Worthless Skill Escape (WN)

Chapter 103

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TL: ALT

Chapter 103 – Give Me Back My Fragment!

The emerald light exploded in countless small bursts, eating away at the emptiness around it.

The slash lines carved by the Kusanagi Sword had already lost their emerald color.

What was there was nothing but an empty space.

It is no longer a mysterious space where there is neither ‘there’ nor ‘not there.

There is a space that simply does not exist, but it certainly exists.

It looks like a starless space, but it is no longer possible for anything to slip through one’s perception.

“Oh… look, Yuto! The ‘fibers’ of Splefnir are perishing!”

Kudave pointed at the surroundings with the tip of his wing.

The space that became part of this world through my attack is spreading out like a disk to cover the ‘hole.’

It’s as if the hole has been sealed with an invisible lid.

As a result, many of Splefnir’s fibers lost their connection to the hole.

The pieces of fiber torn off at the root float in space without any force.

Even though they are pieces, each of them is slightly larger than Kudave.

The pieces, having lost their power supply, disappear like fraying threads.

As Kudave had told me, it seems that the fibers cannot move independently from the main body of Splefnir, which is in the other world.

“Is it over…?”

“Kuhahahaha! That’s a big win for us!”

“Whoa, don’t get so excited… or I’ll fall!”

“We gave the insolent Splefnir a good beating! I’ve never had so much fun in my life!”

Kudave was so excited.

When I saw that, it clicked for me.

…He used the metaphor of the meteorite and the ocean, but maybe that one was better?

I guess he really had the odds stacked against him, didn’t he?

Well, let’s not mention it.

After all, he did his best.

“What happened to the dungeon?”

Looking up, the bottom of the dungeon is still black.

I don’t feel as much pressure as before, but it’s still not at the level of an A-rank dungeon.

“When the hole was made in the world, most of the energy from the collapse must have gone into the narrow space between the worlds. Now that the hole has been closed, there is no power left to swallow the earth.”

As if to overshadow Kudave’s words, a Voice of Heaven was heard.

‘Due to the intervention of a brave explorer, the collapse of the Okutama Lake Dungeon has been prevented…!’

This time, the Voice of Heaven echoed.

It was…

It echoed for about ten seconds.

‘All emergency evacuation notices due to the collapse of Okutama Lake Dungeon are hereby cancelled.’

“…It seems like things have worked out somehow.”

I collapsed onto Kudave’s head.

No matter how much stamina an explorer has to explore a dungeon, today was a really hard day’s work.

The Kururi Castle Dungeon, the initial battle against Clovis at the Tengumine Shrine, the crossing of the Okutama Lake Dungeon, the battle to get Haruka-san back from Clovis, entering the collapsed Okutama Lake Dungeon, and preventing Splefnir from invading.

It is such a boss rush that it makes soloing an A-rank dungeon look like a blur.

…Soloing an A-rank dungeon, however, should be difficult even for an S-rank explorer.

…Now, after the hard work comes the fun.

What will it be like this time?

Even if I acquire too many skills, my status will be too chaotic, and I won’t be able to use them all! …Well.

Let’s see! The first one I was expecting!

‘Confirmation of the fulfilment of the special condition. You have obtained the Dungeon Creation skill.’

Congratulations !!! ────────────

Special Condition Achieved: Prevent the dungeon from collapsing.

Reward: Dungeon Creation Skill

────────────────────

Skill──────────────────

Dungeon Creation 1

Create a dungeon. Requires void to create. The size of the dungeon you can create depends on your skill level and the amount of void you use.

────────────────────

“Whoa!”

I was surprised to see the skill I had received.

No, I expected that there would be special conditions to prevent the dungeon from collapsing.

But I didn’t think I’d get a skill that would allow me to create a dungeon.

The fact that it requires a void to use it is tricky though.

I wasted a lot of time reading the description because the void intruded into the text.

“Okay, bonus time from here.”

When I contained the tide in the Hikarigaoka Park Dungeon before, there was no bonus for going through the dungeon, right?

When a flood occurs, the rank of the dungeon is temporarily increased, but the temporarily increased rank does not fulfil the special condition of “completing a dungeon of rank X or higher.”

