CH 151

Chapter 151: Sakurai Touya and Hinagiku Saya (2)

I’d been granted the Job: Archer.

Sharp Shot: Improves the archer’s ability to kill, raising both the power and accuracy of the bow.

Detect Presence: Senses are improved to better find the enemy.

Bow Master: Proof of one’s gift in the art of bowmanship.

From the looks of these starter skills, I’m basically no different from an ordinary person once without bow and arrow. At the time I came rushing to protect Saya-chan from the troop of goma surrounding her, it was a fact that I couldn’t do a thing to protect her fundamentally because of my lack of such equipment.

It was really lucky that one of the goma my sweet Saya-chan defeated happened to be using a bow.

Now let’s look at Saya-chan, who really did carry us through that emergency battle. She’s what seems to be called a Shaman:

Poison: Induces poison onto the target.

Enchant: The ability to bestow a spell’s effects on items.

Basic Upgrade: Can perform basic, simplified upgrades. Identify and solve. Disassemble and reconstruct.

For any skill, you can get a better feel for its effects once you use it. I was glad that Saya-chan’s Poison practically instant killed those goma.

If it was like in fantasy RPGs where poison is something that causes gradual damage, the gomas would’ve surely overpowered us in no time while the poison was still in effect.

It appears that magic in this isekai is a really powerful thing.

No, it must be because Saya-chan is a genius in magic. After coming to this world her hidden talent in the arcane was finally unlocked and she could wield mere poison as an instant death weapon. It’s plausible, very plausible.

Speaking of talent, I sort of wish they’d given her a more suitable Job though. Let’s see, like Saintess?

“Um, anyway, it looks like we have to make it deeper into the dungeon.”

“That’s right.”

We will be able to leave this place once we make it to the Divine Gate in the deepest part of this wretched dungeon. I want nothing more than to get Saya-chan out of here as fast as I can. So we have to make it to this Gate, no matter what.

“I feel, like we have a long ways to go.”

“Don’t you worry, Saya-chan. I promise I’ll safely get us to the Divine Gate.”

I now had a bow. With this, goma tier monsters were no match, I could down any number that came at me. This is not over-confidence, it’s simple reality.

Before making it to our first safe zone, a fairy square, we faced and defeated many goma attacks. Among their ranks there’d be archers too, and the more I beat, the more arrows I could stock up. Although, I can’t say much about the quality. Damn roaches, even cavemen made sharper arrowheads.

“Touya-kun, I want to fight too.”

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“You can’t, it’s too dangerous, Saya-chan. You did more than enough in that first fight with the gomas.”

“I’m very happy that you want to protect me, I really am… But, I want to protect you too, you know!”

MY. GOSH… Saya-chan who’s so timid was saying she would still fight after that traumatizing experience. And in concern of my safety no less… Shit, don’t, don’t cry. I can’t cry from happiness just yet.

“But I, Saya-chan, I’m scared to think if something happens to you.”

“And I feel the same about you! Come on, Touya-kun, I have a Job too. Let’s work together. If it’s with you, I won’t be scared to fight at all. I swear I’ll be useful!”

“S-Saya-chan… uuh…”

I can’t, the dam of tears burst. I was so moved with her courage, I couldn’t bear being stubborn to her anymore.

And I soon saw that she was in fact, very useful in battle.

“W-wow… It’s a normal bow.”

“Phew, the upgrade was a success.”

The first thing Saya-chan did was use her Basic Upgrade to modify my shoddy goma bow.

About this upgrade ability, the caster can use their mana to freely manipulate their target object it seems. It’s sort of like an alchemist I read about in a manga.

The shoddy bow was easily repaired, and we even threw in some wood from the walnut trees to modify and reinforce it.

The end result was an awesome recurve bow.

The old bow that the goma’s had made looked very simple compared to his new slightly M shaped bow. I remember hearing that this type of bow could actually exert more power.

Gone was the worn down wood that seemed it would break any time, it now looked good as new.

She’d also upgraded my arrows and now they all had clean, sharp arrowheads. With the improved equipment, I was sure that its power, range, and accuracy had improved many fold.

And only an Archer, that is, I, could bring out that full potential.

“Yeah, ranged really is the way to go.”

With gomas, rather than a fight, it was more a one-sided massacre.

I’d always detect them first using Detect Presence.

A pack of gomas usually numbered at 10. I could take down 3 of them before they’d even notice what was going on. And if they still couldn’t decipher where they were being sniped from, I’d just be increasing my kill count.

