Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 7 - Chapter 5

Chapter Five: B. B. B. 
Paladin, Ray Starling 
“Where will we search for him?” asked B3. 
“We’ll run around the festival plaza and the roads between the buildings!” I replied. “You keep looking around!” 
“All right.” 
We rode Silver as he galloped through the burning village. 
Just an hour ago, it had been overflowing with people enjoying the festivities with bright smiles on their faces, but now, it looked completely deserted, and the only remnants of that fun were the countless windstars with their blades burned off. 
Torne was filled with a blackness much like that of Monochrome itself. Burned and darkened remains were spread out as far as the eye can see. Homes, cattle, and even people had been bathed in fire and reduced to charred shadows of what they once were. 
Hoping that Louie hadn’t ended up like that, I frantically searched for him. 
B3 poked my side. 
“...?” I raised an eyebrow. She seemed to have noticed something. 
“My Killing Intent Perception skill is flaring up,” she whispered into my ear. 
I gasped and asked, “Is it Monochrome?” 
“No, it’s not. There are multiple sources, and all of them are approaching us.” 
“Eh?” It took me a moment to process that. 
Before I could ask her who could attack us now, of all times, I heard an odd set of words. 
“Dreams of Electric Sheep — Gremlin!” 
A moment later, Silver lost control of his legs and collapsed sideways, the running momentum taking him a fair distance forward. 
I was still holding his reins with my prosthetic, so I fell along with him. B3, on the other hand, instantly jumped off and landed beautifully. 
“Gh... what the hell just happened?” I let go of Silver’s reins and stood up. “Silver, what’s wrong?!” 
Still on his side, he wasn’t moving. He didn’t even twitch or anything like that. It was as though he was broken, malfunctioning like the machine he was, and I couldn’t make sense of it at all. 
“That thing won’t be moving for half a day,” said someone behind me. I turned around to see a malicious-looking man wearing a bandana with a mark depicting a black circle over a red one. 
He wasn’t alone. B3 and I were now surrounded by a group of ten-odd Masters bearing the same mark. 
“Gremlin’s this guy’s Embryo. It turns off machines and stuff,” the bandana guy said while scratching his chin and pointing at the man next to him, who formed a mean grin. 
“So you’re the ones who stopped Silver,” I said. “What’s your problem?” 
“We’ve got some business with you, Ray Starling the Unbreakable,” the bandana guy said. 
It definitely wasn’t the first time I’d been called by that nickname. That Lang guy I’d met before had used it, too. Unlike him, though, this man here didn’t seem friendly at all. 
“We’re Sol Crisis, the PK clan,” he said. “I’m the leader, Dum-dum Dan. Call me ‘Dum-dum.’ Not like that matters. We won’t know each other for long.” 
Sol Crisis? I thought. Well, now that I think about it, some of them seem familiar. 
They were the ones who’d wrangled with those mohawks at the stalls. The armor guy wasn’t with them, though. 
“Guess there’s no point in asking what you want from me,” I said. 
They were a PK clan, so it was kinda obvious that they wanted to PK me. They’d made it hard for me to escape, and then come out to introduce themselves to make it easy for them to prove they’d defeated the Unbreakable later. There would be no point in killing me in a surprise attack and making it hard to tell who did it. 
Hell, some small man in work clothes was actually filming this, so their motive was all too clear. 
“Can’t you leave it for after Monochrome is taken care of?” I asked. “I’ve got something more important to do.” 
“Not happening,” said Dum-dum. “Now’s the perfect chance.” 
What? 
“Sol Crisis is pretty well-known now, but we don’t have any real achievements to our name, so we wanna do something big and make our name blow up for real.” 
“...Then why don’t you just kill Monochrome?” I demanded. 
“Come on, dude, tons of people have killed UBMs at this point. It ain’t all that special. Not to mention that we can’t even touch the damn thing. Trying to take it out is just stupid. I mean, really, even you ran away.” 
I had no counterargument to that. 
Still, the fact that someone who was doing nothing against Monochrome was making fun of everyone who’d tried to fight it was seriously pissing me off. 
“So yeah, we can’t beat the UBM up there, but it’s all good, since we’ve got some way better game right here. It survived against a goddamn Superior and the self-proclaimed strongest PK clan, despite not even being level 100. If that ain’t top-tier game, I don’t know what is.” The bandana guy named Dum-dum pointed at me and grinned. “I’m talking about you, guy.” 
Well, I got their motive right, at least. 
“Now’s not the time for this, damn it!” I shouted. 
“Kyah ha ha! You dumbass! It’s the perfect time for this!” someone other than Dum-dum replied. 
I looked over at the source of the voice and saw a guy in full armor surpassing three meters in height. The charred buildings at his sides were crumbling. It definitely wasn’t the first time I’d seen that armor. I’d seen it back at the capital’s fountain and here in Torne, during the wrangle between Sol Crisis and Mohawk League. 
Wait, I think I’ve seen it elsewhere, too... 
“When you were in Gideon, we couldn’t take you out ’cause of all the rankers and KoD, but now, that woman’s the only one with ya!” he laughed out loud. “And there’s no one here to bother us, either! You’re a really fucking easy target right now!” 
He seemed pretty pleased about the situation. 
“So yeah, that’s how it is,” said Dum-dum. “We also did our homework and found out you’re not too hot when fighting lots of people and when the fight drags on. Think you can hold out against us?” 
I was silent. He wasn’t wrong about that. My defense had a limited number of uses, so prolonged fights against many people were my bane. 
Damn you, Franklin. I’m too well-known now. 
“Not to mention we’ve got a secret weapon — me!” roared the armor guy. “Name’s Barbaroy! I’m the sub-leader of Sol Crisis and the strongest one here!” 
“Hh?!” I gasped as a sudden chill went down my spine. 
The moment he’d said those words, there was a surge of overwhelming rage and killing intent. However, it didn’t come from the armor guy, but from my side. I turned and saw my only ally on the scene. 
“Heh heh,” she giggled. 
Indeed — B3 was the source of the surge. I didn’t know why, but she was emitting an aura so intimidating, it couldn’t even be compared to the one she’d had when fighting K&R yesterday. It was strong enough to make me shiver, yet she looked as composed as ever. 
...No, scratch that. I looked and noticed that her shield’s handle was bent. 
For some reason, the armor guy was making her really mad. 
“That armor has a nice design,” she said. 
“Kyah ha ha! I know, right?” laughed the armor guy. “It’s the one and only Gunhammer Plate, Magnum Colossus! A special reward I got from a UBM!” 
“Oh my, that is quite impressive.” 
The armor guy continued to flaunt his gear, completely oblivious to B3’s murderous aura. 
“Now, if I may ask... who are you to be wearing such armor?” she smiled. I hadn’t known her for long, but even I could tell she was faking it. 
“Kyah ha ha ha! I already introduced myself!” he laughed again. “And what, ya can’t tell by my armor? You don’t know much, do ya?” 
“...Perhaps. So, may I have your name?” 
Armor dude, please stop. B3’s murderous aura is turning so strong that she’s scaring me more than the aberration. I don’t know what’s going on here, but you’re clearly walking on a minefield. 
“Kyah ha ha ha! I’m Barbaroy Bad Burn the ‘Crushing Canopy’! I’m the man who used to lead Mad Castle, and now I’m the sub-leader of Sol Crisis! There! Satisfied?!” 
“I see.” 
I have no idea how I am the only one here who feels the aura... I thought. Hm? Wait. 
“Hold on. ‘Barbaroy’?” I muttered to myself. That name seemed familiar... 
“Ah,” I exclaimed as I glanced at B3, then at my party’s stat summary. Suddenly, it all made sense. I understood why B3 was so mad, and what kind of person this armor dude was. 
“Huhh? What’s up, Unbreakable, ya don’t know me, either?” he asked. 
