A Wild Last Boss Appeared! Volume 3

1

Although my fight with Dina had been unexpected, I’d managed to get her to submit. Currently, I was confirming her stats. The stats I’d seen before were fake, so I didn’t actually know Dina’s true strength.

I wasn’t truly doubting her or anything, but Dina did still seem as if she were hiding something. So I decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a firm grasp of her abilities, just in case.

【Dina】

【Level】: 1000

【Race】: Half-Elf

【Class Levels】

・Acolyte: 200

・Priest: 200

・Ranger: 100

・Strider: 100

・Mage: 200

・Sorcerer: 200

【HP】: 35000

【SP】: 16000

【STR (Strength)】: 1750

【DEX (Dexterity)】: 3000

【VIT (Vitality)】: 2050

【INT (Intelligence)】: 11550 (+2000)

【AGI (Agility)】: 3700

【MND (Mind)】: 8902

【LUK (Luck)】: 1930

【Equipment】:

・Head: —

・Right arm: Bracelet of the Sage (INT +1000)

・Left arm: Bracelet of the Shadow (INT +1000)

・Body: Traveler’s clothes

・Legs: Traveler’s boots

・Other: —

That was how her stats went, but... What the hell is with that super back line specialization?

It was great that I’d managed to see Dina’s real stats, but they were really imbalanced. She had only bothered with back line classes, and she also had several classes at level 200, which you would normally have to pay for. On top of that, her equipment only served to stretch her INT stat even further. I could only say that she was being really thorough.

Her attack power and HP were far lower than what I would expect from a level 1000 player, but her INT stat alone was higher than any stat-boosting could get you. She wasn’t quite at the level Megrez had been in his prime, but she was still ridiculous. However, this meant that she’d be easy prey for Libra.

After the fight, Dina and I cooperated and somehow managed to fool Libra and Aries, who of course came chasing after us. We said that the planet was an attack from someone somewhere else, and that I’d dealt with it for now.

Actually, me dealing with it wasn’t a lie. It was just that Dina had been the one who’d attacked.

Also, this didn’t really matter, but Dina had gone back to her usual blue-haired look at some point.

She was using the Water element spell Illusion; it used mist to show others an illusion and could even change one’s form. In the game, all the spell did was raise the target’s evasion rate. At least, that was how I understood it.

People did complain, saying that if that was the case, why not change the player avatar like the lore indicated? But there wasn’t a peep from the company about changing it.

To think that that would bear fruit now... Truly anything can happen.

Apparently, having two affinities was a racial skill for half-elves. For Dina, they were Metal and Water.

Like, what? That’s totally unfair.

I was told that half-elves had good INT and MND growth, though not as good as elves. They also had decently balanced growth in everything else, though not as good as humans. So, not only did they have good stats for magic and heaven-arts use, they even got two affinities. And unlike normal elves, they could eat meat. Since elves were subjects of the forest, they couldn’t do so. That was why Megrez had such low HP even though he stat-boosted with items, and thus was one-shottable by Brachium.

In the game, elves had a definite handicap, since they couldn’t eat meat. On top of that, people only realized that fact after they’d started to stat boost... In other words, after they’d reached level 1000. It was a truly mean-spirited trap.

But half-elves have none of those drawbacks, huh? What the hell? That’s totally cheating. Nerf it. Now.

Actually, devs, just make an HP-boosting item that isn’t orc meat.

At any rate, now that Aigokeros had joined the party and Dina was once again my subordinate, we entered Tanaka and left Gjallar behind.

It’s starting to get tight in here with all the new people. I should think about expanding Tanaka. While I’m at it, why don’t I take the chance to try adding in bulletproof glass and carbon fiber and stuff?

Those materials didn’t exist in the game, but it should be possible now. Materials only possible because of my knowledge from ‘the other side’... I wonder how high-level a golem I could make with them. I’m kind of tempted.

