~oOo~
Log Horizon © Mamare Touno
This work provided under section 107 of the copyright act of 1978
Chapter 25
~oOo~
It had only been a matter of time before the genius reached a roadblock. The odd bulge of the... Was it an island? Islet? Peninsula? The odd bulge of the landmass had two bridges and an overland road connecting it to the rest of Tokyo, but was still largely separated from the mainland by the Arakawa River.
As such, it had only been a matter of time until Krusty had the bright idea to corner the flighty Genius.
Though to Nureha's chagrin, she'd chosen the wrong roadblock to stand guard at.
No matter. She'd accounted for this possibility.
As she skirted around the edge of the landmass, she listened to KR's reports.
"The Plant Hwyaden PUGs here are doing pretty well, we've got some good mage support going. Tanks and fighters aren't doing much, though; Krusty told them in no uncertain terms to fuck off and not get in his way… Not counting the helicopters and police we've got twenty-two people here total, although six of them aren't affiliated with Plant Hwyaden..."
A pause, then, "Oh, wow, that's gotta hurt his pride. BologneseMaster's not doing so hot. Neither is Minori. She's keeping the Genius contained with her barriers, but her casting time's getting more uneven- wait, nevermind. She was just saving up mana to..."
Nureha tuned him out briefly as she made an aerobatic maneuver, turning a handspring into a vertical up. As an Enchanter physical exertion on this level strained even her adventurer constitution, but the cross-class movement skills she gained as a Fox Tail allowed her to maintain her punishing pace.
"...BologneseMaster's down, at least until Minori revives him, but that's nearly the end for…"
"..."
"KR?"
Nureha swore.
Slowing down, she removed her phone from her magic bag.
Refreshing Plant Hwyaden's internal forum, she opened the live thread on the Genius.
No new information appeared for a few minutes, but eventually a shaky stream was linked.
The monster was performing a roughly circular movement pattern on an empty road. No residential buildings stood nearby. Did it not have the tracking ability she'd banked on?
No, it had found the roadblock and the hospital in the first place.
Nureha watched more closely. The mumbling of the cameraman proved that it wasn't on a loop. That the video wasn't on a loop, anyways. The genius's movements were predictably repetitive, robotic in nature.
Over the course of perhaps a dozen cycles, she noticed the Genius gradually drift away from the filmer.
Nureha recalled something she'd heard Quon talking about. An old science fiction story where a malfunctioning robot had oscillated between an area where its drive to protect itself overrode its compulsion to follow orders, and an area where its drive to follow orders overrode its need to protect itself.
Perhaps something similar was happening here. The genius was caught between its directive to absorb empathiom, and its desire for self-preservation. But it was still drifting ever closer to the police blockade, so perhaps it downgraded its rating of threats in a way similar to the monsters of Elder Tale? An analogue of the hate mechanism, where a lack of recent damage would cause it to ignore previously dangerous enemies?
If she was right, she could predict the Genius's movements with a fair degree of accuracy.
But that was only half of the equation. Despite, or perhaps because of the time the Genius had spent without causing a ruckus, Krusty hadn't shifted from the blockade. But that made sense as well- the decision to go to the blockade had likely been made before their most recent fight. They'd remember where the Genius was going, but not that it had already been there.
Nureha smiled.
Predictability, the worst failure of a tactician. Holding all the cards wasn't useful in the long run if someone else was stacking the deck.
By her estimate, there were another fifteen minutes before the Genius reached the police blockade. And with neither side changing its tactics, the previous fight would be an excellent indicator of how Krusty would conduct the next one. And the one after that. And the one after that.
How could she integrate that information into her plans?
Changing environmental conditions likely wouldn't matter- in its attack phase, the genius was more than visible enough. Fatigue wasn't a problem, with the automatic repair of injuries magic granted. The helicopters would eventually run out of fuel, but they'd be replaced by others.
But the JSDF was already rolling tanks into the area, and as Minori's trick with the semi truck had shown, Geniuses weren't immune to being squished.
So, she couldn't afford to wait for Minori to time out. She didn't have to act immediately, but Nureha did need to act soon.
But she did, after all, know exactly where the injured monster would retreat to after its next assault.
And as a user of the "sprinkler" build, Nureha was one of the few enchanters with the attack power to take down enemies themselves.
Thus decided, she leaped off the building, shifting her course slightly to coincide with the streamer's location.
~oOo~
"It's a little weird hearing English translated, to be honest. Barely any American gamers came over to Yamato before the catastrophe, and with the fairy rings… well, you were there, so you know. Chinese and Korean translations are pretty decent, and I hear the Japanese to English translation works well too, but the way their sentences are structured kind of trips me up sometimes."
Nureha hummed. She sat with her legs dangling over the edge of a building. The newbie Plant Hwyaden member hadn't managed to stop checking out her ass when she'd stood, and for all that the attention was gratifying, it wouldn't do to distract them from filming the fight.
"But anyways, it sounds like this kid is Leonardo's brother. You know, Kero-nardo? I'll have to have a chat with him later. I can't really tell who the other two English speakers are. His parents, maybe? There's a blonde woman that looks kind of like him, but the other guy is a balding dude with a different skin tone, so I don't know about him."
Nureha glanced at her phone. Krusty and Minori were standing confidently, as were the police, but the Plant Hwyaden members milled around in a disorganized fashion. The Americans stood slightly apart from the rest of their group, holding a private conversation.
A little embarrassing for Plant Hwyaden, perhaps, but Nureha could hardly fault newbies for being, well, newbies.
