Chapter 232: At the End of the Wait (2)
Chapter 232: At the End of the Wait (2)
The Veil of Light that had been protecting the fortress vanished.
In its place, dozens of Holy Light Spears materialized in the sky.
Though simple in form, each one was a high-ranking divine art, crafted by refining holy power to its absolute limit. They were grim miracles, created for the sole purpose of eradicating evil.
Beneath them, a woman clad in pure white stepped out from the now-dimmed fortress.
Her white hair was long enough to brush the floor. Her skin was so translucent that her veins were visible through it. Even her clothes were white. The only colors on her were the green of her eyes and the pale pink of her lips.
However, her features were so exquisite that one felt admiration for her beauty before any sense of eeriness.
I had looked at her face reflexively, but her familiar beauty left me standing there with my mouth agape.
Former Saintess Clara. The master of this dungeon and the person we were supposed to rescue—the one who, by all rights, should have been holding out inside the fortress.
…Sis, why are you coming out from there?
Well, judging by the atmosphere, I could tell she was here to join the fray. But was this really okay? If Clara were to fall, I’d have to start the whole thing over from the beginning.
Of course, I knew Clara was strong. She was the Saintess of the Church of Righteous Light, after all. Moreover, she had been tempered by actual combat during the Great War, so there was no way she was weak.
If the pinnacle of knights is the Sword Master and the pinnacle of mages is the Archmage, then it is said that at the pinnacle of priests stands the Apostle.
However, the current Clara was not in peak condition. Having fought without rest for days, she was mentally and physically exhausted. The reason the time limit was set to one day was that her remaining holy power would run out before the day was over.
Tarasque must have shared my thoughts, as he shifted his body away from me and toward Clara.
“To think you’d crawl out on your own. Were you too lonely to die by yourself?”
“Indeed. That’s why I’ve dragged all of you into this as well.”
“Hmm? Are you planning to self-destruct or something?”
“…It doesn’t matter if you don’t know. Regardless, what I must do will not change.”
“I agree.”
Bloodlust swelled in an instant.
Tarasque’s heels lifted slightly, shifting into a stance ready to pounce at any moment, while Clara’s Holy Light Spears began to rotate in unison.
Tarasque was about to lunge at a speed invisible to the eye, and Clara was prepared to intercept him.
Would Clara’s Holy Light Spears time it right? Would they be able to pierce Tarasque’s thick carapace? Or would she fail entirely and suffer a futile blow?
Watching the tactical battle unfolding between the two in that brief interval made me feel left out, so I fired a spell straight at the back of Tarasque’s head.
“Stone Spear.”
It was a low-grade magic that created and launched a crude spear of rock.
Perhaps because its power was pitifully weak compared to Clara’s Holy Light Spears, Tarasque didn’t even bother to look my way. He was likely relying on his sturdy carapace—confident that a mere intermediate magician could do nothing to pierce it.
That was his mistake.
Whish—!
The pointed rock sliced through the air and struck Tarasque’s cervical region… more precisely, a single, small, reverse-growing scale located between his neck and back.
Crack.
“Wh-what…?”
Tarasque, who had been about to spring off the ground, came to a sudden, frantic halt. He glared at me, his eyes wide with disbelief.
Yes. On the surface, it might not have looked like much, but he would have felt it. That single strike had destabilized the very connection of his carapace.
No matter how much of a "masterpiece" it was, a chimera was still a chimera. That meant there was a base monster it was built upon.
Tarasque’s hide was made from a Drake’s. It was hard to recognize because they had attached special alloys instead of normal scales and modified the shape slightly, but the core remained.
The important thing was that he shared the same weakness as the Drake species.
Among the dense, armor-like scales, there exists a single scale that grows in reverse near the heart. This area, commonly known as the Reverse Scale, is the key. If it is destroyed, the Drake’s defense is significantly weakened.
Not only does the bond between the scales collapse, causing issues with shock distribution, but the circulation of mana also falls out of alignment, cutting magic resistance by more than half.
This was a weakness that applied directly to Tarasque as well.
Well… the people who made Tarasque might have been fallen, but their skills were genuine. They could have hidden such a glaring weakness, even if it meant sacrificing some defense.
