| Credits | |
| Translator | Champsy |
| Editor | Miraclegrass |
Day 237
Today we will be energetically hunting a field boss.
We were halfway climbing a mountain side in high spirits en route to the next field boss when suddenly Asue-chan swung her ice axe down, that she was carrying on her shoulder, on what looked to be a common dark red rock wall.
I was wondering if Asue-chan spotted a brittle area in the rock face, because what should be considerably hard rock was excavated in the blink of an eye.
And after she dug around 50 centimeters deep, minerals that transformed into ingot started to appear and were dug up with each swing of her ice axe.
While I was surprised at first, it looks like Asue-chan was apparently able to identify spots that were a mining point.
She was able to see through something that even I wasn’t able to discern, as expected of Asue-chan. All of us praised her.
Asue-chan was thoroughly embarrassed. I decided to let her keep on mining until the vein was exhausted.
By the way, about the mining point, while they’re very difficult to spot because they’re not a lot different from their neighborhood, they’re different when you dig there. It’s an area where rare minerals can be easily mined in large quantities.
But why were minerals mined at mining point already transformed into ingots? It peaked my interest. I guess since it can happen, it will happen[1].
While we’re waiting for the mining to end, we continued to investigate the effect of the battle formation 【8 Demons Annihilation Formation ・ Formless】 against a dungeon monsters.
Everyone would be able to get a grasp to a certain extent of the raw destructive power of combination attack 【8 Demons Annihilation Formation ・ Destructive Shot】 after the battle with the Volcanic Ape General, but there are still a lot of question marks.
The effect is invoked the moment 2 of the 8 demons are together end its effect increases and decreases depending on the number that join the battle.
It turns out that the effect of 【8 Demons Annihilation Formation ・ Formless】 would be different depending on their roles and positions. It could become a form specialized in offense, defense, stealth or detection.
While subtly changing the combinations during the fight, we were able to identify several very useful patterns.
During the investigation, we were able to raise our levels and obtain some drops as well. You could really say it was time well spent.
After Asue-chan was done mining after around 1 hour.
She would have finished mining after several minutes if it was only in one place, but apparently some other mining spots were located near the one she initially found. While mining one, Asue-chan would find another, and she would mine that one as well. This cycle repeated itself several times.
In the end, while it took more time, all the minerals that were mined, were rare. Both the quality and quantity were magnificent.
I absorbed some of the mined minerals with my silver arm and took in the sweltering heat of my surroundings which I’m able to compress and emit and used special ability called “Accumulated Heat Corundum Smelter”. The blacksmith masters will be very pleased with this much. I’m sure it would be able to stimulate their creative impulses and they’d be able to invent a lot of things.
While setting those expectations, we resumed our advance.
The area of the next field boss of the 【Flames of Fire Dragon Mountain】 was a mountainside, where a countless amount of volcanic rocks in all sorts of shapes and sizes were spread out in a disorderly fashion. It also looks like a place out of Hell.
The volcanic rock had already solidified, because not a lot of lava gushed out. It’s easy to go ahead though, because it wasn’t hotter than before.
However, the difficulty of traveling up the mountainside was like going through the deepest levels of a 【Demigod】 rank dungeon. The dungeon monsters that appeared were tougher than before, and since they fought with a high level of intellect, it was quite troublesome to pass through.
Without exception, they always acted in packs and leveraged the topography that naturally created a lot of blind spots to launch surprise attacks. Occasionally they ambushed us with a pincer attack.
Since we went directly for the field boss, I generally held back on the amount of battles. Still, we fought continuously from one battle to the next, and as expected, the damage taken increased. Kugime-chan and I were somehow able to deal with the surprise pincer attacks, and Seiji-kun continuously healed us. But the fatigue accumulated through combat and the harsh environment is never negligible.
Because of that, the speed of our progress declined either way, but we were able to gain levels through the huge amount of experience we gained during our climb, so it was OK.
Slowly but steadily, we advanced, and around by the time evening fell, we finally discovered the third field boss.
The 3rd field boss ― Large Vulcan Golden Elephant, a gigantic gold elephant walking on 2 legs, armed with a simple battle-axe.
Its height is about 25 meters, and its body looked like massive crag that easily surpassed Balor.
Overall, it’s amazingly thick, massive, humongous. The legs that supported the massive figure, looked steady, as if rooted into the earth.
It’s essentially naked, but it did wear a dark silver loincloth that covered his privates and functioned somewhat as armor. I can’t discern any wounds on its golden skin. I assumed It had some kind of natural protection.
Perhaps you couldn’t cut its skin with a superficial attack. In addition to its massive figure, you’d have to be able to cut through its tenacious muscles and crush its bones. I found its difficulty level disgusting.
On top, a huge trunk extended to all the way down to its feet, it was essentially a third arm as well as a club that would mercilessly strike down any adversary.
It swung from left to right every time it moved, and whenever the trunk collided with the surrounding volcanic rocks, they were crushed with ease. How much destructive power will it have if swung seriously?