“Oh no, I do,” I replied. “‘Barbaroy Bad Burn,’ huh? Yeah, I know that name very well.” 
“Kyah ha ha! Of course ya do! Try using Reveal or Identification if you want. See for yourself.” 
The fact he mentioned those skills probably meant that you’d see exactly what he claimed you would, but I more or less knew what was happening here, so that didn’t matter to me. 
“Killing you will make my and Sol Crisis’s fame skyrocket even higher! Man, am I glad I saw you back at that fountain yesterday!” 
“Damn, dude, you sure are hyped,” commented Dum-dum. “I gotta say, though, when you told me you’d seen that guy alone at the capital, I thought it was just an early April Fools.” 
“Kyah ha ha! C’mon, leader, you know you can trust me!” 
Oh, yeah, it’s April Fools’ Day in reality right now, I thought. Talk about timing. This whole situation feels like a bad joke. 
“Ray,” B3 spoke up. 
“Yes?” 
“Leave them to me and go search for Louie.” 
“Well, we wouldn’t want him to get hurt while we’re dealing with these guys,” I conceded. “Is it really a good idea to leave them all to you, though?” 
“Yes. In fact, let me have them,” she said as she lightly pushed me. 
I nodded and went to retrieve Silver, who was still immobile. After putting him back in my inventory, I hurried away from there. 
“Hey! Don’t think you can escape!” shouted the armor guy. The whole of Sol Crisis moved to stop me, but before they could do anything... 
“Heaven’s Weight!” B3 activated the gravity field she’d used on Rosa, pushing the PKers to the ground. 
They were rendered incapable of doing anything to me, so I quickly made my escape. 
I left Sol Crisis to B3 and focused entirely on searching for Louie. 
But man, some people sure have some weird ideas, I thought. I mean, there’s just no way that trick can work for long. 
 
Torne Village 
“I... I can’t move!” 
“What the hell?! M-My bones are breaking!” 
“Is this a gravity field? Wait, don’t tell me that...” 
None of the people Ray had left behind were moving. 
To be precise, there was one person who didn’t move, while the rest of them just couldn’t move. 
The latter were the Sol Crisis members, bound by a high gravity field, while the former was B3 — its creator. 
She looked down on them as she reached into her inventory and took out a Job Crystal. It was a consumable that allowed the user to switch their main job. 
B3 shattered the Crystal, changing her main job from Shield Giant to something else. 
“Now then,” she said in a cool tone as she leisurely walked up to the armored man. “There are three things I feel I must point out to you, Mister ‘Barbaroy.’” 
She gently touched one of the protrusions on his armor and just tore it off. 
“Huh?! How the fuck are you do—?!” 
“It’s not hard enough,” B3 cut Barbaroy’s words short and forced her fist into his abdomen. 
She wasn’t using her bare hands. While no one was paying attention, she’d equipped a pair of gigantic gauntlets. 
That description really was apt, for they seemed like a pair of metallic gloves a giant would wear. Not only that, but they looked very much like the gauntlets from Barbaroy’s armor set, which, by the way, now had a number of cracks around its abdominal area. 
“The real Magnum Colossus isn’t nearly as fragile,” B3 continued. Her tone had little emotion to it, making her give off the vibe of someone telling an apprentice cook about their mistake. “Although the appearance is good, you should have used a tougher metal.” 
In contrast to her mild mannerisms, her attack had left Barbaroy completely bewildered and barely able to breathe. 
“Next point. I checked your name using Reveal, and true, it’s ‘Barbaroy Bad Burn.’ However...” she stopped for a moment and cracked a faint grin. “On my screen, in my language... It’s written in katakana.” 
As Barbaroy, on his knees, groaned because of the punch, B3 placed her foot on his head and stepped down on it. 

 

Barbaroy’s helm sunk a bit into the ground, but it was unable to withstand the impact and shattered, revealing a feeble-looking man. 
“Th-The hell are you talking about...?” he asked. Losing his helmet made his voice lose its echo and with that, its power. 
“The real Barbaroy Bad Burn’s name isn’t written in Japanese katakana,” she explained with an emotionless voice. “I know it’s hard to tell when we have the translation feature, but it’s nothing you couldn’t find out with a little bit of research.” 
B3 opened a window and showed him her status summary. 
“The real one’s name uses the English alphabet,” she continued. “Like so...” 
The window displayed B3’s — B.B.B.’s — full name. 
Plain as day, written in clear English, was “Barbaroy Bad Burn.” 
“Huh?!” 
“Ahh... Thought as much,” B3 said. 
“Eh?” 
“Wh-What’s going on here?!” 
Some Sol Crisis members reacted with mere surprise, while others looked thoroughly confused. Barbaroy — or, rather, the one who claimed to be Barbaroy — and Dum-dum, along with a couple of others, were the ones who seemed merely surprised. The latter were far more numerous. 
“Oh, I see you haven’t told your entire clan that you’re a fake,” B3 commented. 
“N-No...!” said the armor man. “I’m Barbaroy and I’m wearing the Magnum Colossus! Reveal and Identification can prove it!” 
“Yes, and that makes the truth that much easier to see. You have an Embryo that lets you falsify names, don’t you?” She exposed his lie with a forced smile on her face. “Swindler and similar jobs have the ‘Falsify Name’ skill, but that can be exposed with a high level Reveal or Truth Discernment. Your Embryo has a skill that’s above those two. Simple as that. After all, an Embryo skill’s effect is much stronger when it’s more restricted.” 
Ultimate superior job skills like Franklin’s Analyzing Eye of Wisdom could probably expose the man, but luckily — or perhaps unluckily — the fake Barbaroy had never encountered anyone with such abilities. 
“I considered that it could be a skill from a special reward,” B3 continued, “but I cannot imagine someone wearing that fake armor ever becoming an MVP.” 
“Gnhh...!” The fake Barbaroy didn’t know how to respond. 
“It’s a great skill for tricking people, and pretending to be an influential player to make your clan more prestigious is definitely a good application of it. However, there is a limit to how many members you can gain before the truth comes out. From what I can see, many of them here did not know about this.” 
Indeed, about half of the members present had thought that their Barbaroy was the real one, and many of them had joined just because of the name’s reputation. Now that the truth had come out, they gave suspicious glares to the members who’d known about this. 
“That’s why you targeted Ray — you wanted the prestige.” B3 continued. “And when you were done with him and had an actual achievement to your name, you planned to make up a reason why Barbaroy had to leave and make him do exactly that. The prestige your clan would have then would be just enough to fool people and make them come to you even if you didn’t have him anymore.” 
“Y-You bi— Stop!” The fake Barbaroy tried to shut her up, but he couldn’t move because he was far too close to B3, giving him the full effects of Heaven’s Weight: ultra high gravity and the Binding debuff. He simply didn’t have the STR to break free. 
“The reason why you chose Barbaroy is simple — it’s because you cannot change appearances. Be it a battle or a public place, Barbaroy is known to always wear full armor, and that made him an easy choice, correct?” She momentarily stopped and looked down on the fake. “Your other options weren’t nearly as good. The Superior Killer was decent, but no one knows his name, so it would’ve been difficult to prove you were the real thing. The Unsheath and King of Burglary’s faces are too well-known for your plan to work, while the King of Crimes is in the gaol, so he is not even an option. You ended up choosing Barbaroy through simple elimination.” 
“N-No! Don’t believe her! I’m the real deal!” shouted the fake. 
“Well, let’s see you prove it, then,” B3 said as she freed him from the effects of Heaven’s Weight. 
Being able to move again, the fake slowly stood up, then gasped as he realized what she meant. 
“If you’re truly the real Barbaroy, defeat me all by yourself and turn this situation around. Of course, I won’t be holding back, either.” 
“Ghnhh...” 
The fake couldn’t even bring himself to nod to that, and that was more than enough to show how unauthentic he was. 
“I’m a fake...” he gave in and admitted. 
