Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 20 - Chapter 6

Chapter Six: The Goblin and the Murder-Demon

About Eldridge

Eldridge, otherwise known as Leon Philadelphia, had no grand reason for getting into Infinite Dendrogram.

Born as the son of one of the leading banking families in the States, he was guaranteed to inherit the business from birth. However, his parents had sent him to a top-class university, and between his studies at school and preparation for his eventual succession, he was left with no time to relax and unwind.

During those busy days, he saw the advertisement for Infinite Dendrogram’s release.

Of the many promotional taglines it had, the one that caught his eye the most was the claim that triple the amount of time passed inside the game as outside of it.

“If that’s true, I’d pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for it.” Leon wanted to triple his rest and playtime. It wasn’t an uncommon reason, but with how little of his own time he had, he was nothing if not serious about it.

And once he had the product in his hands, he was more than satisfied.

In fact, Infinite Dendrogram moved him so much that even the tripled time wasn’t enough. It began taking up more and more of his real hours, forcing him to work even harder in real life—which might have been a bit of a miscalculation on his part. He even immediately started assisting his father after he graduated university, so his life didn’t become any easier once he was out of school.

He also didn’t have a strong reason for being in the burglar job grouping. It wasn’t that he felt like taking a job directly opposed to his real one—he simply thought the job sounded efficient.

As he continued to play like that, he joined up with people who did similar things, and eventually created a clan. The analytical ability he’d developed in real life turned him into an excellent leader, and as his skills garnered more respect and awe, he soon found himself in charge.

His methods were clever. He secured save points in other countries, kept his risks low, carefully picked his burglary targets, and made sure to never do anything that would get him on every wanted list. He looked at every bit of information to analyze every situation, and in return he granted wealth and victory to his followers.

It wasn’t long until he was feared as one of the game’s greatest PKs, and he was deeply respected by his ever-growing clan.

He’d started playing simply to gain some extra time for himself, but now he was spending his real time on the game instead—to make himself stronger or think about what more he could do for his group. Spending his time on that, however, brought him far more peace than simply resting his weary bones ever could.

But now, most of that clan and the awe he had once commanded were gone.

Starting with Caldina’s Altea blockade, they had continued to suffer defeats as he kept making the wrong decisions. The resulting downward spiral of failures, exacerbated by panic, caused people’s opinions of him to drop precipitously and much of his clan left him.

Still, there were two things that had remained.

First was his reason for fighting—the two clan members who stuck by him even as everything else collapsed.

And the second was why he had inspired awe.

That had never changed no matter how many defeats he’d suffered. The power that had made him feared was as alive now as it had been back when he was thriving in Altar.

Just like the two women and his own Embryo, it was something that would never leave him.

◇◆◇

Eltram, Commercial Area

The destroyed mall was now host to a battle between a Superior and pre-Superior—and there was someone watching this one-on-one duel.

Eldridge is fighting her now? Not Hugo? The onlooker was Moneygold, who was still at the bridge. As Sardonyx waited for a chance to draw closer to the ship, Moneygold kept his opponent at bay with Treasure Cannon, all the while looking down through the hole Niala had opened in the ceiling of the commercial area.

Did Hugo lose? If that’s the case, I might have to fight not just that mechdragon—Rascal, probably—but also the Murder Princess herself...and that’s not good at all.

Moneygold had no means to even follow Emily’s supersonic movements. As far as Superiors went, he was among the slowest. His perceived time fell far behind those of other creatures in combat.

Things would be different if he could use enough firepower to blow her away with the rest of the ship, but that wasn’t really an option for him.

Eldridge’s somehow putting up a good fight...but he’s not on her level. They both moved at supersonic speeds, and though it wasn’t easy for Moneygold to follow, he could clearly see which one of them was faster.

Though Eldridge was an AGI-focused Superior Job, his speed still fell behind Emily’s. Thanks to the Kill Leader skill she had as the Murder Princess, the more people she killed, the higher her AGI rose—and it was far above Eldridge’s. There was actually not a single stat in which Eldridge surpassed her. By focusing on evasion, he was just barely avoiding suffering a killing blow, but the fact that she cut into his skin regardless was all the proof necessary to show she was the more powerful combatant.

