 9 Part 2
First of all, that voice sounded as if it was coming from the inside of my head…… And it sounded as if someone was scratching a whole lot of mud-covered, rusty nails against a very worn-out blackboard. Needless to say, it was not the kind of voice that you would found to be pleasant. And judging by the reactions of other players and NPCs, they heard it as well. That’s the only logical conclusion I can think of.
「YOUR INHERITED WILL!!」
「Dagh!! If you want to speak like that, at the very least inhale some helium first! That way your voice will be slightly more bearable!」
Compared to this, Gravekeeper Wezaemon’s voice was nice and pleasant! Oh sh*t, I thought that only NPC would be affected by it voice, that whole ‘Fear’ status or whatnot, but at this rate it will also affect the players! Like, it won’t cause fear in us but it will be quite the distraction! But anyways, where is this damned octopus!? I do my best to fight this overwhelming sensation and try to look around.
「Sanraku-san…… Up above!」
It was not on the left, and it was not on the right. Down was out of the question, so the only logical conclusion was up.
「What the fuck is this!?」
It is not all that unusual for the first form of the last boss to have some sort of unnerving or unusual appearance. At first they may look weird and weak, but with time they will grow more monster-like and intimidating.
That is why I thought that the giant octopus was supposed to be Kutanid’s first form. But if that was the case, than what is that? Second form? Or maybe something even stranger and different……?
「Tsk, does that mean as long as we don’t do something about it, NPCs are going to be basically useless?」
「Sanraku, what do we do!?」
「For now we must leave the NPCs alone, make them sandbags, as cruel as that may sound.」
「I’ll support you as always!」
「Thanks a lot, Mold.」
Even Alva and Sickle seemed to be completely stunned and out of it. This guy was obviously interfearing with the NPCs in some convoluted way, it is unthinkable that they would be rendered useless for the rest of the battle like that.
「Ah, ah, aahhh……」
「Now, wait just a minute Emul, and don’t get to close to that thing over there…… Alright, does any one of you have some tool that will make it possible for us to fly over there and get rid of that thing?」
I cannot really put my finger on what exactly this thing is…… And I was sure that others had no idea as well. So for now we could only point at it and call it ‘that’ for all that it was worth it. This ‘that’ looked like a giant…… something with tentacles and eyes that were growing out of a huge magic circle that was drawn on the sky. Inside of the magic circle, there was a symbol of eight-armed star.
「I don’t really think that even a great bow would be able to send an arrow that high in the air.」
「And I can bet that magic won’t be able to reach it for that same reason, or maybe even because of those distance gimmicks.」
It could be exactly as Rei was saying, but I somehow doubted that. Because of that, I turned towards the only person who would have a realistic chance of reaching that thing with their attacks.
「The one with the longest attack range in this entire party…… that would be Akitsu Akane with his ‘Dragon Breath” technique. If this breath is really similar to that of Siegwurm’s, then it is surely bound to be able to reach that thing…… At least I hope so.」
「So it’s finally my time to shine!?」
「Akitsu Akane, STAY!」
See? Even Rust was starting to treat Akitsu Akane like a dog. But I can’t blame her for that, we can’t have the guy run around like a chicken with its head chopped off when he can be our trump card in this upcoming battle. We need to carefully examine our options before we do anything rash.
「We don’t know if even if you were to attack it that your attack would hit. We need to verify that first, see if we won’t just be wasting precious ammo.」
「But what about that incoming attack!?」
「SPREAD OUT!!」
Once every player here heard my voice, they all understood what needed to be done. We all leaped from where we were standing, dispersing in every possible direction.
The very next moment, a giant swarm of octopus tentacles rained down on us from the heavens, stabbing the ground in places we all were just a moment ago.
「Oi, oi…… Does this mean this thing has more bizarre tricks up its sleeves than we thought it would!?」
A monstrous octopus smacked right in the middle of a magic circle? And the eight-armed star patters? There was a tentacle emerging from each arm, but apparently each of eight tentacles were able to further divide itself into smaller tentacles, which were then fired at us like projectiles.
Now, let’s assume that each tentacle can divide itself to a maximum of ten…… That would give us eighty tentacles that were currently raining down on us.
「Whatever should we do……?」
「We shall proceed further with an unshakable resolve. Right now, no height is impossible for us to reach.」
「Shut up! So noisy!」
No, wait, it’s too early for us to go into offensive. Battles like that usually are not your plain and simple contests of power, and even if, it would be in favor of the boss monster. But during times like these, boss would usually leave some hints, hidden in dialogue options or attack patterns. Could the former piece of dialogue be a hint as well?
「Tsk, I was kinda expecting that, but this thing has some fine homing to it……!」
It’s not nearly as bad as some of the attacks of Loser’s Woods, a monster I have fought at Rabbitz in the past, and not nearly as fast as some of Gravekeeper Wezaemon’s special attacks. However, the damage and the area of effect of the projectile tentacles was not to be underestimated, especially since there was so many of them.
「What’s the condition for it to switch phases……? It’s too far away for us to reach it with its attacks, and I can’t seem to find any gimmick objects here.」
No, it’s not like that.
When it comes to the real time battle as well as turn based combat, it is not always the brute force that is the way of doing things. Sometimes you have to think outside of the box…… Sometimes the not-so-obvious things and attacks turn out to be the most effective ones.
「Eei!」
It was at this moment that Akitsu Akane twisted his torso and slashed with one of his short swords at one of the tentacles that were still stuck in the ground. The tentacle got slashed in half and after that a small trace of magical energy went out of it as it withered away, retracting back into the magic circle. That action did not slipped my attention. …… With that, I have conjured us a hypothesis that was worth checking out. It’s better than nothing.
「Tentacles! Attack the tentacles once they get stuck in the ground!」
That is all that we can do right about now! Now, to deal with that annoying magic circle!