Chapter 114: The Decisive Battle with the Source of Anomaly
Hearing Mira volunteer, Asagiri nodded first, then glanced at the longsword in her hands and smiled.
"Do you actually know how to use that thing?"
"Of course! Don't underestimate me!"
Asagiri's smile made Mira feel like she was being looked down on. She immediately took a proper sword drawing stance, aimed at a table lamp several meters away, drew a deep breath, and shouted lightly.
"Cut!"
In the next instant, a cold flash of sword light flickered, almost too fast to see. The lamp in the distance trembled once, then slowly split cleanly down the middle into two halves.
"Whoa."
Even Asagiri couldn't help exclaiming.
"Greatsword Hero?!"
"Greatsword Hero… what's that?"
Mira tilted her head, confused for a second. Then her eyes lit up as if she'd just found a new title in her favorite game.
"But that name sounds cool. Since you gave it to me, I'll accept it… reluctantly."
She lifted her chin proudly.
"From now on, I am Greatsword Hero, Mira!"
Watching the otaku Mira, who looked like she had a sudden case of chuunibyou while holding a heavy sword, Yuuki Asuna felt a chill crawl up her spine for a completely different reason.
Since entering the Dungeon, aside from Crazy Mita, who was not a Mita in the strict sense, every Mita they had met had been friendly to their four person team because of Asagiri.
But if these Mitas were enemies…
That would be terrifying.
Crazy Mita aside, Hat Mita and Short haired Mita both had strength beyond ordinary people, and they all carried weapons in their inventories.
Yuuki Asuna asked herself honestly. If she fought Hat Mita or Short haired Mita one on one, she wasn't sure she could win.
And Crazy Mita was a monster among monsters. If Crazy Mita appeared while Kato Megumi and Iwanaga Kotoko were alone… no, even if the three of them teamed up, defeating her would still be difficult. After all, Crazy Mita was a lunatic who could pull out grenades at any time and blow everything up with herself included.
"Are you all ready?"
Crazy Mita swept her right hand through the air. A virtual panel appeared in front of her, filled with flashing symbols and shifting code.
Twisted and insane as she was, there was one thing that could not be denied. Because she was not a true Mita and wasn't bound by the program's presets, Crazy Mita had gained abilities other Mitas simply didn't have through learning and exploration.
Even without Prototype Mita's help, she could interfere with this game world to a certain extent. Just like now, she could erase the bug contamination that had invaded Mira and the room she lived in, saving Mira and saving the two dimensional Mita displayed on Mira's computer.
"Begin," Asagiri said calmly.
Crazy Mita nodded, then gently tapped the panel with her right hand.
Boom!!!
The moment she started repairing the bug contamination, the entire house shook violently. Faint roars thundered behind the two doors leading to the bathroom and the living room.
"Violet, you defend that door," Asagiri ordered, voice sharp and steady. "Phantom, Necro, Mira. The three of you stay by Crazy Mita and make sure she isn't disturbed. Not even for a second."
"Understood."
Iwanaga Kotoko and Kato Megumi immediately moved to Crazy Mita's side.
Yuuki Asuna pulled on her crimson cloak and raised her Exorcist Longsword, planting herself in front of the door that should have led to the bathroom. Now, something unknown was outside, roaring again and again like it wanted to tear the world open.
Asagiri stood at the door that should have led to the living room.
In the next second, the cozy bedroom walls flooded with text, red and repeating in dense lines.
"Give it back to me!"
"Don't act like a child throwing a tantrum," Asagiri replied, tone almost bored.
The door in front of him distorted as if the pixels were melting. It didn't open into a living room.
It opened into hell.
Crimson magma flowed in the distance. The ground was black red, cracked like burned bone. Heat rolled out in waves.
Asagiri calmly lifted the chainsaw in his hand. His gaze traveled across dozens of meters and landed on a small girl in a dirty white dress.
Her face was a dull black gray, like ash ground into skin. Where her eyes should have been were two hollow, dark pits. She looked like a doll that had been left to rot in a nightmare.
Asagiri's lips curved slightly.
Then he put on the gray Variable Mask and spoke indifferently.
"If you want it, come and take it. You have ten minutes."
Prototype Mita had no eyes, yet the two empty holes fixed on him with a hatred that felt almost tangible, thick enough to choke on.
In the next moment, a dozen disgusting, alien like monsters crawled out of the dark red ground. They shrieked, voices warped and sharp, and charged straight toward Asagiri.
"It's finally started."
Asagiri didn't hesitate. He swung the chainsaw at the first monster to reach him.
A grinding scream of metal and bone erupted as the chain blade tore through flesh. The monster's head flew off.
