I've Seen That Before
(Screenshot of the scoreboard showing 1:2)
Told you CO was winning this.
The moment Baekseol lost the melee, it was over — no matter how hard she thrashes now, the script says CO wins lololol.
Sure, they took round 2 with a favorable battlefield and burned their Penalty to do it, but then they got absolutely dogwalked in round 3 lololololol.
Even if they luck into a win in the boss round, they're just gonna get stomped again in the relay match lol.
(Image of a girl holding a grimoire of hexcraft)
The boss annihilation monster is the Hungry Mimic — the one Lily killed.
It spawned measured at the lower-grade World Boss tier, right in line with what the gallery predicted. Doesn't that mean this thing still remembers the copy it made of Lily?
"Hey... isn't that it?"
At the entrance of the bleak, desolate village, Choco tightened her grip on her twin spears and glanced to her side. Rater and Haneul — the two who knew what stood before them better than anyone. Rater instinctively spread his cubes across the entire team and gave a heavy nod.
"I think so. That's the thing that fought Lily."
"Damn it."
The Hungry Mimic. The boss monster of the hidden dungeon Lily had purged at Leo's request — the 'lower-grade World Boss' that had fought by copying Lily herself.
Rankers had grown stronger since then, so a lower-grade World Boss shouldn't pose much of a problem anymore. The problem was Lily. This was the boss that had pushed the pre-advancement Lily to the brink of death before she finally, barely, put it down. Footage of that fight had become a sensation, spreading across every community and broadcast network in the game.
"...It looks the same as it did back then."
The girl stood with a blank, motionless expression, turning the pages of her grimoire one by one. For now, she was still not Lily.
"If we rush her right now, couldn't we kill her before she turns into Lily?"
"That's a bit... no, for all we know she might not turn into Lily at all. There's no Lily here to copy."
"Mimics copy the abilities and bodies of living beings they've encountered. She met Lily, so it's all but certain."
"...Hmm."
"And more than anything — you feel it coming, don't you?"
'If this is Deoen.'
"......"
Choco deliberated. In the boss annihilation round, lives were unlimited. Die, and you respawned three minutes later; kill the boss faster than the opposing team, and you won. Even now, while they wasted time debating, the enemy was almost certainly raining down magic.
It was a race against the clock. They had to move fast.
"Haneul. First things first."
"Yeah."
"Fire a shot. Let's see how it reacts."
"Okay."
Haneul reached out, and blue mana arrows materialized around him. A battle mage who loosed arrows without ever drawing a bow. The instant the arrows drew taut, ready to fly, the girl who had been turning her book looked up at them.
"What are you looking at?"
Papapak!
Five arrows flew. And pierced clean through.
"Huh?"
"Huh?"
"...?"
The girl, drenched in blood, toppled where she stood. Her fallen body twitched and shuddered, as if currents of electricity were running through it.
"Wait, that's it? If we wrap things up right now—"
"Hold on. Something's wrong."
It made no sense. They'd been told it was a lower-grade World Boss — there was no way it would die to a handful of mana arrows—
"BLOCK IT!"
Mana arrows came screaming back. Not blue, but red — arrows erupting with a gloomy, sinister aura. As dozens of them poured down onto the team, Rater flung his cubes wide to intercept them.
Crrrack!
"...No way. Are they actually breaking?"
"They're stronger than mine?"
Haneul let out a hollow laugh. The arrows hurtling toward them were several times more powerful than the ones he'd fired, gnawing at the cube barrier as if they possessed a will of their own. In that moment, the girl rose to her feet in a single motion, crimson energy bleeding off her body. Her clothes were soaked through with blood, but her wounds had healed completely — and she resumed turning the pages of her grimoire.
Bzzt-crackle...!
Dozens of mana arrows materialized behind her.
"...If we use the wrong skills, she'll copy every last one of them."
"Doesn't mean we can stop using them. I'll open the way."
