Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 17 - Chapter 8

Chapter Eight: To Beat the Invincible

Several Minutes Before Ray Starling and Carl Lourlou Began Fighting

After defeating Shion, Carl headed to the goal in the middle of the island.

His objective was to clear the event. With the plates from Shion, Juba, and those he’d defeated before them, he now had enough for a whole four answers. Because of that, he had elected to give it a try.

Standing before the input device, he began to insert the numbered plates.

He’d found two hints so far: “The answer may differ for each person,” and “204Y.”

The latter made it obvious that the answer was a date in the decade of 2040, while the former meant that it was something personal, like the day you started Infinite Dendrogram or the day your Embryo hatched.

Having narrowed it down to just those possibilities in his mind, Carl figured that it wouldn’t hurt to try at least one of them.

With that in mind, he had input the day he’d started playing...which turned out to be the wrong answer. That had flung him to a random part of the island.

Despite that, Carl wasn’t panicking. No matter where he’d been sent, he only had to trek as far as the mountain in the center to get back to the goal.

Now, the place he’d been teleported to was the deck of a shipwreck to the very west of the island.

He’d actually appeared at the very moment Ray had descended upon the ship’s bow and prepared to read the hint inscribed there.

Realizing that he stumbled upon an enemy, Carl had reflexively attacked him using ranged weaponry. Not even he had expected to meet another participant immediately after being teleported.

However, this actually wasn’t coincidental.

Wrong answers at the goal teleported the player to a random place next to hints that they hadn’t yet found.

Cheshire hadn’t mentioned this detail, and it could only be discovered by getting a wrong answer once. It was actually insurance on the control AI’s part, meant to prevent scenarios where none of the participants could manage to arrive at the correct answer.

This consideration from the control AI’s had now led to a battle between Ray and Carl.

Ray fought to survive against this immense foe and take his plates for himself. Carl fought to hunt down the person he’d once marked as prey, to teach him a lesson for his conceit in thinking that he could win...and to not lose against the little brother of the one who’d defeated him.

Thus, their clash began.

◇◇◇

Paladin, Ray Starling

The God Hunter fired the harpoon gun in his arms.

It seemed to be an MVP reward that automatically created the harpoons it fired, but the trajectory was so direct that Silver was able to evade the shots.

Leaving evasion to him, I rushed towards God Hunter.

“EEP!” Alto yelped.

“Don’t bite your tongue or anything!” I told her. This was no situation to make her get off of Silver. If I did that, GH would target her instead, so I had no choice but to make her deal with the steed’s erratic movements.

“Purgatorial Flames, full power!” I roared, releasing flames that consumed the God Hunter below. A direct hit from these could set aflame even Pure-Dragon-tier creatures and above, but the white bear below was completely unaffected.

Not a single strand of fur on his costume was even singed.

“U-Um, he’s not burning at all!” Alto exclaimed.

“...I figured this would happen.” There was no way the God Hunter’s gear would burn because of something this basic. Actually, even Xunyu’s Baolongba wouldn’t be able to set him on fire.

After all, Carl Lourlou’s equipment couldn’t break.

It wasn’t a matter of the gear’s quality—it became indestructible because he was the one wearing it.

“...It’s just like Shu said.” My bro had told me about the Multifariously Invincible and his gimmick.

He’d also told me how to counter it.

I recalled the conversation I’d had with Alto and Juliet before Chelsea came along.

◇

“His Embryo, ‘Indestructible and Everlasting, Nemean Lion’ makes his gear indestructible,” I said.

“So, what—it just doesn’t break no matter what?” Alto asked.

“Yeah.” The gear he had equipped just never broke—that was the secret of his invincibility.

“But even if his gear doesn’t break, he can still die, right? So... Oh.”

“...That precious treasure which preserves life.” Realization had hit Alto while she was talking, and it seemed Juliet had gotten the gist too.

“Yeah. His Embryo works even on the Lifesaving Brooch.”

The Lifesaving Brooch was a well-known accessory, but it wasn’t the only one relevant in this case.

