ShangriLa Frontier ~ Shitty Games Hunter Challenges Godly Game ~

Unlike the damage dealt with normal weapons, the side of the serpent that was attacked with the estoc receives the damage, but the flesh wasn’t healing and the wound wasn’t closing. It was because of the special effect added with the Empire Queen Bee’s stinger, which was causing necrosis of the tissue it came into contact with.

In this game, some of the weapons or monsters may come with additional, powerful effects to their attacks. For example, a normal attack with a normal sword is going to cause huge damage, but that’s it. No special effects, no arms flying off or anything like that.

However, some of the attacks, like the ones of Night Prowler, for example, had a chance of destroying its enemies in one blow, ignoring all of the defense attributes, or mutilating a certain part of the enemy’s body. This was something normal weapons would never be able to accomplish.

…… It is something that cannot be taught through leveling up or consumable items. Player Killer even can’t abuse it. And even if they were able to do it, I am sure that there would be some kind of penalty either to their EXP or karma points.

Back to the topic, the additional effects on weapons are quite special. Their role is to apply bonus damage over time or debuffs onto the specific parts of the enemy’s body. The more you strike the same place, the greater the additional effect and the damage from it. For a damage over time mechanic, it surely was effective.

And since Spiral Edge is a multi-hit attack, as long as the first attack crits, all of the following ones are going to critically strike as well!

「If you attack just like that, you can create the weak spot!」

Well, not like this system was without its drawbacks. In order to inflict bigger damage over time you’d need to keep on inflicting regular damage, and in the case of some enemies it would be much faster to just slash it to death or to simply try to rip off their limbs manually.

And, of course, there were monsters and players that were immune or resistant to some kinds of additional effects. But it was actually good, for you couldn’t cheese the bosses that way.

At least that’s how I understood the explanation that bunny Break gave me. Mind you, because of her accent some parts were hard to understand, but I think that I get the overall picture. When I remember her long lecture about additional effects and their effectiveness on various monsters, my mouth was starting to fill with a really bitter taste.

「Sanraku-san! Sanraku-san! Earth to Sanraku-san! We need you here with us!」

「Hmm? Ahh, battle position, on the double! Uwah, watch out!?」

If I didn’t dodge right there in time, I would have been dead for sure. Note to self: thinking too deeply while in the middle of a fight is a bad idea. Yup.

「Sorry about that! I spaced out a little bit!」

「Dude, if you get wiped out, this means we all will! Pay that a little more mind, why don’t you!?」

「Roger that…… Whoa there!」

Together we simultaneously used Repel Counter on the serpent that tried to bite us with its huge jaws, which generated a knockback effect that pushed it back.

「Now then, how much EXP do you think this thing is worth?」

「Judging from how big it is? I’d say a lot but we shall see.」

「But upon closer look, this thing sure look delicious.」 𝗳𝔯𝙚e𝒘e𝚋𝘯𝚘ν𝙚l.𝑐o𝙢

「Stop it! Please don’t even joke about things like that, you two!」

In the end, it was a really hard fight. But not because the enemy was surprisingly strong or anything like that. Sure, his level must have been higher than ours, but its attack patterns were rather easy to memorize. The problem was that the two of us were around level thirty, which was making us weak compared to the enemy mobs in this place.

Eventually we were able to defeat it, but not without the help of Emul. As we looked at the serpent bursting into a rain of red polygons, we both collapsed onto the ground from exhaustion.

「Who would have thought…… That it would be this tough……?」

「Clearly the two of us wouldn’t be able to take it out on our own……」

However, this battle was surely worth our while. I couldn’t help but smile seeing my brand new ten skill points ready to be spent. Katsu also earned a nice sum of points via leveling up.

「I see, this is indeed great.」

「I managed to raise my level by four…… It seems that it gives you a whole lot of EXP even if your level is low.」

However, one thing was perfectly clear for me right about now. If we are to stay here and power level, then by the end of two weeks’ time we should be able to reach level fifty, which would be enough for me to gear up with my newest weapons against the Gravekeeper.

「Oh, I even learned new skills.」

「Ohh?」

「When you finish leveling up, be sure to see what skills you got so that you can connect some of them later into new, powerful ones.」

「Oi, oi, isn’t that basically a feature from another game or something?」

「Eh?」

「Eh?」

Eh?

There was this awkward type of silence between Katsu and I right now.

「No, no, no, it’s a basic feature that you can combine already learned skills into more powerful ones, right? Every skill-based game has a feature like that.」

「I don’t think that’s the case here.」

「Eh?」

「Eh?」

Eh?

Awkward silence descended upon us yet again as we looked at one another with really complicated expressions. ƒ𝚛𝐞𝚎𝑤𝘦𝚋𝓷o𝚟e𝘭.c𝐨𝙢

Katsu seemed to be really surprised for some reason while I was dumbfounded, hearing about the option that I have never ever heard about before. Then a dry smile crept up on his lips.

「…… Umm, you did go through the tutorial at Firstoria, right?」

「…… No. No, I didn’t. I completely skipped the first town.」

「Ehh……」

But it seems that I…… I have missed out on a critical and very important part of the gameplay.

「Umm…… So, if you’d be so kind, how important is that whole Skill Creation thingy?」

「I’d say really necessary…… I mean, basic skills that you can get are good enough to play without fail, and there are even players out there who abandon the Skill Creation system on purpose…… But if you do use it, the numbers of possible skills to use will be doubled.」

「Doubled……」

Ahh, not good, not good, I could feel my head becoming dizzy.

When I learned about that option, I felt as though my heart would break in half at any moment right now. And I am sure that you could pinpoint that exact moment if you tried hard enough.

The cave, the ground and the ceiling…… I felt as though they have mingled into one amalgamated mess right about now.