Translator: Kurehas.h.i.+ Aiko
Editor: ryunakama
Chapter 31: People Can Fly, Bunnies Can Jump
「Guoh…… Ouaaaaaahhhhhh!!!」
Because people don"t have wings, they tend to fly through the sky by utilizing various other means. Now, when it comes to the difference between flying and jumping, it all boils down to that one criteria: whether or not you are able to stay in the sky with your own power…… but for me it was a no brainer. Because I was launched into the sky, without having to jump on my own.
(My HP…… Uwah, it"s almost completely drained!)
I thought that this attack would be enough to do me in, but at this rate it"s the fall damage that"s going to do the honors. …… Falling to death, what a joke.
(Wait, that"s not even funny at this point……!)
This attack was even more malicious than being bitten by curse-inducing fangs. The ones responsible for the design of this boss must be inherently bad people, I can already tell. Even though the next contact with the ground would spell my doom, I still had the time to be thinking like that.
(Think…… Is there anything I can do!? Falling to my death is not appealing at all, isn"t there some kind of skill or magic that I can use to prevent this!?)
Magic.
Finally reaching the highest point of my ascension I stop in the air for just a moment, and when my thoughts calm down slightly I look around in a hurry. There it was, a creature of brown and white fur, wearing vividly-colored clothes…… It looks like Emul is safe for now. The boss also wasn"t targeting him, so he"s probably going to live through that.
Ahh, s.h.i.+t, just focus and think about something that can be done…… There was no way that falling from the height of fourth or fifth floor would lead to me suffering mortal damage, but the question was: am I going to die instantly or keep laying on the ground for a minute or two before eventually exploding into a ma.s.s of polygons? This is really an unreasonable situation…… No, no, no, I am going to resp.a.w.n after that, so no hard feelings. It"s not like death is going to be permanent.
Aside from trying not to think too much about how realistic of a feeling hitting the ground would be in this game, I was trying to think of a solution. Was there a way for me to slow my fall and avoid hitting the ground with full force? Or maybe to reduce the damage I would receive upon contact with the ground? d.a.m.n it, I don"t think either of these things are possible.
What about Emul"s abilities? I had no idea how accurate his Teleportation Gates are, or does he need any preparation time to cast them. Worst case scenario, I might fall right on top of him and crush him to death. Then how about getting hit with his Magic Edge so that it would somehow break the momentum of my fall?
…… Forget about it. Not only would I suffer fall damage, but there would also be additional magic damage!
(Ah, I"m more or less screwed, right?)
There was literally nothing that could be done here. And even if I somehow managed to break my fall, I would have to come up with countermeasures for getting launched into the air again. The whole raise and fall was about ten seconds long, so there was really nothing I could think of in this short amount of time. I could only prepare myself to hit the ground and face my death like a real man……
「………… aaa.」
It"s been a long time since I last fell to my death in a video game, so I wasn"t all that used to it.
It was one of my first full dive games, one that would send quite a shock through your spine the moment your body hit the ground, and then your consciousness would gently fade to black. I still had that game in my room, but it was cast away to collect dust somewhere at the back of my collection.
「…… waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh……!」
For now, the only thing I could really do was to brace for impact. After I die, let"s just hope that Emul manages to survive and get away from here, since it was pretty much impossible to think that he would be able to finish this fight all on his own……
「Now, witness the true power of the Vorpal Souuuuuuuuul!」
「Nuooh!?」
「Consumable Magic Item! "Instant Teleportation Gate!"」
For a moment out there I can feel a different sense of falling than what I was experiencing so far, and then I can feel a strange kind of warmth surrounding me.
In the next moment, my whole perspective in front of my eyes changed. …… Wasn"t I teleported just now? Did Emul jumped towards me while I was falling down? So where……? In the next moment, a tremendous shock runs through my whole body. But it was something completely different from the expected fall damage, as it was related to the swamp that was right in front of me……
「Gishyaaaaaaaaa!!!」
Waves of mud and murky water splash in waves all across the swamp. It wasn"t the kind of fall from high up in the air onto the ground…… It looked as though the Mud Digger(this was the second time you called this monster mud drifter so i just wanted to clarify is it mud drifter or digger?) was attacked by something that used the kinetic energy acc.u.mulated during my fall and was shot at it…… It looked as though the attack utilized all the damage that was generated by my fall and converted it into raw power.
I had no way of knowing that at that point, but there was a high-level spell like that called "Meteor Fall". It was utilizing the very same principle, at first falling down only to then be propelled like a bullet in a straight line. In fact, a vast amounts of skills and magic in this game allowed some dose of creativity when using them, thus making it possible to create whole new effects with them (for more information, please see the instruction manual).
It is only my personal guess, but the spell that Emul used must have somehow switched my place with Mud Diggers, setting him up as the recipient of all the damage that I was meant to take upon myself. (TL NOTE: Now this is what I would call a "Revenge Counter!") and apparently the sheer force of my "Would-Be-Meteor-Fall" was so great that the Mud Digger started to thrash about while its HP fell to zero and it exploded in a geyser of red polygons.
Attack reversal, damage switching, luck…… Lots of different factors collided here at this very moment, creating the result that we now witnessed.
「…… Say, Emul?」
「Uhyah…… For a moment there I thought I was a goner…… What is it?」
「You are the best, you know that?」
「P, please, what"s with the sudden flattery?」
Just like that time with the Night Prowler, I was left with but a shred of my HP and I was about to be killed…… But this time around we were the ones who were victorious.
I will never say that Emul is dragging me down. That"s for sure.
"Instant Teleportation Gate" is a spell that creates a gate what nullifies any effects in about a five meter radius and then s.h.i.+fts the coordinates of the gate to a new location, releasing the acc.u.mulated effects at this new location all at once.