There was the Lifesaving Brooch, which prevented any fatal damage but had a chance to break upon activation.

There was the Cameo of Health, which prevented any debuffs...in exchange for a chance to break upon activation.

And then there was the Thiefsbane Bracelet, which prevented any thievery attempts...also in exchange for a chance to break upon activation.

Nemean Lion’s power prevented them all from breaking, making them usable indefinitely.

The Cameo prevented hampering debuffs like Bone Fractures, while the Brooch prevented attacks that would reduce his HP to 0. He would be in good health no matter how much HP he lost. He would be invincible in any and all situations.

That was God Hunter, Carl Lourlou—the Superior whom no one could destroy.

My Vengeance ignored defense, but not even that could reduce his HP to 0.

“That’s just broken!” said Alto.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “There’s probably no one who can beat him on a normal battlefield.”

“What do you mean?”

“...He speaks of the law of the arena, as well as those of this very fete,” Juliet said.

I would expect no less from a high-ranking duelist.

Alto spent a few seconds thinking about what we might mean, but then clapped her hands together as she realized.

“Oh yeah! This event doesn’t allow you to use Brooches at all!”

That was indeed the answer. People in this event couldn’t wear Lifesaving Brooches.

Knowing my combat style, that was a pretty big negative for me, but it was even worse for GH. He wasn’t wearing the thing that had made him truly invincible. Even if he had some sort of substitute, it likely wasn’t a fully functional replacement.

That was probably why he also never participated in duels.

“So we can beat him now! Yaaay! Let’s vince the invincible!” Alto said with obvious joy. Juliet and I were silent, not sure how to break it to her. “Huh? Did I say somethin’ wrong...?”

“No, Alto,” said Nemesis. “You are not wrong, but...”

“If we meet him again, it would mean that Jubei wasn’t able to beat him,” I explained.

“...Oh.” When we escaped that forest, Jubei and Carl had begun a one-on-one fight. If Jubei, with her immense combat ability, wasn’t able to beat Carl, it would mean that he was near-invincible even without the Brooch. In fact, it wasn’t out of the question that he had some kind of MVP reward with a similar effect anyway, just like Rosa did.

If that was the case, our chances of beating him were slim.

“Nnngh... It’s your fault for gettin’ my hopes up. You implied we were on a battlefield where we can actually beat him...”

“Sorry,” I said. “But there’s one other way this event area is different from a normal battlefield.”

“Which would be?”

“Look,” I said as I used a finger to draw a warped circle—the outline of this island.

Then, I drew a circle of the same shape just around it.

“This is...”

“There are no rules in the field, but there are rules in the event.” If we were to fight GH, we wouldn’t target his HP. Cheshire’s words came back to me.

“This will be this event’s areaaa. The island, I mean, as well as the area five hundred metels above it and twenty metels into the surrounding sea. Touching the barrier around it will disqualify you, so be caaareful.”

“We’d make him lose by taking him out of bounds.”

◇

And then, we’d unexpectedly encountered GH himself. Juliet wasn’t with us, but we still had a chance of winning.

We’d been traveling along the coastline to make it easy to push him out of the zone in case we encountered him.

If Juliet was here, we could rely on her Hræsvelgr’s wind powers to send GH flying about twenty metels. I’d heard that she’d successfully done that once against some large dragon during the Exodragon King incident.

However, there was something that I could do as well.

“Now!” I called, making Silver rush towards him.

The white bear readied his harpoon. The flames hadn’t harmed his gear, but they had harmed something else.

I could sense his shock as the shipwreck he was standing on collapsed.

The shipwreck was already on the verge of breaking, and my Purgatorial Flames had weakened it to the point where it could no longer support him.

“I burned a whole lot of trees yesterday! Tough luck, huh?!” Fighting against Afforest King Golem and its Planting Golems had given me a good grasp of how fast burning wood collapsed.

With his footing gone, GH dropped his harpoon gun and was hurtling towards the ground in midair.

