While Sally was retraining her dodges, Maple was doing access permit quests.
There was a lot to do on this stratum, meaning the town and field were equally
teeming with players.
The Maple Tree members were every bit as busy, and their top players were always
on the go, everyone pursuing their own personal agendas.
The "big day" came a few days after Sally hit level 35.
The guild had decided to go slay a dragon together.
They finally found a day when everyone could participate and took advantage of it.
And with Maple in the party, there was almost no chance of them wiping.
Sally's info had helped them figure out a plan that would take advantage of everyone's
skills, allowing them to beat this thing and claim the Dragon's Sore Scales.
"The intel says it flies around, spitting balls of electricity. When it gets low, you hit it
with spells and arrows. But it's got decent magic resistance, meaning bows tend to do
the heavy lifting. Drop the HP far enough and it'll start skimming the ground, charging,
claw slashes, breath attacks. Only the claws are piercing. Then it'll back away after a
bit by flying. The fight won't be in a dungeon. That's about all I got."
"So we've got this in the bag," Chrome said. There was a direct correlation between
their odds of winning and the number of attacks that worked on Maple.
"I also picked up Dragon Slayer on this floor," Kasumi said. "I'll hit it with that when
it's close to the ground."
As the name suggested, her skill increased damage against dragon-type monsters.
"Yui and I'll do the same."
The twins were on the ground squad, and this team composition meant the dragon
would likely not survive to fly again after coming down the first time.
If it couldn't break through Maple and Chrome to take out the twins, death was
virtually inevitable.
"Then Maple and I will hit it in the air? We're the ones with distance attacks."
"That's right, Kanade. I think that's the only way."
Even if it did resist a lot of magic damage, Kanade's spells would still definitely help.
"It might take a while… but we're taking that thing down."
Sally got up to go, but Maple raised her hand.
"Um, I have an idea," she offered.
"Lay it on us."
Maple began to explain her cunning scheme.
Maple Tree was climbing a mountain, bound for the peak with the magic circle that
would whisk them to the dragon fight.
Any monsters that swooped at the party bounced off Maple's defense, and the other
seven made short work of them.
"Here we are!"
"Yep, that's the one."
The glowing circle was waiting for them.
Once they stepped in, they'd be in the combat zone.
"Right, just do what Maple said!"
And with that, everyone jumped on and vanished in a puff of light.
The battlefield looked a lot like the wasteland where Maple had fought the demon.
The sky above was dark and ominous, and the white scales of the dragon were clearly
visible against it.
It was too high up for even spells to reach. And from that elevation, it was flinging
crackling white balls down at them.
Its aim proved true, but Maple took no damage, so everything was hunky-dory.
"Yup, we're good."
"Cool. Maple, do your thang."
"Sounds good! Kasumi?"
"Ready."
Paying no heed to the monster's attacks, they got ready to fight.
Maple deployed her Machine God kit, fully prepared to take flight. Kasumi found a way
to fit between the artillery pieces to cling on to Maple's back and used an Iz-made
Doping Seed to boost her STR.
Maple glanced up, pinpointing the dragon's location, and then aimed her barrels at the
ground.
"Here we go!"
Flames and explosions scorched the earth as the two girls rocketed skyward.
They went through a lightning ball and kept hurtling toward the dragon's maw.
As they drew near, Kasumi leaped down onto the dragon's head, and Maple flew
alongside it. Both activated their skills.
"Saturating Chaos! Hydra!"
"Final Blade: Misty Moon! Purple Phantom Blade!"
Maple's attacks shot through the flying dragon, and Kasumi raced down its back as her
attacks activated, each hit knocking off chunks of its HP.
A monster designed to be whittled away with ranged spells was easily dropped to the
first HP threshold.
Maple reached the tail first, summoned Syrup, and ordered it to hover. Then she used
the recoil from her attacks to land on its back.
"Maple! Leap!"
Shrouded in purple smoke and tiny after using her ability, Kasumi more or less
tumbled her way toward Maple, who caught her, eyes wide.
Kasumi still wasn't used to this form and had lost her sword again—it was falling
toward the ground as the dragon descended.
"Sigh… We might not have needed Purple Phantom Blade."
"Wow! I've never seen anything like this. Look at you!"
Maple was beaming at her, and the close examination made Kasumi squirm.