That was when a certain question sprang to Moneygold’s mind.

Why isn’t he taking out his Embryo? Moneygold wondered.

Back when Caldina had planned the Altea blockade, they’d gathered data on those they would hire. It was extremely detailed, covering almost everything anyone could want to know about the PKs, with only a few exceptions like the identity of the Superior Killer. Moneygold had memorized this info, and he clearly recalled that there was nothing on there about Eldridge’s Embryo.

Like Figaro had once been, Eldridge was a well-known Master with an Embryo shrouded in mystery.

If it’s a Type Territory, you’d think you’d see some signs of activation. Is it a passive Rule like Carl’s? Or does it have conditions like Hugo’s?

With Eldridge being weaker than Emily, the only way he could hope to win against her was by using some trick his Embryo had—at least, that was Moneygold’s assumption.

The only MVP reward on him is those clothes. Why’s he fighting with his bare hands, anyway?

Eldridge was a burglar, not a fighter. The fact that he was barely evading Emily’s attacks made it possible that he had a sub-job with a Martial Arts sense skill, but that was no reason for him to not equip any weapon at all.

Even if he had to keep one hand free for his burglary skills, he could still wield something in the other hand. Does he want to use skills with both hands at once? He can probably do that using his Embryo or that MVP reward...but fighting without a weapon means he has to take every attack with his own body.

Even though Emily hadn’t landed a direct hit on him yet, given her immense speed advantage, it was only a matter of time.

This concern soon became reality when Eldridge was pushed to the wall, unable to run away any farther.

“Minus.” Emily raised her hatchet and swung it down with the intention of splitting Eldridge’s head in two.

In response, he only held up his left arm.

It was clearly a bad move. There was no way he could withstand an attack with nearly 40,000 STR behind it with nothing but his own body. The arm would be severed and the hatchet would go on to cleave into his skull.

The inevitable clash with surely fatal consequences occurred in a split second...

...but then there was a loud clang, as though two metallic objects had met instead.

Emily’s hatchet—the blade of the Superior Embryo, Youaltepuztli—stopped after sinking a bit into Eldridge’s arm.

“You’re wide open, Murder-Demon,” Eldridge said. He swung his bare right arm and twisted the left that still had the blade embedded in it.

This was so he could use the skill he’d activated on both hands—the flesh-taking Greater Takeover.

Each of Eldridge’s hands took Emily’s opposite ankle, and her legs suffered heavy damage.

Emily’s eyes widened as she quickly pulled the hatchet’s blade out of Eldridge’s arm and jumped back. Blood sprayed from her wounded legs at the motion, but she didn’t care about that. To Emily, no amount of damage or spilled blood meant anything. She would be fully healed if she died.

Despite that, she didn’t charge toward Eldridge again.

Her attack had been blocked, and that realization made even this perfect killing machine pause and assume a more cautious stance.

The thing that had blocked it wasn’t a Brooch. It didn’t feel as though the attack had been negated—it most certainly broke the skin on his arm, only to stop without severing it.

“There’s a video of your battle at Cortana. I saw it on the internet.” As Emily fell still, Eldridge began to speak. “You used your hatchets to attack Hugo Lesseps’s mech tons of times, but you never actually managed to break it. That mech’s armor is made of a Mythical metal alloy. With skills active, its defense is probably in the 40,000-50,000 range. That tells me that your attack power isn’t high enough to destroy something that tough.”

Eldridge, who had known all along that he could block Emily’s attack, continued his matter-of-fact explanation.

“You’ve got no shortage of STR. So the problem’s gotta be...your hatchets. They’ve got that insane skill, but their attack power’s real low to compensate. A lot of Type Arms are like that, so that’s exactly what I expected from yours.”

This was still a strange thing to say with such confidence. Even if Youaltepuztli weren’t powerful weapons on their own, they were being wielded by someone with nearly 40,000 STR. There was no chance someone who wasn’t an END-focused Superior Job could withstand the blow.

