The Golden Experience Point [Part 1]

Chapter 49: "Exhibition"

Apparently that Wayne guy was also doing the event. Rare was surprised when he suddenly called her by name. She'd have liked to have responded to him, but since her voice sounded completely different from Kerry's, it would be annoying if he were to become suspicious of her. Thus, she whispered a spell keyword as quietly as possible in order to indiscriminately kill all the players around her.

Rare's [Thunderstorm] caused massive casualties; all the tanks in the front lines were wiped out. The ones positioned a bit behind them had shields and thick armor, but all of it was leather and none wore a metal chest protector, so they barely made it out alive. Lightning-based magic attacks were extra effective against metal armor, after all.

Due to the difference in health, Wayne and other light-armored warrior players all died and were sent back. Since their playstyles focused on evasion, they had high AGI, but few of them put any XP into VIT. Normally they could dodge this type of magic, but the speed that lightning magic activated and traveled was the highest of all elements of magic. Its AOE spells had especially narrow zones of effect compared to other elements, but against players of this level, it was still wide enough to be unavoidable.

The only players left were the leather-wearing tanks right in front of her as well as the ranged classes who were outside her spell's AOE. Rare had forced a reprieve in casting her spell, but soon the rain of arrows and magic would resume. She could drop another AOE spell on all the ranged, but if she just shot them out one after another before her cooldowns finished, she'd be slowly running down her options, especially since high-rank spells had long cooldowns. It would take more time, but she should use her sword to take the rest out.

As she slaughtered each leather tank in a flash, Rare made her way toward those in the rear. The one walking was Yoroizaka, but the sword being waved around was Kenzaki Ichirou moving himself. It was a test to see if Yoroizaka could sync with the Kenzakis' movements. Right now, there didn't appear to be any delays at all. They had superb coordination.

Having swept away all the leather tanks, Yoroizaka pulled Saburou out with her left hand. With the two Kenzakis held loosely in her hands, she used [Flash Step] to close in on a nearby mage. Shocked, he could only stare blankly as his head was lopped off. The other people around him didn't even start to move until they saw the blood begin spraying from the disappearing corpse, but everyone had been clumped up in the rear. She could see them hesitate to shoot anything that could accidentally hit an ally. Such an illogical conundrum.

Even if they had teamed up to bring down Rare, this was still a battle royale. Other players were still enemies. That meant it was perfectly fine to just blow everyone else away with your attacks. If that took out Rare, then good; if not, then if any other players died from collateral damage, then they'd still earn some kind of points. It was a choice with absolutely no downside. Rare could not understand why no one else could reach that conclusion. Actually, if Rare were in their shoes, facing an enemy that didn't seem to take any damage from her magic, she would have opted to off all the weaker players under the guise of accidental friendly fire. That would have been the most profitable course of action.

That said, if anyone tried that now, the current Rare wouldn't be so appreciative. Since the XP she could have gotten from killing players would decrease.

Therefore, before anyone else opted for that tactic, she'd just have to take out all the players first.

She went around killing every player she found with liberal use of [Spinning Slice], [Slash], [Flash Step], and [Throw]. The Kenzakis she [Threw] killed as many additional players as they could without arousing suspicion, then stabbed themselves into the ground. Having thrown one sword, Yoroizaka grabbed Shirou from her back and Jirou from her waist, then fought her way over to the thrown Kenzakis using a mix of normal attacks and skills. She used [Throw] with one of the Kenzakis in her hand, then recovered one in the ground with her now-free hand.

The remaining players finally decided to bite the bullet and just attack without regard for any other player's safety, but by then those still alive were too scattered anyway.

"[Flare Arrow]."

Rare hated being canceled out, so she only used magic on players holding bows, then threw projectiles at mage players, steadily taking them out one by one.

There was a combat effect when two offensive spells collided called "canceling." If they were the same element and about the same power, it would create an explosion and both spells would be destroyed. If they were instead, for example, fire and ice spells, elemental combinations like that would cause their offensive values to partially cancel out, reducing the strength of both spells. When a difference in INT resulted in a large difference in firepower, or when they were different skill ranks in the same tree, the weaker spell would be completely canceled out while the stronger one would be weakened when they collided, and the now-weaker spell would continue on to its original target.

When one person is singled out and focused down during a contest of magic, collisions and cancellations happen often. Concerning the current situation, that meant that Rare's firepower could easily be mitigated; whenever she wanted to cast magic, she had to carefully examine the MP costs to be paid and the risks incurred from cooldown timers. However, the players surrounding Rare had regained their cool by now, so even if she were to fire at an archer, the many mages behind them could repeatedly shoot their own magic to completely cancel out Rare's spell.

At the same time, there was a player here who was capable of altering the trajectory of the Kenzakis she threw using arrows. This was a big surprise to Rare. There was in fact a skill that could accomplish that, but considering the Kenzakis could move under their own power, hitting them such that they couldn't evade took considerable real-world talent.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rare saw a familiar nurse outfit. She reflexively unleashed a spell.

"[Hellflame]."

Her magic disintegrated all the players to her left, where she had noticed the nurse outfit. The surviving players all froze, pausing their attacks; the power of that AOE spell could not be mitigated at all using cancellation. Even though they were concentrating all their fire on Rare, their chances had only been 50:50 at best. With half their number lost in a single breath, it would be easy for Rare to clean up the remaining shell-shocked survivors.

The anti-Rare alliance had been thoroughly decimated, and they were unable to continue cooperating. The battle royale ended soon after.

Apparently, every other participant in the exhibition match had been solely targeting Rare.

This was how the curtain fell on the first official server-wide event. In the end, no one found out what kind of event the administrators had originally planned to hold.