Is It Bad That the Main Character’s a Roleplayer? [Novel] Chapter 169

Chapter 169: Next Time (2)

How many times had I leapt from one vine to another while watching the situation, making sure I did not get caught between them?

Biryuho seemed unable to move while using his power, so I considered taking a shot at him. One look at how quickly the vines were growing made me abandon the idea.

If I launched myself into the air to cut him down, I might lose the platform I needed to return and plummet instead. For now, surviving among the purple tendrils springing up like bamboo shoots mattered more.

Crrrunch.

Fortunately, they did not seem destined to grow forever. The vines gradually began to slow.

Only then did I have enough breathing room to examine my surroundings.

I looked in every direction to see how far this wisteria-like plant had spread.

Thankfully, it had not pierced the cloud layer.

“…So it’s shorter than Jack’s beanstalk.”

Even so, it was tall enough to rival a respectable skyscraper. From experience, standing atop a building of more than a hundred stories felt about like this.

Did that mean these vines had grown to roughly five hundred meters? It was far better than the thousands of meters in the air I had endured last time.

Still nowhere near the ground, though.

Wondering when I would ever get to run a raid with solid earth under my feet, I looked down.

The distance was dizzying, and the mass of vines obscured most of what lay below, but I could at least tell that they had swallowed this entire stretch of forest.

Not bringing anyone else had been the right call.

Dev and the Young City Lord of Camborough had been retreating toward the rear, but they were presumably carrying the Young City Lord of Ednium between them. They were probably safe.

Whatever my level of concern, I had no way to check on them now.

If I had to choose people to worry about at this moment, it ought to be those who had been fighting beside me.

I had seen the Inquisitor take care of the Archmage, but I had lost sight of Berserker midway through the eruption and had not seen her since.

“Woooah! A really huge tree!”

Correction. Worrying about Berserker was idiotic.

“Thank you. Had you not been there, Inquisitor, this old man’s life would have ended today.”

“Please do not say such things. I merely did what was required.”

“More importantly, where are the others…?”

“Ah! I believe they are over there!”

That also told me where the Inquisitor and Archmage were.

I watched the pair alive and well on a vine five or six levels beneath me, then pulled free the sword I had driven into the stalk to anchor myself.

Crack!

The silver blade burst through the purple, wisteria-like bark.

“But where did the tiger go?”

“Berserker is over there as well. But Biryuho…”

“I cannot determine Biryuho’s location. Corruption is reverberating from every direction…”

Hard to say. He had started over there.

I lightly spun the longsword between my fingers, changing from a reverse grip to a conventional one.

*It’s coming.*

My instincts whispered.

My sword arm immediately turned, bringing the blade upright before my torso. I braced the middle of the blade against my right forearm.

BOOM!

A tremendous force crashed into the blade a moment later.

Had I not reinforced it with mana, the sword might have snapped. The impact was that powerful.

“Demon Knight!”

Whoosh.

Fortunately, the force only hurled me outward and did not pursue me to the end. The blow had sent me flying with such power that I was in no danger of simply dropping.

My body spun through the air, and I planted a foot against a stalk that grew perpendicular to my trajectory.

Tap.

With a light motion, I kicked my heavy body off it and shot back toward the one who had attacked me.

“Did you think an ambush would work?”

[I will make you regret not dying in a single blow…!]

CLANG!

My sword met Biryuho’s claws.

Maybe he had awakened from Biryuho into True Biryuho, because the force pushing back against me was much greater than before.

His other hand remained free, and he readily tried to rake it across me.

“There you are!”

Before his fingers could reach me, Berserker charged in.

She came from behind and to the side of Biryuho, on the opposite side from me, swinging her halberd in a huge arc.

I was within its range too, but it gave me a chance to evade Biryuho’s attack.

I retreated onto another stalk. Biryuho, meanwhile, leapt up and dug his claws into the vines overhead, hanging from them as though from a ceiling.

[Know your place and begone!]

Just before Berserker sprang up and cut him down in one stroke, Biryuho roared.

Something translucent surged from his body at the same time.

The effect looked like a spirit leaving its flesh, yet it apparently possessed physical force. The pale apparition rammed Berserker and threw her off balance.

Unable to accomplish what she had intended, Berserker fell back to a lower vine.

The pale spirit, now shaped like a tiger, fixed glowing eyes upon her.

Apparently this was some kind of clone pattern.

Thud-thud-thud!

[Kgh…!]

That suited me perfectly. We had never been specialists in coordinated combat. Eliminating enemies separately was our forte.

I confirmed that the mana spears I had fired while Biryuho created the clone had struck true. I had not known what he was doing at the time, but I had attacked first and worried about that later.

Then I prepared my second assault.

Sword aura sliced through the place Biryuho had occupied. The heavy stalk shifted aside with a crack, barely kept from collapsing by the vines tangled around it.

Crrrack!

“…!”

But that was not the real problem.

I frowned at the grass that suddenly sprouted from the surface of the vine. It had wound itself around my ankle.

And, naturally, Biryuho charged at precisely that moment.

“Demon Knight!”

“We are too far away to help…!”

I did not particularly need help.

I threw my longsword into the air and drew the zweihänder.

Did drawing it take too long to time properly? That was what the inventory was for.

I had a contact-based inventory as well as the bag-type one.

It consumed too much mana to use often, but once or twice would pose no problem.

I touched the zweihänder with my right hand and placed it in the inventory, then summoned it again into the left hand that had just released the longsword.

The zweihänder slammed straight into the stalk.

Ground Crash.

Mana burst in every direction, shattering the wisteria beneath my feet and driving Biryuho backward.