"Don't stare… It's a whole thing, I know…"
"Oh, sorry. Let's watch the others take their turn!"
"It would be a good skill if it weren't for this…"
Chrome saw the dragon headed their way and lowered his shield. (He'd been tanking
the lightning balls in Maple's absence.)
"Incoming!"
"We're ready for it!"
Mai and Yui had their hammers raised, standing on either side of the dragon's
aggressive flight path.
They'd used Doping Seeds while Kanade cast all the STR buff support spells he could
muster, and Sally had even busted out her Inspire skill for practically the first time.
Their effective STR was as high as it could possibly be.
Roaring, the dragon swooped toward them.
Its attack pattern set in stone, the ferocious creature was forced to charge blindly into
certain death.
""Farshot!""
Their hurled hammers released four shock waves, each striking the dragon head-on.
It had 80 percent of its health remaining, and these hits instantly took that down to 0.
"Everyone talks about Maple, but these two are plenty nuts in their own right…"
"Yuuup."
"Did I stack too much support magic? Oh, here come Maple and Kasumi."
After soundly defeating the boss in less than a minute, they now had enough Dragon's
Sore Scales for every guild member.
Nobody else could match their clear speed, and for most of the player base, the dragon
remained a very tough boss.
On Syrup's back, Kasumi got her clothes back in order, then went to collect her katana.
When that was done, Maple Tree took the circle back to the original mountain, and
their hunt was over.
Since Kasumi was still struggling with her tiny form, everyone took a Syrup ride down
the slope.
"How is it you can run in that body?" Kasumi asked, referring to Maple's monstrous
Atrocity form.
"I just can!"
"…Helpful."
Kasumi looked like she had expected nothing less.
"You'll be back to normal in ten minutes?" Chrome asked. "In that case, wanna head
straight into the ogre fight?"
This was the other boss—the one that dropped the final item they needed.
"I'm up for it! Let's go!"
"Why not? We've got the intel we need."
They'd shaved a lot of time off their original schedule, and everyone agreed they might
as well use that to beat the other boss.
"The ogre's on the ground, so if we can have the twins massacre it before it has a
chance to hit the second phase… You two up for it?"
""Totally!""
"I'll put Martyr's Devotion up, just in case."
And so they entered the ogre's lair.
The ogre looked fearsome, but ten seconds later… it was gone in a puff of light.
With all three items in hand, Kasumi split off from the party and hurried to the tenth
torii gate. The rest of the team had yet to raise their access ranks enough, so she was
going solo.
"Whew… Well, let's see what's waiting behind door number ten."
Kasumi became the first person to step through the gate into the tower.
"Guess I start climbing."
The passageway and stairs inside were lit by purple fires. There were no visible side
rooms to speak of.
Staying on guard, she headed for the top.
"Here we are… Seems like the coast is clear."
At the top of the stairs, she found a pair of closed sliding doors.
Surely, there must be something behind them.
Kasumi took a deep breath and slid them open.
The only remarkable thing about the room beyond was the tatami floors.
At the very back of it sat a two-horned ayakashi clad in hakama and a kimono as white
as his hair.
His features resembled those of the ogre, but he was far more human-looking than the
four-yard-tall muscle-bound monster they'd annihilated earlier that day.
The sign outside the building had mentioned "the next ruler." Kasumi assumed this
was the current ruler. She waited to see what he would do.
"Oh…? I did not expect a human," he said, rising to his feet.
He strode toward her. At least two yards tall, he definitely cut an imposing figure.
"You have the items? Then come this way."
When he was sure Kasumi had all three key items, he turned his back on her, heading
back the way he'd come. A magic circle appeared on the floor, and he vanished into it.
"Why not?"
Steeling herself, Kasumi stepped onto the circle. She then found herself in another
wasteland, much like the stage for the dragon fight. A quick scan of the area didn't turn
up a single boulder, much less a tree.
The ruler was not far away.
"I was not expecting your kind," he said. "Allow me to test if your human body has the
strength for the task."
"...…"
"Defeat me! Accomplish this and the throne is yours."
Kasumi had seen this coming and calmly drew her katana.
"Shall we begin, human?"
No sooner had the words reached her ears than white light poured forth from his hand
before coalescing into a blade.
"Challenge accepted!" Kasumi cried, more than ready. She advanced.
The ruler swung his blade down, heedless of the distance between them.