And once they did see me and start rushing in with weapons or shoot back… I’d be more than a hundred meters away. My power as an Archer allowed me to shoot while retreating backwards with surprising accuracy. I only had to calmly snipe any that got too close and 10 angry gomas would be 10 dead gomas long before they reached me.

As for the goma archers, I could ignore them. I’m using the awesome short bow my Saya-chan made for me. Any arrows from the shit bows they use simply wouldn’t reach me from such a distance. And even if they got in range, with their amateur skill, they wouldn’t hit anyway. Damn roaches, train some more before you come out hunting.

Like that, we were moving deeper into the dungeon, easily taking down gomas, wolves and skeletons alike.

Even with the occasional strong ones, those that wouldn’t go down in one arrow,

“――Poison · Enchant.”

Once Saya-chan made enchanted poison arrows for me, I could use the power of her unparalleled poison on those large body or tough skin types that my arrows lacked the power to pierce through.

Let’s take for example one such tough guy, our first boss monster.

It was a giant skeleton carrying mace and shield.

I’d headshot many skeletons before this, and everyone of them had their skull pulverized with one arrow. But as for the boss skeleton, my direct headshots only caused a slight fracture.

But Saya-chan’s technique of using Enchant with Poison worked on it. I don’t know how it works, but the poison had an effect on this clearly ‘bare bones’ body.

Saya-chan also used Poison directly and the boss skeleton’s movements became dull, its bones becoming weathered somehow.

One shot there, and the boss broke very easily. Poison seems to have the effect of making bone brittle.

Once I had a way of damaging it, it was game set. Before the boss skeleton came close enough with its mace, I’d already riddled it with enough arrows to make it fall.

“Phew, that could’ve ended badly if it wasn’t for your amazing poison.”

“No no, you’re the one who beat it, Touya-kun!”

“No I… Actually, that’s right, we could only do it with me and you together.”

I’d realized for the first time after fighting this boss. That we couldn’t defeat something like this if it was just me or just Saya-chan.

“Mm, you’re right, Touya-kun. Fufufu, let’s get better together.”

“Of course, Saya-chan, forever forever.”

Our dungeon capture was going well, though we had the occasional hard fight.

Thinking back, we ended up getting a lot stronger from back when we started.

Drill Shot: Strengthens an arrow’s piercing potential.

Point Wave: Changes an arrow’s piercing potential into a shockwave.

Meteor: Akin to a falling star, this brilliant shining attack is powerful enough to create a crater in the ground.

With my bow based battle arts increasing, I now had more powerful means of attack. Taking the same skeleton boss as example, with Drill Shot I could likely pierce right through it, and if I used Point Wave, I could break it from the inside.

As for Meteor, this one somehow creates an explosion on impact. It’s sort of like an ultimate move. When I attempt to use it, my bow becomes a lot harder to draw, an stays that way until I release. Saya-chan said that it was because this skill uses up my mana. It’s a lot like attack magic apparently.

That bluish aura that shows up around the arrowhead really does make it seem like magic. And it really does shoot like a meteor, creating a brilliant streak of light and causing an explosion where it lands.

It was sort of unbelievable for a single arrow to do something like that, plus, I couldn’t really use my stealth tactics with this. One shot, and every enemy would know my location.

So Meteor gets used pretty rarely.

Scout: Have better, sharper awareness of enemy positions.

Instinct: Instinctively sense many kinds of danger with this 6th sense like ability.

These skills boosted my perception so much, it became practically impossible for the enemy to find me first. Scout was like an upgrade to Detect Presence while thanks to Instinct, we could avoid traps and ambushes.

These two skills made our journey much safer.

Block Presence: Move quietly and blend into the shadows by suppressing your presence.

And with this skill, it became harder for monsters to find me after I got my first shots in. Those dumb goma’s can’t even see me anymore.

Conceal Form: Move in silence and become the shadows by completely erasing your presence.

After repeated ambush tactics, the skill further improved, or should I say evolved, into a much more powerful Conceal Form.

With this skill, monsters who were far superior to goma in detecting enemies would find it a lot harder to sniff me out. I suspected that the skill even hit my scent very well since those wolf or dinosaur like monsters couldn’t find me if I focused on hiding.

I sort of felt like I was invisible with how well hidden I could become, but if I was out in the open without the skill active, they’d see me normally. It’s only when I was sneaking around that these powers worked exceedingly well.

I’d also gotten myself other support skills:

Hawkeye: Clearly see things in the distance with eyes like a hawk.

Wind Sense: Feel the wind, improve accuracy.

Hi Walk: Run like a gale.

Hawkeye felt as if I was looking through binoculars, and Wind Sense let me better calculate the trajectory of my arrows. My ability to ambush was now boosted much higher.

