Bofuri: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense. Volume. 3.
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‘Chapter 4: Defense Build and the Third Event.’
Maple logged in, appearing at the Guild Home. There, she found Sally, Kanade, and Iz at the entrance.
“The event’s begun!” Maple declared excitedly.
“It’s only been five hours, and the top players are already at five digits! Chrome and Kasumi are out hunting.”
There was no time compression for this event, so Maple wasn’t planning on spending too many hours on it. She was just going to do what she could.
“Wow…everyone’s so good…!”
The four of them were still at 0. Iz in particular was only planning on dipping her toe in the water this time.
“I’ve got next to no attack skills, but my Strength ain’t too shabby.”
You could defeat some enemies by hitting them with a smithing hammer.
And obviously, she had way more Strength than Maple.
“Well, we’d better head out!”
“Yeah.”
Leaving Iz behind, they turned to go—but Iz stopped them.
She handed Sally and Maple some new gear.
“I made these from the wool. Supposedly, the event drop rates go up based on the amount of wool used.”
And thanks to Maple, they had more than enough wool.
Kanade’s regular gear was already made from wool, so he was set.
The gear Iz handed Sally was fluffy, but not so loose that it might impede her movements. It was mostly white—as one might expect, given the materials.
Maple’s gear was even more sheeplike.
Pure-white, full-body gear, every bit as fluffy as an unshorn sheep.
“Obviously, I can’t make armor out of wool, so…”
Given the need for attack skills, Maple kept her usual black shield and sword. These didn’t match the adorable outfit, but there wasn’t a lot she could do to help that.
Iz didn’t mention this, but the look of these outfits was based on nothing but her desire to see Maple wear some soft, fluffy clothing.
Armor might not have been doable, but she could certainly have made more…ordinary clothing.
It purely came down to her personal aesthetics.
The three of them left the guild together but split up soon after.
Sticking together would just mean farming fewer drops overall, while splitting up allowed them to improve both the guild total and their individual scores.
Maple was riding Syrup and examining a screen filled with info on how many points were needed to get rewards.
It also had a picture of the monsters they were targeting—red bulls.
“I’m so slow, though. This really isn’t my kinda event…”
Even riding Syrup, she didn’t hold a candle to Sally.
She found a reward she wanted, set a point requirement as her target, and decided to enjoy the event on those terms.
“Just gotta get enough to earn this skill!”
She read the skill description one more time, then closed the screen. She glanced at the ground below and saw some red bulls.
“Hydra!”
She dropped a poison dragon off Syrup’s side, then jumped down after it to collect her spoils. She’d attacked from outside the monster’s detection range, so there was no chance of it fleeing.
And her attacks were strong enough that as long as she hit, they were as good as dead.
But the conditions to wield that power were pretty strict.
“Hmm… What if I run into enemies that have Poison Nullification?”
Opponents like that would really limit her options.
Frankly, she might actually be better off running away if she encountered enemies like that. Overreliance on poison could definitely become a major problem for her in the future.
And she’d used her poison and paralysis attacks so often that nearly every player in the game was familiar with her capabilities.
There was no telling when the admins would hold another PVP event, but there were likely a lot of players leveling Poison Resist in preparation.
Any strong player would be aware of the need for anti-Maple measures.
Plus, there were definitely players out there who could take out Maple one-on-one, if they planned for it and came prepared.
“Come to think of it, now that I’m level thirty, I can actually add a second skill to my equipment.”
But with her extreme build, the range of skills she could acquire was pretty limited.
She’d yet to put a skill on her armor at all—and now there were two slots available.
“No use thinking about it now!”
Maple flew around the field, occasionally making it rain poison.
“Not that many bulls, huh? I wonder if there’s a bigger herd somewhere else.”
The admin posting said they could spawn anywhere except underwater or in boss rooms, so Maple decided she’d be better off heading where other players wouldn’t be.
Half an hour later…
Maple had kept an eye on the ground the whole time, but opportunities to rack up points had been few and far between.
Her speed was really working against her.
But she kept up her spirits, finding any bulls she could.
It helped that Maple found flying around on Syrup inherently enjoyable.
“After I’m done bull hunting, maybe I should take a walk with you, Syrup! I’ve been doing so many quests, I haven’t really had time to just look around.”
Maple thought about this a little more and decided to put the bull search on hold for the day and enjoy a midair stroll with Syrup.
