Chapter 122: Chapter 86: Emergency Item Craft, Paper-Thin Armor Part 2

I dodged the arrow and magic orb shot that were aimed at me and then activated Ricochet Step to gain a safe distance in between myself and the enemies. Using that occasion I also fired a single shot at one of them, getting myself ready to engage them at any moment now. Then ––––

「…… Did you see that?」

「Just now……」

「It wobbled!」

This was all the confirmation I could possibly want. Right now I knew that the copies were sharing HP with the main body. Also, wasn’t that single attack really powerful just now? Oh, that’s right, for me it may have been just a normal boss battle, but for anyone else it would be a constant hell filled with toxic vapors and “Curse” status. I take all of that into account, as well as the size of our party, the number of enemies, the number of times I could safely attack with the Dullahan blade…… Alright, I think I can see the road that would lead us to victory.

「Emul. Break. Let me explain my strategy to you really quick.」

「Ohh, ooohhh, is it something that has to do with the situation just about now?」

「Right, what would you like us to do?」

Behold, this is the difference between knowing the patterns of your enemies and being unaware of them. Emul will continue to fight together with me, with all of the jumping, evading, rolling around and attacking that comes with it. It’s an improvised strategy, so I really hope it will work.

「…… We’ll keep on hacking away at the copies, while you go and wait near the original body. Even though the area boss deals in magic, the finishing blow is going to rely wholly on you.」

We could do this, and we could fully utilize the power of the Dullahan sword I received from Break. To do that, I positioned her behind the lines, where she was to wait for the opportunity to deal the finishing blow. And since I levelled up so much, I was thinking that my current level was more than enough to deal with the boss of this area with no problems.

「If that’s how you want to play it, it had better work out for you.」

I had a clear purpose in my mind, and this battle here was just a passing point for me, one of many that I was sure to encounter on my way forward. And while I hated to rely on NPC’s strength to do things, right now it was the best possible course of action we could take.

「But…… What are you going to do if the weapon breaks?」

「No, Break, that’s not the case in here.」

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「Muu?」

「When you wield a weapon, you must always win with it still in one piece. Otherwise it would be rude to the weapon itself.」

Hearing my words, Break opens her eyes wide in surprise. By the way, those words weren’t mine, but they were from another character from a different game. Incidentally, it was from a character that was using his whole body to fight, but because of his nature of going all out even against the most basic of enemies, he would often end up breaking his equipment completely. Because of that, he was dead-set on fixing his disrespectful ways towards his equipment.

「That is why…… From now on it’s going to be a non-stop action!」

「Alright!」

Break then detached herself from my back and proceeded to approach the Humming Rich from the side, trying her best not to get herself spotted. Also, she had a bottle of Holy Water on the ready. At the same time Emul was shooting Magic Edge after Magic Edge, keeping the aggro on us so that the monsters wouldn’t notice what was up.

「She’s making good progress…… Right, we have to play our part equally as good!」

「I can’t do it! I can’t do it!」

I then activate another one of my new skills, Overheat. It’s a skill that can only be activated after a certain amount of time has passed since the beginning of the battle. It was a great skill, one that would double my status points for five minutes, but there was a catch: after those five minutes, all of my status points would be cut in half. So it was a skill that was best suited for fast skirmishes, ones that could be won fast enough.

I cast Nitro Gain. It was a skill that had one second cooldown, and by the expense of twenty percent of your maximum HP it would increase both your STR and AGI. But its true value was HP control.

Then, after my HP was lowered down, I activated Climax Boost for an even greater boost in stats.

「It’s a shame that Hungry Wolf is so tricky to use.」

It’s effects would surely come in handy right now, but I was stuck with it on one bothersome condition: redirection of aggro, which wasn’t really what I wanted to do right now. If possible, I must seek to improve that skill and get rid of that part as soon as possible.

「Emul, we are going to dispose of the copies. We’ll pick them out one by one…… So go wild and shoot without my orders.」

「Yes, sir!」

Beginning my offense, my first target was the skeleton with the flamethrower shield. I started to strafe around it to avoid the spewing flames, waiting for my chance to strike.

「Mumumu…… “Magic Edge”!」

「Fuh!」

As Emul fired six magic blades at the skeleton, I jumped high in the air. The magic blades weren’t as fast as bullets, but avoiding them was already quite hard to do.

「Two more steps to close the distance…… There!」

I activated the Six Step Leap. Two steps to close the distance. Remaining four to outmaneuver the shield that was spewing out flames without a moment of rest.

「Hot, hot, hot, so hot! It will be a lot cooler in here once we get rid of that thing!」

I then take the Dullahan Blade in both of my hands and take a stance. I swing the blade with all my might at the direction of the black skeleton, hoping that it would be enough to reach the target and dispose of it.

The sharp blade goes through the skeleton without any problems, cutting it cleanly in two halves together with the shield.

「Alright! And here comes the buff for making it a critical strike! …… Emul, we go for the one with the axe next!」

「Roger that!」

We have four possible targets remaining and seven sword swings to use. So now I turn towards the one with the axe, after the rest of them tuned towards me after the flames have dissipated. The axe wielder, which was the closest one to us, swung its weapon down, but it was so slow of an attack that it would be hard not to be able to dodge it.

On a side note, ever since my battle with Wezaemon I realized that my parry skill changed drastically. It was still a parry skill, but right now it was more of an offensive skill rather than defensive one.

「Even if I’m a little bit late with parry, as long as the action connects the system will still register it as successful, and after that……」

Parrying the opponent’s attack, it was pushed back, giving me a moment to counter it. Before the axe wielder was able to react properly, I activated Setsuna no Mikiri and swung my sword again. The axe was cut in half together with its wielder. Three more opponents to go, six more swings!