Log Horizon - Volume 11 - Chapter 5.2

2 
In a subterranean cave where the presence of death hung thickly, Krusty and the Enchantress were continuing their battle, moving slowly and warily. 
If she’d stayed near the Nue, its big body would have been used against her as an obstacle, and so, in order to secure a line of fire toward Krusty, the Enchantress had attempted to move their fight. Since it would let him create a one-on-one situation, Krusty had obliged. 
“Accursed one—you are holding out well.” 
“I fear my unworthiness prevents me from fighting you with everything I have.” 
Krusty was smiling thinly. 
He’d meant what he said. 
Even now, in this very instant, he was nearing the abyss of death moment by moment. In the first place, Guardians had excellent defense, but they didn’t have the HP recovery abilities of a healer. 
Obviously, there were exceptions to this, including Krusty’s selected build of Scarlet Knight. Instead of a shield, he used a two-handed weapon with an HP absorption effect—the Fresh Blood Demon Ax—and built his fights around its special skills, realizing HP recovery that was normally impossible for warrior classes. 
In order to gain even greater HP recovery abilities, it was necessary to increase the damage on which the ratio was based. To that end, people with this build often chose two-handed weapons, and by necessity, they ended up losing their shields. In other words, the essential condition for creating this build was that the increase in artificial endurance that resulted from the HP recovery had to surpass the decreased defense caused by the loss of the shield. 
At present, due to the effect of Krusty’s curse—“HP may not be recovered through recovery spells, or through facilities or items”—he wasn’t allowed to perform his main trick. In other words, not only was his Scarlet Knight build currently unable to recover HP, it couldn’t use the defensive power of a shield, either; it was good for nothing, with no advantages whatsoever. 
Of course he was able to use the high attack power of his two-handed weapon, but that was all it was. Even if he boosted that attack power, it would fall far below that of an Assassin or other specialist. 
“Scarlet Thrust!” 
Shining deep crimson, the attack Krusty paid out slashed through three of the snakelike tentacles Enchantress Youren had unleashed. Ordinarily, that red aura would have robbed Krusty’s opponent of her HP and given it to him. However, that effect hadn’t activated for a while. 
“And another!” 
A tentacle Krusty had failed to slap down stretched up from his feet, punching at the armor around his waist. The blow wasn’t hard enough to pierce it, but the impact was still there, and he lost a little more HP. Seventeen percent remaining. 
They’d been repeating this cycle for a while now. 
Even worse, apparently Enchantress Youren’s attacks had the same HP absorbing ability as the Scarlet build, which was practically a synonym for Krusty. As she attacked him, at the same time, she was gradually recovering the damage he’d worked so hard to inflict. It wasn’t so efficient that she’d be unscathed in no time, but it was apparently possible for her to reduce the damage she’d been dealt. Enchantress Youren’s HP simply had more volume than it should. 
Krusty currently had a handicap, so he couldn’t be called strong. 
However, all that was separate from winning or losing. 
The very fact that he could think this sort of thing as he fought probably counted as proof. 
There are things I’ve grown able to see, too, hmm? 
Krusty was picking up on the intentions of the Enchantress, who was probably one of the invaders who had targeted this land. It might have been a more advanced understanding than what the Round Table Council members had, tied up in Akiba as they were. 
In short, she and her kind were usurpers. 
They were an alien species who had come here with their sights set on the land’s overflowing mana. They wielded paranormal powers, and their combat abilities made them equal to raid monsters. They were intelligent, and they were after Theldesia. 
Krusty sensed this was what colonialism under the great European powers from the Age of Exploration through the discovery of the New World must have been like. He didn’t think he was that far off the mark. 
They probably had enough military might to make this world do whatever they wanted. 
However, as Krusty swung his ax, he wore a smile like a starving wolf. 
He didn’t spare a thought for victory or defeat. He didn’t have to. 
 I need accessible resources. 
 Invest them. 
He visualized a gate in the center of his chest, then commanded it to activate. 
The impression Krusty had was of the gate to a magnificent temple with round, Doric columns. Behind a marble door covered in carvings lay a spring swirling with liquid light. If Krusty fed it with his memories, it would generate a rainbow radiance. 
The name “Mnemosyne’s Taboo” surfaced in his mind. This technique apparently converted memories into energy. 
The units of energy were minuscule, so it was impossible to express the efficiency of the exchange, but from Krusty’s perspective, it was more than enough. All he had to do was feed in a teaspoon of the taste of a martini at a boring party, for example, or the feel of a muffler that had been unexpectedly wrapped around him on a footpath beside an Amsterdam canal, or the gaze of a relative who’d glared at him in annoyance, and he’d get several thousand, or several tens of thousands, of MP. 
Krusty immediately switched from Taunting Shout to a large-scale range attack with Onslaught. 