The ground might be filled with bull slaughter, but up above, Maple was thoroughly enjoying the game on her own terms.
Meanwhile, the admins were watching the event closely, vigilant for the appearance of any bugs.
“Keep an eye on Maple,” one warned. “She regularly does things beyond the capacity of human reason.”
“Yeah, I’m on it.”
They were constantly considering nerfing her.
Her defense and Devour were both broken to begin with, and now Syrup was a whole new source of concern.
“She’s single-handedly disrupting the game’s balance… There are so many things we’d have to fix. This mystery flight thing is just the tip of the iceberg.”
“For sure.”
“But…part of me thinks, why bother?”
“Explain.”
“I mean, Maple’s a star player now. Everyone’s eyes are on her…”
And a lot of new players had joined, hoping to be like her one day.
Every time Maple did something ridiculous, micro-transaction sales skyrocketed as players tried to buy their way into competing with her. XP or skill proficiency boosts sold particularly well.
As a result, the admins were leaning toward simply leaving her be.
With this many people watching her every move, an obvious nerf might provoke an outcry.
“We’ve made adjustments to the third stratum so Maple flying won’t wreck the event.”
“Meaning just leave her alone otherwise?”
“Yeah, we’ll simply observe. Besides, when we’re not desperately trying to nerf her, she’s basically just another cute player, right?”
“We’ve adjusted acquisition on Absolute Defense. There’s no risk of new Maples becoming a commonplace sight. We’re good as long as nothing unprecedented happens. And there are several other players as good as she is.”
“She’s bad news for my heart, but…so far, it isn’t a real problem. For now.”
“Yes, for now…”
That was a loaded phrase, but either way…
Unbeknownst to Maple, she’d earned the admins’ tacit approval.
Maple spent a while just savoring her flying “walk” with Syrup, but then she heard a ding—an incoming message.
“Hmm? Wonder who it’s from.”
She checked the sender’s name and found she actually had three messages.
From Chrome, Kasumi, and Iz.
As if they’d compared notes, all three messages said basically the same thing.
They were all encouraging her to do her best in this event.
“I’m taking them out as soon as I find them, but…I’m just not fast enough.”
She sent a reply saying she’d do what she could, then flew on.
“Maybe I’ll find some outside this prairie? Let’s try those mountains!”
She headed toward the distant peaks.
All three had messaged Maple because each had independently had the same realization.
They were letting her play on her own.
So they suggested she focus on the event to prevent her getting mixed up in anything weird.
There was no telling what might happen if they took their eyes off her.
Weird wasn’t necessarily good.
All three had chosen a roundabout way to keep her under control.
Sometime later, Maple reached the mountains.
“There’s nobody else here, huh?”
The steep slopes were dotted with trees—and not many bulls.
Like the admins said, they did spawn here…but there wasn’t much space for them to do so in numbers.
Even with no competition, this would not be an efficient hunting ground.
But for Maple, any other player could easily beat her to a target, so she’d never been remotely efficient—meaning this was actually a modest improvement.
“If I’ve got this place to myself, maybe that’s for the best!”
She put Syrup back in her ring and started climbing the mountain, killing bulls on her way.
Since she had a full set of woolly garments, she was at least keeping pace with players who didn’t.
“I wonder if Kasumi and Sally have reached the top ranks by now…”
Those two had the most mobility in Maple Tree.
And with wool gear, they could easily harvest two to three times what Maple had.
“I’ll just take it at my speed. At this pace, I should be able to get that skill!”
As she spoke, the rocks at her feet crumbled.
“Augh?!”
She lost her balance and grabbed on to a nearby tree for support.
“Augh…it’s no use…”
This support lasted only a few seconds.
Maple tried to think of a way to extricate herself from this predicament…but before she did, she started rolling down the slope.
Tumbling head over heels, picking up speed, bouncing off boulders in her path, crashing through thickets, the world in view spinning madly.
“Augh! S-somebody stop me!”
Maple rolled downhill for quite a while, but eventually she slammed into something with a loud clang.
“Urp… So dizzy… Good thing I put all my points in Vitality. I’d better be more careful.”
If she hadn’t made a defense build, she’d have been forcibly sent back to town.
But during the tumble, she’d used up all her Devours.
“Ugh…fine. I’ll just hunt a little bit more and call it a day… Hmm?”
She got up and looked around, then realized she’d been stopped by a tall tree.
“Wow, that’s…huge. Oh!”