The Okutama Lake Dungeon was originally an A-rank dungeon. Since I had already completed the Kururi Castle Dungeon, which was also A-ranked, there should be no special conditions related to dungeon rank this time.

I didn’t go through the Okutama Lake Dungeon in the first place.

The original Okutama Lake Dungeon boss, Mizuchi, was defeated by Clovis and used for ritual magic.

Maybe there was a boss in the post-collapse dungeon, but I went through it and filled in the holes in the dungeon.

Rather than conquering the dungeon, it would be more accurate to say that I destroyed it by force.

I shouldn’t get the usual breakthrough bonuses for doing this.

…However, I managed to get the situation under control.

It looks like I can meet the other requirements, doesn’t it?

I waited for the Voice of Heaven to continue, feeling hopeful.

But…

‘A serious error has occurred in the skill system.’

The Voice of Heaven told me something I wasn’t expecting.

“Huh?”

‘Identifying problems with the skill system…’

‘The cause of the error has been identified. It was determined to be a partial crash of the skill system due to unexpectedly excessive duplicate use of the Skill Burst skill.’

‘We are looking into ways to fix the error…’

After saying this, the Voice of Heaven is silent for a moment.

…I have a bad feeling about something.

After a few seconds or so,

‘In order to preserve the skill system, Skill Burst will be removed from the skill library.’

The Voice of Heaven suddenly said something like this.

“Huh, wait a minute!”

You want to erase Skill Burst!

Is that even possible?

It’s the core of the most powerful combo I’ve achieved after a lot of hard work!

Of course, the Voice of Heaven doesn’t care about my reaction.

‘Searching for the owner of the Skill Burst…’

‘There is only one owner of Skill Burst in the entire world.’

‘The effect of removing the skill is considered limited. Activate the skill deletion sequence.’

“Oh, no! Just because there are a limited number of owners, you can’t just go ahead and…”

I raise my voice in protest.

Because, you know.

Skill Burst was originally a skill I got as a bonus for a special condition.

I also used a Philosopher’s Stone Fragment to remove the disadvantage.

The result of using that skill to solve the world crisis is “Your skill is too strong, so I’m going to remove it.”

If this were an online game, there would be a huge uproar.

However, my protests may not have fallen on deaf ears,

‘Calculating the loss of income that the owner of the Skill Burst skill would suffer as a result of its removal…’

And then the Voice of Heaven is silent again.

‘Calculation completed. In order to compensate for the loss of income due to the deletion of the skill, we will present the owner with compensation options based on the calculated loss of income.’

‘Due to the system-caused deletion of Skill Burst, you, the owner of said skill, are now eligible to receive one of the following compensation options.’

‘① Compensation in the form of experience. You will receive 30,450,973,441 experience.’

‘② Compensation based on SP. You will receive 80,443,251 SP.’

“…You mean the apology fee.”

They don’t say anything irresponsible like deleting the skills and not knowing the rest.

Of course, the answer is obvious.

“Give me SP.”

‘As compensation for deleting your skills, you have received 80,443,251 SP.’

When I checked my status, it was true that my SP had increased like crazy.

And the Skill Burst skill is gone.

The skill column looks a little sad (in my opinion) because the other skills lost in the burst are no longer displayed.

After all that, 80 million SP is really not worth it.

The used fragment will not come back…

…I wonder when I will get the next fragment.

If things go badly, I’ll have to wait until I complete the S-rank dungeon for the first time.

However, it is believed that no explorer has ever cleared an S-rank dungeon completely.

The term “S-rank explorer” is currently used ambiguously, ranging from “an explorer who attempts an S-rank dungeon” to “an explorer who has defeated the middle boss of an S-rank dungeon.”

If it were an A-rank (or lower) explorer, there would be no other meaning than “an explorer who has completed an A-rank (or lower) dungeon.”

It means that there is not a single “S-rank” explorer in the world who has fully cleared an S-rank dungeon.

“Between the fragment and the 80 million SP, the fragment was more valuable…”

But still, well, I’m grateful.

It’s enough change to regain the skills I once lost.

