3 bar menu

ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 529 Part 2

ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 529: An Orchestra Just For You PART 11 Part 2

「Oho. It seems that they have already entered the boss’ range.」

「So, it means that from this distance forward they are going to be continuously poisoned? Incidentally, how bad of a poison are we talking about in here?」

「Hmm, let’s see…… It takes about five seconds to bring a level ninety nine character from a full health to zero. So I guess that those guys will have about eight seconds to live?」

Yes, that’s right. That is the greatest feature of the Wandering Pandemic “Blue”. It is the ability to spread around a “disease” that cuts the upper limit of the players’ HP, not the HP itself. As to the rate and the amount of the HP that is being cut off and the rate at which the process is happening, it seems that it all scales with the player’s level.

What is really troublesome here is the fact that because of the method like that, there is no way of actually counteracting this process. So you can only sit and watch as your maximum amount of HP is being melted down and there is actually nothing that you can do about it.

「Oh, and it goes without saying that the closer you get to the boss monster, the faster the poison is going to affect you……」

「Ah! Hey, one of them already managed to collapse to the ground!」

「Hmm, so, is it something that attacks your respiratory tract? Or maybe damage the tissue inside of your lungs? Look, they are all having trouble breathing, as if they have conducted a fully-blown marathon run or something like that.」

「Yeah, it’s a rather sorry sight to witness, I won’t lie.」

The guy that collapsed to the ground did so while coughing violently all the time, and before long he disappeared in a geyser of pixels. The other two were still advancing forward, but they already started to cough as well, and making another step was starting to become increasingly more difficult for them. There was still about twenty meters left until they could reach the Wandering Pandemic “Blue”?

However, just then yet another person dropped to the ground, this time around frantically holding his chest. Ah, could it be that…… No, but surely it was not what I think it was……?

「A textbook example of a cardiac arrest, it would seem. While I was doing some research one of the female players described the feeling as: “sudden tightness in your chest, as if you were wearing a bra that was a cup or two too small for you”. Of course, the feeling was only present in the left side of the chest area.」

「Yeah, that’s the kind of analogy that a guy would have trouble understanding.」

「I can tell you that even as a fellow woman, I also can’t actually picture the feeling all that well.」

After that comment what followed was a brief moment of silence.

If I happen to make a mistake here, which would be oh too easy of a thing to do, the consequences would be dire. So I need to choose my words carefully and watch my step.

「Oh, it looks like they are finally within the range of the mid-distance classes……」

「Yes, it would seem that way…… Hmm, a Magic Caster, huh……」

「Is there some sort of a problem with that?」

Could it be that this thing is actually resistant to magic attacks? While I was thinking about such a possibility, one Magic Caster started to chant his spell…… and in the next moment they exploded in a spectacularly gruesome fashion.

「Huh?」

「It seems that this group has only taken precautions when it comes to their equipment…… But I see. Most likely, contracting the “disease” will cause one’s magic circuits to ran amok, resulting in magic spells misfiring or striking back at those who wanted to cast them.」

「So what? Is that some sort of a magic seal, or something like that?」

「No, I would not go that far, but…… Especially when you are a low-level player, you use magic to primarily make some small stat enhancements. This should only result in some small self-harm.」

There’s two more people left on the field. Distance left to the raid boss monster: about five meters. And the fact that the two that are still alive are Tanks, does that mean that you can defend against this with a high enough Vitality? Yeah, I think that in ShanFro immunity to disease is also Vitality dependent.

「They are now all within the close range, but……」

「Yeah, I mean…… This IS a raid boss monster that we are talking about here……」

Yeah, and while I do believe that the number of one thousand possible participants is a little bit of a stretch here, there is no way in hell that only two Tanks are going to be able to bring the HP of a raid boss monster down to zero.

One of the Tanks got hit by the miasma vapors that the Blue Horse let out of its mouth, and then collapsed to the ground while the muscles all over his body started to cramp up. As for the other guy…… he just got his entire head bitten off by the horse itself.

「Alright, and that about wraps it up.」

「No, I mean…… Hey, that’s a little cold, don’t you think? And way too casual!」

「No, this was actually all part of the strategy. You see, the more the people, the harder it was to get closer to the boss, so they were trying over and over again with less and less people. And the less people they had, the better the results were. So they thought that five people might actually be ideal number here.」

「I know that us Pioneers cannot really perma die, but going with five people against something like that is a little bit much, don’t you think?」

Yes, that’s right. Pioneers can try over and over again, and learn from their mistakes. The same thing cannot be said for NPC, which is why in my eyes their lives are way more valuable than those of Pioneers.

「So anyways, what kind of strategy would be optimal in here?」

「Optimal? That would be to assemble the recommended group of thousand people of at least level thirty or above and have them push forward constantly, stepping over the corpses of their comrades if need be.」

「Yeah, like, I can picture that strategy in my mind and it is so gory and violent that I don’t really want to think about it.」

A Raid Boss Monster that even small fries can hope to overcome, huh? I guess that even dust when given enough time will accumulate and form a literal mountain. Yeah, that’s right.

「But isn’t this situation pretty dangerous here?」

「In what sense?」

「At first this thing must have been much further away from here, right? Because, see? It’s advancing, slowly but steadily. People must have ventured towards it in order to verify what that thing is, but now it’s closer. And now you can even see it’s shape clearly from this place.」

「…… Ah, so you are wondering about the defense of the frontline base in face of the raid boss monster?」

「It might not be so bad right now, but it would be bad to leave this thing to its own devices like that, wouldn’t you agree?」

In other words, it’s a situation where you would really want to do something before you are going to be driven into a corner from where there won’t be any way out. And here even the fate of the entire Thirdrema may be at stake.

「Well, you know how it is for a large group of people like that: even though they want to get things done here, it’s hard to get them all in one place at the same time because of work, school, uneven login times…… Yeah, coming up with a schedule that is going to fit everyone’s needs is nigh impossible here……」

Ah, so basically what she is trying to say here is that this raid boss monster is basically one huge skipping rope, huh…… And that’s one hell of an analogy to have here. Hmm……

「Say, about that thing…… Ahh, how am I even supposed to put it that you would understand?」

「What is it?」

「You have that tile of yours, right? “Maximum Speed”? Why not try to verify some things using that thing?」

「Hey, you know what? That’s actually a pretty good idea!」

As expected, those guys are a literal mine of unorthodox and interesting ideas. Now then…… Wandering Pandemic “Blue”? Come here, you little bitch! Let’s play together for a while!