Chapter 81
81. Emerald Wyvern
No one knew how strong the Emerald Wyvern actually was.
That was only natural. It wasn't a monster meant to be caught.
A creature placed as a gimmick in a dungeon, a stage prop that had to be avoided.
But if you think about how strong the wyvern-type monsters that appear on the upper floors are, you can make a rough guess.
First of all, it's certain to have the mana to endlessly fire composite-attribute beams of that power.
The amount of mana I could feel in those beams alone was about equal to my entire mana pool.
I'm a warrior class, so I don't have a lot of mana to begin with, but even so, that's an outrageous amount.
At this point my base specs were already way beyond eighth-floor level.
If it only matched that, it was basically cheating.
And wyverns are roughly a lower-tier version of dragons, so their physical toughness isn't ordinary either.
But if, like the other monsters I'd met on the way here, their bodies were made of green crystal, then the story changes.
Their defense would ultimately still be limited by the bounds of green crystal.
In other words, they might be glass cannons.
Still, judging an enemy by stacking nothing but hopeful assumptions is ridiculous.
Still, my odds were plenty good. If it was anything other than a beam attack, I was confident I could take it and keep standing.
"That should about do it."
After confirming that my exhausted body had returned to near-perfect condition, I immediately set off.
Toward the place where the Emerald Wyvern's mana could be felt.
**
The spring where the Jade Elixir had pooled was in the center of a wide cavern.
And in each corner of that cavern, a den had been dug out, with an Emerald Wyvern settled inside.
If you just charged at the elixir without thinking, you'd get sniped from every direction by the wyverns.
Here, the proper move was to slip past the wyverns by taking a detour that avoided detection.
Then you had to activate the dungeon's gimmick and draw their attention away.
But since I can't make use of the gimmick, I can only rely on the detour.
The wyverns here periodically fall asleep.
When they detect an intruder, they wake up and start moving.
And if you use the dungeon's bypass route to enter their dens, you can move without waking them.
The moments these things wake up are when a challenger touches them or when they leave the bypass route or their den and get caught by their detection.
In other words, as long as you don't leave the bypass route or make contact first, they won't wake up.
Which means it's perfect for landing the first hit.
I boldly approached the wyvern, which was supposed to be carefully skirted around, and raised my sword.
"Come at me, you pterosaur bastard."
-CRACK!
I shoved my sword with all my strength into one wyvern's eye. It sank in deeper than I expected.
-GROOOOO!!
The wyvern let out a loud cry and woke up, and in that instant the air around us changed completely.
Mana overflowed from the awakened wyvern's body, and the mana scattered around the area began to resonate with it.
I was almost stunned by the sheer, overwhelming amount of mana that was so vividly felt.
Holy shit, this isn't a dragon, it's a wyvern?
The amount of mana stored inside the wyvern is already absurd, and even the mana in the air is being dominated by it.
To think they were planning to bring six of these insane creatures here.
Whoever designed this tower, there's no way they made a level like this unless they were crazy.
-KIIIIIIING!
While I was still a little dazed, mana gathered in the wyvern's gaping maw.
**
Of course, I had already imagined a few things the wyvern would do after taking the first hit.
But this was a little off from what I'd expected. It wasn't unforeseeable, but how should I put it? What a joke.
I thought that at close range it would come at me with claws or teeth, but it suddenly tried to shove a beam right into my face.
It's like firing a missile just to kill a bedbug.
-KWA-KWA-KWA-BOOM!!
Of course, as a speedy bedbug, I dodged the missile without trouble.
Attacks like this are actually easier to avoid up close than from far away. The emitter has obvious blind spots.
As I evaded to the side of the wyvern's jaw, I swung my sword once more and tried to carve at its neck.
-SLASH!
It cuts pretty well after all. As expected, these things' defense isn't that impressive.
If that's the case, I feel like I could take it down just by staying close and continuing to cut.
The problem is whether it would let me do that.
-GRAAAAH!!
The wyvern screamed and swung the claws at the tips of its wings.
Its speed was fairly fast, but compared to Mercedes's attack after activating mana reinforcement, this was still manageable.
