Chapter 57
Huh? The boss?
It was just as I was looking around in confusion.
Kugugugung-!
Suddenly, the entire ground gave a low rumble and shook.
The footsteps of something enormous moving, carrying a heavy weight.
The sound was getting closer and closer.
It was right behind me!
I hurriedly got out of the way.
Kwagagagak!
At the same time, with a thunderous roar, a gigantic rock wall came crashing down.
“Cough, cough…. Damn it, I got dirt in my mouth….”
An immense cloud of dust obscured my vision.
Beyond it, a giant shadow emerged.
The boss of the 25th floor.
I was momentarily speechless at the sight before me.
“What on earth was that even made for?”
A gear was attached to one of its arms.
A ridiculously huge gear, the kind you’d only see on a bucket-wheel excavator.
Its body was supported not by tracks but by six huge insect-like mechanical legs.
All sorts of heavy machinery—gripper arms, drills, conveyor belts, and everything else—were grotesquely fused throughout its body.
It looked as if a child had gathered every construction toy and glued them all together.
Was he trying to cram a department store into one machine?
But I couldn’t laugh at that ridiculous appearance.
Just by size alone, it was comparable to the World Tree I faced on the 20th floor.
Red light lit up all at once in its many mechanical eyes.
Its only target was me.
The equipment built to break mountains swung toward me.
The pressure bearing down on me was no joke.
The automatic barrier wasn’t going to be enough.
I immediately raised my mana.
“Block it!”
I poured out the orichalcum stored inside me without sparing a drop.
A thick, pale-pink sand barrier shot up.
Kwaaaang-!
The impact sent shockwaves through the entire cave.
Rocks rained down from the ceiling and walls.
“You call that a basic attack?”
That kind of power was in the same weight class as my finisher, God’s Staff.
I clicked my tongue and prepared my attack.
It’s huge, so projectiles probably won’t be efficient.
A few holes wouldn’t make it stop.
Then there was only one answer.
I thrust my hand forward.
A rapidly spinning blade rose in the air.
“Longer, longer….”
I focused.
This was on a scale that dwarfed the Diamond Cutter I usually made.
The longer the blade became, the harder it was to control.
The unease felt like holding one end of a rubber band, never knowing when it would snap.
At last, a spinning saw several times my height was formed.
I released it like letting go of a stretched rubber band.
The slash shot forward.
Swish-!
A crisp ripping sound rang out.
At the same time, the giant blade cleanly severed two of the boss’s six legs.
The boss’s massive body tilted heavily to one side.
“Got it!”
Just then.
Crackle!
Something flashed from the severed surface.
It was so fast I couldn’t follow it with my eyes.
I only understood what had happened after seeing the result.
Clack, clack-clack!
An automatic sand barrier appeared in front of me.
Pure-white current writhed over it.
The current that hit the barrier seemed to linger for a moment, then was absorbed and disappeared.
I stared blankly at the sight for a moment.
It didn’t take long to understand what had happened.
“That bastard…. It fired lightning?”
And at a speed too fast to even see?
Was he insane?
A chill ran down my spine.
If I hadn’t had the automatic barrier, or if it had been even a little slower…
I would’ve been fried chicken on the spot.
“Being an earth mage saved me….”
I let out a sigh of relief.
I was lucky sand and electricity were a good match.
“If I were a water mage, I’d have died from that shock just now, right?”
Earth magic really is the best.
There’s no counterplay.
I finally caught my breath.
Now I had its weakness figured out.
Once those two legs were broken, its balance was visibly shaken.
One more and it wouldn’t even be able to stand.
I forged a huge blade once more.
This time, it was far faster and more precise than before.
The thing staggered, trying to move its legs and regain its footing.
“One more!”
With my shout, the second slash flew.
Swish-!
Just like the first attack, another of its legs was cleanly severed.
Now only three legs remained.
Kreeeeeek-!
The machine shrieked and lost its balance.
The huge body swayed dangerously, then finally couldn’t withstand its own weight and slumped over.
Now all I had to do was go up to the immobilized machine and finish it off with Weathering.
I slid across the floor toward it, certain of victory.
I pointed the tip of my staff at the fallen machine’s body.
Weathering.
Starting from the point of contact, the hard metal began to turn to sand and crumble away.
“For some reason, it’s a bit slow today….”
It felt like trying to light wet firewood.
I soon found out why.
This machine’s body wasn’t steel—it was mithril.
A metal with powerful resistance to magic.
“Wow, what a nasty setup.”
An awed compliment slipped out at that malicious monster design.
