Beginning to Try Dirty Tricks

The sky was dim, and light snow drifted mournfully.

Icy shards fell soundlessly onto Lu Xiu's nose.

She had already lost track of how many times she had restarted.

Yet Lu Xiu was still brimming with enthusiasm. She raised a hand to wipe the snow from her nose, then lifted her blade and strode forward without hesitation.

She couldn't quite explain why she was so excited.

Perhaps it was because she had rediscovered the feeling of playing games in her previous life. Perhaps it was because cold-weapon combat was more fun than she had imagined. Or perhaps it was because... she could clearly feel herself growing stronger.

At first, she couldn't deflect even a single strike. When the Refund General brought his blade down, she had nearly been sent off immediately.

Later, she could barely deflect attacks, but her rhythm was chaotic and she was all flustered.

After that, she could reliably deflect ordinary attacks. Though she still made the occasional mistake, she no longer collapsed completely. Her sidesteps also began to grow more practiced; she was no longer dodging blindly on instinct, but consciously adjusting her position.

Then she began attempting Mikiri Counters, judging the timing of her opponent's attacks.

Every time, she was just a little short of cutting down this samurai general.

And as time passed, that little gap became clearer and clearer.

It was no longer out of reach.

As though all she needed was one more try, one more attempt.

...Fortunately, the system itself was powerful enough. The enemies Lu Xiu constructed through the Visual Mindscape using her memories of games could automatically correct and fill in any unreasonable details. Otherwise, she might have practiced herself into madness.

But Lu Xiu hadn't paid attention to such things.

Right now, she simply found this feeling of almost winning strangely addictive... At any rate, Lu Xiu felt that if she couldn't beat him today, she wouldn't be able to sleep.

"Again."

With her blade in hand, Lu Xiu walked once more toward the samurai general standing amid the wind and snow, expertly triggering the battle.

The samurai general moved as before.

Beneath the banner, he raised his long blade high and assumed the Eightfold Stance.

Then he stepped forward and brought it crashing down!

The long blade tore through the air, plummeting with a heavy shriek.

Lu Xiu met the strike head-on. With a flick of her wrist, she angled her blade upward.

Clang—

The two blades collided, bursting with dazzling sparks. Scorching heat brushed Lu Xiu's cheek.

A perfect deflect!

The samurai general's assault was forcibly halted, but he did not pause. He reversed his grip and slashed again.

Lu Xiu followed the motion and met it.

Clang—

Sparks flared again.

Using the force of the deflection, the samurai general spun around. His tower-like body rose into the air, his long blade lifted high above his head.

A jumping slash!

Facing this unstoppable blow, Lu Xiu did not choose to block it head-on. Instead, she lowered her body and slid nimbly to the side with a sidestep.

Whoosh—

The long blade came down grazing the hem of her clothes, smashing heavily into the ground and blasting snow, dust, and mud into the air.

The strike missed.

Lu Xiu instantly closed in, swinging her blade at the samurai general's armor.

Clang!

The samurai general's body swayed slightly. Then he abruptly changed moves, drawing back his blade in a sweeping slash. The long blade carved a massive arc through the air, carrying a biting wind as it swept toward Lu Xiu's legs.

At the same time, a huge character for danger appeared above his head.

At the instant the blade reached her, Lu Xiu drove off with both legs and leapt into the air like a startled swan.

Whoosh—

The blade swept past the soles of her shoes and smashed hard into the nearby banner pole, sending wood chips flying.

Using her downward momentum, Lu Xiu brought her blade down toward the samurai general's helmet.

The samurai general reacted with incredible speed, raising his blade to block.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

In the next instant, the two exchanged several more moves.

Their blades collided without pause.

Sparks flew in every direction.

The crisp clashes echoed endlessly through the wind and snow.

Lu Xiu became more absorbed the longer she fought. Perhaps she had repeated this too many times—quantity had finally become quality.

At that moment, it felt as though she had truly returned to her computer.

Focused, calm, proficient.

And under her relentless deflections and attacks, the Samurai General's posture bar was already on the verge of collapse.

He let out a furious roar. His attack pattern abruptly changed as he took a step back and lowered his stance.

Two swift slashes!

Then—

He held his long sword level, its tip aimed directly at Lu Xiu.

Lu Xiu's pupils narrowed.

Here it came!

That thrust that had stumped her countless times!

It was as fast as lightning, nearly impossible to follow with the naked eye.

Yet at that moment, Lu Xiu's mind was exceptionally clear. Countless scenes of failure flashed through her head, finally converging into a single answer.

Mikiri Counter!

She did not retreat. She merely shifted slightly to the side, facing the incoming blade as she abruptly raised her leg.

Every ounce of strength in her body gathered in her right foot.

Smack!

A muffled impact rang out.

Amid the swirling snow—

Lu Xiu precisely stepped onto the rapidly thrusting blade, pinning it firmly into the snow!

The Samurai General staggered, instantly losing his balance.

That perfect Mikiri Counter became the final straw. With a crisp sound like shattering glass—

The Samurai General's posture bar completely broke.

His body pitched forward, leaving him wide open.