"Wha…?!"
The blade reached out, leaving a deep gouge in her.
Before she recovered from her shock, her HP hit zero, and she vanished.
Breaking her stride had proven fatal. She waited for her respawn.
Back in town, Kasumi checked to see if she still had the key items. Relief flooded her
when she confirmed they were still in her possession. She had the right to challenge
the ruler again.
And she was looking forward to it. "Hmm… very high damage. This is gonna take a few
runs. At the very least, I'll have to learn to dodge that."
She'd died numerous times getting her blighted blade and had learned to recover
quickly from an ignoble defeat.
A week later, Kasumi was slumped against the table at the Guild Home.
"Sally? What's wrong with Kasumi?"
"She can't seem to beat the big boss. He's mad strong, apparently. I imagine it's gonna
be a while before you get there… Wanna know what he's like?"
"One hundred percent!"
Maple sounded eager, so Sally gave her the full rundown.
"Solo-only one-on-one fight. The boss matches your weapon choice, so it'd be daggers
for me. Most importantly, that changes how he fights. Right now, people think staves
might be easiest—magic focus, all ranged attacks, etcetera… but nobody's managed to
beat him yet. It's bad enough that people are starting to think there must be a trigger
somewhere to weaken him."
She ran down several weapon types and what details about the boss's attack patterns
had become public knowledge.
"You haven't made it there yet, right?"
"Nope. Still can't get in."
Sally's current access rank was one notch too low.
But it wouldn't be long now.
"You gonna try?"
"Hmm, I'll do battles where the odds are against me, but not when I have no chance.
These AOE attacks are too strong."
And that meant Sally was already convinced she couldn't do it.
"If even you can't do it, it must be really strong."
"Yeah. I mean, I'd like to give it a shot someday. If we could fight it together, I'm sure
we'd figure something out, but…"
That wasn't an option, period, so there was little use talking about it.
"And that's how Kasumi got like this?"
Kasumi was a shell of her former self—the fate of any player who'd been banging their
head against this boss.
"Yup. Oh, there's gonna be an event soon. It'll be something like the bull hunt,
apparently."
"Ugh. I'll stick to raising my access rank, then."
Some events were just not Maple's style.
With Atrocity, she could probably do better than last time, but it was already firmly
lodged in her mind as no fun.
She made up her mind to ignore it completely and focus on her other goals.
"Good plan. There's more than enough to do as is."
"I'll be working on my access all through the event, but first… I wanna explore some
more."
Maple put sheep horns on her head, changed into her kimono, and went out on the
town.
"Now what? Where should I go?"
Arms folded, she started wandering aimlessly.
As she pondered, her legs carried her past an armor shop.
"Come to think of it, I haven't been in any of these."
Maple only ever used her unique gear or things Iz had made for her, so she'd never
really wondered what stores had for sale before.
"Hellooo," she called out to announce her presence as she stepped inside one.
She looked around the interior. There was gear both beautiful and bizarre but,
naturally, none of it anywhere near as good as what she had.
"I've got plenty of money, so I could buy something… or order a custom-made item…"
Ultimately, she did a circuit of the shop without finding anything she wanted. When
she got back to the counter up front, she saw a poster on the wall behind the owner
that said the purchase of five items came with a special bonus.
"In that case, I should definitely buy something."
She selected five cheap items and got a scroll from the seller.
"Quick Change?"
It was a skill anyone could use and everyone knew about.
But everyone in Maple Tree was too busy with their own stuff, and only Maple ever
changed her gear to begin with, so word had not reached her ears.
Quick Change
Changes your gear to a preset configuration. Use again to change back.
"Nice, nice! I'd better set this up…"
A small quality-of-life improvement, but she left the shop satisfied.
Maple wandered a while longer but came back to the Guild Home without anything
else new.
As she came in, Mai and Yui looked up.
"Oh! Maple!" Yui cried, running over to her.
"What? Something wrong?"
"We have to fight a monster we can't beat for a quest. Can you help?"
"Please!"
They both bowed their heads in unison.
"Sure thing! I don't have anything better to do anyhow."
"Thank you! Chrome and Kanade are both out, so we didn't know who else to ask!"
The only other person home was Iz.
Primarily a crafter, she wasn't exactly the first person most people asked for help with
fighting a tough enemy.
"Then let's do this! Show me where it's at!"