However, though Eldridge’s left arm was bleeding, it was still connected.

“And that’s why, as a weapon, my Embryo has surpassed yours.”

The wound was deep enough that the bone beneath was visible. However, the bone wasn’t white.

It was covered in blood, of course, but the crimson metal that composed it shone through nonetheless.

That was when Moneygold, still watching the battle, realized something.

I see! So he’s just like the Over Gladiator, then.

Indeed, just like Figaro’s heart, Eldridge also had an Embryo that was always inside him.

Blade Breaker Bones, Skeleton—a metallic full-body skeleton Embryo.

“My Embryo can easily shatter Mithril-tier stuff, but it looks like your hatchets are still really tough even if they don’t have a whole lot of attack power. I wouldn’t expect any less from a Superior Embryo. Shattering them won’t be easy. I feel like I might break something with all the effort I’m putting in here.”

Despite cracking a joke, Eldridge didn’t even smile or let his guard down. That was because he knew this wasn’t an enemy he could afford to show any openings to, and because he himself excelled at survival.

While Eldridge had an AGI-focused Superior Job that let him move at supersonic speeds, his Embryo was as tough as Mythical metal, giving him defenses that equaled those of END-focused Superior Jobs. He was a hybrid build that excelled at both AGI and END—a Master focused on survival, just like Emily.

Recently, he’d suffered defeat from having his heart stolen by surprise, suffocating after being buried beneath a mountain, burning up along with the very ocean around him, and being sliced in half by a ranged attack that ignored toughness. Under normal circumstances, though, death wasn’t something that took him easily.

The difference between his END and Emily’s wasn’t nearly as great as the difference between their AGI, but...

If END is all his Embryo has going for it, then he has no chance of winning this, Moneygold thought as he watched, and anyone would have been hard-pressed to disagree.

Emily still exceeded Eldridge in all stats, even after taking Skeleton into account. Fighting an endurance match with her was a fool’s errand to begin with.

Emily looked down at her damaged legs that hindered her movement—before she cut off her own head.

After death, she was reconstituted from her motes of light and emerged unharmed once again.

She still has that, after all. There’s no way he can win.

Emily could die over and over, while Eldridge, no matter how long he endured, would be defeated after just one death.

I would understand this strategy if he was just buying time until reinforcements came, but... No one was coming to support him, and that included Moneygold himself. While he could watch how the battle at the mall unfolded, Moneygold couldn’t even move from where he was because all of his attention was occupied with keeping Sardonyx at bay.

Emily, perhaps realizing that Eldridge had no one to back him up, rushed toward him yet again.

Thus, they repeated exactly the exchange that had occurred at the beginning of the battle. But this wouldn’t last, as Eldridge would surely lose this war of attrition eventually.

Hm...? However, Moneygold realized that something was different this time. Though only slightly, he felt as though the gap in their speeds had become smaller.

Does he have a skill like the Over Gladiator’s?

The Over Gladiator, Figaro’s Superior Embryo, Cor Leonis, had three skills. One of them was Dance of Anima, which increased his power the longer he was in battle. It was an immensely powerful ability that became known far and wide after he’d fought Xunyu during the Clash of the Superiors.

Moneygold could hardly believe it, but the battle below was strongly reminiscent of that famous duel he’d seen recordings of.

He thought that Eldridge’s Embryo must have a similar skill—but that wasn’t the case. This phenomenon was caused not by his Embryo, but by his ultimate job skill as King of Burglary—Greater All-Drain.

This was a skill that stole the enemy’s stats based on damage he dealt to them.

If he damaged his opponent for a tenth of their maximum HP, he received a tenth of their stats.

If he damaged them for half their health, he enhanced himself with half of their stats.

With the surprise attack on her throat and the recent strike on her ankles, Eldridge had taken off about a tenth of Emily’s HP. And with this increase—or rather, decrease for Emily—the gap between them became smaller.

If he continued to take her HP, the gap would close further, and eventually begin to tilt in Eldridge’s favor.

Greater All-Drain was a skill that ensured Eldridge would come out on top in any prolonged battle. It could only be used once per day and on only one target, but the stats stolen while it was active remained even if the target healed themselves from the damage.

