Chapter 40

Enter the Mascot

Katie has the Brave Ripper equipped on her arm.

The performance of the dark mithril material is currently unknown, so Ellis decided everyone would travel to the Wight Labyrinth in order to verify its magical abilities.

Just to be safe, Purification and Stupor had been copied on all the rest of her equipment which had been modified by the Workshop Guild to match the weight of Brave Ripper.

“Let’s do this.”

First of all, they would start with a general room filled with skeletons.

As with the previous tactic, Katie broke through the skeleton’s formation from the front.

As a result, it was discovered that dark mithril was able to inflict damage to undead as it was. Not only that, it also showed offensive power that already surpassed the Flying Swallow + Purification combo without any enchantments.

In other words, every skeleton that was hit by Brave Ripper was pulverized in a single blow.

“Amazing.”

Reeve let out a sigh as Katie crushed a skeleton’s skull in her hand without any mercy.

Against the first mid-boss ghoul, Ellis cast Anti-poison on everyone beforehand just in case, but Katie decided to set a timer.

Although the result did not go as far as ending it with a single blow, it was still Katie’s overwhelming victory.

With the ghoul’s attack speed, it was completely overwhelmed by Katie’s agile movements, and it was one-sidedly cut down and ended.

“It looks like fun.”

Frau, who was covering Ellis and Claire at the door, smiled at Katie.

In order to ascertain the defensive power of Brave Ripper, in the next boss room, zombie golem, Katie crossed her arms in front of her chest and ate the zombie’s punch.

The result could be called as expected at this point.

Without creating even a dent in Brave Ripper, Katie completely absorbed the shock of the punch with a back step.

The defensive power is also quite good.

“It seems like it will be able to handle just about anything.”

After Katie took the attack from the zombie golem, Claire blew away the golem’s head with {Explosion} and gave Katie a nod.

Lastly, Katie challenged the last boss, a wight, alone. The {Fire Bullets} that the wight shot out were completely nullified by by her Resistance bra top and Magic Guard brooch, so she bulldozed her way through them. She released a flurry of blows onto the wight, cutting through and tearing apart parts of its body. It seems that even though the wight is originally impervious to physical attacks, the Brave Ripper is still able to damage him.

However, the damage from the cuts were still reduced and minimal, so the fight ended with Claire striking it with her own {Fire Bullet}.

“Yosh yosh! With results like this, if we give it Resistance and Inhalation, it would be a perfect weapon for a vanguard.”

Ellis rejoiced as she quickly released the trap on the boss treasure chest which no longer posed even a slight threat.

Ellis’s group returned to the adventurer guild satisfied with the gold they received from finishing the labyrinth and more-so with the results of the experiment. But when they returned, they noticed a large group gathered around the reception counter. Curious, Ellis walked towards someone she knew nearby.

“Is something wrong?”

“Oh Ellis. In fact, a nasty guy showed up in the Salamander Labyrinth.”

“A nasty guy?”

“Yeah. Do you know what a Metal Eater is?”

When Ellis shook her head, the man started to explain.

The Metal Eater is a rare monster that can randomly show up in any dungeon. It has the ability to instantaneously eat an adventurer’s metal weapons or armor.

The worst part is that he has absolute physical and magical defense, so it’s impossible to kill them through ordinary means.

In exchange, the Metal Eater has zero attack power, so even if a Metal Eater randomly spawns inside a dungeon, it is usually not a big deal. As long as you leave it alone, it will go away after awhile, but the labyrinth this guy showed up in was a problem.

It appeared right before the boss room door of Salamander Labyrinth.

Currently, the demand for Fever Stones are at an all-time high due to the ever growing popularity of the Claire-Flint brand showers and toilets. That’s why Salamander Labyrinth, with its boss that reliably drops Fever Stones, is the most popular dungeon to explore right now.

Hearing the story, Ellis could honestly say she didn’t care about the Salamander Labyrinth. She did not need to hunt any salamanders to obtain her Fever stones after all.

But the idea of a ‘rare monster’ definitely got her curious.

