CH 76

There’s no way to avoid the 5 reverse-blade katanas that were raised at the same time. 

That’s why, when I saw that, I gulped before saying this.

“That’s…impossible.” (Souma)

“Wa?” (Asahi)

Reacting to my words, the movement of Asahi’s reverse-blade katana stopped for a really brief instant. 

And that time was plenty enough. 

The ‘end’ finally came. 

The slashes raining intensely until now…stop.

“…Nuh?!” (Asahi)

I looked at Asahi who raised his eyebrow and the reverse-bladed katanas in front of me, and exaggeratedly waved my sword as if clearing away the blood on it…

“Cause that katana has no back at all.” (Souma)

The moment I said this, the blade of the reverse-blade katana crumbled. 

“Wa?!” (Asahi)

Asahi raised his voice and showed surprise and unrest for the first time. 

“A-Asahi-sama!” 

The disciple by his side gave his reverse-blade katana to him. 

But that blade also crumbled all the way to the base. 

“Kuh! Did you do something?! Then, you guys—” (Asahi)

Asahi looks back at the disciples that were out of the slashes’ range, but…

“W-We are sorry, Asahi-sama…” 

“They just suddenly…” 

The blades of their reverse-blade katanas were also cleanly gone. 

Well, you could say that was the natural result. 

Weapons have HP too. 

All swords lose their blade and can’t be used when they receive damage that surpasses their HP.

But seeing that, the expression of Asahi changed. 

“What in the world did you do?! Their weapons should have been outside the attack!” (Asahi)

Just where did his composure of before go to? 

I shrugged my shoulders at Asahi who was raising his voice. 

“I simply used my technique.” (Souma)

This is not a lie. 

I simply used the skill Midare Sakurai like normal. 

But the angered dojo members were not satisfied with that answer. 

“That’s impossible! I can still understand if only we got damaged since we stepped inside it, or if only the people staying back were the ones who got hit, but…what’s this? Why at this time, at totally different places, and only our katanas…were broken all at the same time?!!” (Asahi)

…Well, it certainly would be unfathomable for them and unreasonable too. 

It is simply the fact that the skill I used wasn’t normal, but I have no obligation to explain my skill, and even if I were to explain it to someone that thinks you only get injured when your weapon hits, they would probably not get it. 

Even I was also surprised when I played this in the game after all. 

That’s right, Midare Sakura doesn’t only have one landmine. 

There was one factor in the Midare Sakura -which looks as if they put a lot of effort in it- that they half-assed more than any skill.

There lies the reason why the reverse-blade katanas of the 5 at the back were broken, and the reason why Asahi and the others, who were right inside the slashes, were not damaged even after the animation of the Midare Sakura ended. 

It is also the reason why I was worried about…the first position of Asahi and the group. 

I will give out the conclusion first. Midare Sakura hitting or not has really nothing to do with the slashes in the middle. 

Actually, right after you activate the skill, all the results had already been decided before even the effects had been shown. 

This negligence was discovered when a companion had entered the slash effects in the middle of the Midare Sakura. 

There’s no concept of party in this game, so there’s no lenient system like your attacks not hitting your allies. 

If the slash effects had a hitbox, they should have received big damage once the skill ended. 

But the reality was that they received no damage. 

Despite being inside the effective range of Midare Sakura, that companion was unharmed. 

The Nekomimi Neko players tilted their heads at this. 

Experimenting and verifying are the commandments of Nekomimi Neko players. 

With experiments after experiments, they finally arrived at this conclusion.

“Could it be that the calculation of how many hits landed has been done already at the very beginning of the skill?”  

From here on it is just speculation, but this is what it would mean if explained in detail. 

This stuff would normally be synchronized, but in this game, the visual effects and the effect -in other words, the skill effects and attack hitbox- were made separately. 

They make the explosion effect first, and then they set the hitbox of the skill in that explosion.

Because of that, there’s skills with visual effects and effective ranges disjointed like [Void Wide Slash]. But there’s one more issue with this method.

In the case when effects with several hitboxes happen, setting them to match that would be incredibly troublesome. 

Moreover, the skills that were made first for the PV like Midare Sakura, people speculate that their visual effects were created first for that PV and they added the hitboxes later. 

The hundreds of slash effects of Midare Sakura in the PV were certainly impressive, but if you have to set every hitbox matching the timing of hundreds of slashes, it would be quite the insane task. 

But there’s no way the Nekomimi Neko staff would do something so industrious. 

And so, what the Nekomimi Neko developers pulled out here was a bit of an unbelievably cheap trick. 

They would calculate how many hits they would be taking at the beginning location, and that would be the final damage. 

