Chapter 76

Chapter 76 \n\nA success like this was a good starting point. I needed some time to recover my mana now, so to best make use of this free time, I took Rem and #2 with me to go and observe the Basilisk some more.

The Basilisk was in its usual spot, lazing around as always, while I was also only casually observing the beast. I still felt like a pro cameraman just waiting for that perfect shot.

As for today’s events, no stupid Gomas had run into the Basilisk’s territory, and neither were there any stray Matangos. The zone Boss only got up to have it’s big breakfast of Mandragoras and didn’t do much else.

But one new thing did happen.

 

“This, it’s definitely the thing’s skin.”

 

Doing a once over on the Mandragora fields, I saw a white piece of skin just lying there. It had an area of around 30 cm squared. This was by no means something I’d caused, for example, by attacking the Basilisk when it least expected it and tearing off a piece of skin.

 

“So this Basilisk sheds too.”

 

Meaning that this was naturally shed off skin. How the Basilisk, or any monster for that matter, was born in this dungeon was still an unknown for me, but I knew that this monster in particular needed to sleep and eat. It was a living being. It shedding its skin could be a sign of growth, and if not, it could just be a way to get rid of its old skin.

Incidentally, I had #2 go to the field and collect the skin.

 

“Mng, using it for Rem parts kinda seems… iffy.”

 

With how small it was, I didn’t think it could cover all of Rem with the skin. I’d expect that a few parts of her body would get some white skin patchwork at most, which would be less defensive and more ornamental. And frankly, we had no time to make fashion statements.

 

“Ah, wait, I’ve got just the right use for this.”

 

It was as if a lightbulb flicked on on top of my head. I’d spent the day resting and watching the Basilisk, so my mana had recovered enough to shoot a few Curses before going to bed.

 

“――Rotten Bog.”

 

I let loose a drop of blood and made a puddle sized bog. I then cut off a small piece of the Basilisk’s shed skin and laid it down on the acid puddle. Then I waited…

 

“Damn it, it… wait, it is, it’s melting. Yes!”

 

With this little experiment, I tested whether my Rotten Bog would really work on the Basilisk’s skin.

In games and fantasy, Basilisks that specialized in their acidic breath always had strong resistances for similar type attacks. It was like fighting a dragon with fire, I’d almost assumed that the Basilisk was immune to any and all poison.

But the only way I could even imagine defeating a creature so large was by using the Curse that had the most damage output: Rotten Bog. If my acidic swamp had an effect on it, I could finally start thinking up a plan of action.

 

“Damn, this might just actually possibly work.”

 

The Basilisk skin wasn’t showing any changes for the first few seconds in the puddle bog, but soon enough, I could see small bubbles forming on it, and gradually, the piece had started melting. Roughly estimating, I could see that it took more time to dissolve than Mantis shell, but it definitely wasn’t immune. Which was good, since if it’d been as tough as Armorbear shell, I might’ve just given up on this mission altogether.

Anyway, this basically meant that I could use Rotten Bog on it effectively. It could be that its meat, that is, the muscle under the skin, is even more resistant to acids, but I really didn’t want to imagine that possibility.

 

“Which leaves me with the problem of how I’m going to make a Basilisk sized Rotten Bog.”

 \nThe biggest one I could make now was just barely 4 meters long. The Basilisk was at least 5 meters by my estimate and it had quite the girth too. I needed a way to make a Rotten Bog that could hold the massive creature with room to spare, somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 meters squared.

On that note, I had a few problems to deal with. Namely, mana, casting speed, and whether I had enough blood to make it work.

I mean, I could probably do it if I put my all into it, but killing the Basilisk would in no way end with simply laying down a bog. I’d have to hold it in place for a pretty long time, long enough for it to die.

In other words, I’d have to employ Blackhair Bind for a while after I was done setting the bog and luring the Basilisk into it. Which meant that I’d need to use more mana.

I had to make a huge Rotten Bog and then I had to maintain long and tough ropes of Blackhair Bind to restrain the Basilisk until it died. And with my current total mana reserves, such a feat was… yeah, impossible.

 

“I guess I’ll need a way to increase my mana, or alternatively, find a way to use less mana for my Curses.”

 

I kept mulling over what I needed to do as I slowly drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, I decided on continuing my Curse experiments.

 

“Alright, I’ll get myself a sacrifice!”

 

I call it the, ‘Please, my Lord, Ruinhilde-sama, accept this sacrificial ritual and grant me one big awesome super Curse’-plan.

I’ll be frank, I had no idea whether this whole sacrificial shindig was going to do anything, but I also didn’t know if it’ll do something, so I’d just try. I’d justify my actions on the fact that the spells in this world are highly dependent on the caster’s image of it, and thus, me doing something so Shaman-like should get me results.

Since I already had to use parts and ingredients for Rem, I figured that a Shaman was the sort of Job that could make use of real world things in its other Curses too. So what I called a sacrifice would simply be another ingredient. Well, basically, it’s just some guesswork on my part.

 

“That’s the plan, so let’s go and get them, Rem.”

“GAGAGA!”

 

Rem and #2 were raring to go, and the three of us then temporarily left the poison marsh zone and headed back into the ruins that led here.

 

“―― Wow, with the second Rem, I actually feel a lot more at ease. Thanks you two, you’re the best.”

“GAGAA!”

 

And after some time, we’d done what we set out to do. Here are the day’s pickings:

 

Goma Corpse: A freshly killed Goma corpse that I killed by wringing its neck, so there was no blood or other wounds. I have two of these and Rem and #2 carried them back to base, one each.