Ultimately, it wasn’t any different with Emily’s revivals. While that restored her own stats that she’d lost when Eldridge took them, Eldridge still had the stats he’d gained.

Since he had never tried this skill on someone who would just revive after being killed, though, not even Eldridge himself knew it would work like this. One of the reasons he’d estimated that he had a seventy percent chance of winning was that he had considered the possibility that the revival would reset his stats as well as hers.

However, it turned out that it functioned in a way that was favorable to him.

Emily was beginning to develop a vague understanding of Eldridge’s combat style and skills. She considered the possibility that he would keep growing stronger without limit and realized that she had to end this battle as soon as possible. Her attacks grew more intense as she began to slice through his skin and flesh, avoiding contact with his Skeleton.

“And that’s a shortcoming of yours.” Evading any fatal attacks, Eldridge downed a pill-like healing item and began to speak again. He considered words to be another technique in his arsenal for managing how his opponents behaved. “The way you fight is way too simple. You put so many Resources into revival that your Embryo itself doesn’t have many other tricks, and your Superior Job does nothing but give you some stats. That’s why your strategy doesn’t go beyond using your immortality for reckless onslaughts. And that’s it.”

Based on what he’d seen, Emily’s only other means of attack were her hatchet throws. He’d considered the possibility that she could use an ult, but it didn’t look like it was happening—and he was fairly certain that she would never take the most straightforward option and just switch to some other weapon.

“The hatchets have a weak attack and limit the ways you can fight, but you don’t switch to anything better. You’re strong enough to beat UBMs and get MVP rewards, yet you still use only the hatchets. Why is that?”

As he spoke, Eldridge used an opening he saw to use Greater Takeover on Emily to take both her HP and mobility, enhancing himself in the process.

“Many Type Arms Embryos activate their skills through contact with their Masters,” Eldridge went on. Ray’s Nemesis could only use Vengeance is Mine if she touched him, for example. Xunyu’s Tenaga-Ashinaga could only extend and retract when she had it equipped. Eldridge’s Skeleton and Figaro’s Cor Leonis worked as they did only because they replaced a particular part of their bodies.

Most Type Arms could only use their effects when in contact with their wielders.

“And what about that Superior Embryo? Do you have to touch it for it to bring you back? No, you don’t. Back in Cortana, you sometimes threw both of them at once. If you couldn’t revive if they were both out of your hands, you would always hold at least one. But you didn’t.”

Eldridge explained his analysis of the combat video he’d watched. Even while under Emily’s ferocious assault, he kept calm and examined her.

“Does that mean you don’t need them to use it? No. If that was the case, you’d already be using some MVP reward or whatever. You’d throw those hatchets so they auto-attacked while wielding some other weapons yourself. Theoretically, that’s the strategy that would make you strongest.”

Eldridge had thought about how he would optimize for combat if he was in Emily’s shoes—and considered the reasons she might not be doing those things.

The answer had come to him in no time.

“It’s because...your equipment slots are occupied. If you’re not the Over Gladiator or something, you only have one weapon slot for each hand—and both of yours are occupied by the hatchets. You can let go of them, but their skills won’t activate if you don’t have them equipped. That goes for both the throwing and the revival.”

Those words seemed to cause an emotional reaction in Emily. She haphazardly swung her axe at him, but Eldridge sidestepped it and tore at her flesh again.

“Your combat ability is too reliant on your Superior Embryo. Without the revivals, you’re basically just a wild boar with high stats. That’s why it’s obvious what I gotta do.”

As though feeling a sense of urgency, Emily lashed out with all of her nearly 40,000 STR behind it. She’d abandoned all of her defense to launch an attack meant to break even through his metallic bones.

However, Eldridge didn’t defend against or evade it.

He simply opened his hands, preparing to use Greater Takeover and ignoring the hatchet in her right hand coming straight toward his skull.

A moment later, they clashed, and the sound of shattering metal rang out.

