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Chapter 167: Ruined City’s Boss 2
Eh, was this… a checkmate for us?
No, calm down, I still have some unused cards left, or should I say that now was the time to search for a breakthrough.
Any more than this, the current me wouldn’t be able to exterminate the spamming high-zombie fast enough. Shaman was always lacking in terms of firepower after all. In short, I should start with finding a way to stop them from spawning.
I lacked understanding in the matter of summoning magic of this world, I mean it was only a while ago that I could summon a skeleton, the weakest of the bunch. Yes, I didn’t understand, but what would happen if I tried to stop the magic circle?
「Arachne, try to aim at that pillar first. Match your timing with me. 1, 2――『Spiderweb Twine』!」
Omitted the “3”, both Arachne and I fired bundles of spider thread with all our power towards the nearest pillar.
Just when a new high-zombie was about to spawn from the magic circle on the eerily twisted pillar, when its upper half was about to come out, mine and Arachne’s threads came at that moment.
「GUUUUUUUU, OAAAAAAAAAAA!」
The almost out high-zombie was struggling while raising a loud cry since its entire body got sealed with extremely sticky spider thread. But, that’s all it did.
This type of spider thread was weak against fire, but it was overwhelmingly strong against physical attack. Well, it wasn’t actually impossible to tear it off with high-zombie’s power but… those fellas were idiots who only knew about swinging their limbs wildly towards their opponent. No matter how much they swung their arms around, they wouldn’t be able to get out of that spider thread, forever.
That’s why I thought that spider thread was the best material to seal high-zombies.
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「Okay, it seems possible to split our job. Arachne, you aim for the wall!」
「SHAAAAAAAAA!」
I handled the nearby pillar while Arachne headed towards the wall in the opposite direction which had a magic circle floating on top of it, and fired her spider thread to seal each of it. The quantity of the binding thread to high-zombies was reduced by half, but it should be strong enough to keep those spawning high-zombies at bay for a while.
This should be enough to reduce the number of spawning high-zombies but…
「Well as expected, it’s literally a piece of junk if this simple measure alone is enough to stop it.」
Just as I expected, the newly summoned high-zombie pushed aside the tied-up one. Placing an obstacle on top of the magic circle couldn’t stop the summoning process.
The summoning circle didn’t lose its function and kept summoning new high zombies but… but, even the newly summoned high zombie was caught by the sticky thread.
「Does this mean that even if we can’t stop the summoning, it’s possible to keep them at bay?」
No, that’s wrong, stopping their movement was more than enough!
「Yosh, Arachne, close all summoning circles with your thread! 3rd, finish off the rest while we stop their reinforcement!」
「KISHAAAAA!」
「GUGAGA!」
+++
Both Rems raised a warcry as they moved to fulfill their duty. Arachne Rem’s ability to manipulate spider thread was far above mine. I mean, she could fire the thread from her hands, butt, and mouth after all.
The thread she fired sealed the summoning circle on the pillar and wall, binding the high-zombies that came out from there. Even when the next one had already been summoned, it needed at least a few of them to exhaust the previous sticky thread. Now then, how many seconds does it need for a summoning circle to summon five high-zombies? And as long as we could take care of the sealed high-zombies during those times――
「VOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!」
「Eei, get lost, 『Poison』!」
Some high-zombies who managed to slip out from the skeletons’ army and Rem the 3rd came toward me. But they got insta-killed with a combo of 『Fool’s Cane』 and 『Shaman’s Skull』. Man, there was nothing better than offensive magic that could blow these small fries to pieces in one sitting.
「Great, now we’ve the high-ground.」
I killed the rest of the high zombies while sealing their summoning circle with 『Poison』. Since our opponent’s reinforcement had been slowed down, the balance of the battle started to tilt to our side.
When I was looking around, I noticed that the number of the summoned skeletons had already been reduced to half due to the battle against the high-zombie, but that wasn’t a big deal since I could resummon them whenever I wanted by replacing the skull fitted on my staff. Now it was the time to use human-wave tactics with summoning magic.