Lu Xiu forcefully pushed off with her right foot, still planted on the blade. Twisting at the waist, she spun halfway around in a dazzling maneuver and instantly moved to the Samurai General's rear flank.

Holding Kusabimaru in a reverse grip, she drove it forward.

The blade pierced without resistance into the unarmored back of the Samurai General's neck.

Deathblow!

The Samurai General's entire body jolted, and his tower-like frame dropped to its knees.

"It worked?!"

Lu Xiu took a step back, her beautiful eyes brimming with delight.

But before she could fully savor that feeling—

The Samurai General's body suddenly shuddered. The breath that had already vanished surged forth once more.

He sprang up and swung his sword again!

Lu Xiu raised her blade almost on instinct.

Clang—

Sparks burst forth.

This deflection was not quite perfect.

Lu Xiu's arm went numb from the impact, but she could not help laughing.

She had nearly forgotten.

The Samurai General had two lives.

But it did not matter.

She had already learned it!

Next up—she would clear this like mercury spilling across the ground!

Clang, clang, clang.

The sound of blades striking rang without end.

Lu Xiu ultimately fell to the General of Refunds' second health bar... but she quickly pulled herself together and ran back to challenge him again.

And her success rate with the Mikiri Counter grew higher and higher.

Because there was only one BOSS and one setting, with many systems not yet built.

Lu Xiu was fighting the Samurai General's two health bars entirely through pure deflections.

"Mikiri Counter!"

That icy flash, swift as thunder, tore through the air and stabbed toward her once more.

Lu Xiu's body reacted faster than her mind. The instant she shouted, she had already stomped the opponent's longsword beneath her foot.

At the same time, she closed in, her blade sweeping upward in a cold, vicious arc.

Throat stab!

Deathblow!

The frigid blade pierced through the Samurai General's throat, and blood sprayed forth.

The Samurai General jerked backward, then crashed to the ground.

Lu Xiu pulled out her sword and stepped back, assuming a guarded stance with a wary expression.

But she soon realized.

This was the Samurai General's second health bar.

...She won?

The world froze, faded, and collapsed in an instant.

Then it reassembled. The scene reappeared, and everything returned to the beginning.

Only this time, it was not because Lu Xiu had died, but because she had defeated this mini-boss... and there was no more content afterward.

[Exiting Roleplay Mode--]

A system prompt appeared.

Then, the weight of Kusabimaru began to drain away from Lu Xiu's palm.

Lu Xiu blinked. A brief but intense wave of dizziness struck her, accompanied by the disorienting sensation of space shifting.

The next moment, white light appeared, and she was once again standing in that endless white space.

Before her, the protagonist and the Samurai General stood facing each other.

"Ha..."

Looking at this corner of the dungeon she had constructed, Lu Xiu finally felt the reality of victory. She could not help giving a small hop. "I beat it!"

Though the battle had taken a full four hours.

The sense of accomplishment from personally defeating a powerful enemy still made her exceptionally happy.

She kept bouncing in place for quite a while.

Lu Xiu finally noticed her trembling chest. Her expression stiffened, and she hurriedly stopped.

Yet the smile never left her face, because the sense of achievement was simply too strong.

Lu Xiu even wanted to immediately construct the next BOSS and fight it again.

But that thought was quickly dismissed.

She was a little tired.

And... after the excitement faded, Lu Xiu looked at the scene before her and finally remembered that this was only a mini-boss.

The real BOSSES in Sekiro were nowhere near so gentle.

Not to mention, "This is attack, this is defense, this is Genichiro Ashina."

It felt like any random dog she pulled in later... would be stronger than the General of Refunds.

And it had taken her four hours just to beat the General of Refunds...

At that thought.

Lu Xiu's expression suddenly became extraordinarily complicated.

Although she did not need to fight in Roleplay Mode, as a builder, she had to clear every encounter in succession during dungeon verification.

In person! All at once! Without stopping! Clear Sekiro!

...That seemed a little too unreasonable.

No, it felt like the dungeon mechanics needed some minor adjustments.

Suffering once or twice was learning, but with so many BOSSES lined up one after another...

How long would it take to verify the dungeon?!

Originally, the [Sekiro] instance Lu Xiu created this time was meant to allow for a certain margin of death.

Simply put, after the player-controlled Wolf used up his Resurrection Power, dying completely once would not result in instance failure. He could still revive just like in the original game; it would only affect the completion rating.

Only after dying completely three or more times, when Dragonrot appeared, would the instance truly be considered failed.

To put it even more simply, it was the same mechanic as in Sifu: die and die again... until the dead guy got old.

As long as players made full use of the Resurrection Power mechanic while clearing the instance, it was basically like having many lives.

After all, the theme of the instance was the obsession of the defeated.

You had to fail enough times for it to count as an obsession.

But those were only lives within the instance. It did not mean players could stop to rest for a while before continuing; they could not exit the instance midway.

It still felt like it needed changing.

But how should she change it?

No, it did not necessarily have to be changed... she could cheat instead!

Lu Xiu raised a hand to support her smooth, snow-white chin, her eyes gleaming as she began considering crooked little tricks.

She made this instance herself, so leaving herself an "author's passage" to skip the hard parts... wasn't excessive, right?