And for emergencies, I have Hi Walk that I can use to easily run away. Saya-chan’s light as a feather, so I can run carrying her just fine.

Though, to say which skill is the most useful of the bunch, it’d definitely be Bow Master, one of my starter skills that didn’t seem to do anything at first.

This skill actually affects my archery technique as a whole. I’d realized this fact after many battles had passed.

It not only improved my accuracy, but also made me aware how to properly move if I were to run and shoot at the same time. It taught me how to multi nock, shoot two or three arrows at the same time. I also understood how to cut the arrows’ fletching in ways that let me make arcing shots.

The more I used the bow, the more targets I hit, the better this skill got. Rather than my skills correcting my movements, Bow Master made me able to make the motions on my own.

And while I was truly becoming a master of the bow, Saya-chan was also growing in tandem.

Cursemaker Upgrade: Use your mana to ingrain curse magic upon basic upgrades. Thus begins the path into the taboo knowledge of the abyss.

Once Saya-chan got that slightly dangerous sounding skill, she proceeded to upgrade my bow into something jaw-dropping.

Blackhorn Bow: A large bow made with high grade horns of an earth dragon. It had undergone blackening under the effects of curse magic.

My weapon now was a large black bow made with the two large horns from a huge dinosaur type boss monster called a trikeratops. This jet black, glossy bow that looked like it’d been lacquered had actually become incomparably harder to pull than how it was when I first got it. I don’t think normal people could use something like this. Saya-chan tried, but she couldn’t go past a couple centimeters.

But I can use it naturally. I don’t know if it’s because of all the archery practice I get, or if it’s an effect of Bow Master, but I really felt that this large bow fit me perfectly.

And one shot from this Blackhorn Bow was so powerful, it was hard to describe in few words.

I shot a large boar with it since it came charging at me, and to my surprise, it pierced the animal’s forehead, went straight through, came out of its arse, and lodged into a tree a hundred meters further behind. This much power should allow me to one shot most things within 100 meters. Though I’d have to use a battle art to do in something as tough as an armor bear.

Smallfry like goma should go down from much more farther than 100 meters, this bow was like a death machine for low tiered monsters.

And that was all with normal arrows.

Actually, Saya-chan’s cursemaking did a lot more to my arrows than my bow.

Poison Arrow: A poisonous arrow enchanted with Poison.

Viola Arrow: A more potent poisonous arrow enchanted with Viola Poison.

Paryze Arrow: A paralysis arrow enchanted with Paryze.

Black Arrow: A blackened arrow.

Blackening: Basic corruption using Black mana.

First of all, we have Viola Arrow. It’s an improved version of the poison arrow, and it makes poisoning large bodied monsters much easier.

But there did exist monsters that had resistances to poison, so that wasn’t guaranteed to always do the trick. But resistance for poison didn’t necessarily mean resistance to other ailments. There were cases where Poison didn’t work but Paryze did.

And when both of those failed and the monster had really good defence, I’d use Black Arrow.

Blackening, one of Saya-chan’s curse magics, had the power to strengthen things by pumping mana into them. Thanks to this power, my now black arrows were much tougher than before.

With battle arts combined with Black Arrows, even piercing through the tough exoskeletons of Rook Spiders was easy as pie. It turns out that the blackening also had the sub-effect of amplifying the extra power unleashed when I use a battle art. Black Arrow with a Meteor was my highest output technique so far.

She also made arrows where the tips would create various effects upon impact, something like grenade arrows.

Blaze Ball: A ball filled with extremely flammable oil with an igniter made using a fire stone.

Smoke Ball: A ball with Smoke inside.

Poison Gas Ball: A ball with gaseous Poison inside.

Siesta Ball: A ball with the fog of Siesta inside.

All of the above were the size of tennis balls, and Saya-chan had make them all using her upgrading talents. The arrows whose heads were replaced by these balls did fall in range and deadliness, but they were meant to be shot in the middle of a pack of monsters. These shots would fly in a big arc, and hit in precise spots where I could potentially bring them all down in one go.

The Siesta Ball is especially useful since enemies don’t even realize what hit them. It was thanks to this one that we could invade a goma stronghold with relative ease.

There was a castle that housed a huge boss goma, the gogma, but with a combination of black arrow and battle arts along with my trusty blackhorn bow, that boss met its end with one clean shot to the head.

After many trials, I thought we’d gotten very strong―― I thought wrong.

Teleporting out of the goma castle, we’d arrived at an ancient ruined city. And once we began exploring it, we soon met an enemy that proved too much for us.

“Shit, arrows are useless…”

This enemy was a knight in full body armour with the inside completely empty. It was a monster known as a Living Armour.