The problem was that they never trusted Tarasque from the beginning.
The carapace Tarasque wore wasn't just physically hard; it possessed strong magical resistance. It could even neutralize holy power until the blessing of Confused Unity ran out.
Normally, they would have used brainwashing to ensure their creations couldn't rebel, but since magic didn't work well on Tarasque, they simply built in a weakness only they knew about. Chimeras are often ill-tempered due to their unstable nature, after all.
For the record, this was information found in a memo left in the alchemists' hideout deep within the valley.
In the early days of the game’s release, players would somehow fight through the chimera swarms to reach the fortress, only to be repeatedly killed by a Tarasque that seemed to be using invincibility cheats, or they’d hit the time limit and have to reset.
After wandering for a long time, convinced there had to be a way to defeat Tarasque other than brute force, players finally discovered this information.
…Though later on, Tarasque just became a victim of "Stagnant Water" content, like "Killing Tarasque without breaking parts."
Anyway, it was a strategy found through enough trial and error to flip the official cafe upside down, but to Tarasque himself, it must have felt a bit different.
For instance… he might think I was sent by the alchemists, or that I had already finished them off.
With a stiff expression, Tarasque turned toward me.
“Finally looking this way, are you?”
“You bastard…!”
When I smirked and tapped my staff, Tarasque looked like he was about to explode with rage. Unfortunately, he didn't seem inclined to fall for a simple provocation; instead, he spoke with a chillingly calm demeanor.
“…Fine. There’s no need to waste time on those who are going to die anyway. Enough! Wipe out these arrogant fools!”
He issued a command to the surrounding chimeras. The creatures, which had been keeping their distance until now, began to howl savagely and charge. The five sub-boss-level chimeras had already begun engaging the rest of my party.
Tarasque bulked up his leg muscles as if I were his next target. Seeing this, Clara hurriedly fired her loaded Holy Light Spears and shouted.
“Fall back! He is not an opponent you can handle!”
“I appreciate the concern, but….”
A torrent of light slammed into Tarasque’s back. Perhaps because his carapace had softened, it wasn't enough to block it completely; the Holy Light Spears sank about a finger’s width into him.
But that was it. Nothing could penetrate the thick carapace fully. Tarasque merely grimaced slightly and kicked off the ground.
Boom!
A thunderous roar echoed just from the force of his step. He moved at a speed that was difficult to even track with the eyes, let alone dodge… but I was already prepared.
I ramped up the core’s output until mana was practically leaking out and shouted.
“Dig! Dig! Dig!”
“Ha!”
Tarasque scoffed as he saw the deep pit. Granted, it was dug quite deep and wide, but he could easily clear that distance with a single leap.
Normally, that would be true.
But this was Cassis Valley. A bizarre region where any entity that rose above a certain height was slammed back down to the ground.
The pit was so deep the bottom was hard to see. The moment he tried to cross it, Tarasque was considered to be "flying" for the duration of the pit's depth, and he plummeted straight down.
Thud!
“Gah!”
Tarasque was used to using his own falling body as a mass weapon, but that was only when his carapace was intact and he could curl into a ball to prepare for the impact. Falling so suddenly while in a weakened state meant he was bound to take significant damage.
However, now wasn't the time to wonder how much damage I’d dealt.
The original plan was to destroy the Reverse Scale on his neck while he was panicked from falling into the pit. But since I’d already managed to partially break it by blindsiding him while he was distracted by Clara’s sudden appearance, the part-breaking was already done.
And what do you do when the prey is in a trap and the parts are broken?
It’s free deal time.
“Holy Light Spears! Hurry and dump everything you’ve got into that hole!”
“Eh? Ah? What?”
Was she stunned that Tarasque, who had felt like an insurmountable wall, was neutralized so easily? Clara hesitated for a moment, but she was already reflexively aiming her Holy Light Spears before I even finished speaking.
As expected of the Saintess of Righteous Light, renowned as one of the best in combat. She instinctively caught the damage window.
Zip, zip, zip!
One after another, the Holy Light Spears plunged into the pit. As the light filled the hole, the interior became visible.
