RPGCh30.1 - Monster Hunter (XII) Part 1

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Edited by RinRin


The thought was beautiful, but reality was cruel. CM1D0G

When Sky’s Edge’s sword was slashed on the reddish core, sparks flew from the clash of metal and core. The speed at which the blade was bounced off was a testament that the young boy hadn’t seen enough of the world yet.

For a rook-level monster, it’s attack power was only so-so; although its two tentacles are large, they weren’t very fast and they couldn’t reach very far. Then, after having its tentacles bound by Spring and Autumn’s ability, the monster essentially looked like an egg without its shell, just waiting for the players to pummel it to death.

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This gave Sky’s Edge the unfortunate misconception that the rook-level monster’s defeat was only a matter of time, but it wasn’t that the monster wasn’t powerful, it’d merely put all of its skill points into defense.

Seeing the basically negligible damage that they were dealing, Sky’s Edge broke down and yelled despairingly,“Boss Spring and Autumn, we can’t touch this guy’s HP bar at all ah!” MlRfm2

The combined DPS of several dozen people only managed to corrupt 1 point of the monster’s Hearts SP, which was then immediately insta-healed by the monster’s formidable recovery stat. The monster was indeed as untouchable as its rank indicated. The attack had just begun, yet failure already loomed ahead.

Compared with the panicking Sky’s Edge, Spring and Autumn remained steady and calm. Knowing that they were going against a rook-level chess piece, he’d already made the psychological preparations to encounter all kinds of situations.

“The World.” Spring and Autumn asked, “Do you have anything that can raise our attack?”

The fourth floor was quiet, then a male voice was heard.

NLGhzZ

“Blessing of Strength: Raises attack power by 25 points for 30 minutes.”

Feeling that it was better than nothing, Spring and Autumn was preparing to accept the method, when the person on the fourth floor threw down another sentence.

“Berserker’s Rage: Raises attack power by 150, reduces defense by 100, lasts 5 minutes.”

Wrapped in the tentacle, Shan Ziwei had been listening to the conversation the entire time. From what had passed just now, he recognized two important pieces of information. First, Spring and Autumn and The World had just met on this chessboard and didn’t seem to know each other’s abilities very well. Second, why does that guy’s voice sound so familiar?? 9KxiHm

Spring and Autumn immediately made a decision.

“Mortal Realm, leave five men to continue shooting, lead the others to attack the core. The World, leave my SP alone for now and give everyone the Blessing of Strength as soon as possible. Put Berserker’s Rage on Sky’s Edge and Mortal Realm. Sky’s Edge, organize the armed team’s attacks and concentrate them on the core.”

Each individual followed Spring and Autumn’s instructions and mobilized, while The World gave everyone the Blessing of Strength. Sky’s Edge, who’d rejoined Mortal Realm, saw The World wave his finger at him, inducing a burst of red light. His body suddenly seemed to fill with power, nearly bursting with strength. Sky’s Edge opened his mouth and bellowed, “ATTACK!!!”, while vigorously launching an attack on the monster.

“Clang! Clang! Clang!” tfwIl8

Concentrated clashing sounds filled the air. This time, 3 points of the monster’s Hearts SP was corrupted. Although 1 point was quickly healed, at least here was hope of defeating the monster. 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

“Ct!”

A sharp wail was heard. Sky’s Edge turned her head and saw a member of the armed team getting strangled by a bloody streak that slipped out of the core. The monster, feeling threatened, appeared to have started its retaliation. Sky’s Edge wanted to help him cut off the bloody streak, but saw more and more streaks swimming out of the core, blotting out the sky like the tentacles of a giant sea anemone as they descended, seemingly about to obliterate everyone from the fight. XAt0nI

“Vqgjs atf qbalbc bc sbeg ybvs!”

Vqglcu jcv Ceaewc’r lcragemalbcr jgglnfv delmxis. Lf’v jigfjvs rajgafv ab mbwf eq klat mbecafgwfjregfr ab atfrf ragfjxr yjmx ktfc tf olgra rjk Vtjc Ilkfl agjqqfv lc atfw. Snfgsbcf vlvc’a tfrlajaf ab erf atf gfwjlclcu yla bo qbalbc ab rqgjs atfwrfinfr vbkc.

