Eyes.
In this vast End Ocean, they were the most important thing.
This place was far too wide to watch everything that happened out on the sea.
So you needed eyes that were narrow, but could see in fine detail.
│spy)
│spy)
│spy)
Since Easy-difficulty users couldn’t become spying Constellations│spy), several dozen Normal-difficulty users were mobilized.
They stared across vast distances.
All they had to do was keep watch on Ibamon, far away, emitting light all by herself.
「 Spying Scope│spy) 」
And so the gazes of the spying Constellations│spy) became dozens of large and small screens, painting the sky.
Ibamon.
She always preferred fighting like Zeus, from high ground, packing destructive power into light.
In other words, she enjoyed looking like a god.
She was the perfect target to watch.
“ You’re really not coming out, huh? ”
「Spectroscope」 is summoned.
When one appears, the light surrounding the goddess grows larger.
When two appear, that light resonates and swells again, becoming even more enormous.
Faced with the martial might of a [Hard difficulty] challenger you rarely got to see, countless spying Constellations│spy) admire it.
‘...No matter how many times I see it, her scale is different.’
‘Damn it. That’s why even if dozens of Normal-difficulty spying Constellations stick to her, it’s still hard, right?’
‘The combat power gap was already huge, but after coming to End Ocean, the gap widened even more...’
That was why their hearts trembled.
‘.......’
The spying Constellations│spy) had watched the martial might of countless [Hard difficulty] players in End Ocean.
Because they understood better than anyone the gap in power that a difference of just one difficulty could produce...
A [Hell difficulty] battle, something that had never existed in history, made their hearts shake.
“ Summon Spectroscope. ”
Flash!!!
A third light bursts forth again.
Ibamon always added color to her “light,” so as her power swelled, reds and blues and countless other hues began mixing into it.
On the islands fleeing far away from her, players shouted.
“There’s nobody here, you X-fuck!!” “Save me!!”
Users didn’t die, but the islands they’d cherished and raised for years were being blown away.
“ Burn to death. ”
Players on the islands screamed.
The spying Constellations│spy) trembled as they watched.
And behind them, Lord Balthazar’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the 「Spying Scope│spy)」.
“『Heaven’s Punishment』”
At last, Ibamon raised her hand—
And a radiance like the sun began to explode out from beyond the clouds.
In that instant,
In the tiny gap of time no one noticed.
Balthazar’s gaze landed on the bottom-left 「Spying Scope│spy)」.
── .
A “light” that sprang upward, snapping through empty air like lightning, struck the light floating fixed in the sky.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-KWANG!!
Mana collided.
A huge explosion detonated.
Then it detonated again, and again, like someone stitching patterns into the air—dozens of times in a chain, running from nearby all the way to the edge of the horizon.
‘......!!!’
Balthazar’s face twisted into a snarl.
“Uh, uh?”
“I-it’s an attack!”
“The target ambushed Ibamon!”
Only belatedly, the focus of the 「Spying Scope│spy)」 screens shifted and aimed into the distance.
There, light burst and burst again.
In the night sky, two kinds of light mixed, scattered, and repeated.
“Ah! Was that bastard a Light Constellation too...!”
Ibamon’s seven-colored light exploded outward.
On the other hand, Dante was only white light.
That pure white radiance was smashing the rainbow apart.
To anyone watching, it looked like Ibamon was fleeing and Dante was chasing.
“H-however, that speed...!”
“He’s that fast—no way...!!”
Voices bursting with shock erupted everywhere.
Ibamon had laid down three 「Spectroscopes」, boosting her speed by nearly 50% compared to normal.
And yet, she was losing in speed.
In the midst of collisions exploding more than ten times per second, Ibamon’s light flickered.
In that chaos, a strange exchange began.
Ibamon curved her flight path—
And Dante missed it.
Finally, as if Ibamon had adapted to his speed, a battle of similar speed continued.
Dante spread his fingers and fired 『Light Bullets』.
Ibamon swung her weapon and unfurled countless lights.
But at least in speed, she ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) wasn’t being pushed back.
“Good. Good...!”
“Feels like she got the hang of it...!?”
If you grabbed the speed, you could grab the flow of the fight, too.
Everyone thought so.
But for some reason...
Ibamon’s enlarged expression started to crumple.
“...Huh?”
Ibamon, who always saw herself as a single goddess—
Like Hera shaking Olympus, End Ocean, in her grasp—
A woman who never let her expression crease.
Now her face darkened little by little, like a fighter being pressed into the mat.
Then a shout rang out.
“ Die! ”
A rainbow 『Heaven’s Punishment』 poured down from the sky and reached Dante.
It was definitely Ibamon’s.
But something even more shocking happened.
The moment those seven-colored beams fired from the sky touched Dante’s body, they shattered into pieces.
Chrrrrrk—!
Like tens of millions of pieces of colored glass exploding in midair, the night drowned in darkness turned brighter than day in an instant.
“Whaaaaaaat?!”
“No way...!”
Amid scream-shouts that were still restrained only because they knew the lord was right beside them—
A [Hard difficulty] player approached and whispered to Balthazar.
“What are you gonna do.”
Lord Balthazar’s blood pact’s number two.
A man whose body was monstrously huge for a warrior.
Dragon Knight Veil.
When the visor of his pitch-black full-body armor lifted on its own, a snake-like impression with round glasses appeared inside.
Without taking his eyes off the screen, Veil spoke to Balthazar.
“What are you gonna do. That’s beyond imagination.”
“......”
“You know it too. That guy Dante—if he’s Hell difficulty and a Light Constellation, he obviously knows what 「Spectroscope」 is and how to respond to it. But he didn’t break the 「Spectroscope」. He rushed in immediately.”