“Well, I can’t deny that it’s a broken skill…”

If you use a low-cost skill with Skill Burst every time you use it, the effect of the skill is practically 100 times more effective every time you use it, just by using SP.

If you add Trump Card, you can get 200 times… or even 250 times if you increase Trump Card to 5.

For example, the total number of SP required to increase the Sword Technique to 5 with an acquisition SP of 100 is 34,100.

Assuming that I, a level 1 user, will be fighting high-level monsters in the future, I can easily earn this amount of SP by making up the level difference.

When multiple skills are stacked in a skill combo, the effect of Skill Burst increases proportionally.

Considering its usefulness, the 80 million SP given as compensation seems like an underestimate, right?

…Well, I’m (probably) the only person in the world who gets a lot of SP at level 1 with superiority compensation.

If it were an ordinary explorer, 80 million SP would be more than enough compensation.

Even if an ordinary explorer could get Skill Burst, it is unlikely that he would have a chance to use it.

The problem is that I am not an ordinary explorer.

“I don’t understand why they would remove it, because the system would crash due to inflation…”

As for using Skill Burst, normally you’d be forced to pick a skill and use it in a pinch.

You can’t get back skills that have been subject to Skill Burst, you know.

So, using a Philosopher’s Stone Fragment for Skill Burst was not part of the system’s plan?

No, but I wish they would have included it in the skill set.

Wasn’t the Voice of Heaven all-knowing and omnipotent?

But the sad news for me continues.

‘In order to prevent a recurrence of system crashes, we will limit the use of backdoor duplicate skills by exploiting system vulnerabilities.’

“Eh, that can’t be right…”

‘Search for the use of the backdoor exploit “S474-A92Z”…’

‘The name “Skill Combo” will be used to refer to this technique, based on the name given to it by habitual users of “S474-A92Z.”‘

“…That’s definitely me, right!”

What a habitual user.

Don’t talk to me like I’m a cheater.

‘Searching for users of the “Skill Combo” backdoor trick…’

‘There are 791 users of “Skill Combo” worldwide.’

“…I see there’s a few of them out there.”

Well, it’s not that hard to find.

Generally speaking, it is considered a waste of SP to take multiple skills with overlapping effects.

However, there are probably examples of people who took both Sword Technique and Swordsmanship without knowing it, and when they tried to use them all at once, they accidentally got it to work…

However, it is not so easy to continue allocating SP to two (or more) skills after that.

I think there is no such thing as Sword Technique 5 and Swordsmanship 5, but rather Sword Technique 4 and Swordsmanship 1, and they are used as support skills.

‘We are considering countermeasures against backdoor Skill Combo…’

‘Banning Skill Combo outright has the negative effect of discouraging creativity and ingenuity on the part of the explorer. As a next best measure, we will place a cap on Skill Combo.’

‘The maximum number of skills that can be duplicated using the Skill Combo trick is two.’

‘This does not include pre-buffing effects or skills that have additional effects after the fact.’

“Ah, I see… combos like Sword Technique and Swordsmanship can be stacked up to two. But you’re saying that pre-buffing with Body Strengthening Magic or additional effect skills like Plunder or Knockout don’t count as a combo?”

Still, this is a pretty significant nerf to me.

And it’s terrible that most of these nerfs are aimed at me.

If this were a game, I would have snapped at the admin and quit.

But the way things have been going,

‘Looking for explorers who are losing profits due to backdoor skill combo countermeasures…’

“Well, there’s always a workaround.”

SP again?

But no amount of SP can counter the effects of the Skill Combo rules.

That means you can only synergize up to two skills at a time, no matter how many skills you have.

I thought it was bonus time, but when I opened the lid, I didn’t expect it to be debuff time.

And it’s almost all on me.

It’s just too much, isn’t it?

I feel like I’m going through a bitter phase, and I’m aware that I’m keeping a straight face.

‘The number of explorers worldwide who will suffer a loss of income as a result of the countermeasures against the backdoor skill combo is 23.’

“Wow, I didn’t know there were other people besides me using the skill combo.”

The Voice of Heaven’s counter to the backdoor trick is “Limit skill combos to two stages.”

