A Man's VS Game 2
My lower-back muscles were screaming, and my spine let out a sickening crack — but that was all. Repeat this stunt enough times and I'd either herniate a disc or tear something outright, yet neither outcome particularly concerned me.
The mana I'd drawn up through my entire body was coating muscle and bone in a hard shell, and the holy power still sleeping quietly in my chest would refuse even the slightest injury, knitting anything back together on its own.
So I hoisted the entire cage — each side a full six meters — and, with the bipedal elephant still sealed inside, heaved it up once more and flung it at a slightly different angle. Whether the magic released on cue or not, the iron bars of the cage clattered down through empty air, and a second ogre tumbled free through the opened space.
It sailed well past the walls, a little farther to the right than where the first ogre was currently throwing its tantrum, and landed headfirst in the dirt with a heavy thud.
And every last bit of it was being captured cleanly on Han Se-ah's camera.
Gotta admit, it's convenient at times like this.
"Ohhh~ that ogre punch is vicious. Looks like a regular swinging haymaker, but with that weight class behind it? Terrifying."
I'd figured the berserk state only kicked in once its health dropped — but maybe extreme rage could trigger the pattern even before the HP bar got shaved?
The ogre's tendons bulged, glowing a furious red. The one that had face-planted into the ground mid-nap cracked its stiff neck this way and that, took a quick look around — and then ballooned into a ten-meter giant on the spot.
The goblin infantry and orc grenadiers who'd been preparing to receive human attackers jumped at the sudden drop-in, screaming something between a war cry and a shriek as they charged — but they never stood a chance. Even I, a natural-born 6-star, would get shoved clean backward without ever closing the distance if that thing connected. What hope did a goblin have shoving a shield in its face?
CRUNCH—!
CRACK—!
Like an enraged gorilla, both fists clenched tight and hammered down from above, and every time they landed, armor and shields alike turned meaningless as the goblins converted into magic stones. No stones even visible on the ground — the shockwaves must have driven them deep into the dirt.
The orc grenadiers, bigger and more muscular than the goblins, fared no better. They strode forward as if they meant to put up a fight and lobbed every bomb they had… but a named monster was never going to fall to a common monster's consumables. Same ending as the goblins: buried deep underground.
"Hmm? Why did it wake up already in berserk mode? Dunno, maybe a bug? We beat it down to a sliver of health before capturing it, so berserk was already active, and then it slept and recovered while the berserk buff was still ticking. Buffs and debuffs extending past their turn is a time-honored RPG bug, you know."
While one entire infantry unit preparing for battle got flattened by the natural disaster known as Flying Ogre, a little farther back, Flying Ogre Unit 2 was clumsily hauling itself upright.
Unlike Unit 1, which had immediately started thrashing everything in reach, this one didn't go berserk on the spot — so maybe it had been captured without fully draining its health. Whoever brought this ogre in had some real technique. Whether it simply wasn't angry yet, or whether it had dodged the bug Han Se-ah described, Flying Ogre Unit 2 just stood there blinking stupidly.
But it didn't take long for its eyes to roll back either.
"What— are you doing?! Fire—!!"
From deep inside the fortress, still beyond the camera's reach, a thoroughly unpleasant voice rang out — and then a blue-white fireball bloomed with a whoomph.
So it wasn't just the walls that had been upgraded; the armaments had too. Catapults, and now cannons? Still, it wasn't strong enough to one-shot a named-tier monster. It only managed to rip open the half-awake Unit 2's outer hide.
Waking up to find its forearm and upper arm on fire was apparently more than it could tolerate. Unit 2's temper flared on the spot. And pouring out from the heart of the fortress to restrain it came heavily armored troops gripping massive halberds.
Judging by how much bigger they were than the orc grenadiers, they'd probably been modified with dark magic.
For the 60th Floor, it made sense — each individual was far weaker than an ogre, but the way they used those long halberds and the chains at their belts to slowly surround and press Unit 2 was the very picture of elite soldiers.
