Chapter 206: Reaching the Heavens Part 12 Part 1

「Haah…… Geez, what a drag this is!」

I screamed that line at the top of my lungs with a voice so high-pitched that I just could not believe it. At that same time, the blue chalice went out of our reach once more.

Although our fields of vision were being played with at least several times now, we finally managed to succeed in destroying the Green chalice. We managed to do it while our color-vision was normal, and we were enthusiastic about going towards the next tentacle, but…… We managed to discover a few things. Some of them good, some of them bad.

「The next light emission is coming soon……!」

「Please be blue, please be blue, please, oh God almighty, let it be blue……!」

「…… Indigo……」

「Fuck you, Random Numbers!」

First of all, the mechanic of the color changing that we were slowly starting to understand after witnessing the color changes many times now. The changes will occur every thirty seconds, if the colors are different their effects stack, and when the same color shines twice the previously active effect will go back to its original state.

「I wonder what got inverted this time around…… Bugeh!?」

「Sanraku-san!?」

「Okay, alright…… I think I cracked the code here…… My Agility was just replaced with my Vitality.」

Although I managed to avoid being hit directly, I was still caught in the blast of the tentacle smash and was blown away in a rather spectacular matter. But normally thanks to a really high Luck stat I could always count on the skill’s effect that would allow me to survive the fatal blow and leave me with one HP. But thanks to my stats being replaced, I lost only about ten percent of my HP bar. Apparently this power is meant to render highly mobile character such as myself completely useless in battle. That is the power of ‘Indigo’.

That’s right, the effect of the ‘Indigo’ light. That’s the second fact. If the previous effects reversed the gender of the players and reversed the colors which they were perceiving, this color was directly affecting the players’ status. But it was even more of a drag than the other two, because apparently the two statistics that are getting switched are being selected at random.

「Kuh……」

An ability like that is the natural enemy of players who have very specialized stats distribution. For example, what would have happened if you subtract the points in Strength or Vitality from a Tank character? Or what would have happened if you were to strip the light warrior from his/her Agility or Dexterity? What would be the result of removing the precious MP points from a character that only deals in magic attacks? That kind of ability is a true evil incarnate, something that cannot be worked around and it cannot be easily countered, if countered at all.

「Rei! Time to do a role switch……!」

「Affirmative!」

Since Rei’s stats should be relatively distributed in an even manner, she should have suffered the least amount of damage by this sudden change. That being said, her firepower and tankiness should diminish slightly, but she should have gained some mobility in return. Me, on the other hand? Right now I was pretty much immobile, but I should have a pretty good damage resistance thanks to my current tank-like Vitality.

Once I suggested the role change, Rei falls slightly behind me to prepare herself, while I go forward without stopping or adjusting my equipment in the status screen. Right now I am not the same person I used to be, so you might even call me Sanraku Ver. 2! Right now the situation was not all that great for me, but I had to make sure that for this limited amount of time I am going to do my very best. And what I mean by that is……

「You fool! Who said that little old me cannot tank damage!?」

The only way in which players can obtain equipment without crafting its pieces themselves is through buying it in various stores with money they managed to accumulate. But for me the things are a little bit different. You see, I asked Break, a Vorpal Rabbit smith to create a set of armor for me. A set of armor that could be used by tanks, just in case. It is called “Guardian’s Armor” and it’s a full set that Break managed to create thanks to her combined roles of “Master” and “Grandmaster” at blacksmithing.

The full set of armor also some with the added effect: equipping a complete set will cause you to take reduced physical and magic damage, as long as you’re not using any other skills and magic. Normally a setting like that would be quite problematic, since there are hardly any players out there that fight without the use of skills and magic. Normally that effect would have been completely useless to me. But not right now. Right now it was actually perfect.

「Muh, guuh……!」

The potions that I have bought in advance are long gone as well. Right about now the only way for me to recover my HP from Kutanid’s tentacle attacks was to eat the HP recovering fish components that I managed to farm a whole lot of during my sightseeing of the underwater city. I was getting thrashed all over the place and it was looking quite serious, but the damage itself was fortunately not all that great.

「Oh sh*t…… Why the fuck did they had to reproduce the feeling of bones breaking in this game as well……!?」