ShangriLa Frontier ~ Shitty Games Hunter Challenges Godly Game ~

「Severe lack of firepower, I daresay.」

Emul told me something like that while we were sitting in the amphitheater’s waiting room after my sixth respawn.

I had no idea that the very first training session would be so brutal. After a few tries I managed to figure out their attack patterns and I had a general strategy. The problem is, I lacked the strength and HP to actually carry it out to the end.

Anyways, it seems that my DPS is severely lacking for me to hope to take on the doggies there…… Majestic Hounds. Most probably they were one monster, but had separate HP bars for every smaller beast in the pack. In other words, it was just like a boss monster, with a separate HP bar for every phase.

「I know the trick of taking them down, but if I don’t shorten the time necessary to take them down, it won’t do me any good.」

If I manage to get that problem out of the way, I can succeed in defeating them.

Even if I was able to constantly attack the Hounds with critical hits, hitting them so many times sure was becoming a nuisance. However, since their numbers were so great, I also needed to maintain vigilance at all times, which was mentally taxing as well.

「Is that so?」

「For the time being I might focus on improving my skills a little bit, so let’s go and earn some EXP for ourselves.」

「He?」

We ate a meal and then set out to earn some EXP. I mean, I was the only one who ate something while Emul waited for me, but still. Just you wait, little doggies! I will defeat you without fail one of these days…… Probably.

「There it is, level up.」

「Hey, wasn’t that a really close call right about now!?」

In about five minutes I managed to level up and allocate my stats accordingly. During this quest, or more specifically inside this arena, there was no penalty for dying, so you could die over and over again while leveling up without having to worry too much about anything.

However, even though I had that accessory of mine, the other training monsters in this arena were surprisingly weak, and so the EXP they were giving me was also weak as well. Now that was a bummer.

The points that I managed to amass went all into Stamina and Dexterity, about 5 points each. I left strength alone for now.

「And two points left to use as I see fit, just in case of emergency……」

Right about now my DPS should be increased by some amount, which means that I’ll be able to decrease my time needed to kill the Hounds.

「…… Right! That should do it! Watch me now, Emul! I am going to defeat that oversized puppy with ease now!」

「Wow, do your best out there!」

Even if you fail a couple of times while doing something, once you start telling people what you are about to do you will automatically feel better. I flash Emul a peace sign and step onto the arena again.

「Watch me, world! This is for all of your victims up to this point! Your going down, doggo!」

I knew that those words wouldn’t provoke the Hounds or achieve anything. It’s just that…… I wanted to give myself a slight boost in confidence.

「I’ll show you the results of my training!」

Thanks to my trial and error before I arrived at a certain conclusion.

This monster is not all that hard as a singular unit. The problem was their numbers and that they like to attack in groups. But because it was only an AI, I was able to learn its patterns and see that there were only a handful of tactics it was employing.

「You act tough, but let’s see how will you do after I take your commander out……」

The key to overcoming the adversity known as the Majestic Hounds was that the commander was always hiding somewhere amidst the pack, but instead of barking and looking menacing it wasn’t doing all that much.

My assumption must have been largely correct because once I started going after the commander, the other dogs rushed towards me with even greater ferocity than ever before. However, their movements were predictable and I was able to avoid them quite easily.

As a result, the hounds that tried to jump at me only came crashing into one another, falling to the ground, stunned for a second or two.

Thanks to my stats increasing, I was able to land even more critical hits and dish out way more damage with them. The process was still slow, but at the very least we were getting somewhere.

「What’s wrong? Can’t think on your own when the one in charge is currently occupied!?」

The sarcasm may have been a bit unnecessary right there, but at the very least it was making me feel better. And it was right on the money, for when the commander finally fell down, the Hounds’ formation broke down and picking them off one by one was easy. At least way easier than avoiding the attacks of a high-level player would be.

「Eat this! ORA~!!! (Note: Is that a……!? Everyone else: Not everything is a Jojo reference!)」

As the last Hound explodes in a fountain of polygons, I let out a victory cry and I am filled with a huge sense of accomplishment.

Even though their strength was not so great, they still managed to put up quite a fight, since they were approximately forty levels above my own. Thanks to the AI for that victory, because if they were smarter about doing things, I would probably end up as dead meat yet again.

At times like this I was pretty envious of those players that dumped all of their stats into Strength and were hitting like a truck as a result.

「Congratulations, Sanraku-san! Splendid work, indeed.」

「Oh, yeah, right. You know, how about next time you throw a single monster at me, huh?」

While I was saying that, I could literally feel all of the tension wash away from my body.

「You want another fight so soon? Right this way, please.」

「Hee? Wait, what the hell are you……?」

Next in line was a bear….. with lots of meaty limbs covering its body and tentacles sprouting from inside of its mouth. It was a Parasite Tentacle.

「Isn’t that model a little bit too much of an overkill!?」

I don’t know what the hell is its main body, but you can be sure that this thing is going down as well!