Chapter 335 : The Villain’s POV in the Academy
Chapter 335: The Villain’s POV in the Academy
Slash-!
At the same time as the voice, an unidentified force swept past the Sky Dragon’s side. Immediately afterward, a massive stab wound(刺傷) appeared near the Sky Dragon’s shoulder, and blood gushed out like a fountain.
[……!!]
He turned his gaze in shock.
There stood Aaron on two legs, even though nothing but the area around his head had clearly remained. If there was anything different from usual, it was that his still badly damaged body was in the middle of being restored.
Black bones and black muscles. Black skin.
With his entire body except for part of his face covered in black, his appearance was reminiscent of a Demon.
[How is this possible……! How……! I clearly confirmed that you had reached an irreparable state!]
“I told you, this is a Hunting Ground.”
[What?]
“More specifically, a Red Hunting Ground. The highest-grade Hunting Ground.”
[What the hell are you talking about!]
Creak, creak.
Aaron tilted and rolled his head as though he wasn’t accustomed to his new body. Before long, a blade began emerging from his fingertips once again, and he gripped the sword in one hand as he continued.
“It was a gamble. I happen to have a bit of a connection with the creator of this place. I chose this place as the battlefield while wondering how exactly he might be able to help me. Thanks to you recklessly firing magic everywhere, I managed to kill dangerous prey without lifting a finger. All that remained was to have some trustworthy people retrieve what had dropped…… Seriously. The farming results are pretty good.”
Good work gathering them, Silence.
Aaron lightly patted him, and Silence was transported to another space.
Then Aaron picked up all the Module Chips that remained where Silence had disappeared and inserted them into his sockets one by one.
One, then another.
Every time a new Module Chip was inserted, the energy emanating from Aaron increased exponentially.
“At this rate, it looks like my Replacement Rate will exceed 70%…… but with the strongest being in the setting as my opponent, I can’t afford to worry about side effects like that.”
After equipping all the modules, Aaron once again pointed the tip of his blade at the Sky Dragon.
“Now. This is the last round.”
Let’s bring this fight to an end.
My heart boiled.
It felt as though an entire furnace had been embedded inside my chest. Scalding heat spread outward from there, riding my bloodstream throughout my entire body.
My head was clear and my mind lucid.
The senses throughout my entire body had sharpened as well.
I felt as though I could see through everything that existed in this world from where I stood. Yet those excessively heightened senses were strangely robbing me of my sense of reality instead.
Was what I was seeing really reality?
Was I really breathing?
Was I truly alive?
It was only natural for such questions to arise.
Until just moments ago, half of me…… no, since the energy generator that served as my heart had been completely destroyed, it wouldn’t be wrong to say I had effectively been completely dead.
A documentary I once watched said that even after the heart stopped, the brain survived for quite some time and continued functioning.
My brain, which was linked with Cybernetics Devices, had probably only managed to hold on a little longer through similar activity.
‘That was close.’
Aaron unconsciously gave a bitter smile.
Looking back, it had truly been a reckless plan.
From the moment the Sky Dragon revealed his true body, I had instinctively realized that I couldn’t defeat him head-on.
I fought with everything I had, but all that did was make me even more certain that I could never win, not even through a fluke.
I realized that the only reason I had been able to rampage against him at all was simply because he didn’t want to damage his own garden known as New Valhalla City.
From there, there were only two scenarios I could pursue to achieve victory.
Either the Sky Dragon had to become far weaker.
Or I had to become far stronger.
No, in reality, I had to achieve both at the same time. The gap between him and me was so enormous that there was absolutely no way I could win otherwise.
From the moment he still wasn’t fighting seriously, I did everything I could to drain his strength.
With the help of everyone, including Dwindrog, I tried to reduce his nearly infinite mana even by a little.
In the process, I luckily managed to scratch his face while he had his guard down, but that alone wasn’t enough.
Even though I had started the fight after drastically reducing his stats with the Cardiac Injector created by Chairman Stingray, my chances of victory still didn’t noticeably increase.
Then, luckily, a new method came to mind. I realized that the place where this city had been built was actually an area that had already undergone Otherworld Transformation from the Sky Dragon’s mana more than 200 years ago.
Conversely, that meant I had found a definite method of reducing his nearly infinite power.
If I could somehow drag him outside his territory, his overwhelming power could be greatly weakened.
The method I chose for that was a Hunting Ground Ticket.
I immediately invested every point I possessed and purchased every kind of Hunting Ground Ticket from the Shop.
The type and price didn’t matter. What mattered was buying as many as possible, so I hammered the purchase button like crazy. I had accumulated a considerable number of points while preparing funds for the General Meeting of Shareholders, so buying more wasn’t a problem.
And surprisingly, during the purchasing process, spending such a huge number of points caused the Shop Level to rise by one stage, and I confirmed that Red Hunting Ground Tickets had even been added to the available items.
The moment I saw the Shop Level increase, I instinctively realized that the ‘Author’ was helping me.
