Astral Online: Cursed by the Demon Lord to Become the Strongest Beautiful Girl, I Rapidly Grow and Dominate with Cheat Skills Despite Being the Weakest Profession - Chapter 43
Chapter 43: Failed Subjugation
“…Oh, welcome home, big brother.”
After parting ways with Kirie and buying the things I was asked to at the convenience store, I returned home to find my sister holding Shiro tightly, in a somber mood.
“Shi… Shiori?”
Sitting on the living room sofa, her head down, she didn’t respond at all. Shiro, caught in Shiori’s arms while it was probably trying to sleep, looked rather annoyed.
From the unusual atmosphere, I could pretty much guess what had happened.
It was around 4 PM, more like dinnertime than lunchtime. Shiori and the others must have lost the battle against the raid boss, ?Leviathan?, that appeared after they evacuated the wind spirits.
I operated my smartphone and accessed the homepage. Checking the event status, I saw that the escort of the spirits had been successful.
Moreover, the three clans that provided the escort had done a perfect job with zero casualties. That meant the level of the Leviathan didn’t exceed 50.
On another page, however, the status of Leviathan clearly showed four characters under today’s date: ?Failed Subjugation?.
They were likely mentally exhausted, but Shiori and her group weren’t weak enough to lose just because of that. So why did the three strongest clans in ?Astral Online? get wiped out by a level 50 Leviathan that appeared later?
When I asked the depressed Shiori about it, the reason turned out to be quite simple.
“We all got whittled down and killed by the deadly poison…”
A Leviathan, a roughly 10-meter-long, four-legged demon dragon king.
According to the information Shiori and her group gathered during the battle, its primary attack methods in the first phase were the following four:
?Tackle?: A forward rush.
?Wide Claw?: A wide-range physical attack in the forward direction with its sharp front claws.
?Stomp Shock?: When surrounded, it leaps, landing with a shockwave that temporarily stuns adventurers.
?Poison Breath?: A deadly poisonous breath attack from its enormous mouth.
Each of these attacks was powerful enough to cut the knights’ HP in half even when they defended. If hit directly, most would die instantly.
Shiori and her team managed to deplete one of the Leviathan’s three health bars while fighting on the edge between life and death.
But then, two four-meter-tall monsters, each holding a never-before-seen one-handed straight sword and resembling a fusion of human and reptile, known as ?Leviathan Generals?, emerged from the ground.
And if that wasn’t enough, Leviathan unleashed two vast, non-damaging clouds of poisonous mist, ?Venom Mist?, from its giant mouth.
What they discovered next was that if you’re already poisoned and then get poisoned by Leviathan again, it becomes “poison level 2.” In this case, using the priest’s ?Clear All? skill just once won’t be enough to cure the poison.
Moreover, the damage per second increased from 2 to 5, and if the detoxification was delayed, even a level 20 character with 400 HP would be whittled down and killed in 80 seconds.
In the end, the battle against the raid boss failed because they couldn’t manage both the removal of status ailments and the healing of the incoming damage, causing the three clans to collapse easily.
…Ugh, just hearing about all these mechanics makes my head hurt.
Shiori muttered like a curse, swaying her body from side to side.
“Physical attacks were reduced, so we formed a magic squad, and the knights’ shields were taking the hits from claws and breaths, but after we depleted the first health bar and got hit by the poison mist, everything just went crazy…”
“From my perspective, making the raid boss use its trigger skills on the first try is an impressive achievement.”
A “trigger skill” is a special ability that is activated when a monster’s HP is reduced to a certain threshold, something commonly seen in games.
Leviathan has three HP bars. If the first bar is depleted and a trigger skill is activated, then it’s almost certain that depleting the next bar will result in another wide-area mist attack or some other powerful move.
With raid bosses like this, defeating them on the first try is almost impossible unless the boss repeatedly uses the same moves. Moreover, this time, not only did they have to deal with a wide-area debuff that couldn’t be avoided, but also two unknown, weapon-wielding monsters simultaneously.
In such a disadvantageous situation, there simply aren’t enough cards in hand to win. Some things are just unavoidable.
Shiori should fully understand that.
Sora placed the items she bought from the convenience store on the table and gently patted the head of the dejected Shiori.
She let out a deep sigh, her eyes vacant.
“It’s so frustrating. It’s unfair that after we deplete one bar, it scatters unavoidable deadly poison everywhere.”
“Yeah, it would be great if we could delay it somehow. Did Shinji and Shiro say anything?”
“Shinji-kun and Shiro-kun said they’ll try to find a way to stop the mist next time.”
That’s just like those two.
If they’re already thinking like that, they might be able to deplete Leviathan’s HP even faster next time and maybe even take down the second bar.
At that moment, Sora suddenly remembered something.
“Oh, by the way, what about the masters?”
“They were busy dealing with the bipedal monsters on our behalf, and it looked like they had a tough time.”
“Yeah, facing two unfamiliar monsters for the first time must have been really difficult.”
It’s one thing if small enemies spawn during a boss fight, but having mid-boss-like enemies appear is just too much trouble. And weapon-wielding monsters? This might be the first time they’ve faced something like that in this world.
“I heard during the debrief that the two-footed monsters use attack skills just like we do. They said they confirmed ?Sonic Sword? and ?Dual Nail?.”
“Wow, so monsters can use the same skills as us, huh?”
That means we’ll need to be cautious from now on when facing enemies that wield weapons like spears or swords.
As Sora was thinking about this, Shiori’s smartphone suddenly chimed with a cheerful ringtone.
When she picked it up, her eyes widened in shock.
“No way, seriously!?”
Something was clearly wrong. When Sora asked what happened, Shiori looked up at him with trembling hands.
“Our third partner clan, ?Knight of Crown?, has disbanded, according to some info from our teammates…”
“Disbanded? Why would that happen?”
“I don’t know. Their leader, Aruza, was at the debrief after we lost and was all fired up about taking down the boss next time.”
“If they disbanded despite that, something must have happened between the leader and the members.”
“Some of the members are telling us to watch TV. I wonder what’s going on…”
I picked up the remote and turned on the TV.
On the screen stood a white-haired girl at a teacher’s podium. At first glance, she looked just like the white-haired girls who had shown up this morning. But for some reason, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu, as if I had known her long before.
I couldn’t place when, but it felt like I had met her somewhere before.
Sora was bewildered by this nostalgic yet mysterious feeling.
?Is what you just said really true, God??
A woman, who seemed to be the host, asked the question in Japanese.
The white-haired girl, who had been called God, responded to the woman with a serious expression.
?Yes, it is all true. The “Remaining Lives” in Astral Online are not just extra lives. If a player dies the allotted number of times in the game, they will also die in the real world.?
“What!?”
The girl boldly declared on TV what had been the biggest mystery, something that even Sora could only speculate about.
The venue was filled with loud murmurs.
The social media comments displayed at the bottom left of the screen were in an uproar as well. People who had thought that, despite the stakes, it was still just a game were completely stunned.
The girl who called herself God clasped her hands together in front of her chest as if in prayer, and then looked straight at me, as though meeting my eyes.
?But there is no escape. If any of the chosen ones refuse to fight, they will face divine punishment.?
?And what exactly is this divine punishment??
With a beaming smile, the girl responded:
?Yes, of course. Those who refuse will be executed in the real world for the crime of treason against the world.?
For the first time in my life, I felt a deep fear of a girl with a smiling face.