“......”
“At first I thought, since he’s an assassin, he’s just having fun rushing instead of breaking the spectroscopes... but that wasn’t it.”
“......Enough. I can tell just by looking that it’s an unfavorable fight.”
“Fight?”
One of Veil’s eyes narrowed.
“He saw the enemy’s light for the first time, grasped her realm and abilities, calculated the spectroscope’s range exactly...
And then he stopped right in front of the spectroscope.”
Why?
“Because when Ibamon struggles to get inside the spectroscope’s range, she burns out faster. He’s deliberately torturing her with hope right in front of it. That Dante bastard.”
Dante was putting Ibamon’s gun at a distance where it was just barely out of reach of her hand—
And whenever she struggled and lunged to grab it, he kicked her in the side, making sure she couldn’t quite take hold of it.
From that point on, everyone thought ‘Ibamon has stabilized her speed,’ but Veil didn’t see it that way.
Dante was simply moving slowly.
You couldn’t call this a fight.
“That’s—”
“Veil. Shut your mouth for a second.”
“.......”
Veil closed his mouth at the harsh words, but the thought continued.
That was—
‘He’s playing with her.’
Like a cat corners a mouse and taps it around.
Dante Hiacapo was playing with Ibamon.
‘......This is troublesome.’
At the same time.
Sub-king Garlok, of Garlok’s blood pact, was also laughing silently to himself.
When Ibamon, that rugby-ball of a human, charged in out of nowhere, he’d thought they could measure combat power.
‘But like this, I can’t tell how strong he is.’
Combat power up 1,000,000.
That was the figure Dante had revealed in a comment.
They’d expected something like that, at least. Because they themselves had come to End Ocean with combat power nearing 500,000.
And they’d heard rumors Balthazar came in at 600,000.
Now they’d stacked more gear and more training and gone beyond that, but they still hadn’t reached 1,000,000.
‘We already calculated 1:1 wouldn’t work from the start.’
So could they subdue him with 2:1 or 3:1?
Or in the worst case, 5:1?
That was the question on both the lord and sub-king sides.
It was pure curiosity beyond political intent.
At the very least, shouldn’t this world not be swayed by a single human?
‘But like this...’
He didn’t know.
It still wasn’t easy to grasp the gap.
Because the opponent they’d never seen before wasn’t pouring out all his strength.
Beside him, multiple analysts (Normal-difficulty System Constellation⧉, Struggle Constellationж, and so on) were drawing graphs in real time and analyzing the combat power—
And in an instant, the rainbow that had spent all its power began losing its light.
Absurdly easily, the end of the battle was approaching.
***
“Ah, wait, wait.”
It was when I approached Ibamon with five 『Light Bullets』 hooked on my right hand.
“Wait?”
What do you mean, wait?
Inside Hiaca Academy, it was hard to hear—
That oddly Korean-sounding “wait” tone.
Without realizing it, I hesitated and asked back.
And for some reason, the other side burst her light big, then shook her head in panic.
“No. I’m sorry. Wait. Please.”
“???”
Why are you speaking politely?
Then she suddenly knelt in midair.
“Ah. I’m sorry. Please spare me.”
“Why.”
“...What?”
“Why should I spare you. Me.”
“No, I mean, you came with weapons. If I die here, I’ll drop them, right....”
“You were acting so tough a second ago.”
“No, it’s all a concept. To make the game fun. If I do that, there are a lot of guys who like me.”
“......??”
Then Ibamon bit her lower lip and smiled faintly.
“Hehe....”
I stared at the small lightning-shaped weapon in her right hand, then closed my eyes for a moment and thought.
It was ridiculous.
Well, seeing a character whose appearance was dressed up with all kinds of customization, I understood what she meant.
In any game, weren’t there plenty of guys who worshiped female players?
The problem was—
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
“You’re not a woman.”
“.......”
Maybe because we were both Light Constellations⁺₊⋆.
As our lights mixed, understanding about the other poured in in real time.
“I am a woman.”
“If you lie, you die.”
Then Ibamon glanced around, boosted her light even bigger, and nodded.
“I’m a man, boss.”
Even his voice had thickened.
Ah.
‘......This really is End Ocean. These people really are just playing a game.’
Even Robin, too.
Yeah—everyone really is a player.
They didn’t die, so they had no reason to be desperate.
But they feared the penalty for dying, so they groveled hard.
Robin and his bunch were like that too.
They lost Star Runes and an island, but by crawling flat, didn’t they at least protect their other assets?
Maybe that was why.
“Then if you know you’ll die, why did you pick a fight.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Is ‘sorry’ enough?”
“No, seriously. I was just curious. I mean.... I’m sorry.”
“You only brought a weapon? What about your Star Runes.”
“I didn’t bring them. Who brings Star Runes when they fight someone.”
“Then where do you put them. You just leave them on your island all the time?”
“Isn’t that obvi—...yeah. They’re on my island.”
“Bring them.”
“...What?”
Maybe that was why.
I had no resistance at all to robbing her.
“Bring everything. All your Star Runes. Send people. Then I’ll spare you. I won’t even take your items.”
“.......”
It’s a game anyway, right?
‘Yeah.’
All of a sudden, my head cleared.
If everyone here treated End Ocean like a game anyway, then why would I have any reason not to kill them all and take everything?
‘Why was I trying to respect these people as people?’
Who respects others as persons in a game?
‘Ah.’
The problem was the Overworld.
Because I’d dealt with so many living, breathing people in Hiaca Academy for so long, my gamer mindset had dulled.
There was no need for that.