Chapter 39 – Dina Would Like To Battle!

Chapter 39 – Dina Would Like To Battle!

Raw link: http://ncode.syosetu.com/n2211cx/40/ (2015/12/27)

Translator: twomorefreethoughts / TpstT (2019/01/08)

Editor 1: Hands of Vecna / Vecna (2019/01/10)

Editor 2: Keii (2020/10/23)

Translation link: https://twomorefreethoughts.wordpress.com/awlba-c039/

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Update 1: Please avoid posting spoilers in the comment section.

Update 2: If you would like to talk to me or Vecna, here is the link for the discord server. The server is still relatively new (actually only 3 people at this moment with me and Vecna serving as 2 of them…) and there’s next to no activity but, please feel free to join and talk about the series or just to chit-chat!

https://discord.gg/PuVvGbT

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(Author Note)

Benetnash: “I should prepare some things before Mafahl arrives. We’re finally reuniting after 200 years, after all. First impressions are important, you know. Should I wear a black mantle or a red mantle… It’s hard to ditch the silver embroidery though. Hey, you, which one do you think is better?” -Excited excited-

Aide: (… Ruphas hasn’t… even started heading this way though…)

(Author Note end)

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“—Now then, let’s kill each other. My lovely master – Ruphas Mafahl.”

 

Dina flew up high and shouted out, all the while releasing gold-coloured light from her entire body.

In that instant, there appeared thousands of Metal-attribute raindrops, or perhaps even tens of thousands… It was a number simply too futile to count.

Each of them was a lump of metal that, individually, was not worth even catching.

However, it would be a different story if you were to be showered by all of them at once.

Needless to say, if you were a normal person, you would be turned into minced meat.

Countless steel bullets filled the air, and in the next moment, Dina brought her hands down.

 

“Maidens, I call upon thee to come forth. With thy daunting power, crush everything in the heavens and earth – Cleta!”[1]

 

Pronouncement.

In that instant, all of the metallic raindrops stormed down. Everything on the earth was shattered, shaved away and pulverised, as if they were shot by a Vulcan cannon.[2]

This… with something like this, I guess even I would take some damage?

 

No, let’s not concern myself with this. I will just break through this.

 

Using the intuition and senses of Ruphas within me, I charged into the metallic rain as if they were simply rocks to be shattered.

Of course, a metallic blizzard blew against my whole body.

It was painful… But it was not something that I could not endure.

I strongly swung my wings, creating a gust of wind that blew away all the metallic raindrops.

 

“It’s my turn this time!”

 

I transmuted many swords and shattered them into countless blades using an alchemist skill.

I then proceeded to launch them all towards Dina.

However, Dina’s expression did not change nor did she move from her position. Instead she proceeded to call out more magic.

 

“X-Gate!”

 

What opened in front of Dina was – I should call it a… hole in space?

It was as if there was a hole in the sky. It was an unrealistic sight to behold.

It definitely felt strange and surreal.

The sky was not meant to have a hole opened in it.

Yet that thing there could not be described as anything other than a “hole”, and that hole sucked in all of the blades that I had launched at her.

 

That being said, the Metal attribute was quite interesting.

It was similar to alchemy to an extent, yet it was also something different from it.

The basis of alchemy was to combine. It was used to combine various materials that already existed into something else.

But Metal-attribute arcane magic was different. It was used to “give birth” to metals.

Arcane magic could transform mana into a phenomenon. That was the setting of this world.

For example, fire or water created by arcane magic was no different in substance when compared to the real version. Nevertheless, fundamentally, they were mana and not real fire or water.

Therefore, it was impossible to create a golem using water created by arcane magic.

Correction, technically it was possible to create a golem, but it would disappear very quickly. Creating a golem using magic power would be impossible unless a person had an infinite amount of SP.

Anyways, what I was trying to say was…

The difference was whether the resulting product was water or metallic.