To be more specific, right before the first slash of the rain of slashes, the hitbox calculation will be done in the whole area of effect, and it would go like ‘this monster is at the front, so around 500 would hit, I think’, ‘this one is at the corner, so 200 should be fine’. It would decide how many would hit before the attack even began, and once the skill ends, the damage comes in. It was discovered that they dealt with it in such a half-assed way.

The enemies obviously still move in the middle of the slashes. 

It is almost impossible to predict how many slashes will hit like that, but they just assumed no one would be able to use this skill to begin with anyways, or they might have thought no one would notice since the damage registers at the end. 

Calling it careless is already lukewarm at this point, but this is Nekomimi Neko quality. 

But thanks to this discovery, the worth of using this skill increased a little bit. 

The Nekomimi Neko players use whatever they can use. 

In other words, as long as they are within the effective range when you begin the slashes, all of them will hit; if they are not, then all of them miss. If you utilize this knowledge, you can do interesting things. 

For example; monsters that run away the moment they see you like the Wild Stray Slime types. 

If you use Midare Sakura while they are inside the effective range, even if the Wild Stray Slime escaped several hundreds of meters after that, the moment the animation ends, they will definitely die from hundreds of hits. A really unreasonable technique.

The sloppiness of this hitbox calculation gave it a new standing that ‘as long as the skill isn’t interrupted midway, this is a multi-hit skill that allows you to hit almost all of the attacks no matter how fast the opponent’. 

It is after this that its other name began to get its meaning. 

Within the rain of slashes that last 18 seconds, the skill is decided in just an instant. 

That’s the Setsuna Samidare Zan <Instant Early-Summer Rain Slash>.

What I did this time around is also an application of this in a way. 

No matter if the other side attacked me, I don’t want to become a murderer because of something like this, and I also know that, if I were to kill the people of the Hisame dojo, things would turn terrible because of a certain trap-like setting. 

There’s no way of getting out of this aside from destroying their weapons, but destroying the weapons of 10 people when spread out in the battlefield would be almost impossible. 

Destroying a weapon with average attacks would be impossible, and normal attacks have the chance of being avoided. 

Also, if you use a big aoe attack or a multi-hit attack that you can’t control its movements of, you might end up hurting not only the weapon but the holder. 

That’s where Midare Sakura comes into play. 

I know the effective range of this skill from top to bottom, and the power of it has my seal of approval. 

On top of that, because the damage calculation is done instantly before the slashes, there’s no worries of it being avoided. 

Being hit before the skill ended was my one only worry, but I thought there would be no idiot who would rush into a rain of slashes, so I decided to do this. 

As for the result, I would say I have escaped immediate danger for now. 

However, it is not assured that I have escaped all adversities. 

(That was super close!!) (Souma)

I was acting all normal there, but my heart was pounding the whole time. 

Who would have thought Asahi would ignore the rain of slashes and advance? 

I was saved by the fact that he spoke to the disciples, had them surround me, and was distracted by my words, but if he had just gone straight to me, I might have been easily killed.

Even if being attacked was not certain, I did lack preparation. 

If I had enough to Cancel Midare Sakura with Step, it wouldn’t have been as close as this. 

I should have used the skill beforehand to reduce the necessary stamina, or increase the max stamina as much as possible. 

But masters like Mitsuki and Asahi truly are monsters.

Asahi said before: ‘I felt fearsome killing intent before the attack began, but that’s all. I feel no pressure from that sword anymore’.

The damage calculation of Midare Sakura was done right after I shouted Setsuna Samidare Giri, in other words, right after the attack began. 

In a sense, I only attacked at that one moment, and Asahi detected that accurately. 

Well, not being able to avoid it despite knowing about it is what’s scary about this skill though. 

“…Souma-kun.” (Asahi)

While I was thinking back on it, Asahi called me with a sharp tone. 

He let go of his reverse-blade katana and brought out a paper from his pocket.

“In the letter of Mitsuki, it is written: ‘The sword of the only person I have acknowledged as my friend is strange and mysterious. 

When you think it is real, it is an illusion; when you think it is an illusion, it is real. 

She said you are a person who uses that kind of hard to grasp and mysterious technique, a Strange Sword User.” (Asahi)

Just what is that woman writing? -is what I complain about in my heart, but I can’t say that out loud in front of her father.

That Asahi glared at me and asked. 

“Souma-kun, just who in the world are you? How did you learn that swordstyle? Who taught you that fighting style?” (Asahi)

His expression was the same as when it was in battle…no, even more serious than that. 

But even if you ask me that, it will only trouble me. 

What I learned was the game style, and it is by no means an actual fighting style. 

“My fighting style was self-taught, so there’s no school. But if I had to put a name to my fighting style…” (Souma)

But if he wants an answer, the only thing I can bring out is one. 

I faced Asahi and his group straight on and said this with my chest puffed out. 

“This is the Nekomimi Neko style!!” (Souma)