<h1>Compelled to Act (1)</h1>
The moment I entered the first room on the second floor I was greeted with a ghoulish laugh. Immediately facing in my direction, the Giant Jack-O-Lantern’s eyes bounce gleefully at my presence.
And because it detected me before I made my move. It doesn’t seem like I could make my sneak attack anymore.
The laughing pumpkin makes a sharp chuckle as something came flying out of its mouth.
‘So Fast...’ I thought to myself as I dodged to the side to avoid the next attack at the last second. Striking the wall before the strange fall to the floor, I looked at what it could be? It was a pumpkin seed about the size of a tennis ball.
This was also mentioned in the book, I remember. It’s “Seed Attack”!
I run around the sides of the room, recalling the details to defeat the enemy left behind in the book. One of the Laughing Jack-O-Lantern’s strongest traits is its long-range Seed Attack.
It can’t move very well on its own, but its range attack can fire seeds at high speed. By appearances, there’s no penetrating power behind the projectile seed, but there’s enough energy to get a considerable knockback.
The Laughing Jack-O-Lantern bounced lightly, spinning on itself to face me, snickering at the same time to mock me while I struggled to parry. I ran with all my might, evading the giant pumpkin’s line of fire.
Rotating like a turret gun, I put more effort into staying clear of receiving a direct hit. While the speed of revolution wasn’t quite as fast, it was enough to make me break into a sweat.
But the longer this went on, my chances of winning would run out at this rate. So, once I confirmed I had enough of a gap, I charged towards the Laughing Jack-O-Lantern.
I hacked my knife down the side of the giant pumpkin’s face. It went in quite well. It really did feel like carving a regular pumpkin.
Crying out in surprise the Laughing Jack-O-Lantern immediately rotates to face me. But the damage I did to it wasn’t as great as I thought.
The pumpkin head was facing me directly now with a creepy smile, as I tried to evade to the side once more. Now that I closed the distance, it was easier to escape its line of sight by going around it. Being closer to the center in a circle allows you to make more calculated movements.
I felt something grab a hold of my foot. Looking down in a hurry to see what caught me, there was a vine extending from beneath the Giant Pumpkin’s base.
“GYAHAHAHA！” the pumpkin head screamed in its usual shrill voice but this time it was much louder. I was afraid Harumachi Sensei would hear it and come running in.
The Laughing Jack-O-Lantern rotates slowly, chuckling as it stopped to face me again. Aiming its mouth towards me, it shot at my chest.
Almost as if something blunt had gouged me, a sharp intense pain wracked me. The moment it fired directly towards my chest, I twisted my body sideways to try and avoid it, only to take a critical hit to my side.
Trying hard not to think about the pain, I immediately stab my knife into the Jack-O-Lanterns mouth the moment it opened up to laugh at me...
“Damn it, Screw you!……Take this.”
I struck that bastard’s face over and over, putting all of my resentment into each blow I dealt to its body.
Two strikes, three strikes, four strikes…….
But just as I was about to strike it for the 5th time, it shot another seed from its mouth.
This time the pain was centered on my chest. It was a direct hit to my solar plexus. Writhing in agony, my hand had stopped in a mid-strike.
This is bad, I can’t mov……….
I had almost blacked out from the excruciating pain, but the ringing in my head alerted me to the severity of my situation. Having taken this much damage, there was no way I could counterattack the monster's next attack.
Even now, I’m barely holding onto my knife.
I can’t block, or attack I don’t think I can win…….I didn’t think it would be this strong…….
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