The Weakest Lily
"No. I haven't."
The Hungry Mimic was strong.
Regeneration potent enough to shrug off every technique the pros threw at it, and a mental fortitude that seemed wholly immune to pain.
Not to mention its copy ability, which hurled the very skills it absorbed back at them, stronger than before.
The stronger its opponent, the more power the mimic disgorged, overwhelming the pros one by one and proving itself worthy of the title of World Boss.
─I-It changed!
But it could be caught.
The mimic's regeneration was threat enough, yet its raw attack power was nothing special. As long as its big skills got sealed away, it was the kind of boss that could be brought down through sheer grinding.
Was the kind.
Right up until it turned into Lily Elbrit.
Blue hair whipped through the air as she revealed herself. Ocean-deep gray eyes glinted, cold and sharp, and the oncoming storm simply evaporated at her touch.
A massive hammer hung in her hand.
Swinging that red hammer in great arcs, she launched herself skyward and shot straight toward Rater — to eliminate the element that had irritated her most of all.
"Ghk! Not a chance!"
Choco hurled a spear in desperation, but it meant nothing.
The hammer came down on Rater's skull long before it landed.
Rater has died.
Respawning in 2 minutes 59 seconds.
The instant Rater fell, the mimic-as-Lily looked up at the storm of spears, bullets, and arrows raining down — and raised the hammer high overhead.
Then brought it down.
"...Earth Dragon?!"
The ground heaved, and a dragon of black earth surged upward. The serpent took the brunt of the ranged barrage on its own body before crumbling apart once more.
The already roiling stadium shuddered through yet another wave of chaos.
"Blunt-skill, Earth Dragon..."
A technique that slammed into the ground to summon the power of the earth-bound dragon. She had used it against the mimic before — and even then, the creature had watched her technique and mimicked it. Granted, back then it was too embarrassing to even call an Earth Dragon, but now it looked far closer to the 'finished form.'
The moment the earth dragon shed its crumbling skin, gray clouds billowed up in roiling masses.
Crackle...! At the same instant, yellow sparks laced with crimson burst outward.
Cloud Dragon — and the precursor to the Thunder God Dragon.
It had copied the technique chain itself, flawlessly.
What came next was obvious.
"Thunder God Dragon."
KRZZZAK!!
Red lightning split the sky and electrocuted everyone at once.
─That appearance... is that Lily?
─That's right! That boss is one slain by the ranker Lily, and it copied her appearance back then! Given the boss's nature, it seems to remember that form.
─If the boss is Lily, though, doesn't the difficulty shoot way up? Isn't she someone spoken of in the same breath as Sword God and Leo?
If the Lily Elbrit standing over there were the real one, she would be impossible to catch.
But that thing was a fake.
And above all, the Lily of that era simply wasn't that strong.
─Indeed, but it's not quite so simple.
─What do you mean?
─The Lily of that time was pre-3rd Advancement — deep in her 'weak' era. For example, Team CO is now facing the freshly transformed Lily-boss, but if you look at the WoW side...
Two feeds were alternating on the broadcast screen. The players of CO and WoW were each facing their own boss, and WoW had forced the boss's transformation considerably faster than CO had.
"Whoa."
"...Lily, that's cruel."
KRAK!
...Granted, having transformed it that quickly, WoW had already lost four players — everyone except Baekseol. But what mattered was the state of the Lily-boss.
─...Her hand is frosting over.
The hammer-wielding Lily's hand had gone faintly greenish.
Along with it, the skin near her shoulder had reddened as though lightly burned.
─Precisely. The Lily of that era has no regeneration. And since she doesn't possess that power of pure-white light either, I believe she can absolutely be caught.
─Even if she is Lily? The woman who dominated the Mock Siege so absurdly one-sidedly?
─Even Lily had her weak periods. There was a time she traded blows with three Bandits, and a time she fought a bloody battle against a level 60 boss monster. I think it's entirely doable.
One could reasonably be convinced of that.
And I agreed to a point, myself...
'But still...'
"Hmm."
"Lily, is that true? It actually looks like she could lose?"
"If there are no variables."
I nodded at Yena's question.
No variables, and unlimited retries — then sooner or later, she goes down. The Lily of that era couldn't regenerate with divinity, and she genuinely was weaker than she is now.
'With one single exception.'
KRAK!
─And Gunner is out!
I had met Lily before.
No — I'd met Lily often.