He had also implicitly warned me about the danger of the ‘Sky Dragon’ before.
And because of that, I became even more convinced that my strategy wasn’t wrong.
While my attention was focused on the Shop, Dwindrog, the Special Class members, and the military bought me time.
Then, just before the entire city was annihilated by the enraged Sky Dragon’s magic, I managed at the very last moment to make the Sky Dragon tear one of the tickets.
And fortunately, the one he tore was the Red Ticket, the most difficult among the seven types of tickets. Even though it was expensive and I had fewer of them than the other tickets.
The moment he was transported to the Hunting Ground, I distributed Red Hunting Ground Tickets to the members I trusted and moved there together with them.
I was somewhat worried because every Hunting Ground had the same starting point, but fortunately, the Sky Dragon seemed confused by the sudden spatial teleportation.
Moreover, he was so focused on me that he completely failed to notice the other members moving to different areas. The fact that I exchanged words with him early on and deliberately stirred up his emotions probably played a part as well.
After that, the fight continued.
Originally, I intended to drag things out more slowly and buy time for my companions to hunt nearby [Mystics] and farm things like modules. The modules dropped in a Red Hunting Ground would surely be correspondingly powerful, and I calculated that using them would allow us to strengthen our forces even further.
However, what went beyond my expectations was that the Sky Dragon was still far too powerful even in his ‘weakened’ state.
He had clearly been hit by the Cardiac Injector, rampaged through the city, and then left the Otherworld Transformation territory, which should have significantly reduced his strength. Even so, he was so powerful that I didn’t dare confront him properly.
The various spells he unleashed devastated the surrounding area, and I myself couldn’t even endure for 30 minutes before reaching the verge of shaking hands with the Grim Reaper.
Had just a few more minutes, no, even a few dozen more seconds passed, my functions would probably have completely ceased.
On the other hand, what was fortunate was that the nearby monsters were caught up in the Sky Dragon’s magic and wiped out along with everything else. And the members who had moved here with me safely avoided that Catastrophe.
Just before I died, the members, including Silence, gathered a huge number of modules dropped by the [Mystics] that had died after being caught in the magic. Then Silence, who possessed stealth abilities, approached my corpse(?) and inserted the modules.
“……I really was lucky.”
If my Module Socket HUB had been destroyed along with my body, or if my head had been smashed first, this plan would have failed.
It would also have failed if the dropped modules had been poor. Even imagining what would have happened if nothing but mediocre Mystic Modules around Lv.3 had dropped still made my heart tremble.
There might not have been any nearby [Mystics] capable of dropping items in the first place. Or conversely, if the indigenous creatures here had been tough enough to withstand a Dragon’s magic, I wouldn’t have obtained any modules, and it would have failed again.
In the end, it seemed the saying that success was seventy percent luck and thirty percent skill really was true.
I had somehow devised a plan to bring him down, but it was essentially a gamble that depended on a fluke, and even throughout the process of making it succeed, I had no choice but to endlessly rely on luck.
Even so…….
I survived.
I survived and made the plan succeed.
“Seriously…… what an absurd game balance.”
I wanted to throw a few words at the Author who was probably watching me from somewhere.
You made this ridiculous balance and called it a game? Are you out of your mind? That was what I wanted to say.
……Well, I suppose there wouldn’t be much point in complaining to him since he had gotten dragged into this situation too. The Sky Dragon was probably originally someone who existed only in the ‘Official Canon.’ He definitely wasn’t an enemy that had been created to be defeated.
By the time I finished organizing my thoughts, the modules had been fully integrated. Normally, equipping modules this powerful one after another in such a short period of time was extremely dangerous…… but given the circumstances, there was no other choice.
Fortunately, thanks to the Lv.6 [Corpse Eater] Module working hard, I was able to equip the new modules without any trouble.
However……
[Warning. Replacement Rate has exceeded 70%.]
[In accordance with the New Valhalla City Adaptee Act, your human rights will be revoked, and in the future, upon a request to accompany the New Valhalla City Defense Bureau…….]
What a fucking load of bullshit.
Since I had filled myself with nothing but extremely powerful modules, my Replacement Rate had easily surpassed 70%.
In exchange for great power, I had become closer to a machine than a human, and even had my human rights taken away. I was a little worried about what would happen once I returned home.
‘Should I consider myself lucky that my personality hasn’t broken down yet?’
If I remained like this for long, some part of me as a human would undoubtedly begin to break down. If only to prevent that, I had no choice but to end this as quickly as possible.
“Phew…….”
I calmly took a deep breath and raised my sword.
True [Tech Blade]. Plasma Form.
I had obtained plenty of new and powerful active modules, as well as passive types such as enhanced recovery, enhanced durability, enhanced reflexes, and enhanced energy output, but when it came purely to offensive power, there still wasn’t anything that could match this.
More than anything, with the other modules now providing stable support, the power of [Tech Blade] seemed to have increased even further.
The temperature and noise emanating from the blade felt even more threatening than before.
“Now. Let’s finish this…….”
This damned fight.