"The fight's- uh- about to start, ma'am."
Nureha turned her head to face her minion and gave a warm, eye-creasing smile. He flushed, as Nureha reveled in his attention.
Nureha returned her attention to her phone screen. From this distance, she hoped to avoid the Genius's memory removal effect, while still maintaining the capability to intervene in the fight should she need to.
The fight started much the same as the previous, with neon-bright lights and an array of support players buffing Krusty as the combat-focused players cooled their heels impatiently just in front of the healer line.
But almost immediately, Nureha noticed something was off. The group wasn't doing nearly as much damage as the previous fight.
She resisted the impulse to smack herself on the forehead.
BolongneseMaster was dead- of course their DPS was lower!
And with the memory-stealing effect of the Genius, he'd missed his chance at revival because Minori hadn't even remembered he'd been killed. After all, assassins had a class-wide habit of fading out of notice when they weren't needed.
Normally, Nureha would have been indifferent or outright gleeful that Akihabara's delegation had been reduced yet again. But this time it was something of an inconvenience: geniuses were the common enemy of every faction on Theldesia.
She briefly considered assisting the group, but ultimately decided to stick to her original plan.
Onscreen, Krusty slowly circled around the genius to put himself between it and escape.
Each time his battleaxe connected with the ground, she felt the tremors a moment later.
From where she sat, she could feel the faint breeze of the wind generated from the Genius.
Then, in contravention of hate mechanics, the genius attacked the healers. An amber ray of light charred the road and set fire to police cars, in spite of the purification and protective barriers Minori threw up with preternatural precision.
KR's shout wasn't audible, but his exaggerated facial movements made lipreading easy even from the distance the camera was set up at.
"Covering!"
He intercepted an attack meant for a balding American.
His battleaxe spun like a dervish, carving furrow after furrow into the Genius.
The amber light re-appeared, but Minori's preparations again minimized the damage.
The genius began to glow white.
"Anchor Howl, Castle of Stone!"
The Genius ceased its attack, evidently unwilling to trigger Anchor Howl's ability by indirectly harming anyone he could be partied with. The wind stopped.
The American, evidently a Medicine Man, triggered his Ghost Walk ability, a translucent duplicate of him appearing.
Smart. With Anchor Howl, drawing aggro to himself would result in massive damage to the Genius, and Ghost Walk would mitigate the threat posed by the Genius.
He stepped forwards, possibly to maximize his chances of accurate spell usage.
And that was when the sidelined players decided to make their move.
As one, they rushed forward to attack the genius, lead by the same sort of herd mentality Nureha had spent so much time learning to exploit.
Nureha frowned. While Elder Tale's level scaling was relatively gentle for new players, they were still massively outclassed by the Genius's capabilities.
It initially seemed like they were making some headway, the Genius losing chunks of its health bar at an impressive rate.
And then the calm of the storm concluded.
An explosion of air knocked the novice fighters back. Some, off their feet. Others, off the bridge.
They'd be fine. Probably.
Four fighters and the Medicine Man were left in the near vicinity of the Genius.
Six seconds remained in Castle of Stone.
Leonardo's brother sprung forwards, a translucent tiger appearing around him.
The older American yelled something at the younger. From the panicked look on his face, a request to stop. Had he already timed the genius's attack?
A pinprick of amber appeared over the genius.
Nazca lines were burnt into the pavement. Constellations danced over the ground, as totems thrust themselves out from the pavement.
The older American succeeded at drawing aggro.
Ghost Walk ran out of time.
Even as the Medicine Man's God-Dropping ceremony activated, the Genius activated its attack.
Krusty unfroze.
"Cov-"
It was not a pretty death. Superheated by the light, the man's skin boiled, and his organs erupted like lava out of his body.
Magic tried to repair the damage, but it was futile.
"-ering."
Krusty blocked the light with his body.
A raw, primal scream emerged from his throat. This, Nureha didn't need lipreading to understand. Even from her position, it was audible. Even from her position, it was loud. Chills went down her back, as the Krusty onscreen transformed from the refined warrior to someone truly deserving of his epithet, "berserker."
She'd heard about the Mnemosyne Taboo. But to see it in person was something else entirely.
Spiderwebs of cracked concrete appeared with each step he took. A downwards swing set off a cacophony of car alarms. Mana roiled off of him in waves so thick they were visible. So thick, she suspected they would even be tangible.
And still, the Genius made its escape.
Nureha's fingers twitched, and she disengaged them from her dress before it was torn.
She did her best to pretend the death had just been perfectly ordinary. That the man would respawn in the cathedral. That this competition between her and Krusty hadn't just led an innocent man to his grave. To believe that the world was a cold place, where any feeling the man had had were ultimately irrelevant, where not a single iota of goodwill or selflessness could exist.
She did her best to steady her uneven breathing. She did her best to unclench her fists.
She- she…
She had to finish this. If she had any self-respect as an adventurer at all, she had to finish this.
Ten, then twenty, then thirty orbs appeared above her head, miniature suns blazing with the intensity of her fury.
Only she had the right to determine who died.
Nureha made visual contact with the demon.
Covered in its own internal fluids, it made a sorry sight. Even with the sharp boost in HP it had gained after the fight, it had still barely reached twenty percent of its capacity.
Nureha chose her target, and obliterated it.
In the near distance, a pillar of light pierced the heavens.
~oOo~
A/N: Coming clean here, the original plan had been to kill Michael and have him turn into an adventurer, but I decided that it would be out of character for him to play the hero. Thus, the guy he met back on the plane dies instead.