That was the perfect time for us to charge him. He had nothing to grab on to and was completely at the mercy of gravity.

And even if his weight exceeded a hundred kilograms...

“SILVER!”

...my trusty steed’s horsepower would be more than enough to push him out of bounds! As GH fell, I made Silver intercept him with the boundary of this event behind him.

And so, my Prism Steed slammed into the white bear’s body...and stopped in place.

“Huh?!” The shock wasn’t mine alone. Nemesis, Alto, and even Silver seemed to be equally surprised.

I timed this perfectly, going in to push GH when he was most defenseless.

However, the white bear simply didn’t move from his place in the air and gazed down on me with the lifeless eyes of his costume.

Next thing I knew, he was holding on to Silver’s head with his left hand. In his right hand was a dagger, poised to strike me right in the face.

◇◆◇

About the Polar Bear

Ray Starling wasn’t aware of this, but the costume his opponent was wearing was the MVP special reward for beating the UBM known as “Polaris Bear, Polar Star.”

Polaris—the star that never moved from its place in the sky.

Called “Ultimate Costume Series, Polar Star,” the item born from this creature had the effect of negating knockback. No physical power, no pressure from skills, and not even gravity itself could move the God Hunter against his will when he was wearing this.

Ray Starling was also unaware that the reason why Carl Lourlou had received such a reward was his own brother, Shu.

After the First Knight-Machine War, Shu Starling had been traveling to Tenchi when he’d clashed with Carl Lourlou during a certain incident at the Harshwinter Mountains.

Shu’s Right of Destruction was put to the test against Carl’s indestructibility. The ultimate offense faced the greatest defense, but back then, Shu’s STR had been too low for Right of Destruction to negate Nemean Lion’s effects.

However, in spite of that, Shu had emerged victorious.

His path to victory against Carl had been the same as the one Ray had chosen—to take him out of bounds.

Except while Ray only wanted to take him out of the bounds of the event, Shu chose to take him out of the bounds of the planet’s gravity.

Indeed, Shu had achieved victory by literally kicking Carl into outer space.

Carl hadn’t died, but he had no means of returning—or doing anything, for that matter—so he’d had no choice but to use the suicide system.

The one who was called invincible had been utterly defeated, and he had never forgotten this. He still wanted to get back at Shu Starling for it.

Because of this, the Polar Star that he’d defeated later was adjusted to fulfill his need for knockback resistance—and because of this, he had no intention of showing mercy to the one who faced him now: the younger brother of the Master who’d beaten him.

And so, he swung the hurt-returning dagger down towards Ray’s face.

◇◆◇

Paladin, Ray Starling

“Gifted Quiz!”

“Question: The creature that is four-legged in the morning, two-legged at noon, and three-legged in the evening would be man, but what is the name of the three-legged bird from Japanese mythology?”

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, I heard a familiar voice, followed by an unfamiliar one.

Looking ahead, I saw God Hunter’s dagger hovering right in front of my eyes—but he himself, seemingly shocked, wasn’t moving one bit.

“Ah!” I used the chance to take Silver back to my inventory. Alto and I almost fell into the sea, but I was able to summon Silver again at the very last moment and ride him along the surface.

While we did all of that, GH never moved an inch.

“Th-Th-That was toooo close...” Alto said. Looking at her, I noticed that she now had a cat’s cradle string in her hands. It was the same one that she’d shown me here in Infinite Dendrogram earlier, but it was now emitting a golden light. Inside the complex netting, there was a semitransparent projection of a polar bear.

“Alto, is that...your Embryo?”

“Yeah...it is. It’s called ‘Gordian Knot’... You know what that means, right?”

Gordian Knot...a famous legend about Alexander the Great. It was a knot tied to an oxcart, and a prophecy stated that the one who could untie it would become ruler of all Asia.

“Gifted Quiz gives a question and freezes the target in place until they give the correct answer. In exchange, giving the correct answer doubles all of the target’s stats. I got no control over the question and it’s all random...”

