[Arc 4] Chapter 22: Demon VS Puppet

[Ladies and gentlemen!! Are you ready for the last battle of arena D?] - Lily

Loud cheers rang across the arena to answer Lily's question as I stepped onto the arena.

[From the left corner, dressed for some bloodshed, is the woman who crawled up from hell itself! The living terror, the queen of the undead! And I'm speaking from experience here. She's my boss after all!! Oh, woe me. But who cares about that! I give you: GARAMI THE NECROMANCER!!] - Lily

What's up with that introduction? Glad to see she's pushing on the "necromancer"-part heavily like I asked her to. 

[And from the right corner comes the guy everyone knows and hates by now! The sudden star, loved by the gods, crushing everyone's hard work with only his palm! He's talent incarnate! That's right, it is Kazamiya Hiiro!] - Lily

Large cheers came when the other guy steps onto the baseball-court-sized stage. No, wait. Are they boos? The arena is drowning in the audience's voices so, I can't tell if they're cheers or the opposite. Prolly the latter.

Mr. protagonist doesn't seem to notice the difference at all. Wonder if he would even if they weren't so mashed up together.

As for the guy himself, he was dressed in simple clothing similar to a villager, and the only thing that seems of some value is a ring on his finger that acts as a magic catalyst. Way worse than the magic staff I'm using, even if it's just something I picked up from the box filled with Mira's gatcha-rounds rewards.

The guy himself seems...tch. He's got a handsome Asian-looking face with black hair and black pupils. Plus he's got a well-trained body.

Unlike the Life Champion who's got a pretty decent complexion, this guy looks like he got no personality at all. The Life Champion could get visibly angry, confused, sad, or even happy like an idiot, but when I look at this guy, I just get the feeling of looking at a doll. Bland, unchanging, and predictable. Like he's not capable of going outside his "cliche".

As for the guy himself...

...1,000? A 1,000 increase!? What's that [Divine Protection] skill up to!? And it's giving him an auto-recovery to all the Health Stats!? I think it's even messing with his INT and LUC stats. In a good way for the latter, but not so much for the former...

That cheating Extra Skill's effect varies depending on the whim of the god that powered it up, but this time, they're not kidding around! 

...ah. Can it be that they perceive me as such a threat that they're not putting any stoppers to the increase? Gosh, that's kinda embarrassing...

If we ignore the boost, then you can say that the protagonist got some decent stats, with over 300 in the physical stats and around 250 on the magical ones...wait, he's got [Hero] too? Without the [True Order] title!? 

This is your doing, ain't it, [Divine Protection]!! I can see that you're level 2 there. And don't think that I don't know that you're giving him a new cheat-skill whenever your level's raised!

Damn, I sure wish that I could scout this guy out better before the match, but all the curse-alchemy killed too much of my time. 

[Hero] gives 100 points to all stats for each skill level, similar to the [Demon Lord] skill I have, so this guy's original stats should be...quite low for a human above level 30? You gotta train some more, pal. 

He's got no decent skills, just some skills he must have wasted his points on without thinking whether they fit his style or not. Titles include some easy-to-get Hunting titles, the [Giant Killer] title, and the [Wind Technique User] title. Honestly, it's embarrassing to look at. He's soooo weak! This is a character build mistake right there, folks!

At this rate, I'm facing [Divine Protection] here instead of some guy with the skill. I seriously doubt the brains of whoever gave him the skill. They must be embarrassed themselves, considering that their Blessing's called "Protection of the Anonymous God".

"Hey. I have to warn you, but I am somewhat stronger than most people. A woman like you should not be exposed to the violence here-" - Hiiro

"Shut up, puppet." - Garami

The stadium got quiet with my retort and the protagonist doofus' face turned pale and confused.

[B-boss? Mind if you shut down the whole "aura of evil"-thing you've going on? Things won't be able to proceed unless you do...] - Lily

Aura? Oh, the skill. Guess I'm more pissed off than I believed.

I turned off the [Aura of Evil] skill as requested and Lily began the countdown. The protagonist (lol) looked like he wanted to say something, but who cares?

*GOOOONG!*

A large gong signalized the start of the battle and I started on the necromantic formulas without wasting a sec. 

That other guy? He still seems shocked at my previous response. Weird guy. No, stupid. Yes, he's got a master's grade in stupidness.