Nothing ever went easy.
I prepared my final strike.
The biggest and sharpest blade I’d ever made.
My final attack, with all my mana concentrated into it.
“Split in half and die.”
A giant slash cleaved space apart.
Swish-!
The giant body split exactly in half.
Through the gap, I could see its core still glowing red.
All I had to do was destroy that.
But for a moment, hesitation rose up in me.
Because I thought of the Heart of the Mountain I was carrying, still radiating heat.
Could this work on a machine core too?
If I was going to break it anyway, it was worth trying once.
I didn’t hesitate.
I shot straight into its interior in an instant.
I reached into the split machine’s interior and grabbed the hot, beating core.
Crack-!
As I forcibly ripped out the connected cables and pipes, the core came free in my hand.
Beeeeep-.
Once the core was pulled out, all the machine’s lights went out and it let out a shrill scream.
“It works?”
I took the Heart of the Mountain out from inside my clothes.
Then I brought the hot core I’d just removed up to it.
Srrrrk-.
Like the other cores, it melted like liquid and was sucked into the heart’s cracks.
The heart’s red light grew even stronger.
“It’s this hot?”
At the same time, black smoke rose.
The sand wrapping the item melted away in an instant, turning into transparent glass beads.
“Why do all these hidden-piece items have to be like this?”
I grumbled as I brushed off the sand that had turned into glass.
The World Tree seed too, and this rock too.
Every one of them was a pain in the neck to store.
My gaze suddenly snagged on the boss’s fallen body again.
A very bizarre thought flashed through my mind.
“Could this... be eaten?”
The moment the thought came to me, I shook my head as if disgusted with myself.
“No, no matter how I look at it, this isn’t right.”
It’s a hunk of scrap metal covered in oil and dirt.
Too dirty and dangerous.
What am I supposed to trust and put in my mouth?
“…But it’s mithril.”
I swallowed dryly.
Mithril.
The very metal with magical resistance strong enough to withstand my magic.
“Could I just try one bite?”
In the end, practicality beat disgust.
First I had to deal with the filthy outer layer.
I peeled off the outer plating like peeling an apple.
Crunch, crunch.
Once the outer shell came off, a faintly glowing, smooth inner structure—no, the skeleton—was revealed.
I closed my eyes tightly and bit into the very end of the exposed skeleton.
Crunch.
A familiar sensation spread throughout my entire body.
“No doubt about it—it was mithril.”
That precious metal I still needed a lot of, and which was hard to get even if you paid for it.
The moment I confirmed it again.
I decided to give up on human dignity.
I set my stance and started eating in earnest.
There was no time.
I’d cleared the floor, so I didn’t know when the system would kick me out.
Before that, I had to eat the entire giant mithril chunk.
Faster than anyone else. Unlike anyone else.
Mithril, processed with Diamond Cutter so I could swallow it in one bite.
Crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch.
“If anyone else saw this, I’d really look like a crazy bastard….”
Even while thinking that to myself, I didn’t stop eating.
No one’s watching anyway, so what does it matter?
Rather than worrying about appearances, it was better to eat one more piece of mithril.
I practically buried myself in the metal as I swallowed it.
Amid all that frantic eating,
I suddenly noticed another change happening in my body.
I realized that no matter how much I ate, my stomach never got full.
It was as if my stomach were a dimensional pouch with infinite space.
Come to think of it, lately I’d almost stopped feeling hunger at all.
Now it felt like I could go days without eating and be perfectly fine.
Maybe I was already slowly drifting away from ordinary human physiology.
I was lost in those thoughts for only a moment.
I focused again on the meal in front of me.
I can think later.
Right now, I have to eat.
How much time had passed?
At last, mithril had filled my body to the limit.
I let out a satisfied sigh.
“Phew... Thanks for the meal.”
At that moment, my body was wrapped in a faint light and my vision blurred.
The familiar sensation of being ejected from the Tower.
I patted my belly in satisfaction and headed home.
As soon as I got home, the fatigue hit me and I flopped straight onto the bed.
Food coma?
Maybe because I was digesting the mithril, my body felt especially sluggish.
***
A searing heat woke me up.
My whole body was drenched in sweat, and the damp pajamas clinging to me were incredibly unpleasant.
“What the hell…. Why is it so hot….”
Weather like this in autumn.
Did the world really go to ruin this badly?
I muttered irritably and got out of bed.
Just as I was about to reach for the remote and turn on the air conditioner.
I realized something was wrong.
The heat was rising from the basement.