Chapter 196: Shadow Returns with a Gun, Wants to Switch to a Crowbar (Patreon)

Under the assault of that monster — something that could barely be called human anymore — nearly everyone in the group came away injured.

Someone's arm was bent at a grotesque angle.

Someone else's leg was a mess of blood.

Still others had been knocked around so badly they lay on the ground gasping for air.

It looked absolutely brutal.

But Natsuka didn't bother healing anyone until the fight was well and truly over — he took his time about it.

This training regimen was, at its core, copied straight from the concept behind Freya's Battle Wilderness.

And the results really did show.

No question about it — their stats were climbing fast.

Sure, it looked gruesome from the outside.

But since the curse dulled pain and their bodies were literally made of spirons, this intensity of training barely registered as stress for Natsuka.

Lefiya swallowed hard, her voice trembling a little.

"I... I'm not going to have to train like that eventually too, am I?"

"Is this some kind of Familia tradition?"

"Nah, you don't need to worry about that," Natsuka said, watching her look like she was about to burst into tears, and cracked a smile.

"Just stick to training magic with Lady Alfia for now."

"Your turn for this won't come for a while yet."

After breakfast, Lefiya, energy fully restored, headed excitedly into the Dungeon with Yuuki and the others.

Right around then, the Familia's front door was pushed open from the outside.

"Morning," came a voice — not loud, but as casual as ever.

Natsuka glanced up and blinked in surprise.

"Well, that's rare."

"You actually came back?"

"How are things over at Knossos?"

The one who'd walked in was Shadow.

He dragged over a chair, dropped into it, and slumped there looking utterly lazy.

"Same as always," he said. "I came back this time because I need a favor."

The moment the words left his mouth, he dropped the bundle from his back onto the table, pulled out a long spear from inside, and slapped it down on the tabletop.

Metal struck wood with a heavy thud.

"Bend the spearhead for me."

"I want to turn it into a crowbar."

The air went dead silent.

Natsuka looked down at it, and his eye twitched.

Finn's Command Spear.

This idiot had actually picked that up?!

This wasn't some ordinary piece of gear.

It was a genuine First-Class Adventurer's weapon, worth well over a hundred and eighty million valis without exaggeration.

And now this guy was casually asking to turn it into a crowbar.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Natsuka picked up the spear and examined it carefully.

Fair enough, though — since it had been custom-forged for a Pallum, it was shorter, thinner, and lighter than a regular spear.

If he really bent the head and cut a notch into the tip, it honestly wouldn't look all that different from a crowbar.

"I can do it, sure," Natsuka said, waving the spear around and unable to hold back a jab. "But aren't you worried Finn will come hunting you down for it later?"

Minoru Kageno's expression didn't so much as twitch, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"He'll be looking for Shadow."

"What's that got to do with a guy who sells fried potato balls?"

"Alright, I'm not sticking around to chat. I've got a stall to run."

"Customers are waiting."

With that, he shot to his feet and hurried off to the storeroom to grab his handcart.

Just as he was about to reach the door, he seemed to remember something and paused for half a second.

"Oh, right."

"I brought back a piece of news."

"Jura, the former Captain of the Rudra Familia, seems to be plotting something against [Gale]."

He tossed that out, then pushed his cart off without another word, his retreating back the picture of nonchalance.

Natsuka froze for a second, then shot up off his stool.

"Damn it, you save the biggest news for last?!"

He crossed the room in two strides and reached the door, only to find Shadow already far off with his cart, nothing left but his silhouette.

Just then, a girl's voice drifted lazily over from the side.

"Too late to catch him."

"He probably only remembered it right as he was leaving."

"Just like he forgot to bring me along in the first place."

Natsuka turned around, his expression freezing for a moment.

"...Uh."

Mai Sakurajima arched an eyebrow, her eyes holding something between amusement and mockery.

"What?" she said. "Am I really that surprising to see?"

"It's not that I'm surprised you're back," Natsuka said, scratching his cheek.

"I'm surprised you just... appeared out of nowhere like that."

To be fair, once her ability had fully solidified, it really was a bit unnerving.

Quiet as a ghost.

"What did you mean by what you just said?" Natsuka pressed.

Mai Sakurajima loosened the bag on her back and casually tossed a chunk of Adamantite onto the floor, which landed with a heavy clang.

"I meant exactly what I said."

"Since a certain someone forgot me, I ended up tailing him the whole way and overheard that stray cat's entire scheme, start to finish."

She sorted through her spoils while briefly walking him through what had happened.

After a while, Natsuka finally had the whole picture straightened out.

He rubbed his chin, narrowing his eyes.

"So that fish that got lucky and slipped the net is planning to come after Ryuu again."

"And using the power of [the Destroyer] to get his revenge, on top of that."

"As for Shadow..."

Natsuka looked up.

"...he's just being used as leverage after the fact?"

"So did Shadow agree to it?"