In the game, it was impossible to improve or incorporate other materials into a golem once it was completed. If you wanted a golem with new materials, you needed to build an entirely new one. However, it might’ve been possible now. This world resembled the game, but it wasn’t the game, after all.

By the way, Aigokeros. Do you have any useful information? You were with the devilfolk, so you should have heard something.

I was sitting on a sofa I’d prepared in the car. Aigokeros sat across from me in human form. Aries was next to him, gnawing on some corn I’d bought for lunch in Gjallar.

At first, he attempted to just eat some grass that was nearby, but I stopped him. I couldn’t let him do that in human form. It made it look like I was abusing him. Also, apparently Aigokeros’ favorite meal was dandelions. The sight of a gentleman in his prime eating a dandelion... It was so incredibly surreal. It only reinforced the fact that even if they looked human, they were still a sheep and a goat.

Well... First, I know of another of the Twelve Heavenly Stars who was working with the devilfolk.

Oh? Who else was there? Speak.

Scorpius of the Scorpion became a vengeful demon and is fully supporting the devilfolk. Unlike me, where our relationship was simply one of mutual interest, she desires to destroy humanity so much that she probably does not mind becoming a simple tool of the devilfolk. Hrotti—the country that the ‘Adventurer King,’ Phecda, founded—was destroyed by her hands.

—And there’s the current winner of the ‘who’s done the worst things’ contest.

I somehow managed to fight the desire to facepalm but couldn’t stop myself from heaving a sigh.

Scorpius of the Scorpion was...well, exactly as it said on the tin. She was a scorpion monster. Her monster name was ‘Emperor Berserk Scorpion.’ Nickname: ‘The Berserk Ruler.’ She could apply poison to her normal attacks and sprayed poison mist. Even if you were already poisoned, she could poison you more, turning it into ‘lethal poison’... Basically, she was a poison specialist who fought by poisoning you, poisoning you again, and then poisoning you even more.

She didn’t have any other means of attack, but she was really, really tough, so she forced her enemies into a war of attrition. You might feel relieved, since her attack power was low, but once she lost a certain amount of HP, she went into a berserk state and attacked with amazing momentum. She was quite nasty as a boss.

But to me, she wasn’t actually that scary an opponent. I kind of feel bad for thinking it, but thanks to my dress, any opponent who relies on status ailments is basically nothing to me.

But to towns and countries these days, there probably wasn’t a scarier enemy out there. After all, she could spread her poison mist over a wide area. If she really tried to kill an entire country, she’d be really good at it. No joke.

Ahh, Scorpius... She really worshiped Miss Lufas, didn’t she?

After finishing his corn, Aries spoke up understandingly. If all that turned into hate, then she could be a very dangerous individual right now.

Is she really that dangerous?

Libra nodded in agreement. Yes. As she is now, she’s so immersed in her revenge that she won’t even listen to us. In fact, her hatred is so great she broke through her level constraints. Right now, she’s level 900. Sorry, but I am no match for her.

She did something that amazing?! The maximum level for a Tamer’s monster is 800. How the hell did she break that on her own? That nut.

I glanced over at Libra and asked her a question. Libra, what would happen if you tried to fight her?

...I predict my probability of winning to be around 62%. Using my past data on Scorpius to project her current level of strength, I believe my battle capability exceeds hers. Although a preemptive use of Brachium should shave away a lot of her HP, it will not be enough to kill her. After that, it will be a simple comparison of our statuses and abilities. In other words, a question of whether Scorpius or I will fall first.

So it’s even dangerous for Libra, the strongest companion I have at the moment. I’d figured that she’d definitely win, since poison doesn’t work on golems, but I guess Scorpius is just that dangerous.

But Aries should’ve been able to match Scorpius’ poison DoT with his Mesarthim. No matter how high her defenses were, it was basically meaningless in the face of percent damage. Aries should have higher HP, too. They were both Fire element as well, so even if Scorpius went berserk, it shouldn’t matter too much to Aries. He matches up pretty well with her.

