On their way back to the base, Maple consulted Sally on an important detail—which
abilities she could reveal for day two. She had a particular one in mind—a versatile,
cost-efficient skill.
And when she found Dread waiting for her, she went right for it.
"Predators!"
Two hideous monsters emerged from the ground.
This was the first time she'd used them in public, and Dread was not prepared.
"The hell is that?!"
"Syrup! Mother Nature!"
At her command, vines snaked out of the ground, surrounding Dread and Maple,
sealing them all inside.
The walls kept weaving tighter, the space shrinking.
Dread slashed the barrier, trying to break out, but quickly realized that would take
far too long.
He abandoned the idea, focusing on Maple herself.
"…Okay, my loss. Next time, I'll be prepped and ready for ya."
He'd only just finished fighting the twins and had not been expecting Maple to arrive
in time to catch him.
But she had, and now she had him trapped.
It was chance that had given her this advantage, but next time…
Well, under any other circumstances, he could at least run away.
"And I'll just kill you again!" Maple shouted.
Her Predators launched themselves toward him.
"Oh, next time it'll be a Maple hunt!"
And with that, Dread turned to light.
Maple couldn't miss the vicious grin on his face. That was the smirk of a man with a
plan.
She had Syrup cancel Mother Nature and went back to Sally.
The skill had successfully kept her out of the fight.
Maple made a beeline for her and pinched her cheeks.
"You're such a tryhard!"
"…Sorry."
"Save that for the twins when they respawn."
"Will do."
Before long, Mai and Yui showed back up.
Maple and Sally immediately apologized, but the twins weren't the least bit upset. In
fact, they seemed quite proud of themselves for having held off a powerful foe long
enough for Maple to get back.
"Better put these orbs out," Sally said, and ten orbs rolled out of her inventory.
"Sally, why would you push yourself like this? You could have swung back home
earlier!"
"Yeah, about that… uh, better get Kanade out here first."
"It's almost time to change shifts. I'll go get him!"
Mai dashed down the hall and came back with Kanade in tow.
"Kanade, hate to rush you, but stick this in your brain."
Sally showed him her map.
"Wow…," he murmured in wonder.
Everyone leaned in and saw nearly every inch of the event's map bursting with intel.
She'd spent twelve straight hours running and had filled her map with guild
positions, sizes, and more.
"I'm… really past my limit. Kanade, make sure you put this all on Maple's map."
"Mm, got it. It's all up here," he said, tapping his head. His memory was superhuman
and could retain all that info at a glance.
"Thanks. Maple, time for Plan B."
They'd come up with this in case the front line collapsed.
But once the event was actually underway, things hadn't all gone the way Sally
thought; she'd decided it was best to change tack.
Plan B.
Aka: Unleash the Maple.
Freed from the shackles of guard duty, their greatest weapon would be running
amok outside.
Sally's info had given them nearly every guild's location. Now they just had to send in
the real monster.
"Call me if the defense is in trouble—I'll fly right home!"
"Is there a cap on that?" Sally asked.
Maple did some quick math.
"Depends on the distance, but—uh, how far did I fly to save you? I can manage that
round trip twice a day, I think."
Her flight was powered by weapon destruction, so it wasn't always available.
And if she burned those to take flight, she couldn't use them to attack.
Best to use it sparingly.
"I'll start from the outside and work my way in, then fly the last stretch home."
With Sally's map, she didn't need to waste time searching. Maple could just plot the
most efficient route.
That saved a lot of time.
"I'll just… rest awhile."
"Yep, I'm tagging in."
As Sally left the ring, Maple entered.
Everything was in place.
"I'll head out at first light!"
"And I'll put this all on your map before you go."
Kanade quickly started scribbling.
The next morning…
One midsize guild breathed a sigh of relief. They'd made it to dawn.
"Whew… finally, some light!"
"No more night raids! Life will be so much easier!"
"…Enemy incoming! They're solo!"
Their early morning peace was instantly shattered.