The members who’d been fooled began jeering at him. 
“You tricked us!” 
“Fuck! I can’t believe I let this faker act like hot shit!” 
“S-Screw you! Don’t act like you didn’t use Barbaroy’s name to extort tons of money from people!” 
The ones who were in on the plan retaliated, splitting Sol Crisis into two sides. Their relentless arguing resulted in lots of noise. 
“Shut up.” But all of it stopped with just those silent, yet extremely menacing, words. 
Needless to say, the one who spoke them was B3 — the most infuriated person on the scene. 
“Excuse me, but there’s no need for you to quarrel. Regardless of anything you say, I’m about to kill you all.” 
The ones who were tricked argued against that. 
“W-We were cheated!” 
“It’s not my fault! I don’t have anything to do with this!” 
“But you did use Barbaroy’s name to rob people, didn’t you?” B3 pointed out. “The fee for that will be your life. In fact, I am a player killer, so I do not need such excuses. Someone opposes me? I merely kill them all.” 
Her words made all of Sol Crisis, torn apart by the lie, unwittingly become one again. The gravity field made it impossible for them to escape, so they all were aware now that they were about to be massacred. 
“Anyway, I suppose this isn’t something you say so deep into a conversation, but I am quite upset right now,” B3 continued. 
Yeah, we can tell, they thought in response. The way she’d treated the fake was more than enough to see that she was furious. 
“Do you understand why am I so angry?” 
“B-Because we used Barbaroy’s name...?” asked the fake. 
“No. I actually don’t mind that you chose Barbaroy as the imitation. Well, it’s true that the low armor strength, low stats, and general lack of research somewhat vexes me, but the fact that someone used the name means that it holds enough weight to be used, so it’s definitely not the focus of my anger.” 
“Th-Then why...?” 
“There are two reasons,” she said in an ominously gentle tone. “The first one is the fact that you used the name of the leader of Mad Castle on the sub-leader of your third-rate clan.” 
The members of Sol Crisis needed a moment to process what she’d just said, but they instantly understood just how mad she was. Her ferocious expression and fiery eyes spoke volumes about her rage. 
“Th-Third rate?!” howled the fake. “You makin’ light of us?” 
“Heh heh heh. Yours is a clan that acts all big and tough when all you have is borrowed fame. If that isn’t third-rate, I have no idea what is.” B3 chuckled. “And despite being so lowly, you had the gall to disgrace both Barbaroy and Mad Castle, effectively putting that clan below your third-rate Sol Crisis.” 
Indeed, the true reason for her anger was her feelings for the now-gone clan. She had nothing against someone else using her name, but bringing it down was simply unacceptable in her eyes. 
“Barbaroy Bad Burn isn’t forgiving enough to ignore this.” 
B3’s tone was composed, but the pressure she was emitting was immeasurable, making Sol Crisis realize what just kind of beast they’d been dancing with. 
“As for the other reason why I’m upset...” she continued as she raised another finger on her giant gauntlets. “You stood in his way and ridiculed him when he earnestly struggled to stop this tragedy.” 
The passion in her tone made it clear that this upset her as much as the insult to her clan — if not more. 
“And that’s why I’m gonna trash you all,” she changed her tone as a large set of armor covered her from neck to toe. 
It looked exactly like that of the fake Barbaroy’s, but the aura it exuded was incomparable, for it was the real Gunhammer Plate, Magnum Colossus. 
“Oh, right, I forgot to point out the third thing,” she said as all the bloodlust and anger vanished like mist. 
“Th-Thing?” the fake meekly repeated her. 
“Yes. I said that I have three things to point out, but I’ve only pointed out two so far.” 
She’d mentioned two of the mistakes the fake had made, namely the armor durability and name display, but she’d yet to tell him the third. 
“The third thing...” she said, still with a calm expression, as she took out the headpiece of the Gunhammer Plate from out of her inventory. “The third thing is that Barbaroy Bad Burn turns on his PK mode when he hides his face.” 
She then placed the helm over her head. 
“Oh, I just realized that I haven’t properly said it yet.” 
The moment the plate covered her whole face, she declared, “The big boy Barbaroy Bad Burn we’re all talkin’ about... is me.” 
Thus, one of the kingdom’s leading PKers, Barbaroy Bad Burn the Crushing Canopy, was reborn. 

 

 
About Sol Crisis 
It all began with the Embryo of a Master known as “Vermin.” Its name was “Amanojaku,” and it had the ability to change the names of his items and himself. 
Unaware of the Urikohime folk tale, Vermin wondered why it was a name-changing Embryo, but he liked its ability a lot. He figured that Amanojaku could work wonders for him if he used it well. 
Infinite Dendrogram was a game where the system itself prevented name changes, so having the privilege of actually being able to do that gave him a great advantage. 
Vermin used that power to swindle countless Masters. He avoided targeting tians because he didn’t want to end up in the gaol, but that would never happen with his fellow players, so he went wild scamming them one after another. 
Eventually, he met up with a pair of other Masters who also went around doing bad deeds: Dum-dum, an ambusher PKer, and Blue Screen, a player who’d gotten on Dryfe’s wanted list for breaking too many machines. 
They all found each other to be kindred spirits — or, rather, people they could use — and went on to join forces. 
That was the start of the Sol Crisis clan. 
Later, the new partners in crime wanted to do something big, and they eventually got the idea to fake an infamous PKer. 
By using the name of someone feared and powerful, they could menace and coerce tons of other people, and if someone doubted the fake PKer’s identity, they could freely show them the name, which would be changed by Amanojaku. 
The stronger and more feared the PKer, the more it would frighten those who saw it. 
Though the Embryo didn’t allow appearance changes, they could still imitate PKers that didn’t show their faces. Not even MVP-exclusive special rewards would be a problem if they just made items that looked similar and changed the name to make them appear real. 
Additionally, upon reaching the sixth form, Amanojaku became able to fake not only names, but stats, as well. 
They definitely had the means to pull off the lie, and after a short investigation, Vermin found the perfect PKer to fake — Barbaroy Bad Burn. 
Before the Superior Killer settled in Altar, there were a total of five PKers who were particularly feared: 
The sole Superior was the King of Crimes, Sechs Würfel. 
K&R’s leader, The Unsheath, Kashimiya. 
K&R’s sub-leader, Nobushi Princess, Rosa. 
Goblin Street’s leader, King of Burglary, Eldridge. 
Mad Castle’s leader and the sole high-rank job among them, Full Armor Giant, Barbaroy Bad Burn. 
These PKers were greatly feared by Masters all across the kingdom. Of course, the KoC was dreaded by the tians, as well, and since he was quickly put on the country’s wanted list, it was hard to consider him a Master belonging to the kingdom. 
If Vermin wanted to pretend to be anyone in the kingdom, these five would be the most effective, as they were the most infamous PKers there. 
Kashimiya, Rosa, and Eldridge were still actively playing, so they were instantly excluded from the possible choices. 
As for King of Crimes... right before the war against Dryfe, he’d fought against someone unknown. They’d both ended up defeated, and KoC had been sent to the gaol, so he wasn’t even an option. 
Besides, even if he had still been here, taking up his name would just be far too dangerous, since the slightest mention of him would make the kingdom’s officials instantly jump into action. 
The kidnapping of the third princess, the massacre at Count Friebel’s mansion, the deprivation of The Saint, et cetera... The many crimes committed by KoC had turned his name into a sort-of taboo word in the kingdom. 
Because of all that, Barbaroy was the only real choice, and as luck would have it, his current situation was just perfect for Sol Crisis’s plan. 
After being defeated by the Over Gladiator, Figaro, Barbaroy’s clan was dissolved, and he himself seemed to have disappeared. 
There were rumors that he’d quit because of the shock from the defeat, making him the perfect person for Vermin to fake. 
