Novels2Search

Chapter 63: Look away for some time

The cute half-elf Shadyna is embarking on honeymoon with my new wife!

Starting with kneeling and praying in front of said wife for safe travel. What the heck is this relationship…?

[Received Karmic Fragment x1]

Nice~ Didn't think praying to the person herself would also count. Saves me the second prayer to her statue behind her. 10/10 would immersively pray to wife again!

_ Sateri: Good to see you so lively just as the day begins, .

The divine Goddess hath spoken! What kind of doomsday prophecy will she announce today? An overlord rising to power, a world-ending raid, or worst of all, some heroes breaking more stuff than they fix~?

_ Sateri: Uhm, I don't know what you are thinking. However, I am confident that it is not the case.

All wrong?! Even though I had high hopes for the last one… Sad face~

And yes, "this" Sateri apparently cannot read my thoughts. She is also in her Goddess persona mode, which is pretty much being the high-class lady befitting her appearance. In other words, how she usually acts and talks before her mask falls apart due to various reasons that are totally unrelated to me in any way, shape, or form.

The gap moe is nice, although I have a feeling I was supposed to know this noble-princess-like personality more than her usual short-tempered hard-to-please self…

Oh well, I like both so it's all fine. If there's anything remotely close to an annoyance, it would be her avatar's inability to discuss meta stuff. Whenever I talk about something not lore-friendly, she would tilt her head in confusion and claim she didn't understand what I was saying.

I mean, that's cute too, but what about the conversation?!

There goes my chance to accidentally learn about new OP skills, sigh~

_ Ophilie: Good day to you, milady.

_ Aenilie: Milady, good day to you too~

Here come the mother-daughter pair. Ophilie is being the same kind and caring mother as always, while Aenilie has received an appearance upgrade, as expected of being uplifted. The sickly little girl was given a blue shining orb, which she hugs close to her chest as if it was a teddy bear. It is the sun, or a manifestation of her newly acquired power, I think.

…Isn't it hot like hell though? Didn't know divinity comes with complete [Fire] immunity. It would have been a great help during the big fridge fight and the dive to the sun!

_ Shadyna: Hello, Ophilie, Aenilie. By the way, do I get an additional [Karmic Fragment] if I pray to Anenilie every day too?

Since Sateri stepped down (involuntarily) from her role, Aenilie is now the new Sun Goddess in all but officially. Doubling the daily [Karmic Fragment] gain is no joke, even if I still have no idea what it is used for!

_ Aenilie: I will cry if milady kneels and prays to me.

Hey, weaponizing little girls' tears is illegal!!! It appears that the meek girl has learned some snarky jabs from the ill-mannered Goddess as a side effect of the upgrade, as I'm sure she never spoke like that in the past.

Sateri, your NPCs' defense is way too high!

Maybe it's time to craft Aenilie's statue in our cafeteria's top floor? We have put Sateri's statues in all of our restaurants anyway…

On second thought, she will probably cry if she happens to see it, so let's refrain for the time being.

Now that the daily routines have been taken care of, I unsummon Sateri and [Teleport] to Elri's house. With all the fighting and cleaning up yesterday after I summoned Anenilie, I did not have the chance to (re)introduce Sateri to my guild, so I'm waiting for a better occasion to inform them.

On the other hand, everyone knows about my sickly adopted (?) daughter (?), and as a result, no one bat an eye when they saw her upgraded form. Hessy was totally not orz-ing and Elri definitely did not facepalm while and happily congratulated their virtual friend's ascension, ignoring Su seemingly dead on the ground after peeping at something she should not have in a lot of ways. Most importantly, everyone else absolutely did not have a blank expression on their face as if they had wanted to ask so many questions, they decided that they would lose if they think about it and kept silent.

Un, not showing Sateri at the time was the correct choice. I would never hear the end of it until the end of the day otherwise.

Sitting on the couch alone since my guild is out for today, I open my mail to check the patch notes from yesterday. Yes, I was THAT busy. Being a kind pacifist who wants nothing but happiness for all living beings, I had to work hard to achieve it by complete erasure of all hostile external threats in Tyrel. Can't have violence if the parties responsible for violence are all dead, evil laugh echoing~

The drops from monsters and monetary compensation from may or may not have an influence on my decision to volunteer for such troublesome work. However, I am going to exercise my right not to divulge more information, ufufu~

Back to the patch, let's see here…

Multi-weapon wielding's damage nerf and attack speed buff to be more in line with traditional weapons. Welp, there goes and 's unrivaled damage multipliers. I wonder if they had trouble because of it during yesterday's mop up operation? The guild chat was a bit noisy so I may have missed it. Nevertheless, this is bad. How are we going to one-shot bonus bosses now?!

