Facing the missile, my jaws dropped in disbelief. You’re dropping missiles now because guns don’t work!? Isn’t that too much!?
The missile wasn’t just large. Its power and the sheer amount of mana in it were simply absurd. Without giving me the chance to avoid it, the missile fell directly on my head.
Well, to be honest, I didn’t think about avoiding it.
“Wow.”
The missile detonated, as a missile normally would upon hitting its target. The only problem was that a huge torrent of energy erupted right on top of my head. Then, perhaps expectedly, I clearly saw the torrent disappear as though it was sucked in by something.
A bolt of lightning seemed to flash in my head. Seeing not just bullets but this immense energy missile disappear, I understood completely.
Not long after, a booming sound thundered across the sky. It was incomparably louder than when I reflected bullets.
[… You destroyed 19% of the Eliminator’s main body.]
“I wonder what it’ll shoot next…”
Just in case, I stood in place and waited for a moment, but no more explosives headed my way. Almost as if it used all of its energy in the previous ordeal, the Eliminator’s main body went quiet for the rest of the 88th floor.
However, the 89th floor was a different story. A truly unbelievable amount of robots greeted me from the start. There were more of them than the demons I killed in Greenland! There were 10 times more robots compared to the 88th floor and 30 times compared to the 87th.
This wasn’t normal! No dungeon floor had ever had so many monsters! Though, these guys are robots, not monsters!
“Just how the hell did you guys lose with all this!?”
I shouted as though I was wronged and charged towards them. Immediately, hundreds of thousands of robots barraged me with bullets. Even if reflecting one bullet only cost 1 mana, blocking them all would cost me hundreds of thousands! The absurdity of the situation made me speechless.
[I am Dortu. Commencin… arduous work.]
“Don’t say that so calmly like you pushed a nuke button! You’re not even understanding the meaning of that phrase!”
Dortu flew off. I had no idea where to begin, but it wasn’t like I had any other choice than to fight.
First, I summoned Sharana.
“Sharana, come inside me and strengthen me!”
[Yes, Master!]
The moment Sharana entered my body, I felt lighter and Steel let out a brighter radiance. That was to be expected. Steel was a part of me. If I got stronger, Steel also got stronger. The amount of mana I needed to steal the enemy’s attack also lessened.
Although having Sharana infused inside me used up mana, this was still much more efficient in terms of mana.
“Talaria! Petasos! World Trickery!”
Holding my spear up, I charged forward fiercely, reflecting back all bullets hitting me! From multiple places, robots were blowing up. As Extorted attacks came to carry some of my own power, all bullets were reflected back a stage greater than the original. As a result, a single reflected attack was enough to kill the original attacker.
“Uoooooooooh!”
With a spirited shout, I charged forward. The 89th floor had so many robots that it was as though the Eliminator brought robots from other floors to it. But was that even possible? Well, thinking about it now, this was the first time I could attack the Floor Master from a normal floor. Sherafina’s influence clearly became weaker the higher I went in the dungeon and Floor Masters became stronger. In that sense, it was totally possible for a Floor Master to be able to control what appears on its subordinate floors.
But if that were really the case, then what I thought of while watching the Eliminator’s attacks would be cold-hard truth. It would mean that the Eliminator didn’t just have the ability to control all weapons. It had another ability that, together with its ability to control weapons, allowed it to conquer a world.
“Kuk, my mana’s running low.”
I gritted my teeth and grumbled. Even though I was fully utilizing Absolute Soul and Peruta Circuit, the sheer amount of robots was making it hard for my mana recovery speed to hold up. Did the Eliminator already find out how to counter my reflection?
[I am Dortu. Acquired one robot.]
“How long do you need to get enough to deal with these guys?”
[I am Dortu. I need about 20 hours.]
“Got it. Thanks.”
I cleanly gave up trying to receive Dortu’s help. While my mana continued to decline, I charged forward relentlessly. Close-combat robots ran at me with what seemed like beam sabers, but I easily sliced their heads off with my spear. Meanwhile, an uncountable number of bullets struck my body, being reflected back to their shooters. It was the same for rockets and cannon shells. Although my mana was falling rapidly, the robots were dying at a similar pace.
[I am Dortu. Acquired 100 robots.]
“Good job.”
I swung my spear. After destroying the arms of three robots, I shot the spear’s aura forward, cutting apart several tens of robots at once. The explosions they caused also reflected back, burning other robots and causing them to explode.
“I don’t have a lot of mana left.”
Even with mana potions, I wasn’t recovering much mana. Something like a mana elixir might be different, but ordinary mana potions were no longer enough to offer much help.
I gritted my teeth. Even though I had already killed over a hundred thousand robots, that wasn’t even close to half of the robots present. Facing the killing intent of these carefully manufactured machines, something seemed to boil inside me.
“Huu… Come at me!”
I let out a hearty shout and gulped down a mana potion. At the same time, I activated one of my hidden cards, the Succubus Queen’s Tattoo. Immediately, my mana filled back up to full.
I had only recently obtained Steel. Even without it, there was no way I would lose to the Eliminator!
The robots pulled their triggers. Bullets, cannon shells, and rockets flew towards me. Quite literally, they were coming from all sides. There was nothing I could do to dodge them. What if these guys really came to Earth? Surely, Earth would face its doom in a single day.
I had very little options. I endured the relentless attacks using Steel’s ability. A portion of the attacks hit each other and detonated before reaching me, but the majority of them flew my way consecutively without a hint of error in flight routes.