Looking closer, she noticed something. The base of the tree was split…in the shape of a great shield.
Clearly, the victim of her final Devour.
“I-I’m sorry!”
She peered into the crack and spotted a distinctive hollow—one she hadn’t made. And in that hollow was a piece of rusty gear.
Upon further investigation, Maple saw a faint glow.
The hollow ran all the way up the inside of the tree—suggesting this gear had fallen down the shaft.
She grabbed it for a closer look.
“Let’s see, the item’s name is…Bygone Dream?”
No skill. Not able to be equipped.
No effects, no item description.
Maple couldn’t see any use for it beyond decorating the Guild Home.
“I guess I might as well keep it? Can I heal the tree?”
Maple switched to her white gear and drank a potion to restore her HP.
“Okay! Devotion’s Light!”
There was a violent red spray as Maple took damage.
A few moments later, light poured out of her palm, enveloping the tree.
“…No effect? That’s the strongest heal I’ve got, too…”
She had several healing abilities included in the Martyr’s Devotion skill set.
But none of them could restore her own health.
“I’m…really sorry!”
She bowed to the tree again, then turned to go.
“Better get out of this forest and then take Syrup home.”
She switched back to her regular gear and exited the forest, cutting down several more bulls on the way.
Meanwhile, Chrome finished off a bull, then paused in his tracks.
“……I just felt a chill,” he muttered.
His sixth sense sent him a warning.
He braced with cleaver and great shield—but nothing attacked.
“…Just my imagination?”
It wasn’t. But the actual source was too far away for him to notice.
The third event lasted a week.
By the fifth day, Maple had farmed enough to meet her goal.
“Yes! Counter is mine!”
Hearing that Maple had this skill would make many a player quake in their boots.
But there was nothing they could do to stop it now.
Maple was steadily filling in the gaps of her extremely specialized build.
But her most powerful attacks were growing weaker, as the rest of the player base found means of dealing with potent poison.
Counter would be extra effective against anyone who’d focused too much on that meta.
And obtaining the skill meant she’d accomplished everything she wanted out of this event.
With nothing to gain by hunting more bulls, she stopped focusing her efforts on it.
She just wasn’t feeling motivated.
Freed from the bull hunt, Maple was left to her own devices.
Upon hearing that news, quite a few players would likely immediately begin trying to convince her how much fun bull hunting really was.
There was a chance that Maple might well find herself surrounded.
But currently, there were no other players in sight.
“Where do you think we should go, Syrup?”
Syrup never answered, but she talked to it anyway.
Especially when she wasn’t sure what to do with herself.
There were rewards based on a guild’s collective haul, so she couldn’t completely stop the hunt, but Sally, Kasumi, and Chrome were well on their way to earning all the points the guild needed.
“Is there anything else I could do? Is there, like, a super-big bull out there?”
Below her was a forest.
She decided to stop looking from the air and jumped down into it.
“This is the place I got the Archangel’s Fragment, I think. I still don’t know my way around that well…”
Sally had memorized the whole map right away.
Maybe these things came with experience.
Maple might have joined the top-ranked players, but her actual playtime was still total noob tier.
This wasn’t a primary bull-hunt zone, so it was awfully quiet.
Maple didn’t find much to do beyond taking out the occasional bull as she came across them.
And as she wandered around doing just that, she stumbled across a familiar building.
“Oh, the church!”
She hadn’t explored it much before, so she went on in.
Last time, she’d picked up the Archangel’s Fragment and rushed off pretty quickly, but this time, she checked every corner of the place.
“It’s pretty rundown, but you never know! I might find a book here.”
She’d found one in the second event, and it had turned out to be a pretty big clue.
She looked along every wall and under all the pews but with no luck.
“I guess…that’s the last place left.”
She headed to the floor where she’d found the fragment.
Where the bottle had been…she found tiny red letters.
Unable to read them standing, she got down on her hands and knees, tracing them with her fingers.
“Um…Summon?” she muttered.
The moment she uttered that word, the entire church floor glowed red.
It grew brighter and brighter until the walls and ceilings were dyed red, too.
“Uh-oh!”
Maple jumped up and tried to beat a hasty retreat, but the light was already blinding.
When it finally died down, Maple opened her eyes…
“………Uh…what?”
The interior before her was definitely the same church, but it had all turned…gray.
This was unnerving.
“Where…am I?”
Something was clearly going on here, but if it was gonna take a while, she might have to bail.
