A Plant Coveting the Crown of Creation
Where does a plant get off coveting the crown of creation!!
Anyone who has suffered through the entirety of South Korea's compulsory education knows the phrase food chain. It is the tidy little arrangement in which plants are eaten by herbivores, and herbivores are eaten by carnivores. At the very top of that chain sat the magnificent primate—that is, the human being. At the very bottom sat the plant, a thing that could not even run from the things that ate it.
Yes. That is common sense. It should be common sense....
"A plant hitting a person is a pretty rare sight, huh...."
The food chain of the world of Raider, it seemed, was about five minutes away from total collapse.
A Ruler that could exert its influence over its entire domain.... The real fight had not even started, and already the opponent felt like anything but a pushover.
And it was a plant.
"A thing at the bottom dragging down a thing at the top.... This is a total...."
If it had come to this, then it was révolution all over again...!
Where does a plant get off coveting the crown of creation!!
You're dead today!!!
No matter how strong a plant became—even a disgustingly powerful plant that had clawed its way into a Ruler's seat—there were limits a species could not cross. How was a mere plant supposed to stop Märchen, the Dragon Slayer who had brought down the strongest of all dragons, a creature that existed only in legend?
In the end, this Ruler failed to keep me out of the Sanctuary as well.
Succeeding at the invasion meant the real boss fight was about to begin. Before that, though, there was one thing I had to do first. Something I was obligated to do as Raider's world champion, and as a broadcaster.
"...All right, then."
I hit play on a BGM I had edited myself, then scurried out of the streaming booth and buckled around my waist the thing I had left by the door before going live. The instant I stepped back inside———
A combat-sports champion's entrance theme poured out of the speakers.
Yes. What I had just buckled on was the Raider champion's belt, prepared for this very day.
A world champion showing up to a title defense without her belt? Wouldn't that be a failure of showmanship? Of course, I had never actually watched anything like combat sports, so what did I know!
I mimed loosening up, then dropped into a chair that had cost me nearly fifteen hundred dollars.
And with those words, I entered the Sanctuary.
The second boss. This Ruler's name was———
Triphylissia.
A merciless Ruler that permitted no living thing within any domain its roots could touch, save for plants and the creatures that aided their propagation. Not even an Apostle who served the Rulers was exempt. So an intruder had entered its domain and reached the Sanctuary still breathing? Even if the Great King had ordered that intruder spared, Triphylissia would have slaughtered them without mercy.
—That was the setting, and Märchen did not know it yet. How could she? She and Triphylissia could not even speak to each other. Even so, she could feel it: the boss's malice. The malice of the creator who had brought a boss like this into the world.
"...Whoa."
Triphylissia had not escaped the limits of its kind. A plant that lives with its roots in the earth cannot leave the spot where it has taken hold, no matter how badly it might wish to, and Triphylissia was no exception. The colossal tree rooted at the heart of the Sanctuary had never once departed from that center.
That did not mean it was weak.
"...Whoa. These patterns, seriously."
The moment she met her third death, Märchen could only shake her head.
Fourth retry. Triphylissia was, without question, no pushover.
There were two ways to deal damage to it. Cut the roots it so often used to attack, or push all the way in and cut the trunk that never abandoned its post. The trunk took far more damage than the roots, so boring into the heart of the Sanctuary and hacking at it would have been the better plan.... The trouble was that Triphylissia knew that fact perfectly well. Whether the developers had written it into the AI or not, slipping through the patterns all the way to the center was anything but easy.
And reaching the center was not the end. Even when I tried to cram damage in, its branches fouled the damage window, and there was a pattern that forcibly shoved me back out once a set time had passed. Put bluntly, the patterns were filthy. Unlike Techsecular, Triphylissia did not thrash around in a frenzy, and it felt as if they had balanced the fight around that—but even so, there were way too many feints!
"...I feel like I'm getting a little used to it."
Even so, the pace of the clear felt a bit faster than last time. There was a real difference between three characters at the level cap and four. Just having one properly raised healer in the party made the party's total health feel like it had jumped.... The last First Clear attempt had been no different from running a marathon with sandbags strapped to my arms and legs.
"The patterns aren't griefing me this time, so if I play it right, maybe I roll straight into phase two...?"
For now, I hauled my focus up and set out to force a look at phase two, no matter what it took———
My thumb hit the parry button on reflex. The character I had been controlling a heartbeat ago succeeded in knocking something aside.
"Whoa.... There's another pattern?"
Ranged attacks, with leaves?
Well, a tree boss could absolutely do that, but....
...And after this, there was going to be a phase two, just like Techsecular.
"Yeah, this is brutal...!"
I muttered it and wet my bone-dry lips with my tongue. Brutal, yes. But I could not deny that it was fun. Boss fights really were the alpha and the omega of Raider!
It hated to admit it. It had to admit it anyway.
At this rate, it would lose.
The moment Triphylissia accepted that fact, it gave something up. A lifespan close to eternity. In exchange for abandoning a life near-eternal, Triphylissia gained something else: an evolution that transcended the limits of its species.
A Ruler departs the place it has guarded since the moment of its birth. The colossal tree begins to change its shape. A being born at the bottom of the food chain transforms into a being seated at the top.
The being at the top of the food chain.
Human.
Triphylissia takes on the form of a gigantic human.
And then the Triphylissia that had changed from a gigantic tree into a gigantic golem begins to move. From the instant it moves, it begins to pour the whole of its power onto the intruder—power that has surpassed the limits of its kind, power that had once swallowed its entire domain.
"...Wow."
Märchen, of course, had no way of knowing any of Triphylissia's circumstances, and so she simply marveled with everything she had.
This was the sixth time through phase two. The patterns I had already seen were starting to repeat, so I judged that I had phase two nearly mapped and hauled my focus up again.
"Why the hell is this bastard shooting a beam!"
I had been through phase two six times, and a pattern I had never once seen came flying out as if it had been waiting for me.
In the end, a pattern I was seeing for the first time dropped me in a single breath.
"Aigoo...."
I chugged a prepared energy drink in one go, then picked the gamepad back up. I had been trying to pace myself, and even so my eyes were starting to throb and my head was beginning to ache. Seeing a real angle on the clear just now, and burning far too much focus because of it, had cost me.
"Are there more first-sight patterns? I'd love to push for a short fight here, but there might still be patterns I haven't mapped.... This is a real dilemma."
The last thing I wanted was to gamble on a short fight, fail the clear, and wreck my eyes and my head in the process. Taking it slow was not a purely good choice either. A First Clear was a race to see who broke it first—and the kind of race where you could not see your rivals' progress at all.
...So I really have no choice but to trust myself.
"Let's just go for it!"
Nine hours and eleven minutes after the servers opened, a player claimed the world-first First Clear on Triphylissia. That player was the same person who had taken the world-first First Clear on Techsecular———
"Okay, First Clear confirmed! Be right back, gotta go wipe this nosebleed!"
And, once again, a player whose nose had burst into a double fountain halfway through the First Clear attempt. For the record, even while blood streamed from both nostrils, she did not forget the ceremony: she hoisted the champion's belt at her waist high overhead and roared, and she showed the whole thing to an audience of perfect strangers.