Golden Experience

After learning [Space Magic] and various other skills, the [Summon Caster] skill had appeared in the [Summon] tree. Since Rare had already learned a ton of skills, she didn’t know what the conditions for unlocking it were, nor did she have any way to find out right now, but this skill’s effect was “Summon yourself to a follower’s location.”

Setting aside how the only applicable target was “Self,” it was activated via the usual [Summon] skill, and it used the same list of available summons. In that list, “Self” was its own category, and the equipment she currently wore went with her. While it was limited to things she could equip, this meant she could use it to deliver items. Using [Summon] normally on a follower included all their equipment, so this was simply the reverse of that.

In this list, there was also an entry for “Mind,” which allowed the caster to have their consciousness take over a targeted follower. As a result of possessing a follower in this manner, she had all her stats buffed by 10% due to [Enhance Follower]. The amount of a time that the possession lasted depended on the caster’s MND; with how much MND Rare had right now, she could maintain the possession for a few days.

However, this skill ultimately only let her move the follower; the caster couldn’t use any skills the follower hadn’t learned. Because of this, Rare taught Yoroizaka the [Sword] and [Nimble] skills. Skills that moved the player’s body gave Rare a sense of malaise, so she never learned any for herself. However, she didn’t have that feeling when possessing Yoroizaka, either because her entire body was just metal armor or because she was no longer controlling her own body, so she wrote it off as a benefit of this being a game and went ahead with having Yoroizaka learn those skills.

The first time she activated the skill, she was sitting on her throne in the queen’s chamber. When she saw through Yoroizaka’s eyes her own character sleeping there, she thought it was really weird to essentially play another VR game inside of a VR game. However, she remembered seeing in the library’s old news articles that it was popular even really old MMOs to play mahjong within the game, so she changed her mind and concluded that humankind didn’t really change all that much.

In this state, controlling her follower’s avatar, when she spoke it would come out with the follower’s voice. But since Yoroizaka couldn’t speak, that meant Rare also couldn’t speak now.

—Well, it’s not like I was hoping to have any friendly chats with other players anyway.

And since now her inventory was actually Yoroizaka’s inventory, she couldn’t friend other players either.

Rare took another look at her arboreal hiding spot and made some adjustments before leaving to go find some prey. The event details said that each block would be assigned around 200 players. That seemed somewhat low considering the maximum number of simultaneous connections and the total number of registered participants, though compared to the typical number of players in a given city, it was an extremely high number for a single area. Even after the official launch, the nearest city only had around a couple dozen players.

Thinking that she’d run into players no matter which direction she went, she decided to just wander around randomly. After a short time, one of the Kenzaki brothers strapped to her back (probably Saburou) suddenly unsheathed himself to cut an arrow out of the air.

—Interesting; even without explicit orders, they’ll automatically take appropriate countermeasures against incoming danger.

The utility of Living Weapons climbed up one step higher in Rare’s head. If that’s how they worked, then even without possession, if she just wore Yoroizaka normally, she could expect her to act independently as necessary.

Arrows came flying at her one after another, but as long as she knew which direction they were being fired from, she could dodge them or even grab them out of the air with her hands.

“Wha—!”

She heard a stifled cry coming from far away. For exactly times like these, she’d had Yoroizaka learn every sense enhancement skill. Now, all five of her senses were sharper than Rare’s were normally, especially her vision, which was on an entirely new dimension. Because of this, in terms of XP investiture, Yoroizaka was easily number 3 after Rare and Sugaru.

—Are these arrowheads made of iron? I can bend them pretty easily with just a finger… or more like I can’t even put a single scratch on these fingers! For real, what are you made of, Yoroizaka? You’re so sturdy I don’t even need to bother dodging.

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The gaps in armor were stuffed with the same material as the kimonos she wore under the armor, and the armor itself was lined with thick fur from the great forest. The fur helped cover the joints along with the kimono, but it also rendered the armor nearly unwearable under normal circumstances. Without Yoroizaka’s active assistance, it was impossible to put her on or take her off by oneself. The fur came from a powerful monster that could even repel Riley’s arrows, so for normal arrowheads, the fur would be sufficient defense all by itself. It might even be as sturdy as bulletproof and stabproof clothing was in the real world.