…Sateri is not reading my mind from my inventory right?

The silver lining is that my apprentices are not participating in the upcoming tournament. Getting a nerf this close to the event would make this an even bigger pain to deal with.

Next up is a… buff nerf? Utility skills, to be exact. Pretty sure they are skills which have specific functionalities that do not affect statuses or crafting. To name a few off the top of my head, there're [Inspect], [Recall], [Teleport], [Air Cushion], and good old [Shared Fate]. The rule of thumb is that if it does not change attributes, statuses, or craft, it's probably a utility skill. It gets murky for weird skills like [Devotion], so high-level [Inspect] is still a must to categorize them with certainty.

Well, this patch made those skills resistible by the target's defense if they are not in the same party as the caster. I wonder what happened that prompted Sateri to change the previous mechanism. There's the time when we [Mass Recall]ed the whole mob population to big fridge, but it's not like the end result would change much whether some of them could resist the skill or not…

Let's ask Hessy later to see if she knows something about it, un.

The last one is a change in corruption raids. Instead of a global event spanning the whole game world, corruption raids will occur in a small local area from here on out. The location will be where the sun does not shine.

Not sure what "where the sun does not shine" part entails exactly when the (new) sun is stationary above Tyrel, does this mean it's finally possible to farm raid mobs? Their loots were always scarce due to the lack of a constant and stable source. If raids are now smaller in scale, the number or up time would probably increase to compensate. Here's hoping for more new stuff from raids, namely OP skills and equipment, ufufu~

And that's about it for the patch. Sipping some hot tea that is not reusable potion for a change, I close my eyes to peacefully think about how I should laze about today.

Everyone's out on the field since it's grind day. Today is less about leveling up and more about exterminating all bosses until the last one. Reason is to fuel the limitless black hole that is my crafting sessions. We need so many things, Hessy mobilized all guild members and left no one to work the counter or guard me!

For someone who is supposed to be the sane person in a party, the scary waitress sure succumbed quickly to materialism huh. Knowing her, it's most likely because her [Dark Bolt] will become stronger afterwards.

Why do we need so much? Well, unlike the previous sessions, I am crafting everything from equipment to rechargeable potions for all 31 players and their summons, myself included, in one go. My old crafting equipment is also obsolete, so we have to start from scratch, which costs even more materials. Then there are [Improvisation] and [Modification] to rack up the bills even higher. Although they improve our gear even further, they are nowhere near free!

The timing is not helping either. Who could have thought that construction of an artificial sun, a space stairway combining with losing half the town to a raid in the span of a few days would devastate the economy yet again!? As a result, the prices of materials have become so absurd, we can get more from grinding than buying from merchants for the same time span. And that is taking the whole guild's treasury into account!

Not sure if we grind too efficiently, or our treasury is in dire need of a buff, to be honest…

Anyway, I'll leave the material acquisition to my professional service workers. There are few things that can stop my bountiful second-in-command once she sets her eyes on a potential improvement for [Dark Bolt] anyway.

It's certainly not because I find it atrociously tedious, okay?

In the meantime, let's see if I have anything new that can help with crafting. None of the recent skills and titles seem to benefit crafting in particular, but I should never underestimate Sateri's ability to sneak in some weird effects I did not ask for…

Menu, open~

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[Character information]

[Name]: Shadyna

[Race]: Halfblood (Elf - Treant)

[Gender]: Female

[Age]: 13

[Level]: 24

[Profession]: Black Mantis

[Status]:

- HP: ========== (22553/22553) (17753+4800)

- MP: =========. (25382/26440) (26440+0)

- PAT: 8750 (8750+0)

- PSP: 400 (351+49)

- PDF: 14602 (10602+4000)

- MAT: 14372 (12372+2000)

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- MSP: 399 (350+49)

- MDF: 15274 (14074+1200)

- SPD: 1091 (888+203)

[Attributes]:

- STR: 1732 (10+1722)

- DEX: 1752 (17+1735)

- CON: 1771 (23+1748)

- LDR: 1719 (12+1707)

- FOC: 1771 (11+1760)

