Chapter 52: Bird-Face VS the Spiders Part 2

From here on out, it was one big game of me knocking the Spiders off the arena and them trying to get back onto it.

Third return.

It was the third time the Spiders were knocked over the arena’s edge and were climbing back up. They shot their threads onto the ceiling and right now they were sticking to it like no one’s business, refusing to unstick from it.

「Here you go! Double Critical Hit!」

Slashing on the threads that supported the Spiders, I watch them fall down to the ground while wriggling their legs like mad in the air.

The fourth return.

「Hmm, that positioning……」

While I continue to cut the threads I notice that more and more logs hanging from the ceiling were becoming shaky and unstable.

「A game of whack a mole? Why not? Here comes the log! Accept them!」

Having no more threads to support their weight, the logs shake and eventually fall down to the ground. However the Spiders managed to avoid most of them by swinging on their threads around the area, instead of death, suffering some moderate damage from the logs bumping into their bodies. Like that, the logs all fell to the ground without claiming any major victims.

Fifth return.

Fall down, get back up.

Sixth return.

The Spiders fell again, hit by the logs and bouncing around the place before eventually crashing onto the floor.

Seventh return.

Although the Spiders continue to climb back up after being thrown off the arena, they were kicked right back down by me before they even managed to properly return.

Drop, fall, drop, fall, drop, fall, drop, fall……

「I must say, I didn’t think we would get this far……」

Where is the line between exploits in the game system and downright bugs? I’d say in a way in which the player manages to control his/her character.

It was a technique that allowed weaker characters to take on stronger opponents, but if abused it would basically turn the stronger monsters into regular sandbags, without fail.

I have slammed the Spiders many times into the ground, so many times, in fact, that I was beginning to pity them…… No, to be honest, this whole battle felt like one big cartoon gag.

「Well, it’s almost as if we were drowning the poor guys……」

I kept on striking them off the arena’s edge ten more times, time after time not giving them any place for retaliation. Being knocked over from this height, not even the strongest of monsters would be able to survive something like that for long.

At the end of the fight, the Spiders were one big mess. After falling so many times, their legs were crushed and bent in funny directions, their bodies had dents and gaping wounds from which the red polygons were gushing out at regular intervals. It would have been better for them to just die than having to suffer like that.

However, this battle was not exciting at all. In fact, watching the beetle fight against the bees was way more exciting than this fight. Don’t get me wrong, it was fun and all that, but there was something missing. I was not as thrilling.

I chose to act on this strategy because I wanted to know just how far I could take it, but the result exceeded my wildest expectations.

「If I knew it would be like that I would have wanted to fight more of those stag beetles……」

The Clown Spiders were hard and intimidating as a boss only until you figured out this gimmick to take them down. Therefore, when you break it down to bare essentials, they were far weaker than the stag beetle. That is why I was able to best them while suffering the minimum of damage myself.

That is why once I managed to achieve victory, it felt nothing but hollow to me, severely impairing my sense of accomplishment.

「…… Just a little bit more. Patience, Sanraku, patience.」

The last spider did its very best to climb back up, wanting to get rid of the intruder that invaded its home.

The Spider slides on the unstable thread, while I do my best to avoid its attack. While doing that, I also managed to discover a fun fact: using a Quick Spin move at the very end of making a U-turn while avoiding would negate any sort of aftereffects it may have had on the player’s avatar.

I also activate another skill…… Different from attack or avoidance, it was a skill that had only one purpose: to increase the distance and height of my jumping.

And it so happened that the Spider that was swaying on its thread in such a way that its body was on a collision course with my blades that were aiming right at its belly.

Originally there was no need for such acrobatics on my part, just normal slashing and Repel Counter would be more than enough. Think of it kind of like adding insult to injury.

「Was that on overkill now?」

And let’s just say…… the momentum of my jump acted like a sort of boost in weapons strength and agility, allowing my weapons to pierce the Spider’s flesh with absolute ease. It was ridiculous, but also brutal.

I pierce the Spider’s body with my knives (I did not dare to strike it where the threads were coming out from purely because of disgust) and do a spiraling motion that made me look like a drill, causing the Spider to bleed red polygons like crazy.

The Spider stiffens and shakes, its body starting to become a mass of oozing red polygons.

「Ooups.」

In the end, the Spider was carried by the momentum of its own movement and fell right off the edge of the arena, falling to its death at the very base of the tree, leaving behind a trail of red polygons and dropped items.

「Hmm…… No, really, this left a bad aftertaste in my mouth.」

This boss battle was a huge success, but it is still leaving me mainly unsatisfied with the results I managed to obtain.