Chapter 68 Battle Royal P4
"GAH!"
Slashing at the nape of another player, Shiro looted the corpse and vaulted over the bridge barrier.
Landing under the bridge, Shiro sat back in her hiding spot.
'That's the 3rd victim.' She thought as she checked the remaining player count.
With only 28 players remaining, 18 more needed to die.
Stretching her body a little, Shiro peeked out from under the bridge. As it stood, only 3 people remain on the island she came from, not including her.
However, there were battles constantly being raged on the other bridges. Even from her location, she could see people jumping around with swords.
'Hmm… Should I assassinate those on my bridge?' She thought. If she did, the amount of people who had to die would decrease. On the other hand, if she needed to fight the others, she'd have no meat shield for cover.
'I'll eliminate 1 and leave the other 2.' She eventually settled with.
Scouting around with the binoculars, Shiro frowned when she couldn't see any of the 3 that were still in her area.
"Tsk." She clicked her tongue in annoyance.
Retreating back to her cover, she waited for the fights to settle down.
*BOOM!!!!
A sudden explosion surprised Shiro as the force sent her tumbling off her support beam. Quickly grabbing the edge of the beam, she swung herself back up.
Looking towards the source of the explosion, she cursed seeing the bridge almost entirely gone.
'What the hell is with these guys and self-destructing!'
Frowning at her location, Shiro wondered if she should leave this area too.
'If some ass hat decided to explode themselves, I won't be able to survive.'
Turning to the centre island, Shiro tried to look for any cover she could use.
As of this moment, the centre island is a smooth black pyramid. There were no ledges or grooves she could use to take advantage of at the moment.
Since the pyramid offered her no help, she looked towards the water.
'There's the chance that a separate entrance is there. But I don't know if the water will kill me.'
She knew that in simulations like this, there will always be an out of bounds area. From the looks of things, Shiro believes that there is a 75% chance that she'll die if she jumped.
'Welp… since there is nothing for this missy to do I'll just rest for a little bit I guess.'
Hiding in the shadow of the support beams, Shiro sat with her legs dangling off the edge.
'I should probably get some hobbies. Since it's my new life and all...' She contemplated. While she knew that she wanted to get stronger in this life, she also wanted to enjoy it. If she focused on levelling all the time and didn't take a break from fighting, then that would be no different from her past life.
A life of only fighting would be quite a boring one in her opinion. A waste of reincarnation that she should change.
'What do I even enjoy?'
The question plagued her mind as she didn't know what she enjoyed as a hobby. Dressing up with the outfits at Aarim's store? It was fun but not to the point of a hobby.
Thinking of dressing up, Shiro realised that it was pretty much the only rest time she had. Her other spare time was either used for Dungeon running or training Lyrica up.
'Would being active and liking fighting count as a hobby? I suppose fighting for the rest of your life is boring but then again, I do enjoy moving my body around. But that's not much different from my past life.
'There's no point thinking about cooking since I can't taste anything but mana stones…' She thought with her hand on her chin.
While everyone was fighting for their lives, Shiro was sat under the bridge thinking about what kind of past time she would enjoy.
'Perhaps music. A little bit of music would be quite fun. Nice and calming and quite ther.a.p.eutic.
'Not to mention, I think I've heard of musical practitioners being able to confuse enemies using the power of music.
'If I combine that with my blizzard I might be able to open up their guard more often.' She thought with a bright smile.
However, that smile soon faltered as she thought of an important fact.
'WHY DID IT LOOP BACK TO FIGHTING?!?!?!' She cried out in her mind.
Leaning back, she looked up at the sky with a silent tear.
'So I'm a type of muscle head too…'
She had always considered herself someone who was a little more rational. Yet, she just realised that she was also a huge muscle head.
No matter what she decided to think of, it always looped back to how it helps in her survival and combat.
The sudden revelation made Shiro sit and ponder about life for a slight moment since everything she knew was all combat and survival-related.
Battle tactics, fighting styles, weakness exploitation, class knowledge and her database of blueprints stored in her mind.
Everything had a link to fighting.
Even music which seemed to be a pretty common hobby was linked to fighting when Shiro thought about its uses.
'Muscle head mage…' Shiro concluded when thinking about her current outlook.
Chuckling to herself for a moment, she stood back up.
'Who said a person can't be both a muscle head and a rational person at the same time!
'… I suppose you can't really. You can switch between the two but not at the same time since their inborn nature are complete opposites.' Shiro thought.
'Urg, it's happening again…' Shiro sighed.
This happened before when she woke up in the Dungeon. She had nothing else to do so she just started to talk to herself. And now once again she was talking to herself since she was literally just waiting for the numbers to drop at this point. She even wondered if having a split personality would keep her company in moments like this. At least she would never feel lonely if that's the case.
The wait wasn't too long since the number reached 14 in no time.
With only 4 more people needing to be eliminated, Shiro became slightly nervous. This was due to the facts that all 4 were on the bridge she was on including her.
'God damn lurkers the lot of them!!' Shiro cursed.
'That being said I'm not any better~ Not the point!'
Scratching her head in annoyance, Shiro realised that this meant she had to try kill all three enemies in the worst-case scenario. The best-case scenario would be the other bridges fight it out more but as it stood, they seemed to be at a cease-fire due to the lack of fighting on her bridge. They wanted her bridge to lose a few players as well.
The longer they delayed, the closer the ring would come. Right now, the ring was already at the base of the bridge. In less than 10 minutes, the ring would be within touching distance.
Taking a deep breath, Shiro calmed herself since she knew the more impatient she became, the more likely it was for her to mess up.
