Ch.122Muriel (2)

In the game, the Psyonium effect lasts for 5 minutes.

It’s a very useful drug that can turn the tide of battle when used at the right time, but it has a fatal drawback.

‘The duration decreases each time you use it.’

The reduction time is randomly determined between a few seconds and up to 1 minute. Someone with bad luck might only be able to use it 5 times.

That’s why players either used it all up early in the game or saved it for careful use at important moments later.

This characteristic of Psyonium works identically in reality. I know because I’ve used Psyonium myself after becoming an AMorph.

‘I used it when fighting Siheyon Yujin.’

Since I enjoyed the effect for 5 minutes then, if I consume another Psyonium, I should be able to enjoy the effect for at least 4 minutes or more.

‘But Muriel said that wasn’t the case for her.’

According to the Sky Mother, when Muriel used Psyonium while fighting her, it lasted for 8 minutes.

‘Could it be an improved version of Psyonium, or a module that enhances drug effects?’

Since there are many differences from the game, I can’t be certain what’s causing this.

‘It doesn’t matter. That’s not the important part.’

What’s clear is that Muriel can’t enjoy the Psyonium effect indefinitely.

If she could, she would have used it right away when fighting me.

‘When she first fought me, the drug she used was Psychomaniac.’

The cigarette she was smoking while waiting for me.

The liquid inside wasn’t synthetic drugs but Psychomaniac, which enhances the output and precision of psychic powers.

She acted quite naturally, but I could tell immediately because there was no dreamy drug smell typical of cigarettes in the smoke.

‘Would such a smart woman avoid a path that could easily overwhelm me?’

I suspect that even if the duration of the Psyonium she used increased, it couldn’t eliminate the original drug’s drawback of decreasing duration with each use.

‘If she used it carelessly, it would be difficult to use when it really matters later.’

That’s why she probably used Psyonium when she judged herself to be in danger.

‘Maximum duration is less than 8 minutes. Assuming the same reduction rate as regular Psyonium, it would be less than 7 minutes.’

In reality, the chance of our fight lasting 7 to 8 minutes is slim.

Since both sides move at speeds far beyond human capability, the battle won’t last long regardless of who wins.

‘My plan wasn’t to endure until the Psyonium effect wore off anyway.’

When I was listening to the Sky Mother, I thought:

What’s important is preventing her from doing things that require Psyonium.

“…Even with two of you, nothing will change!”

Muriel, gritting her teeth, immediately went on the offensive.

As soon as her foot left the ground, the golden spear approached right in front of my nose.

Truly lightning-fast speed.

I quickly raised my bone axe upward. When my bone collided with her spear, a sound like an explosion erupted.

As the bone axe shattered, the spear was pushed upward. Her posture collapsed due to the massive recoil. My assimilation tentacles spread their five appendages wide and rushed to swallow her whole.

“Ha!”

Muriel spread her mechanized left hand wide. Her body slipped out like a loach between the tentacles slowed by the distortion field.

Then she clenched her fist with her left arm. In that brief moment, my auxiliary organs detected a massive flow of energy moving to her left arm.

It’s the Thunder Arm module, one of the higher-grade combat modules that cyborgs can equip. It shows excellent results in both destructive power and penetration, capable of piercing even my subadult carapace.

“Where do you think you’re going!”

“Kuk?!”

The Sky Mother jumped up and rammed Muriel’s side with her body.

No matter how much her physical abilities have improved, physical limitations still remain. It’s impossible to ignore the charge of a griffon over 4 meters tall with a body packed with muscle.

Muriel’s posture faltered, and the direction of her mechanical arm was slightly skewed. Thanks to that, the yellow lightning bolt she fired grazed over my back.

“Pain reduction activated!”

‘I can endure this!’

Of course, I didn’t escape unscathed. I lost two more assimilation tentacles with that attack.

Still, I must endure. The “Human Sacrifice” is already activated. Injuries like this will heal over time.

“Don’t interfere…!”

“Ugh!”

Muriel struck the Sky Mother with her left arm, which was heated after the energy discharge. The Sky Mother, suffering burns on her face and a broken beak, retreated far back.

‘Opportunity!’

Taking advantage of her distraction with another target, I charged at her with all my strength concentrated on my head.

“Kuk!”

My horn broke her ribs and pierced her internal organs. She barely avoided complete penetration by retreating at the last moment, but this wound was still potentially fatal.

‘No! It’s not over yet!’

As I expected, her body glowed purple.

The purple halo floating behind her head. That’s the effect of the cross-shaped halo headband, “Tuner,” that she’s wearing.

The Tuner is one of the rewards for completing mid-to-late Cult quests, granting the wearer the ability to move in ethereal form up to 5 times per day.

Cult quests are divided into 12 stages, and the Tuner is unlocked as a reward for the 9th stage quest.