Rustle—

I leapt from the collapsing platform. Catching my falling longsword on the way restored everything to its original state.

Mindful of plants that might seize my feet, I raced along the vines.

Biryuho, who had been knocked away, transformed halfway into a beast and took off after me.

“Aaaagh! That’s not fair, Comrade! You get the fun opponent all to yourself!”

Perhaps the clone was luring her in the opposite direction. Whatever the reason, Berserker’s voice grew distant.

At least I no longer had to worry about friendly fire. Of course, the Inquisitor and Archmage were now too far away for me to expect their help either.

[GRRROAR!]

Biryuho swept out a hand. An enormous spectral tiger paw struck the spot where I had been.

Slice.

That single blow cut the stalk into four pieces. I raced over the airborne fragments and, as if returning the favor, sent several arcs of sword aura at him.

The bundle of vines, now chopped too finely for their tangled mass to support them, plunged toward the ground.

Tat-tat-tat.

It did not matter. Biryuho and I kept moving.

This forest of vines stretched far and wide, and there were ways to climb higher or descend lower.

Slash!

I cut away Biryuho’s next foothold, then climbed.

As if in retaliation, he severed the base of mine. Once the supporting section was gone, the vine hanging in midair naturally began to fall.

This felt different from fighting the sea dragon.

Both battles forced me to rely on thick, twisting, cylindrical platforms while accounting for the possibility of a fall, but that was where the similarities ended.

I made a great leap amid the violently bucking tendrils.

The two tails of my coat spread like a swallow’s, while a branch suddenly shot out as though to skewer me.

And behind me waited the open maw of Biryuho in beast form.

My body rotated as I cut through the wisteria. The moment my eyes met Biryuho’s in the middle of the turn, I thrust my sword forward and made him stare straight down its edge.

Bombard.

A line of mana pierced his throat.

As if he had decided that much pain was worth enduring, the fool kept coming.

Tap.

Would I have to dive into his mouth again?

Just as the thought crossed my mind, my foot finally reached the platform I had been trying to cross to.

BOOM!

With a foothold beneath me, there was nothing to fear.

I kicked hard enough to pulverize the stalk and launched myself forward like a bolt of light.

Once I activated Three Claws as well, three separate slashes tore toward the tiger.

[GRAAGH!]

So he could endure a puncture wound from Bombard, but not sword aura poised to quarter his face.

I watched Biryuho return to human form and caught hold of another vine.

Until now, injuries sustained in his bestial form had barely shown once he became human. This time, however, Biryuho covered his face with one hand.

Blood streamed through the gaps between his fingers.

Crack.

The black hole in the center of his chest had grown larger than before.

His murky red eyes glared as he ground his teeth, then released a shriek.

His hair bristled like a lion’s mane before lengthening like trails of silk, making him resemble a Jangsan Tiger.

Rustle.

What pattern was this now?

I saw the vine I was holding abruptly wither and hurriedly leapt away.

But the next one I landed on was in a similar state. More precisely, every stalk above a certain height was.

CRUNCH!

And that was not all. New vines grew, only to crumble again.

Creation and destruction, endlessly repeating.

*It would be easier if I could just burn all of it.*

No, this was ridiculous!

The flying creatures I had once used as platforms had moved unpredictably too, but at least they had not disintegrated the moment I stepped on them!

Worse, there was no consistent rule governing which vines appeared and which collapsed. Was it random? Were these gacha platforms?!

I gritted my teeth at the infuriating difficulty.

I briefly wondered how the others were faring, but the danger before me immediately drove that concern from my mind.

Biryuho alone enjoyed complete freedom over the platforms. He raced toward me like a wild dog.

I spun through the air.

Slash!

The vines might not favor me, but I had claws of my own.

I launched three crescents to keep Biryuho at bay, then stepped onto a platform that was already crumbling into fragments.

Survival Instinct? I had used it every time it came off cooldown.

I had never considered my spatial awareness poor, but I was not arrogant enough to trust it while splinters rained around me and withering vines were indistinguishable from growing ones.

Not when I was also fighting Biryuho.

「Poison: 7%」

A notification I had not seen in some time appeared to report the poison gauge.

The flowers blooming here and there seemed to be the cause. This thing really did have every trick imaginable.

I clenched my jaw and evaded a vine that grew after me like a tentacle. Then I chose the thickest of them as a path and ran.

It crumbled rapidly from each place my feet touched, but fortunately, I was faster.

[Die!]

I sprang from the vine and crossed claws with Biryuho.

Sparks scattered hundreds of meters above the ground. The mana spears I barely formed through my dizziness punched through parts of Biryuho’s body.

I had won the damage trade.

Unfortunately, I was now going to fall.

「Poison: 10%」

Flutter—

The wind battered my body, tossing my clothes and hair wildly.

Flowers in full bloom upon the purple wisteria scattered pale-red powder in every direction.

The scent was rich enough to make my head spin.

After several rotations to disperse the impact as best I could, my legs slammed into a thick stalk below with a boom.

Mana reinforcement kept my body from shattering, but the stalk sloped downward and sent me sliding along it.

What was this, snowboarding? Sawdust sprayed around me like snow.

Thud.

After sliding several dozen meters, I finally managed to cross onto another vine and began climbing again.

Biryuho simply made sound branches sprout beneath his own feet and raced toward me in perfect comfort.

[Human—!]

“Die, vermin.”

As I climbed and Biryuho plunged downward, we crossed for an instant and exchanged positions.

My zweihänder carved through his flank. Biryuho’s claws raked across my shoulder.

SPLASH.

Blood sprayed in every direction.