Tarasque looked like a hedgehog, his carapace riddled with cracks and pierced by numerous Holy Light Spears. Watching him flounder, still unable to regain his senses as he tried to block the spears, I gathered my mana.
Now that we had joined up with Clara and the boss-like Tarasque was trapped, there was no need to conserve mana.
My heart raced wildly, thundering in my ears. As if to silence it, I raised my staff and made a grand declaration.
“Divine thunder, lightning light, flash of heaven—strike down in an instant! Thunder Calling!”
The mana extending from the tip of my staff conjured pitch-black storm clouds, which immediately unleashed a bolt of lightning toward Tarasque.
CRACK!
“Ggggh….”
Thanks to the absurd amount of mana I’d poured in and the secondary reinforcement from resonance, the power was far beyond that of a normal intermediate spell. It was bound to deal significant damage even to Tarasque, whose protection from the Evil God was being stripped away by the Holy Light Spears.
I looked down at him as he gritted his teeth and let out a low groan, and I continued to draw out my mana.
“Thunder Calling! Thunder Calling! Thunder Calling! Thunder Calling!”
Last time, my staff had broken, and I’d had to sear my own fingers to use it, but not today. The metal staff Fay had made for me grew a bit hot, but it held firm as if this level of overload was nothing.
Lightning struck repeatedly. I relentlessly targeted the same spot I’d been hitting and spoke to Clara, who had just exhausted all her Holy Light Spears.
“If you’re done firing, please set up a barrier. It’ll be troublesome if we’re interrupted now….”
“…Understood.”
Clara gave a hollow laugh and knelt on one knee. Centered on her, a white dome of holy power expanded. It was a barrier that kept us and the boss-level enemies inside while pushing away all the minor fodder.
Tarasque, still inside, wasn't looking too good either; black smoke was rising from his entire body. The Evil God’s protection was likely reacting violently in an attempt to resist Clara’s holy power. In other words, he was taking constant damage over time as his shield was being whittled away.
“Phew….”
Things had turned out quite differently than expected, but they had flowed in a good direction nonetheless.
Feeling that the situation had stabilized, I exhaled and popped a mana potion into my mouth.
Tarasque, who had been doing nothing but taking hits, must have seen this as his chance. He coiled his body like a spring and then snapped it open.
“You! You’ve grown careless! I won’t be caught off guard again! I’ll tear you apart in an instant!”
With a boastful shout, Tarasque leaped from the bottom of the pit. His leg strength was still formidable, as he managed to propel his massive frame back up to the surface in a single bound.
And then, he plummeted back down at an incredible speed.
THUD!
“ARGHHH!! What did you do this time?!”
“Idiot. Jumping up to here counts as flying that high. Did you already forget why you crashed the first time?”
“Th-then…!”
Tarasque thrust his hands toward the walls. He was likely trying to dig a tunnel sideways to escape at a gradual incline.
However, why did I show an opening just a moment ago? It was to replenish my mana.
“Thunder Calling!”
“Guh.”
Having been hit so many times, he flinched, clearly in pain. Sensing the timing, Clara intelligently coated the walls with her barrier before I even had to ask. Tarasque kicked at it with all his might, but… it was futile.
The only reason Clara had lost 300 years ago was that her holy power had run out, not because someone had broken her barrier. It was a barrier that had remained intact even when Tarasque and all his subordinate chimeras had swarmed it. It wasn't something he could overcome alone.
“Ah… aah….”
The walls were perfectly blocked, and jumping upward only resulted in a crash.
Tarasque, who had once cornered Clara in the fortress, seemed to realize that he was the one trapped now. A despairing groan escaped the mouth that had previously uttered nothing but bluster.
On the other hand, Clara’s expression brightened considerably as she realized she could just beat the helpless Tarasque to death.
Drawing out the holy power she had saved in her familiar medallion to use as a trigger for a self-sacrifice spell, Clara clenched her fist.
“Wise Magician.”
“That’s embarrassing. Please just call me Yandel.”
“Then, Magician Yandel.”
Clara, forming a glowing spear between her clenched fingers, spoke with a radiant smile.
“Let’s give him a thorough beating.”
“Of course.”
I’ll make sure he’s crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.