Since she can just copy Fever stone abilities, she could just pop in, take a look, and run away without fighting the salamander boss if it looked dangerous.

“Why don’t we go take a look?”

The other four all agreed to Ellis’s invitation.

“Things might get bad at this rate.”

“I’m sure we could think up a countermeasure.”

“Let’s take a look at the very least.”

“Nya.”

As a result, Ellis’s party got permission in advance to take a look on behalf of the guild and made their way to Salamander Labyrinth.

The Salamander Labyrinth is an elementary class labyrinth that consists of ten rooms.

Moreover, since the entire dungeon had already been cleared until right before the boss room, the only thing the girls had to do was walk there while Ellis deactivated the few traps that had respawned.

The treasure chests had their traps reactivated as well, but not enough time had passed for the contents to reappear. Even if they did, it would only be a small coin, so the girls ignored them and moved on.

As a result, the girls arrived in front of the boss room in the blink of an eye.

“There it is.”

Before Ellis’s eyes was a small monster that she could probably carry in her arms sitting in front of the boss room door.

It had the body of an anteater with the armor of an armadillo on its back. Its whole body was white except for the upper part of its belly and chest which made it look like it was wearing a tank top shirt. Still, its armadillo armor shined brightly in the torchlight.

The guy was just sitting there in front of the boss room door.

It was seriously cute.

“It has no attack power right?”

Ellis murmured such before stripping off all her armor and making herself naked. The only thing she kept was the small Sacrificial doll which was tied around her waist.

Just in case, Ellis gave Claire her Full Recovery ring and told her to heal her immediately if she took any damage.

Ellis then took out an ordinary metal dagger from her Bag of Gluttony, and she slowly approached the Metal Eater while holding the dagger above her head.

The Metal Eater soon noticed Ellis.

Rather than her, though, its black eyes focused on the dagger.

When Ellis had finally reached about ten meters away, the Metal Eater’s elongated tongue shot out towards the dagger.

The moment that the Metal Eater’s tongue touched it, the dagger started to erode away. With that momentum, the tongue wrapped around the dagger and stole it from Ellis’s hands.

The dagger was carried right before it, and the Metal Eater held the dagger to its chest underneath its forelegs before beginning to nibble away at the metal.

To be honest, the appearance of it eating the dagger really was quite cute.

Ellis got closer to the Metal Eater while it was eating.

Ellis was able to easily get right in front of it.

The Metal Eater continued to nibble away at the dagger while only glancing at Ellis.

Soon the entire dagger had been eaten and drawn into its stomach.

“Gepuu”

After letting out a cute burp, the Metal Eater looked squarely at Ellis, and its eyes seemed to be asking, “Isn’t there more?”

But Ellis didn’t have any more dagger for the Metal Eater.

*Whack!*

Instead, Ellis slapped the Metal Eater squarely on its right cheek.

*Whack!*

Next was the left cheek.

The Metal Eater couldn’t understand what was suddenly happening. It was completely confused, but Ellis completely ignored that reaction and continued to slap it around while looking down on it with cold eyes.

*Whack!*

*Whack!*

Physical attacks can’t deal any damage to a Metal Eater.

But that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt.

The Metal Eater’s mind was falling into chaos as both of its cheeks turned hot with pain.

*Whack!*

*Whack!*

Trying to escape from Ellis’s relentless beating, the Metal Eater tried to escape while crying out, “Pi~ Pi~”

But alas, along with its absolute defense, Metal Eaters have zero attack power. As a result, the second it turned its back on her, Ellis took hold of its shell and forced it to face her.

She made it look into her cold eyes as she continued to beat it.

Why am I being beaten?

Have I eaten too many things so far?

Did I bother various people?

Is this a punishment from God?

*Whack!*

*Whack!*

Finally the Metal Eater hid its head underneath its forelegs and tried to make itself as small as possible on the ground.

Then suddenly, the Metal Eater felt its body suddenly floating in the air.

The Metal Eater was embraced into the chest of the nude girl who had been hitting it so far. It was a hug so warm, the Metal Eater thought it was going to melt.

Oh, this feels so good.

Then the naked girl whispered to the Metal Eater.