So Vermin did just that, becoming a Barbaroy Bad Burn that couldn’t be exposed by any Reveal or Identification, letting them pressure other Masters like never before. 
It didn’t take long for the fake Barbaroy to uplift Sol Crisis and make it a relatively well-known PK clan. The fame attracted many new members, making it a highly popular underground option. 
With that, however, came a certain problem. 
There were now far too many members who didn’t know that their Barbaroy was a fake. If he was somehow exposed, the entire clan would be at risk of collapsing. 
So their countermeasure to that was to get fame from something other than Barbaroy. 
Specifically, they decided to PK Ray Starling the Unbreakable — the famous Master who, despite being a newbie, hadn’t broken before a Superior. 
Achieving that would be proof that their Barbaroy was more than just for show, and the clan would no longer be in danger of collapsing. In fact, it would only grow bigger. 
However, Ray Starling was almost always surrounded by duel rankers, his weird comrades, and even the King of Destruction, making him a scary target to attack. 
There were probably many other PKers who wanted to take out the Unbreakable, but were giving up for that very reason. 
But then Vermin saw Ray Starling at the capital’s fountain. He was accompanied solely by Nemesis, so they figured it was a golden opportunity for them to take him. 
Dum-dum used his trailing-specialized Embryo to track where he was going, then gathered the members and went after him, looking for a chance to PK him. 
They planned on attacking him when he was at the Fadl Mountain Pass, but then their attack coincided with K&R’s hunt. 
Two of their members ended up getting the death penalty, but they figured that K&R’s interference was actually worth it, since now the Unbreakable would also be known as the one who not even K&R could defeat. 
If Sol Crisis managed to succeed where they’d failed, they would become an even bigger name than K&R. 
With that positive, yet misguided mentality, they used Monochrome’s attack to assault Ray Starling. Since next to no other Masters would interfere, they figured this was a perfect opportunity for them. The incident was working in their favor, and things couldn’t be going any smoother for them. 
However, they neglected to consider three things: 
One — no matter how many tricks they used to make Sol Crisis appear strong, it would never be representative of their own strength. 
Two — the one they thought had quit the game was still very active. 
And three — they never pictured just how badly the real one would snap when their actions were uncovered. 
Those were Sol Crisis’s fatal mistakes, and retribution was dealt back to them in the form of an enraged juggernaut — the third strongest PKer in the kingdom. 
 
Torne Village 
Sol Crisis was now looking at the real Barbaroy Bad Burn, clad in gigantic armor and donning a full helm that covered her entire face. 
Putting on that helmet was what made Barbaroy “turn on” to her PKer mode. 
Scared as they were, upon being told that, the members of Sol Crisis had wanted to laugh at her manga-like roleplaying. But once she actually equipped the helm and became the renowned PKer, all their amusement was blown away. 
Even though she looked exactly the same as their fake had, the intimidating air she emanated and the ferocity leaking out from her armor were on a completely different level. Her presence was so intense that anyone who knew what it felt like would have easily been able to tell the fake from the real one, even if the fake wore her name. 
“Right, then. Like I said, you’re all about to get trashed.” Barbaroy’s words echoed within the armor. Her voice sounded somewhat masculine. “You can’t move for shit right now, so I could take my time and kill you slowly.” 
Sol Crisis shivered in fear. 
Each and every single one of them were currently bound by the high gravity field spread out around Barbaroy. Depending on the distance from her, that field multiplied their weight by a minimum of 200 and a maximum of 500, so they couldn’t make any significant movements. The wide reach of the skill had allowed her to catch the entire clan. 
At the edge of the field, the gravity was 200 times higher than normal, so those located thereabouts could move if they had 2,000 STR, which was 200 times higher than a normal person. It was a burden that most capable vanguard roles with low and high-rank jobs could carry with little trouble. 
However, those positioned further away from Barbaroy were either ranged attackers or supports. And since magic, archery, or gunnery didn’t scale with STR, they didn’t have enough of it to be able to escape the 200 times greater than normal gravity. 
And that was only for those who were at the edge of the field. Those who were closer could be exposed to 300, 400, and even 500 times greater gravity, and even, to top it off, receive the Binding debuff. Even max level high-ranks with good stat growth bonuses from their Embryos would find it hard to escape that. 
Not to mention that merely being able to move wasn’t enough, as the extra weight would still dull their mobility and make it impossible for them to fight properly. 
For these many reasons, Heaven’s Weight was a truly terrifying skill. 
Of course, it wasn’t absolute. During the capital blockade incident, Figaro had been able to break out of Barbaroy’s maximum gravity field. 
But if you looked at it another way, Figaro was the only one who’d succeeded at that, and he was a Superior. 
The mix of Barbaroy’s Heaven’s Weight and ultimate skill had even killed Superior Jobs like Rosa and Eldridge. In fact, Figaro’s feat had only been possible because of the powerful buffs from his Embryo and skills on his special rewards. 
Naturally, Sol Crisis had nothing that could overcome this. So great was the gravity that some were forced to the ground and had their bones break. 
Man, shame I’m not closer to the outside, thought the leader of Sol Crisis, Sneak Raider, Dum-dum. He was regretting setting the clan’s battle arrangement to what it was, and the reason for that was simple. I might’ve been able to escape after she ran out of MP taking care of the rest. Just my luck. 
Indeed, he would have liked to avoid the death penalty by using his clan members as decoys, and it wouldn’t exactly have been impossible, either. 
Though Heaven’s Weight was strong, it also drained a lot of MP. 
According to Dum-dum’s Reveal skill, Barbaroy now only had about a third of her max MP left, and he expected it to run out before she PK’d everyone. 
Thus, Dum-dum could have survived if he’d been at the edge of the gravity field. However, as a vanguard fighter, he’d been placed at the front of the encirclement. 
He gave up and just hoped that he wouldn’t drop any valuable items, but then... Barbaroy said something that made no sense to him or the rest of Sol Crisis. 
“I’m gonna cancel this field now.” The armor giant ignored their confusion and continued. “It’d piss me off something fierce if you started whining and telling everyone that you only got beaten ’cause I took you by surprise and crushed you when you couldn’t move... so I’m giving you all a fighting chance.” 
Barbaroy began to slowly walk through the barrier. 
For some, that made the burden lighter, while for others, Barbaroy’s approach increased the gravity and made their bones break. However, those who could more or less move now chose to stay still and watch what Barbaroy did next. 
“The rules are simple,” she said. “You all come at me, and anyone who can take a tenth of my HP within five minutes gets to go.” 
“What do you mean by that?” Dum-dum asked. 
“If you can manage that, I’m not gonna attack you at all. Hell, I’ll even write a Contract for this. ‘I will not attack anyone who, within the next five minutes, damages me for a tenth of my health’ or something should do the job.” 
“Wh-Why five minutes?” Dum-dum ventured. 
“What, you don’t see the shitty UBM up there? I’ve gotta go and help my boy Ray deal with that damn thing.” 
In other words, five minutes was the approximate amount of time it would take for Monochrome to resume its attacks, and that was all the time Barbaroy was willing to waste on Sol Crisis. 
“You can try and run, but I already looked at you all with Reveal,” she added. “Got all your names and stats in my cranium. Not gonna forget your mugs, either. My memory’s pretty damn good.” 

So even if they escaped here and now, she’d kill them some other time — and probably more than just once. 
However, Sol Crisis saw that her conceit was giving them a chance. 
The fifteen members of the clan looked at each other. Both the deceived and the deceivers put their antagonism aside and became united again. 
“Hey, you said that a tenth’s fine, but, uh...” said Dum-dum, the leader. “We can kill you, right?” 
“Sure. Do that, and you’re all free to go.” 
With that, they had a verbal promise, and Barbaroy didn’t neglect to fill out a Contract, either. 
The sight made just about all of Sol Crisis silently chuckle. Dum-dum was no exception. 
