There Was a Time I Thought So
...I once thought so.
Somewhere on the western edge of the continent lay a land utterly destroyed.
Monsters swarmed in without end, blanketing the earth. The blood they spilled fouled the ground, and the poisoned soil in turn birthed even more monsters. It was a sight that could only be called a hell of perpetual reincarnation.
The users who stood against them met the tide with every weapon and ability they had. Any one of them could match a monster—or exceed it—but the numbers were the problem.
"This isn't working! Just pull out!"
"No way—the field boss difficulty alone—!"
"We're bleeding XP! Mages, group shield, now! We're getting out of here!"
The Iron Guild, one of the mid-tier guilds, was thrown into chaos.
Iron boasted an average level above 70—respectable credentials by any measure—and both its guild master and vice master held ranks hovering around 1000th place. It was a position won by the skin of their teeth, to be sure, but even so, placing inside the top 1000 meant standing among the very uppermost stratum of DeoEn's enormous player base. Not a force to be dismissed lightly.
And yet the field boss they had dared to challenge this time—Mother of Blood—was a far more powerful existence than any of them had imagined.
Ordinary field bosses spawn naturally, either at a vanishingly low probability or when a specific trigger fires. They rank below world bosses, to be sure, but succeeding in a raid against one requires a party skilled enough that multiple rankers are considered a necessity.
Iron had not just one but two rankers among its numbers, and the rest of the guild members were fairly strong as well...
We can't beat this.
There was simply no answer. Forget the field boss itself—they couldn't even punch through the horde of monsters guarding her.
The individual monsters were weak enough that even the guild's lower-ranked members could hunt them down without trouble. It was the sheer volume that was unbearable.
Users were immortals who revived no matter how many times they died—but they were still human, in the end. Their species' nature meant that stamina and strength drained away with every passing moment, and once those ran dry, being pushed back was inevitable.
Iron's guild master gritted his teeth and beat a rapid retreat.
How much materiel had they poured into this raid? And how much goodwill had they painstakingly built up with the Milrea Kingdom on the Empire's western border through World Quests? This field boss hunt, too, had been undertaken on a request from Milrea. If they failed to clear it, the royal family's trust in them would surely sour—but now was the moment to fall back.
Better that than everyone dying out here and dragging our name through the mud!
How far had they retreated?
Just as the Iron guild members finally allowed themselves a breath of relief—
A true-word reverberated through the earth, and every pair of feet froze in place.
It wasn't the words that bound them.
"Son of a—!"
Blood. Blood surging up from the ground had clamped itself around every guild member's ankles.
The two rankers—the guild master and vice master—managed to force their way free with considerable effort, but the ordinary members were the problem. Exhausted, drained, they had no idea what to do.
We're screwed.
"Guild Master! What do we do?!"
"This is why I TOLD you we should've recruited light-attribute users!!!"
"And what good does saying that NOW do?! They're not exactly easy to find!"
Users bearing the light attribute—anathema to darkness—were exceedingly rare. Those who possessed it amounted to the archangels of the Angel Guild, holders of special hidden pieces, and those who had undergone a specific class advancement. For anyone with a 'Normal' class, it was practically impossible.
The monsters were nearly upon them.
There was no time to free the guild members one by one, and worst of all, by now even he and his vice master were spent.
Is this... the end?
The guild master was screaming curses at this damned game, determined to take down at least one more monster and recoup some of the lost experience—
"It's only been a week, and I already get to watch something fun."
At the sound of that familiar voice, someone darted past behind them.
No—it was faster than running. It was practically flight. Before anyone could even turn around, a golden flash erupted.
The monsters to the fore were torn apart in a single sweep, and a golden wave so vast it blurred the horizon surged and roared behind Iron's line of retreat.
Someone said it.
"C-Choco! It's Choco!"
"Chukachip-nim?"
"Seriously?!"
It was true.
Golden hair, golden eyes radiating light, and a golden spear held in her hand—she gave her weapon an idle little flick, her expression one of mild boredom.
"I don't know which guild you are, but may I take care of all of them?"
"Y-yes! Yes, please!"
He accepted, of course.
Choco—Chotachokachukachip, if you used her full name. A main member of one of the current DCK semifinalist teams, and a high ranker sitting at a staggering 4th place in the ranked standings. A being beyond the heavens, one whom even a ranker like himself could never hope to stand against.
The field boss rewards would amount to crumbs at this point, but whatever—he was simply grateful to survive and see the quest completed.
The guild members bowed their heads again and again, but Chukachip herself seemed utterly indifferent to it all. She gazed past the still-numerous monsters, toward the field boss.
Perhaps enraged that her children had been slaughtered, the field boss was radiating an ever more furious pressure.
...She's a long way weaker than that avatar.
She raised her spear.
Golden mana roiled.
After listening to Lily's lecture, I had thrown myself into secluded training.