Chrysanthemum Garden.

When the bloody streaks touched the clothes contaminated with the potion, they immediately fell convulsing on the ground, like a grasshopper seizing after encountering pesticides. Other than the bloody streaks, the monster didn’t exhibit any other form of resistance. It just kept trying to retrieve the tentacle restrained by Spring and Autumn’s Dragon-Subduing Shield. However, Spring and Autumn continued to use his recovery potions while keeping the skill active, not letting go at all. 

Under the concerted attack of everyone, the monster’s Hearts SP was slowly being corrupted. The whole process can only be described as “grinding”. Every action in “RPG” was linked to real life, coming together to determine the life and death of players and chess pieces within. Therefore, even if they wanted to DPS all the time, they couldn’t forgo intermittent breaks, recovering their energy while sadly watching as the monster purified its Hearts SP. GVtkvT

Spring and Autumn drank several bottles of recovery potion. Everyone else could rest, but as the MT, he must hold his place. He could only use this precious medicine to maintain his stamina. He watched as the monster’s Hearts SP slowly became more and more corrupted, but also stared at the quickly decreasing time. His whole heart was in suspense. Would they make it?

Even Spring and Autumn couldn’t tell whether the monster would evolve first or be grinded to death by them first.

Finally, the monster’s Heart’s SP became fully corrupted, everyone let out a collective sigh of relief, but then their hearts suddenly tightened.

Technically, this stage should be the easiest stage to pass. Not only will the completely corrupted SP automatically decrease, disturbing hallucinations will also appear to distract the monster. But this time it was precisely the hallucinations that were the problem. Usually, when fighting other bosses or monsters, it is very much beneficial for the monster to be confused by the hallucinations, because they usually make some inexplicable moves that provide openings for the players to attack. But right now they were faced with the rook-level monster shaped like an ancient giant, and using the monster’s affection for the white haired youth to unconventionally control one of the monster’s tentacles.  pUnQ45

Thus, when the corrupted Hearts SP caused the monster to experience a “my hat flew away” hallucination, it slammed down the tentacle curled up on its head and angrily went to catch that mysteriously escaped “white hat”.

“AHHHHH!”

Mortal Realm crouched down with a scream. A huge tentacle narrowly missed her head, and the resulting gale nearly blew her away. Another member of the armed team next to Mortal Realm wasn’t vigilant enough and was rolled up after being caught by the tentacle.

The monster held the armed men in front of its core and seemed to be trying to determine if the tiny creature matched its white hat. YCcOAL

Well obviously not. This thing was yellow.

As such, it was thrown away. The poor man turned into an arc in the sky as he flew to who knows where. The group of players stared with ashen faces and grieved when their Spades and Clubs SP blackened by a notch, confirming the unfortunate man’s death.

Fortunately, scenario 3/6 was not a ‘leave not one man behind’ scenario.

The monster naturally moved to catch another after throwing away the first. Everyone was running away in a hurry, and even Spring and Autumn was stunned by the situation. Only The World was calmly spamming heals and Berserker’s Rage on everyone. He even took the time to give the no-longer-securely-shielded Shan Ziwei another Purity and Comfort. yXGjIA

Seeing that the monster no longer responded no matter how they shot at Shan Ziwei, Spring and Autumn decisively changed tactics. 

“Everyone focus on the core and spam your DPS!!!”

After the Hearts SP was completely corrupted, not only was the SP decreasing, but the monster’s super recovery rate was also gone. Spring and Autumn didn’t intend to wait for its SP to run out by itself and hope that they survive the ordeal, instead, he prepared to gamble everything to give the monster one last push. After passing down a few orders, the scattered formation reorganized itself. The players and chess pieces stood together and took one last stand, relentlessly hitting the core even as the monster picked up and threw them away one after another. 