“Now that’s...a difficult skill to use.” It was a combination buff and binding ability that Alto herself had almost no control over. If she used it on an enemy and the question was easy, it would just help them, and if she used it on a friend and the question was hard, she’d just incapacitate her allies.

If she’d used it on me and that had happened, it would’ve been over for us. In a survival-battle royale like this, you could never know when you’d be attacked.

I understood why she hadn’t used it until now.

“And you didn’t use it on Jubei because...?” I asked.

“...Imagine her stats getting doubled.” Good point, I thought.

“But isn’t GH wearing the Cameo? It negates debuffs, so...”

“Ray, this ain’t a debuff, but a setup for a buff!”

“...That makes sense.” So although debuffs didn’t work, buffs with...questionable usefulness still did. I never thought about it that way.

“But, uh...umm... I... Sorry.”

“Huh?” Alto, who had just saved us from a real tricky situation, was becoming all negative again.

It took me only a moment of wondering to realize why.

“That question...was probably too easy... Again, sorry!” she said, looking up at the polar bear with almost teary eyes.

“...Yatagarasu,” he said, speaking for the first time since we encountered him.

“...If you knew the answer, you could’ve said it earlier,” I said. Or maybe the minute or so he’d spent without saying anything was just him preparing to speak?

Regardless, GH was now blessed with Gordian Knot’s buff, giving him a golden aura. We were now faced with a strange creature that could only be described as a golden polar bear.

He descended from midair and stood on the water’s surface. I could only guess that he was using that skill or whatever it was that had held him in midair earlier.

“Well, damn...” Stats-wise, we had no chance against him even before the buff, and now his stats were double, along with the weight of his intimidating aura.

“...By the way, it lasts ten minutes...and it can’t be used on the same person twice in the same day...so...” Alto explained. The polar bear projection had vanished from the cat’s cradle in her hands.

I didn’t expect her to be able to, but apparently she couldn’t freeze him again.

“Out of the frying pan and into the fire, eh...?” said Nemesis. “Well, that’s nothing new for us...!” I replied. With his stats doubled, though, GH was truly a menacing enemy.

If we couldn’t push him out of the event area, what could we even do to beat this Superior?

We had the option of giving up on both his plates as well as the sunken hint, but I didn’t think he would let us escape.

“Hey, Ray...” As I fixed my gaze on GH, walking on water towards us, Alto talked to me in a tone of voice I hadn’t heard from her yet. It was still negative and full of fear—but rather than fearing something in the present, it seemed like she was anxious about the future.

“...What?”

“Can you promise to never, ever, ever...tell anyone?” She was a friend, and I had no trouble promising her things, but...

“...Tell what?”

“About what you’re gonna see now.” Those words tore my attention away from GH and towards her.

She was holding up the back of her right hand...the Jewel.

“Promise?”

“...Yeah,” I said with a nod.

That seemed to have made her relax, if only just a little bit. During our exchange, GH had come uncomfortably close to us...

“Get him, Horobimaru.”

“GOD HUNTER, SIGHTED.”

...but then something punched him away.

The entity that had appeared from Alto’s Jewel was larger than the bear, and its fist had sent him flying even though Silver’s charge hadn’t been able to make him move a single inch.

The polar bear went on to spring off the water’s surface, then slightly sink into the water.

Unexpressive as he was, his shock was still evident. The being that had appeared left me, Nemesis, and clearly even God Hunter himself at a loss for words. Even if he was normally talkative, the surprise would have rendered him speechless.

The entity looked like heavy armor from Heian-period Japan, but it also had some qualities reminiscent of a western suit of armor.

It was all clad in metal, and its joints were knit using tiny metal fibers. On its shoulders there were large Japanese-style armor plates, which, combined with the tassets of a similar theme, made it overall look more like a samurai than anything else.

However, the armor had no helmet at all, and I didn’t see even a skull or anything there. It was like an armored warrior without a head.

I had heard the name of a being with this unique appearance.

“Penta-Phased Destroyer, Horobimaru.”

It was the name of the SUBM that had appeared in Tenchi.