“Looks like Takahashi did well.”
Seeing Takahashi sit down tiredly after processing VLOOKUP, Saito felt a little relieved. On the other hand, Saito was still unable to deal with FIND, the rampaging tree monster he was facing. Part of it was because he hadn’t been able to focus on it while worrying about Takahashi’s condition and he had been planning to throw something over if an emergency situation did arise. But, to be honest, Saito wasn’t good at dealing with opponents like this FIND.
Bam.
Saito dodged a branch that was swung at him and struck a counter blow with his bat.
“FIND! …Damn it, not yet. What a pain in the ass.”
It wasn’t that he couldn’t beat it. He had no intention of losing. He had been fighting against functions like this every day for six years now. It wasn’t just six years either. One hour hear was equivalent to one day in real life. Saito had been fighting for 24 times that length of time, a period of time that felt like 144 years. It wouldn’t have been strange for Saito to have realised something and acquired a mind that transcended humans, but he had spent all his time processing functions without gaining anything special in terms of what he was self-aware of. Although there had been times where he had been forced to retreat due to too many functions or neglected errors, he longer found himself in danger when in a one on one fight. The other day, he had only been injured because he was defending Takahashi and such events weren’t common for Saito.
However, Saito didn’t like long, back and forth, drawn out fights. He would knock them over, hold down their limbs, and process them. There were some functions which needed their name to be called several times, like ones possessed by ARRAYFORMULA, but that didn’t change his stance. He would quickly stop their movement and them process them in one go. That kind of flow felt refreshing. However, this FIND was really big. It was hard to beat up a huge function and it was also diffult to supress its whole body to neutralise it. So, he had no choice but to hit it over and over again. As a plant type function, FIND had no concept of pain, nor did it seem to accumulate any injuries. He had already hit it five times, but ARRAYFORMULA still hadn’t appeared.
“Huu…I should have brought the machete to cut off all its branches.”
Saito sighed, but FIND didn’t care as it swung its branches at him again from above. Saito effortlessly knocked it away as he called out at the right time.
“FIND.”
It wasn’t over yet. He hit the trunk with his bat again.
“FIND.”
Not yet? Stomping on its leg, he called out again.
“FIND.”
Don’t worry about it. Stomping on another leg, he quickly rattled out.
“FINDFINDFINDFINDFINDFIND……”
FIND finally gave up resisting.
“ARRAYFORMULA.”
A voice rang out from the shadow of the FIND. The FIND was quickly sucked into its cell and disappeared.
“Oh, sorry, the ARRAYFORMULA came out from behind, so I took care of it.”
That was what Takahashi, who had been behind the FIND, said as it disappeared.
“Oh…oh right. Thank you.”
Saito put down his bat, feeling uneasy.