She only has about a third of her MP left, he thought. If we all attack her at once, she’ll lose all of it before the fight ends. That’ll be my chance. If I let the other guys distract her, I might become a PKer who’s killed the real Barbaroy. 
He tried to keep a serious face so that no one would realize what he was thinking. 
Others might be picturing scenarios similar to his. Barbaroy was probably aware of that, but she showed no interest in it. 
“By the way... Do you numbskulls seriously think I’m givin’ you this chance just so you wouldn’t have any excuses?” she said with a voice thick with frightening bloodlust. 
Dum-dum faltered. “What... What do you mean?” 
“Yeah, I bet you’re curious. Anyway, just get ready to be broken in more ways than one,” she said, causing a chill to go down each of their spines. “All right. I’ll cancel it in three seconds. Threeeee...” 
The countdown to the battle began... 
“Two. Stronghold Pressure!” 
...but then, before she was done counting, she canceled the gravity field and used both her shields to crush two of their casters. 
Stronghold Pressure was a Shield Giant skill that turned defense into offense. Though she’d switched her job to Full Armor Giant, she could freely use the skill because she was using the appropriate weapon type — a shield. Of course, the damage dealt was more than enough to make short work of the casters’ low HP and END. 
If the expressions on the halves of faces that they still had left were anything to go by, the two unfortunates had no idea what had just happened. 
After the first attack pulverized a large part of their skulls, Barbaroy confirmed that they were still conscious, then crushed them again. 
This time, their heads were reduced to mince meat, and it didn’t take long for the two to get the death penalty and vanish. One of them was a central figure of the clan and the one who’d stopped Silver — Gremlin’s Master, Blue Screen. 
“Huuuh?!” 
“Th-That’s so unfair!” 
Sol Crisis’ members stood up and distanced themselves while telling Barbaroy off, but she didn’t seem to care in the least. 
“Huhhh?” she sneered. “I said I’d cancel it in three seconds, didn’t I? What the hell’re you callin’ unfair?” 
Indeed, she’d canceled the skill exactly three seconds after saying that. She wasn’t lying at all. However, she had purposely begun a drawn-out, purposeless countdown to make Sol Crisis believe that the battle would begin the moment she finished counting. 
Also, they just hadn’t been able to imagine that a person who wanted to fight after undoing her highly advantageous field would actually fight unfairly. 
“And hell, what’s wrong with a PKer being unfair?” she continued. “Got taken by surprise? Well, that’s your own damn fault. If you want a fair battle, go and get your head lopped off by Kashimiya. Kyah ha ha ha!” Her belittling laughter was dense with cunning. “By the way, about why I canceled the field and gave you a chance...” 
She’d chose to turn a slaughter into a fight, and the reason for that was... 
“You dumb shits went and faked me, so I wanted to show you Barbaroy’s style and DRILL IT INTO YOUR DAMN HEADS!” 
And to that end, she was willing to discard her overwhelming advantage. 
Her roar made all of Sol Crisis completely forget the notion that they could win if they just waited for her to run out of MP. It made them aware that they had to go all-out or be mercilessly PK’d. 
And if they were to fight seriously, the fact that they’d just lost two casters was a huge problem. 
“That bastard went and started with our magic attackers!” Dum-dum shouted. 
“Who’re ya callin’ a ‘bastard’?!” roared Barbaroy. 
When fighting Full Armor Giants, who excelled at physical defense, magic was your strongest weapon. Barbaroy was fully aware of that, so she’d promptly and preemptively taken out the casters, not letting them do anything. 
Having lost his offensive casters, Dum-dum focused on the next best thing. “AGI dudes, move around and confuse her! She’s an END type!” 
But alas... 
“N-No dice... My leg broke while the gravity field was active.” 
“A-And I broke a hip.” 
Those two were both specialized vanguards with high AGI, but low STR and END. Their bones had broken while Barbaroy was walking around with an active barrier. 
“She even took out our AGI builds...!” 
Barbaroy herself had said that she’d learned all their names and stats through Reveal. It seemed she’d finished analyzing Sol Crisis’s builds and preemptively crushed the weak END members with her gravity field. 
“Get our Bishop to heal the—” 
Before Dum-dum could finish his sentence, something flew through his vision. 
It was a shield. 
Barbaroy used the Flying Shield skill to throw one of hers towards the Bishop. 
It hit him directly and, making short work of his low HP and END, cleanly split him in two. 
“Damn, you’re slow at makin’ decisions,” said Barbaroy. “And I know he’s low level and all, but you’re seriously underestimating my boy Ray. I mean, not one of you so far has had a Brooch. Are you dead broke or something? Also, you could at least get a maxed-out support.” 
After all, a max level Bishop would have had good chances of surviving a single Flying Shield. Though, in that case, Barbaroy would’ve taken care of him some other way. 
“Tch...” Dum-dum voiced his frustration. 
The battle had just begun, but he’d already lost three members — five, if you included the incapacitated AGI builds. And they weren’t even fighting a player with a Superior Job or anything else that deviated from the norm. Barbaroy was a high-rank — on the same tier as them — and these results were caused by nothing but her precise and ruthless tactics. 
That was Barbaroy’s style. 
She roleplayed a vulgar, violent, murderous, and antagonistic PKer while using well-crafted tactics that utilized the enemies’ job configurations and mental openings. 
This was the reason why, despite being a high-rank, she was always grouped with the Superior Job PKers in Altar. 
According to her, “Player battles aren’t all about differences in levels and stats. Preventing your opponent from using their powers while using your own cards in the best manner possible is far more important,” and she embodied these words well. 
After all, she had been able to act on those words to crush both Rosa and Eldridge, solidifying her position as the third strongest PK in the kingdom. 
Not only that, but she was now stronger than she had been back then. 
“Gh... No! We can still win!” Dum-dum roared with more power in his words than usual. “She has less than a fifth of her MP! Same for her SP, too! Just keep attacking, and we’ll win! Don’t let her rest!” 
He’d realized that his clan’s spirit was on the verge of breaking and saw the need to enliven them. 
Some members who’d been fooled by the fake Barbaroy were still antagonistic towards Dum-dum, but they knew that he was telling the truth. If Barbaroy ran out of MP and SP, she’d be unable to use any skills, giving Sol Crisis a huge advantage. 
“We’ve got no choice!” 
“Eat THIS!” 
Two members — a Strong Swordsman and a Strong Lancer — simultaneously used stat-buffing skills and rushed Barbaroy to make an attack. 
They both excelled in terms of STR, so they could’ve dealt damage to her directly through her armor. However... 
“Astro Guard!” Barbaroy activated a skill, repelling their weapons and protecting her from even the smallest bit of damage. 
“Huhhh?!” 
“Wha—? No way!” 
The two were thoroughly dumbfounded by what’d just happened, but to Barbaroy, things were going exactly as expected. 
Thanks to Reveal and Identification, she knew their stats and jobs, so she was fully aware what kind of damage they could deal. 
Not to mention that Barbaroy was now even tougher than she had been back when she’d fought Figaro. After all, following her defeat, she’d gone on to reconfigure her build. 
Picking Shield Giant as her sub high-rank job had raised her base defense from 3,000 to 5,000, so using Astro Guard, which quintupled the user’s defense in exchange for rendering them immobile, increased her defense to 25,000. 
As the leader of Mad Castle, necessity had required her to keep one of her two high-rank job slots dedicated to Commander, which increased the stats of her party and clan. Thus, back then, even if she’d boasted battle prowess that could make most non-SJs envious, she definitely hadn’t been the best solo fighter she could be. 
Things had changed since then. Following Mad Castle’s dissolution, she’d repurposed her clan leader build for solo battle. 
There was no need for her to lead anymore, and she wanted to become strong enough to hold herself against foes like Figaro. 
She’d been so invested into perfecting her build that she’d accepted Tsukuyo’s invitation to CID in order to gain access to their data. 