“AHHH!” Sdj98D

As another shrill cry faded into the distance, Sky’s Edge numbly glanced at his SP, but it didn’t change; the man was lucky and managed to survive the fall. The longer the fight dragged on, the worse things got. As the number of people decreased one by one, don’t even mention the endlessly dwindling SP due to violating scenario 3/6, the remaining DPS wasn’t even enough anymore.

Whatever Sky’s Edge could think of, Spring and Autumn was of course privy to as well. He sighed. The face under the dark yellow armor finally showed a tired and helpless expression.

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If they kept going like this, they could at most cut down the monster’s Hearts SP to 30, and that was provided that they gave up every man to the effort. It was still a long way off from spiritual breakdown. 

“Oho, I think you all seem to have misunderstood something.” virWKg

The sudden sound was like a clap of thunder, attracting everyone’s attention to its source. Even Shan Ziwei heard that half-joking voice.

They all looked up in unison to see the bald black man standing on a helicopter looking down at them with a frown. “I seem to have sent an armed team, not a sandbag.”

There must be a reason for the bald man to appear at this time. Under everyone’s anticipating stares, the bald black man stopped joking and got to the point. “I came to relay the government’s latest orders.”

“We’ve decided to mobilize the nuclear weapons.” jbygFl

Regarding this, the expression of all the players were the same kind of distorted, they should have been mobilized a long time ago!!

“Actually… it’s because it took a long time for the higher-ups to agree and sign the agreement.” Even the bald-headed black man could feel the overwhelming resentment; his words became a little cautious. “ETA of the nuclear weapons is in 12 minutes.”

Although he knew that the focus of the game is on the ‘player’, and therefore the NPCs have to set the stage and put the player in the spotlight. However, he still felt the urge to spit in the face of this slow-assed government who’d taken their sweet time bringing out their ultimate weapons.

“In fact, the government can’t guarantee that the nuclear weapons can kill the monster either, so it must be weakened some more.” The bald black man took out a pair of binoculars and looked down. “You’ve already reduced its power by 20%, but for the nuclear missiles to work, you’ll have to cut it to at least 50%.” KPU25c

Currently, the monster’s Hearts SP was at 79, which meant that they must drop the monster’s Hearts SP below 50.

“Weaken the monster until the bomb arrives. This will be your final mission.”

After hearing the bald black man’s words, Spring and Autumn’s heart was instantly reinvigorated. Seems like even the system knew that they couldn’t kill the monster by themselves, so it reduced the difficulty and only required them to decrease the monster’s Hearts SP to 50.

That was definitely within their power.  UKsica

Spring and Autumn calculated carefully, and had no choice but to remove the “definitely” and replace it with “barely” because they had an unknown variable: scenario 3/6.

Scenario 3/6: You’re grateful for the help given by the government and will make sure they don’t suffer any losses.

To sum up their current situation, if they were lucky and all the people thrown out by the monster managed to survive, they could easily cut the monster’s Hearts SP to 50. However, if they weren’t lucky and everyone thrown out by the monster died, they could only handle 5 deaths before they would have to make the armed team withdraw, otherwise they would directly be OOC’d into spiritual breakdown.

They totally jinxed themselves. When the monster’s Hearts SP fell to 57, it threw out five people in a row, and each and every single one of them died a miserable death. MJC0ir

Consequently, Spring and Autumn could only order the withdrawal of the armed forces and let Sky’s Edge and Mortal Realm play hide and seek with the monster until its Hearts SP dropped to 50 by itself.

“Boss Spring and Autumn,” Sky’s Edge struggled to roll past the tentacles and gave a sorrowful cry, “I can’t fight at all ah.”

Chrysanthemum Garden.

Mortal Realm didn’t speak. Just dodging the tentacles took all of her focus, how could she have the energy to chat?

Spring and Autumn was at the end of his rope as well, because if they didn’t attack the monster, it would quickly enter ‘out of combat’ mode. Once it was out of combat, it could rest; then, once it could rest, the complete purification of its corrupted Hearts SP was only a matter of time. yBAbRH

Then, Spring and Autumn noticed Shan Ziwei.