Tensing themselves, all eyes turned toward this lone invader.
A girl in black armor walked straight into their base, not even bothering to hide.
The incarnation of broken. The symbol of death. The embodiment of madness.
The one player who didn't need to defend herself—
Maple.
"L-let's do this! Protect the orb!"
"""Urahhh!"""
But even as they braced themselves… Maple was getting ready to go all out.
"Predators!"
The one new attack they were letting her reveal.
One strong enough to shatter the spirits of any other player.
Ripping players apart, the creatures she summoned advanced relentlessly.
Unbridled violence, inexorably driven home.
They knew where she was, how she was attacking, even had a general idea of her
stats—but none of that helped them stop her.
Maple walked in lockstep with death incarnate.
Not a glimmer of hope was left in her wake.
Any guild she targeted—was doomed.
Maple had left at daybreak. Until then, she'd stayed put at the base.
She couldn't risk leaving until Sally's ten-orb haul was scored.
Sally was sleeping like the dead in back—it did not seem like she'd be up for a while.
Kanade had transferred her map data to everybody else. And there was no need to
gather repair items—they had Iz.
Which left them with no real reason to leave the base.
While only a few foes were likely to attack Maple Tree because Maple was absent,
they definitely needed a group on guard.
"So? Do we wanna send anyone else out? Just… thinning the enemy ranks?" Chrome
suggested.
"Hmm. I can do that," Kasumi volunteered. "Iz's bombs and the twins' throws can
deal plenty of damage, and you're enough defense all on your own."
She headed toward the exit.
"Don't take any crazy risks."
"Yeah, I'll make sure to stay alive."
And with that, she vanished down the passage.
Kasumi had spent the bulk of the first day teamed with Iz.
Their peculiar tactics had required specific base layouts, so they'd mostly spent time
eliminating the competition.
With Iz around, she never had to worry about her equipment's durability, so they'd
spent the night throwing themselves at any players they ran across.
Even without Maple, fighting Maple Tree was a harrowing endeavor.
And players who'd died once would avoid attacking any Maple Tree members
afterward.
Their home base was also getting attacked less because Kasumi and Iz had steadily
added to the death count of all the players in the vicinity.
This tactic was the epitome of slow and steady, and it was highly effective.
That's why Kasumi planned to spend the second day doing the exact same thing.
"Best if I go the opposite direction from Maple."
It was futile to expect Maple to leave survivors in her wake.
"Let's try this way." Kasumi picked a forest that offered lots of places to hide.
She'd been spending a lot of time in rough terrain like this. The ample cover not only
kept her hidden—it encouraged other players to patrol the area, giving her plenty of
targets.
"Speak of the devil."
Spotting a player, she swiftly attacked from behind.
"You should be more vigilant," she suggested.
Sparks flying, they spun around, wildly flailing with their sword, hoping to connect.
But Kasumi deflected this clumsy attempt easily, attacking again—all movements
she'd done countless times before, and they proved their usefulness once again.
She quickly killed three players in the forest, checked her katana's durability, then
set off once more.
"I'll have to ask Iz to repair it when I get back."
Just as she left the forest, she ran into a male player.
"...…Oh! I know you!"
"…I was just leaving," Kasumi said, grimacing.
But this guy wasn't letting her go.
"Man, I was totally planning on inviting you to our guild and everything."
"Sorry, but Maple beat you to it."
Every guild was on the lookout for talent.
Maple Tree was hardly the only guild that had been after top players like Kasumi and
Chrome.
The man facing her shrugged her dismissive comment off, then locked eyes with her.
"You got me in the first event," he admitted. "But not this time."
He drew his one-handed sword and raised his shield.
This was Shin—the man known on the server as Splinter Sword. He and Kasumi had
fought each other in the first event, and she'd emerged victorious.
"Sigh… Enjoy your respawn!" Kasumi said, drawing her katana.
Shin hadn't earned his nickname for nothing.