That was easy enough—she’d just log out—but there was no guarantee she could get back here.
She’d have to choose wisely.
For now, she decided to turn and head outside.
“Yikes… What a nightmare!”
The exterior was just as relentlessly gray.
No green trees—just a barren gray wasteland as far as the eye could see.
It was like time had stopped—she could see bricks here and there, floating in midair.
“Sally would hate this…,” Maple muttered and started walking.
With purpose!
She’d seen one thing out there that wasn’t gray.
And she was headed toward it.
She reached the non-gray thing…
A pitch-black sphere.
It seemed to respond to her approach—the surface began to bulge.
Then the sphere exploded, and something emerged, dripping fluid black as coal.
A tail snaked out from beneath a tattered robe.
Curly, ram-like horns.
Head still down, it growled, “Dinner’s here?”
Maple raised her shield.
Her foe raised its head and saw Maple…
“Mm? You’re the one from… I smell the angel’s power on you! Fortune smiles on me. We demons earn our ranks by consuming foes like you. You may have beat me at the temple, but here I wield my full power!”
The demon howled.
Diplomacy was not an option.
She would have to fight.
Maple felt no fear. As she steeled herself for combat, she took the demon at its word.
“You want to eat me? Well, I’ll eat you right back!”
With that ominous pronouncement, their battle began.
Maple had taken a single step off the third event’s path…and found herself on a track leading right to Weirdville.
The demon charged Maple, ramming her with incredible force.
Unable to react in time, she stood fast as the impact struck her body.
“Cool! No damage.”
Once again, her defense had saved her bacon.
However…
“Mm?”
There was a bloodred chain wrapped around her. Clearly a side effect of the demon’s attack.
“What is it…?”
As Maple blinked at it, the demon attacked again.
“There I was, possessing a woman with an angel’s power…and you had to interfere!”
“Well, yeah! I helped her out! Urp…you’re too fast!”
Once again, Maple couldn’t dodge in time.
“More chains…?”
She was pretty sure those were bad news, so she decided to add a buffer.
“Wool Up!”
A fluffy white ball appeared in the discolored gray realm.
Maple huddled inside the wool, fleeing the demon’s attacks and inspecting the chains.
“If you’ve inherited the angel’s power, then I’ll simply have to strip it from you!”
“Hmph! Nothing scares me in here! Um…Cursebind? I’ve never heard of that status effect.”
She read through the details.
It could stack up to five times, and if it did, that would lower all stats by 25 percent.
“I’m at two stacks, which means I’m down ten percent.”
Cursebind would lose a stack after two minutes, so she’d have to wait four whole minutes to be ailment-free again.
“In that case, I’ll stay in here!”
She waited inside her fluff until the bind was gone, then popped her head out of the wool, released Syrup, and had it fly.
“Giganticize!”
Once Syrup was ten yards overhead, she had it point its head diagonally down.
Making sure the demon was attacking her wool, she gave the order.
“Spirit Cannon!”
A massive laser beam hurtled down from the skies above.
From far too high for her enemy to reach.
It scorched the earth, swallowing up the demon.
“Man, this is one tough customer… That only took away ten percent of its health!”
Apparently, the demon wasn’t exaggerating about having access to its full power here; the damage it had sustained didn’t even slow it down. In fact, it seemed to be hitting harder and faster.
Maple hadn’t fought many enemies who could survive more than a couple hits from her—a record few great shielders could boast of. She’d done “only 10 percent damage,” but by the standards of anyone else in her weapon class, that was plenty impressive. (She remained unaware of this fact.)
She ducked back into her wool shelter, thinking.
“Maybe I could just poke my arm out and use Hydra? But I feel like poison wouldn’t work very well on a demon.”
And if she poisoned the wool, Syrup wouldn’t be able to pick her up, and she’d be stuck here.
Wanting to avoid that fate, she was being extremely conservative about poison use.
She poked her head and New Moon out of one side, waiting for the demon.
The demon punched her in the face, but Maple’s head was so hard, even swords bounced off it.
No way a bare fist could do any damage.
“Hydra!”
A poison dragon shot out of New Moon, swallowing up the demon.
“Yeah, poison doesn’t work.”
It might not apply to the DOT effect, but Hydra’s attack itself did do damage.
That was better than nothing, but not particularly efficient.
“I’ll leave this one to Syrup.”
With Cursebind in effect once again, she ducked back into the safety of her wool—just in case.