Ah, did he listen to my thoughts? Why're you packing [Telepathy] as well!? You're not? You just snapped out of your daze? That's fine.

*Klang!*

I got my knight in shining armor here to welcome you~. Well, maybe not "shining". His whole body's covered in [Aura of Darkness]...

Stats:

Race:

Necro Armor

And this is before all the skills and classes are added to the guy. THEN there are my Leadership Skills and various titles to give a further boost. AND THEN there are the Necromancy-based support spells I can use on the armor to FURTHER improve its stats!

It's no wonder that we Necromancers are limited on the number and quality of the undead we can bring out...

"What is-!?" - Hiiro

[Oooh! Contender Garami didn't waste any time bringing out her undead soldiers! This is what a Necromancer is all about!!] - Lily

The idiot looked shocked hearing Lily's commentaries. Hey, Necromancers aren't so rare, you know?

The Necro Armor, on the other hand, is tough. It's a jet-black armor that would fit a villain from a tale from the middle-ages, armed with a vicious-looking spear and a shield. It's Iron's next natural evolution option, so its defense's strong. 

And not only the defense but also its reflexes. The Necro Armor started to use its spear to attack with fluid motions, forcing the idiot to escape backward. Yeah, you better run! This undead is trained by the toughest sprite in history!

Still, the Armor's defense-orientated, so we need some decent attackers.

"Flesh Golem." - Garami

A large, blackish magic circle appeared in front of me. It's way bigger than the one the Necro Armor discretely emerged from, and the "creature" that came outta it's worthy of that size.

A 5-meter high golem with bulky arms and legs, with a sickly green body that looks like a patchwork of several corpses. I'm glad that I could remove the stench from it. Its "face" consists of a single purple sphere that acts as the golem's eye.

Race:

Flesh Golem

The golem punched the stage with its heavy arms and sent a shockwave towards the protagonist bastard and sent him flying! And... he landed on his feet. Rotten to the core, but you still got Protection, ey? Then let's put some more pieces on the board!

Race:

Ghost Skull

Race:

Skeleton Warlord

Ghost Skulls which are floating skulls enveloped in a pale blue light and Skeleton Warlords who're skeletal Ashuras with six arms with swords in each. The former are the spiritual successors for the Skeleton Fairies and my best magic attackers, and the latter is my best physical DPS user.

And true to its rep, the two Warlords I summoned charged with swords raised! Six of them, times 2! The two Ghost Skulls are providing cover fire with Earth- and Metal Magic to offset the protagonist's Wind skills. Stuff like Fire and Water feels like they would be blown away too easily after all.

Cutting off limbs is unfortunately impossible inside this arena, but the damage's still getting through. I can see that slacker's face squirm in agony 

...And now, the protagonist's movements started to get better somehow. He's barely dodging the Warlord's swords. Barely, but still dodging. And when I wondered why, what do you know, his [Divine Protection]'s gone up another level here. That backseat driver of a god must hate me. 

The new skill is [Thought Super-Acceleration Lv.1], the same that I have. That Protection is just damn cheating. Giving that slacker a T31tier 3 skill just like that? Come on...

This solves the mystery about how that guy started to dodge the Warlords' attacks. Not that he's doing a good job with it. Getting used to a sudden increase in mental speed's tough on you. And I doubt he could even make good use of the extended time. But even an idiot will get a hang of it if I give him the time, which is bad for me.

I released a barrage of Poison Bullets. With simple spells, I can easily blast a few tens of them at the same time using my Parallel Minds.

The spell itself is just a blob of magically-created poison, but its true value lies in that its value as a projectile is close to zilch. It's the poison that remains for a short amount of time that's this spell's, no, ALL Poison spells' strong point! 

So yeah, the protagonist is steadily getting more drenched by the continuously growing poison lake around where he's playing with the Warlords and Skulls. The Golem's acting as a stationary turret and sending shockwaves at him makes the poison splash onto the guy even if he dodged the first blast. The poor Necro Armor's getting bored, seeing as I'm keeping him as a last line of defense between me and that puppet.

Cheat-powered-up RES or not, humans aren't creatures that can tap into that stat as well as...demons, I guess? And RES is as the name suggests, resisting the likes of magic and status ailments, not nullifying them. Stacking poison on top of poison, along with the [Aura of Darkness] that the Warlords are using and my sneaky Evil Eyes, we're gonna bypass that guy's defense soon enough.