Aigokeros himself had admitted that he was no match for Scorpius, so he was out.

As for Dina... She had the advantage in attribute affinities, but her HP was far too low. I don’t think she’ll be able to last through a berserk scorpion’s attacks. I wasn’t entirely sure how well she could fight, so I couldn’t be certain, but it was probably impossible for her.

That means if we meet, Aries’ll have to step up, huh?

But Scorpius should be in devilfolk territory right now, so we’ll have to let her be for the moment.

Other than that... Leon the ‘Lion’ and the ‘Vampire Princess’ Benetnasch are at war and skirmish daily. It’s a full-force fight to the death between the strongest of the Twelve Heavenly Stars and the strongest of the Seven Heroes. Even the devilfolk’s Seven Luminaries won’t go near, since they might get caught up in the fight and die.

Hm... Benetnasch should have the slight advantage for that fight. She even outdid us at close range combat, after all.

No, well... Leon, uhh... Well, unlike the other Twelve Heavenly Stars, he’s never been exactly loyal to you... Once you disappeared he completely returned to the wild, and he’s back to being level 1000.

Wow, now that’s chaos for you.

So they’re ignoring me or any potential heroes to fight for the top of the hill?

A fight between Benetnasch in her prime and Leon from back when he was a boss enemy was the stuff of dreams. I actually want to watch, but I also don’t really want to get too close.

Hey, Aigo... Wasn’t Benetnasch really stuck on seeing Lufas as her rival...?

She was. Ever since she lost to Miss Lufas once in the past, she’s set surpassing Miss Lufas as her goal. She’s very tenacious about it, too. Leon’s the same. He used to be hailed as the strongest monster, but he was beaten by Miss Lufas and added to her forces. Even though he obeyed her, he was always on the lookout for the chance to usurp her position.

A warning, Master. If you were to ever get close to their fight, there is an 80% probability of Benetnasch and Leon stopping their fight and charging at you instead.

...I take it all back. It’s not just that I don’t really want to get too close. I don’t want to be anywhere near them.

Apparently Leon and Benetnasch were complete outliers to the usual Twelve Heavenly Stars or Seven Heroes in that they viewed me as an enemy. Just imagining a level 1000 stat-boosted character and a level 1000 boss monster rushing me along with their armies is scary.

I can’t even joke about it. Yeah. Let’s leave those two for last. They can just keep each other company for a while.

Also...this might not really matter, but it seems that the country of swords, Laevateinn, has succeeded in summoning a hero.

Oh? I couldn’t stop my voice from sounding a little hoarse after hearing that news.

Apparently a proper hero had been summoned to this world.

By ‘hero’ it probably meant that they had the hidden class ‘Chosen.’ It was the strongest front line class. Normally, raising Warrior, Light Warrior, Heavy Warrior, and Swordmaster to level 200 was required before unlocking it. In the game, no one had even known it existed until Alioth discovered it. And as far as I knew, there were no other players who’d taken that class other than Alioth.

I mean, the unlock conditions for it were just awful.

The abilities for Warrior, Light Warrior, and Heavy Warrior were all similar. If someone wanted warrior-like abilities, only taking one of them was basic common knowledge. On top of that, the player would have to pay real money to raise the max class levels of all those not-especially-powerful classes to 200 when there was literally no other merit in doing so.

The only classes worth paying to raise the max level of were upper-tier classes like Swordmaster or classes for which an upper tier didn’t exist, like Alchemist. This was also basic common knowledge for anyone who played the game.

However, Alioth did this anyway. He ignored how awful and inefficient his stat growth was and stuck to only being a front line swordsman. Since he completely ignored the most efficient character builds, I and everyone else viewed Alioth as a joke character. I believed the player behind Alioth himself also at least half played him as one, too.

Everyone, including me, believed there was no way he’d ever become strong.

But at the end of that ridiculous character build lay a hidden class, and Alioth suddenly jumped all the way to being the strongest character in the game. All his terrible stat growth until then was more than made up for once he got the class, and his arsenal of skills became insanely brutal.

