Chapter 170: Gaijin Theatre Heats Up Part 1

Pencilgton happened to discover that one weird trick last night during her testing session.

「Oh, so if a Villain happens to be the cause of a natural cataclysm like that, their gauge will keep on increasing and increasing.」

The root of this discovery was the event when Pencilgton’s gauge started to increase suddenly after the tank she happened to immobilize some time before exploded and caused a chain explosion resulting in huge damages to the entire surroundings. At that time, her expression was terrifying. No, it was more than that. It was as if the devil himself was laughing his ass off.

If there happens to be a disaster that you weren’t the cause of, but it happened as a result of your previous actions, your gauge would still increase. That caused Pencilgton to come up with a strategy she dubbed “Cataclysm Jenga”. But still, she was sure that she could go beyond that.

However, it wasn’t something you might call your ace in the hole. The buildings, their placement, the number of NPCs, street grid, it was all dependent on RNG, so if you happen to draw the short end of the stick, you’re pretty much fucked. After all, RNG is a fickle mistress…… Or wait a minute, maybe that’s not so bad? Maybe RNG protects us from being totally screwed? Is RNG the MVP here? I think it’s the pure chaos at work here.

「As building continue to collapse, there are explosions raging all around the shelter area…… Enormous amount of villainous deeds continue to fuel your gauge as a result, lasting for what seems to be an eternity. Maybe it is only possible Thanks to some unique interaction with Clock Fire’s “Clown Wake Up”, but……」

Crushed to death. Killed by flying rubble. Burned to a crisp. Trampled. Various kinds of despair were currently fueling Clock Fire’s gauge.

In other words, if it was any other character with their special technique, such an exploit would not probably be possible. However, Clock Fire’s skillset is pretty much unique even amongst the menagerie that is Galaxia Heroes. This means that as long as you have charges, you can spam one bomb after another right away.

Setups are the special type of attacks, even amongst the ultimate moves. And to prove that, it should suffice to say that everyone in the audience, including Natsume-san and I, were watching with stupefied expressions how “Skelecom” was literally getting massacred inside of a cage of explosions.

「That’s what happens when you let that Pencilgton bastard have some fun……」

It was far too late for him to do anything about his current situation. Pencilgton was right where she wanted to be, and Clock Fire was not going to let her prey escape.

「Total time: twenty one minutes and thirty three seconds……」

Out there, in the cage of explosions, the HP bar of the Dr. Sandalphon reached zero and he himself fell onto the ground. And seeing that this match got resolved even faster than the first one, I was about to hold my head in despair over that fact.

「Ahahahaha! Oh, that was so much fun!」

「Hey, that was clearly a bug! What’s that supposed to mean!?」

One person managed to exploit the mechanic in its favor, and the other person that got screwed over by that. The contrast was so great that it was impossible to not see.

「Noo, you see…… The elements were all there at that moment, so I just had to see if this was going to work…… And wasn’t that amazing!?」

「You’re the only person in here who would deem that as “amazing”, you big idiot!」

「No, really, I bet it was the real deal! I want to see the video of that match! Think they will let me see it if I ask them nicely?」

I know it was within the game, but having a laugh over a mass genocide you’ve just committed? I think that Natsume-san’s current expression was summing it up nicely: she looked as though she was about to faint from mixture of shock and disgust.

「Come on now, Lucas. It wasn’t a bug, man.」

「Haah!? No matter how you look at it, her gauge was just downright broken!」

「The reason why her gauge was so filled all the time was because of the collapsing buildings. They kept on coming down on one another until they eventually crushed the stadium where the shelter for the NPCs was located.」

「Is that even possible……」

Realizing that there was no helping any of it, Lucas sat down in his chair as he seemed to have calmed down a little bit. Welp, if you’d ask anyone from outside of the gaming field about it and show them a clip where building dominoes comes crushing down onto a stadium full of people, pretty much anyone would call this a bug.

「So? Got anything to say in your defense? What was the point of making plans and elaborate strategy if you decided on your own: “fuck that, let’s get this over with in a jiffy just because I want to have fun”?」

「Hey, don’t be like that. We’ll manage somehow.」

「The sheer audacity of that statement, my God……」

It was easier said than done. It’s like trying to plow the field not with an ox, but an old donkey instead.

However, just as Sasahara-san came to interview Pencilgton, I started to think about how could we possibly get that time that we want. It was a good thing that Pencilgton was getting all the attention, since no one would disturb me. By the way, when it comes to her, her abilities to focus the attention onto herself was probably even greater then her abilities as a gamer.

But isn’t the world an unfair place? Long live modern gaming, savor of the modern time entertainment!

「Natsume-san, who’s going to be our next opponent?」

「Alex Taylor…… He goes by the nickname of “Atlas”. And he’s probably…… No, he is the most powerful player in Star Rain aside from Silvia Goldberg.」

「…… Umm.」

「…… Code name “Long distance relationship”.」

Ah! That guy, huh? Yeah, I remember now, so please stop looking at me like I just scored zero points on a super easy test.

「Hm, but if I remember correctly, he is……」

He should be someone who Pencilgton happened to deem “too easy”.

「Ahahahaha! My fellow Villain ,where would you like me to hit you!? Even though we are destined lovers, we cannot avoid violence in between us!」

「Nu, guoooooohhh!?」

「Hey, is that all you’ve got? Pretty pathetic of you, don’t you think? Are you okay with showing the world such lame side of yours? Come on, come on!」

「Nnnnnnuuuuuuooooooaaaaaahhhhhh!?」

Even though I wasn’t the one saying those cringy ass lines, I could feel my face becoming bright red in embarrassment just listening to them. It was even more embarrassing since there were all those people around.

「Somehow, it’s like watching a really close chess match……」

「I’m glad that I participated anonymously…… Say, I think you can take that helmet off for now, you know……」

「Do you even realize the sheer size of heresy you’ve just spoken?」

It’s completely outrageous that Pencilgton does not have any sense of personal space or privacy like that. No, but that…… Oh yeah, it was only adding to my ever expanding heap of anxiety.

「No, no matter how you look at it, there’s no way that a lover would just outright attack their other significant half like that, isn’t it?」

Not that I would really know, but I get the feeling that both Pencilgton’s current behavior and that of Alex were the extreme opposites, ones that shouldn’t really speak for the vast majority. Now I was starting to feel guilty for ever thinking like that.

「It’s like watching a dog wagging its tail like crazy……」

「The problem is whether or not this old dog is actually capable of learning new tricks……」

Yes, there is only so much that role-play can give you in terms of advantage. The rest would be just the sheer contest of skill.

But no matter what, Pencilgton was still Pencilgton: someone who took delight in spreading chaos and manipulating her opponents through carefully planned actions and words that were supposed to annoy or enrage her opponents so that they would lose their ability to reason and clear-headedness.

According to the information that we have, the character that Alex is most proficient with should be Mr. Normie, a Hero. But seeing that they changed it to a Villain, it means that they must have realized that playing as a Hero against Pencilgton was a bad idea.