As I kept shooting poison at the protagonist (lol) while enjoying the idea of being a magic caster full-time, something started to bug me. The protagonist's movements are getting visually better. That means...

Yes, thank you for the obvious clues! [Divine Protection] went up again! It's Lv.7 now! It went up a whopping 4 levels at once! Not only did he get [Holy Attack] and [Mana Burst (Holy)], two skills that use SP and MP respectively to add Holy to your attacks, but he also got [Physical Ailment Resistance] and [Mental Ailment Resistance]!!

As their name suggests, the Ailment Resistance skills are universal Resistance Skills to any status ailments that fall under their jurisdiction. Physical includes the likes of Poison and Paralyze while Mental blocks stuff like Charm and Rage.

You normally need 4 maxed-out skills to get either of those! What's with the whole deal in giving them for free!? 

My complaints go unanswered as the protagonist started to attack the Warlords with his flashy new skills. I did share [Holy Resistance] thinking of this kind of development happening, but the protagonist's raw stats make these Lv.1 skills complete monsters. The poison's stopped bothering him for one, and it's only the Warlords' better balance in skills, stats, and experience that's keeping them from passing on.

"Undead Blessing." - Garami

I cast a support spell from [Nether Magic] upon...the protagonist. Yeah, I know. Supporting your enemies is never good...if you don't have a dirty plan in mind.

The protagonist (lol) attacked a Warlord again with his fist enveloped in holy light, but he splendidly missed! Good dodge there, Warlord A. As for the protagonist (lol)...

[Oooh!? Contender Hiiro seems to be in pain from his attacks!] - Lily

Kukuku. All according to plan.

The spell "Undead Blessing"'s effect is to turn the target "undead", or more precisely, give it some undead-related traits. Such as taking damage from positive healing, reduced SP consumption, taking extra damage from Holy and Purification attributed attacks, etc.

"Damn... damn! What's this? What is this!?" - Hiiro

The protagonist (lol)'s howling~. Like a loser dog~.

Hmm, don't tell me he got [Divine Protection] before having a decent battle in his life? Geez, who's giving out Extra Skills with a lottery system? Stupidest. Idea. Ever.

Speaking of the devil-, er, divinity? Anyway, they've upped the skill level again. To Lv.10. Wow. Circumstances or not, I've gotten the honor of seeing an Extra Skill that's capped out. That's bonafide impressive, even if some underhanded dealings are being done underneath the table. Or up in the sky, or wherever this no-brained divinity is living.

The protagonist (lol)'s three new skills are [HP Ultra-Recovery], [Undead Nullification], probably to expel the effect of Undead Blessing, and... and [Berserk]!? Why that one!? Was it the protagonist (lol) himself that choose that one? In any case, this can get messy.

[Berserk] is a skill that evolved from the [Rage] skill that Flint owned before it evolved into the [Anger] skill. The difference between these two evolved skills is that [Anger] makes you see red via status ailments while [Berserk] switches your body into an "auto-pilot" mode. It's a loose-handed explanation, I know, but that's seriously the only way I can describe it. 

And the Warlords are getting their boney butts kicked! The power-up from [Berserk]'s too impressive! I had to recall them so I wouldn't lose the Materials used for them, and the berserk protagonist saw that as a chance to come at me again. 

The Necro Armor and the Flesh Golem went forward to intercept the protagonist, accompanied by the Ghost Skulls from the air. *Sniff*, these kids are making me so proud.

But yeah, you guys are in the way.

I dismissed the Golem and Armor, along with the two Skulls still floating in the air. They've done their work. 

The sudden disappearance of the Necro Armor made the protagonist's attack hit the arena instead and create a big crater there. A crater...? 

Anyway, that guy can't get any new cheat-skills now, so the only problem that hindered me from beating this guy with one blow's disappeared. Let's go, [Dark Malevolence]!

A deep, dark aura, way thicker and malicious than even [Aura of Darkness] surrounded me as I activated my new cheat skill. A skill limited to only High-class Demons, and it's one heck of a skill. On its own, it does nothing. But, if you use a move of the same attribute as this skill right after using it...

The protagonist jumped at me in a blind rage, but it's too late. Taste the power of my dark sorcery! Darkness Pillar!!

And then, the world was covered in darkness.

---

*Cough, cough*. what the-. That's too overkill! 

