Golden Experience

This was her first time flying by herself, but she was a lot faster than she thought she would be. It must have been at least three times faster than she expected. She didn’t know whether it was because she wasn’t wearing Yoroizaka now, or because she had obtained more wings, but either way, at this rate, she should reach the capital very soon.

<Your Majesty!>

<Boss!>

The capital would be coming into view any second now. But she suddenly received a bunch of friend chats. It was her followers.

<Ah… I’m sorry you all died so suddenly. Is everyone all right?>

<That is what we want to know…! Rather than that, where are you right now?>

<Almost at the capital.>

<You only just died, what are you thinking?!>

<That’s exactly why, you see. Well, the people who killed me may have already left for all I know, but I still haven’t accomplished my goal. To raze the city.>

<…I understand. If Your Majesty has made your decision, then I shall object no further. In that case, will you require adamantite soldiers once you arrive…?>

<I’ll call for them when I’m ready. Sieg as well—I’ll have you manage the city once I’ve taken it over.>

<When you’re ready, you say…?>

<It’s nothing major. Anyway, about Kerry and the girls.>

<…Yeah, Boss.>

Kerry cleary seemed to be unhappy.

<…Don’t be so down. This was all my fault. Where are you now?>

<South of Liebe; we’re in a town called “Connaître”…>

Based on the map, it should be next to monster territory. Which meant it was possible for an invasion to occur.

<Stick around in that town for the moment and see if there’s going to be an invasion. I’m interested to know how strong the attacking monsters and defending humans are. If you’re going to lend a hand, help the humans.>

<Sure. Um…>

<After I’ve destroyed the kingdom, I’ll come find you. Finally, for Sugaru and World Tree—>

She rapidly gave them orders to get the Great Liebe Forest, Treu Forest, and Lourdes up and running again, then ended her friend chats.

The capital was in sight.

In the end, it took about thirty minutes to fly from the Great Liebe Forest to the kingdom’s capital. Since Rare was nearing the city, she slowed down and activated [Dark Curtain].

To decelerate, she completely opened all of her wings, using air resistance to brake. Rare couldn’t see it for herself, but she was sure it looked cool as all hell. She was also cognizant of the fact that if she hadn’t raised her STR and VIT as much as she had, the sheer force exerted on them could have been enough to rip her wings off completely.

“Oh? Only three are still here.”

There were few people wandering around the outer wall area where the battle had taken place earlier. Only three of them looked like sellswords. And one of them was Wayne. The tank named Gil was there too. The last one didn’t look familiar. They all stared up at Rare, looking stupefied.

The three players were standing next to a mass of unknown metal. For an instant, she wondered if they were performing some kind of strange ritual, but then she realized it must have been Yoroizaka’s remains. It didn’t seem like a result of their actions, so it was probably something that just happened on its own. Maybe that was what happened to living object-type monsters when they died.

Rare leisurely descended in front of them, releasing [Dark Curtain] as she touched down on the ground. The sun still shone down from the sky, but its rays were much weaker down on the surface.

“Th-The catastrophe…”

“Wait wait wait wait… You mean we didn’t beat her…?”

“Actually… She’s got more wings now; she clearly got stronger, didn’t she…?”

The fact that Rare had come down to fight on the ground before was also a contributing factor to her pitiful performance. If she had just stayed in the air and carpet bombed them, it would have been an easy win. However, Rare’s objective was to “use her XP better,” not “fight better.” She could be careless or conceited as long as she made sure she always held the winning hand.

“Maybe this is… where she awakens…”

“Wait, what? Wayne, what did you just say?”

“Maybe this isn’t an event where we repel the catastrophe; maybe this event is where the catastrophe awakens…”

“You mean no matter what we do, Hiers will end up destroyed? Is that what you’re saying…?”