“Brother Shanzi.” Spring and Autumn called loudly, “I’ve offended you before, but you shouldn’t hold it against us. Right now, the only way for us to pass this stage is if you attack the monster and keep it in combat mode. “

Shan Ziwei looked up at Spring and Autumn and spoke very slowly.

“You want me to fight – the monster who protected me – from your attacks.” 89H4Ay

His voice was a monotone statement of the facts, but due to the measured speed, his words seemed somewhat ironic.

“Yes, because it’s the best way to clear the stage.” Spring and Autumn said frankly, “If you stood in my shoes, you would do the same. After all, this is just a game. Don’t even mention sacrificing strangers, if it meant definitive clearance of the stage for my teammates, then even if I had to sacrifice myself, I wouldn’t hesitate to do so.” Spring and Autumn watched the silent Shan Ziwei and gave a final push, “Don’t forget, we’re on the same side. Don’t tell me you’re reluctant to act because you developed feelings for it. It’s just a set of data – we are players.”

Spring and Autumn watched with satisfaction as Shan Ziwei pulled out his weapon and aimed at the core beneath his feet. In that moment, Spring and Autumn suddenly saw the white haired young man tilt his head slightly and give him an excessively brilliant smile.

“You’re right. It’s just a game.” FoE13D

With that, Shan Ziwei tilted the tracking gun slightly and fired.

———- Part 1 end


Iz: Majority vote (3/3) on cliffhanger ;D Please don’t kill us 

AEZHhC

Translator's Note

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2048"]Picture of the sea thing Picture of the sea thing[/caption]

Translator's Note

NOTE: Since scenario 3/6 was to minimize losses, each time a man dies, their SP will decrease (until like the whole army is gone or something)

Leave a Comment

11 comments

    • hhhhhhh so Za Warudo is Host, SZW probably killed himself I hope he wins this game, since he lost the other one ;w;), the game ihas so many pits, I wonder if that’s to estimulate the (I forgot what the scientist made the game for)? I’m excited for the team instance with Yu Ye’s team [thank you for the chapter ❤️ ]

      • but I think it’s smarter for SZW to shoot in the sky (so he attracks the monster’s atenttion, and it knows SZW is still with him)…

  1. AAAAAAAAHHHH why did Mr. Cliffhanger visit at this timeeeeeeeee

    I slightly regret immediately reading this as soon as I got the notification.

    Slightly

    Looking forward to see the next chapter! Please. As soon as possible. Because y’know, cliffs are painful. The cliffhanger. Yea. Ignore me pls TwT

  2. Nooooo I wasn’t expecting a cliff hanger! I’m crying! 😭🥺

    Thanks for the chapter! 💕

  3. The phraseit’s just a game ” is such a weak mindset . You are ok with what happened, losing, imperfection of a craft. When you stop getting angry after losing, you’ve lost twice. There’s always something to learn, and always room for improvement, never settle.

    • RPG isn’t like any normal games. Since it is fully immersive and their mental capacity is at stake, I can understand if Shanzi really took it personally.

      However, if we’re gonna apply that mindset of yours in a normal game. I beg to disagree. Those who can separate game from reality, imo is professional way of thinking. They don’t take things personally. It’s ok to be competitive but to the point where you can’t accept losing is just cancerous. Accepting is different from giving up. Accepting the fact that you lost doesn’t mean you have to stop improving. The earlier you accept where your weaknesses lies, the better you can make up for it. If you manage to stop getting angry over losing a match, it means you have better control on both your mentality and emotion. That way you can calmly analyze and think things through. It was never good to get driven by anger, it’ll only affect your gameplay. If you had a poor performance as a result, who will be burdened the most? You. It’s because you failed to overcome the most basic hurdle, your emotions. Losing is part of the game, if you can’t even accept that then you better not play at all.

  4. Oooouh~ what a bad cliff… I can feel it smiling back at me xD

    Thx for the ch (ㅅ˘ㅂ˘) (Leave our tentacle monster son alone D:)

  5. lol it’s just a game… just a game that unravels your emotions and sanity and pushes you to go X-Men psychic super human. Pfft okay.