- WIT: 1748 (13+1735)

- MEN: 1753 (31+1722)

- LCK: 1760 (12+1748)

[Equipment]:

- Head:

+ Flower of Eternal Blossom (Masterwork)

+ Midae Blossom Haipin (Excellent)

- Body:

+ Draconic Scaled Vest (Excellent)

+ Silk Camisole of Feather (Excellent)

+ Protective Rune of Blood Steel (Excellent)

+ Draconic Scaled Hotpants (Excellent)

+ Windy Wings (Excellent)

- Arms:

+ Draconic Scaled Gloves (Excellent)

+ Reforged Dreihander of the Swamp (Masterwork)

+ Vallen Ring of Blood Moon (Cosmetic)

- Legs:

+ Draconic Scaled Boots (Excellent)

+ Absolute Socks of Blitz (Left) (Excellent)

[Skills - Active]:

- Inspect

- Shared Fate

- Refinery

- Mass Refinery

- Creation

- Improvisation

- Modification

- Teleport

- Silent Cast

- Combat Support

- Potential Manifest

- Fort

- Blood Burst

- Friendship Engine

- Luminous Firestorm : Call in the fiery divine storm to cleanse the area. Increase duration and effect's damage based on current skill level. Increase effect when used with .

- Luminous Icestorm : Call in the freezing divine storm to cleanse the area. Increase duration and effect's damage based on current skill level. Increase effect when used with .

- Phantom Edge : Turn weapon ethereal for stabbing without hurting the target. While active, prevent dealing all damage and increase other active skill effects based on the damage that is not dealt. This spell is said to have been created by a hypocritical pacifist who loves stabbing others.

- Solar Radiance : Emit a magical field containing the power of a star. Apply a Fire effect on all entities inside the field. Increase area and effect's damage based on current skill level.

[Skills - Passive]:

- Accelerate Power

- Cell Revitalization

- Elemental Resistance

- Detect Presence

- Multi-summon Control

- Impervious Soul

[Titles]:

- Unstopping Hero

- Absolute Zero (1683)

- Pacifist (6)

- Beast Tamer Origin

- At-will Beast User (2)

- Against All Odds (43)

- Ancient Rune Artist Origin

- Arcane Maestro Origin

- Mancannon

- Tenri Yassel Subduer

- Celestial Trickster

- Purity of Innocence

- Goddess Lover

- Goddess Corrupter (6)

- Goddess's Gambler: The one who outgambled the Goddess. Through natural luck or shrewdness on their part, the cosmos bend itself backward to serve them. Allow crafting of .

- Corpse Destroyer

- Secret Ingredient

- Schennul Contractor

- Tremire Husan Subduer: The one who showed potential of mortals to . Effects depend on the state of 's flame. Effect: Grant divine power to magical attacks and increase damage of Fire and Water elements.

- Apex Tamer (1)

- Luminous Flame: The vessel of the new cleansing fire that engulfed the predecessor. An entity that melts even the hottest flame until a void that freezes even the coldest ice remains, terrifying both immortals and mortals alike. Grant and . Increase damage, defense, effects of Fire and Water elements. Increase effects when accompanied by .

- Stellar Breaker: The one who breaks a sun because space is too small for the two of them. Add area-of-effect impact and increase damage to the environment significantly. Grant .

- Void Conqueror

- Halfblood

---

Good news, my attributes grew normally as usual. Bad news is, my attributes grew normally AS USUAL. 200 points per attribute is already more than the total amount of points awarded for leveling up from level 1 until now, and I, for a split second, sighed in relief seeing that! Even if you take attribute growth by grinding into consideration, an average player without buffs probably would only see this amount of points by min-maxing like , not by leveling up three times!

Is there any way to undo this brainwashing? At this rate I am going to become that incorruptibly pure character who inevitably gets corrupted just to show how awesome the protagonist is, often by having him resist the same corruption then murder me horribly to put me out of my misery!

Yes, this cute half-elf is a blob of incorruptible purity. No complaint allowed! And [Goddess Corrupter] definitely did not double its value to prove the contrary!

[Luminous Firestorm] and [Luminous Icestorm] have pretty straightforward descriptions until the last part, along with their actual in-game effects as weapons of mass destruction. Had I know they would be stronger together, half of the [Luminous Icestorm] armor set I used to blow up the sun would have [Luminous Firestorm] instead.

