Itai no Wa 201
Defense Specialization and Poltergeist
Maple comes out of the mansion, looking back at it as she walks away from it.
“Doesn’t look like anything bad happened… Whew… Ah! I didn’t find the skills I wanted after all.”
Maple had been looking for the skills ‘Iron Body’ and ‘Heavy Body’, which she had heard from Mi, but she couldn’t find them inside that mansion.
“But come to think of it, it looks like I did bring something with me… Hmm, where did I put that…? Ah, here it is!”
Maple searches her inventory and takes out what she has managed to obtain inside the mansion.
It is the green clothes worn by one of the twins.
“’Ghost Girl’s Clothes’? Oh, it’s a piece of equipment. Ah, and it has a skill.”
Maple notices that the clothes come with a skill and confirms its effects.
‘Ghost Girl’s Clothes’
‘MP +30’
‘Poltergeist’
Costs 10 MP to cast. A magical skill that allows the caster to manipulate objects at will.
It allows for control over up to 10 large objects simultaneously.
The effect lasts for 5 minutes.
However, it can only be used to control objects owned by the caster.
“I don’t have that much MP so I won’t be using this skill too often. But these clothes look good!”
Maple changes into the ‘Ghost Girl’s Clothes’.
Her equipment changes into green western-styled clothes, complete with frills and ribbons that sway gently.
Then she summons Syrup, and brings it up close to her face.
“Hehe, it’s the same color as Syrup.”
Maple smiles at Syrup.
Though it doesn’t go well with Maple performance-wise, she seems delighted with the new equipment.
“Ah, this one looks good on me!”
Maple decides not to give this to Sally, and to use it herself instead.
“Hmm, after unequipping the shield… there!”
To replace her unequipped shield, she equips a silver diadem.
That diadem, which she obtained after the fight against Pain in the jungle, increases her maximum MP by 50 percent.
“Ah, this feels nice! Now I can fight with equipment that is the same color as Syrup!”
Maple begins to think about what kind of battles could she have now.
Even though Maple now looks like a poorly equipped young girl, her defense is still the best.
When it comes to how to attack, Maple’s style never changes.
“Hmm… Fighting together with Syrup… Hmm…”
Maple had been worried about how to fight, but soon remembers that her equipping her new clothes allow her to use the skill ‘Poltergeist’.
“Ah! Can I use ‘Hydra’ and such skills with these on?”
Maple uses ‘Hydra’ and then activates ‘Poltergeist’, and the poisonous lump is surrounded by a blue light and stops in midair.
“Ah! Umm, so, how do I make it move again?”
When Maple swings her hand down, the poison dragon quickly accelerates downwards, hits the ground, and bounces off.
“Waah! It looks a bit difficult to use it well…”
Maple jumps backwards in her surprise.
After some consideration, Maple believes that she will not be able to use that combination too often, so she tries ‘Deploy all Weapons’ instead of ‘Hydra’.
“Let’s practice with this.”
Maple practices the skill, but she is only able to operate two objects that were stopped by it at the same time.
The skill allows for manipulation of up to ten large objects, but it seems that the day when Maple will be able to use this skill perfectly is still far off.
“It’s easy to manipulate them by moving my hand, but still… Okay, I should set some time aside to practice this some more.”
Maple continues her training while sitting on top of Syrup, which has been enlarged into a gigantic version of itself.
She manipulates a bullet to make it hit a distant monster, but that doesn’t take her too much effort nor it does too much damage after all.
Maple continues to practice in order to temper her skill while drinking MP potions one after another.
Maple is practicing at the edge of the field, but that doesn’t mean that other players will not appear there.
Thus, Chrome and Kasumi show up in the area.
Currently, neither Sally nor Yui nor Mai are in the 6th Layer, so the members that are on the move are biased.
“Is that Maple?”
Kasumi asks that question as she tries to focus her view to make sure.
“Yeah, looks like her. Look, there are weapons sprouting from her back, and Syrup is there.”
There’s no doubt that there are no two such players.
As Chrome and Kasumi try to approach Maple, trying to call out to her, the weapons on Maple’s back fire off four pale-blue lasers into the sky.
Had it ended there, it would have been the same scene they had seen before, but these lasers are staying in place without disappearing.
And then, the lasers start swinging around one after another as if they were swords.
“…”
The two of them stop in their tracks and look at each other.
“I’ll go ask her. Are you coming too, Kasumi?”
“Oh well, I guess I’ll go too. But what was that?”
They begin to walk towards Maple as if they were getting ready to fight a Boss.