・ ・ Chapter 154: Ensnared Again
“Man, how great is it to not have to eat leftovers for once.”
“Really? I don"t mind at all.”
Mei-chan had prepared breakfast as if it was the obvious thing to do, and unlike the gratuitous feast of Roylopse yesterday, it was a breakfast oriented meal that was easy on the stomach.
“By the way, where"d you get these dumplings for the soup?”
For ingredients she was only supposed to have meat, potatoes and some vegetables. Where exactly did she get dumplings from?
“Ah those, I made them using bananatato starch. They taste vaguely different from actual potatoes, but I don"t think it turned out bad… do you, not like the taste?”
Perish the thought.
That reminds me, j.a.panese cooking starch is made with flower bulbs from a plant called the dogtooth violet, but most of the store bought stuff is actually potato based. I sort of remember learning this in home economics cla.s.s in grade school, maybe, I think.
Anyway, this meant that as long as we had potatoes, we could process them into starch. Now this I"d have never even hit upon. And this processing was made possible only because she had Witch"s Cauldron at her disposal.
“It"s delicious! No really, I can"t believe you made dumplings!”
One of the awesome things about Mei-chan, she had the culinary know how to put an array of variation with just a few ingredients and in addition, had the skill and experience to put that knowledge to use. I"ve seen variety shows on TV where a professional cook makes masterworks of food with very limited ingredients, much to the elation of the in-studio audience. Just goes to show, pros are pros even when you take away the fancy stuff.
“And this, I wanted to make herb tea, what do you think?”
“Hmm, the taste is a bit tangy, but it totally works as tea.”
“I see, yeah, the flavor is a bit strong huh. I"m going to have to rework this one.”
“Hey, it"s great enough to have something other than water for once, you did great!”
Along with this after-meal tea, this was probably the most satisfying breakfast I"ve had in the dungeon.
“Now that that"s done, let"s head out.”
“Okay!”
“GUGAGA!”
The two of them replied energetically to my proposition, and we set out to continue exploring our surrounding areas. We didn"t have any intention of heading for the next Fairy Square, so all our Roylopse meat, the collection of Witch"s Cauldrons that was Mei-chan"s Kitchen and the bath was left as is.
I wanted to make a porter Rem, and a few more extras, so we"d be staying in that Square for another 2 to 3 days at least.
So anyway, today we headed the opposite direction from yesterday"s factory.
This side had rows and rows of what appeared to be civilian housing. There weren"t any large buildings like the factory that stuck out like a sore thumb. Most of these were box shaped 3 story apartment building types.
“Ok, let"s check out that big one there.”
The only one that stood out to me was this tall building that looked like a 10 story apartment complex. Though, it could turn out to be something else once we get close. Hoping for some treasure boxes.
5 minutes after we started walking.
“Ah, look Kotarou-kun, there"s Jajas.”
We"d come across a small herd. There were smaller once with them, children I guess.
This kind of, nature overtaking a ruined town and animals roaming about really perfected the whole post-apocalyptic image. Like, there were zombies and everything.
“We still have a lot of Roylopse, so let"s let those ones go.”
“Oh, but I think it"d be better to have some variety, you know?”
She had a point. Us kids who were born in an era of consumption are quick to get bored of the same old food. We wanted variation in our meat too.
“Alright, but we can"t carry them now. We can get one if we see a herd on the return trip.”
“Ugh, alright, makes sense.”
We simply couldn"t afford to hunt down all the prey that came our way if we wanted to actually do some exploring. That Tendou-kun with his Item Inventory storage skill. Such a cheat.
Mei-chan gave a last regretful glance at the Jajas, and we went on our way.
“Kyoaaaahhhhhh!!”
A sudden piercing cry. I"d heard one of these just yesterday.
“High Zombies!”
And there they were. A pack of High Zombies with their red, bulging outer muscles started sprinting out of the alleys between the civilian buildings. I don"t know if they sensed us by sound, smell or mana, but these undead were running right at us with perfect athletic form.
“Great, I can test my staff on them――”
“Aaahhhh!”