They held weapons of much higher grade than any skeleton and had ample technique in using them. Worse still, they were completely fearless and had monstrous defence.

Skeletons had been at least affected by Poison, which worked to make their bones brittle, but the magic did nothing to the living armour. That went the same for viola poison and paryze, this type of monster seemed to have full immunity to bad status effects.

Then we’ll just have to do this the hard way. Their armours were strong but my arrows could definitely pierce them. And pierce them they did. But they did only that.

A living armour literally didn’t have any weak points. I could snipe its head off, and it just kept attacking like normal, and even if I pin-cushioned it, it didn’t feel any pain at all. Heck, even an arrow to the knee did nothing.

I’m used to aiming quickly and precisely at a monster’s weak point like their head or what not, but these armours didn’t seem to have any such points, any damage I dealt was equal throughout. A living armour probably had the worst compatibility with my combat style.

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“Touya-kun, we need to run! I don’t think the armours can be beat without some light based magic. If we want to stop them, we need to break them to pieces.”

“Yeah, I don’t think Point Wave will do much good either… We’ll have to run for now.”

I bet I could partially destroy one using Meteor with a Black Arrow. But living armours weren’t exactly boss monsters. There were many troops of them wandering throughout the town, and I don’t think I could defeat all of them.

“Now, Touya-kun―― Smoke!”

Saya-chan cast a smokescreen for us, while at the same time, I shot a Smoke Ball arrow at the living armour troop currently on our tail.

The black smoke quickly spread and sealed their ability to detect us. Now only their archer type could attempt to get a lucky shot.

And no way would that happen… But it did.

“―― AH!?”

Worst case scenario.

An arrow flew threw the curtain of smoke, and by pure chance, hit Saya-chan. She was running away, and it struck her from the back. An arrowhead covered in Saya-chan’s blood was jutting out from her flank.

“SAYA-CHAN!? D-dammit…”

The moment I witnessed that arrow tearing her flesh, my head started to go blank.

“T-Touya-kun… Don’t, stop… Have to, run.”

Even when she must’ve been in extreme pain, Saya-chan refused to scream, and gave me that warning. She was right, of course. The troop of living armours were gaining on us. We didn’t have time to waste.

Ahh, Saya-chan, I’m smitten by your strength of heart. You even woke me up when my head stopped working seeing you hurt.

Calm down, I can’t panic, it’s over if I panic.

“Hold tight, Saya-chan!”

“Mm, sorry, Touya-kun…”

I lifted up Saya-chan, and used Hi Walk to retreat from there as fast as I could. It’s good that living armours weren’t all that fast on their legs.

We’d been exploring this ruin town for the better part of a week now. And in that time, we learned that the living armours seem to only patrol on a designated area. We also learned that if we leave this area, they won’t come chasing.

The fairy square was too far.

But we did know a few places that are outside the living armours’ range of activity, and in addition, had good vantage points, were easy to defend, and all around relatively safe.

So I chose one of those places, a large apartment building at the bank of a lake. I ran inside and climbed to the top floor.

We should be safe here. I wanted to get Saya-chan’s wounds healed as fast as humanly possible.

“Haah… Haah…. T-Touya-kun, I’m, sorry I, the arrow, it…”

“You’re fine, you’ll be fine, I’ll fix you up right away alright!”

Her face was drained of blood, she’d gone completely pale. The arrow was still lodged inside her, so I don’t think she had bled out that much yet. But with her face in that state, and that weak, feeble voice she now had, panic was quickly starting to boil within my heart.

I’m scared, I’m so scared… I’m scared of losing Saya-chan, I can’t lose her.

Dammit, DAMMIT, I shouldn’t have used that potion!

Our last last boss fight had been a tough one and I’d been gravely injured. Seeing me in a such a state, Saya-chan cried as she used the potion on me. This one potion that we’d randomly happened upon inside a loot chest.

Dammit, if I knew this was going to happen, I would’ve borne any amount of pain the world threw at me and refused that potion from her… But it was too late for that now.

The only thing we currently carried that had healing properties would be the four leafed clovers we’d been collecting ever since the first fairy square.

“Touya-kun… I…”

“You don’t need to talk. I’m here for you, you’ll be fine… I swear I’ll get you healed up.”

I removed the arrow, and used the clovers on the wound, being as careful as possible.

Now, the only thing I could still do, was hold her thin, pale hand and give her my utmost support.

“Thank you, Touya-kun.”

God, if you’re listening, please… Please save Saya-chan… I’ll do anything if it’s to save her. Anything you ask, so please, just this…