Mai Sakurajima cleared her throat lightly and did an impression of Shadow's most contemptuous tone.

"'You worthless piece of trash, you think you can order me around?'"

"'Get lost.'"

She spread her hands. "That's more or less what he said."

Natsuka's mouth twitched.

That was very Shadow.

No — more precisely, that was exactly the kind of thing Satan would do.

His mind spun through the possibilities quickly.

The Evilus faction had had its eye on that key for more than a day or two.

Sooner or later they were going to make a move on [Gale].

And now that Jura had surfaced on his own, it actually saved them the trouble of hunting the man down themselves.

If Jura had stayed holed up in Knossos and never showed his face, it would've been far from easy for Ryuu to finally get her personal revenge.

Natsuka narrowed his eyes and murmured under his breath.

"Fine."

"They're fishing."

"We're fishing too."

"In the end, who's the fisherman and who's the fish actually getting reeled in — that comes down to skill."

After that, he went through the loot Mai Sakurajima had brought back this time and tallied it up.

While he was at it, he laid out the same permission-choice offer he'd given Megumi Kato in front of her.

Unlike Megumi Kato, Mai Sakurajima ended up choosing the exchange privilege.

She said it plainly.

"I owe you a favor to begin with."

"If it weren't for you, I might have just quietly vanished one day."

"Since I can actually be useful now, this counts as paying that debt back."

"If you need anything in the future, just say the word."

Mature, level-headed, and quite good with her words, too.

Something in Natsuka just felt satisfied hearing that.

No wonder she was the reliable bunny girl senpai.

He immediately grinned, leaned in, threw an arm around her shoulder, and thumped his own chest.

"Guess that makes us partners in crime from now on."

"No need to be so polite — come to me if you ever need anything."

Mai Sakurajima shot him a disdainful sidelong glance.

"You're all talk."

"So if I asked you to split some of your copyrights with me, and give me a few slots for character adaptations, would you actually do it?"

Natsuka froze on the spot.

"...Huh?"

What adaptation?

Adapting who?

Which of his books was getting a live-action version?

Wait, no. Live-action adaptations were the kind of thing that ruined the original nine times out of ten!

A jumble of chaotic thoughts flashed through his head all at once.

But the next second, he caught the faint, cold smile spreading across Mai Sakurajima's face.

Natsuka immediately thumped his chest and agreed without a second's hesitation.

"Done."

"Absolutely, without question."

"Not a single problem."

"So who do you want to play?"

Mai Sakurajima's tone stayed as flat as if she were discussing what to have for dinner.

"Gintama."

"I'm planning to audition for Kagura."

"The screen test's in a few days."

Natsuka's expression cracked wide open.

No.

That role...

It really wasn't one you could just play casually.

For some reason, an image flashed through his mind of a certain actress who, after taking on the role of Kagura, had gone from a goddess-tier career trajectory into a full-blown comedic downward spiral — a classic cautionary tale.

"...I'll, uh, put in a good word for you when I get the chance," Natsuka said.

After sending Mai Sakurajima back to continue her grind, Natsuka returned to his office, sat down at his desk, and picked up his pen.

Pages flipped rapidly under his hand as ink spread across them.

It was now confirmed that Evilus intended to build an entire plot around [Gale].

There was no way his side could just pretend not to notice.

More importantly, they now knew not only that the enemy was going to act, but exactly who would carry out the plan and who was pulling the strings behind it.

The real question was how to use this information to steer the situation in the most favorable direction possible.

Natsuka set his pen down and stared at the page for a while, thinking.

"The most direct approach, obviously, would be to take Jura out before they make their move."

"Strangle it in the cradle before it ever makes a splash."

Then he shook his head at himself.

"Fast, sure."

"But doing it that way wouldn't help [Gale] at all."

Ryuu had two knots weighing on her heart.

The first was the root cause of what had wiped out her seniors — the last dregs left behind by the Rudra Familia.

That meant Jura had to die by Ryuu's own hand.

Only that way could the breath she'd been holding for so long finally be let out.

The second was [the Destroyer], Juggernaut.

The executioner that had, back in the day, personally wiped out the Astraea Familia to the last person.

If Ryuu could kill Juggernaut with her own hands this time around, then she would very likely follow the same path as in the original timeline and awaken that absurdly overpowered magic through crossing that immense karmic threshold.

[Astraea Record].

That thing was practically a cheat code.

It could reproduce the magic of the fallen seniors of the Astraea Familia.

In principle, that slot was really only meant to fit Alise and the others.

But Lefiya was different.

If she genuinely triggered a similar growth path, whatever ended up stored in that memoir might well be a whole squad of little monsters.

If that development actually went through, the Familia's overall combat strength would undergo a qualitative leap.

At that point, the Sorceress Elf would rocket straight up toward becoming a Ten-Thousand-Spell Sorceress Elf.

