Chapter 267
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You won the battle.
Your 【Intelligence Enhancement】 level has increased.
Your 【Intelligence Enhancement】 has reached its level cap. 10 SP is required to break through the limit.
Your 【Mental Enhancement】 level has increased.
Your 【Mental Enhancement】 has reached its level cap. 10 SP is required to break through the limit.
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"They were only fast."
"Maybe Genjuro's just amazing."
The Ice Elementals had less health than expected, so we were able to defeat them with remarkable ease. We had not even taken a proper attack from them yet.
Normally, they would make full use of their aerial mobility, combining 【Flight】 and 【Acrobatics】 with their small bodies to evade attacks while casting magic. Genjuro's swordsmanship was effective too, but it was the Flash spell's exceptional effectiveness that made things so easy.
At long last, the Skill that improved my basic stats reached Level 50 and evolved. My SP was nearly depleted as a result, but I could somehow earn it back. For now, I should simply be happy.
"Ruby, Shifune, how were the drop items?"
"Um, yeah, here!"
"Is this a wing? Let's see..."
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Ice Elemental's Crystal Wing Quality: Acceptable Rarity: S (Special Grade)
A bluish, transparent wing from a fairy that can freely manipulate ice.
It is extremely cold and contains Water-Attribute magic.
It is difficult to process because it is fragile, but it makes an excellent material for ornaments.
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What Shifune handed me was the very wing that had grown from the back of the Ice Elemental. It looked like an intricate glasswork ornament, but, just as the 【Appraisal】 description said, I could tell it was cool to the touch.
Only one wing had dropped, and as usual, everything else had been magic stones. Although defeating them involved no troublesome process, monsters that dropped rare items at a low rate required us to fight them repeatedly. If possible, I wanted to prepare enough wings for the six of us, plus some to take home as souvenirs.
"That's a pretty wing. Quite a difference from the face you had when you attacked me."
"I think so too. By the way, did you manage to gather the icicles from the ceiling?"
"Oh, I forgot."
"Shall the three of us go get them next time?"
"Okay!"
And so, we resumed the gathering work that the Ice Elementals had interrupted. We tried taking several of the icicles hanging from the ceiling that were available to gather.
At first, I assumed we would obtain Frozen Ore or Perennial Ice. However, that expectation was overturned. The icicles themselves became available as items.
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Magic Ice Icicle Quality: Good Rarity: C (Common Grade)
A naturally formed icicle containing a large amount of magic.
It is difficult to melt due to the influence of magic.
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Yes, it was an icicle. An icicle that was merely a little difficult to melt. There was not even any note saying it could be used for anything. It did not seem worth risking ourselves to obtain. Shio looked extremely dejected when she learned that, but we had no choice but to convince her that these things happened sometimes.
We pulled ourselves together and resumed our exploration. Ice Elementals occasionally attacked from above, but Genjuro cut them down, Flash knocked them out of the air, or Wool wiped them out with area attacks from Wool's cries, so it was easy enough.
"We're not getting much chance to shine."
"It's a bad matchup for us."
"Grr! I can't hit them!"
While we men were fighting hard, the women—Ruby and the others—seemed to have nothing to do. As Shio had said, the reason was that all three of them were catastrophically poorly matched against these enemies.
Ice Elementals were small, flew through the air, and excelled at swift evasive movements and long-range attacks using water and ice. Ruby was fast enough to catch up to them, but even when she leaped at them, her dagger rarely connected. As in our first battle, even Shio's arrows were dodged despite her precise aim.
Shifune was as fast as Ruby and could also launch threads for long-range attacks like Shio. However, her blade-like articulated limbs and threads were dodged every time. I personally thought we should praise the enemy's evasion ability, since there was nothing wrong with Shifune's skill. The only abnormal one was Genjuro, whose mastery was such that he could always cut as many as two at once.
Incidentally, one Ice Elemental dodged Shifune's articulated limbs and laughed as if mocking her, only to explode from the shock wave of Wool's voice. Wool seemed unusually irritated at the time. It was nice to see they got along.
"We've gathered quite a lot of materials, but this place isn't really just Ice Elementals, is it?"
"I doubt it. Unless Mac, the leader of the clan called 'Undead Bastards' whom we met yesterday, was lying."
"It doesn't seem like he was lying. Look, over there."
As we continued gathering materials and exploring the unchanging field, a monster utterly different from the Ice Elementals appeared. It was a collection of various bones about the size of a small car, lumbering along while its bones scraped noisily against one another.
What was it? It was not shaped like any kind of animal; it looked simply like a mass of bones moving with a will of its own. It was probably a type of Skeleton, but it was so absurd that I hesitated to call it a distant relative of mine.