She ordered laser support fire every few minutes until the demon was nearly down to half health.
“Spirit Cannon!”
The demon was swallowed up in Syrup’s beam once more.
And its remaining health finally dipped below the 50 percent mark.
“Gah… Enough! I must crush you… Crush you!”
The demon’s body was suddenly wreathed in black light. It began to swell.
Its limbs grew massive, muscles bulging—and increasing in number.
Its neck extended, its face fading until all that remained was a gaping, drooling maw.
Newly hideous, the black demon roared.
“Grrr…grrraghhhh!”
“G-gross!”
Maple did not have it in her to like anything that looked like this.
“Grrrr…arghhhh!”
Jet-black flames emerged from its maw.
They enveloped Maple, setting her wool alight.
“Huh? My wool is flammable?!”
Wool generally was. No matter how high the defense, the material’s fundamental properties didn’t change.
As the wool wall defending her quickly burned away, Maple fell to the ground.
The demon came at her, maw yawning wide.
“Raghhh!”
“Oh…”
And it swallowed Maple whole.
Her shield and sword fell to the ground.
“Grrraaaaagghhhhhha-ha-ha-ha!”
Crowing over its victory, the demon let out a heinous cackle.
Maple found herself sliding down a slimy passage.
“Ugh…so cramped! Augh!”
She was suddenly released—and fell, landing in a pool.
Trying not to drown, she grabbed on to something nearby.
“Ew…am I inside its stomach? My armor’s melting!”
She started to panic but soon realized that she wasn’t dissolving, so she calmed down enough to examine her surroundings.
“Hmm,” Maple muttered. “No way to fight back. No, wait, there is!”
Whoever had designed this boss had set the “swallow” attack to deal a pretty high amount of damage.
And once inside, the constriction did a lot more damage, eventually dropping players in this pool of poison.
Every now and then, the stomach walls constricted, so if you survived the poison, you’d be crushed to death.
Notoriously slow, great shielders would normally have to fend off the nimble demon’s swallow attacks with technique alone.
But Maple had punched right through all these challenges with raw Vitality and Poison Nullification.
She’d soaked enough damage to kill three regular great shielders, then fell in a pool of almost certain death with no more concern than if it was lukewarm water.
As baths went, it was on the cold side.
And in this final destination, where nobody was expected to survive, Maple’s armor was melting…and getting stronger.
“It ate me…but if I beat it, can I get out?”
Maple began swimming across the poison lake toward the pulsating walls.
An hour after Maple got eaten…
The demon’s HP bar was dropping steadily.
This was changing up its attack patterns, but these attacks had no enemies to hit.
Because she was inside it.
“How far am I? Munch, munch. Is its health getting low yet?”
Maple took another bite out of the fleshy wall.
The short sword Iz had made for her to use in angel form had been quickly running out of durability, so she abandoned her plans to attack with it.
And Syrup was back in the ring…leaving this her only means of attack.
“It’s really thrashing around…”
Maple was being peeled off the wall and tossed around by the sheer force, but she was steadily gnawing away at her foe’s HP.
Another hour later…
Maple finally consumed the demon’s life.
Its body turned to light and scattered—dropping Maple unceremoniously to the ground.
“Oof…whew! Finally made it.”
Maple picked up her great shield and short sword, and an alert popped up.
“I thought I might get Demon Eater, but…since I have Martyr’s Devotion…”
Martyr’s Devotion was a prerequisite for the actual new skill.
Plus, it would offer her another offensive tactic to add to her repertoire.
“Saturating Chaos… This is…hmm, fascinating. Feels a lot like Hydra. Should be easy for me to use!”
This skill came with three sub-skills.
After a thorough examination, Maple wasted no time setting it on her armor. No reason not to take advantage of her empty slots.
“Okay…let’s head back and try it out!”
As she spoke, her vision was bathed in red light…and once it vanished, she was back in the church.
“This one has no MP cost, so let’s give this a whirl! Uh…Predators!” Maple cried.
A pitch-black light appeared at her feet, and two black things reached out of it.
Each three yards long.
They looked a lot like the demon had, post-transformation.
There was a huge maw on one end, but unlike the demon, these protrusions had no limbs—these snakelike growths came directly from the ground.
“Can they move…?”
When Maple stepped forward, the Predators followed, glowing lights and all.
“In that case, we’re outta here!”
Maple emerged from the church.
She had gone into an old church and come out with newborn demons at her side.
