Day 24 – Evening, The Cave An endless exchange of blows, an unending flurry of attacks. Geniuses exist. Regardless of his personality or character, ability-wise he is a genius. Efforts and experience also don’t matter, simply a genius. This Yamada-kun here is a math genius. But he doesn’t just calculate, he computes stuff all inside his brain. He tried to hide it, and pass as an ordinary person, but it was obvious. He is probably troubled right now. Things aren’t going the way he calculated. And even after repeated calculations, even with added probabilities, it still misses the mark. It’s useless. That’s because my luck is at Max, breaking the limit. Even if the chance to survive is lower than 1%, I will be able to survive even if we repeat this a million times, as long as it stays lower than 1%, without actually becoming zero. That’s because I’m outright defying the probability theory. A mere chance is not enough to kill me. We are already in combat, though for him we are STILL in combat. He was supposed to kill me numerous times already, but the fight is not over yet. And I have no intention of ending it. I indiscriminately strike down the endless slashes coming at me. Yeah, he is pretty confused. He can’t accept it, he must’ve calculated it perfectly, yet I’m alive. And I’m intending to stay that way until he uses up all of the accumulated skills.
「You can use a lot of skills, must have killed so many for them.」 It’s a simple short to mid-range fight, I’m not using any magic, since it wouldn’t work anyway. Anyway, I just have to bait the skills out of him, I just have to stay alive until I get everything out of him. 「Haruka-kun? Why won’t you die?」 「No, I have no interest in suicide? And I also don’t want to get killed? Kind of?」 He seems to be quite displeased, quite annoyed. That might be calcium deficiency, he should eat more fish. He probably killed me more than a hundred times. In his calculations that is. 「Just what did you do?」 As the endless exchange of countless blows continues, each time I block an attack, each time I dodge an attack, he becomes more and more emotional. 「What would you like to hear? Yamada-kun?」 「No matter how much stronger you get, you shouldn’t be able to resist this at level 11.」
I see. He probably calculated that I should have died many times over. Dozens of times. In terms of both math and probability, this is impossible, but as long as chances are not literally zero, I still can go on. 「As expected of Math Genius-san. Did you calculate the probability while we are fighting?」 Oops, I disperse the magic with a sweep of my Staff?, and dodge the incoming attack. You won’t be able to kill me by holding back? Why won’t you press harder? 「In the first place, how can you even move? Why can you still attack? Why can you see me?」 Oh my, after putting up a facade of normality for so long, he is showing quite a lot of his real self. 「What? Do you mean your『Meddle』and『Mimic』?」 「How do you know that?! You shouldn’t be able to appraise me! How……?」 Of course, I didn’t appraise him and saw nothing. I just thought that he must have those skills. The very moment I saw them on the blackboard in the white room. 「The Mimic version of Plunder seems to be quite inferior. 」
「Even an inferior version of Instant Death should be enough to take care of Lv 11! Why!」 Yeah, the problem with the level wall is that I can’t resist abnormal status effects. Even so, it’s not like it’s 100% guaranteed to work. That’s because— 「Aah, I have 『Health』, so it doesn’t work on me. 」 Even the idiots couldn’t deal with him. He used paralyzation, blindness, and poison on them, and then used decoy Illusion, that he plundered, on top of which he tampered with their mind and nerves with 『Meddle』. That’s why they couldn’t hit him. Just barely, to a degree that wouldn’t be noticed, he tampers with the body, forcing it to make extra movements. As one would try to cut straight, it would make it so the attack would go diagonally. That’s why attacks won’t hit. Of course, I’m also under the effect of 『Meddle』. I’m just disregarding it. Just ignore. Well, no wonder I could easily learn body manipulation-type skills. 「Do you know what Muppet means?」 「A useless fool, right?! Just perfect for you!」
It seems our math genius is not particularly well-read.
「It also is a puppet of sorts, Yamada-kun. If you are using 『Meddle』on my nervous system, then I simply have to ignore it, and forcibly manipulate my own body as a puppet.」 That’s why my attacks can reach him, While I can’t land a decisive blow, I can fight. I already practiced walking and running while puppeteering myself, and I also practiced slashing after taking only one step. Kyojitsu. This is what I created that skill for. Thanks to being able to absorb spells near me with「Parasitic Vine – Strengthen Wooden Sticks and Staffs, Magic Absorption ? ? ?」I avoided gradual deterioration of the situation. He remained in the forest alone all this time, continuing to kill. While I was dragged to the town against my will. This is where the difference between us lies. This is the gap he won’t be able to fill unless he uses all of the skills that he has gathered so far to kill me. I just have to hang on until then. I just have to pay attention to magic. Illusions won’t work on me, thanks to 『God Eye』. I’m really grateful to Contacts for this. Thanks to them I can get through this, until the end…… Until the last moment. 「Are you sure about this? Yamada-kun. Don’t you have restrictions on the skills that you stole with your Mimicked Plunder? Don’t you have a limit to the number of uses on them? Are you sure you want to waste all of it here?」 「Kuh! I just need Plunder!」 Oh, so I was right. So the restriction is the number of uses. In other words, eventually, he will run out of uses. And there is nothing he can steal from me. All of my skills are either completely useless or too difficult to master.
If he uses up everything here it’s my win. He won’t be able to defeat the president and the others. He probably calculated everything in the very beginning, when he just got into that white room. Possibilities, chances, and steps that have to be taken in all of the various possible situations for him to become the strongest. If he had Plunder since the beginning, in the best case scenario it would’ve been sealed, in the worst, he could even die. In any case, everyone would’ve been on their guard. That’s why our Genius-kun calculated, considering all various possibilities. The way that should produce the best results with the highest probability. The more division he sows among the classmates, the higher the accuracy of his calculations, the less uncertain factors remained. And then, he copied Plunder with Mimic. Then, he killed and divided classmates one after another. What he wanted were 『Magic Immunity』, 『Grant Abnormal Condition』, and 『Illusion』. Combine that with 『Meddle』and there is nothing that can threaten him. There is no danger in direct confrontation. Only a one-sided massacre remained. A Cheat Killer is complete.
That concludes his preparations. What remains is to use Mimic Plunder to plunder the real Plunder. In other words, kill the president. This should have made his Plunder the same as the original. Then, one after another kill everyone else, and he is the strongest, Unrivaled, invincible, the strongest being. That’s why the idiots survived. Only incapacitated, left unable to fight. He left them for later because his Plunder wasn’t complete yet. He didn’t want to lose their skills. He probably wanted to restore Charm and Puppetry. That’s why he let the wannabes live until now. But the idiots turned out to be too strong. That’s why he killed the wannabes, enhancing his abilities, and then incapacitated the idiots. He pretended to be friends with the wannabes and the normal boys, manipulating them and killing when he needed new skills. That’s why he is alone. And yet the abilities that he really wanted, ran away in a group. Killing them for nothing won’t make him stronger. This is his last chance to catch up with them. But I’m in the way. Thinking normally, I’m the weakest, he should just force his way through. But he wasn’t so sure. He couldn’t confirm that.
Because it wasn’t certain. Because he couldn’t compute that. Because the skills made no sense at all. That’s why he isolated and observed me, the uncertain factor, and killing the last two of his comrades, stole Instant Death. This, combined with Level Wall, should’ve checkmated me. And yet, I won’t die. Far from that, neither Meddle, nor Illusion, nor Status Effects are working. Even though he is above me in level and abilities, he is shaken, because he never fought tough battles, always overwhelming his opponents. He is misunderstanding it after all?