Chapter 290

Trial of Cruelty (I)

Cain finally understood why it was called ‘Trial of Cruelty’ -- it wasn’t because the witch was cruel, it was because the trial itself was beyond cruel. In order to deal the magnitude of damage required, over sixty-six million, not only Cain, but every member of his party would have to attack without a break for weeks, possibly months depending on the witch’s natural Health regen rate.

As such, all his will to fight deflated, all his motivation perished. Even if the Witch didn’t have any Health regen, it was a task beyond daunting to shave off sixty-six million Health all on his own. Calculating his DPH, at the optimum frame, without any dips in performance due to exhaustion or Mana depletion (all of which was a fiction, he realized), he figured he’d be stuck here for at least three months.

Extrapolating the real-world factors, the three months would likely come to over a year in the end. And though a year seemed a woeful nothing compared to the innumerable cycles, it was different--he’d have to actively fight, be conscious and aware and on alert At a certain point during the Cycles, Cain ceased ‘existing’, so to say; his body was put on autopilot, his mind drifting away.

That would be impossible here, where a single strike by the witch, however meek it may seem, could potentially end his life. This was also without mentioning the fact that he couldn’t, actually, continue on fighting for months on end without a break--and there was also the dangerous possibility that the Witch’s, or Queen’s, Health would actually reset if he left combat.

All of this weighed on him like a mountain as he half-heartedly dodged abysmal attempts at an attack by the woman. For all intents and purposes, as far as he was concerned... the woman was immortal and the trial was doomed.

“Te’gha, o’ great, mighty, all-powerful tiger of a soul,” turning toward the calm and silent cat, Cain asked with nearly teary eyes. “Do you... do you have a way to break through that tortoise shell?”

“...” the cat remained silent for a moment, glancing up at Cain’s pleading expression and seemingly indulging in the moment, a glint in the feline’s eyes a powerful example of ego.

“Pretty please?” Cain pleaded some more, realizing what the cat was after.

“Of course,” Te’gha replied. “Great Te’gha knows the way.”

“...”

“...”

“A-alright, o’ Great Te’gha,” Cain mumbled through the gritted teeth. “Could you maybe share that way?”

“Hehe~~of course, great Te’gha will! Stupid, stupid human! Can’t even see something so simple! Kekeke~~” beyond the laughter that grated at his soul, Cain felt thankful. If he was forced to stick around here for months and even years on end, he’d truly, really, madly go mad, and there’d be no turning back. No matter the cat’s personality, as long as its methods worked, Cain would tolerate it.

“Look at its resistances, stupid human, kekek~~” Cain saw a screen flash up before him, displaying just two lines.

[Magical Defense: 85%]

[Physical Defense: -8000%]

Staring at the two lines encoded within the very simple window, Cain was dumbfounded. Though it certainly wasn’t unheard of for a boss to be weaker to either one element or even this broadly, it was never the case like this, where they would be absolutely annihilated by one type of damage. A decrease of 8000% in Physical Defense literally meant an equivalent increase in player’s damage.

If Jamal was here, for instance, he could likely dispatch the witch within a few minutes, if even that, regardless of her 66 million HP since his stronger attacks would likely be hitting in the millions themselves.

Even if virtually all of Cain’s damage was magical, the tears of joy nearly fell down his cheeks. Months, if not years, turned into, at most, a couple of weeks. The reason was really simple, actually; even if Cain all but exclusively dealt Magical Damage through his skills... he had an inventory, and in that inventory he always had weapons of all types.

In his past life, he’d gotten burned quite a few times during some of the deep-dives into the dungeons where he’d come against an obstacle that required one specific element, and he just happened to not have any skills or items with that element. Because of that, in this life, he always carried weapons of all elemental types that he could find, but also a few fairly decent weapons that dealt physical damage.

