Chapter 1244 Wild Lessons of Heretical Teacher Sanraku Part 1

It is something so important that it must be carefully understood: depending on the situation that develops, the scorpions in this area are going to adopt different battle tactics. But no way! How could this be!? Scorpions!? Adopting different battle tactics!?

「Don’t stop running, Sigma! If you stop this means that you are dead! Now come on, come on! Get even more excited! Now come on out and play with us! Come on! It’s time to move your ass, Golden Age!」

「Recommendation: We really should withdraw for now!」

「What the hell are you even suggesting, you dumbass!? Are you blind, or what!? Can’t you see what we are doing right now!? We are just taking a break! A break!」

Before the sheer mass of Crystal Scorpions was already enough of a threat, but now that they are organized and know what they are doing, they will become an even greater of a threat! But I still have my Agility to basically bail me out!

Mobile Strengthening “Skillful Rotation”! It’s time to start working on that defense network of mine!

「Tsk, but I can see that those guys can even utilize their own judgement a little bit now!」

I originally thought that the relay point individual was hidden behind the entire flock, but it turns out that it was just a group of a launcher-type scorpions that throw their siblings onto the battlefield like mortar missiles. And naturally, once those guys sensed that we were drawing closer, they switched to the offensive as well without a moment of delay.

「But even so, their tempo seems to be somewhat delayed. Does that mean that the relay one is somewhere far away but it can still see us?」

So that would also mean that the relay unit is nowhere near here…… Or not? Maybe it is there? But then how would you possibly explain all that delay? Oh, that’s dangerous! I manage to avoid the swing of the scorpion scissors with a jump at the last possible moment, and then do another jump to avoid a tail swing by another scorpion that appeared out of nowhere. And as a result , I find myself right on the back of the first scorpion that attacked me. Every time you get saved, the simultaneous attack of the other individuals can make you feel as though everything else that was happening was just a decoy or a trap…… Oh, a rare item? Let me pick that up really quick.

「A supplement!!」

「Does that mean that we are finally switching onto the offensive?」

「But of course! Did you really think that I will be able to destroy this thing completely on my own? Besides, we need to take care of all the other scorpions that are getting attracted in here!」

「…… Was that supposed to be an order?」

「And would you prefer me to ask you instead?」

Hey, come on! My friends! My brothers! I know that your commander is calling you to give you instructions, but the class is now in session! So what, are you simply going to ignore my lecture and focus on that instead!? Keep on doing that and I’ll make you all regret it!

「I’ll mine you so much that even the marrow of your bones won’t be safe from my pickaxe……!!」

I mean, come on now, my students…… It’s been such a long time since you were able to taste the feeling of taking my life away from me! Don’t want to do it again after so long……? However, best be warned! This time around I am willing to fight for my life until the bitter end, and those of you who will wish to take me down are going to have their work cut out for them alright!

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NPCs is just NPCs. However, in this game NPCs are just so much more than a simple amalgamation of zeros and ones. But at the same time, they will never become what we basically call human beings.

…… What’s more, when it comes to an adult male, their brains have the average weight of about fifteen hundred grams or so, and that is more than enough for the brain to be able to forge a thing we call “identity”. So if we humans can forge such a marvelous things, then so can the NPCs, who are after all a creation of advanced AI whose servers are located in the entire rooms or buildings. Such computing power should be more than enough in here. So in a sense, it might actually be true to state that ShangriLa Frontier’s NPCs might even be more human than us actual humans.

「I am going to make defeating you fun for myself, make no mistake…… I mean, it would be fairly easy for me to do! So you can certainly look forward to it! And now…… Alright, Sigma. Let’s split the remaining relay points and take them out, one each!」

Now then, both Contractor Sanraku and his Conquest Doll Elma=317 are going to go into battle as a team and achieve a crushing victory, destroying the remaining relay units…… And after we are done doing that, we shall see what the Scorpions are going to do. Is the chain of command going to be switched to the normal grunts? Or maybe some larger unit is going to emerge here, having no other choice but to fight us personally?

「Confirmation: We shall destroy the remaining relay points, one of us each.」

「It’s really not all that difficult once you start thinking about it. And even if it is going to start looking as if we are about to get our asses kicked, we can always escape into the INVENTORY and be safe. As long as the distance between us and them won’t become too short. ……But wait, wouldn’t that be way too convenient? Hey, Sigma? If we get transported to the INVENTORY, are we going to be in the same area? Or will we be separated?」

「It’s certainly a possibility.」

「If a thing like that is indeed possible, it would be great if it did not happen to us while we are in here doing our thing.」

Normally Sanraku would not have a problem with something like that, but that would only be a thing if I was alone. But I am together with Sigma here, and the point of this battle is to make Sigma more confident and understand her. So I would really like to avoid getting separated if we could help it.

「Just to be on the safe side, we are going to watch our surroundings and make sure that we do not need to fall back into the INVENTORY. If you feel that your HP goes down too low, just take a step back and focus on recovering it before doing anything else.」

「…… Roger that:」

Basically speaking, Sunraku as a Pioneer was always thinking about Sigma as an existence that couldn’t live without him, and needed his guidance if she was to be anything useful. But that being said, I would very much like for Sigma to become more independent, because that would allow us to gather information and intel that much more efficiently…… But if we were to make Sigma fully independent and reliable like that, a plan like that would take a whole lot of time to actually put into motion and execute properly. Not to mention that the character itself should have the likability meter high enough to play along. Which is to say, since we are currently in a kind of a hurry so that plan must be put for later, but that’s alright with me. After all, the current Sanraku wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

The main objective in here is to raise the level of trust in between us, without that we won’t be able to do a single thing…… Still, I must make sure that the current Sanraku won’t start acting like his usual self, crushing everything by himself. Because that’s not what we are here for. Sigma needs to play greater part in this. It might be hard for me to accomplish because of my usual habits, but we are going to do our best in here.

However, keeping consistent thinking in a situation like that is difficult, especially when you need to issue instructions at all times. But once I get a hold of it and manage to command Sigma consistently and effectively, we should be a force capable of taking even an entire army all on our own without much of a problem.

(Estimating Battle Results: Probability of Winning Zero Percent…… However, we assume that our goal in here is to only destroy a specific part of a specific individual, this changes the victory conditions…… In which case the Probability of Winning would go up to about sixty five percent.)

「This is a numeric value that is not all that good to gamble on it, but it is still better than zero…… Deploying Cosmetic Box double Sword Mode!」

The required specifications here is something that would not hinder the mobility all too much, and what would at the same time allow to possess destructive power strong enough to destroy only the specific enemies or parts of them without paying any mind to anything else. Therefore, Sigma, which developed the double swords from the toolbox that she had access to thanks to her contract, started to walk towards a large group of rushing Crystal Scorpions, at the same time starting to analyze their behavior in search of possible “patterns” to exploit.

「They tend to move in a linear way, but at the same time…… It’s really quite strange.」

For the units that possessed much strength and destructive power, there was still a sense on incongruity to their behavior. Rather, it was strange that their assault was launched even before Sigma took any action at all. Why is that……?

「No way, no way, no way, no way…… Higih!!」

「Kanako-chan is dead!!」

「I knew it! It was impossible for someone on level sixty to clear this place! Impossible, I tell you! We are going to die! At this rate the only choice available to us here will be to die horribly!!」

「Nyukki just got homerun’ed into oblivion!?」

「I know that this is a game, but I’m scared!!!」

The reason is because we were no longer the only ones who were present in here. It seems that a particular group of dumbasses decided to come in here and have a shot at obtaining all the goodies in here despite the fact that it would be pretty much impossible of a feat for them to do.

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