Chapter 168: Layers Upon Layers Upon Layers

「That’s a Pro Gamer for you, they will always find a way.」

For Clock Fire’s “dolls” to explode, there is a certain rule that must be followed. The bomb must be within Clock Fire’s field of view, his left artificial eye to be more exact. When she was hiding on board of the helicopter during the first round it wasn’t all that apparent, but now at the start of the second round, a certain weak point of hers would start to be visible.

In a nutshell, if you don’t move away from your bomb, you might accidentally set if off just by looking at it. Because of that, Clock Fire’s strategy is really simple: set the bomb and then haul ass somewhere else so you could detonate the bomb in the moment that is most suitable for you.

「Hahaha! Finally found you, Miss Female Knight!」

「Ara, hate to break it to you, but I really don’t fancy stubborn guys.」

「Wild men are way more popular with the ladies!」

When you can’t get away from your opponent, there’s no point in setting up moving explosives. If so, what you need to do is to focus on recovering as many “charges” as you can, and this here Pencilgton would never dare to miss a chance like that.

「I’m sorry…… I’m so terribly sorry!」

Behind Dr. Sandalphon one of the escaping NPCs suddenly exploded. It was the signal for this round’s showdown to move into its decisive phase.

(Wait a second, that’s way too damn fast……!)

「Instead of dragging this out like the previous round, how about settling this right here, right now!?」

「Fine with me!」

With eight bombs being installed already, all that was left to go was twelve.

And since she couldn’t allow herself to set them off by accident, she needed to put some distance just so that her opponent wouldn’t overwhelm her at short distance.

Dr. Sandalphon is a close quarter kind of fighter, one that uses his psychic powers to greatly enhance his physical attributes. His signature techniques is called “Psycho Fist”, where he uses his abilities to enhance the destructive power and reach of his fists. He can strike twice with an enhancement like that, but each strike is more powerful than the last one.

To counter that, Pencilgton uses the power of Clock Fire’s left eye to create artificial dog bomb and places it in between herself and Lucas, making it difficult for him to come closer.

The dog bomb takes the impact of the Psycho Fists shockwave, then sinks into itself and explodes.

「Upuuh…… Feels like an electric massager was pressed to my stomach……」

Detonation, detonation, detonation. Every time an NPC comes into Pencilgton’s field of vision, they immediately blow up in spheres of flames.

「More victims! Lucky me!」

Number of bombs installed: thirteen. Bombs left: Seven.

Using the bomb NPCs as shields, Pencilgton manages to avoid Psycho Fists time after time and puts more distance in between them, staying safe.

(Not good…… The NPCs are starting to spread around too thinly…… Need to gather them all up in one place……)

「Hey, hey! Since we’re on a date, don’t think about other guys! Think and look only at me!」

「Before you start throwing lame pick-up lines like that, how about getting yourself a proper license, huh, Doctor!?」

Explosion. They get blown away and fall to the ground. They get up.

The point where she could make her escape was still far away, and if the NPCs keep on getting away she won’t have enough bombs to protect herself.

(Even though I originally intended to lose this round, I at least wanted to do so with style……)

When it comes to round transitions, even though the fields change the NPCs stay mostly the same. It means that the bomb NPCs from this round would be carried over to the next round.

(Seven people, huh…… My HP is roughly at sixty percent, so if I wanted to get there I would really have to go about it in a roundabout way……)

For a moment out there it seemed that she would detonate someone by accident, but she managed to avert her gaze and her detonation order was safe. However, no there were no NPCs in her field of vision that she could turn into bombs, so she had to dash into the alleyways in between buildings if she didn’t wanted to get driven into a corner.

(If it was against Sanraku-kun or Katsu-kun I might have been able to do this by catching them off guard or to do something unpredictable, but against a Pro Gamer such things will not do me any good……)

When negotiating, a smile is your most powerful weapon. A good smile used at the right time can make all the difference. That way you can receive as much information as you want without giving any in return. That was Pencilgton’s most fearful weapon: to feed her opponents false information and watch them go mad and crazy with doubt and second thoughts.