In any event, seeing a solid product being created right before my eyes was quite absurd.

 

As for X-Gate… I really can’t understand it.

 

[Moon] was the attribute that was associated with space and time, but Dina’s affinity was [Metal].

Perhaps it was a magic that was not restricted to a specific attribute.

Furthermore, back in the game, this type of magic existed only in the lore.

Notwithstanding, even though Dina was a “player” just like me, she was able to utilise that skill.

Was it a skill that had been learnt during the past 200 years or was it a skill that was going to be implemented in a future update…? Whichever it was, at this moment, there was no way for me to find out.

 

“Are you daydreaming? You seem to be acting quite leisurely.”

 

Dina sent the blade that I had previously used back at me.

 

Tsk, so you can redirect the vector of the things that you suck up, huh.

 

Additionally, by teleporting to a new location, Dina was able to create distance between us and send in her next magic.

 

“Aglaia!!”[3]

 

A light so bright that it blinded you – was that what you would call something like this?

An aurora covered the surroundings so brightly that I could not help but shut my eyes.

But the damage was negligible. It was not something that could penetrate past my defence.

By the time my vision recovered, Dina had already switched to commencing her second attack.

 

“Auxo!”[4]

 

Rain kept falling everywhere in the surroundings.

The rain itself did not have any power or effect.

The problem was with the earth that had bathed in that rain.

Trees started sprouting from every available space and grew high up into the sky. Those trees then started attacking me as if they were whips.

 

“Tsk!”

 

I punched, snapped and kicked at the large trees coming towards me.

I then flew up high into the air to avoid the trees that continued to ceaselessly grow.

In the next moment, I nose-dived! I used the grappler skill, Meteor Kick, to pierce into the ground, and just as the name might suggest, uprooted and blew away all the trees.

I then proceeded to grab one of the trees that I had snapped and threw it towards Dina.

Of course, she escaped by teleporting away, but I flew and closed in on her by aiming for the location where she reappeared.

 

“…! Fast…”

 

I used a normal attack to probe at the surprised Dina.

Dina managed to avoid the attack by quickly twisting her body a bit and countered by slapping my face with the back of her hand.

But…

 

“Something like that won’t work, you know.”

“!?”

 

—It did not hurt me one bit.

No, I thought that, without a doubt, it had more than enough power when compared to an attack from a random small fry.

That guy I had previously fought… err, who was it again? That guy who was buzzing around me. That Fire-attribute guy from the Seven Luminaries.

… Err, yeah, never mind, the name of a guy like that doesn’t really matter anyway. In any case, this was incomparable to a guy like that.

Getting back on topic, even if two players were of the same level, each player would have their strong and weak points. That is to say, even if the original Megrez or Merak punched me with all of their might, I would not take much damage at all.[5]

Ultimately, a magic user was a magic user and a tank was a tank.[6]

This was even more apparent because my character’s stats had been buffed up through doping.

My apologies, but just because an enemy was level 1000 did not mean that they would be able to fight fairly with me. Let alone 10%, I don’t think that a physical attack from a magic focused support player would do even 1% of my max HP.[7]

 

I struck my palm into Dina’s rib cage and activated the Blunt-Edge Strike skill.[8]

When it hit her, her body flew away in a funny fashion and mowed down the trees that were in her path.

But, it was clear that she was still at the level cap.

She spun around in the air once and proceeded to softly land on the ground.

However, she could not hide some of her impatience and irritation from her face.

 

“Haha, I see, I see. As expected… As expected, as expected. As expected of Ruphas Mafahl. With just one attack, you took away quite a lot of HP from me.”

“Why don’t we stop here, Dina? Someone like you won’t be able to win against me.”

 

To put it bluntly, I was a natural enemy to all mages.

The mantle I was wearing reduced the effects of all attributes by half. Thus, unless it did not have an attribute, arcane magic attacks were unable to inflict any sort of significant damage on me. Furthermore, due to the dress that I had equipped, I was immune to any status defects which might have been associated with certain attributes.

