The Source of Contamination 2
A vast open plaza large enough to array countless soldiers. A magnificent elevated platform rising high as if built for grand speeches. And standing alone upon that platform — a gaunt, skeletal figure. Clad in a robe and gripping a long staff, the skeletal black mage, the boss of the 40th floor: the Lich had appeared.
In other words, a Lich standing all by himself.
— At the scent of evil black magic —
"There aren't a bunch of zombies hiding underground, are there?"
An ornate robe with bare, pure-white bone showing beneath it. The long staff in his hand was designed so that a human hand-bone clutched a small beast's skull. And I knew exactly what a skeletal black mage — a Lich — that looked like that was.
…That thing. It was a scenario boss monster I'd seen in Heroes Chronicle.
If I remembered right, it was the boss that showed up in the storyline for the Paladin and the Saintess — holy characters so obscenely underdressed you'd inevitably mistake them for a Sex Knight and a Sex Saintess. Honestly, a skeleton doesn't have much in the way of distinguishing features, but that staff made it stick in my memory.
The black mage girl who dropped after the holy characters carried a staff identical to that one, jammed between her cleavage, which sparked a whole conspiracy theory that the skeletal mage had gotten a TS moe-ification skin. In reality it wasn't a genderbent cute skeleton at all — just the developers recycling a weapon design.
The high-leg-clad Saintess and the plate-armored Paladin riddled with so many holes that her thighs, flanks, and underboob were on full display weren't the important part. The point was that, classification-wise, that skeleton was a summoner.
"Wh-what the hell?!"
From the empty eye sockets of the skeleton high atop the platform, blue flames flared to life, and a deafening voice thundered across the plaza. Lacking vocal cords, he was apparently generating sound through mana — the shout poured out not from his mouth but from the staff.
At the sight of him screaming like he was having a fit, the party assumed combat had started, tightening their grips on their weapons and quietly falling into formation. The skeletal mage, however, paid them no attention at all. He was staring straight at me.
That blue flame effect did jog my memory — was this Lich somehow connected to Roland in Heroes Chronicle? Roland was tied up with the holy characters, so he might have been tangled up with this skeletal mage too. While I was thinking that, the staff whipped around and pointed at me like an accusing finger.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Wondering what kind of story was about to spill out — half hoping for game strategy tips, or the reason I'd been dropped into this world, or some behind-the-scenes dirt on the Goddess and the Demon King — I quietly waited without smashing the noisy skeleton to pieces.
Seeing me hold back, the rest of the party, who had been about to charge in, maintained their combat stance, surrounded him, and stopped. An eerie tension settled over the underground cavern along with the silence. Thanks to the magical tools illuminating the platform, every bare white bone of the thing was on full display as he slammed his staff against the stage with a series of heavy thuds.
For an Upper-grade black mage boss monster of the 40th floor, he looked less like a fearsome foe and more like a tantrum-throwing brat looking for a way to vent.
The shouts he hurled into the air through rippling waves of mana carried a surprisingly long and detailed sob story. So detailed, in fact, that even Manash — who had been hissing and waiting for an opening to strike — lowered the tip of his trident.
Sorting through that venom-soaked rant piece by piece, the story went something like this.
Among the creatures the Demon King had created, this highly intelligent skeletal black mage had wanted to rise higher by earning merit. More precisely, he had wanted to catch the eye of the great Demon King who had made him.
But would a Demon King who crossed dimensions to invade worlds ever spare a thought for a mere Upper-grade black mage? No matter how desperately the skeletal mage yearned and worshipped, the Demon King probably didn't even know he existed.
Corrupting the Tower itself, siphoning Holy Power and converting it into mana, dressing undead up as humans to deceive Holy Power and insult the Goddess — every last one of those schemes had been an effort to attract the Demon King's attention. True to a black mage, his genius apparently lay more in research than combat.
"Ah. You're talking about that giant tree on the 35th floor."
Convert Holy Power into life force and mana, then pack it inside undead fake humans. In short, stuff ash-white vines into Doppelgangers to manufacture a pseudo-human army — a true immortal legion meant to insult the Goddess of Life.
But even that stroke of genius had crumbled helplessly before a single ironclad premise.
