Chapter 255
Chapter 255:
Shaaah-
The waterway was damp with moisture, and pitch-black without even a trace of light.
“Tuesday Fire, could you light up the ceiling a little more?”
Popong-!
“That’s it, good girl. I’ll boil you some eggs later.”
Blue flames burst from Tuesday Fire’s tail as she clung tightly to my shoulder. The ceiling immediately lit up.
Even the tiny cracks between the old bricks that had been hidden in the darkness were laid bare.
‘……What a familiar ceiling.’
I stared at the patterns on the ceiling as I raced through the waterway without hesitation.
This place was a labyrinth tangled into a complicated mess.
There was only one exit, but countless branches appeared with every step, creating a vicious structure where anyone who didn’t know the route would inevitably wander forever.
But.
‘Turn right, then go straight at the next fork.’
It was a pattern I had memorized inside and out after playing the game hundreds of times.
My feet followed the minimap drawn inside my head.
The hidden traps and tricks designed to make people lose their way were no different from a third-rate movie I had already been spoiled on.
To move faster, I grasped at the air and pulled out ‘Shark’s’ card.
The moment I brought the hand holding the card to my face, a black mask covered me, and darkness dyed my entire body.
‘Well, there’s no one around to see me right now.’
The witch should be dealing with Luga, the Imperial Princess’s knight, while Assistant Lahan should have cut off every line of communication throughout the battlefield. Restoring it would take quite some time.
In other words, there was no need to bother pretending to be incompetent.
After running while watching the ceiling for several minutes.
‘……Found it.’
At the end of the labyrinth, a massive sphere came into view.
Everything was exactly the same as in the game.
A gigantic slime gleaming silver as though made of mercury.
This was none other than the entrance leading into the barrier created by the Cleaner.
I lightly touched it with a finger.
‘Hmm…… this feels kind of weird.’
An unpleasantly squishy sensation met my fingertip.
‘Thinking about this thing sticking to my entire body is a little…….’
Whatever.
It probably wouldn’t kill me.
‘It’s almost time, so let’s just go in.’
I threw myself into the slime.
Fortunately, if it could be called fortunate, the strange sensation I had felt on my finger didn’t spread across my entire body. I was immediately transported somewhere else.
A long waterway appeared before me.
This place wasn’t a labyrinth, but simply one path stretching straight ahead.
I ran through the waterway while suppressing my footsteps as much as possible.
And after some time had passed.
“……I’ll clean you up.”
I heard the voices of the Cleaner and the Imperial Princess not far away.
There wasn’t much time left before the battle began.
The Cleaner was one of the members of Lahan’s group, which consisted of powerful individuals.
I had already prepared myself thoroughly to face him.
If I had judged that I had no chance of holding out against him in the first place, I wouldn’t have come here alone.
‘I learned Wolf Swordsmanship from Bederbel, I’ve been training with the Manager every day, and I even contracted with a new spiritual beast this time.’
I objectively judged that I had grown considerably.
Shrring-!
I opened my subspace, pulled out the Titanium Sword, and ran forward.
The Cleaner was lowering his stance, preparing to leap.
“Die.”
It was a situation on the verge of exploding.
If the Imperial Princess died, this world would charge straight toward destruction.
To stop that worst possible bad ending, I stepped in front of the Imperial Princess and swung my sword.
Claaaaang-!
The violent collision of blades rang through the waterway as countless sparks flew.
The moment our weapons collided, I could clearly feel the Cleaner’s strength.
‘So there’s a reason he’s considered one of the strongest people at this point in time.’
I nearly lost my grip on the sword. The force behind the collision was tremendous.
When I barely managed to withstand the Cleaner’s attack, he was the first to withdraw his blade.
“……Who the hell are you?”
The Cleaner frowned at my sudden appearance.
He was still transformed into the appearance of the first-year named ‘Dion.’
He took several steps backward and stared at me.
“That’s strange. I didn’t sense a rat sneaking in at all……. Ah!”
The Cleaner opened his mouth as though something had come to mind.
“Right, I remember now. You’re the bastard who sent that guy Verdi to his grave!”
Without even answering, I silently readjusted my grip on the sword.
The Cleaner burst into laughter at the sight of me.
“You’re going to try doing something to me like you did to that bastard Verdi? To me?”
The corners of his lips stretched upward as though they might split while he mocked me.
Right, how entertaining must this be?
There was no way using an ability that was practically a cheat wouldn’t be fun.
There was a reason the Cleaner was so confident.
He had probably never lost a one-on-one fight in his life.
‘He wasn’t even a major boss, but his攻略 difficulty was worse than the main boss.’
The Cleaner possessed two types of magic, wind-type and darkness-type.
With wind-type magic, he could cross distances in an instant and explosively increase his physical speed.
Well, that was similar to my ‘Shark’s Darkness.’ It was certainly a good ability, but it wasn’t outright broken.
Because the Cleaner had another true ability hidden away.
I carefully watched his dagger.
The blade wrapped in bluish magical energy.
‘Thinking back to the hundreds of times I challenged him in the game still gives me chills.’
……The instant that blade collided with another weapon, it stole the magical energy of the opponent holding that weapon.
In other words, ‘Mana Steal’.
‘It was one of the most broken skills in the game. I suffered a lot because of it too.’
There was a reason Lunatic difficulty was considered impregnable by players.
There had been countless players who challenged the Lunatic Cleaner hundreds of times just to defeat him.
Right, he had been completely absurd.