Even I would have been pretty stressed if I'd charged in blind, what with the pushback from the artillery and the chains snagging my ankles.
But the one charging right now wasn't me — it was the ogre. While Unit 2 got methodically hunted by the elites, the fodder outside were getting steadily converted into magic stones by Unit 1's rampage. Still, these were the ones who'd built a fortress and sat waiting, and both the mid-boss and the boss monster had already joined the fray. There was no way this was all they had.
"Charlotte, prep Units 3 and 4."
"Marie, if you would."
Which meant I still needed to let them know I had eight more ogres in reserve.
I flicked a signal, and Marie the maid moved in place of Charlotte, who was already observing the war through a familiar that looked roughly like a blue bird. The hierarchy had clearly been drilled in well — even inside the Tower, the mages fell in line at a word from the woman still dressed in a full maid uniform.
The magic circles etched into the cages activated, the drugs were sprayed, and I grabbed each one and hurled it as far as I could. And so Flying Ogre Units 3, 4, 5, and 6 got to experience flight in a body that had absolutely no business flying.
I paused mid-throw while I was still stuffing ogres into the fortress. After flinging six of the big ones, I started worrying they'd fight each other. Ideally the ones I'd thrown far would aggro on the fortress and push deeper inside.
"Wh-wh-what the hell is this—!!!"
I wrapped holy power around my aching lower back and loosened up just as some ogre's kick brought a section of the wall crashing down, and a thoroughly enraged voice thundered across the grasslands.
Unlike me, peeking past the walls through Han Se-ah's camera, and the rest of our party reading the situation through Charlotte's familiar, the apprentice commander and the remaining group had only the sounds to go on, spinning wild theories in their heads. No matter how far they craned their necks, there was no seeing past a fifteen-meter wall.
The master of the Holy Sword had been flinging those enormous, terrifying giants over the wall like skipping stones, and after the shouts and screams and explosions, someone had finally lost their temper.
At the same moment, an ogre's kick blew a hole clean through the wall — so of course every curious eye locked onto the breach.
"You dare throw those savages into this masterpiece of mine?!"
Beyond the collapsed wall, the ogres were smashing tents and storehouses without the slightest regard for the shouting. And proving my earlier worry correct, off in the right-hand corner two ogres had started brawling like UFC infighters, hammering fists into each other with abandon.
True to the name "berserk," I guess kinship didn't buy you any mercy.
And given the word "masterpiece," the owner of that old voice was almost certainly the mid-boss of the 55th Floor — the dark mage. Not just a monster-maker, either; the type with a side interest in military hardware via alchemy — land mines, bomb vests, that sort of thing.
"You who know nothing of the beauty of efficiency — and you still dare call yourself a mage—?!"
He was screaming himself hoarse, but his face still never appeared. Apparently he was projecting his voice with magic from somewhere deep inside the distant fortress.
The funny part was that the mana wavelength laced through that bellow pulled aggro from every ogre except the two still beating the hell out of each other. The giants, veins bulging all over their bodies, came stampeding in a pack, and even from here I could see the halberd elites who'd been pressing Unit 2 start to panic.
Fair enough. Surrounding one, throwing chains, poking it from range with halberds — that alone was a whole ordeal. Four of them charging at once? No way they were holding that line.
"Y-you barbarous thug! You're every bit as crude as those ogres you threw!"
"If that's the best insult he can manage, my mouth is starting to itch. Would it be too much if I opened with 'your mom' right here? I genuinely want to give this old man a full taste of K-chat culture forged in the Rift."
So all that was left for me to do was throw the remaining four ogres at the old man who still refused to show his face even once.
"You son of a bitch! Stop! Stooop!"
Looking down at the walls and tents and storehouses through the camera from above, it was all laid out as meticulously as a tycoon sim — which made it that much easier to decide exactly where to throw the next ogre.