Making a dagger, Shiro slowly climbed up the side of the bridge and hung near the shadows. Her cloak billowed slightly in the wind.
"I AM HERE! COME AT ME!"
She suddenly heard someone shout and realised they must have become impatient.
Glancing towards the source, she saw an axe warrior with a menacing axe on his back.
'Must have gotten lucky with the equipment.' She thought with narrowed eyes.
However, this worked in her favour due to the fact that the other two could be seen.
One was on top of the arches. He was a metal-based mage and had wrapped the metal around himself.
When Shiro saw his element, she was rather surprised at the fact that he was a metal-based mage. Metal Mage was similar to her Nanomancy in certain aspects.
However, unlike her Nanomancer class, Metal Mage was derived from the earth element. In addition to this, Metal Mage was a very difficult class to obtain.
Not many could obtain the Metal Mage class due to the fact that it needed Metal Attunement. And to make matters worse, Metal Attunement wasn't something that could be cultivated by current standards. One had to be born with the Metal Attunement.
Her case was special since metal attunement came as a guarantee with her Nanomancer class.
Looking away from the metal mage, she turned towards the last player.
She saw him slowly climb out of a tiny gap between the bridge and the island.
'Seems like he would have exited sooner or later… You'll be my target.' Shiro narrowed her eyes as she pulled up her face mask.
From the looks of it, he didn't have any weapons or items and just hid here from the start.
With this being the case, Shiro had more reason to target him for her assassination.
Hiding her body, she kept her sight on him to see where he was going.
'Hmm… rather than fighting, he's relocating since the ring is close to his spot.'
Climbing through the support beams, she approached him while the battle above raged on.
She frowned when she saw his condescending grin plastered disgustingly on his face.
'Tsk, little sh*t think's he's smart. Let me change that real quick.' Shiro thought and dropped down behind him.
The man quickly turned around when he felt her presence but Shiro already took that into consideration.
Jamming her finger just behind his jaw bone, she dislocated his mouth before stabbing her dagger in his mouth.
Twisting the dagger, she placed her hand on his lower jaw and pushed her hands apart.
The dagger ripped through his tongue while she managed to further break the jaw bone. Due to the sudden shock of pain, the man wasn't able to use his magic in time before Shiro jammed her fist into his throat. Grabbing hold of his spine through the flesh, she twisted it ruthlessly, breaking it in the process.
Killing the man effortlessly in a short burst of dexterity, she wasn't disturbed at all by the realistic sight in front of her.
As expected, he had no loot since he hid like a coward from the very start.
Clicking her tongue in disdain, she climbed up before hiding on top of the bridge. Crouching behind an abandoned car, she peeked towards the duo fighting.
*DING DING DING!!
Currently, the mage was being pushed back due to the power the axe warrior was demonstrating.
Slashing his axe with impressive momentum, he destroyed all of the mage's attacks.
'If this continues, the warrior should win in the end.
'However… that's only if the mage wasn't a metal based mage.' Shiro thought with a meaningful smile.
*CRRR!!
Just before the axe could cleave the mage in half, it suddenly bent backwards and slammed into the warrior's cranium.
"Ah… You're kidding…" He muttered before dying.
Taking it as a cue, Shiro's body flickered towards the mage.
Yin Style Phantom Arts: 2nd Phantom – Illusionary Phantom.
Her eyes were cold and merciless as she slashed her dagger at his nape.
*DANG!
Shiro widened her eyes when she saw a translucent barrier protect him.
[Immune]
Seeing the immune, she realised that someone on another bridge died and now only ten people remain.
The mage on the other hand, had cold sweat drip down his back as he would have died if not for the fact that the simulation had saved him.
Looking at the little girl in front of him, he was both shocked and astounded at her. Shocked because she was trackless like a ghost. He couldn't detect her at all before she struck.
Astounded because she was only level 34 and from the looks of things, killed the 3rd player on this bridge.
Sighing slightly, Shiro walked away from the mage and towards the centre island.
*Crrrrr
The pyramid started to open as Shiro could see the inside of the Pyramid. Chained up in the centre, was the body of a huge behemoth. It had deep purple muscles, 6 arms, 2 demonic bull horns and 1 horn in the centre of his head. A pair of golden eyes that had no emotion other than pure rage. On top of this, a jaw filled with rows of horrifying teeth could be seen poking out of his mouth.
Looking around, she could see the players from the other bridges appearing one by one. Returning her gaze, the players were rather surprised that one of the top 10 was a young girl who was level 34.
"Must have gotten lucky with her area then." One of the warriors said disdainfully.
He didn't even both hiding his voice as he wanted Shiro to hear everything he said.
Shiro ignored him since she could see a screen flicker in front of them.
"First of all, congratulations. You are the top 10 of one of the many arenas we have for the Blue ribbon.
"No matter what happens here, you will pass so don't worry. This segment is purely to test what your cooperative abilities are when thrown with a random party. It is also to let the factions see what you can do when put in an unexpected situation where you need to cooperate with strangers to kill a boss." The commentator said.
"You're telling me that I have to work together with this let down of a player?!" The warrior shouted as he pointed at Shiro.
"Bad attitude. Not very good. You never know what could happen and maybe one day you'll find yourself with a level 20 and have to kill a level 52 boss together. Just deal with it."
'Also, I'm pretty sure that she could kill you before you can even realise it.' The commentator thought.
"With that being said, you have 2 minutes to prepare yourself before the fight."
The screen turned off as the ten of them looked at each other.
With 7 of them looking at her with disdain or uncertainty, Shiro could only shrug her shoulders.
She could either try proving them wrong or support them with her ice. Naturally, she chose the latter since her ice would probably tickle the boss more than hurt it.