Chapter 13 – Labyrinth Strategy 【5】

Right now, I’m walking through the fifth floor. Wearing nothing but panties.

A completely naked man versus a man wearing middle school girl panties. Both seem finished not just as men, but as human beings, but these are Mel’s panties. Considering her sacrifice of going commando for my sake, I’ll think of wearing middle school girl panties as better than being naked.

Beside me, Mel walks with flushed cheeks.

“Uuu… this feels strange…”

Apparently she’s awakening to a peculiar fetish. If I continue training her smoothly—no, I mean developing her—the day when she’ll happily wear crotchless panties might be near. For that purpose too, I need to clear this dungeon quickly.

We went to the fifth floor event location and met the demon. At first glance he appears to be a gentle gentleman, but that’s obviously not real. The main body is a monster. The gentleman appearing before us is merely an illusion the demon created to trick Hanako into breaking his seal.

The demon’s illusion said we could escape from here by breaking the seal, and taught us how to defeat the fifth floor boss. Then he encouraged us before disappearing.

He just said what he wanted to say and vanished… Well, forced events are like that.

By viewing the event, a passage connected to where the weapon is located appeared. We avoided monsters and traps, proceeded through the hidden passage, and eventually obtained the weapon to defeat the fifth floor boss.

There were properly two weapons. The reason I counted them with the counter for “guns” is that while this weapon has the shape of a short rod, it’s actually not a rod but a weapon that fires something like bullets.

The bullet-like somethings come preloaded with 20 rounds, and after firing all 20, you can replenish them with Hanako’s HP. However, while you can fire one shot at full HP, doing so turns you into a mummy and kills you. This is pointless.

Well, maybe they wanted to say “an ordinary middle school girl’s life force is worth only one shot as payment.” No, they might have simply wanted to create a death scene.

Incidentally, the number of bullets needed to defeat the fifth floor boss is five. So you might think 20 is plenty with room to spare, but it’s actually cutting it close. Why? Because you also have to defeat the demon with this weapon.

Defeating the demon requires at least 10 shots. Because of this, many players who fired bullets recklessly on this floor despaired and ended up resetting at the fifth floor.

After avoiding monsters and traps to obtain a potion and the boss room key, we reached the boss room entrance. A very long time has passed since I was killed back then, but now I’ve finally reached the point where I can take revenge on the fifth floor boss.

Though a long time has passed and my vengeful feelings have faded, and if not for that thing I never would have met Mel, I still have no intention of forgiving it. Since I can’t descend to the sixth floor—the lowest level—without killing it anyway, there’s no choice but to kill it.

But what should we do…

The fifth floor boss is definitely not an easy opponent. Twenty patterns manifest completely randomly, and each individual pattern is hard to avoid.

The boss can be defeated by hitting it with five shots from the weapon, but in 19 of the patterns, Hanako’s attacks are blocked by a translucent wall appearing in front of the boss. That wall only disappears in the one pattern that simultaneously fires lightning-like somethings and triangular somethings, making the boss vulnerable to Hanako’s attacks.

However, just considering the probability, the chance of that pattern appearing is only 1/20, and the duration of the pattern is extremely short. Furthermore, the actual probability is nowhere near 5%—it’s lower than the probability of getting three or more rainbow cards in an 11-pull gacha. I need to properly formulate a strategy here.

I explained the boss’s patterns to Mel. The pattern where ice spears fall from the ceiling, the pattern where sharp blades thrust up from the floor, the pattern that fires beams in straight lines, the pattern where a black sphere appears that sucks everything in, and so on.

Mel listened attentively to everything and pondered for a while. She muttered something and asked me to confirm:

“Hey, Sugar-san. What you just explained—are those the patterns of this floor’s boss that also appeared on the second floor?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Hmmm, I see…”

With those words, she fell silent for a while. And eventually, the words she spoke surprised me.

“This might be the easiest boss to defeat so far?”

“What!? Why?”

“Because it’s difficult due to that translucent wall, right? That’s probably Fourth World Magic, ‘Ultimate Barrier.’ That barrier can block all magic, but it can only block what’s in front. And by the laws of the world, one being cannot activate magic from the same world simultaneously.”

What the hell. If what Mel said is true—that it can only block the front—then we just need to shoot five bullets simultaneously from opposite sides.

There’s no cooldown for firing this weapon. If you mash the key, it fires that many times. So that means regardless of pattern, we can kill it within one second…

No, no, that’s way too easy. I mean, this is the fifth floor boss, right? The fifth floor boss that made many players write comments on the strategy wiki like “The creator has absolutely no intention of letting anyone clear this game” and “Apparently the probability of the barrier-removing pattern appearing is lower than getting an LR in gacha” and “I finally cleared it after pulling two all-nighters lol” and “Only took you two days?”

True, thinking about it, that wall only appeared directly in front of the boss and blocked attacks coming from the front. However, given the boss’s characteristic of always facing Hanako, it was impossible to get behind it, so we don’t know if the barrier activates when attacking from behind. Not knowing means there’s a possibility the barrier won’t activate as Mel said, but there’s also a possibility it will.

I walked around while deeply contemplating the possibility Mel mentioned. Then Mel walked beside me and explained the principles of magic. Summarizing her explanation, it goes like this:

“In this dimension, there are five worlds total, from the ‘First World’ to the ‘Fifth World.'”

“Each world has magic representing that world’s characteristics. We classify them as ‘Xth World Magic.'”