There was little reason to be on guard against this quality of projectile. Rare decided to ignore all the remaining incoming arrows while she started leisurely walking in the direction they were being fired from.

—This is starting to feel pretty fun. Hah hah hah! Useless! Utterly useless! Puny insect!

She got quite close before the player finally realized that there was no point in continuing, that his efforts were all for naught; the tree he had climbed shook the thicket as the player tried to run.

—It’s no use! You can’t run from Yoroizaka!

With her high AGI stat and the [Nimble] skill, Yoroizaka could run much faster than the average player. She may look slow and heavy from her appearance, but the armor herself was only 50 kilos, and even including all the swords, altogether they weighed less than 80 kilos. They were quite a bit lighter than a typical rugby player who could sprint across a playing field. And her physical strength—despite having no muscles—was worlds above a human’s.

Rare ran straight after her quarry, spraying wood shavings all over; the trees here were as brittle as candy bars compared to the ones in the great forest. Hearing the ominous sound pursuing him, her prey turned to look behind, then screamed, “What the hell is that?! That thing’s allowed?!”

However, she felt like the archer was fleeing with too much assurance. Almost like this wasn’t his first time in this forest. If that were really the case, then up ahead would be…

They left the forest and entered a slightly open area, where countless arrows came flying at her from every direction.

—It really was a trap. But, you know…

There were probably a bunch of people with archery-type skills temporarily cooperating, making this area a kill zone using one person as bait. While Rare had looked for somewhere to sleep in the forest, these players had been forming an alliance.

The event rules said that if there were too many players still alive when the time limit was almost up, they would be forcibly transported to the arena to determine a victor. In other words, sudden death. If all these archers were able to hunt down all the other players, then only archers would be transported to the arena. There, they would be at a disadvantage against any close-range builds, but if there were only other archers then it would be an even playing field. Decent plan.

—Whoever proposed this plan totally has a melee skill, though.

While tons of arrows rained down, none of them could wound Yoroizaka. So, without paying the arrows any mind, she maintained her speed to close in on the bait player and grab them by the neck. But, because she had been running at max speed for a long time, and her senses were slightly different from usual, she miscalculated her grip and accidentally crushed the player’s neck, killing him instantly.

—Agh, damn it. Ah well, whatever.

“What?! Jeans!”

“They killed a player with just their grip strength?!”

“Don’t lose focus! They just dumped everything into STR! If you don’t get caught, they can’t kill you!”

—If I had put everything into STR, then I couldn’t have caught up to this guy in the first place.

Since there were so many arrows in the air, unlike before, she couldn’t tell where exactly they were coming from, but with her enhanced hearing, she was able to discern generally where that short exchange just now came from.

—Actually, they’ve gathered all these long-range archers, but they’re close enough to each other to chat, so what’s the point…

Rare pulled out Ichirou from her waist and, in the same movement, chunked him toward the voices. Kenzaki Ichirou spun through the air, cutting down both trees and the players hiding behind them.

“What the fuck?! That’s one insane max STR build!!!”

“Shit, run for it! This ain’t gonna work!”

Unfortunately, you can’t run from the Kenzakis either. The thrown Kenzaki Ichirou kept on flying through the air under his own power and, per Rare’s orders, continued cutting down trees in pursuit of more players. Most players could never have imagined that the sword had been thrown in an arc and was coming to cut them down as well. Because of that, almost all of those players ended up retiring without having any idea how they died.

Rare didn’t know how many players there had been here, but using Yoroizaka’s enhanced hearing, she could tell that there were no more people trying to flee in the area. For now, she should clean things up here. Kenzaki Ichirou reported eleven kills, so including the one she crushed to death, that made twelve. If she included the people she killed before she had changed, it’d be fourteen.

—I want to hurry and finish things up here so I can get started on the next hunt. Fortunately, I found out that it’s not difficult to run through the forest.

If possible, Rare wanted to quickly win this block before the time limit so that she could check out the other matches from the spectator seats. She wanted to observe what kind of players ended up winning in those other blocks and their approximate power levels.

Using her ears and nose, Rare dashed around finding more players. However, she soon realized that she was making too much noise and drowning out the sounds around her, so she stopped. Until she found more prey, it was better to refrain from running.