「Fuuh, we somehow managed to stop them.」
After we dealt with all of those enraged high-zombies we only needed to deal with those who got sealed in place and those that just got summoned. With this, the reinforcement from summoning magic had been completely sealed-off.
Since it had already reached this situation and my skeletons’ squad had numbers to their advantage, I sent two of them to every summoning circle since all they needed to do was behead the high-zombies, in that way, the summoning circle had already sealed.
Though the corpses of high-zombies kept increasing, as long as we set some of them aside and applied Arachne Rem’s thread again, the trap could be used as much as I wanted.
「With this, I can finally help Mei-chan.」
「Kotaro-kun, I defeated the bo~ss.」
「EH! SO FAST!?」
「Yeah, I killed it as fast as I can.」
And then, right behind Mei-chan who waved her hand cheerfully towards me… was the body of the boss of this area, which was already “Butchered” into something that befitting a horror movie.
「Eh, wait a minute, how did you defeat it? That fella should’ve incredible restoration power, right?」
「Yeah, since it kept growing those octopus-like tentacles from its wound, I just gouged its core from inside its body.」
Woow, that’s too OP! But it was a brilliant tactic nonetheless. Seeing that there was a boss room, we had no doubt that this magic stone was a core.
「It ended fairly easily thanks to Rem-chan’s cooperation.」
「GUGAGA」
Upon a closer look, I saw the spear used by Rem the 1st-Dark Knight was sewed into one of the boss’s legs, it seemed she acted as Mei-chan’s assistant. Yup, my judgement to assign Rem the 1st was correct after all.
「Uhm, good job, Rem. And thank you for your hard work, Mei-chan.」
「Yeah, it’s easier since you sealed the summoned high-zombies for us.」
Nonono, you know that some of those high-zombies slipped out of my extermination and headed towards you right, Mei-chan. You know that and yet, I left those guys to you since I was completely in a defensive situation and had no leeway to take care of them, sorry Mei-chan.
Anyhow, as before, the MVP of this boss battle was Mei-chan who literally soloed the boss. I was satisfied with surviving this battle and not becoming a hindrance for her.
「Well, shall we use the teleportation circle?」
「Yeah.」
Since there was only one high-zombi boss, there wasn’t that much loot to pick. For the time being, we’re picking its bones, meat, and tentacles.
And the teleportation circle appeared in the deepest part after the boss room as per usual. And it might be thanks to the fact that we’ve beaten the boss, the high-zombies were also stopped spamming. The sign of someone trespassing this place was… none.
Yup, it should be okay. Since I’ve confirmed the safety, now we could teleport with ease.
「Gyu~」
Thus, we were teleported while being embraced by Mei-chan.
“Zaza~n”, “Zaza~n”, and thus, we’re welcomed in the next area by the calming sound of waves. The seemingly endless blue colour spread beneath our eyes. It was a sea, A FU*KING SEA.
「Could it be that the teleportation circle is broken and we’re actually sent to an uninhabited island?」
Those anxieties did pass my mind as I saw the blue sky, the blue ocean, the seemingly neverending white, sandy beach.
「Uhm, since we come out properly in the fairy plaza, this place is undoubtedly inside the dungeon… maybe?」
I mean, the place we were teleported to from the boss room had always been the fairy plaza of the next area. And then, the place we were sent to was an extremely beautiful, southern island-like resort with a beautiful, white-sandy beach.
The fairy plaza in which we could see those beautiful scenes unhindered was located next to a stone building built on top of the slightly elevated cliff. Unlike the jungle, the fairy plaza was surrounded by small buildings.
「Ah, Kotaro-kun, this place is definitely inside the dungeon.」
Though she seemed to be doubting this place a while ago, Mei-chan suddenly turned 180, and said those words with a convincing look on her face.
「Why do you so sure about that?」
「We’re still inside the dungeon. The sea isn’t spread until the horizon, it is blocked by a wall at a certain point.」
「Eh, seriously!?」
I tried to take a look again at the vast, blue sea spreading in front of us but… I couldn’t see the end of the sea at all. Mei-chan might realize that fact with her sharp, berserker instinct.