A Failed Homunculus reduced to bones might be the closest description. I had a vague sense of déjà vu, but I would use 【Appraisal】 to determine exactly what it was.
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Race: Great Bone Mount Lv. 45
Job: Collector Lv. 5
Skill: 【Vitality Enhancement】
【Strength Enhancement】
【Defense Enhancement】
【Dexterity Enhancement】
【Bone Transformation】
【Launch】
【Night Vision】
【Status Ailment Immunity】
【Light-Attribute Vulnerability】
【Blunt Vulnerability】
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Great Bone Mount... I had never heard of such a monster, but this explained the source of my déjà vu. It was similar to—or perhaps an evolved form of—the Bone Wall we had encountered in the underground cemetery and that had proven useful in the dungeon I created.
Now that the mystery was resolved, I observed it. Its movements were slow, but it was steadily approaching us. I could not tell whether it was deliberately coming our way or merely wandering. It was a mass of countless bones, and since I could not tell where its face was, I could not read its expression.
No, even before that, it was unclear whether it had anything that could be called a face or head. The bones making up its body naturally included skulls, but did one of them function as a central head? Or did it lack such a part altogether? Even that was unknown.
"What are we doing?"
"What do you mean, what? We have no choice but to fight it, of course."
"Then leave it to us!"
"Time to vent some stress!"
No sooner had I answered Wool's question than Ruby and the other two attacked as if they had been waiting for me to say so. They must have been carrying a great deal of frustration. That was how troublesome the Ice Elementals had been.
"Shii-chan, I'm off!"
"Sure!"
Ruby was the first to charge in. Riding on Shio's shoulder as she approached, she leaped from there and repeatedly hacked at the Great Bone Mount's bones with her dagger. The finely chopped bones flew through the air, shaving away the surface of the Great Bone Mount and reducing its volume.
"Gigi... gigigi... gi..."
Perhaps being attacked had put it into battle mode, because the Great Bone Mount stopped crawling along the ground and counterattacked. Its method was to launch the countless bones that made up its body, using its own bones as weapons.
Ruby did not dodge. Instead, she hardened her surface and blocked them. Ruby, now an Elder Assassin Jewel Slime, could attain the hardness of a gemstone at the cost of being unable to move. Combined with the 【Physical Resistance】 that Slimes possessed from the beginning, this gave her enough defense that even Jigoro's fists would leave no more than scratches while she remained still.
Ruby's usual style was to approach while bouncing around at high speed to confuse her opponent, then launch a surprise attack with her dagger. However, even if that failed, her impregnable defense let her endure while waiting for an opportunity to escape.
"Spinning Blade Shred! Take that!"
Shifune charged in. Now a Blade Demon, she spread her articulated limbs, which had become blades in keeping with her Race, and spun as she rammed into the Great Bone Mount using a Martial Skill.
Having become like the blades of a massive shredder, Shifune gouged a huge section out of the Great Bone Mount's body. The attack would have been fatal to an ordinary monster, but the Great Bone Mount was a mass of bones. Even after some of its body had been scraped away, it still moved without difficulty. On the contrary, the Great Bone Mount launched an unexpected counterattack.
"Whoa!? It turned into a hand!?"
The Great Bone Mount transformed its body into something resembling a giant's arm and approached Shifune, who had landed after using her Martial Skill, intending to seize her. She screamed, but moved her eight articulated limbs rapidly and escaped its clutches—or rather, its bony hand.
This was probably the effect of 【Bone Transformation】 that I had seen during 【Appraisal】. I had thought it would merely change the shape a little, but I never expected it to transform so dramatically.
"I'm bad at opponents whose weak points I can't identify, but this should work, right? Shattering Shot!"
Shio, who used a bow and arrows as her main weapons, was poor at dealing with opponents whose weak points she could not identify. To overcome that weakness, she used arrows imbued with an attribute to strike their vulnerabilities.
She nocked a Light-Attribute arrow and used a Martial Skill that dealt Blunt damage. The arrow pierced near the wrist of the arm-shaped Great Bone Mount, whose hand had missed while trying to catch Shifune. The impact blasted away a large section, severing the hand from the forearm.
The damage from Light-Attribute and Blunt attacks must have been considerable. Split into two sections, the Great Bone Mount moved both parts and tried to reunite them into one.
I could not help being surprised that both sections had moved, but their movements were lethargic to a fatal degree. Determined not to let them rejoin, Ruby thoroughly chopped up the hand while Shifune did the same to the forearm.
"Gigi... gigigi... gi..."
"You're unbelievably tenacious!"
Still, the Great Bone Mount continued moving. Cursing it in exasperation, Ruby swung her dagger. At last, it seemed she had depleted its enormous health, and the Great Bone Mount stopped moving completely.