◇◆

Skeleton. As the name would suggest, this Embryo was based on the creatures from many different mythologies that were all made solely of bone. Skinless and fleshless—they were the remains of the dead who had been deprived of everything.

Perhaps because of that, Skeleton’s core focus was empty-handedness.

Eldridge himself had no idea why his Embryo had turned out like this. He’d started Infinite Dendrogram as a way to relax, so perhaps its theme referred to the fact that he’d seen his life back then as a burden he wished to let go of. It was even possible the reason was something Eldridge had not discovered about himself yet.

Regardless of where it had come from, this core trait of empty-handedness meant that all of Skeleton’s skills required Eldridge to not wield any weapon or shield.

Its first skill, All That Is Left After Death, was a skill that increased the toughness of his metallic frame—Skeleton itself—as well as Eldridge’s own END as long as he wasn’t wielding anything in either of his hands. As had already been demonstrated, the combined defense matched Mythical metal, and not even the Murder Princess’s almost 40,000 STR was enough to break through it.

The second skill, The Dead Have Their Husk and Will, was a skill that enabled simultaneous use of active skills as long as both hands had nothing equipped in them. This was what allowed Eldridge to ready his King of Burglary skills on both hands. As a bonus, it also reduced the skills’ cooldowns.

The third skill was the Embryo’s ult, and it had two conditions that needed to be fulfilled.

First, just like the other two, it required that Eldridge’s hands were completely free. And second, it required him to be in battle for more than five minutes. This was most likely to give him some time to analyze his opponent.

Eldridge had laughed out loud when he’d discovered this particular condition. He’d started playing Infinite Dendrogram to gain time, but now he was being forced to dedicate his time to the game instead.

This condition might’ve been a representation of that change in his point of view.

He’d found that very funny, and had fully understood why his Embryo’s ult had come with that restriction.

Similarly, he fully understood why his ult’s effect had turned out like it had.

◇◆

“Return, and Take Nothing to the Grave—Skeleton.”

The moment they clashed, Eldridge activated his ultimate.

A moment later, Emily’s right hatchet nearly touched his head...and shattered.

Youaltepuztli, a Superior Embryo, let out a high-pitched metallic shriek as it broke against Eldridge’s arm instead.

Emily looked at its scattered pieces, dumbfounded...

“That’s one.”

...and Eldridge used Greater Takeover with both his hands to tear out her eyes.

In shock, Emily covered her empty sockets and desperately jumped back. It was an unusual move for her, someone who was always on the offensive and never feared death, but who could blame her? This was something she’d never experienced before.

Although it was just one of two, the Youaltepuztli that ensured her immortality had been broken.

Skeleton’s ultimate was a skill that destroyed the opponent’s weapon.

When the battle lasted for at least five minutes, Eldridge could destroy any one weapon the enemy was wielding in either hand. Nothing was immune—not even Superior metals or Superior Embryos could withstand it.

This was the reason he had once been known as Altar’s strongest PK—Eldridge, the Arms Killer.

The driving force behind Emily’s immortality was Youaltepuztli’s auto-revival skill, Survival of the Fittest. Obviously, if Youaltepuztli was destroyed, her immortality would be compromised.

Although hesitantly, Emily used her remaining Youaltepuztli to decapitate herself.

A moment later, she dissipated into bits of light...and was successfully reconstituted. This restored her eyes and vision, but not the other Youaltepuztli—it was still broken.

“One more left,” said Eldridge, declaring that he absolutely would destroy her immortality—in other words, that he could do this again.

Return, and Take Nothing to the Grave—Skeleton was an ultimate that could be used twice per day. That wasn’t an unexpected amount of uses for a skill explicitly meant to destroy each weapon in an opponent’s hand. The cooldown between daily uses was an additional five minutes.

That made Eldridge’s words a declaration of inevitable destruction.

With shock in her fully restored eyes, Emily stared at the man in front of her.

He was the beloved of the girl she’d killed simply because she stood in her way, and the man who’d used to be Altar’s strongest PK—the man who’d taken away half of her immortality.

“Don’t underestimate the Goblin...Murder-Demon.”

To Emily, Eldridge was an even more fearsome enemy than Hugo.