When she was hit by my acidic fungal shower, she didn’t use the Tuner.

‘It’s not that she didn’t use it, but that she couldn’t because she didn’t meet the usage conditions.’

Seeing her use it after consuming Psyonium, she must have cleared up to the 8th stage quest.

‘Whatever the case, she has three left now.’

So far, Muriel has used the Tuner twice. She used it once when the Sky Mother ambushed her by springing from the ground, and again just now when I pierced her with my horn.

In other words, she only has 3 spare lives left.

I predicted where she would move to and quickly moved there. About 100 meters away, purple particles were gathering in the air.

“!”

Muriel, whose etherealization had ended, opened her eyes wide when she saw me charging.

She raised her left arm to use the distortion field, but the Sky Mother wouldn’t just stand by and watch.

“I won’t leave you alone!”

The Sky Mother, with half her face blackened, had somehow gotten behind Muriel. Her partially broken beak bit down hard on Muriel’s left shoulder.

“Kuk!”

The distortion field that was being activated was canceled as her shoulder bone was crushed.

Muriel quickly took a defensive stance with the Shaman’s spear. Her spear collided with my charging horn.

Crack!

“Urgh!”

As the spear and horn collided, one of my horns broke. Pain like someone hitting my head hard with a solid object washed over me.

However, I wasn’t the only one who suffered damage.

Since the force of my charge was concentrated in my horn, Muriel, who took it head-on, couldn’t escape unscathed.

Her right arm holding the spear went limp. Thanks to the Nano Spartan module covering her body, her arm didn’t fall off, but the inside was completely pulverized.

“Eeek! Die!”

She let out a scream or battle cry and activated the Thunder Arm module again. As energy gathered in her left arm, the Sky Mother hastily removed her beak.

Just before the energy was fired, I twisted my body greatly. The yellow beam grazed the surface of my head carapace.

Meanwhile, she disappeared by etherealizing and reappeared on top of a watchtower placed around the campsite.

“T-this is impossible…!”

Thanks to the etherealization effect, there wasn’t a single wound on her body, but her expression was different.

Her lips were bitten to the point of bleeding, and her pupils were trembling finely.

She was clearly more intimidated now than before the fight began.

‘You’re cornered, Muriel.’

If she fights passively or stalls for time, the Psyonium effect will wear off, making Tuner usage impossible.

Conversely, if she fights aggressively as usual, she’s more likely to use the Tuner.

Either way, once she can’t use the Tuner, she’ll have to rely solely on the Nano Spartan module’s recovery ability to face us.

‘You should have used it to escape in the first place.’

Starting a battle with us, or rather with me, was the wrong choice to begin with.

I calmly stated the fact to her, who was feeling fear toward us.

“Two. Left.”

“!”

She knows best what my words mean.

And what will happen to her when those two chances are gone.

–

Three years ago.

Muriel fell into the world of Space Survival alone.

And she was possessing a member of the Space Dog cartel.

No matter how high her ranking at 20th place or her leadership of a large clan, those were all stories from within the game.

It was by no means easy for her, just a college student in the real world, to survive in this harsh dystopian world.

If she hadn’t been a cyborg with a sturdy body, or if she hadn’t had beautiful looks enough to be loved by the boss, she wouldn’t have lasted even two days.

Muriel was able to have her life guaranteed thanks to the Cult-origin boss who cherished her.

After becoming the boss’s lover, a month passed.

Only after her survival was guaranteed could she check what she had received when coming to this world.

It was a kind of blessing and a “Perk” for those who crossed over to this world.

The perk she received was the ability to change the base race of her cyborg to another race.

Originally in the game, cyborgs were fixed with humans as their base race, but she could switch the base race to cyborg, Volf, Cult, and other races.

It could be said to be a perk reflecting the characteristics of the Space Dog, a pirate group that included various races.

However, she couldn’t change her base race without any restrictions.

Her original race was cyborg.

She could only use the perk by looting symbolic items from other races and converting them into “modules” to wear. This restriction didn’t change even after race conversion.

Also, she could only convert to intelligent races that players could choose, not to wild animals that weren’t playable.

Anyway, realizing the potential of her perk, she poisoned the boss to change her base race to Cult.

She didn’t love him, and since she thought he was just an NPC in a game, she didn’t feel much resistance to murder.

After making a module from the boss’s horns and converting her race to Cult, she targeted the cartel members next.

Since the cartel she belonged to was quite powerful, it wasn’t an easy fight, but she somehow managed to win.

Afterward, while heading to the Cult homeland, she met other players and grew with their help.

After 2 years in this world, Muriel became strong. So strong that no being in this universe could treat her carelessly.

Moreover, with two rankers sponsoring her, crisis was practically a non-existent word for Muriel.

That is, until now, when she met the AMorph in this Saintopia02.

