Translator: Charlotte Editor: Weasalopes
Today I went outside the village to try out the new battle formation.
As expected, the damage output was indeed insufficient.
I recalled Ninetails and summoned Helix.
It is a formation where Heather the Fairy is added to the usual party setup.
What should I do today?
I"ve already decided that.
Let"s go to the south.
Why, you ask?
Well, because there is a landscape that I have never seen there.
The first enemy we encountered was a Raptor.
There were two of them.
They were tough, but we somehow managed to defeat them without using Heather.
Now what is Heather"s true worth, I wonder?
This Heather…
She was sitting on my right shoulder, but now she relocated herself on top of Zangetsu"s head where it looked like she was playing around.
Except it wasn"t anything like that.
More raptors were moving towards more relative positions.
And they looked like they were preparing to use something akin to spells.
In regard to Zangetsu.
What should I do?
ZANGETSU: Horse LV 1
DEX: 7
AGI: 25 (+4)
INT: 7
STR: 24
VIT: 24
SPI: 7
Skills:
Trampling, Fast Riding, Gallop, Running Endurance, Horse Kick
Rider Recovery 『Slight』, Magic Resistance 『Slight』
When I checked Zangetsu"s status, it turned out that her agility went up.
It will probably be enough if I just support her with my spells.
And that was not all.
She was also Shooting a Wind Cutter-like spell from her hooves to attack raptors legs.
She then stomped the fallen enemies and Helix stabbed them to finish the job.
The remaining Raptor tried to attack Zangetsu, so I stepped in and attacked it with my rod, adding a counterattack to the mix when it was needed.
In the meantime Heather was attacking other demons.
And at a close range at that!
It looked like a foolish suicide attack at first, but she was avoiding their bite attack with surprising ease.
Phew~~
Effective as it may be, it doesn"t change the fact that it was still bad for my heart.
One of the remaining beasts that was going after Heather changes its target to Zangetsu and manages to score a hit on her body.
Then it easily rolls over, avoiding her counterattack.
But is chased down by Helix after he attacked them together with Obsidian.[4] [5]
Even so.
I know he will try various things in battle to check which of them are effective, but must it really do that by getting so close to the enemy?!
As I said, this is really bad for my heart!
But the end result made me feel quite pleased.
Heather joining the rear guard is definitely appreciated, since up until now all we had there was Goki and Ninetails.
It"s good that we have so many options now.
And to top it off, all the Raptors dropped Ancient Stones from them, so it was a nice bonus.
After that we hunted down two more Raptors.
Heather also did good on her own this time.
So much so that she did not sustain any damage.
And then I noticed it.
Heather"s MP bar.
Since she relies heavily on special attacks, her MP bar gets drained pretty quickly.
In fact, after that first battle it got reduced to almost 50%.
And now it has dropped to about 40%.
If this goes on, it will be quickly reduced to zero.
Our next opponent was one Floating Eye.
Such enemies were usually handled by Helix and Obsidian since they were capable of continuous attacks.
But it managed to avoid Helix"s attacks.
No, it wasn"t that. Did the attack itself miss?
In any case, thanks to Obsidian"s attacks the monster"s HP bar had decreased substantially, but it was still not enough to finish it off.
It closed its eye and then opened it again.
My whole body was struck by lightning.
d.a.m.n it, I can"t counterattack!
Helix has been attacked again and suffered quite a bit of damage.
My HP, which has dropped to half its total value after that lightning attack has been restored to almost full.
By Heather.
What is this.
Ninetails was pretty versatile in many ways already, and it looks like Heather is the same.
Thanks to her we were able to hold our ground.
This is very promising for the future.
As for me.
Other than summoning, I haven"t used a single spell.
I still have plenty of my MP left.
It looks like the recovery speed of my MP is also quite fast thanks to Zangetsu"s Rider Recovery 『Slight』 skill.
And Heather"s MP recovery speed is even faster than mine.
Just a moment ago she was at about 40% of her MP, and now she"s already back at 60%!
Speaking of which, it seems that she also has an MP Recovery Speed Up 『Slight』 skill up her a.r.s.enal.
Is that what they call a synergy effect?
Anyway, I felt quite satisfied with our current MP recovery speed.
We continue our journey south while we hunt more Raptors and Floating Eyes.
It seems that there is also less Anger Cranes here.
I see them occasionally in the distance, but my pa.s.sive allowed me to avoid any needless fighting with them.
There were also some brown bears, but since they were way in the distance I concluded that it would be best to just leave them be for now.
After all, journeying forward is my top priority for today.
We have arrived at the south river much sooner than I antic.i.p.ated.
There are a lot of holes in the rocky wall located at the river"s opposite bank.
According to my information, it was a nest for the Floating Eyes.