"Splinter Sword!" he yelled—and his sword fell apart, leaving the resulting pieces to
float in the air.
They formed ten blades, each like a miniature version of the original.
A shield on one arm. Ten blades in the air around him.
Manipulating these flying blades was how Shin fought—and Kasumi knew full well
how long his range was. She wouldn't be getting away easily.
"Hah!"
His blades shot toward her.
"Hmph!"
With a quick grunt, she knocked as many down as she could—or deflected them—
focusing on defense.
Kasumi couldn't dodge like Sally did. She was steadily taking damage.
But she could tank that. Unlike Sally, she had plenty of HP.
Avoiding any blades aimed at her torso, she kept fighting.
"First Blade: Heat Haze!"
This helped her close instantly with Shin, letting her slash at him.
But he blocked the attack with his shield.
"Yep, still one heck of a skill! Can't survive it without a shield."
"Hah… I've had someone stone-cold dodge it!"
The skill motion completed, she attacked again.
This, too, was blocked; and Kasumi sensed the blades coming in from behind. She
was forced to retreat.
Having fought before, they both had a sense of the other's style; neither was catching
the other by surprise or able to land a decisive blow.
But it had been a while since the first event.
And neither had been slacking off. They'd both found ways to improve.
The one who could weather the other's improved arsenal would decide the outcome.
Kasumi was biding her time, waiting for the chance to go on the offensive.
Shin had a shield, which meant it was possible he could even block the move she'd
used on Sally—Final Blade: Misty Moon.
Once she used that skill, Kasumi would take a huge stat hit and lose access to some
of her skills to boot.
But it was as powerful as it was swift.
An ultimate move only useful one-on-one.
If it wasn't for Shin's shield, she'd have used it already.
"Hah...! Hngg!"
She spun, her katana lashing out, escaping the flying swords.
Those gave him a reach advantage, preventing her from getting in close.
And on top of that, he'd gotten a lot better at precision control.
Feeling like he was going to win the battle of attrition, she decided to force an
opportunity.
"Fourth Blade: Whirlwind."
A high-speed four-hit combo. Shin caught each blow on his shield.
Then the flying swords came in, digging into her HP. Still, she endured.
Splinter Sword sacrificed the power of each individual blow in exchange for a much
higher quantity of hits.
It would take all those blades scoring clean hits to down Kasumi.
"Seventh Blade: Pulverize."
This was a strong blow from above with a knockback effect.
Shin caught it, sliding away.
The true value of this skill was the massive amount of damage it did to equipment.
Naturally, it did far more damage to her opponent's, but the damage to her own
blade was nothing to sneeze at.
In other words, Kasumi had decided her best path to victory was to break Shin's
shield before her HP ran out.
"You've raised your STR… more than I expected!"
He commanded his blades to swing back around between them, stopping her
advance.
And…
"Splinter Sword!"
A second activation.
Shin's true power was one unknown to Kasumi.
The blades grew smaller still, splitting into twenty shards. Then he sent them all
head-on toward her.
She hadn't expected a veritable wall of blades to come after her, and a lot of them
connected with her body. Each strike did little damage, but they gave her no time to
recover. Her HP was at its limit.
"…No other way, I guess," Kasumi whispered. She went limp.
"I told you I'd win this time!"
Once again, the tiny blades shot toward her.
"Origin Blade: Void."
Kasumi's hair turned white, and her eyes shone with a scarlet light.
Shin took one look and instinctively braced himself. She'd been in this state last time,
too. The time he'd lost.
And right before his very eyes—Kasumi vanished.
"...! Where—?!"
"Here."
The voice came from right behind him.
Before he could turn around, two arms grew from his chest. More accurately,
Kasumi's hands impaled him from behind.
"…Damn. I lose again?"
Shin shattered, turning to light.
"…No. It's a tie… or my loss, really," Kasumi muttered.
Like Final Blade, this skill had a steep penalty. Not to her stats—
This one affected her equipment durability.