“Meaning this isn’t the boss for the event, but rather the event for introducing a new boss…”

Rare had an inkling about this from the fight before too, but somehow they were mistaking her for an NPC event boss. She didn’t particularly mind either way. She would do her best to act as an NPC for them. Not to mention—

—Pretending to be an NPC in front of Wayne again. This has gone far beyond crazy coincidence; at this point, it’s like we’re destined to be connected like this.

Wayne’s conclusions tended to be weirdly off base, but also always right on the money where it mattered. An awakening event. He wasn’t exactly wrong about that.

“So, is it only you three? What happened to all the others?”

They had already heard her voice before, so it wasn’t a problem for Rare to speak to them.

“Kh, what do we do?”

“We might be scripted to lose, but… Let’s gather as much info as we can.”

“Is that the only thing we can do…? I wish I could’ve replenished my soul stones…”

Rare idly wondered if there were some way for him to get more here in the capital. There was no real point to speculating; she was just purely curious. If NPCs sold them, then he would just have more stored in his inventory. He could also attack the shops to get more. More importantly, the fact that he was grumbling about them meant that this was the [Mental Magic] player. She couldn’t quite recall his name, though.

“[Discerning Feather Barrier].”

Her third to sixth wings flapped open wide, releasing feathers. She hadn’t checked the exact range on this skill, but it seemed to cover up to mid-range. If she was really able to sense everything that went on inside its range, then this skill was truly indispensable.

Countless white feathers danced around them. Normally, they would have been black, making the skill look a lot more sinister which could maybe make opponents more anxious. But when Rare used it, it simply looked like something out of a dream.

“Will there be no arrows this time?”

Even if there were, they wouldn’t be of any use. As soon as they breached her [Discerning Feather Barrier], she would know which direction they came from. Once she knew, with her high AGI, Rare could react fast enough to pluck them out of the air by their arrowheads.

“Are there no other knights or soldiers in the city? I don’t mind if you call them here.”

She was already here looking for a face-off, so she wanted to trample over at least as many people as there had been before. If there weren’t enough players, then the remaining could be filled by NPCs.

“Hey, what about Lawson’s knights…?”

“They should probably have respawned by now. If we can stall for time, they might already be on their way.”

“Nah, looks like we won’t need to. They’re already here.”

Hearing that from the one guy whose name she didn’t know, Rare directed her attention to the gate, where she sensed multiple mana signatures coming toward them. There were quite a lot of them, enough to believe it was an entire order of knights. They each seemed to have comparatively high levels of mana. If this Gil guy was a high-rank player and Wayne was mid-rank, then the knights would be somewhere in between. Then again, since she was only judging by their MP, it was unclear how accurate of a barometer that would be with regards to their capability as knights. Based only on MP, Mr. [Mental Magic] here was far and away the number one.

“About forty, then? More than how many there were before. Well, that’s fine. Now, time to begin my revenge.”

Rare promptly decided to try out her new skill, [Feather Gatling]. Based on the help text, its damage scaled with DEX. She hadn’t raised hers as much compared to her other stats, but it should still be higher than any of the players or NPCs here. If the skill seemed useful, then she could just invest more XP into DEX later.

Along with her declaration of the keyword, countless white bullets shot out from her outspread wings, peppering the knights. The bullets didn’t have enough firepower to pierce through their armor, but they were strong enough to knock the knights back after a few direct hits. Some were unlucky enough that bullets happened to find the openings in their armor; those ones died instantly.

“She didn’t use this attack last time!”

“It’s gotta be an ability from her new wings!”

Since Wayne would have died far too easily from this attack, Rare had only aimed it at the incoming knights. Gil might have been able to withstand it, but Mr. [Mental Magic] would also have gotten ripped apart.

The frustration she had felt before was unforgettable. In return, she intended to impart on them a most brutal death as a souvenir.

While the knights faltered from the force of her [Feather Gatling], Rare cracked open her eyes just a bit. It had gotten pretty dark, so there was no need to wait for her vision to adjust.

