Chapter 132: Meteor Amongst Skyscrapers, Abyss in the Deep Sea Part 2

The window exhibition with manequins inside right to the side of me explodes in an instant. The blast carries shards of glass and pieces of plastic with it, scattering them all over and making the blast even more deadly.

「What’s happening?! Run away from the general store! But don’t forget to contact the police and firefighters beforehand!」

NPCs scream out loud while trying to get away from the source of the explosion as fast as possible. Needless to say, I was the source of that explosion just now.

Some of the NPCs have their phones pressed against their ears and approximately thirty seconds later Police’s armored trucks and firefighter’s trucks are already at the scene. Gotta love the way in which games tend to simplify things.

Apparently this transport truck was equipped with things that were serving some serious non-transport purposes.

The main ability of this body of mine is to “take the destroyed things and assimilate them into the armor”. Which is why there was currently a gatling gun on my right shoulder and a shotgun in my left arm, since they were also part of the truck’s equipment. Tires appeared on my legs in order to compensate for my poor mobility, and the truck’s engine strapped onto my back was emitting loads of black smoke.

The tires screech loudly as the armored colossus starts to move, pushing away a small passenger car aside while being at it and rolling it away like a soccer ball. The car flies in the air with such force that it lands perfectly at the entrance of the nearby shop and then explodes.

「Hee, coming straight at me…… It seems that its performance is not all that complex after all.」

「Here you are, All-American Number One……!」

Somewhere in the distance, there was a shadowy figure standing with its arms crossed with roaring flames burning behind its back. Its armor was pure white with golden ornaments, and it was wearing a helmet with a characteristic pentagram-like googles strapped to it. Its body was shining even through the flames that were illuminating its appearance. It was glaring at me with such an intensity that if you could kill someone with your stare alone, I would have been dead long ago.

Well, I have no one to blame but myself for getting registered at the last possible minute, which resulted in me getting paired up completely by random. And because of that one-sided selection, the rival that was chosen for me just happened to be one of the best players in the United States of America…… Talk about bad luck.

「I’ll make sure that the power my sidekick Kai lent me won’t go to waste…… I swear it on my Hero name…… “Mathias”, here I come!」

「If you think you’re in for an easy game, then sorry to disappoint you, but you’re going to have a different thing coming…… I can swear it on my Villain name: “Cursed Prison”!」

My opponent was one of the strongest players in the entire world. His armor was top tier as were his weapons. It was obvious at a single glance that I didn’t have a chance against him. But still, I wasn’t going to go down without a fight, I wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

Thinking about it logically, what are the chances of me getting drafted against one of the strongest players in the world? What are even the odds? I couldn’t help it but to mutter those words to myself in a quiet voice.

「---- How?」

Here, in this place, “Abyss Palace Lulias” the order of the world is “reversed”. Inside of this submerged city, those who normally live underwater swim through the sky and those who live on the dry ground are forced underwater. Same principle applied to my fishmen partner here, but with this exception that if he tried hard enough, he could swim through the air as well. Currently we were going all around the city fighting four heavenly monsters that were enshrined in here, fighting off fishmen and marmeids at the same time.

「Watch out, Alava! Over here, hurry!」

「That’s crazy! We make one mistake here and we’re done for!」

「Stupid! You don’t want to be eaten, then come over here right this instant! On the double!」

One of the mermaids approach Alava at a very high speed, her human head splitting into eight equal parts and opening wide, the tentacles springing forth from the gaping hole right I the center of the split parts. You could dodge them or simply cut them off, but if there were too many of them than you wouldn’t be able to do anything against so many. I don’t know if Alava was able to comprehend that, but still I turned towards him with my swords in hand, ready to save him.

「Right…… Now let’s just overtake them!」

「Aaahhh!!!」

As soon as Alava does what I tell him to do, I slash my sword at the tentacles that were approaching him and cut them off. I would never be able to cut all of them in one blow, so I use the momentum of the first slash and make a nice turn, slashing the remaining four tentacles with a second blow just like that. One could argue that even without its tentacles the mermaid would still choose to ram itself into us, but at this point it wasn’t something that I was going to concern myself with.

「Ooooooooohhhhhhhhh!!!」

Alava was not just running away either. He was slashing other mermaids at the same time, swimming in a really erratic pattern, which he once explained to me that: you cannot hope to outrun a fish if you keep dashing in a straight line”. He was also using minimal movements for his maneuvers and attacks while he was at it.

「---------!!!!!!!!!」

Scattered all over the place with traces of black blood oozing from them, the tentacles slowly drop down like falling flower petals. The mermaids scream loudly, falling down since they were no longer able to keep themselves afloat…… only to revive just after that and come back right at us, looking at me and my partner with eyes filled with pure hatered.

「After you defeat the boss, you also need to take care of the smaller monsters quickly!」

「I’m terribly sorry, my honorable ally, but as you can see I’m a carnivore as well!」

「Now I want to eat some sea weed…… Do you guys eat it, too?」

「Meat (I like), Food (eat)…… No, now’s not the time!」

I know that humans are only one of many species in this game, but looking at the face of our fishman ally trying different expression was so different from the human ones that it was almost surreal. It was just like trying to draw something on the surface of your hand, having been deprived of your senses of vision and hearing…… But sure his face could look terrifying at times.

「Sanraku, this is bad! More of them are starting to pour in!!」

「Shouldn’t the boss arena remain isolated until the boss battle is over……!? This is bad, we need to pull out of here!!」

We then immiediatly leave this place, not forgetting to collect all dropped items. Seeing the arena slowly becoming filled with barnacle zombies and fish people, I could help it but to mutter those words to myself in a quiet voice.

「----- How?」

「How did it come to this!!」