As a result, she’d acquired the Shield Giant job, which now gave her new skills and greatly increased her stats. 
Additionally, she still had skills from before the reconfiguration, such as Damage Decrease and Damage Reduction. 
Due to all that, to damage Barbaroy in her Astro Guard state, one had to break through the 25,000 defense, make up for the 20% decrease, and still deal more than 500 damage. 
According to her calculations, the only ones who could do that purely with stats and job skills were the two level 500 offense casters... the ones she’d crushed when the battle began. 
Therefore, Sol Crisis could only damage Barbaroy if she ran out of MP and couldn’t uphold her Astro Guard anymore, or if they had some sort of Embryo capable of that. 
While considering what they’d do next, Barbaroy decided to continue reducing their numbers. 
Thus came the ultimate skill. 
“Emancipated Giant — Atlas!” 
It was the ace up her sleeve — an ability that, for 10 seconds, multiplied her defense by 10 and transformed it to attack power. 
A tenth of a second after using Atlas, she deactivated Astro Guard, and used her immense, greater than 250,000 offense to pulverize both the Strong Swordsman and Strong Lancer in one hit each. 
Eight left, she thought, and it was hard to tell whether she was referring to the enemy count or seconds remaining for her ultimate skill. 
Once Emancipated Giant’s effect was over, it could only be used again after an hour-long cooldown, so Barbaroy didn’t want to waste a second of it. 
She took to repeatedly using the Flying Shield skill and throwing her 250,000 damage shields towards Sol Crisis members. 
Though it lasted for a mere ten seconds, her ultimate skill gave her attack power that matched the one and only King of Destruction. 
Under its effects, Barbaroy was a messenger of ruin. She pulverized her surroundings and ground Sol Crisis members into dust, one after the other. 
True to her nickname, she crushed them before they could even scream. 
And by the time the ten seconds were over, there were only three people left on the scene, Barbaroy included. 
“So one of you survived, huh?” she said. 
As the dust raised by the destruction began to settle, Barbaroy saw two other people. She’d purposely let one of them live, but the other had survived despite her trying to kill him. 
The one she’d let live was the faker, Vermin, who was now cowering with his hands on his head, while the one who had survived was the leader of Sol Crisis, Dum-dum. 
He wasn’t in a good state, though. Barbaroy’s attack had lopped off his right arm. 
Dum-dum had his pain set to off, so it didn’t hurt at all. Nevertheless, the feeling of not having a limb made him break out in a cold sweat. 
“Damn monster,” he spat out. “And you’re supposed to be a high-rank like us?” 
“It’s all ’cause of the difference in our Embryo traits and the effort I’ve spent on developing my build and learning when to use my skills.” 
“You ain’t wrong there. Not wrong at all.” Dum-dum formed a self-deriding, wry grin. “Man, the devs keep talking about possibilities or whatever, but Embryos are just straight-up broken. There’s weak shit like this guy’s — only good for cheating people — and then there’s beastly stuff like yours, which lets you fucking demolish everyone by yourself. It’s just unfair. But still...” 
He momentarily stopped talking and turned his grin into an indomitable smile before continuing. 
“...I do like my Embryo. I’m not tough enough to win this, but this baby should at least let me take a tenth of your HP.” 
Dum-dum took out a billhook-like blade and brandished it with a backhand grip. That weapon, too short to be a longsword and too long to be a shortsword, was his unique Embryo. 
Thus, the ex-leader of Mad Castle and the leader of Sol Crisis faced one another. 
Dum-dum moved slowly, while Barbaroy was completely idle. 
An AGI build looked for an opportunity to strike, while the END build prepared to counter it, making it a highly standard Dendro battle. 
However, there was a great difference between the two players. 
Barbaroy’s MP is almost out, Dum-dum thought while using Reveal on Barbaroy. I’ve got a chance. 
Using Astro Guard and her ultimate skill had nearly emptied Barbaroy’s remaining MP, while all the Flying Shields had reduced her SP to below the tenth of her maximum. In just a few seconds, her passive skills would reduce her MP to 0, and that very moment would be Dum-dum’s only chance. 
He waited for it as Barbaroy waited for him. 
Soon enough, the time came. 
“OAAGH!” Dum-dum let out a war cry as he charged directly towards Barbaroy, who responded by preparing to pulverize him with her shields. 
Dum-dum hit the shield like a bunted baseball, and... 
“She Stands Behind You — Bloody Mary!” 
...vanished. 
He next appeared in the air right behind Barbaroy. 
That was the ultimate skill of his sword Embryo, Bloody Mary. It made him teleport behind his target and raised the power of his next attack. Additionally, he was a Sneak Raider — a high-rank job from the raider grouping — so the damage he dealt increased even further when he was undetected by his enemy. 
I’ve got her now! he thought as he swung his Bloody Mary, certain that he’d take away a tenth of her HP. 
Without any MP, Barbaroy would be unable to use any defensive skills like Astro Guard, and Dum-dum was sure that she was just bare enough for his attack to damage her. 
But that conviction of his disappeared the moment something cylindrical flew out of Barbaroy’s armor. 
Being an AGI build, Dum-dum could make out that it was actually a bullet case. 
It dropped out of her armor as if flying out of a shooting gun. 
What was that? Dum-dum thought, but before he could reach a conclusion, Bloody Mary’s blade reached the back of Barbaroy’s neck... 
“Astro Guard!” 
...only to be deflected by a skill — one that she supposedly couldn’t use because of a lack of MP. 
“What...?!” Dum-dum exclaimed, but Barbaroy made her move before he could make any sense of the situation. 
She turned around, let go of her shields, formed spear hands, and directed them at Dum-dum. Being in mid-air, he wasn’t capable of evading what came next. 
“Double Gauntlet Trigger!” she roared, causing two more bullet cases to fall out of her armor, accompanied by a thunderous sound akin to a cannon shot. 
Following that, her gauntlets were fired forwards. 
Barbaroy’s aim was perfect, and they cleanly hit Dum-dum’s stomach. 
“Gh-ah...!” he exclaimed. The attack was both unexpected and powerful. Though he’d withstood the first with his Lifesaving Brooch, the second one split him in half. “Wh-What...?” 
“If you’re gonna fake my armor, at least learn its skills,” said Barbaroy as she looked down at Dum-dum’s separated halves and re-equipped the gauntlets. “Well, not like you could. I didn’t leak ’em anywhere.” 
Exactly. Both the MP regeneration and the attack had happened because of her special reward: the Legendary Gunhammer Plate, Magnum Colossus. 
The reason why it was titled “Gunhammer” were the bullet-shaped cartridges it used as the price for its unique skills. Their content was the MP that Barbaroy had channeled into them ahead of time. 
One of the armor’s skills was “Gauntlet Trigger,” which used all the MP in a single cartridge to fire a gauntlet which dealt damage almost as great as that of ultimate skills. 
The other skill was “Charge Trigger,” a battle ability that injected the MP in a cartridge into Barbaroy, restoring her MP much faster and more effectively than Potions did. A single use gave her half of her maximum MP. 
She could have a total of six cartridges, and she’d finished charging all of them just this afternoon. 
That meant that she’d had enough to completely restore her MP three times, so there had never been a chance she wouldn’t have enough of it to take care of Sol Crisis. 
While they’d believed they’d have a chance if Barbaroy ran out of MP, she herself had never worried about it at all. If her MP reserves had been an actual problem for her, she wouldn’t have wasted time examining them all with Reveal or undoing her Heaven’s Weight. 
In fact, she’d intentionally made them believe that her MP was her weakness and had them act accordingly. There was logic behind it. 
“Ah, shit,” Dum-dum grumbled. Despite being split in half, he could still talk just fine. “I thought I had it.” 
“Well, Mary sure ain’t the only thing that’s ‘bloody’ here anymore,” Barbaroy commented. “I’ve gotta say, for someone lookin’ like a Teke Teke, you seem pretty good. That a skill or something?” 