Asa rang his shield with a resounding tang! and dropped into a charging stance. Choco readied herself to hurl her spears, while Gunner and Haneul prepared their long-range attacks. And just as the last of Rater's barrier finally gave way—
"GO!"
"...!"
FWAAAAAAM!!!
Asa's charge slammed into the girl, sending her soaring high into the air. For one instant, the stream of mana arrows was severed, and every arrow vanished. The girl's eyes flew wide in shock — and in that gap, Gunner's shots and Haneul's arrows skewered her once more. Choco was already airborne, spears hurtling downward.
"Die."
'Twin Spear Arts — Golden Burst.'
A golden flash pierced through the girl's heart. She began regenerating the instant the blow landed — but what she'd been struck by was Golden Burst. A technique that detonated a burst of light inside whatever it struck. The girl exploded even as she regenerated.
She exploded. And kept exploding. And kept exploding.
It wouldn't end.
"What the hell! Why won't it stop?!"
"Keep firing! The regenerating area is shrinking!"
The zone of regeneration was, in fact, shrinking. It looked like she was healing endlessly, but that meant the healing itself was slowing down.
And yet — why? Why couldn't she shake the feeling that this thing wasn't going to die?
CLANG! TAAANG— TEENGG~!
"...You've got to be kidding me."
"A shield?"
A jet-black shield materialized around the girl, overlaid with a crimson cube barrier. Having deflected Gunner's and Haneul's fire, the girl stretched out her hand and conjured something new.
Twin spears, dyed blood-red. The spears detonated with a thunderous roar, bursting into scarlet light.
'Golden Burst?!'
"Rater!"
"On it!"
Rater shifted his cubes in a flash, funneling every last one to the team's ranged damage dealers. KWAGAGAANG! Gunner and Haneol survived by the skin of their teeth — but Asa, who hadn't received a single cube, was blown apart by the crimson explosion and left hovering at death's door.
Reduced to a rag in an instant, Asa immediately triggered Miraculous Recovery, restoring his health to full.
"...See a way through? Even setting Lily aside, this boss is strong."
"......"
There was no denying it — this Hungry Mimic was powerful. Its near-immortal body was one factor, but the way it flung around skills from a dozen different classes like they were nothing was the real problem. A boss monster that could cover every position at once, like a one-person army. To kill it, they'd need a single devastating blow.
'One strike it can't regenerate from.'
"One shot. All in."
She wound up her spear. In that instant, a storm broke loose, sweeping out with a rush of mana draining from her body. The girl must have sensed the danger — she raised her cube-fitted shield in defense, but it was useless.
The storm pierced through everything.
The little girl who had been called a fake opened her eyes.
Opened by a mysterious power, the fake girl who had only ever wanted to be Tia — the kind-hearted daughter of the village bakery — awoke once more. And her body was wrong. Her flesh was beyond anything she had ever possessed, and clutched in her hand was the hateful grimoire of hexcraft.
'The demon's book — the book that judged me a fake.'
She wanted to fling it away that very instant. But her instinct screamed a warning:
'Never let go of it. Never.'
"That thing... Lily..."
"I have to kill her... before she becomes her..."
Then a crowd of men and women came walking toward the girl. Strong humans. The strongest humans she had ever laid eyes on — with a single exception among all the living things she had ever seen.
The humans simply began attacking. She blocked them. With her near-immortal body and her power to imitate, she held them off.
Who were these people, anyway? It didn't matter to her.
'Am I still a fake, right now?'
She didn't know. But to find out, she had to survive first.
"One shot. All in."
That woman looked strong. Especially the storm erupting from that spear — it stirred a feeling so terribly familiar.
Yes. That.
'I've seen it somewhere before.'
The woman who had called her a fake. Lily Elbrit.
To turn this situation around, she needed that woman's power.
Shaaaak...
As the storm swallowed her body, a single memory surfaced.
'That's not how you use it.'
"That's not how you use a spear."
"...! Lil—"
Blue hair whipped through the air.
FWOOOOSH!!
The storm vanished.