Barely hanging on to begin with, her gear was unable to survive the hit. Everything
except her accessories disappeared. Including her katana.
"Didn't expect this much to break. Guess I've been cutting it too close."
If she encountered anyone else bereft of her mainstay weapons and armor, she was
in serious trouble.
She quickly equipped her backup weapon, activated Superspeed, and raced back to
their base.
"Ugh… I liked that one, too."
She keenly felt the loss of her favorite sword.
This fortunately only lasted approximately five minutes, ending when she got back to
the guild and Iz agreed to reforge the blade.
As Kasumi and Shin wrapped up their duel, Maple was busy being a walking natural
disaster.
"Next… is that way!"
She was already tired of walking and hopped on Syrup's back so she could fly.
This naturally drew a lot of attention.
As she drew near the next guild, she could hear screams from the ground below.
"Acid Rain!"
Poison began gushing down, tormenting the players below.
"Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain!" Maple sang.
She kept the deluge going a bit, then noticed there were far fewer players than
before and hopped down.
"Predators!"
The survivors were already hurting, and the monsters made short work of them.
"Mwa-ha-ha… and now your orb is mine!"
She checked her map, picked her next target, and left the ruined guild behind.
"Hmm, I'd love to switch to Atrocity and run, but I can't. If only I could borrow Sally's
feet!"
That was not currently a thing she could do.
At best, she could have Sally carry her.
But with Sally still in bed, there was no telling when that courier service would
become available.
"I guess Syrup is my best option."
Maple was not one to worry about how much attention she was drawing. She kept
right on turtle-riding.
"Hmm, nobody's coming after me. But Sally had so many people chasing her
around!"
The main difference was that Sally had stolen her orbs, while Maple was simply
murdering everyone first.
Nobody was stupid enough to bother chasing after her. Even after she'd taken out six
whole guilds.
"I'm getting these orbs faster than Sally thought I would! This is easy."
Maple sprawled out on Syrup's back… until she heard swords clashing below.
She pulled herself to the edge of Syrup's shell and peered down. Several players were
fighting over orbs below.
One guild had lost their orb to a powerful opponent, and its members were rushing
out to get it back.
"Why are they all fighting? Oh! That orb's the one I wanted next!"
After seeing an orb already in the middle of a maelstrom of swords and sorcery,
moving on to the next target would be prudent.
Sally would have done so.
However, Maple moved directly over the orb, and without a second's hesitation,
jumped right down.
Truly death from above. She and her pet monsters entered the eye of the storm.
"That orb's mine!"
This was not true.
But there were strong odds it soon would be.
"Hydra!"
She aimed her deluge of poison directly downward, and the noxious liquid splashed
off the ground, spraying in every direction.
It was almost like a fountain of powerful poison centered on Maple herself. Anyone
unlucky enough to be in proximity was swiftly swallowed up. And with the ground
covered in poison, no one could get anywhere near her.
One of Maple's great strengths was her tendency to use tactics so mind-boggling that
nobody could react in time.
But when she turned toward the pedestal, the orb was already gone.
A quick-witted player had spotted an opportunity and nabbed the prize first.
And she had no idea who.
"Huh? What now…? Oh! Syrup, Mother Nature!"
She was in a flat area with scattered trees, and she hastily grew some vines,
encircling the crowd.
Maple looked around, assuming the orb thief hadn't gone far and was hopefully
trapped in her vine prison.
"Sally's notes say: 'If you can't catch 'em, kill 'em all!' That's what I'll do!"
There was no easy way to tell who held the orb, but if everyone died, it was bound to
drop eventually.
Killing players on this scale was hardly easy—unless you were Maple and amply
motivated.
But she was still shackled by restraint, which prevented her from using most of her
moves. So she simply expanded the lake of poison, reducing the area her enemies
could stand safely and penning them in like cattle.
The players had abandoned their battle and were working together, hell-bent on
survival. Maple was too slow to catch up with any of them.