PvP, the Mock Siege, the lecture hall... I'd even met Lily in 'real life' face to face.
The real Lily genuinely floored me.
I mean, how does a person manage to be that gorgeous outside the game too?
...Anyway, the point is: I've seen everything from the very weakest Lily to the powerhouse Lily of today.
BOOOM!!!
The sky burst apart.
If the game system weren't active and blurring the visuals, it would have been a genuinely gruesome scene.
Only after the sky turned blue-white and dissolved did Choco look around.
"Ha."
Everyone was dead except Asa.
And even Asa, panting raggedly, looked to be on his last legs.
Something was off.
The Lily of that era was definitively weaker than the Mock Siege Lily. She hadn't taken her class advancement, hadn't unfurled those strange wings, didn't even use the power of light.
"Ah, ah. Just the two of you left. Hm."
It was simply Lily.
Lily without regeneration or anything else.
So why did this version look harder to break through?
'...Don't tell me she was holding back?'
That whole Mock Siege — she'd gone easy on everyone?
...She wasn't even at full strength?
"......"
Creak.
Choco tightened her grip on her spear.
She was clearly not without wounds. Whether she'd lost that regeneration, or whether becoming 'Lily' had made her body Lily's body too, wounds from her own spear were plainly there — bleeding, refusing to close.
The blood running down the mimic's forearm.
She can be killed.
"...Fine. Let's see everything you've got, then."
"That's not how you use a spear."
"Shut up!"
A roar swept over the field. The mimic wearing Lily's face tilted its head slightly — then dismissed the hammer into its inventory and drew out a spear.
And the storm broke.
"...!!!"
"Spear's Roar."
KWAGAGAGAGA!!!
A storm imitating a dragon's howl tore out in seven directions at once, shredding the entire area to ribbons.
The already half-ruined village was pulverized to dust, and Asa, caught in the blast wave, was swept away and retired.
"Guh...!"
Through the gap between her shattered Mythic shield, Choco had barely survived. Her two eyes blinked faintly.
"...You crazy bitch."
Seven at once? That's just unfair.
From someone who hasn't even taken her advancement, no less...
Tap.
"A spear?"
"...Yeah. You really are something special."
Not Lily herself. Not even a clone of Lily.
A mere monster imitating Lily's 'weak' past, and this was the level it reached. No matter how broken the balance was, could it possibly beat the Lily of today?
Never.
"That spears alone won't win this. Fine. I'll grant you that."
But.
Shing!
"...?"
"Because the one who wins this fight is going to be me."
Choco wet her lips with her own blood and scattered the Holy Grail's light.
Woven into the unleashed storm: the authority of Sure-Hit.
The mimic's memories only extended up to its own death. There was no way it knew about the 'absolutely unavoidable' Sure-Hit Lily had revealed in the Mock Siege.
Blood spurted from Lily's left shoulder.
"Let's see who comes out on top when we go all the way to the end, shall we?"
"...That's foul play. Trash."
"Wh-what?"
"Can't even use one spear, so she wields two instead—"
"No, shut up, Lily would never say that!"
"......"
Choco's heart was run through.
"...Did I really say that?"
"Nope. Never did."
I flatly denied the bizarre remark the mimic had put in my mouth.
There was no way I'd ever say something like that. At the very least, I'm confident I've never said it out loud.
Yena gave me a strange, sidelong look, but I held my head high.
The finals that had begun at six in the evening were already hurtling toward ten. Four rounds had consumed an hour and a half each; each team was cycling through death and revival roughly fifteen times over.
And it was still ongoing.
─Haah... haah...
─She's dying! Push her, everyone!
Both teams' boss, Lily Elbrit, was growing visibly exhausted.
Lily couldn't recover, whereas the pros returned with their HP, mana, and cooldowns fully restored every time they died.
However ferocious Lily's attacks or formidable her physical abilities, rapid regeneration was simply not among her gifts.
─I think we're finally seeing the end, here. This Lily is terrifying, honestly.
─The pros may be balance-tuned, but Lily is a ranker of virtually unprecedented caliber. The boss-frame scaling is doing its share of the work too.
─And who will be the victor?! Oh — the moment I say it, Baekseol drives a colossal lance of ice—
Baekseol drove the ice into the weary Lily's heart.
As everyone held their breath—
"Mmm..."
I quietly closed my eyes.
BOOOM!!!
The entirety of Team WoW was deleted.
"Hold on, please..."
Sacred Fire burns out fast, after all...