With her eyes fully open, she looked right at all the knights. Her normal vision and the mana visible from [Demonic Eyes] overlapped. Since the knights had been forced back a little bit from her assault, they were a little hard to see, but she could use what she saw with [Demonic Eyes] to determine the coordinates. No problem.

She concentrated on her [Demonic Eyes] to cast a spell.

Rare silently unleashed a [Dark Implosion], swallowing the knights up in darkness. Inside, they were clumped together and violently tossed around, then crushed as the darkness grew smaller and smaller before finally disappearing. She never had an opportunity to test this skill out before, so she was now using it for the first time; thinking back to the previous battle, she felt incredibly relieved that she hadn’t tried it when she had been casting spells at herself. While its area of effect was smaller than most other AOE spells, the amount of carnage and destruction it caused rendered her speechless. But still, this was fine.

“What… the hell…?”

“Silent casting…? No, her eyes…”

From that comment, she could assume something had happened with her eyes. She was able to check her wings by herself, but she couldn’t do the same for her eyes. Perhaps there was some kind of visual effect when she used [Demonic Eyes] to cast? She really did need to find a mirror.

She hit the surviving knights with several more AOE spells using her [Demonic Eyes]. It was a bit unnecessary, but it was prudent to be completely sure they were dead.

After finishing up with the knights, Rare closed her eyes once more and turned to face Wayne’s group.

“Won’t you attack? Or grab onto me, like before? Ah, you can even try your [Mental Magic] if you’d like.”

Even after being provoked, Wayne and his companions didn’t move. They just stared in shock at where the knights had disappeared. If they wanted to get as much information about Rare as possible, they should have at least tried to observe how she responded to being attacked.

“If you won’t attack, then hmm, yes. Let us chat for a bit. In our battle earlier, there was that strange… I believe someone called it a ‘field debuff’? What was that? Do you still have it? Will you not use it this time?”

She was still curious about it. If it could be mass produced, or if it was something that every country had stockpiled, then she would have to be much more careful with future invasions.

Wayne, snapping out of his fugue, shouted back, “Do you think… we’d really tell you?”

No, she didn’t. Threats wouldn’t work on players, who always revived no matter how many times they died. This was basically just idle conversation. Rare didn’t expect them to earnestly answer her. When she had time, she would just go check out the forums. Even if they wanted to hide the information from her, with how many players knew about it, there would definitely be someone who would post about it. She wasn’t exactly trying to role-play, but she thought it might be something that a bitter [Catastrophe] might ask.

“If you don’t want to chat, then so be it. I will quickly dispose of you and move on to the city.”

“Kh!”

Oho. He really didn’t like the fact that she was attacking the capital. Not hard to understand why, considering most NPCs couldn’t come back to life.

“Why are you after the capital?!”

“So we are going to chat, then? You seek answers from me after refusing my questions? Isn’t that terribly selfish of you? Well, I don’t mind.”

With her eyes still closed, Rare looked up at the wall. Even though her [Demonic Eyes] made it look pink, the towering structure still looked as dazzling as it had been at noon.

“Because it is beautiful. After seeing it from sky, it was so beautiful that I wanted it. Once I have this city, I will fill it with my undead.”

This was a declaration of war. For these kinds of scenarios, it much more dramatic to tell someone her plan, then succeed at it. It was like making good on a promise.

“Now then, I hope that satisfied your curiosity.”

Time to wrap up this RP session.

“Farewell for now. One day, I shall also find and kill the others who were here before. You seem to be able to come back to life after you’ve died, so let them know I’m coming.”

She opened her eyes, looked at Wayne’s group, and cast [Dark Implosion] again, which just happened to finish cooling down. Just like with the knights before, the three of them were swallowed up in darkness and smooshed together before finally disappearing in a crumpled heap. Rare felt herself holding down just a bit of acid reflux.

Her little talk with them had been to mask that she was waiting for her spell to cool down. It was foolhardy not to suspect that an enemy spellcaster might be trying to stall for time.

The first revenge was accomplished after an hour.