…On second thought, maybe that is not the best idea. It could have had no effect, or it could have been blasted so hard, there would be not enough matter left to form any star at all. Then again, we might get a beautiful nebula in their place. Decision, decision~

Conclusion: If a random sun pops up for any reason, I would make a nebula from it, un!

Next is [Phantom Edge]… Sword as shield, get~! Not only can I defend myself with my dreihander now, I also get a beneficial effect in exchange for the non-existent damage. For once, Sateri did not give me an outright absurd or trolling special skill, and even brought me closer to achieving true world peace. Because of that, I am grateful.

But who the heck are you calling a hypocritical and stabby pacifist?! I am a technical pacifist at worst!

The last skill is [Solar Radiance]. An aura skill, which is a rare type on its own. Since there is no friend-or-foe mechanic in CSF, auras in general are limited in use. It is possible to ignore a few friendly fire incidents, but not when someone harms allies and buffs enemies for the whole duration of the fight, and half of the time affecting the caster themselves!

Knowing the designer of the skill… Un, there's no way it won't turn me into a burning torch like yesterday. As much as I like its name and (probably) high damage, I do not want to relive such horrifying experience again, thank you very much!

Now then, onto the titles!

A confusingly mysterious title right off the bat, this [Goddess's Gambler] is… Sateri not accepting her loss in our bet aside, what in the world is a [Cosmic Die]? A 20-sided die that makes the universe explode when I roll a 1 and creates a new universe with a Big Bang for a 20?

Wait, those two are the same thing!

Not that I have much hope but… [Inspect]~!

[Cosmic Die: A die blessed by . Maximize the next cosmic variation in the user's favor upon use.]

…What. The. HECK!!! This thing is way too overpowered!!!

Sure, [Inspect] was being [Inspect] and gave me barely any info, but that alone is already implying many ways this can be used to break the game! If I understand this correctly, this item makes RNGod irrelevant by always rolling the biggest number possible. [Enhance]? Max enhancement level in first try, every time. Damage is random? Always hit for maximum pain. Awesome boss item with low drop chance? Sounds like 100% drop chance to me!

Of course, this and [Phantom Edge] need to be experimented with extensively to find out how much they apply in practice. Still, I am a bit terrified of this newfound power. Random numbers, in many ways, have been the worst adversary for players in games that feature them. Last and bonus bosses are nothing compared to the supposedly-neutral-but-actually-malevolent entity that gives THEN crushes all hopes of the protagonists by simply doing its job.

And now, Sateri is telling me that I get to ignore RNG as I wish.

Is this a trap? This sounds too good to be true. Sure, way too many skills and titles Sateri gave me fall into that category as well. That doesn't mean they didn't look like a blatant attempt of her to set me up for some "unfortunate accident" every single time!

Oh well, I will deal with whatever she throws at me when the time comes. No point overthinking it in the present. Next!

[Tremire Husan Subduer] is surprisingly… lackluster, to be frank. I already have divine attacks from [Tenri Yassel Subduer], and damage buff does nothing to this pacifist me in general. Disappointed face~

The accompanying [Luminous Flame]'s effects are a bit better. At least the defense buff and skills are nice. Having additional buffs while playing with [Lumious Flametender], which is the title my guild members got from big fridge, is nice. Ten times zero damage is still zero damage though…

Yes, I am pretending that the title is not accusing me of being something akin to an otherworldly abomination, simply because I'm a kind girl~

Moving on. I'm not sure what Sateri wanted me to do with [Stellar Breaker]. She was not amused by my little incident with the sun, reinforced by the snarky title description, then… encouraged me to do more property destruction by giving me more firepower?! Girl, you should check whatever code or hardware used when you designed this title, because they seem to be broken.

Meanwhile, I'll gladly take the damage increase against mother nature because that does not violate pacifism. Thank you very much~

That's… about it? Weird, did I not get a [Mountain Breaker] back then? Was it upgraded to [Stellar Breaker]? [Inspect]~

[Mountain Breaker: The one who breaks a mountain because it is there. Add area-of-effect impact and increase damage to the environment significantly.]

…Conclusion: The Goddess has been broken since the big fridge fight. Probably due to some concussion from earthquakes, un.

____________

In the tavern that is actually a temporary maid café for the time being, an awkward atmosphere fills the air. The patrons are sitting quietly at their table, resigning to their fate of not getting verbally abused today. Meanwhile, the depraved maid is wondering if she is even suited for this job. The pay is good, but these degenerates keep asking for !