The skill Climax is at the top of that list. This allowed the Chosen to revive when their HP hit 0 and counterattack, and also raised their crit rate to 100%.

If that class was unlocked at the start...the hero would most likely rival us stat-boosted characters easily just by leveling.

I put my hand to my chin and muttered, That’s bad...

The hero class was strong. That was why this was terrible news.

Why is it terrible? Because the devilfolk know about it.

The fact that I got this info from Aigokeros meant that the devilfolk already knew this. And they should also have known how dangerous the Chosen could be from fighting Alioth. They might try to end him while his level was still low.

But if he managed to raise his level, he might become a monster to rival me or the Seven Heroes. And the devilfolk knew that, too.

Now if that’s the case, what’ll happen? What should I do? If I were the devilfolk, how would I act?

—No need to dwell on it... I’d kill him before he grew too dangerous. That’s the best course of action.

That hero will be killed if he is left alone.

The hero was humanity’s faint ray of hope. And he was already in danger right from the start.

No one in the car objected to my statement.

2

There existed a state of checkmate so obvious that anyone could tell at a glance. For example, there’d be no escaping if the king was immediately surrounded by enemy pieces right after a game of chess started. And you’d basically already lost at old maid when you had two cards left, one of which was the joker, and it was your turn to pull a card from your opponent, who only had one card left.

A lot of old RPGs started off with a scene where your mom woke you up from bed. But if the one waking you up was the demon lord in a full set of equipment with his army in tow, then all the player could really do at that point was throw away the controller and quit.

Basically, this was just such a situation. It hadn’t actually happened yet, but if I were to leave things alone, it definitely would end with the hero’s head being lopped off.

My statement that the hero would die was met with nods and other gestures of agreement. However, the atmosphere was not one of sadness.

It might be rude to say this, but the hero was basically a stranger to the Twelve Heavenly Stars in the first place. They had no real reason to care. But I was different. If this world moved as game scenarios dictated, then the hero would have to be the one to defeat the Devil King.

I can’t just let the hero die.

That was why I tried to make it as obvious as possible that we were facing a serious situation. But...Aries and the others were rather blasé in their agreement. They probably only figured I was making small talk or something.

If I were to give an example, it was like if a baseball-fanatic dad told his son, Oh no, my favorite team’s gonna lose! But his son, who cared nothing for baseball, just replied, I see.

As expected, Miss Lufas. You’re correct. The devilfolk will most likely send one of the Seven Luminaries after the hero whenever he departs on his journey—today or tomorrow.

Dina nodded in agreement to Aigokeros’ prediction before dissing classic RPG tropes. Well, that would be the right move. There’s no reason to wait for the hero to get stronger, after all. It’s not like they’ll do something so nice as to politely adjust the placement of their forces according to the hero’s strengths or something like that.

Like, it’s necessary, right? If the final boss just charged in right from the beginning, it wouldn’t even be a game. Final bosses are there to let the player have fun. Don’t you get it?

Also, the timing of the hero’s departure is actually really convenient. Really convenient...

Wait, no.

Dina was the one who got us started on this topic. Meaning she brought this up at exactly the right time. It seems like Dina doesn’t want the hero to die, either.

...Didn’t Laevateinn have that Sword Saint or whatever? And they call themselves the country of swords, so the strength of their soldiers shouldn’t be that bad. Even supposing that one of the Seven Luminaries attacks...how well would they be able to fight? I asked Aigokeros, who probably knew just as much as Dina did about how powerful the devilfolk were.

After a moment of thought, Aigokeros replied, Let’s see... That country has a sword—

He was forcefully cut off by Dina for some reason. It has a barrier that the Sword King Alioth erected, so the Seven Luminaries will probably be repelled, Miss Lufas.

Like... Hmm... Do you actually enjoy explaining things or something? Or were you afraid of having your role of expositioner taken away from you?

Aigokeros glared at Dina, but she shrugged it off with a smug expression.