""Okay!""
A ten-minute Syrup ride across the field later, they reached their destination.
It looked like an old battlefield, the ground covered in broken swords and bits of
armor.
"Um, the monster here is immune to physical attacks. So this is all you!"
"Uh… then I guess Hydra?"
"I think that should work."
Once she was briefed, Maple brought Syrup closer to the ground, activated Martyr's
Devotion, and drank a potion to recover her HP. Now she was ready for combat.
"And the monster is… over there!"
She'd spotted a bundle of shredded robes paired with a rusty floating longsword.
Clearly a ghost of some kind, which explained why physical attacks didn't work.
"All righty then, Hydr… Huh? The thing vanished."
"This monster can do that…? Sorry, we had no idea."
The twins had suffered two quick defeats before they decided to go for help.
Consequently, they hadn't seen the monster's full bag of tricks.
None of them were particularly well-versed in the art of scouring forums for intel, so
their knowledge of this monster was quite limited.
"Now it's right on top of us!"
The apparition had approached without being seen or heard and swung its blade right
at Maple, who failed to react in time.
There was a sound like something shattering as the glowing circle generated by
Martyr's Devotion vanished.
"Eep? Wait— Cover!"
The monster had taken another swing, this time aimed at Yui, and Maple barely caught
it in time. It had actually been a while since she'd used this skill.
The monster backed off and then turned invisible again.
"Martyr's Devotion! I-it won't activate?! Oh, it's sealed!"
When Maple and Sally had been exploring together, they'd bought charms that could
ward off seals, but she'd used those to protect Absolute Defense, Giant Killing, and
Fortress.
Not Martyr's Devotion.
"Um… then how about… Wool Up!"
Maple was suddenly a ball of fuzz, and the twins quickly figured out her plan. They
dropped their weapons and burrowed in.
Maple popped her face out the front and called, "You got me?"
""We do!""
They squirmed around inside the wool until they were under Maple, who had shifted
around until she was lying facedown. Then they put their legs down, hefting the whole
ball of fuzz.
Maple's face was still poking out of the front of it.
"Mai, it's on the left!"
"Okay!"
Mai and Yui rotated Maple's face to the left.
The monster took another swing at Yui.
"Incoming!"
They both crouched down, hiding inside the wool.
The monster's attack hit nothing but the fuzz over Maple's head instead.
"Hydra!"
Maple had popped one hand out of the ball, and a stream of poison shot forth from her
short sword.
It was too close to miss—the monster's HP bar started going down.
It seemed like this foe wouldn't require her instant death skill.
"Whew… and it's dead! Um, how many of those do you need?"
"Ten, please!"
"Got it! Let's just stay like this, then."
A plan had formed. Mai and Yui hefted her up, made sure they had a good grip, and
began hauling her around.
Then they stepped right in the lake of poison, which killed them both.
"Whoa! Uh, what happened?!"
Maple fell to the ground with a splat.
She called out, but neither twin answered.
"Mm? Oh…"
Maple looked down at the purple puddle that was clearly the cause.
She hastily activated Atrocity and ran back to town to pick them up.
Meanwhile, Chrome and Kanade—who the twins had meant to call on—were out
hunting monsters with Marx from Flame Empire and Drag from the Order.
"You sure are good at tanking."
Drag was the party's main DPS, while the other three backed him up.
"Yeah? I mean, that's kinda Maple's thing…"
"She doesn't count. She's… something else," Marx muttered.
In his mind, Chrome was the real great shielder.
"We talk about Maple that way ourselves, I guess."
"Maybe? I mean, she isn't always up to something outrageous the way she is during
events. Her actual shield skills aren't that great, probably 'cause she doesn't need 'em."
Her body deflected swords, spears, arrows, and spells all on its own.
An unquenchable thirst for ever-greater defense had left her with less need for
defensive actions than anyone else in the game.
"Pain's all fired up about beating her, but I've given up on it. I think his build is on the
right track, though. Hits hard, hits fast…"
"It would still be rough," Drag admitted. He looked around. No monsters anywhere in
sight.
"Time we moved on?" Marx suggested. "I think we killed everything."
He was right. The party started searching for new hunting grounds.
And on their way to the next destination… they saw the Maple monster charging by.
"So she is always like that."
"Maybe she is. You win this round."
The four of them stared after her as if time itself had stopped.