The 23 explorers who lost to this counter probably meant that they were using three or more skill combos stacked on top of each other.

This could have been an advantage for some people.

Not only did they lose that trump card, but that Voice of Heaven also revealed the existence of the skill combo.

The range of the Voice of Heaven changes depending on the content, but I wonder how far it will go this time.

‘The explorers who have lost income due to the countermeasures against the backdoor trick will be given a new skill, Skill Combo. The initial skill level of Skill Combo will be determined based on the amount of income lost.’

After this announcement,

‘You have been given the skill Skill Combo 5.’

This is a voice that only I can hear.

I immediately opened the DGP,

Skill──────────────────

Skill Combo 5

Increases the number of overlapping physical attack skills by S.Lv. However, the effect of the stacked skills will be less than the original effect. When n skills are stacked, the effect of each skill is multiplied by 1/2 (n-1) in order of activation.

When Skill Combo is not used, the number of overlapping physical attack skills is 2.

────────────────────

…That was it.

“Is it a sign of mercy that the skill level is 5, to begin with?”

With the normal number of overlapping skills of 2 + 5, that means my skill combo limit is 7.

I could add a Trump Card to that Skill Combo to increase it, but at 7+ it would be hard just to find candidates for skills to overlap.

So, the number limit did not affect me as much as I thought it would.

However,

“…The dampening effect is too much of a pain.”

Let’s say you have seven overlapping skills in a Skill Combo.

The second skill is 1/2, the third is 1/4, the fourth is 1/8, the fifth is 1/16, the sixth is 1/32, and the seventh is actually reduced to 1/64.

For example, suppose the seventh skill is All-Out Strike 5.

The effect is “the power of the next physical attack is increased by (S.Lv x 20)%”, so previously the attack power would have been +100% at skill level 5.

So, the power of the combo could be doubled up to the sixth level.

However, due to the change in specifications, the effect is now only +1.5% or 1/64th of +100%.

The attack that would have doubled before is now only 1.015 times more effective.

The same applies to all skills before the sixth.

The reduction in the overall power of the skill combo is devastating.

It’s also painful that the Skill Combo phenomenon is now known as “Heaven forbid.”

Even without the Skill Combo skill, anyone can perform a two-step combo like Sword Technique and Swordsmanship with practice.

The effect of the skill added later is halved, but it is still a useful little skill.

The number of users will certainly increase.

The fact that skill combos are now official “skills” will also make them less rare.

I think my strength lies in my ability to kill with high power by combining a variety of skills.

I waited for a while, but the Voice of Heaven didn’t continue.

“Seriously… is this the end?”

This bonus time is disastrous.

No, can I call this bonus time?

Yes, the first Dungeon Creation was a powerful skill.

But Dungeon Creation requires a void, and it is not a skill that can be used at any time.

I mean, it’s a skill that seems to have such limited use that I wonder if there will ever be a chance to use it in the future.

The Skill Combo skill is nothing more than a cap on what I could have taken for granted in the past.

It sounds nice to say you’ve gained a skill, but in reality, you’ve weakened it.

The 80 million SP I received as compensation for the disappearance of Skill Burst is only enough for me to earn if I take my time.

In addition, by weakening skill combos, there is less incentive to regain skills lost to Skill Burst.

Any skill that burst was a skill that would only live if it was used in a skill combo.

When the power of a skill combo is weakened, there is little point in trying to reacquire a skill like Knife Throwing.

Skill synergy―the technique of layering magic with buffs and other skills―was left unaddressed, but skill combos, the foundation of weapon-based skill use, have become Skill Combos in disguise, and that hurts too much.

Can I use the fragment to remove the disadvantages of Skill Combo?

But I don’t have any fragments right now.

And even if there were fragments, using them in Skill Combo would be a bit of a stretch.

It would be possible to remove the disadvantages of Skill Combo and recreate the Skill Combos of the past.

But then the system might crash again.

If that happens… will the Skill Combo be deleted this time?

I used the fragment on Skill Burst, but it didn’t come back.

I would like to avoid wasting the fragment in the same pattern.

“…This is unexpected.”

I couldn’t help but mutter with a grim look on my face.