In Elder Tales, MP was a high-rarity resource. When you weren’t fighting, you could recover it rapidly without much trouble, but during battle, you only recovered a few dozen points per minute… And that was at Krusty’s level, with his equipment. In a battle where you didn’t have support from an Enchanter or a Bard, it was a resource that barely recovered at all. 
That precious resource filled his body, flooding in through the micro-gate in the center of his chest. Its speed was on the order of several tens of thousands of points per second. His MP didn’t fluctuate from its maximum, but because the amount of excess recovery alone was more than the amount he was consuming, it looked as if it wasn’t falling below the maximum. Not only that, but a rainbow-colored shimmer radiated from his entire body, reinforcing major elements in combat—everything from attack power and defense to his special skill recast times. 

The sharp blade, which he swung with enough momentum to burn the air, inflicted steady damage on Enchantress Youren. 
Hardened tentacles and the weapon Krusty wielded clashed twice, three times. 
The damage per second he was inflicting wouldn’t have been possible for a Guardian in the days of Elder Tales, and the Enchantress’s beautiful face warped in astonishment. 
“What are these slashes?!” 
“A parlor trick.” 
Condescending tone in hand, Krusty charged, not hiding his ghastly smile. He sealed his opponent’s resistance with a mighty close-range attack like a body blow, then shifted into a rush, in which the attack itself acted as defense. Under these circumstances, he didn’t have to worry about running out of MP. He had all the fuel he could ever want. 
The Enchantress froze up, startled, for just a moment. Then she desperately began to defend herself. 
In this situation, the whole of the battle was simultaneous attack and defense. They couldn’t use skills like Parry or Evade. One had an enormous ax, the other had countless tentacles that sprouted from her sleeves, and they both slammed attacks that emphasized the quantity of blows into each other. The only thing you could call defense were the attacks they launched at each other. Attacks that weren’t shot down struck their opponent. 
With blood trickling from his cheeks, Krusty cheerfully threw himself into the center of this raging storm. 
Under his hands, Enchantress Youren was being annihilated, a problem being solved. Possibilities were converging on the result of victory, or of defeat. Each step on that route was pleasure. Right now, Krusty was on the verge of obtaining a new result. 
“Why, why?!” 
However, there was someone who wasn’t happy about this. 
It was Enchantress Youren, with whom he was trading attacks. 
She ground her teeth in frustration, then turned her practically defenseless back on him. It wasn’t that her soft, feminine curves had made him hesitate, but a momentary gap opened up in Krusty’s fierce onslaught. He’d grown wary of an unknown counterstrike. 
Sure enough, the Enchantress did strike back. 
With a sticky sucking sound, a huge wave of gray tentacles burst from below Enchantress Youren’s feet, undulated, and closed in. 
However, they weren’t headed for Krusty. 
They angled away, rushing toward the shadow of the rocks, charging toward Hua Diao—who was standing as still as a sculpture, looking blank. In the midst of time that seemed drawn out, Hua Diao tried to scream something. 
 Block the attack. 
 I can’t. 
 Take the damage for her with Covering. 
 Out of range. 
Reflexively, Krusty tried to protect her, but it wasn’t possible. 
Guardian strategies for protecting companions were mostly built around controlling aggro, and their abilities regarding protecting friends from damage directly were far below those of Monks. If Kanami had been here, things might have gone differently, but she was nowhere in sight. During their ferocious fight, they’d kept moving, and it had divided the battlefield. 
When his eyes met Hua Diao’s, she looked apologetic. The next instant, she was covered by a surging gray wave like a muddy torrent, and she disappeared from view. 
Martenfolk were noncombatant demispirits, and for one of them, the damage was too great. It could be nothing but fatal. 
However— 
—Gumon the wolf dog leapt in like a meteor. 
She must have summoned up all her abilities in order to come running. With the impenetrable defense of her agility, it would have been easy for her to avoid Enchantress Youren’s attacks, and yet, in order to save Hua Diao, Gumon exposed her defenseless side. The Wise Wolf had made a clearheaded decision, and she chose speed over self-preservation. 
Even though the price was her life. 
With a light of deep understanding in her eyes, even as she shed a shocking amount of blood, the wolf took the nape of Hua Diao’s neck in her mouth, sped back to Krusty’s feet in a single leap, and set the girl down. She gave a low, satisfied groan and lay down herself. 
And then she became bubbles of gently shining rainbow light. 
The world is brimming over with the difficult problems you seek. 
Your world, your problem, is easy because you aren’t looking for treasure. 
I think those around you would be happier if you were a little greedier. 
Those with abilities should have intense desires to match, don’t you think, Milord? 
He heard a calm voice. 
The bubbles rose toward heaven, and what remained was a woman’s severed arm, with slim fingers. It was wrapped in a piece of a D.D.D. uniform and had been cut off near the shoulder. It was ?’s arm.