Chapter 71
Chapter 71
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 71
Chapter Title: 1+1 (4)
[Inside the Panama Canal S-Rank Tower, on the deck of the Illinois.]
"Damn it, how long do we have to keep this up?"
The hunters on the deck of the Illinois wiped the sweat from their foreheads with the backs of their hands, catching their breath.
No matter how many they killed, the enemies just kept coming.
They knew the Illinois had taken down tens of thousands of those monstrous birds during the Golden Gate assault.
But after standing on that deck and having each hunter finish off hundreds of ghosts, it was only natural to start feeling fed up.
The gate to the next stage should be appearing any moment now.
"Damn it, we'll die before we even reach the boss room!"
"Don't say 'die' so casually! It's bad luck!"
"But at this rate...!"
"Believe in the Master! Have you ever seen him fail to clear an S-Rank Tower? It might take a while, but he always pulls through."
A brief tension rippled through the hunters, but they chose to trust his track record.
Yeah.
It hadn't even been four full hours yet.
Sure, the nonstop fighting had left them exhausted to the point of collapse, but complaining like this would be shameful to those waiting outside the dungeon.
"Hold out until the Master finds a way through! And quit whining after stealing all the finishing blows on the messes the Illinois already wrecked!"
"W-Well, that's true, but..."
Reality wasn't a game.
Even if a high-rank hunter did most of the work, landing the final hit didn't magically boost your experience points from the slain beast.
But coins?
Tower Coins—whose uses they still didn't fully understand, yet which countless people were pouring fortunes into on blind faith that they'd pay off someday?
"If you're not gonna fight, get out of the way! I'm hunting here!"
It was every hunter for themselves.
At first, the Illinois's barrages had swept everything clean.
But as the ghosts dwindled, it started landing just enough damage to make them easy pickings for the hunters.
They'd been thrilled at the start.
Just twitching a finger made the Tower Coins rack up, and their performance stats soared.
Even if it was just numbers on a screen, the drone footage would paint a heroic image for the crowds cheering them on outside the tower. Everyone was banking on that PR boost.
But right when they were thinking it was about time for the novelty to wear off—
Flash.
"Huh?!"
"The safe zone...?"
The green light shimmering across the Illinois's deck began to flicker and fade.
Then it pointed in one direction, and a new area started glowing green.
"The... stern?"
"The deck's not safe anymore?"
"To the railings or the rear... Uh, wh-what?!"
Rumble...
The Illinois picked up speed.
And as it did, the ship began tilting to one side.
"The sh-ship!?"
"No way, grounding?!"
The ship was sliding.
It kept pressing forward, but its hull was tilting sharply to the right.
"Th-The clear is...!"
"Run to the green zone!!"
One hunter shouted urgently.
"Just trust it and head to the green zone now! And grab the safety rails tight!"
"Wh-Why?!"
"I don't know! Just grab on and trust it!! You think the Master's trying to kill us all?!"
Trust the Master?
Or trust their own instincts, honed through countless trials as hunters?
"Uwaaaah!"
Both.
The hunters trusted the Master while leaning on their gut feelings.
"Wh-Whatever happens, it'll be fine! He wouldn't try to kill us!"
They had no choice but to go with their instincts, hesitant as they were.
The tilting Illinois was sliding toward what felt like a sheer cliff below, while the glowing green safe zone clearly marked its path forward.
Whoosh!!
The Illinois rode the cascading water, sliding sideways.
Not just leaping aside, but tilting its hull to surf the downward current like a waterfall descent.
"U-Uwaaaah!!"
The battleship plunged sideways like it was hurtling toward an abyss over a waterfall.
In that instant—
"Huh?"
Rooooosh!!
The hunters felt a profound sense of wrongness.
"What... is happening...?"
"H-Hold on tight!!"
The ship plummeted vertically along the waterfall.
But after the tilt, from that moment on, it sailed as level as crossing open seas, maintaining speed amid the raging currents.
As if space itself had flipped.
What had been a wall moments ago became the floor once they crested the edge.
"We're... actually navigating properly...?"
"Insane..."
The hunters were stunned.
Their bodies still felt gravity pulling downward, but the Illinois forged ahead at full speed toward something, just like before.
"Huh?!"
Below.
In the abyss-like void, a lone golden gleam flickered.
At the base of this bizarre waterfall—mirroring their entry point symmetrically—a gate shimmered invitingly.