“Wait, too fast, too―― f.u.c.k it, Aer Sagitta!”
I launched my first in-battle attack magic in a panic, completely unable to show off like I pictured it.
I could feel a little mana flowing into the staff, and right after, a glowing green blade of wind flew out. The Aer Sagitta, swift as an arrow as its namesake implied, hit straight into a fast approaching High Zombie"s torso.
Its large musclebound body was gashed horizontally, and blood burst out of the wound. The High Zombie was knocked back, stopping its full speed dash.
“Uooohh―― gh, gi, kiiiaaaaahhh!!”
But the High Zombie ignored the large wound on its chest and restarted its sprint, drenched in blood.
“What the, how much frickin" HP does this guy have!?”
I felt a bit down that I couldn"t kill it in one hit, but I was more concerned about how it started running full speed at us again, as if the wound was nothing.
One more, wait no, if I need 2 shots, the other zobs will get that much more time to close in!
“Uogahh, aa…”
And then, before I could fire that 2nd shot, the High Zombie was knocked dead.
There was an arrow sticking out squarely in the middle of its forehead.
“Rem!!”
“GR, GUGAGA.”
That was a nice a.s.sist, partner.
“Fuuuu――Tremor Break.”
And while I was celebrating that combo kill, Mei-chan had already finished off the rest of the pack with a single Battle Art.
Those tough bodied undead that could withstand a direct Aer Sagitta had their heads and limbs ripped and sent off to miscellaneous directions as they were struck by Mei-chan"s one attack. All their bodies. .h.i.t the ground with a thud and stayed that way.
Now then, about this profound difference in strength between my attack magic and Mei-chan"s battle art,
“Yeaah, I think I"ll just stick to Shaman stuff.”
“Ok, and I can protect you, don"t you worry!”
Alright, so that"s how I, who started getting a little full of myself with the new staff, was brought down a peg, and decided that I should just stick to what I did best.
The spell staff didn"t really work out, but we couldn"t stop the area survey yet.
On our way to our destination that was the high-rise appartment building, we had two more monster encounters. The first were High Zombies like the one just now, and the second were monsters similar to the Red Dog, but bigger and more scary looking, more like a wolf really. Yeah, I"ll just call them Red Wolves.
In both encounters, I did a little bit of blackhair binding here and there while Mei-chan and Rem took care of the rest. No problems at all.
“Phew, finally.”
We"d made it to the building after a couple of frankly disappointing fights.
“The door, yeah, that won"t work.”
The front entrance was piled over in rubble. There weren"t any nooks or crannies even a scrawny guy like me could squeeze through.
“Ok then, let"s just try the back or some windo――”
In the middle of my line, I was suddenly seeing white lines.
Oh, it"s like, deja vu, wait no no, I actually had this exact same experience once already. Right, I remembered instantly.
And by the time that instant realization happened, the white lines, the spider webs had already ensnared me, lifting――
“Uaaaaaahh――”
“Kotarou-kun!”
“― ― aaaah?”
Caught in the spider threads, I was beginning to be lifted up and away super fast, but then, I stopped.
Mei-chan had caught the line of webbing that was stringing me up. Currently I was 2 stories and a bit above ground. Holy c.r.a.p, did she literally jump and grab at this height?
“Hmph!!”
With a strong hmph, Mei-chan split apart the strong webbing, grabbed me in a hug and, b.o.o.bies, so soft, no no, and we safely landed after a short free fall.
“It"s an Arachne! Rem, we gotta catch it!”
“GRRRGAGAAAA!!”
Rem already had her bow on the ready as if she"d antic.i.p.ated my plan.
Looking upwards, I could see it, the monster with a humanoid upper body and spider"s torso and legs, an Arachne. The creature was stuck to the wall outside the highest floor of the building.
So apparently they appeared in this zone too. I guess the tall buildings made better dwellings than even forest dome trees.
Anyway, Rem"s arrow had luckily, no, I guess I should call it a trained skill already, so Rem had skillfully shot into the Arachne that was now trying to escape. The arrow hit it in its human half"s stomach.