Additionally, thanks to the strider class’s gap-closer skills, I was able to quickly get close to the enemy and dish out strong physical damage attacks that mages were weak against.[9]

Naturally, a level 1000 backline player would have prepared ways to counter melee players. Indeed, someone like Megrez would be completely fine even if the enemy frontline got too close to him.

There were some rare exceptions, like Libra, that he could not handle though.

But Dina was not prepared.

It was true that her level was equal to mine. However, she was not knowledgeable about theories on how to counter melee players, nor did she have enough practical gameplay experience to spontaneously execute those kinds of theories in actual combat.

 

And of course she was like that.

It was because she was a “test player”.

She was not like us, who had actually played the game up to our level. All she was required to do was test how balanced the abilities in the game were.[10]

As such, she had no reason to figure out how to escape from a melee player as a support player. She wouldn’t have found loopholes nor researched advantageous and disadvantageous matchups when fighting.

She also would not have done something bothersome like doping during playtesting.

 

“Oh, how kind of you. Are you saying that you will forgive someone like me, who has been deceiving you all this time?”

“It’s a fact that you were deceiving me this whole time, but it’s also a fact that I was helped by you as well. In any event, I think it was my fault for being foolish enough to be deceived. If anything, I praise your ability to be able to do such a thing, so I don’t feel any resentment towards you.”

 

Exactly, I felt no anger towards Dina.

Yes, I was shocked that I had been deceived this whole time, but that was it.

Ultimately, even at this point, she was still one of the people that I wanted to protect.

She had been deceiving and using me. Yeah, that was exactly how it was. But so what?

I was not going to hate her just because of something like that.

I did not have a heart that would falter simply from being deceived just once.

 

“Why don’t you talk to me about it? The reason why you had to use such a troublesome and roundabout method to get me to fight the Demon King.”

“Do you think that you’ve already won? I think you’re jumping to conclusions. Please leave remarks like that for after you survive this attack!”

 

Dina’s eyes shone brightly as she spread her arms wide.

The next moment, the land started rumbling and the trees started collapsing.

The waves of pressure given off by her magic power alone made Jupiter’s winds look like a gentle breeze.

It seemed like she still had a hidden trump card left.

 

“X-Gate—“

“A summon? What is it this time…”

 

When I murmured that, I noticed that the surroundings had suddenly become dark.

What the…? Had the weather suddenly changed?

I looked up as that thought ran through my head… And just a little… I regretted doing that.

… Yeah… Nah… This was… You know…

 

“… This is… Such a fierce thing.”

 

There was a massive gate deployed in the air.

That was fine. That was within an acceptable range.

What was questionable was the thing that was coming out of that gate.

That gigantic globe that was giving off a golden shine was probably… not real.

If “it” really was actually coming down, I would not be able to recognize “that” thing falling down towards me as golden. To begin with, I probably would not have been able to even recognise that thing as a spherical object.

Even with all that, the size of that thing was still beyond the norm.

The diameter of that thing… was probably a few hundred metres. I would like to believe that it didn’t reach a kilometre, but…

She had most likely created it very high up in the sky by using Metal-attribute arcane magic and then brought it here using X-Gate.

 

What was falling down from the sky was… A planet with a brightly gold shine, Venus.

 

“—— Dawn Starrrrrrrrrrrr!!!”[11]

 

As Dina yelled, that small planet closed in on the ground with a thundering sound.

Wa, it… a little…

 

That totally looks like something that’ll involve the country of Gjallarhorn as collateral damage.

Not to mention that magic was famous in the game for being hard to utilise well because it was something that took a few seconds to start coming down after it was cast. But to use an X-Gate to bypass that and speed up the execution is a little bit unfair, don’t you think?

 

She had probably thought that she would not be able to defeat me unless she did something like this, and honestly, she was going a little overboard.