First, it's rude to ask for another lady. Second, if they want to be stepped on by the harsh mistress, they should get in line, for this maid is going to receive that treatment first!!!

_ ???: Hello, is here?

Another one, or so she thought, until the person walks in and turns out to be a busty manager from . Not that the new visitor can't be an admirer per se, just a bit less likely on average.

_ Depraved maid: She is out at the moment, unfortunately.

_ Manager: I see. Could you give these clothes to her when she comes bac…

_ Depraved maid: I shall protect this package even if it costs me my life!

_ Manager: Uh, you only need to keep it in your inve…

_ Swordsman: HOLD IT! You are not even hiding your vile attempt at defiling our mistress's night gown! I shall be the one who deliver…

_ Spearman: As if I would let you do that! I will be…

_ Archer: HA! Who would entrust such relics to you marauders?! Over my dead body!

Being a semi-sheltered lady who was used to the friendly and outgoing environment of the bar, the thought of provoking these maniacs simply because she used general chat never crossed manager's mind. In true rapid escalation style, the half-dead tavern suddenly springs back to life as patrons after patrons jump in to announce their claim to the holy artifact. Claims are thrown around, from flimsy excuses to outright crazy explanations, then insults make their way in, quickly followed by physical and magical assaults, violently. A free-for-all breaks out, and only the sole victor shall be bestowed the divine gift, or at least that's what they (incorrectly) assumed.

This would later evolve into a grand discussion about what color the beautiful waitress's swimsuit would be on the board, much to the frustration of the person in question. That, however, is another story.

When the dust settles, the maid alone stands on top of the pile of corpses, victorious. Thanks to the power of pure depravity and possibly a bit of help from the leftover dumplings meant for defending the cafeteria in emergencies, she has finally convinced the world that she is THE degenerate of all degenerates!

Unfortunately for her, the manager had already called and given the clothes to while she was still punching her paying customers, so the maid dies from despair anyway.

And the outfit is not even used in the first place!

--- Topic: Tournament: Blood Sacrifice Battle Royale - Preliminary ---

## JigglingPouch

The registration period is over. Thank you for all of your support.

Due to the massive number of applications, we are holding the preliminary rounds separately ahead of schedule. A mail has been sent for each individual participant. If you cannot make it or have any question, feel free to contact Pathwrecker's management.

- Format: 16x 100-player deathmatches, top 4 surviving players of each match move to the main tournament event

- Time: [Link]

- Prize: Fishy Dumpluck for winners. Amount depends on rank so don't let your guard down just because you are already qualified for the next round.

- Sponsor list: [Link]

- Obligatory advertisement: The Great Arena is available for rent. Contact Pathwrecker's management for details.

There's no betting for preliminaries. Not with this many players.

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## PeaceDestroyer

64 out of 1600 players o_O

This is no tournament. It's a lottery! Skills do not matter against this many enemies!

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## StoneHoarder

Are you seriously saying that after what happened yesterday? (ーー;)

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## Fire mage of Justice

(´・ω・`) Hmm… It does sound crazy, but it might actually work.

In a way, this is a true "everyone for themselves" scenario exactly because it is so chaotic. Allying 3-4 players to gang up on someone does not sound as tempting when there are over 90 other players to worry about. If a player is strong enough to warrant an alliance of the remaining 99, that player is probably strong enough to handle them regardless.

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## Mage of Sin

Let's not forget the big guilds' top players in the main event (*´▽`*). Even crafters like the guildmaster of BB Conglomerate will wipe the floor with "professional PvPers" if all they have are expensive armors from his own market and a capped offensive skill.

@JigglingPouch: Might want to add that the location is the cafeteria instead of the arena? We were going to get food and saw… this. [Pic]

Now I have a thing for murderous psycho maids (._.)

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## JigglingPouch

Prelim starts the day after tomorrow, location is the Great Arena. The melee over Hessenria's worn… I mean brand new clothes has little to do with this tournament.

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## Heaven Piercer

The harsh mistress's recently worn gown in private?! Σ(゚Д゚)

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## CuteIsJustice

To the tavern, NAO!!! ヽ(`Д´)ノ

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## Teabag Master

@JigglingPouch: I hope your PK penalty is not that bad, because leader is going to murder you until the penalty is cleared and then some. (*^3^)/~☆

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