“Kiaaaahhh!”
It screamed, reeled, and then, fell―― but quickly got back to its senses and used its 6 spidery legs to hold itself to the walls once again.
“Don"t, touch, Kotarou-kun―― Aaaahh!!”
And before Rem could ready a second shot, Mei-chan roared, grabbed her trusty halberd and launched it skywards.
The dark halberd accelerated parallel to the wall at a tremendous speed, it"s large axe blade crus.h.i.+ng into the dumbfounded Arachne.
“Aaaaaahhhhhhh!!”
The creature was detached from its hold. It descended, screaming in a feminine voice. And falling the whole 30 meters and ―― Cras.h.!.+.
It"s body made a painful sound as the Arachne splattered hard into the ground.
A moment later, the halberd that Mei-chan had sent up to hunt down the creature was similarly descending, while spinning. c.r.a.p, it"s gonn!? But it looks like only I was concerned of the danger as Mei-chan casually raised up a hand and, without even looking, s.n.a.t.c.hed her weapon from the air. What the actual f.u.c.k.
“Kotarou-kun, are you alright!? Are you hurt?”
Her berserker"s wrathful glare that she"d directed at the Arachne was all but gone as it was replaced with one of worry, like that of a mother towards her child, as she came up to me.
“I"m fine. Thanks for the super quick save there, Mei-chan.”
I still can"t believe she rescued me from an Arachne"s surprise trap. That was some outrageous reaction speed.
Like, I even began thinking she could handle it if I was shot with a sniper rifle.
“Really? You"re sure you"re not hurt anywhere?”
“Nope, I"m fine, just got tied up a bit. Actually, can you help me out of this?”
“Oops, on it!”
That"s right, I was still wrapped up nice and tight by spiderweb. We can talk and what not after I get this off of me.
“Thanks for that. Yeah, if you weren"t here, I"d be spider food already.”
“No, I"m sorry, I didn"t think something would attack from so high up… I almost didn"t make it, you know?”
Yeah, I guess we needed better countermeasures for surprise attacks like that one.
But man, she"s a lifesaver. If I"d gotten forcefully kicked from the party like that again, I don"t think I"d have the willpower to continue anymore.
“Well, anyway, this monster"s just what I needed actually.”
“GUGAGA.”
Rem agreed. The two of us already knew how useful Arachnes are.
“One corpse doll, coming right up!”
Once I finished up making my new Arachne Mark II, we continued where we left off before the surprise attack. We searched all over the 10 story building but no luck. We found 2 treasure boxes, empty. They"d probably been emptied by other students or some stupid Goves.
But for me personally, grabbing the Arachne made the trip worth it.
“Nice, this"ll work perfect for transport!”
I was currently looking at the 2 empty treasure boxes we found, now securely tied on to Arachne Mk. II"s back for transport.
I have this little theory that these mana powered boxes have the ability to store and preserve items inside for a long time. They have the ability to open and close via mana, so it wasn"t a big leap to a.s.sume some high tech storage functionality too.
Basically, I"m saying that we didn"t need to keep only ‘treasure" inside, but also anything else we wanted. Food definitely, and there was also Ointment A and all my other meds. All my shamanic pastes didn"t exactly have a long shelf life, so I could preserve their quality by storing them in these boxes.
“Oh, using treasure boxes as mini fridges, that"s pretty smart, Kotarou-kun.”
“Haha, well I was looking for a new box anyway, and these definitely fit the bill.”
Feeling all warm and fuzzy with Mei-chan slathering on the praise, we began heading back to our home Square.
“Ah, Jajas! I see Jajas!”
“Great timing, we have Arachne to carry it too, so go for it.”
I watched warmly as Mei-chan went ‘Yaay~" and dashed off with her halberd, eager to bring back one of those docile herbivores as her prize.
I had Arachne use its webbing to tie up the Jaja and carry it back to the Fairy Square.
Just a little more now. We"ll be finally setting out from here once we"re well and fully prepared.