Four ivory tusks that resembled battering rams grew on both sides of its trunk, curving valiantly. They were majestic appearances that confidently displayed not a single scratch.
It certainly has the highest offensive and defensive power of everything I’ve fought up until now.
From a physical perspective, it certainly felt like a considerably difficult match-up. The fact that it wielded a battle-axe that was bigger than Minokichi-kun’s was troublesome.
The unrefined battle-axe looked to kill the target by crushing it rather than cutting it. A single blow from the Large Vulcan Golden Elephant had a speed that you wouldn’t expect from that weight. Its ridiculous strength was at such a level that it could only be barely defended by me or Minokichi-kun.
That’s what I thought when I saw the Large Vulcan Golden Elephant chop off the neck of a Magma Lizard while I was observing it to gather intelligence.
A Magma Lizard is a kind of drake walking on 4 feet, a dungeon monster of around 10 meters that infested the mountainside.
While its combat ability was appropriate for a drake, it was killed by a single blow. That’s how strong the offensive abilities of the Large Vulcan Golden Elephant are.
It certainly is a powerful enemy, a moment of carelessness will mean death. Large Vulcan Golden Elephant was an opponent of that level.
Naturally, one would be intimidated and would run home without any reason, but after observing it, I judged that we’d have a chance of winning. So we challenged it to a fight.
A single blow of the Large Vulcan Golden Elephant is fatal. The speed of the attacks was also very hard to deal with, as he dished a lot of unmixed physical attacks. But because there weren’t a lot of special attacks, I was able to somehow deal with it if I was careful.
I did have some trouble seeing all attacks the accumulated damage of the continuous, relentless assault exceeded my overwhelming defensive power.
Probably it would be even more severe if we came here in our state from before, it certainly helped a lot that we had the benefits of raising our levels through the earlier battles.
With our remaining power, we might be able to subjugate the Large Vulcan Golden Elephant.
However, it didn’t go smoothly. At the worst possible time while we were fighting the field boss, a 【Trespasser】 was approaching.
If the 【Trespasser】 was a normal dungeon monster, nobody would be concerned.
The ones approaching were somehow several ranks higher than the Magma Lizards that lived on this mountainside.
The one that approached were was the king of the Bull Orcs and Orcs that lived inside the volcano. He roughly resembled a warrior with the head of a boar, and slaughtered his enemies with two huge butcher knifes that he wielded.
I look up to see a massive figure of approximately 6 meters in height, his body covered by bristle while wearing a minimum amount of clothes and decorations. He was overflowing with a wild, barbarous charm.
The name of this warrior was Vulcan Bull Orc King.
The top dog of the orcs that went through 【Rank-up】―― Bull Orcs ――Vulcan Bull Orc King was the 4th field boss. In other words, because of this 【Trespasser】, we had to keep 2 field bosses company at the same time.
It became a lot more likely that there would be casualties.
Because the 9 of us were the main force, the loss of even a single demon would be greater than the potential profit of this dungeon capture.
However, fortunately, Kugime-chan was able to spot the 【Trespasser】 before he arrived because she was monitoring the area.
Feeling relieved that he was discovered right before he actually crashed the party, I left the Large Vulcan Golden Elephant to the others, and decided to fight the Vulcan Bull Orc King with just 1 demon, me.
Since it does seem that there’s still a way to go before the Large Vulcan Golden Elephant was at its limit, it might defeat everyone. Without a doubt.
Still I entrusted it to them. I erased any sign of myself and approached the Vulcan Bull Orc King from behind.
I wore the best exoskeleton I had for battling on land, 【Red Bear Beast King’s Prestige】, and used 【Three Steps of Destruction】. On top, I executed 【Surging Destructive Fists of Flesh Crushing】. It was a triple folded attack that could slaughter a collection of several drakes that I drove into his spinal column.
While the back is surely more durable than the front, when touching the skin I certainly felt the reaction of its spine shatter and internal organs explode.
The fur and skin of the Vulcan Bull Orc King that looked similar to polished, dark red metal was deeply indented by my fist. The massive figure was blown forward spinning, and rolled over the ground violently.
It’d be nice if it would have been finished with just this, but it didn’t seem to go so conveniently.
The Vulcan Bull Orc King vomited a large amount of blood from its mouth just once, and slowly stood up with steam being generated from its whole body burning.
The muscles of his body expanded vigorously and when he exhaled, a blue flame was blended in.
With his ferocious standing posture, it looked as if he didn’t feel any damage from before. The field boss didn’t look dandy, so was it showing his experience?
Translation Notes
| Writer | Note |
|---|---|
| Champsy | FYI, an ice axe is not an axe made out of ice. It’s a multi-purpose hiking tool (pick axe). |
| Champsy | FYI, an ice axe is not an axe made out of ice. It’s a multi-purpose hiking tool (pick axe). |
| Champsy | 【無貌・八鬼戦陣】 = No Form ・ Eight Demon Annihilation Battle Formation |
| Champsy | These ability names... Flame Collect Release Corundum... What? What a way to say he basically absorbed some metals and smelted a special steel for the blacksmiths to use. |