Matango Corpse: Found this one waddling around the Fairy Square so I grabbed it. I used my ranged knife tentacle attack and sent in Rem and #2 up close and personal as they were immune to whatever poison the Matango released. This walking mushroom was one of the easiest things for me to hunt.

Monster Blood: Blood I collected from Gomas and Red Dogs and the like while they were still alive. I’ve stored them inside the leather sacks the Gomas carried their water or booze in. I have around 2 liters.

Core Fragment: Really small shards of monster core that the small mobs sometimes had. Rem went and collected them for me.

 

I guess it wasn’t a proper sacrifice since I was using corpses, but all these gory ingredients gave off a good shaman-y feel.

 

“Let’s try with just the blood first.”

 

I started off the experiments with the ‘cheapest’ ingredients. The cores, no matter how small, were still raw crystallized mana. I was pretty sure they’d give me some boosts, so I was saving those for the actual fight.

I poured a cup’s worth of Goma blood on the ground, added a drop of my own blood, and invoked Rotten Bog.\n 

“It’s bigger… but not by a large margin.”

 

From yesterday’s skin experiment, I remembered how big the bog was with 1 drop, so I could clearly tell that adding Goma blood slightly extended its breadth.

 

“But that’s alright. Now I know that it does something.”

 

If push comes to shove, I could very well collect a tub load of blood. Between Rem, #2, and I, we should be able to carry it all relatively fast.

 

“Time’s a wastin’.”

 

I redid the experiment with all sorts of combinations, and jotted down the results.

It felt strange to use my notebook as a notebook, and not as a magic compass. It also felt odd holding a pen after so long. I made a table with my gathered ingredients and noted down the effects gained with a mix of 2 ingredients. Once that was done, I increased the number of ingredients to 3, then 4, and repeated the combination experiments.

That said, my resources were limited and I couldn’t do anything massive. I carefully measured out the more potent ingredients to be as efficient as possible.

This work kept me busy for another 3 days. The time wasn’t only used on the doing of the experiments but also time for going out hunting for ingredients and time required to replenish my blood and mana.

 

“Kind of went overboard there… I need to start organizing.”

 

After a few days of hunting monsters, which were mostly Gomas by the way, the Fairy Square I was occupying had become littered with all manner of loot. Of course, I’d left the bodies and other raw stuff outside, but killing all those Gomas basically meant I ended up collecting a whole bunch of their equipment and items. At some point, I’d started thinking that I could find some use for literally everything they had, and now there were a bunch of dead, naked Gomas right outside my base.

But the experiments were going quite well. I’d gotten lots of little tools to use, and eventually, I’d made a new discovery.

 

“This, I can use… this, magic circle.”

 

Magic circle. It’s something that’s appeared a lot, be it for granting us our Jobs, the all-important compass, and even the somewhat useless texted updates.

What I had discovered was that I could use them in my Curses too.

 

“The effects change slightly depending on how I arrange the ingredients.”

 

That’s right, by just changing how I placed the sacrifice items on the circle, I could manipulate the Rotten Bog’s size and depth.

 

“Circular ones are best.”

 

The first magic circle we all had to draw in our notebooks was circular. I was sure that this shape would wield the best effect, even for my Curses. Just to be sure, I made sure to test with triangles and squares, but those didn’t have as much effect as the circles.

I drew out these circles as precisely as possible, with blood, of course.

And drawing a perfect circle was easy. All I had to do was stick a spear at the center and tie another spear to it with a blackhair rope. Then I just circled around the first spear with the rope in a slight tension and carved the circle into the ground with the second spear.

Pouring blood along this guideline gave me a perfect circle, completing the first step.

 

“And I place the ingredients in a hexagram.”

\n 

The real fight begins here.

 

“I’ll instantly follow up with Blackhair Bind, and hold it down. But only the head.”

 

If it gets a chance to use its breath, I’m done for. My first priority will be to hold its mouth closed tight.

 

“I won’t be able to do anything with its body. That’s where Rem and #2 comes in. You guys need to attack it as much as you can.”

 

The more we can make it bleed, the better. Worst case, if it gets out of my bog, it’ll still be injured enough that we can chase it down and kill it.

 

“With its massive frame, it’s sure to thrash around a lot. We’ll be using ranged tactics.”

 

For that too, I’ve prepared a few things:

 

Red Knife Spear: I attached the Red Knife to a Goma spear. Great for stabbing the Basilisk from a safe distance.

Torch Oil: The oil that Gomas use in their torches. I stocked up every pouch I could find and have a total of 2 liters.

 

“#2, you’re on oiling duty. And Rem, you’ll go stabby with the Red Knife and light it up. We’ll turn it into BBQ lizard.”

 

Just stabbing won’t do any decisive damage to a monster that big. We’d use the oil to compensate for that lack of muscle.

 

“You need to make sure to only set fire to its hind area. If the flames reach its head, it could burn off my Blackhair and I’ll be decayed toast.”

“GAGA.”

 

I didn’t know how this whole struggle with time will play out, and won’t know until we actually went out and did it. But I wanted to keep an optimistic attitude.

 

“After you’ve used up all the oil and set fire to it, don’t stop attacking. All those spears, axes and knives we gathered up, give it all to the Basilisk, and give it good.”

“GAGAA!!”

 

The Rems nodded with spirit. We’re gonna stab the thing with every edged Goma weapon we got our hands on in the past week.

 

“The rest just depends on how long I can manage to bind it down.”

 

This was the most important job. Everything would go to shit if I can’t restrain the Basilisk with my tentacles. A big responsibility was on my head. Well, mostly because I was the only one here.

It was nerve-wracking. It was extremely scary. But I had to try. If I didn’t, I could never move forward.

 

“Let’s do this――”