「In short, this isn’t a true sea, it’s just an extremely large pool, right?」
""
「Uhm, I can’t see it clearly with my eyes, but yeah, it’s something like that.」
In short, the sky and the sea was nothing more than an extremely advanced CG render. I’ve never seen such a gimmick during my exploration until now, but could it be that the forest dome had the function to display the natural environment?
Well, it was way too advanced to the point that we should just ignore those gimmicks. The most important thing was the fact that this was an artificial sea area.
「Even if you say that it’s just a pool, considering its size, there should be an aquatic monster.」
The only aquatic monster I’ve ever met was boss, crocodile-like lizardman and Jira in the underground lake area. Since this was a sea-resort-like area, there might be a sea monster in here. In short, we’d to be very careful since this was the first time we met this kind of environment.
「Since it’s just afternoon, and we just finished a boss battle, let’s just do a simple exploration around the fairy plaza and then take a rest. We’ll start exploring the area tomorrow.」
+++
「Yeah.」
Well then, let’s enjoy the white-sandy beach immediately, shall we?
「One, two, puuull!!」
「Yaa~h!」
「GUGAGA!」
Mei-chan and Rem pulled a huge net made of spider thread on the sandy beach with my command. Inside the pulled spider web net were one, two, three, basically it’s filled with fishes with glittering silver scale.
「HAHAHA, WE GOT A BIG HAUL OF FISH!」
Well then, we might’ve finished with scouting the area, but if you’re wondering why we’re catching fish with makeshift fishing net, I’ve to say that the fishes were right there, waiting to be caught.
Let’s go back to two hours ago.
「Look Kotaro-kun, there’s a lot of fish swinging in this place.」
Mei-chan spoke like a child, yet her eyes were that of a predator that had found its prey.
Sure enough, this part of the sea clearly had a lot of fishes swinging in a group. Appearance-wise, they looked like normal, edible fishes. Since our diet always consisted of meat nowadays, I started to miss the taste of fish. Seeing them swimming freely in the sea, I got this craving to eat them. When I looked at Mei-chan, she had already leapt into the sea, towards where she felt the presence of the fishes.
「Mei-chan, can you fish?」
「Yeah. I’ve no problem whether it’s sea or river.」
She might’ve mastered such skills to eat freshly caught ingredients. On the other hand, I had zero experience in fishing. I was an indoor type…
「But, maybe it’s much better if we cast a fishing net. Can you make a fishing net, Kotaro-kun?」
I have already made a hammock before. Well, I’ve always made enough for a few people every time we arrived in the new fairy plaza. That’s why you could say that I was fairly skilled when it came to creating a net with spider thread. Creating a fishing net is easy pea―― eh? Why is this thing so fu*king heavy? I mean, it wasn’t the usual net, it had a conical shape…
Though it turned out to be rather challenging, I quickly cast the make-shift fishing net into the sea.
And then, we got a big haul of fish thanks to Mei-chan’s rich experience in casting the fishing net.
「Let’s see, edible, edible, e—not edible, edible, not-edible, edible… but not that delicious.」
There were various kinds of fish caught in the fishing net. There was silver-scaled pike mackerel-like fish, tropical-like multi-coloured fish with triangle head, heck, I even found gold fish-like fish or puffer fish-like fish… Wait a minute, this guy’s poison is bad news right!?
I appraised each variety of fish really carefully with 『Pharmacy Intuition』. Around half of them were edible, a bit less than half were also edible but not delicious, and the rest contained deadly poison. I set aside the last one to create a new poison.
「The sun has set, let’s go back to the fairy plaza.」
「Yeah, this much is enough for our dinner. I really can’t wait to taste the fish after a long time!」
Mei-chan, your drool, your drool.
The sky might be just a projection, but it seemed to be synchronized with the passage of time. When I looked at my watch, it was only a little bit over six in the evening. Even if it was just a fake, being able to see the sky itself calmed down my mind.