“Kuk!”

Muriel blocked the arm of that damned AMorph subadult with her spear. Since the creature’s attack was unusually heavy, Muriel gritted her teeth.

Its strength hadn’t decreased at all since the start of the fight. If anything, it seemed to be getting stronger as the fight continued.

To be precise, it wasn’t that the enemy was getting stronger, but that she was getting weaker.

‘No! I can’t lose…!’

“Damn it all!”

Anxiety crept up on her. She tried to shake off the unpleasant feeling with a battle cry mixed with curses.

The Thunder Arm module installed on her left arm activated, and a yellow lightning bolt pierced through the creature’s arm.

Her joy at seeing the creature’s arm cut off was short-lived as the Sky Mother swung her front paw toward her face.

“Ugh!”

She pulled her head back to dodge, but half of her right face was torn off by that beast-faced woman’s attack.

‘…I can recover from this much!’

With only 2 uses of the Tuner left, she had to use it sparingly. She trusted in the Nano Spartan module’s recovery ability and swung her spear.

While the Golden Spear of Shaman was slashing the Sky Mother’s side, the AMorph’s tail flew at her.

Since she was in the middle of attacking, she couldn’t completely avoid it. She decided to block it with the sturdy Thunder Arm module, but it wasn’t a good choice.

“Eek!”

Her mechanical arm was deformed by the brutish tail. Not only that, but she was lifted into the air and tumbled miserably on the ground.

“Kuhuk?!”

Muriel coughed up black blood.

She had fallen to the ground several times during the fight, but this was the first time she had coughed up blood.

‘That damn AMorph bastard with his tricks…!’

Only then did she notice the fog completely surrounding the campsite.

This fog was clearly created by the AMorph’s nest. She could tell immediately because she had fought AMorphs several times in the game.

However, she had never fought an AMorph for this long before, so she underestimated the danger of the toxic fog.

In fact, she hadn’t made a particularly foolish judgment.

The recovery ability of the Nano Spartan module is terrifyingly excellent. No matter how powerful the fog’s toxicity, it would quickly recover as long as the module was functioning.

‘The module’s recovery can’t keep up!’

If she could maintain a stable state even for a short time, the module’s recovery function would normalize.

However, the enemies wouldn’t allow even “that short time.”

The Sky Mother charged toward Muriel, who was coughing up blood. Muriel jumped into the air and kicked away the Sky Mother who was trying to pounce on her.

The enemy flew far away, but another enemy attacked her.

Muriel barely deflected the barrage of spiky hairs coming from the front with her spear.

‘N-no! I can still hold on….’

Just as she thought that, the enemy’s tentacles flew at her. She managed to deflect them somehow, but couldn’t block everything. Half of her thigh was torn off because of the attack.

‘I can solve this by using another module!’

The moment she got up, the Sky Mother’s swinging front paw was already right in front of her face. It was an attack that exploited the narrowed field of vision on Muriel’s right side.

‘If I use the distortion field…!’

She hurriedly raised her recovering left arm and deployed the distortion field. The Sky Mother froze in mid-air, but from the opposite direction, the AMorph’s single horn targeted her.

“Kuk!”

‘Next I’ll…!’

Muriel flew through the air again, coughing up blood.

Her mind kept thinking of the next move.

Among the modules she had, there was one that could break through this situation. It was a precious module with significant side effects, so she rarely used it, but given the situation, she had no choice.

‘I can still win!’

Blocked. Both of her legs were completely broken.

She lifted her body into the air using psychic power techniques, then quickly thought of her next move.

Among the psychic power techniques she possessed, there was one that could annihilate the enemy. She had been saving it, but now was the time for it to shine.

‘With this…!’

But she was blocked again. Large stab wounds were added to her shoulder and abdomen.

The creature’s axe arm, which had clearly been destroyed earlier, had somehow regenerated and struck her down.

As critical wounds occurred in succession, the nano suit slowed down rapidly. Amidst the bleeding, she kept thinking.

‘Next I should….’

What should I do?

The creature seemed to know exactly what modules she had and what psychic power techniques she could use.

In front of it, she was practically naked.

As that thought occurred to her, the monster in front of her began to grow larger. The creature that had fed on her blood, her flesh, and her emotions now appeared overwhelmingly large.

Facing such a creature, emotions she had buried deep in her heart long ago resurfaced.

Despair, and.

Fear of death.

“I, I don’t want to die!”

Pushed to the extreme mentally, Muriel used the Tuner again, which she had vowed to save.

Her body scattered into purple particles, then regathered as far away from that monster as possible.

‘No!’

As soon as her body regenerated, she regretted it. Now she had only one chance left.

That’s when the creature spoke.

“One.”

Despite being hundreds of meters away from the creature, the AMorph’s words pierced her ears clearly.