Having said that, it looked like I didn’t have the option to just run away.

If I ran away, the country of Gjallarhorn would really collapse, and Merak would die.

Aries and others would probably be able to endure through this normally, but I did not really feel like just letting it drop on its own.

 

Therefore.

 

“Very well. I accept your challenge, Dina.”

 

From the start, there was only one thing that I could do.

If one of my subordinates had made a mistake, I would punch them until they were being rational again and then hold out my hand for them to grab.

From the very start, I was not good at thinking. Not to sound like I’m bragging, but I was never one of those people who were intelligent to begin with.

So the things that someone like me could do was limited, and likewise, it was evident.

At the very least, I should expend my full effort committing to those limited options that I could take.

This time was the same. It was not going to be an exception.

I tightly gripped my fist and looked up into the sky.

It gave off an oppressing feeling that made me want to run away, but strangely, I felt absolutely no fear at all.

Most likely, the “Ruphas” inside of me was saying that she could do it.

And I myself seemed to feel strangely excited about what was about to happen, as my heart was pumping so violently that I could feel my whole body vibrating.

I noticed that the muscles in my own cheeks had loosened into a smile and thus understood that, at that moment, I was probably laughing.

 

I took flight.

I kicked the ground with all of my might and flapped my wings with all the power that I could muster.

Accelerate, accelerate —- accelerate, more.

The sound barrier – you’re annoying, get out of the way!

Something like sound was just foolish and sluggish, and I had no intention of waiting ages for it to arrive. They should just stay behind where they were.

As the scenery flowed past at a ridiculous speed, I put all the power that I had into my right fist.

 

The grappler skill, Iron Fist.[12] It was a skill that raised the attack power of fist attacks based on the level of the class.

Furthermore, I paired the skill with the defence penetration effect from the Penetrate Weak Spot skill.

The rest was my strength alone.

All I had to do was believe in my own body and my right hand.

 

“Uoooooooooooooooooooooo!!”

 

— I punched it.

 

My apologies for not being able to describe it in a more stylish and fanciful way, but that was all there was to describe.

I was not good at unnecessarily describing things using vivid or colourful phrases, and since all I did was punch it, I could only explain it as “I punched it”.

And that was enough.

The small planet that I punched ignored the laws of physics and flew away into the sky, proceeding to shatter into pieces.

When that happened, because the miniature Venus was unable to maintain its form, it broke back down into mana and disintegrated, as if it had never existed in the first place.

 

“………… No way.”

 

I noticed that Dina’s mouth was hanging open with a dumbfounded expression, as if she had suddenly forgotten about keeping up her evil façade.

Well, it was a justifiable reaction.

Even if it was me, if I was not Ruphas but still the original guy who was here now, if I had seen something like that, I would have called that person a “cheater”.

In any event, it seemed like that was more than enough to break Dina’s will to fight.

I could no longer feel any will or spirit from her.

 

“So… Do you still want to continue, Dina?”

 

I asked her just in case.

If she said that she was going to continue, I planned to punch her using Blunt-Edge Strike.

Personally, I did not want to punch a girl, so I would appreciate it if she surrendered at this point.

I would definitely avoid hitting her face or stomach, but since my opponent was a girl, choosing where to hit her was bothersome to begin with.

I felt like I would be scum no matter where I decided to hit her…

On the other hand, if my opponent was a guy, I could easily punch his face without holding back.

All the more so if he was a good-looking guy. I would hit him more than I needed to and I would not stop even if he started crying.

 

“… No. It’s my loss.”

 

However, her reply stopped my needless worrying.

Dina admitted her defeat and sat down on the spot.

Good, now I didn’t have to harm her anymore.

 

Anyways… It really did give me the shivers.

Even if it was fake, I didn’t think that she would drop down a planet such as Venus like that…

 

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(Author Note)

[Some very irrelevant background info]

Dawn Star

The strongest Metal-attribute map-wide AoE arcane magic. 