The Illinois tilted sideways again, drifting toward it.
"...N-No way, right?"
Roooosh...
"N-No, it's heading there...?"
"Lord, look upon us with mercy."
"Holy..."
"Mother..."
Each hunter prayed to their god or swallowed hard in their own way, but they all gripped the deck or handholds tight and squeezed their eyes shut.
"Glory to America!"
Screeeeech!!
Just before plummeting, the Illinois flipped using the water's momentum.
The hunters dangled precariously, hands locked on railings, one slip away from the abyss.
Flash.
The Illinois leveled out again, surging toward the transfer circle at the next stage's floor.
"......!!"
In the dizzying blur of crossing the circle, the hunters clinging to the ship blinked back to life amid radiant light.
Rooooosh!!
An inverted world.
A straight cascade of water.
And within it, they saw.
Flap, flap.
Something enormous rising from the depths.
"...A clione?"
A clione at least 30 meters long trailed the Illinois, airborne.
But something shocked the hunters even more than the S-Rank boss.
"...What the hell is this?"
"Insane."
Despite the world being upside down, the Illinois raced along the "ceiling" as if it were solid track, water flowing above it.
Even fully inverted 180 degrees, the Master's ship showed no sign of falling, its guns swiveling toward the giant clione-like boss.
"This is..."
"Insane."
Boom!!
The Illinois's main guns roared.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 'Next time, I should add guardrails or something for the hunters.'
Manipulating the upside-down Illinois, I kept the directional keys pressed, directing fire at the enemy boss.
On my smartphone, the Illinois wasn't inverted.
It just kept racing across the field-like abyss waves.
The hunters on deck merely looked like they were dangling from railings or fixtures, clinging like they were on some skybridge.
'Kinda feel bad now.'
In the control screen, the hunters' silhouettes were flipped upside down on the deck.
It tugged at me seeing them desperately hanging on, like vacuumed up toward the sky.
But with only C-Rank and above, no one had slipped off from exhaustion.
'Gotta finish this before anyone falls.'
The giant flying clione.
Evidently displeased by an even larger intruder in its domain, it flapped its wings, charging some magic cannon—
Boom!!
But the Illinois fired first.
Not just any barrage—I was hands-on, so the boss's HP bar on the upper screen vanished in chunks.
[?!!!?!!?!]
A bewildered roar blared from the phone speaker.
It probably didn't feel physical damage.
But this attack didn't shave real HP anyway.
No.
[Kiiiiiaaaah!!]
Just like the massive carnivorous plant monster in Crater Lake National Park—riddled with bullets mid-tentacle swing, shredded by blades—that damage readout.
"Oh dear, what should we do? Looks like the boss is mad at the commander."
"My apologies, Master. It pulled aggro."
"It's fine. That thing's no game boss—it's a living, breathing monster."
[Kiiiiiaaaah!!]
Atop the towering plant stem in the lake's center, four massive petals—each over 5 meters—shrieking in rage.
Inside, instead of stamens, razor teeth snapped in a howl directed at me.
Elaine and Dry had severed its root-like limbs and embedded bullets, yet all its fury poured onto me.
I got it.
In an S-Rank battlefield showdown, everyone's fighting hard, but one guy's glued to his phone, ignoring it entirely for his game. Yeah, it'd piss anyone off.
'We're gaming here, but it's not just a game.'
Roooosh...
The clione fled.
I readjusted the Illinois's course, setting new weapons to pursue.
"Where do you think you're going."
Not physical ammo, but mana-forged weaponry already loaded in the barrels.
Patriot.
Full salvo, fire.
The magic Patriot missiles streaked after the fleeing clione boss and struck true.
Kaboom!!
The screen shook violently, the boss's HP plummeted, leaving just 10%.
Screeeeech!!
An eerie scream.
Similar to the clione's, but not quite.
"This guy's!"
The giant carnivorous plant.
It let out a similar wail to confuse us, but Elaine's strike sheared its stem-body in half, sending it toppling sideways.
Screeeeech...
"Commander!!"
The massive plant's "head" lurched toward me like a falling tree.
But—
"Not while I'm in the middle of something important."
All my focus stayed on the screen as I unleashed the finishing blow on the clione.
Kaboom.
A massive explosion bloomed, and the clione's HP bar vanished.
And then—
Screech.
Shadow loomed overhead.
The four-petaled maw plummeted to devour me.