Chapter 157: Running In the Shadows, Climbing and Making Noise Part 1
Normally…… Once you discover the best pattern of acting in order to beat a specific monster or enemy, there’s no need to adjust that pattern further. You just have to act in such a way that “A leads to B and B leads to C” and so on and so forth. However…… I suspect that in this game a special kind of AI applies not only to Unique Monsters but also to normal ones as well. And the AI in this game can actually learn your action patterns and adjust itself to it accordingly.
This gives birth to a particular question. I once tried to escape to another dimension on certain Crystal Cliffs just to be met with a swift response from the developers, who fixed the monster AI to respond accordingly to such attempts at cheating. Because of that, if it wasn’t for Alva’s intervention just there, I would have been turned into minced meat once more, this time by Atlantic Reaperorca.
Having that in mind: at what principle are these monsters able to respond to my actions? Especially since my methods are not your typical and ordinary kind, and demanded developer’s intervention. I think that managing to figure that one out is going to be the key to succeed here, and it will be like pouring tabasco sauce on the developer’s wounds.
Taking my previous experiences with “aerial extermination” of Crystal Scorpions into consideration, what I did just now to that monster could be summarized as “I was chasing a delicious-looking fly and then it suddenly disappeared”. Normally what would follow would be that you’d survey the surroundings in search of said fly, thinking that maybe you might have just missed it. Then, upon confirming that this disappearance wasn’t normal, you’d come to a conclusion that you need to survey the area where it disappeared in closer detail. And then you’d keep watch on that point, hoping that the fly would eventually reappear there.
「So this means that as long as you confuse me with something else, the ambush animation won’t trigger, right……!?」
As it so happens, one of the skills in my possession allows me to do something like that no problem. Create a clone of myself that is identical to me in every aspect, just like the reflection of the moon on the surface of the water mirror. And even if its description was really fancy, the thing it did was to create a copy of myself that harnesses all aggro indefinitely for a short period of time. No monster would be able to tell the two images apart and would always be fooled one hundred percent.
Now all that is left is to act, and then I shall see if my theory turns out to be true or not. Will it target the decoy, or will it target the one who cast the decoy? Anyways, it was a shame that I would be in it all alone, but if Alva got killed because of me and couldn’t respawn, then that would make me feel really uneasy.
「Naaagh! Gotta move! No matter what happens! If I don’t move, nothing will go forward! “Transition: INVENTORY Entrance”!」
I moved into INVENTORY again, this time using it as a temporary shelter rather than a warehouse. Then I started to count on the spot. I needed to count the amount of seconds that my decoy would stay active, plus add about ten or so seconds to it just to be on the safe side. After that, Alva will need to put in some effort as to not get himself killed while I’m gone.
If my theory was correct, once I disappeared the aggro of the monster should be shifted towards Alva. I just needed to wait and see how it was upon reappearing into the underwater city again.
「Three…… Two…… One…… Please, go target Alva…… “Transition: Real World”!!」
I could feel gravity starting to work on me again. Ready to face my imminent death I was thrown into the air…… And then I saw something about a hundred meters away from me, swimming around frantically.
「Oh yeah! Bingo! Suck on that devs! You can fix this sh*t however the hell you want, just fuck right off for the next seven days!」
I activate a skill and do a flip in the air to reduce the impact of my fall and the damage I would receive from the fall. The monster must have gone on quite the rampage while I was gone, for the damage to the surrounding area was quite severe.
My parkour skills are rather weak and consist of the videos that I watched online occasionally, when it comes to virtual reality…… I could recreate those moves to some extent as long as my avatar wouldn’t bail on me.
Actually, I’m sure that my moves are not the exact copy of the moves I saw in the videos, but as long as the results were roughly the same I had no complaints.
I step on the wall, kick myself towards the roof, roll in mid-air and run alongside the roof’s edge. When I get close enough I need to signal Alva to retreat back to safety. After that it will just require me to get the monster’s attention and aim it where I want it to go.
As gravity tries to pull me down, I kick off the wall again, grab the edge of the roof and climb it. But instead of jumping straight ahead, I jump sideways, towards the cracked wall of another house and use it as a foothold, then I roll forward and jump off the roof towards another building with a cracked roof, one story shorter than the current house I’m on.