“Nah. I have a bit of HP left, but this Bleeding’ll kill me in seconds.” 
He wasn’t wrong. It wouldn’t be long until the death penalty took him and made him vanish. 
“Oh, maaan,” Dum-dum muttered with slight regret in his tone. “The scheme is over, the pretense is off, and we don’t have any prestige anymore. Guess that’s that for Sol Crisis... Shame. It wasn’t too bad.” 
Looking at his state, Barbaroy, being an ex-leader of a PK clan herself, felt like she had to make a comment, so she said, “Create a proper PK clan next time. If you ask me, you can easily make it to second-rate.” 
Her words were barely any consolation. 
“Ha ha...” Dum-dum chuckled wryly. “What the hell’s a ‘proper’ PK clan?’” 
With those words as his last, the leader of Sol Crisis received the death penalty. 
“And that leaves just you,” said Barbaroy as she turned around and looked at Vermin — the fake. 
“...Kh.” He was silent. At first, Vermin just lay on the ground and lightly shook. The quivering gradually grew stronger until, it culminated in a thunderous, out-of-control laughter. “KYAH HA HA HA HA! Dumbasses! They all lost like the weak shits they are! I knew it! Without my skill, Sol Crisis was just a bunch of hopeless parasites!” 
“Kyah ha ha!” Barbaroy chuckled. “You really think you can say that?” 
“Shut up! You should’ve just retired like the loser you are! You just had to show up now, of all times! Fuck you!” Vermin stood up as his shattered armor made a clanging sound. Then, he pointed at Barbaroy and said, “And what the hell are you planning?!” 
“Whaddya mean?” 
“You weren’t attacking me at all!” 
Barbaroy heaved a sigh before replying, “That’s because you were dialing defense skills like there’s no tomorrow.” 
Indeed, Barbaroy hadn’t left Vermin alive because the fake made her sentimental or anything. He’d used nothing but defensive skills throughout the whole massacre, increasing his defense so much that she’d figured it was best to take care of the others before dealing with him. 
“You’re a Full Armor Giant, too, so you can also use Astro Guard. And you were squatting and cowering for your sub job skills — Beast Boxer’s Turtleshell Stance and Monk’s Prostration Barrier. All of them multiply defense several times over, so even I can’t do much when they’re stacked.” 
“Well, aren’t you a know-it-all,” said Vermin. Though it didn’t show, the fact that she’d pointed out his skills so precisely made his heart rate intensify. 
“Well, I just barely redid my build. I considered takin’ those jobs, so I looked ’em up.” 
They had been a decent choice if she wanted to buff her defense and maximize the damage of Emancipated Giant. However, she’d decided against them because they had worse limitations than Astro Guard. Turtleshell Stance would only activate when placing your hands on your head, while Prostration Barrier could only be used when you were prostrated on the ground. 
“So, why’d ya finally decide to stop tanking and stand up?” Barbaroy asked. 
“’Cause I’m done preparing to kill you!” Vermin shouted as his left hand began glowing and something appeared in his palm. 
It was a pen — a fountain pen made of something that emitted an amethyst-like gleam. That was Vermin’s Embryo. 
“The False Bride — Amanojaku!” he exclaimed as he crushed it in his hand. 
That was the activation of his ultimate skill — the ace up his sleeve that he’d even hidden from the other Sol Crisis members. 
A moment later, Vermin’s body was engulfed in a purple light similar to Amanojaku’s. 
“I’m winning this shit!” he shouted. 
“I see what’s goin’ on here,” Barbaroy said as she noticed a change in what her Reveal skill was showing. 
Vermin’s stats and job config were now the same as Barbaroy’s. 
With the exception of offense and defense, which also gained bonuses from equipment, he had the exact same stats as her. 
Considering Vermin’s track record, it would have been fair to assume that it was just more fakery, but Barbaroy was experienced enough to tell that it wasn’t. 
“So it’s a skill that lets you go beyond descriptions and perfectly copy the actual abilities, huh?” 
“You got it right! It’s like copying and pasting! I now have the same powers as you! Including your Embryo!” 
Barbaroy took a moment to consider whether he was bluffing, and concluded that such an ability was, indeed, possible. 
The fact that he had to destroy his Embryo to activate it says a lot, she thought. There are probably other limitations, as well. For example, copying people with a higher total level or Embryo form would probably make the result incomplete. And there might be a time limit, too. 
Barbaroy was assuming right, and that was exactly why The False Bride was functioning so well. After all, since she was in the middle of leveling her new build, her total level was lower than Vermin’s — who had it maxed — and their Embryos were both in their sixth forms. 
“I watched you fight and now know how to use your skills!” Vermin shouted with excitement. “Your crazy powerful ultimate skill, the Shield Giant attack skill, the Binding gravity field — I know them all!” 
“So you focused on defense to watch me for as long as you could.” 
“Exactly! And that’s why I can fight like you now! But there’s one difference!” He reached into his inventory and took out a shield. “While you’re still on your ultimate skill cooldown, I can use it just fine! Heaven’s Weight!” 
Vermin used the gravity field that he’d been subjected to just minutes ago on the original user herself. 
The distance was such that the gravity around Barbaroy became 400 times greater. Though it wasn’t enough to bring her to her knees, it rendered her immobile. 
Despite being a copy, the field was about as strong as Barbaroy’s. 
“Astro Guard!” Vermin howled as he traced the steps taken by Barbaroy when she’d used her ultimate skill. “You’re done! Emancipated Giant — Atlas!” 
Vermin activated it the same way she had. In an instant, the great defense he’d earned through Astro Guard became even more immense offense. 
Not wasting a moment, he charged towards Barbaroy. His extraordinary attack power made every step he took pulverize the ground beneath him. 
Having gained such great damage potential made him shake with excitement. 
The stat summary at the edge of his vision said that his current offense was over 100,000. It was lower than Barbaroy’s due to the difference between their equipment bonuses, but it was still more than enough to break through her Astro Guard. 
Vermin was assured of his victory. 
Because of that, Barbaroy’s next move amused him. 
“—avity!” she shouted a skill, but he couldn’t hear it well. “Looks like you’ll need a fourth pointer. Heaven’s Weight.” 
The fact that she’d activated the gravity field made him laugh. “You ’tard! Like that’ll be enough to stop this powe—!” 
Vermin had pictured himself pushing through the field like it was nothing and crushing Barbaroy with little effort. 
However, what actually happened was that he stopped in place before getting to her. 
“...Huh?” he exclaimed as he became immobile the same way as Barbaroy had just moments ago. “H-How?! I’ve got this much power! This shouldn’t stop me!” 
The seemingly impossible situation perplexed him. He struggled to break free, but Emancipated Giant’s ten seconds expired before he could. 
“Wh-Wh... Why?” he muttered, still utterly confused. 
“You know how you said the word ‘power’?” Barbaroy said as she sighed. “What the hell’re you actually talkin’ about?” 
The question puzzled Vermin even further. “A-Attack power! Offense, damn it! It was so high, so why couldn’t I move?!” 
While under the effects of Emancipated Giant, Vermin had an attack power of over 100,000. Though it was lower than Barbaroy’s because he couldn’t copy her equipment, it was still more than 10,000 times greater than a normal person’s. 
There was no denying that it was immense. However... 
“Yeah. Attack power,” she replied. “Not STR.” 
“...Eh?” 
Barbaroy showed her stat window and continued, “STR increases attack power, but offense doesn’t do shit for STR, and Emancipated Giant is a skill that raises attack power directly. No matter how high your offense gets, STR won’t increase a bit. Here’s a good comparison for ya...” She paused briefly and waved her finger. “If a guy gets a crazy powerful weapon, does his STR grow any higher?” 
“...Ah.” Vermin finally understood it. 