"Hngg, it's not working! Syrup!" Maple ordered her pet to generate more vines, with
herself at the center.
She was soon dangling from a sphere of plants that reached into the sky above her
vine prison.
"Deploy Artillery!"
Weapons spawned all over her. This was the same move she'd used to save Sally.
But this time she was being even more thorough.
"Commence Assault!"
A barrage of laser fire rained down on players and forced them to make evasive
maneuvers in the increasingly limited terrain outside the poison lake. Nobody here
was capable of succeeding.
One after another, they were swallowed up by the threat from above.
The poison lake had seemed like a failed strategy only moments earlier, but it was
paying off big-time.
"I guess I can go down now," Maple said.
She landed and started looking for survivors. Instead, she found the orb sitting in a
pool of her poison.
"Oh! I got 'em! Nice."
She scooped up the prize, lowered the prison walls, and flew away on Syrup's back.
"I might have to start conserving Hydra soon… but I don't wanna reveal my machine
form yet, and if I have to do that again… Hmm…"
The sun on the second day had yet to reach its zenith.
Like Sally, Maple couldn't spend all day out wreaking havoc, but for very different
reasons.
"Maybe one… or two more? Yeah, let's go with that." She quickly picked out her
targets. Once those were done, she'd head on home.
The Maple Tree members on guard duty had nothing to do.
Currently, they only had their own orb to look after, so nobody was coming to get
theirs back.
Sally was still out like a light, and Iz was busy forging Kasumi's new katana.
Kasumi was pacing back and forth behind her, fretting about her blade.
This would have been the ideal moment to raid their base, but the first day had
sealed their reputation, and nobody even wanted to risk reconnoitering them.
Once Maple was unleashed, the spectators all began talking about her threat level.
"What is she even doing?!"
"Argh… You take your eyes off her for one minute and she gets even worse!"
They were well aware they might all have to face her someday and would not stand a
chance. How could they do anything but laugh?
"She's got more than poison now… and what are those cannons?! Or the wings?!"
"Why are there lasers in a game with archers?!"
"Forget that, what are those… things with her? They look like they've crawled out of
the bowels of hell!"
"Aughhhh, if I run into her again, I'm so dead! Can't you evolve on more of a… gentle
slope? You're gonna give us a heart attack, Maple!"
The danger she posed had clearly more than doubled since the last event.
"She looks so adorable with her angel wings, but she's flanked by hideous horrors!
You don't need those things! Maple, please!"
And even as they talked, players who'd been eliminated by her rampage started
showing up and sharing their tales. Everyone was hungry for details, hoping for even
a glimpse at a survival strategy.
"Hard to tell what the angel thing is all about from just a video feed, but those nobly
sacrificed to her exploits claim she's soaking damage for everyone else in her party. I
guess it's like an AOE Cover? That's what I heard, at least."
"She's no angel, then. Lord… a perpetual Maple cover?!"
"That's hell on earth! At least it looks pretty."
"Who even stands a chance against it? You're better off running for the hills. Avoid
anyone strong! Only way to stay alive."
"But with the orbs… that's not a viable strategy."
"Oh, Maple's definitely got the spotlight, but those two kids with the giant hammers?
They're pretty nuts in their own right."
"Lots of people claiming those girls one-shot them."
"Does their guild have zero normal members? Is it all top rankers or monsters?"
"They're placed fifth right now! You can't get your orb back without taking Maple
out, so that's not happening. Nobody's even trying anymore."
"High risk, low return… Scratch that. Let's just say 'no return.'"
"They're gonna have to face the Order or Flame Empire eventually, right? So many
guilds getting eliminated. The big guilds still hold the lead for now…"
The audience found it hard to believe anyone could take the two biggest guilds that
stood at the top.
"Well, not like the feed's showing everything that's happening. But if anyone's
fighting Maple, I wanna watch."
And as they talked, more eliminated players arrived, sharing stories about the titans
who'd defeated them.