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ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 085 Part 2

Translator: Kurehashi Aiko

Editor: ryunakama

Chapter 85: Bird with Bunnies VS Talking Heads Part 2

But here’s the real question: what is a godly game? What is a shitty game? And what is a game in general? While dealing with such deep philosophical questions, I didn’t even notice when we arrived at a much larger, open space. It looked like a huge dome, surrounded by grey mist.

「Maybe this is a boss arena?」

I touched the mist lightly, but my hand wasn’t stopped and easily went through. So that means that nobody is inside of the dome right now. This must be the default setting of this place.

「Are we really going to dive into this……?」

「Ask the birdhead, not me.」

「It’s the default setting, so there’s nothing to be afraid of…… Come on, guys, let’s go!」

I changed my weapons to Yuzuki and I entered the misty dome. It took me a few seconds to traverse to the other side, and having been wrapped in that cold smoke-like substance was rather unpleasant, but when I finally emerged on the other side I saw the image of the guardian of this whole area.

It was a huge black skull, one that looked as if there was some kind of black smoke coming from inside it. Then there was a black spine, remnants of a black rib cage, black right skeletal arm…… All of that wrapped in the cloak of black smoke. The missing bone structure was nowhere to be seen.

In its arm, the skeleton held a magic staff that looked as though it was made out of a human spine that just got straightened…… it was also decorated in a rather disturbing way.

「It looks like this skeleton must have loved someone so much that it didn’t want to part ways with them even after death…… How sweet……」

「Careful lads! I sense something really disturbing about this chump…… This is probably the source of all the toxic vapors in the entire valley! It must devour death and suffering of anyone who enters here and convert it into the poison vapors!」

「Hyeeeeee…… I don’t want to get closer to this thing……!」

Hahaha, compared to the horror games with an R-18 rating, this is actually nothing to be afraid of! It’s just some weird-looking skull, nothing more!

Skeletal ghosts collecting souls and death and recycling it for something evil? Talk about an overused trope. Almost every game had at least one scenario in it like that.

「Hope you have something with a “Holy” attribute to it! Otherwise physical attacks will be utterly worthless against that thing!」

「…… Eh, seriously? Physical attacks aren’t going to work?」

Thing is…… I don’t really think that I have anything that would apply for that whole “Holy” element thingy. Both Emul and Break must have realized that as well, for they stiffened in astonishment.

It was at that moment that the black skeleton (whose name was apparently “Humming Rich”) decided to raise its staff and unleash a torrent of black projectiles onto my defenseless back.

「Uoooah, what’s this, what’s this!?」

It felt as though a delicate paintbrush was stroked right against my back. I slowly turned around with my jaw hanging wide open, a hypothesis already blossoming inside my mind. I open my status in a hurry to see if I was right or if I was right.

I mean yeah, I was feeling funny, or even strange, but aside from that there was literally nothing wrong with me.

「Ah…… What the hell…… Don’t tell me……」

Since I have no weapon with “Holy” element to it I have no means of doing harm to the Humming Rich, and because of my curse negating “curse marks” this thing has no way of inflicting any kind of damage upon me.

It was the weirdest kind of a stalemate, one that would continue to drag on and on and on without being resolved…… That is, if I was a single player.

「Fufufu…… my dear Emul, it seems that the situation calls for another Rabbit Gun: Palm Turret!!!」

「We’re doing that again!?」

That being said, “Curse Marks” only make me invincible against various curses. Magical and physical attacks are going to damage me like they would normally do. And even though I was quite strong right now, my VIT was still paper-thin, so I absolutely couldn’t afford to tank any kind of serious damage.

So I somehow managed to avoid the barrage of magical missiles that were flying my way as I closed the distance between Humming Rich and myself, then I pointed my improvised Emul-gun right towards its head.

「Let’s see how you like my single shot revolver! Haha, BANG!!」

「Pyaah!? I don’t get it at all what you’re talking about!?!?!? “Magic Edge”!」

Emul shouted and then released one huge magic blade right into Humming Rich’s face. It managed to do some damage, but apparently it wasn’t all that great. Oh well, good enough I guess.

I tried to slash it a few times just for the hell of it, but my weapons didn’t even leave a mark on its bare bones. So for now I put my swords away into my inventory and focused on attacking with Emul’s magic.

「Break!? How’s it going on your end!?」

「Ahh, give me a break! Ya think that’s so easy!? Then come over ‘ere and give it a go yerself!」

Break shouted while tinkering with the Dullahan General’s sword that I thought that I would never ever use. She unbottled a single vial of Holy Water and poured it all over the rusty blade while chanting some kind of spell.  

That is why I was right in the Humming Rich’s face –– that way I could focus all aggro onto me and let Break do her job in peace.

「I wonder if it can use those ribs as a melee weapons of sorts……?」

For now my job was simple: focus the boss’s attention on myself and buy Break as much time as possible, so that she could finish doing whatever it was she was doing with the Dullahan’s blade.

「Three kinds of projectiles, dark spheres, a dark hand emerging from the ground, summoning smaller demons, staff swipe…… There’s also a short-distance teleportation to adjust its position……」

「Pyaaaah!? We’re surrounded! We’re completely surrounded!!!」

「But compared to the Gravekeeper that’s  actually very easy……!」

I activate Moon Jumper to get out of the flock of smaller monsters that surrounded us, and then I jump back a few steps to carefully assess my current situation.

「It can’t even hold a candle to Wezaemon, but that teleportation can be annoying. Is it random? Or maybe there’s some kind of pattern to it?」

Unlike Wezaemon, who’s every single attack could prove deadly, it was quite easy to deal with the majority of Humming Rich’s attacks. But it was not a war of attrition but an extermination battle, so running away and dodging infinitely was ill advised.

Its occasional change of place and teleportation were the only things that were annoying to deal with. Was it due to a pattern or was it completely randomized? Finding the answer would be imperative for devising a further strategy of wearing its HP down

「It’s done!」

The very same moment that Break shouted those words, Humming Rich started to move in some suspicious way.