Marian Lindberg.
Personal skill: [Mechanical Panic].
As Parang remembered, it was roughly this skill.
[Mechanical Panic (S)]
[Permanently inflicts an unresolvable state of ‘madness’.]
[Gains enhancements in machine crafting. Possesses the skill ‘Inventory’.]
It’s a skill that captures the law of high risk, high return in this world.
The extreme risk of having to live forever in madness is one thing, but the return is just ridiculous.
I mean, an Inventory skill!
Yeah, that Inventory. A crazy skill that allows you to infinitely store items in a spatial dimension and shoot them out wherever you want.
Isn’t that every hunter’s ultimate dream?
In hunter tales, the difference between having or not having the ‘Inventory’ skill creates a gap as wide as heaven and earth.
That’s how powerful the skill is. It’s just that acquiring it is ridiculously difficult.
Not even Siwoo Han, let alone the Slayers, managed to get the ‘Inventory’ skill.
It’s basically impossible to extract even through scrolls. According to calculations in the story, about 80 liters of blood are needed.
In short, Marian is incredibly strong.
Having such a broken skill and experiencing growth events alongside the Slayers is a big deal.
It’s said that if well-prepared, she could even win against Hunter Siwoo.
Well, it’s not really Parang’s concern, but how does Marian being strong relate to her life?
Screeeech—!!!
“Craziness…!”
It was relevant.
Parang barely dodged the iron skewer that rushed in with a terrifying speed and let out a hollow laugh.
Her mind was a mess.
“Why am I fighting for my life against this girl…?”
#
The incident goes back a little while.
Spark—
“What the…!”
As Marian opened her eyes, Parang reflexively stepped back.
Anyone would think what they saw was a corpse when someone suddenly glares at them.
Confusion was flooding her mind.
Why did Marian open her eyes, is this really Marian, what should she do… and so on.
It’s not strange that questions would tumble one after another in such an absurd situation!
This ridiculous scenario was unfolding right before her eyes.
Whenever Parang faced a strange situation, she desperately tried to gather information out of habit.
So, she cautiously moved closer to inspect Marian.
“Damn it.”
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul.
Even in this hunter world, ‘eyes’ hold significant meaning.
Because the surest way to tell if someone is enchanted by something is to observe their eyes.
And the eyes of Marian that Parang carefully examined were,
“Oh no, this is bad.”
Glowing intensely in a deep shade of purple.
Parang quickly assumed the worst-case scenario and got into a fighting stance.
And just as she gripped her harpoon tightly,
Whooom—
Screeeech—!!!
A dimensional gate opened right behind her head, and something shot out at an incredible speed.
“Huff!!”
“Hwah!”
Parang twisted her body almost like a circus performer to dodge the object and now faced Marian, who was glaring at her emotionlessly.
A railgun had appeared out of nowhere, floating next to Marian as if to guard her.
It was the weapon that had just flown from the opened dimensional gate.
A railgun underwater? This isn’t your usual protagonist behavior at all!
“I’m going crazy, for real!!”
Why! Of all people, does this only happen to her?
Finding Marian was good; her being alive was an amazing stroke of luck.
But why! Why is she, in a drunken stupor, attacking her? Can’t they just meet in a conversational state?
On top of that, it’s Marian!
The strongest of the Slayers, ‘Machinesmith’.
Of all the Slayers, she gets a one-on-one with the worst matchup possible.
Furthermore, she can’t even call upon Kraken, which makes up almost 99% of her power.
As it stands, Parang needs to squeeze information out of Marian.
If she hastily summoned Kraken and caused Marian’s mind to shatter irreparably, it would be a disaster.
Thus, a cascade of misfortune leads to Parang’s situation.
She must capture the hero who saved the world and became a god using only 1% of her own power.
All alone.
It’s enough to make anyone lose their mind.
#
Time passed a bit more.
Screeeech—!!!
Kiiing—!! Kiiing—!!
Parang dodged again, narrowly avoiding railguns that rushed from the dimensional gate like a circus performer and soared up to evade the shots.
By now, there were more than ten railguns hovering beside Marian.
That means ten beams of lasers were directly targeting Parang.
“Anchoring!!”
Shua—!
Boom!!!
As the battle intensified, Parang unknowingly shouted out the skill name.
It felt somewhat like a battle cry.
Evidence that she’s having a tough time.
Crash… crack, bang! Pzzz…
A harpoon thrown by Parang flew and pierced through one railgun.
That makes twenty railguns she’s taken out.
“Recovery!!”
Shua—!
Parang changed positions with lightning speed and retrieved the harpoon.
Boom—! Pzzz…
Another railgun was smashed by the returning harpoon.
Now there were twelve railguns left.
Screeeech—!!
Ah, now thirteen.
It’s maddening.
“Find a way… Find a way! Think, Yu Parang!!”
The only consolation was that Marian also wasn’t at full power.
Given her combat style of pulling machines and weapons from her Inventory, she must have already used up a significant number during battles in Hawaii.
Not to mention the ultimate weapon ‘Goliath’ was nowhere to be seen, though she had thousands of different armaments. The only things popping out were railguns.
But even so, it was still overwhelming.
After much contemplation, Parang came to a conclusion.
Continuing a one-on-one with Marian like this presented too great a risk.
Unless Marian’s odd machine stock ran out.
And as far as Parang knew, that situation had only occurred once.
In chapter 2 of the original work, during the first encounter with Siwoo Han.
This was during a time when Marian was still an A-ranked hunter.
That wouldn’t happen now, after the ending.
In conclusion, she couldn’t proceed like this. At the very least, she needed help from something external.
If that fails, she would have to resort to the audacious gamble of summoning Kraken.
Thinking about the chances of success in that gamble, it would be more accurate to call it a self-sabotage.
Parang snapped her fingers twice.
She transmitted her camera feed through Silo’s internal circuits.
Before even three seconds passed, an electric shock tingled at the back of her neck.
Parang tapped her in-ear device.
A frantic voice came through the speaker.
“Is that… is that Marian-sama on the screen?!”
It was Silo’s top official, the man who had spoken with Parang before. Who knew he could sound this frantic?
“Yes.”
Parang answered in a flat tone.
Not intentionally, but concentrating on the conversation while fending off fifteen railguns targeting her wasn’t easy.
“Anchoring!!”
Crash!!!
“My goodness, I thought you were dead…! This is…!”
The man’s voice trembled with shock.
If there had been any room for leisure in the situation, Parang would have joined him in disbelief, but unfortunately, there was no time to waste, and sharp words slipped out.
“Fine, I get it, so help me out already!! One more slip-up, and one of us is going to die!!”
Even in a situation where a million question marks should be floating over his head, he quickly made a judgment.
“Understood. You’re at Drake Hive, right?”
“Yes.”
Boom!!!
Seventeen railguns left.
“Can you bring Marian-sama to the surface? We have a tranquilizer that we usually administer when Marian-sama is rampaging. We will drop it.”
“Ah!”
Right, there was that too.
The tranquilizer used to counteract Marian’s madness.
Since it was specially made for her, it would almost always have a guaranteed effect on her.
Although it hardly ever came up in the story since whenever she was near Siwoo Han, her madness would also clear up.
In any case, if they had that, then capturing Marian wouldn’t seem completely impossible.
“…Send the coordinates.”
Parang replied with a solemn voice.
“Understood.”
“Phew…”
What the heck, let’s just give it a shot.
She began to shoot straight up towards the surface.
Twenty-four railguns and Marian ferociously chased after Parang.
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