The fact that its arms and wings are fused into one peculiar body structure also meant its movements were too large.
-SKRRRRAK!
The wall caught by the swinging claws and the very tips of its wings was being scraped away in strips.
Right after I dodged the claw attack, its jaw came at me.
Right, if it comes at me like this, now it'll be teeth.
As expected, their strength relies on endless long-range bombardment.
That doesn't mean they're weak without it.
A normal eighth-floor challenger would have been unable to react to the claw attack and would have been torn apart.
But if your specs are high enough to react to and dodge just that much, the number of patterns you have to deal with is small.
Given the terrain, flying is impossible, and at close range it can't freely bombard me either.
Then what remains is close combat, and that half-baked body structure is completely unsuited to melee.
It can probably win everything just by flapping its wings, taking off, and bombarding from above, so it must have been built like that.
In other words, this is like a fight between a Tyrannosaurus and a human.
Normally, a human has no chance of being a T. rex's opponent,
but what if the human could choose the rules however they wanted?
You can't expect a Tyrannosaurus to win a boxing match against a human with those stingy little forelegs, can you?
I set this fight as one-on-one close-range hand-to-hand combat, and the wyvern's body isn't suited for close combat.
That's all there is to it, but my odds of winning go up exponentially.
**
A wyvern's body structure may be unsuitable for close combat, but that doesn't mean it's lacking in intelligence.
Because of that, as the melee dragged on, it realized it was the only one getting hurt and made the smart choice.
-GROOOOO!
It immediately started flailing and tried to get out of the den.
It was trying to change the situation it had found itself in.
This flying-lizard bastard isn't stupid, but it's not exactly smart either.
If you were going to leave, you should've done it long ago.
Did you think you could still get out after being slashed all over like that?
You may have come in however you liked, but you're not getting out.
-KWAK! THUNK!
I took a large polearm out of my inventory and hurled it, pinning the wyvern's wing to the floor.
Since it was already badly injured, its rush to break out of the den wasn't all that fast.
On the other hand, I had plenty of room to spare.
Even if it tore the pierced wing free and tried to get out, it was faster for me to throw another spear and pin it back in place.
-GRAAAAH!
The wyvern's roar now sounded like nothing more than a scream.
Ah, come to think of it, doesn't that roar have a fear effect too?
But maybe because of my paralysis resistance, I don't feel any effect at all.
As expected, resistance always pays off.
-THUD!
The wyvern's body, with green crystal sprouting from it, quickly turned into a ragged mess and collapsed to the floor, as if all the strength had gone out of it.
That leaves only one thing to do: finish it off.
I stomped on the neck of the collapsed wyvern and raised my sword.
The moment I did, I felt a huge amount of mana gathering in the wyvern's maw.
"You're still pulling this shit to the very end."
Thinking it was going to fire one last beam in a final struggle, I quickly moved into its blind spot.
But the wyvern didn't fire a beam. The gathered mana turned into a glowing sphere and shot toward the outside of the den.
What, had it run out of strength and couldn't fire anymore? But why shoot toward the outside?
"Ah."
The moment I realized why, it was already too late.
My mana detection picked up an enormous surge of power.
-GROOOOO!!
-WOOOOOO!!
-GRAAAAH!!
A roar that shook heaven and earth and a wave of mana that made goosebumps rise on their own.
The Emerald Wyvern's final choice was to call for help, using the light orb to ask the wyverns in the other dens for assistance.
I don't know whether these things even have any affection for their own kind, but in any case, all the sleeping wyverns woke up.
I don't know why it tried to crawl out of the den if it had this option, but only the wyvern itself would know.
Or maybe it wasn't a call for help at all, just a last-ditch move to forcefully wake the other guys up.
-THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD!
I could hear five wyverns' footsteps, and soon I could sense a huge amount of mana concentrating at a single point.
Just as before, the moment they woke up, they were going to fire beams straight at the intruder.
All five of them at once.
Fuck.
I can't dodge that.
Immediately after, a light so bright it was hard even to keep my eyes open flooded my entire field of view.