In contrast to the two of them, who were battling over some weird position, Aries and Libra were both at peace. Aries had started on a second ear of corn, and Libra was simply observing everything that was going on.

Barrier?

Yes. Made using the hero skill ‘Soul Succession.’ As you should kno—

It’s exactly as you expect! This time, Aigokeros was the one to interrupt Dina.

What the hell are you doing?

For now, I purposefully ignored what was going on between the two of them and instead tried to recall the skill they’d brought up.

Soul Succession.

...Its effect should be...

...Ah, right.

Its effect was to put up a wide-area barrier to considerably buff the abilities of all player characters in a set area while also debuffing the abilities of any enemies in the same area by the same amount. That would normally just make it a combined buff/debuff skill. The ridiculous part of the skill was that it lasted until the battle was over.

But there were also large demerits to the skill. The hero who used the skill instantly died and was respawned in town immediately, with no time allowed for resurrection. In the game, Alioth played a prank by making a full dash back to battle after using the skill, confusing people into yelling, Weren’t you dead?! To which he replied, Nope, too bad! It was a trick!

But in this world, using it equals death... Probably... There’d be nothing so pleasant as having the user just run back from town.

No wonder why they managed to last so long without a hero. ...No, that’s technically wrong. Alioth is protecting that place even now.

Svel had Megrez and Levia.

Gjallar had Merak and his Pressure.

And Laevateinn had the barrier.

Each place had its own method to protect itself.

Hrotti, the country that that idiot Scorpius destroyed, had probably had no defenses like that. But Phecda should have had the Monster Tamer class. It wouldn’t have been strange for there to be at least one strong monster defending the place.

...Could they all have been killed in the fight with the Devil King?

At any rate, it was probably safe to assume all the countries that still existed had at least some way to defend themselves.

Understood. Then they should be safe within the country’s borders.

Exactly. Even if Aigokeros or I managed to infiltrate inside the barrier, I think we’d have a tough time. Though we’d still manage to do considerable damage, of course, Aries declared.

I was impressed. So the barrier is strong enough for even the Twelve Heavenly Stars to be cautious.

The divide between humanity and the Twelve Heavenly Stars in this world was like heaven and earth. But even with this gap in power, Aries hesitated to say he could do it. The power of the barrier was truly unfathomable.

Of course, he was still confident that they could take that buff/debuff combo and still half-destroy the country and basically decimate all its knights. But at the very least, that meant that someone on the level of the Seven Luminaries wouldn’t be able to deal with its effects.

This was predicated on the assumption that there were no other level 1000s mixed into the Seven Luminaries like Dina, though. That meant this also served as proof that there were no others like Dina. After all, if there were others at Dina’s level, they could just toss in meteors from outside the barriers.

Although there was probably some difference in power levels between the Seven Luminaries, there basically shouldn’t be any other outliers like Dina. I feel guilty saying this about other people, but they’re really just a collection of small-fry.

However, I hadn’t really felt any of the effects when I’d been there. Was there really a barrier? Did the barrier just not affect me because I was a player? Or was it actually affecting me, and I was just too stupid to notice?

I’m a little curious.

Master, I would be able to destroy Laevateinn with a 98% chance of success.

Don’t.

I stopped Libra, who sounded very proud of what she’d said, in her tracks while holding back my desire to sigh.

...Every time Libra says something like this, I’m reminded that I should be grateful she decided to hole up in that grave, especially since she can just ignore the barrier and fire Brachium. Buffs and debuffs had no meaning in the face of fixed damage.

Returning to the subject at hand, you’re saying that they won’t make a move as long as he stays within the country and its barrier?

It should be safe as long as the one attacking isn’t Scorpius, the Devil King himself, or one of his direct descendants. However, if you flip that around, that means that as long as one of those people move, then the hero and country will definitely perish. And all this is out the window anyway if he leaves.

Which means?

"They’ll wait for the moment the hero leaves on his journey. As soon as the