ShangriLa Frontier ~ Shitty Games Hunter Challenges Godly Game ~

I was able to come to a certain realization just now: a situation where I am basically unable to fight on my own is extremely frustrating. But it is thanks to that realization that I was able to conclude that the time I have spent so far playing on my own was well worth it and that it was not at all a wasted effort…… At least I don’t think it was.

「I did it…… I DID IT! Did you see that, Sanraku-san!? Did you see that, Sickle-san! I did it!!!」

An instant death grab attack that is forced upon the player and unable to be broken in any way once the player’s shadow touches the shadow of the Grim Reaper monster.

In essence, this is a type of attack that looks like a teleportation behind one’s back, but in reality it is nothing more but a separation of the shadow from the main body, and then the two basically switch places.

Once you get caught in that animation, it is all over for you. You are unable to break free, you get debuffed into oblivion and you become so weak that as a result a single strike is more than enough to send you to your grave on the spot.

But to be perfectly honest, that was all there was to that monster. Aside from that one special attack, the Reaper did not possess anything that could come even remotely close to being called a real threat to the player.

Don’t get me wrong, it was still a formidable opponent, stronger than any normal monster I have come across up until now. But the thing is, once you understood how it tends to work and took all the necessary precautions to protect yourself from being locked into that instant death animation…… beating the True Quiet into a bloody pulp was becoming so painfully easy that you could even call it boring.

「I don’t know about that, but is it not a correct answer to increase a minus one hundred Strength into zero rather than cutting one hundred Strength to zero?」

I knew it, the old rule of thumb goes in to full effect in this game more than in any other. Instead of looking at a certain enemy through the scope of sheer numerical values alone, it is far better and more effective to just figure out its weakness based on the overall story settings and world views.

Doing something like that to a monster is something that you rarely see in any normal games, but on the other hand it is a practice that is surprisingly common when it comes to sh*tty games. That, plus the monsters like that were also gifted with a certain “motive” or an “element” that only becomes clear the moment they die …… I think that what constitutes a “monster” is the element that gave birth to it in the first place. An amalgamation of negativity and things such as “death” or “pain” in excessive quantities, or maybe even abstract concepts such as “disease” or “violence” in general. But that is just my personal opinion.

In that case, let’s assume that the game consists of three major components: “HP Zero”, “Damage”, and “Debuff”. To make a long story short, once a certain statistic hits zero, instead of disappearing it goes into the negative value. And even after it goes to the negative, if we keep on piling up negative values on top of negative values, the numbers are only going to skyrocket. Of course, only in the negative direction.

Then let us take a look at the exact same idea, only this time around it is reversed. After a certain parameter goes into the negative value, you add a positive value in order for it to go back to zero. Then you add negative value once more and then a positive one and so on and so forth. The principle here can be said to be exactly the same as what I was doing during the battle against Kutanid of the Abyss. Sure, it was the Inversion system and all that, but the way in which it was sometimes calculating damage and other things like that was exactly the same.

If the damage is not doing anything, try healing instead. If you get debuffed, try to buff in order to offset the effect. If you somehow manage to end up dead, just revive and get over it.

So what was the strategy to beat the Reaper? It was surprisingly simple. Together with Akitsu Akane we have come to a conclusion that the best thing for us to do in order to battle that particular enemy would be to go to the Rabbitz items store, buy as much healing items as possible and return to the Colosseum, basically healing the Reaper to its death.

「It is the same feeling as splashing bottles of Holy Water over the Undead type of enemies, but here I do get a feeling that we waste way more potions than we would on a simple Undead.」

Here it is a simple of a concept. We use healing items, the items of the attribute of light in order to purge its counterpart, which is the attribute of darkness. Or to be more exact, in case of the True Quiet, it feels as though we were returning a debt that managed to amass over the years into a one hell of a hefty sum. And no matter if I was the one who was doing that, or if I was simply watching from the audience’s seats, there was just something about throwing away luxurious recovery items that just…… Did not feel right? Was feeling like a waste? Yeah, it was probably something like that.

「I feel like this is giving a whole new meaning to the proverb “Money is power”!」

「I feel like this is kind of right, but I also feel like this is kind of wrong here…… Oh well!」

「Uwoah! Won’t you look at that! Somehow, a scythe has dropped as a loot from the monster’s corpse!」

「Hm, hmm…… Wow, are we not lucky or what!?」

HAAAAAH!? Great, that’s actually great! SOOOOOOO GREAT, I TELL YOU! The scythe that belongs to none other than the Grim Reaper itself, just how cool is that!? I want it so, sooooo bad right now!

However, since I am a cool and level-headed member of society, I manage to keep my excitement in check. I may be super happy, but does not mean I need to let that happiness overflow and show.