That knowledge stimulated my adventuring sense, so I decided to head there to investigate.
The entrance to the cave was visible from the other side of the river.
Looks like I"ll be able to cross it without any difficulty while riding on Zangetsu"s back.
The surface of the water glittered like a beautiful crystal mirror, and the stones at the bottom looked like good quality materials.
Speaking of which, I think this is the place where a high-quality quartz can be obtained.
I tried to use earth magic spell, Dowsing.
It is a spell that"s usually reserved only for collecting obsidian.
As I thought, there really is something here.
It took some time, but the harvest was pretty good.
【Material】Yellow Quartz Quality B- Rarity 3 Weight 0+
Yellow Quartz, also known as Citrine.
It is often used in sealing magic thanks to its properties as a magic container.
【Material】Third Nyx Quality C+ Rarity 2 Weight 0+
Amber colored stone with white stripes on it, known as a Crimson Stripe
A beautiful stone with a glossy l.u.s.ter, often used as an amulet.
【Material】Pre-Night Quality C+ Rarity 2 Weight 0+
Mustard-green gem, otherwise known as Grapestone.
Semi-transparent and slightly glossy. It is said that it possesses a power to let its holder see the truth.
【Material】 Red Jasper Quality C Rarity 2 Weight 0 +
Reddish brown quartz rich in impurities. Otherwise known simply as jasper.
A stone filled with many colored patterns, said to bring stability.
Those were my drops.
None of the items was particularly rare, but I had a feeling that I"ll be able to put all of them to good use.
That"s right!
Maybe I"ll give it a shot at using them as catalysts for monster summoning.
When I crossed the river I arrived at the cave"s entrance.
It was big and positioned quite high above the river level.
How"s the condition inside then?
The inside is quite wide and the whole structure looks solid.
It looks like even Zangetsu won"t have any problems with walking inside.
But charging in blindly would have been foolish and amateur move.
The least I can do is to carefully prepare.
I send Zangetsu and Helix back and summon Jericho and Mumyo.
Now then, let"s proceed inside while staying vigilant at all times.
Illuminated by the light of the flashlights, the cave"s interior looked truly stunning.
It looked simple, but you could still feel the heaviness of each individual stone.
It had this simplistic but sophisticated beauty to it.
At the same time it looked neglected and rough, but I didn"t care about that all that much, if I had to be honest.
I wouldn"t be surprised if there was someone living here.
Going past some coc.o.o.n like structures, I happened upon a door.
They were open.
It was not a trap, those were normal, perfectly ordinary doors.
It"s just that they were not closed, and that made me feel a sense of peculiar discomfort.
Almost as if they were used quite recently.
The reason of my discomfort came into my field of view not that long after.
Orcs.
Five of them, to be exact.
But they were just ordinary orcs, nothing more.
I wondered if there were any particularly strong individuals among them, but my hopes for that died pretty soon.
I killed all but one of them with such ease that it made me want to vomit.
Boring.
Completely and utterly boring.
They are so fragile that the bones in their bodies break at the slightest of my touches.
I dread the fact that there was no one among them who could prove to be a challenge to me.
But wait… Oh, I see.
Speaking of challenges, there was also kobold in the back.
I"m not interested in one-sided slaughter of orcs and goblins, so some diversity is always welcome!
Even a Kobold a.s.sa.s.sin!
After that little encounter I returned to the cave"s main path.
Normally I should continue straight, but since I had some time on my hands I decided to explore the corridors branching from the main path a little.
They were narrower and not as high as the main corridor, but still wide enough for me to pa.s.s through them without any major issues.
I wonder if those were made with dwarves in mind?
After a short walk ahead, Obsidian detected more Orcs.
Only three of them.
Well, they wouldn"t pose any threat to me even if there was more of them.
Naturally, that encounter also ended with my easy victory.
It would be nice if at least one of them dropped something even remotely valuable that would make fighting them even partially worth my while.
Alas, such a thing did not happen.
Exactly the same scenario repeated itself for quite a while.
Uuuuugh…
Somebody please do something about it!
I wanted to fight something that I could go wild against, even if just for a little while.
My MP bar was completely refilled now, so casting spells won"t be a problem anytime soon.
All right.
I will use a spell against the next monster I"ll encounter!
I will definitely do it!
Allowing my MP to refill itself naturally seemed like such a waste!
Finally, I"ve arrived at a place that looked like a small hall.
Perhaps it was the Orc"s main lair?
【Identify】Support Skill revealed that this place was not only filled with Orcs, but their leader also seemed to be present.
Talk about a stroke of luck, ruined by the fact that there were so many low-leveled cannon fodder Orcs around him!
「Light Explosion!」
I used that spell before I started my attack.
It was an offensive light magic spell.