And it’s not that the same tricks and tactics will always work on every single opponent. Every human is different and some dose of adaptation is needed in order to best them. But it is that challenge that makes overcoming various enemies so rewarding.

「I don’t have to worry about my back, since this path is dead straight…… So what should I do in a situation like that?」

「Just go straight ahead without looking back.」

「That’s more than enough for me!」

She just needed to find the right information and act on those information. With that thought alone, Pencilgton jumped forward while staying wary of Dr. Sandalphon’s close ranged attacks all the time.

Not even Lucas anticipated such a brazen move. That’s why everyone, including the audience, froze in their seats watching Pencilgton getting closer and closer to him, only to slip by past him at the last possible moment.

「Ahahahaha! IDIOT~~~!!! It’s at least three light years too early for you to think about coming with a girl into a dark alley! IDIOT~~!! IDIOT~~!!」

「Talk about a number out of this world!」

Apparently the only strategy that Towa Amane, age twenty four, could think of right now was to regress mentally back to the level of grade schooler.

Looking at this scene in particular, you wouldn’t be able to tell that this here was the event at the convention that was broadcasted all over the world. But Pencilgton wasn’t behaving like that because she abandoned all hope of winning this thing. Quite the opposite. She was like a spider meticulously leading its prey deeper and deeper onto her web, where she could snatch that sweet victory for herself.

(Two more minutes…… Ahh, I wanted to earn at least five, that would be nice……)

「Waaaiiittt! Come back hhheeerrreee!!!」

「So what’s it going to be? Hide and seek or playing tag! Make up your mind already!」

「I won’t let you do as you please!」

(Figured as much…… Oh, two more bomb, all set.)

How to earn more bombs, while not letting any of them explode by accident and stall for more time?

For the time being, Clock Fire continued her mad dash towards rigging more NPCs with explosives and prepare for the grand finale.

「Bufu, kukuku, I’m honestly torn between wanting to praise her or giving her the middle finger right about now……」

「But even so, acting like a braindead child at an event of this scale of all places…… I think I’m starting to have a headache.」

「Now, I know that her methods are not something that someone like you would do, Natsume-san, but isn’t it fine as long as she achieves the desired result?」

「…… Incidentally, does she always behave like that?」

「No, no, that’s only a performance.」

Natsume-san keeps on staring at me, and under the helmet I smile just a little bit to my own words.

Adding the time Pencilgton managed to score thus far to Natsume-san’s thirty minutes, we are sitting around forty five minutes. With the third round still waiting for us, she’ll probably manage to break the goal of one hour. Then, if she can manage to do the same for next match and we manage to stall Silvia Goldberg long enough, we might actually be able to pull this off. As long as Katsu won’t fuck anything up on his end.

However, if anything in this world would always go according to plans, we wouldn’t be stuck in a situation like that in the first place. And personally, I don’t think that Pencilgton will be able to take down two players in a row and then hold on long enough with the third. She must know that herself as well.

「So does that mean I’ll have to earn us about forty minutes myself……?」

It is all within our expectations, but in the end Pro Gamers and their responsiveness is a class entirely of their own.

Originally, the plan was for Pencilgton to avoid enemies as much as possible. Sure, she managed to get ahead by some margin, bu that doesn’t mean that she could just outright abandon that strategy in favor of anything else.

It’s a good thing that she’s having fun with the game, but Clock Fire’s bomb installation leaves her pretty vounarable and her overall stats are pretty low. She won’t be able to keep that up for long, and sooner rather than later her opponent is going to catch up to her.

「After all…… Only No Name’s hard work can save the day, so for us there is only one real thing we can do in this situation.」

「Pray and hope for the best?」

「Just have a good laugh seeing all of her efforts.」

I ignore Natsume-san who looks at me in such a way that I might start turning red any moment now.

Now then, Pencilgton! At least give us, the ones with a lot of time to spare some sort of entertainment! Fuahahahahahahaha!!!

Ah, Mister Operator! Don’t point that camera towards me! It’s giving me anxiety attack!