And she didn’t walk far before she learned something valuable.
“Oh! If we encounter monsters, they’ll beat them for me!”
Anything that got close enough for the Predators to reach was swiftly rent asunder.
And their HP, attack, and defense values were all independent of Maple’s, so their DPS was rock-solid.
On top of all that, their attacks applied Cursebind.
“Okay…now let’s try a skill that takes MP. Saturating Chaos!”
Activating this skill generated a dark light inside Maple herself, and when it hit the saturation point, it attacked to the fore—like Hydra but shaped like a giant version of the Predators flanking her.
If she’d been fighting another player, and the poor victim had soaked this attack head-on, they’d have been gobbled up by a gaping maw over two yards wide.
Solid range, too.
“And last… No, let’s save that for later. Uh, Seal!”
This command returned the Predators to the darkness from whence they came. She’d gained one more new skill but was in no rush to try it—instead, she exited the forest.
“Hmm, the third event’s still ongoing, but…I dunno…maybe I’m done?”
She’d lost all interest in it, and ultimately added only a handful of bulls to her score before it ended.
The event wrapped up without Maple doing anything else remarkable.
And once it was over, the members of Maple Tree all gathered in the Guild Home.
“Whew…I’m beat,” Sally said, wearily flopping into a chair. She looked thoroughly exhausted.
“Same here.” Kasumi echoed the sentiment, not bothering to lift her head off the table.
They’d taken out more bulls than anyone and had earned some rest.
Below them came Chrome and then Kanade.
Maple, meanwhile, was not remotely tired.
She’d earned less points than anyone (excepting Iz) and spent the tail end of the event in a secluded forest using Predators to do all the work for her—in other words, she hadn’t done anything that might wear her out.
“You didn’t do much this time, huh, Maple?”
“Just…couldn’t stay motivated.”
“Can’t blame you. This event was stacked against players like us,” Chrome grumbled.
The structure of the bull hunt really rewarded those with high Agility stats.
And Maple was the opposite of that.
“But we got to the top-ranked guild reward!”
Kanade was right—the other four had more than made up for Maple’s shortcomings, and the event was a resounding success.
“It’s already here!” Iz said, taking out the reward.
It was a stuffed bull’s head, a displayable item that could be used to decorate the Guild Home wall.
And it gave every member of Maple Tree a 3 percent boost to Strength.
“And that stacks!”
“So it seems.”
“But it does nothing for me… Oh, wait, actually, it does!” Maple said.
Everyone but Kanade immediately looked concerned.
Maple’s Strength was a big fat 0, so this percentage boost really shouldn’t have mattered to her.
If it did, there was only one reason.
“Maple…where exactly were you during this event?”
“I was on the second stratum…mostly.”
She wasn’t sure if that gray world counted.
Sally and Kasumi both put a hand to their brow in consternation.
Chrome and Iz realized their efforts to stop her had been in vain.
“………They’re opening a third stratum soon. You’ll have to show us what you were up to when we’re clearing the dungeon to gain access.”
Everyone present had concluded that Maple must have done something nuts. Whatever new skill she had acquired was definitely not ordinary.
This was a fair assumption.
But the skill in question was neither Predators nor Saturating Chaos—it was the remaining skill, the one even Maple had hesitated to try.
Only three days to go before the launch of the third stratum.
Not long after the launch, Maple Tree was busy blazing a path through the dungeon leading to the new stratum.
All six of them, Iz included.
The game’s maximum party size was eight, so at the current guild head count, they could all be in the same party.
And this party could clear any current dungeon the game could throw at it.
So far, Sally, Chrome, and Kasumi—backed up by Kanade’s support spells—had easily handled everything they had encountered.
Maple had not joined a single fight. She’d spent her time guarding Iz instead.
“Okay! Boss room!”
“Let’s take this thing down!”
“Ready when you are.”
Kasumi opened the door, and they all stepped in.
The boss loomed in the depths.
It was a giant tree with a face on the trunk.
The first-stratum boss had also been vegetal, and the fruit on its trees had been generating a barrier, so everyone immediately scanned this new boss for any sort of fruit or nut—but they found none.
“Let me go first,” Maple said. “Taunt!”
Maple started walking toward the boss.
It was attacking with roots and branches, but these had absolutely no effect on her.
She reached the base of its trunk in no time.
“Predators! Hydra! Saturating Chaos!”
Monsters spawned on either side of her, Hydra poisoned the trunk, and finally the gaping maws ripped off a chunk of the boss.