“One being cannot simultaneously activate magic from the same world. Only world magics from different systems can be activated simultaneously.”

“Each world magic is classified into five levels: lower, intermediate, upper, super, and divine. Among these, mages are called ‘Xth Rank Mage’ based on the number of intermediate world magics they can use simultaneously, and ‘Xth Rank Mage Master’ based on the number of upper world magics. For example, a Third Rank Mage refers to a mage who can simultaneously use three intermediate world magics.”

“Most of the magic this floor’s boss uses is Second World Magic and Third World Magic, and it’s believed to be a Second Rank Mage Master.”

I see… According to Mel, most of the fifth floor boss’s patterns are Second World Magic and Third World Magic, and it’s constantly activating ‘Ultimate Barrier,’ which is Fourth World Magic. However, when it switches to offense and activates Fourth World attack magic, the barrier disappears due to the rule that magic from the same world cannot be activated simultaneously.

However, there are several problems with believing her hypothesis. First, Mel said five worlds exist in this dimension and each world has magic. But magic didn’t exist in my and Yamada’s world. Well, maybe there actually are mages that I and Yamada just didn’t know about, and in Yamada’s case, there’s a possibility he was lying.

Next, this dungeon is the world of a ryona game. If, as she said, an ancient demon from her world created this dungeon, why is that world exactly the same as the game that took first place in a ryona contest? No, this probably makes no sense even thinking about it backwards.

Furthermore, I asked Mel, and apparently using magic depletes mana, and when it reaches zero you can’t cast magic anymore. However, the boss’s attacks continue infinitely. This is natural since those patterns are programmed, but being programmed means the boss’s attacks aren’t magic.

There are other strange things too. While I was troubled over what to do, Mel looked up at me and said:

“I know very well that Sugar-san always helps me, and thanks to that I’ve been able to come this far. But I don’t want to be a woman who just relies on Sugar-san one-sidedly. I want Sugar-san to rely on me too. I don’t know anything about games, but I know a fair amount about magic. After all, I am a Third Rank Mage. Until now I’ve only been helped, but finally an opportunity has come for me to help Sugar-san. I know it’s presumptuous for me to say this when I didn’t believe Sugar-san at first. I know, but…”

Mel took a deep breath and pleaded with me:

“Please, Sugar-san. Believe in me.”

With those words, I erased all the possibilities and doubts I’d been considering from my head and answered her immediately.

“Yeah, got it.”

“Huh, really… you’ll believe me…?”

Mel’s eyes widened in surprise. “You’ll believe me”—why is this girl asking such an obvious thing?

“I mean, you said to believe you, right?”

“But, so easily…”

“Of course I don’t believe just anyone. I’m believing you because it’s you, Mel.”

Yes, because it’s her, because she’s the person I love, I believe her. If I don’t believe her, who would I believe?

For example, assuming our relationship progresses and we get married, we’d manage our assets, bankbooks, and cards together.

I couldn’t entrust such important things to someone else. Because it’s Mel, because there’s love and trust, I can believe her.

Having decided to believe, I stopped doubting and stopped formulating countermeasures for if her prediction was wrong. Because the boss battle should end within one second anyway. This is what “believing” means.

At my answer, Mel’s cheeks flushed red, her eyes became teary, and she said “thank you” in a small voice. It feels like her affection increased. No, this is a ryona game not a dating sim, so there’s no affection system.

Mel smiled slightly bashfully.

“Then, let’s get Sugar-san’s revenge.”

“Yeah.”

I covered one eye with my right hand and declared in a chuunibyou pose:

“Don’t expect a proper battle. I’ll kill you within one second.”

“Huh, what’s that?”

“Ah, it’ll be killed the moment it appears, so I just declared it beforehand.”

“Tee-hee. That’s funny.”

Oh no. I tried to appeal that I believe Mel, but it seems to have backfired. As I deflated, Mel desperately tried to console me.

“B-But, it was actually kind of cool maybe?”

Her kindness hurts. Let’s seal away this memory.

“But is it okay? If the boss faces Sugar-san, I’ll be the one to defeat it, so Sugar-san’s revenge will…”

“I don’t mind. More than that, I’d hate it if the battle dragged on and put Mel in danger.”

“H-Hauu. Sugar-san, you’re pretty popular with girls, aren’t you?”

No, I think I’m normal though.

“Huh? Really?”

“Really. By the way, what’s this all of a sudden?”

“No, nothing. Well then, shall we go soon?”

“Ah, wait a moment. Let’s practice shooting first. We need to verify things.”

Mel and I tried firing bullets at the wall. Since this weapon also needs to be used in the battle with the demon, I explained to Mel and we only fired one shot each.

The bullets hit the target without missing. With this, shooting the boss should be no problem.

Having finished verification, we immediately entered the boss room. Then I went to the right side and Mel to the left, we readied our weapons and waited for the boss to appear. The moment the boss appeared, we simultaneously fired five shots.

Since the boss was facing me, all my bullets were blocked by the barrier, but all of Mel’s bullets hit the boss. The boss disappeared with death throes.

Thus, my long-awaited revenge ended. Huh, I wonder why. Even though I achieved my revenge, for some reason I feel extremely empty.

“I see… ‘Revenge is only hollow’—that was really true…”

“No, I think that’s a bit different…”

Thus, we cleared the fifth floor and descended to the final floor. To defeat the demon and receive the bonus.