The one he chose to use for this endeavour, however, was a bit unique--it was a short sword, no longer than a grown man’s arm, and its design was as basic as it could be, with only a leather-bound shaft, cross guard, and simple, pointed blade. Even its basic stats weren’t anything to write home about--in fact, it dealt the least physical damage per hit of all the other physical weapons that he had. However, it did have an option on it that made it by far the best for him personally:

[Passive--Battleborn] -- consume 1% of your Mana per hit as bonus physical damage

For most people, at this stage of the process, anyway, that 1% would have been entirely useless, likely in single digits. However, for Cain, it was an entirely different story-- the bonus converted damage for him wound up at the whooping 360. While pretty bad when it came to physical damage at the current stage, even worse due to Mana consumption, when paired with 4000% increase, that number skyrocketed at nearly 15000. It would annihilate everyone in one hit and, in fact, would be a massive overkill.

This was the reason why he was crying the tears of joy; whereas, with his magic, he’d at most peak at around 50,000 damage per hour due to the boss’ resistances, with the sword, he’d just just as much after a few hits. Altogether, if his math was correct, it should take him less than five thousand square hits to kill the boss which was far more feasible than casting Magic without a break for months on end. In fact, it turned what was a nightmarish boss battle... into a mildly-annoying bullet sponge of sorts.

While five thousand did sound a lot, that was only outside of context; the ‘boss’, if it could even be called that, was beyond clumsy and slow. Cain could effectively execute several attacks while she winds up to attack him back. Though he couldn’t exactly predict his hit rate, he knew that no matter how ‘bad’ it was, it was still miles ahead of what he was capable of doing with magic.

Taking a deep breath, he began the process. Once... twice... thrice... each time he managed to land a hit, the Witch would scream and cry as though he was chopping her arm off. Every so often, she would shout some obscenities at him, almost as if to vent her frustrations over being unable to land even a single hit on him.

“You filthy commoner!! How dare you harm a Queen?!!”

“I shall splice your insides into jewelry!”

“You are not worthy of this Queen!”

“Must you keep poking me with that tiny stick?!”

Slowly, the call-outs became weirder and weirder, eventually just turning into innuendos that Cain even started occasionally laughing at and committing to memory to use later on.

“Ah, men! They poke a thousand times and still miss a hole!”

“Filthy dreg! This Queen shall shower you when she is done toying with you!”

Some hour in, the things she said became just outright bizarre to the point that even Cain had issues picking up on what she actually meant.

“Drill a thousand holes and be clayed!”

“This Queen is a river!” she shouted and Cain expected some normal follow-up, such as, ‘and she never dries’ or ‘she always flows’, but he got none of the normal ones. “But she is salty!” S-salty? Do... do you mean, like, angry? Or salty from sweating? Or what the fuck are you even talking about?!

“Would you SHUT THE FUCK UP already?!!” having finally had enough, Cain paused his relentless poking and shouted directly at here. “I wouldn’t put my dick in you even if you were literally the last hole remaining in the cosmos and I’ve been suffering from permanent erection for a thousand years! I’d choose pain over you! PAIN! So, shut the hell up already and take the beating and just fuckin’ let me finish this stupid fuckin’ quest, like fuckin’ hell, who came up with this torturous shit?! Hope you croak, motherfucker!”

**

Ruden sneezed all of a sudden, nearly tossing snot at a very important piece of paper. He wiped his nose and shook his head in confusion; he shouldn’t be sick. He’d been living without snow for a thousand years, after all, and it was snow that made things sick. Must be allergies then, he concluded. But no--he wasn’t allergic either, to anything. Maybe it was dust, then. Yes, it was definitely dust. Can’t be anything else, really.

“It’s done,” with a prideful smile and a pair of crooked eyes, he lifted up the very important document and looked through it once again. Everything was there. His complaint against the next-door-neighbor was lodged perfectly, every detail of their dispute presented factually. Surely, they’ll finally free him of this hell. “Hm?” he glanced at the shelf of spheres lodged into the wall to his side, seeing one light up. “Oh? The cruel one? And it’s a mage? Pfft, kakakakaka, haha, kekeke,” he nearly choked laughing, coughing to clear his throat after. “Talk about dogshit luck. Oh well. Doesn’t concern me.”

What Ruden didn’t know at that time, however, was that the mage held a grudge. And he always paid those grudges in full. Always.