Crimson, scalding blood sprayed across Asagiri's clothes, instantly corroding holes through the fabric. The droplets that hit his skin sizzled and hissed, burning like acid. But after they evaporated, they left no deep wounds, only a raw pain, like sandpaper scraping over exposed nerves.
"Blood with corrosion… but I have resistance."
Even though Crazy Mita was currently equipped, Asagiri had not lost the resistance growth from Regeneration of the End.
Unlike Human Asura's passive physical enhancement, which only applied while Human Asura was equipped, Regeneration of the End was permanent growth gained after Human Asura had been destroyed.
Human Asura was a Persona born from Asagiri's direct confrontation with death. Every time Human Asura was destroyed, Asagiri experienced it. The resistance he gained from that experience stayed with him.
Logically, now that he'd confirmed the monsters' blood was corrosive, the most sensible choice would be to stop using the chainsaw and switch to his Cursed Rope Dart, keeping range to reduce the risk of splatter.
But Asagiri didn't.
He kept swinging the roaring chainsaw, ripping through the endless stream of monsters as they poured forward.
On the other side of the bedroom, Yuuki Asuna was doing the same in her own way. The Exorcist Longsword flashed again and again, piercing the heads of failures one after another.
Prototype Mita's ability, at its core, was guidance and manipulation of bugs within the game.
There were many kinds of bugs. The ground vanishing beneath their feet. The gaping maw overlay that was nothing but a texture error. And now, the wrong area being loaded.
The doors in this game world were not the same as real doors. In many games, developers use a seamless open world combined with small area loading to optimize the experience and reduce system load.
For example, in The Elder Scrolls V, you can move through the open world without a loading screen. But the moment you enter a house or a cave, a loading screen appears.
What Prototype Mita was doing now was using bugs to force an incorrect load, turning the doors into gateways to areas where failures and monsters gathered, dragging things that should not exist here directly into their faces.
Ding.
After several minutes of nonstop combat, Yuuki Asuna finally made a mistake.
She thrust her Exorcist Longsword into a failure's head, but didn't have time to pull it out before another failure lunged in to bite. She had no choice but to raise her left arm and block.
Hiss.
The failure's teeth sank into her arm.
Pain flared so sharply that Yuuki Asuna's brows tightened, but she didn't slow down. She yanked her longsword free with her right hand and drove it straight through the attacker's head.
Crimson blood dripped down her wound.
"It hurts…"
It was the first time Yuuki Asuna had been injured in this Dungeon. But pain didn't make her timid. It lit something in her eyes, fierce and stubborn, her competitive spirit snapping awake.
"Netherworld Grip."
As several more failures tried to swarm her, a massive pale ghost hand appeared in the air and crushed the clustered failures into pieces.
Iwanaga Kotoko's voice followed, calm and controlled.
"Violet, are you all right?"
Yuuki Asuna nodded, tightening her grip on the Exorcist Longsword.
"I'm fine. Thank you."
"Mira, go help her," Asagiri ordered.
"Okay!"
Mira rushed over to Yuuki Asuna's side, blade ready.
Iwanaga Kotoko's gaze then shifted to the other doorway.
Asagiri was still guarding it alone.
She saw wounds across his body, on his shoulders, calves, arms. His black clothes were torn and eaten away by corrosive blood. He looked battered and disheveled.
Yet behind the mask, his eyes were calm.
The pain from bites, punctures, and tearing attacks didn't slow his movements at all. After all, his special training with Ashikaga Miwa had already forced him to get used to pain, especially the kind that came from rubber bullets slamming into flesh again and again.
He simply kept slaughtering anything that approached.
Around him, torn corpses piled higher and higher, a gruesome heap against the black red ground and flowing magma. It looked like a cruel, bloody masterpiece painted in motion.
Prototype Mita stood dozens of meters away, watching.
Her voice leaked out in a broken mutter, like a curse.
"Give it back to me… not enough… not enough…"
As those words fell, nearly a hundred monsters erupted from the surrounding ground, rising and crawling forward in a slow, inevitable wave.
"She's throwing everything she has," Kotoko murmured, eyes narrowing. "She knows time is running out, but…"
Asagiri stopped.
He lowered the chainsaw.
Then he calmly removed the dark gray mask, revealing a relaxed smile that didn't belong on a battlefield like this.
"That's right," he said softly. "I've been fighting these monsters the whole time. Your hatred and attention have been locked on me."
He lifted the chainsaw slightly, letting it roar, loud and unmistakable.
"This thing isn't the best weapon, but it's noisy. It draws the eye."
His smile widened a fraction.
Then his tone shifted, clean and decisive.
"Do it, Phantom."
In that instant, Prototype Mita realized it.
Kato Megumi, holding a black sniper rifle, had closed the distance without a sound. The dark muzzle was already aimed at Prototype Mita's right leg.
Bang!!
.....
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