The world in front of me became white. However, I couldn’t feel any pain. All attacks returned to their owners, and the remaining robots detonated altogether. As Steel also reflected back the resulting huge explosion, my mana was falling down quicker than ever before. Without the Succubus Queen’s Tattoo, I might have run out of mana. I just hoped I would never have to meet another enemy that attacked in such quantity. Please.
[I am Dortu. The robots Dortu controlled exploded…]
Now wasn’t the time to think about that! With half the robots disappearing in the previous exchange, the number of robots didn’t seem so endless anymore.
“But I don’t have any mana left. First, I need to use Peruta Circuit to… Kuk!?”
I closed my mouth in the middle of my sentence. There was an enemy I had to defeat first. As if it was waiting for this moment the entire time, from the tip of my toes to the top of my head, a dreadful killing intent and a wave of mana surged, squeezing me from all sides!
The Eliminator was aiming at me from 360 degrees, from every possible angle!
[Chance of avoiding, 1.7%.]
For the first time, I heard its voice. Somewhat expectedly, it was a machine-like voice devoid of any emotion.
[You were an excellent enemy. But now, your weapon will become mine.]
“As I thought, you can’t just control any weapon. You have to defeat it first. Much like how things are most of the time, you have to prove your qualification first.”
[Fire.]
The Eliminator didn’t seem keen on chatting with me, as with a single word, he fired thousands of missiles at me. An army of missiles suddenly appeared in thin air and flew toward me! Could I dodge it if I utilized Divine Speed to its full effect? Impossible.
As such, I deactivated World Trickery. The enormous amount of mana I’d been hiding filled my body. For a moment, the Eliminator seemed to have flinched, but there was no way for to know affirmatively.
If someone were looking at me in the next moment, he would think that the sun had descended to earth. Centered around my body, an enormous torrent of energy erupted. Of course, soon enough, all of this energy was absorbed into air.
I sighed and resumed Peruta Circuit. Now, I really didn’t have any mana left.
[Your mana… how…!?]
“Before I drank my mana potion, I was slightly changing my mana consumption amount so you could see it. Simple, right?”
[You’re not a Hero… But a scammer!]
If I didn’t use the Succubus Queen’s Tattoo, I really would have died. But the Succubus Queen’s Tattoo was always within my calculations as I used World Trickery to increase the amount of mana needed to reflect each attack. With Petasos increasing my calculative ability, it would have been impossible to trick the Eliminator.
“Huu.”
I gulped down another mana potion and grinned.
“Got you, didn’t I?”
[But… I was prepared.]
“What!?”
It even knew I would trick it? Immediately afterwards, a truly humungous missile, more than 10 times the size of the one I faced on the 88th floor, fell towards me. Just how the heck was a missile like that even shot!? Then, without any twist, the missile exploded above my head.
A thundering boom similar to the time I threw a sweet potato rang out. Although it wasn’t quite as powerful, the difference wasn’t too big as I was standing right underneath it. If my HP ran out under such a force, could Sherafina save me before it was too late? I didn’t think so.
Within a white blur of nothingness, I closed my eyes and murmured.
“It’s over.”
A long while later, seemingly after Sherafina had time to process what happened, a message rang out.
[You destroyed 99% of the Eliminator’s main body.]
I threw down the empty bottle of mana potion. Immediately, it transformed into an Elixir bottle. I had only hid its energy with World Trickery, but the Eliminator was surprisingly easily tricked.
To add on, when I activated the Succubus Queen’s Tattoo before, I drank a normal mana potion while acting like it was some amazing potion. Drinking two Elixirs consecutively caused one’s body to be destroyed. For mana potions, drinking two consecutively wasn’t allowed at all. However, there was nothing wrong with drinking an Elixir after drinking a mana potion.
I had hidden the existence of the Succubus Queen’s Tattoo, using the mana recovery it gave me to make it seem as though I drank an Elixir. That was my first and final trick. My goal was to make the Eliminator think there was no way for me to recover my mana. Clearly, it had worked perfectly.
With the previous explosion, all of the robots on the 89th floor had turned to dust. With nothing to stop me, I began to walk towards the end of the floor.
[I am Dortu. Master is mean.]
“Sorry, but it’s like they say, you have to fool your ally if you want to fool your enemy.”
Dortu, who worked tirelessly to no result, complained, and I consoled him with a grin. To make my trick seem more believable, I had not even told Dortu about it.
It wasn’t that I believed the Eliminator wouldn’t get fooled. I simply thought he might have prepared for the worst possible situation. The Elixir I disguised using World Trickery was one solution to his preparation, and if that didn’t work, I even had Overlord. No matter how I thought about it, it was a battle I couldn’t lose.
It was simple to say that the victor of this battle was the side that read the enemy’s moves more, but there was key point to consider. Regardless of how many moves each side prepared, it was only the Eliminator that took damage.
I used mana, which was recoverable, while the Eliminator used its main body, which wasn’t recoverable. This was a huge advantage in this head game. Not to mention, my instant judgment skill and speed was heightened by Petasos. If I felt like it, I could have dodged the Eliminator’s bullets and missiles.
The Eliminator was strong. It was potentially the worst enemy to face with Steel. However, the Eliminator lacked magic power and League. That was the reason for its loss.
“If you wanted to win, you should have brought three times more firepower at least. Wait for me on the 90th floor. I destroyed 99% of you, so you’ll have to work hard with the remaining 1% if you want to win.”
I sneered and quickened my pace. Using my mana detection, I could already sense the end of the dungeon floor, the 89th Floor Shop, and Loretta smiling and waving her hand.