“I’m sorry. I don’t hate you; I only do this because I love you. Hey, why don’t you come to the outside world with me?”

The Metal Eater was surprised by the sudden confession from the girl.

Oh, this little girl loves me.

I was in the wrong, and she was just correcting me.

I will follow this girl.

Deciding thus, the Metal Eater quietly rolled itself up in Ellis’s arms.

The four who had watched all this play out felt a chill run down their spines.

This was the beginning to a typical case of domestic violence.

In Eiji’s world, by mixing in both violent and loving treatment, yakuza would abuse and brainwash the women who would work the streets for them.

Reeve, Frau, Claire, and Katie were all stunned by Ellis who was merciless to even monsters.

“We’re back! It is now possible to go to the Salamander Labyrinth’s boss room.”

When the people waiting for Ellis’s return heard her call out from the transport area, every breathed a sigh of relief. But when they looked up at her, their gazes all gathered towards her arms.

For some reason, there was something that looked an awful lot like a Metal Eater there.

“Hey, hey. Did you seriously take it?”

A few people amongst the stunned crowd could only laugh.

“If we bring it here, then it probably won’t end up burdening the dungeon any more.”

It is true that this would be a good long-term solution.

Metal Eaters are rare monsters, and it is said that two of them will never spawn at once in a dungeon. Even if this isn’t entirely true, the fact that the odds of a Metal Eater spawning in Salamander Labyrinth again would be reduced if the one that already had was still alive.

“So we decided to keep it.”

Everyone in the Adventurer Guild Frau as if she was about to tell them all it was just a big joke, but Claire jumped in and tried to reassure them all.

“It’s already been trained by Ellis. It’ll only eat metal when Ellis says it is okay.”

“Trained? What did you do?”

“Hey! The boss room is all open now! Shouldn’t you guys go clear it quickly?” Katie quickly changed the subject.

“Oh, um, thank you very much.”

While appreciating that Ellis had left them the boss, the waiting party headed back towards Salamander Labyrinth.

Helen, the receptionist on duty who watched the entire exchange, decided to go talk to the guild master to see if it would be a bad idea to have a monster live in town as one would expect.

“What? Are they fancying themselves monster tamers now?”

Following Helen’s report, Theseus let out what was probably the deepest sigh of his life and entered the guild hall. His eyes immediately moved to the Metal Eater resting in Ellis’s arms.

“It’s cute when you look at it. So, what are you going to do with it?”

“Keep it.”

When Ellis answered him straight on like that, there wasn’t much Theseus could do.

“If that’s the case, then be sure to take good care of it. But please report this to Baltis too. You can tell him I already gave my consent.”

In this manner, Ellis’s group returned to the mansion after introducing their new pet to each of the guild heads.

Ellis and the others took the Metal Eater into the bath with them that night.

As to be expected, he couldn’t be brought directly into the public bathtub, so they instead filled up a laundry basket that they brought from home with hot water. The Metal Eater was left to soak in it.

“Pihyaa”

The Metal Eater stretched itself out in the hot water and raised a cry as it exhaled all its stress.

The girls became excited hearing such a cuddly cute noise.

“Ellis, what are we going to name it?”

Ellis thought about Reeve’s question.

“I wonder if there are any good names.”

“Oh, what about Metal Chewing Suicide Cheeks Devil-kun?”

Way too long Reeve. And it’s not cute at all.

“How about Monster-kun with the Tongue that Degrades Metal?”

That’s more of a commentary on what a Metal Eater does Claire.

“Nyaa.”

Stop enjoying the bath for a minute and think Katie.

“How about naming it Pi-tan since it keeps making that noise?”

Ah! It sounds a little bit like a duck’s egg¹, but it feels good Frau.

“Yosh. Let’s go with that. From today on, you are Pi-tan!”

As if it understood Ellis’s voice, the Metal Eater called out “Pi~” and splashed in its bath a bit.

Just like that, the girl with the ability to make magic tools obtained a mascot with the ability to destroy magic tools.

1. Called Pinyin or a century egg, it’s a Chinese delicacy made by preserving duck or quail eggs.