Not that it deserved the name, really. I had simply holed up in a room crammed full of mana stones, spending my days experimenting, over and over, with ways of handling mana. I'd stocked the place with plenty of food and shuttled back and forth between my mountains of gear, my many alts and my main, running experiment after experiment.
The ones with the finest feel for mana, unsurprisingly, were Candy Star—the alt through which I had first awakened mana—and my main, Chukachip. Candy Star was the best of the two, but I adamantly refused to admit it. However badly I wanted to win, that one was a step too far.
I had no desire whatsoever to perform that ridiculous transformation sideshow ever again. Fine, I was young back then—but this is genuinely not okay. Even thinking about it now, I cannot fathom how I ever spouted that nonsense with a straight face.
"Perfect!"
I had done it.
On the third day of my self-imposed confinement, I completed the homework Lily had assigned me. Mana flowed successfully into the condensation stone and gave off light, and then the mana transferred itself back into the stick.
Wasn't that flawless, by any reasonable standard?
"......"
...I once thought so.
Right up until I watched Lily fighting against the avatar that had become a World Boss.
Not enough.
I'm still nowhere near enough.
The authority of blood empowered the monsters. Beasts surged up from the earth itself, and the closer one drew to the boss, the stronger they became—creatures that would overwhelm even a level 80 user.
Shhk.
—...!
But so what?
"Just die already."
Right now, boss or not, I was confident I could beat anything in front of me.
Two branches of golden light fired from the twin spears. The flashes bored through seven monsters in an instant and skewered the field boss through the throat.
Simultaneously, twin explosions of light burst outward. The Mother of Blood attempted to regenerate—but the explosions did not stop at two. They cascaded, detonating again and again in a chain.
Twin Spear Art: Golden Burst—one of the 3rd Advancement skills. A technique that detonated the 'power' stored within the spear; originally, it produced exactly two explosions.
But Chukachip had moved the detonating mana back and forth, the same way one transferred mana into a condensation stone, multiplying the number of blasts many times over.
It was a staggering degree of applied ingenuity for someone who had been handling mana properly for barely ten days. If Lily had witnessed this scene, she would have praised it as genuine talent.
"Hah... hah... goddamn, the cost..."
But it was far from perfect.
It was a technique she'd barely managed to graft together; compared to the first and second explosions, the rest were laughably feeble, and the mana cost ran more than five times the base price. In truth it was less a practical skill than a flaunting one—a demonstration of this much is possible, efficiency be damned.
She was already far from the Iron Guild, with no one watching. But this was her first real combat since the secluded training, and the urge to prove herself had driven her to use it anyway.
Utterly spent, she collapsed flat on her back, gasping for breath.
...How the hell does Lily just sling something like that around?
The technique Lily had used, gathering her strength as she was hounded to her very limit by a copycat. It had existed on a different plane from everything Chukachip had ever laid eyes on.
A spear that seemed like it would erase everything.
It was only through a screen, and yet for the first time in her life, Chukachip felt as though she had glimpsed a realm she simply could not reach.
She looked down at the hand that gripped her spear.
Could I ever reach that level?
Then, without warning, a laugh burst out of her.
"Of course I can. I'm going to win."
She'd master this technique soon enough, and then she'd chase down that one, too. That was all there was to it.
She was confident.
And for that sake...
At last, the long-awaited third lecture.
Chukachip entered the lecture hall—which had filled up considerably without her noticing—wearing the body of Candy Star. Up front sat Leo, and a few seats further along sat Yena, clutching a glowing little stick and scribbling away at something with ferocious diligence. In the back was... who was it again.
Beri... something-ard, was it? Some strange warlock.
And in the middle sat roughly three people she didn't recognize. One of them was Redberry, the mage from Lily's team in the Mock Siege Battle. The other two seemed to know each other, sitting side by side and chatting among themselves.
So this time it's three newcomers, huh.
"Candy Star! It's been so long!"
Yena waved her hand in the air with great enthusiasm.
For reference, Chukachip—Candy Star's main account—was on the same Mock Siege team as Yena. They weren't close, exactly, but the scrim sessions had made them reasonably friendly.
Probably better not to act like I know her in this body.
"Ah. Yes, it has been a while."
When Chukachip-as-Candy Star walked straight to her usual seat, Yena stood there awkwardly for a moment before slinking back to her own.
That should keep her from talking to me again.
She sat down quietly and studied Leo.
The user who had displayed the most outstanding talent of them all. Most people regarded the rankers who fit on two hands as beings beyond the heavens—but the truth was, the real ones beyond the heavens were a different breed entirely.
Beings capable of waging war against a small kingdom single-handedly. The rare users granted noble titles by the 'Empire' itself. The strongest of all—Geomsin excepted.
...No. I'm the best.
I won't lose.
And it was for that reason she had chosen to endure this humiliation all over again.
Screeeech.
The door slid open, and Lily walked in.
"It's been a week, everyone."