Darkness Pillar's supposed to create a pillar made of darkness like its name suggests, damaging anything or anyone that collides or is located inside the pillar with Darkness attributed damage! It's not supposed to create a freaking TOWER that covers half the arena! It should normally have a radius of 2 meters at most!

I'm still standing, a little...a LOT worse to wear, but still standing. As a demon, I got high natural resistance to Darkness, not even including my Resistance Skills. The protagonist (lol), on the other hand...

[I...I can't...i-it's over! The winner's the boss-, I mean, contender Garami!! Hey, medics! Snap out of it and go down there already!!] - Lily

Lily was making a panic-filled order to the healers on standby, and with good reasons. Even I'm covered in my blood that came from the many wounds created by that outta control magic spell, and I'm at half my original HP. 

Not gonna use that combo ever again. At least not without a few kilometers between me and ground zero.

And the protagonist (lol)? He looks like a corpse. He's still breathing, but if we didn't fight inside this arena, he would have died ten times over. Humans aren't good at utilizing any of their natural stats without skills to support them, so the protagonist (lol)'s huge RES didn't do him much good against that OP attack.

If I hadn't made him use up all his bonus skills from [Divine Protection], the match could have gone differently. I didn't have any proof if he could force the level of the skill to increase, but I kept more than just my skills as an Assassin hidden just in case my bad hunch was right.

And boy, it was right of me to be cautious! Too bad for that guy. If he had taken something that mitigated the damage instead of focusing on auto-recovery all the time, I may even have had to use my Chaotic Zahhak-move with the Malevolence skill...that would have been scary. *Brr*...

...huh!? What the-?! When I Identified the protagonist (lol), he's gotten a LOT weaker! All his stats are around 200 now. And the number of skills has gone down...[Divine Protection]'s gone! And with it, all the bonus skills! Even that strange Blessing's not there anymore! 

...I didn't blast that Blessing and skill outta that guy, did I? Naaaaah...let's not use Malevolence any time soon.

Honestly, I wanted to snuff that guy out if I met him later on in the festival, but seeing him now, my lust for the bastard's blood's gone away to the North Pole. He's thinned out so much that you could tell me that he's never eaten in years and I would believe it. Not to mention he's foaming around his mouth and constantly shaking as if enduring arctic levels of chilliness. 

It's not a question of honor anymore. Beating up someone, or better said, something like that's just sick. I feel disgusted over the idea itself. Well, if he manages to recuperate enough to continue the festival, I guess he would be fine to withstand one kick below the belt. Maybe two.

Ah...this is bad. I was keeping my attention on the protagonist (lol) all this time, forcing it on him, but now, I have to face it. A much worse enemy...?

Hmm? That's strange...despite being alert to the audience for the first time since I entered the arena, I don't have that disgusting feeling anymore. The one I've been plagued with ever since I got that joke of a title... or even before that. Hmm???

I left the arena building, ignoring the healers that offered their services, and found a quiet spot to heal my wounds and take a look at my stats again. And whaddya know, some new System Messages. Kinda expected them...WHAT!?

SYSTEM MESSAGE:

Acquired title: [Apostle Banisher]

Through the title, acquired skill: [Blasphemy Lv.1]

Conditions cleared. Individual: Garami, has earned the right to obtain personal titles.

Constructing titles...

Success.

Acquired title: [Sovereign's Enemy]

Acquired title: [Devious Saint]

Acquired title: [Nightmare from Another World]

Acquired Blessing: [Proof of Order]

Through the Blessing, acquired skill: [Gamemaster Lv.1]

Eh? Huh? Okay? First off, why's Order having a finger in this cake!? Ah, some cake's a good idea. My brain needs sugar...

Greydra

Kigal-Note/Extra Skills: [Hero]

Description:

The [Hero] Extra Skill is a special skill even for Extra Skills.

It is acquired by individuals who have a high positive Karma Value and kept on accumulating it even after obtaining the [True Order] title. Other requirements include, but are not limited to, that the potential Hero candidate has powers to protect others, which by extension is "enough power to not involve others in conflict", which again can be considered "the power to fight alone without others".

While it looks lackluster compared to the other Ex-tier skills, the true purpose of this skill is to mark individuals fit to act as the "Hero"-character in certain Quests. There, they will usually be forced to fight someone with the [Demon Lord] Skill or some other forces that "represents" the side of "evil and villainy". 

Garami's comment: Wow... the straight opposite of [Demon Lord]...