[Author's Note: requesting flowers...]

Just thinking about it was absurd.

And there was more to consider — that skill almost identical to Adi's, [Dharmas Argo].

Though its exact effects hadn't fully been revealed yet, as far as Natsuka's time before crossing over went, based on Adi's [Dharmas Argo], it was almost certainly a party-buff skill tied to Falna.

Another cheat, on top of everything else.

As Natsuka thought it through, he kept scratching out revisions on the page.

The handwriting got crossed out again and again.

If Little Jugg could really be made to appear and get taken down as planned, it would be an absolute boost for the Familia.

"So we're talking about pushing Ryuu up several levels at once."

"Even if it's just resolving her emotional knot and completing a normal level-up, that's still a massive leap forward."

But the bigger the payoff, the higher the risk.

In the original timeline, Bell had already been roughly at pseudo-Level 4 by that point — about the same as Natsuka's current level.

And even then, he'd nearly died facing Little Jugg.

One wrong move here, and this side could get wiped out entirely.

The pen stopped moving.

The room went quiet along with it.

Natsuka closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and forced himself to think it through for a solid two hours.

His mind ran through every possible scenario, over and over.

In the end, he still couldn't bring himself to turn down the huge slice of cake sitting right in front of him.

"Skills and magic are inseparable from personal experience."

"If Ryuu doesn't go through this kind of life-and-death extreme, whatever she eventually grows into will be a much shallower version of what it could be."

"Fortune favors the bold."

"Pass this chance up, and there's no guarantee she'll ever get another one this good."

He opened his eyes, his gaze completely settled.

"Let's do it."

Little Jugg was just something on the 27th floor. It wasn't quite untouchable yet.

[Author's Note]

In the end, what made that thing so dangerous was the first-encounter kill and its brutal burst damage.

But knowing the monster's information ahead of time meant a lot of its scariest points stopped being unsolvable.

He got up, walked over to the whiteboard in his office, and wrote down the core objectives for this operation.

[Kill Juggernaut].

[Let Ryuu personally finish off Jura].

[Wipe out every Evilus force involved along the way].

[Further solidify Shadow's position within Evilus].

Once he'd finished writing, Natsuka thought for a moment, then added one more line.

[Kill the floor boss, Amphisbaena].

After that, he wrote down every variable and detail he could think of, one by one.

"First, deal with whichever Evilus members are planting the explosives."

"Then clear out the floor boss ahead of time."

"Minimize as many unpredictable factors outside the actual battlefield as possible."

Once the broad strategy was set, he reached out to Sora through [ST] and walked him through the plan in brief.

Sora replied quickly.

[Hmm... a monster strategy, huh.]

[Extreme speed, high attack, armor-ignoring, and it reflects magic too.]

[With our current setup, fighting it head-on really isn't a great idea.]

[The usual boss-hunting playbook probably won't work here — the level gap's too big.]

Natsuka looked at the message and tapped his fingers on the desk.

[So I need you to think up a stable approach.]

Sora replied again quickly.

[Running from this kind of enemy is pointless.]

[If a normal adventurer party ran into it, the result would basically always be a total wipe.]

[But players aren't normal adventurers.]

[As long as the commander stays clear-headed enough to use players' "sacrifices" to steer the monster's positioning, and there's enough firepower behind it, it's not a completely hopeless fight.]

The moment Natsuka saw the word "commander," he immediately sent over a groveling, kowtowing sticker without a word.

[Boss, the commander role is all yours.]

Sora didn't decline.

[The real problem is still the damage output.]

[Our people probably can't land that final, decisive killing blow.]

[With a monster like this, the whole strategy hinges on burst damage.]

Natsuka sighed.

[True enough.]

[Even if it's technically squishy, it's still a high-tier monster.]

[Ordinary weapons and low-level adventurers simply can't get through its defense.]

[The one thing that might actually decide the fight, magic artillery, just gets reflected right back at us — basically a wipe-out machine.]

If someone died first in the party, a normal adventurer's mental state would basically collapse afterward.

But players were different.

They weren't afraid of dying — and that was the single biggest variable in their favor.

Natsuka's mind raced through calculations.

"I'm not too worried about the reflected magic."

"Crimson Stitchwort, the spatial gate — none of those are direct-damage type spells to begin with."

"And with the Flame Sprite's protection on top of that, even if the fire gets reflected back at me, I probably won't take much damage."

"In the original timeline, that one charged Blaze Slash of Bell's was enough to gravely wound Juggernaut."

"I could pull off that same hit."

"So in the end, the main damage output is probably going to have to come from me."

Just as he was working through it, another message came in from Sora.

[Something just occurred to me.]

[Since we're setting up an ambush in advance anyway, why not give this world a little dose of physics-based shock and awe?]

Natsuka stared at the message, utterly confused.

[...Huh?]

Sora sent the next line.

[Since the monster reflects magic...]