A full-power strike from a natural-born 6★ character buffed by the Temple. Under the game system it registered as a physical attack, so it casually ignored the magic-nullification barrier and smashed the tree that was the alpha and omega of the entire plan.
"You spun that whole long-winded story to buy time, didn't you… Go on. Show me your hidden ace."
As I listened to his exhaustive explanation, the thing's jawbone clacked. Since he was speaking through the staff, that was probably his idea of a triumphant grin. Looking for all the world like he'd prepared something, he finished his long speech and raised his staff high.
"Huh. What? So he wasn't just a chatterbox — he was actually prepping something? Being a VR game and all, the boss monster is an exposition dump and has a gimmick."
"Lately every time Roland does anything it's free ride this, freeload that, milking content the other — all kinds of Eatburgers keep showing up. No more free passes. If you're gonna spam it, pay up."
Han Se-ah's muttered complaint shattered the mood just as the Lich slammed his staff down hard on the platform with a heavy thud.
A black mage specialized in research and summoning rather than combat.
The trump-card magic that thing had spent over ten minutes grandly preparing. It could have been a massive undead approaching the peak of Upper-grade, or a devastating attack spell powerful enough to make me raise my shield. Creating new monsters through research meant his repertoire of variations would be that much wider.
But the magic he activated with a smug grin was neither a summoning spell nor an attack spell.
What this son of a bitch had unfurled was a holy barrier.
To be precise, the truly unforgivable son of a bitch who deserved that title was some employee at BB Games.
You punch through a magic-nullification barrier (probably by demolishing the tree with troll bombs), fight past an evolved Doppelganger legion (complete with gimmicks designed to screw over mages, like mana interference), and finally reach the boss — only for that boss monster to have a gimmick that nullifies both holy damage and physical damage?
Trash mobs immune to magic, boss immune to its weaknesses of Holy Power and physical attacks. In a way, wasn't that the most sadistically evil combination you could cook up in an RPG?
"This — shit — and the regen speed is fast too."
No matter how absurdly powerful a 6★ tank body I possessed, I was still bound by the game system. All I had were brute-force raw stats, so there was no way to break the gimmick. And the fact that this insane skeleton's ultimate move was essentially "come back after you die of old age" made it even worse.
What kind of boss monster says "see you in a few hundred years," promises a rematch, and pulls the ultimate "I'll be back later" routine? Even smashing its skull in only for it to regenerate was already infuriating enough.
The one silver lining was that, whether from the confidence of a brilliant black mage or sheer arrogance, he had raised the holy-and-physical-damage-nullification barrier and stayed put in the plaza. No intention of running — just standing there on that platform while Han Se-ah threw everything she had at him.
"Argh, seriously!"
The problem was that even rotten — or rather, fully rotted down to bare bone — he was still an Upper-grade mage. And not just any Upper-grade mage: a genius who could create Doppelgangers and ash-white vine organs, and convert Holy Power into mana.
Not a fake genius mage with nothing but an inventory and a minimap, but a genuine genius mage — so the magic attacks that could actually deal damage weren't even getting properly cast before he dismantled every one of them.
As far as attack magic went, all she had was beginner Magic Missile and intermediate Gust of Wind. One hit about as hard as an adult man's punch, and the other was closer to disrupting flight or blowing away toxic gas than actual offense.
Like those would work on a mage-type boss monster. Not a chance.
Manash's trident, Grace's alchemical arrows, Katie's swordsmanship — none of it was any use in this bizarre situation. The funny part was that this bastard couldn't attack either while using the invincibility barrier, so he just stood there dismantling Han Se-ah's magic without counterattacking.
"Hanna? Go back to the 35th floor and bring reinforcements. I'll hold this place… and keep this thing pinned down."
"…Yeah. Got it."
…Somehow the invincibility gimmick that was supposed to last only a set amount of time seemed to be running infinitely, like a bug caused by the absence of trash mobs. And seeing how confident he was, if that invincibility held, there was probably a follow-up combo waiting.
Most likely that toxic miasma filling this underground plaza — the same miasma that couldn't pierce Irene's immunity — stacking up like a damage-over-time effect.