It is a famous “dropping a meteorite” type of magic that any RPG would at least have one of. Back in the game, players used to drop this skill here and there without thinking about the surroundings at all.

For some reason, even if you used the magic in a room, the meteor would still come down normally. That was the premise of these kinds of magic in the games.

In the game, the magic would strangely do no harm to the user, but in this world, as one might expect, the user would also be dragged in.

Normally, there is a delay after it’s finished casting before the meteorite comes crashing down onto the enemy and deals damage. But by utilising X-Gate, Dina was able to cheat and make the skill an instant cast magic, with no delay before its activation.

It’s not really important, but it seems that the strongest arcane magic of any attribute is renamed to the corresponding planet’s name.

If it was the strongest Water attribute arcane magic, then it would be named “Triple Grand Hermes”, or something like that.[13]

 

Mars: “So the strongest Fire-attribute arcane magic would be named after me!”

You’re wrong.

(Author note end)

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[1] Cleta was written in English in the raw. The second sentence of the incantation is what LHTranslation used for the manga. The first line was not in the manga.

Vecna: Dina’s skills are named after the Charities in Greek mythology. “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleta”.

[2] I Google’d Vulcan cannon, it looks like a minigun to me.

Vecna: An example would be the M61 Vulcan, a six-barrelled gatling-style rotary cannon. “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M61_Vulcan”.

[3] Aglaia is written in English in the raw.

EN: Aglaea (Greek: “splendor, brilliant, shining one”), the youngest of the 3 Charities. “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aglaea”.

[4] Protector of vegetation and plants, and growth and fertility. “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horae#First_triad”.

[5] Raw used Megrez and Meisu (メイス). I assume that was a typo and the author meant Merak because that makes more sense in the context… unless I missed something while I was translating.

[6] I assume the author’s trying to say support (magic type), and a tank (front liner). For those not used to the MMO genre, there’s 3 types of characters/player/class. Tanks, DPS and Support. Tanks do little damage but can take a lot of hits, their job is to prevent allies from being damaged and to keep others alive. A DPS (damage per second) would be a damage dealer like Ruphas, does a lot of damage but doesn’t take damage for others or support other players. Their job is to kill everything. Support are backliners like healers (e.g. Merak) who support and heal others and keep others alive. The author is saying that even if support players like Merak and Megrez attacked Ruphas, Ruphas won’t really take much damage at all.

[7] Backline characters like Dina focus on magical attacks, and do very little (if any) physical damage.

[8] Literally means “Striking with the back of the sword”. Please let me know if you prefer “Blunt-Edge Strike” (current) or “Sword-Back Strike”. (Raw: 峰打(う)ち)

[9] Explanation of typical MMO mechanics. Most MMOs splits the attack stat into “physical attacks/damage” and “magical attacks/damage”. This means that, for defence, there’s “physical armour/defence” and “magical armour/defence”. Most of the time, magic users like mages, healers, and supports have equipment that boost magic attack/heals (magical), and magic armour/defence. The magic users often (not always) have low movement speed, low survivability and low physical defence. They often have very few ways to counter physical attackers that have already gotten close to them and thus they are considered “weak” against physical attacks in close range. The author is saying that Ruphas’s equipment gives her a 50% damage reduction against all arcane magic attacks and she is able to negate all negative debuffs that are associated with specific elements (e.g. fire/burn, lightning/paralysis, water/slow). Furthermore, she is able to easily close in on magic users with her “gap-closer skills” and do a lot of burst physical damage (high damage in a short amount of time) before the magic user is able to get away (e.g. teleport away).

[10] Test-players are usually given a max level avatar by the developers and don’t really “play” the game to that level. They just test for bugs and glitches and report them back to the company.

[11]明けの明星 – Used LHTranslation’s translation (chapter 15) – Dawn Star

[12]アイアンフィスト

[13]三重に偉大なヘルメス

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