In and out of itself the damage done by Light Explosion was not enough to slaughter all of the Orcs, but that was not my main aim here.
What I had hoped for was causing confusion in the enemy"s ranks.
Upon closer inspection, the damage has indeed been done.
It varied for each individual, but generally all of them were reduced to around half of their total HP., and more than half of them were running around in confusion, screaming and clutching their eyes.
As expected, that was just too easy.
「Physical Enchant: Earth!」
I used earth magic to raise my own HP.
Jericho, Obsidian, let"s not concern ourselves with small fries.
We"ll be aiming straight for the leader!
For that reason I switched my weapons to tonfas, ideal for fighting in tight s.p.a.ces.
But…
He was also among the confused ones, running around in chaos.
So a good fight is out of the question I guess?
Maneuvering between the confused Orcs was more bothersome than I thought.
A few of them were slain by the hands of their own leader, who was swinging them around like a madman.
Poor Orcs.
The leader ended up before me with another random Orc, disoriented and out of breath from all that thrashing around.
They ended up attacking me, most probably because I was the only moving object they were able to see in front of them.
However, it was not my first time fighting against these guys.
I knew exactly what their patterns of behavior and weaknesses were.
And they were just so full of openings that it wasn"t even funny anymore.
I dove under the arm that tried to catch me and aimed at the leader"s feet.
Kicking him in the knee, I then focused on his right foot.
He lost his balance and crashed into the other one, blocking his head under the other"s armpit.
I then jumped at the both of them when their legs were entwined with one another and used a hooking backward counter throw on them.
Normally it was just a simple Judo technique, but here it was like an Ultimate Cla.s.s Offensive Technique.
Although some of you might have seen it more frequently in professional wrestling rather than in sumo.
Contrary to the real life, cheating was a very effective and productive strategy here. Take this technique for example.
For something so deadly and effective, it was laughably easy to use.
Random Orc hit the ground with the back of his head directly while the leader"s head was still blocked under his armpit.
Normally it is used as a means of lessening the damage done to your opponent.
So before the Orc Leader also hit the ground I tackled and then mounted him, but he fainted from the impact before I could even unload onto him with a barrage of blows.
That was… how should I put it…?
That was truly pathetic.
Readying my tonfas again I set out to dispose of the remaining Orcs.
It was an even easier job than normal, seeing as none of the remaining ones were capable of fighting anymore. They were all still under the effects of my Light Explosion.
『【Dual Wield】Level Up!.』
Looks like my 【Dual Wield】was improved quite a bit with every enemy that I managed to defeat during this one-sided slaughter.
Even the Orc Leader posed no threat to me. Just like with every fighter relying on brute strength, when he was deprived of his ability to attack, he was basically defenseless.
What dropped of him was one piece of Tsavorite and one piece of Iolite each.
All in all, that was a rather satisfactory drop.
Aside from that I also got two pieces of rough stone.
Ehh, if I want to obtain drops of higher rarity I should aim to defeat more powerful opponents instead of wasting my time on low level weaklings.
It seems that four pathways were branching from this chamber.
However, only one of them was larger than the rest and headed slightly down.
Before I go further, let"s examine this hall again.
Smaller rooms were located right next to the big chamber. Those were probably the rooms Orcs were using for sleeping.
Everything smelled like excrement, blood and rotten meat.
Out of all the rooms, only one was sealed shut.
The doors were the ordinary wooden ones, but I was unable to open them.
Even Jericho"s power proved no good.
I tried to break them down, but that was not very effective either.
The h.e.l.l?!
I tried looking at the door with Sense Magic and sure enough, the doors were actually magical.
Which means I should be able to open them by using that.
「Unlock!」
I hold my right hand in the direction of the door and cast another spell.
I could see the magical power disappearing from them completely.
Well now, let"s have a look at what"s inside, shall we?
The room beyond the door had even higher ceiling then the room I came from.
The air also smelled differently here, b=maybe because no one was actually using this room for a long time?
There is nothing noteworthy in sight, and the floor was covered with a thin layer of dust.
When I got inside, the door closed behind me automatically, and they wouldn"t budge no matter what I tried to do
I see.
A trap designed to prevent intruders from escaping.
Even so, nothing else happened.
Obsidian surveyed the entire area in search of any hidden exits, but there was nothing of that sort here. The only way to enter and leave were the doors I used to get in.
So what, is nothing going to happen?
I don"t think so.
Suddenly, there was a burst of light directly behind me in the center of the room.
What are those?!
Looking back, I saw them standing there.
Gozu: LV1
Youkai Target Subjugation Active
Mezu: LV1
Youkai Target Subjugation Active
Suddenly we have Youkai to fight against? Well well well, this spelunking expedition might not be so boring after all!