Though Emancipated Giant greatly increased the user’s attack power — their influence on the outside — it did nothing for their own physical strength. Naturally, since STR was the stat necessary to resist the effects of the gravity field, the ultimate skill didn’t help dealing with it at all. If the person whose stats Vermin had copied couldn’t move, it was only reasonable that he would be immobile, as well. 
“Huh?” he suddenly realized that Barbaroy actually was moving in the field. “Y-You’re...! How?!” 
“Yeah, I bet you’re curious,” Barbaroy laughed. 
The reason for this mobility was another skill that she had used in conjunction with Heaven’s Weight. It was “Anti-Gravity,” which, true to its name, reduced the gravity of whatever she used it on. 
During her battle against K&R, she’d used it to throw a shield, but she could also use it on herself to cancel out the effects of Heaven’s Weight. 
“I-If you can do it, so can I!” said Vermin. 
“Well, yeah, you can,” she replied. “If you know it, I mean.” 
“...!” Vermin responded with just a gasp. 
“Your ultimate skill lets you copy the abilities, but your windows don’t give you the details about them.” 
“Whuh?!” Vermin was at a complete loss for words. He had no idea how she’d figured that out. 
“If you’d had descriptions and stuff, you wouldn’t have screwed up like you just did, and you would’ve known how to escape the gravity.” 
She wasn’t wrong. Vermin really did have Anti-Gravity among his copied abilities. However, he had no idea which skill it was. After all, Barbaroy hadn’t used it during her fight against Sol Crisis. 
Vermin could never know it, nor speak its name. 
It was as difficult as trying to figure out a password with an unknown number of characters. 
That was the limit of Vermin’s copying ability. He’d thought he’d understood what he was copying after seeing just the surface of what Barbaroy could do. 
It was less about the skill and more about his own nature, and that was exactly why he’d ended up being nothing but a cheap knock-off. 
“Another thing,” Barbaroy continued. “The defense skills you’ve stacked up are all there to help you take a beating while you figure out what skills the enemy has before you copy them and retaliate, right?” 
He was dead silent. 
Vermin knew little about Barbaroy’s tactics, while she knew all about his. That was a clear difference between them that was in an entirely different realm than mere stats or Embryo powers. 
“All right, time to wrap things up,” she said as she walked through the gravity field as if it had no effects on her. “The five minutes are almost done.” 
Instead of holding shields, she formed spear hands and prepared a Gauntlet Trigger, the same skill that’d ended Dum-dum. 
It would be enough to break through Vermin’s Astro Guard and fatally wound him. 
Barbaroy’s approach made him imagine himself getting split in half, so he gave in to fear, and... 
“C-Cancel! Turtleshell Stance! Prostration Barrier! Astro Guard!” 
He deactivated The False Bride and returned to his original configuration before stacking his three defense skills and dropping to the ground. 
“This again? You like prostrating that much?” 
“Y-You can’t hurt me when I’m like this! This defense is perfect!” 
It had been enough to prevent Barbaroy from attacking him with her ultimate skill, so Vermin thought that she was now incapable of doing anything to him. 
“You serious? Breaking through this is easy,” said Barbaroy, not worried about it at all. 
“Y-You’re just bluffi—” Vermin tried to say something, but Barbaroy cut him off by picking his body up and throwing him into a nearby irrigational aqueduct. 
The water inside was only up to the waist of an adult man. 
“Ghbh! Thhellrudoohng?!” Vermin tried to get up and shout “The hell are you doing?!” but he was unable to do so. As if pushed down to the bottom, he couldn’t rise up from the water. 
Needless to say, it was caused by Heaven’s Weight. Vermin was sunk to the bottom and held there by the ultra-powerful gravity. 
Barbaroy looked down on him and said, “PKing ain’t all about duking it out. Even if your defense is huge, you can still lose HP and die by suffocating. And that’s why your ‘perfect’ defense is flawed. You’re screwed the moment someone tries to hurt you with somethin’ other than physical damage.” 
It was hard to tell whether Vermin was hearing her words. All he did was lie immobile at the bottom of the aqueduct and leak air out of his lungs with an anguished expression on his face. 
“By the way, I’m speaking from experience here... suffocation is pretty bad,” she said. “Unless you mess with the settings, this game turns all pain into basic impacts, but it can’t do the same for suffocation. This does wonders to break people’s spirit. That’s been confirmed by both me and the Over Gladiator. Sure, diving without a parachute was pretty damn bad, too, but I can’t pull it off as well as that guy. Also, I dunno if you can even hear me, but a faker like you deserves a fifth pointer.” 
As the original, she felt that there was something she just had to say. 
“Whether you’re studying, doing tea ceremony, or playing a game, starting by imitating someone else ain’t a bad thing. Everyone begins as imitators, but as they put effort into polishing the art, it gradually becomes their own.” 
It was the like the concept of Shuhari. In fact, Barbaroy’s own build and tactics included many features from the builds of those who’d come before. She’d imitated them, using her gathered data to polish her config, and eventually made it complete. 
That was why, even though she’d found it malicious, she wasn’t actually mad about Vermin faking her shape. The things that had made her mad were the devaluing of her clan and the fact that they’d gotten in Ray’s way and ridiculed him, even though she was aware that she’d probably have said similar things as the leader of Mad Castle. 
“But get this...” she’d said. “Effortless imitation won’t get you anywhere.” 
Vermin had the form, but not the substance. He wasn’t giving his all to the falsehood; he was satisfied with just using Barbaroy’s name and appearance while imitating the target’s crudeness. 
In her eyes, that was exactly why he’d ended up at the bottom of this aqueduct. 
There was one other thing Barbaroy wanted to add. “Oh, yeah, about the way you fought... Though all your ultimate skill does is imitate, it was clearly an original tactic you made up to make the most of it. There are flaws, sure, but it has good synergy with your Embryo. If you polish it a bit, you could...” 
But Vermin wasn’t there to hear it anymore. His body had changed into particles of light, leaving behind a significant amount of items. 
“The suicide function, huh?” she murmured. 
Indeed. Instead of suffering suffocation for a few more minutes, he’d chosen to escape it by suicide. Vermin’s spirit had been shattered. 
With the last one of them having received the death penalty, the battle between the real Barbaroy and the fake Barbaroy’s Sol Crisis now reached its conclusion. Despite being outnumbered, the real Barbaroy had achieved an overwhelming victory. 
The only thing that had damaged her was Dum-dum’s ultimate skill, and that hadn’t hurt her for as much as a tenth of her HP. 
Despite it all, Barbaroy came out with the impression that Sol Crisis wasn’t a weak bunch. She had no idea how the battle would’ve gone if she hadn’t started by taking out the offensive casters. 
If she hadn’t incapacitated the AGI builds, they might’ve held a bit longer, too. 
If Dum-dum had had more attack power or a special reward with strong debuffs, the tides might’ve been completely turned around. 
If Vermin had had a better grasp of Barbaroy’s powers and had done more research on how to wield them, she might’ve ended up thoroughly defeated. 
And most of all, things would’ve been completely different if they’d had the cooperation and tactics of a proper PK clan. 
Those, among others, were the reasons why they’d lost. 
What Vermin and the rest of Sol Crisis had done could all be fixed if they listened her fifth pointer. If they truly wanted to be a big-shot PK clan, they had to put effort into their imitation. 
Sol Crisis had gotten too big with too little work and ended up being crushed because of it. As the one who’d done it, as a PKer, and as an ex-leader of a clan, Barbaroy felt slightly conflicted about it overall. 
However, it wasn’t the time to think about that. 
“Well, I’m done here, so I’ll just hurry to Ray now.” 
It wouldn’t be long until Monochrome’s attacks restarted. 
Barbaroy herself had no means of dealing with the UBM, but she figured that she’d be a good tank for her junior. 
A man like him, so kind and prone to getting in trouble, could definitely use some protection from his senior, she thought as she rushed into the village to search for him.