The longer the battle dragged on, the more overwhelmingly favorable the situation became for the Cleaner.
The more blades clashed, the more magical energy the Cleaner replenished, while the player’s magical energy eventually hit rock bottom, leaving them completely unable to use magic.
‘For a while, everyone in the game community was going crazy asking how the hell you were supposed to beat this.’
The Cleaner’s攻略 method sounded simple enough when explained.
Force him to expend all his magical energy until he became exhausted, then make him retreat.
The problem was that actually doing that was nowhere near as easy as saying it.
The Cleaner was so fast that evading his attacks was impossible.
In the end, the only way to avoid being hit was to block his attacks by clashing against them with a weapon or shield.
But if you did that to block him, he would simply steal your magical energy.
‘So you’re screwed either way.’
If you didn’t block, you got hit and died.
If you did block, all your mana got stolen, and you ended up hacked apart by the Cleaner anyway.
The worst possible difficulty.
……But.
‘That doesn’t work on me, does it?’
I possessed the least magical energy in the entire Academy.
Just how much mana could he possibly steal from me?
“I’ll avenge Verdi……!”
The Cleaner leaped.
I took a deep breath and raised my sword.
‘……Come.’
It started now.
30 seconds.
I only needed to endure for 30 seconds.
Clang-! Claaaang-! Clang!
I clashed swords with the Cleaner again and again.
‘……This is more manageable than I expected.’
Every time metal collided against metal, I adapted.
The more exchanges we had, the more certain I became that I could hold out against him.
I still hadn’t reached the level where I could look for a counterattack, but this alone was enough.
‘As long as I keep blocking, I’ll definitely win.’
I looked at his face.
In the game, the Cleaner never once lowered the corners of his mouth until the battle ended.
He had always been completely relaxed.
But…….
There wasn’t even a trace of a smile on his face now.
“I thought something was strange, but now I finally get why I didn’t notice you entering my barrier.”
The Cleaner backstepped several paces.
He alternated his gaze between the dagger in his hand and me with a bizarre expression.
“……You don’t have any.”
As though he were looking at something that shouldn’t exist in this world.
“Where is your magical energy……?”
The Cleaner’s pupils gradually began to tremble.
“Are you…… a ghost?”
It wasn’t merely a figurative expression.
His face showed that he was asking seriously.
Right.
He had no choice but to see me as something like a ghost.
Magical energy was the source of power.
Whether knight or mage, magical energy was a fundamental qualification and talent.
Moreover, anyone capable of blocking the Cleaner’s dagger should naturally possess a certain level of magical energy.
……Yet someone like that had almost none?
Of course he would be confused.
“How can an empty shell without even a handful of magical energy block my sword…….”
Wariness entered his voice.
An alien existence that defied his common sense.
The strangeness he felt soon transformed into unbearable discomfort and curiosity.
“I want to find out exactly what trick you’re pulling by ripping that face of yours open myself……!”
The Cleaner bit his lip with a crunch! and both of his eyes turned pitch-black.
‘……It’s starting.’
His composure was gone.
As though preparing to leap, he lowered his head and took his stance.
Wind whipped around his body, making his uniform coat flutter violently.
Perfect combat mode.
It was an internal enhancement spell that consumed a considerable amount of mana and stamina to temporarily raise his physical speed and kinetic vision by another level.
Whoosh-!
Before I knew it, nothing remained where he had stood except dust swirling in the wind.
‘……Damn it!’
Realizing it a moment too late, I immediately swung my sword through the air.
Clang-!
I barely blocked the blade.
I had nearly been struck by the narrowest margin.
Worse, I was starting to be badly overpowered in strength.
It had reached the point where even exchanging blows was becoming impossible.
……And that happened in the blink of an eye.
Shaaak-!
Another rapid strike came in.
Blood sprayed into the air. My left shoulder had been wounded.
‘What kind of strength does this guy have……!’
My sword was completely pushed aside.
Even blocking was becoming difficult now.
“Hehehe……!”
The Cleaner stepped back and began smiling as he licked the blood from his dagger.
He wasn’t leisurely showing off.
Because of the overload accumulating within his body, he had to rest for 3 seconds to recover.
There were three total cycles, each lasting 10 seconds.
For 7 seconds, he unleashed a relentless assault, then rested for 3 seconds.
With each repeated cycle, he struggled harder and pushed his speed and strength even higher.
After 3 seconds, he would attack at a speed far greater than before.
‘……I might die.’
No, I would definitely die.
Even at his current speed, I had already been wounded in the shoulder. There was no way I could do anything against the Cleaner once he accelerated even further.
I would undoubtedly be killed in a single strike.
I took a deep breath and once again recalled the method for defeating the Cleaner.
If I forced him to consume all his mana and pushed him into a state of stress exhaustion, he would lose his reason and his attack accuracy would plummet dramatically.
Right, there was only one method available to me.
Drain the Cleaner’s mana all the way to the bottom.
……It was difficult, but it was something I could do.
20 seconds remained.
According to my original plan, I had intended to endure for just 5 more seconds before using ‘Dookbi’s Ability.’
But now, enduring even 1 more second would be difficult.
‘It’s a little early, but I’ll have to use it here.’
My finishing move.
The trump card that could guarantee victory against the Cleaner.
‘Dookbi.’
I grasped at the air.
Sand and an obsidian-like aura of darkness gathered in my hand before transforming into a card.
A card bearing the portrait of a round frog.
The ability contained within that card entered my mind.