Its HP plummeted.
The two Predators were still attacking. In boss fights, there was no reason to hold back on any skills, no matter how high the cost.
The tree boss grew enraged, focusing its attacks on the two Predators.
“Martyr’s Devotion!”
Maple’s HP took a hit as her angel wings unfurled. Maple was now negating all the damage the Predators took.
She quickly chugged a potion, restoring her health.
The rest of her party was watching the battle unfold from the doorway.
“What… What are those? Those are clearly monsters. She’s a monster.”
“Yeah…can’t argue with that.”
“How does she manage to get more crazy things every time I see her?”
“It’s a relief to know she’s still being Maple.”
“Yeah, as long as she’s on our side…”
Each of them was doing their best to process Maple’s latest evolution.
But Maple still had one skill left to show.
And she’d made up her mind to try it out here—so this fight wasn’t over till she did.
“Let’s do it… Atrocity.”
With that soft whisper, Maple’s body was enveloped in a sinister glimmer.
Then a pitch-black column of light shot toward the ceiling, and suddenly Maple…closely resembled the two monsters flanking her.
There was one big difference—she had an array of limbs.
And as her form changed, the Predators vanished.
This new monster charged the tree boss, latching on to it and breathing fire.
The flames were highly effective against wood, and the boss tried to fight back with every root, branch, and spell it could muster.
But not only did it fail to beat this demon, it couldn’t even leave a scratch.
The monster’s claws tore the trunk apart wholesale. Its kicks left craters in the bark. The gaping jaws violently ripped away chunks of wood.
The ferocious struggle went on like this for a short while, but the tree boss never stood a chance and was soon defeated.
The monster turned and walked toward the rest of the party.
As they braced themselves, its maw yawned open.
“Man, this is hard to control!” the monster squeaked.
All five brains short-circuited.
“M-Maple?”
“Yep! It’s me!”
There was a distortion effect, but the voice was clearly Maple’s.
As they stared in horror, Sally asked the big question. “Can you switch back?”
“Hmm. Lemme see.”
A few minutes later, cracks appeared on the monster’s belly, and Maple fell out.
Once she was free, the monster shell she had emerged from disintegrated.
Dusting herself off, Maple trotted back to her friends.
“I’d appreciate some form of explanation. Honestly, whatever you can tell us…,” Sally said.
This one was clearly beyond even her.
“Uh…so that thing cancels all equipment effects but raises Strength and Agility by 50 each, gives me 1,000 HP, and if I run out of HP, it just puts me back in my regular body.”
The main downside was losing access to equipment stat boosts and skills. There was also a once-per-day use limit.
But if Maple was ever in real danger, this skill could serve as a useful last resort.
“Uh…so you’ve literally become inhuman at long last.”
“Yes. Not a trace of humanity left. That much is obvious.”
Maple had always been a monster, but that was no longer a metaphor.
“It’s hard to move in, though… I guess it’s like wearing a really big mascot costume?”
In that form, she wasn’t capable of finesse.
“And, uh…things were plenty weird before you transformed.” By the time the twin Predators had spawned, Sally had already been gaping in horror. “Even I can tell that you’ve seriously entered crazy territory.”
“Hmm… Also, it’s faster than riding Syrup!”
“I have to say that it would probably be unwise to use it to travel,” Kanade said gravely.
That was less girl hitting the road with her monster pals and more nightmarish fiend running amok.
“If you want to practice fighting in that form, please do so deep in the mountains.”
“Anyone who sees it will get the wrong idea…”
No reason not to use a skill once learned.
Maple turned and headed toward the third stratum, and the others followed.
Clouds loomed above the third stratum; the main town’s theme was machines and tools.
As the members of Maple Tree stepped onto the third floor, they all noticed one thing—
Every player who came here noticed the same thing.
“They’re all flying!” Maple gasped.
The air was filled with players riding all manner of machinery.
“Some sort of item?”
“Hmm…probably that.”
Sally was pointing at the market ahead, where gold could be exchanged for all sorts of devices. As they watched, a player made a purchase, then hefted an inscrutable gizmo onto his back. As soon as he did, it started glowing blue and sent him rocketing off into the skies above.
“This stratum is certainly different.”
“You can say that again. Guess we all get to fly this time.”
Once they’d processed what passed for normal here, they headed toward their third-stratum Guild Home.
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Diamond. Diamond. Diamond.
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