True Warrior 2
Manash, eager to deal with the source of the pollution, dumped the whole job on me—but I had other ideas. Sure, I could cast "Help me, Roland-emon" and clean it up again this time without breaking a sweat.
A giant-type monster that had only just reached the threshold of Upper-grade normally required several entry-level Upper-grade fighters to grind it down in a war of attrition. Once a creature could manipulate mana, being big no longer meant slow—it meant tougher, sturdier, and faster to match.
Roland's broken physique, however, was already past the human scale. You could call him a small giant at this point. Even an ogre, the poster child of giant-type monsters, would have its knees shattered and its head slammed into the dirt after a few swings of my mace.
"It's only just stepped into the Upper-grade realm, so it won't be experienced. The Demon King made it, and without reason it'll just thrash its power around."
"Like the ones... above..."
"Exactly. So this time, you all take it on."
If I just wiped it out clean, we'd have a problem with experience. Not the EXP bar that filled to raise levels—the real combat experience our party needed as adventurers.
A giant-type monster standing alone in a wide, flat clearing with no obstacles, no mate, no cubs, no underlings. In other words, wasn't this field practically designed to use the thing as a tutorial boss?
And an Upper-grade giant type wouldn't crumple helplessly to reflection damage. Every time it hit me its mana would drain away, but even orc warriors could tank one hit, so this one should manage somehow.
Being sturdy just meant it made a longer-lasting sandbag…!
"W-we are? I've got plenty of alchemical arrows, at least."
"Good. We can't leave everything to Roland forever. My sword should be able to pierce those scales… but if the lower half is a snake, I can't cut the ankles. How do you even fight a giant Naga?"
Grace and Katie both seemed to agree they needed experience against giant-type monsters; they nodded without hesitation. They'd already fought a massive serpent on the 30th floor, even if they'd used a rideable golem for it.
They knew most Upper-grade monsters ran large, so they felt the need for practice. Game-system knowledge aside, the Tower was structured so enemies only got stronger the higher you climbed—anyone who could think a little could predict more Upper-grade monsters appearing the further up they went.
"Haa… so Roland's only using the shield, then?"
"I'll focus purely on defense. At most I'll bat weapons aside if I have to. You handle everything from damage accumulation to the finishing blow yourselves."
"Why would I make anyone mad because of me?! Look at them twisting even sensei's kind teaching into something sinister, seriously?"
While the other three sized up the giant Naga and planned the fight, Han Se-ah was busy bickering with her viewers. Come to think of it, I had no idea what she could even do with the magic she'd learned so far.
The only attack spells she knew were beginner Magic Missile and the intermediate wind magic she'd used against the cave bats. Everything else was defensive Shield, Light for illumination, Spark for campfires, Water for drinking, and Earth Control for clearing paths.
…Even if this world treated mages as all-purpose problem-solvers rather than pure DPS, she'd skewed way too hard in one direction. Once the 40th-floor boss event ended and the enhancement event rolled around, I'd make sure she learned at least one high-damage boss skill for the Upper-grade tier.
"…But what am I supposed to do to that giant with my magic? Spark won't even pierce an eyelid, Water's useless for drowning something with a head that big, and my only attack magic is low-damage wind so it won't even tickle."
Han Se-ah seemed to be thinking along the same lines; she was already discussing her skill set with the chat. I'd teased her as our shining, reliable mage, but climbing to the 40th floor this fast had started exposing the cracks one by one.
Any other player would have repeated quests for gear and expanded their skill list, but our party had raced upward so quickly that the mage of the group was now short on tools.
I had no way of knowing how other players worked, but ordinary mages naturally kept learning more spells. A baker who learned how to make salt bread didn't suddenly forget how to bake macarons. Learning salt bread didn't require unlearning white bread either.
"We have… a reverse scale…"
Manash spoke up as if to encourage the fretting party. True to a tutorial Upper-grade monster that demanded teamwork, he began explaining the giant Naga's weak point.
Originally, among a dragon's eighty-one scales, exactly one grows inverted beneath the throat.
It is less a fatal weak point that can slay a dragon, and more a spot that, once touched, guarantees the dragon will kill the offender. In short, not "the spot you must aim for to defeat a mighty foe," but "the spot you must never touch or you die."
That, however, only applies when the opponent is a true dragon.
"The scales… turned black… but the body… grew so large… they show… clearly…"
"…You're right. On both arms, the back, and the waist where the human upper body joins the snake lower half—several scales are flipped the wrong way."
This was no dragon, just an entry-level Upper-grade monster with snake scales. How could it compare? The reverse scale Manash mentioned wasn't metaphorical—it was literally inverted scales.
Like a snake shedding, the lower body had grown wrong, producing scales that pointed backward and left gaps in its defense. Hearing it described made me feel like a villain about to attack a giant's ingrown toenail.
"Its bulk… is abnormal… so the reverse scales… are many…"
"The Demon King's power forced it to grow and stole its reason, so the scales that should be hard have gone soft. Clear weak points mean we can handle it."
"Undead last time, this time too—axes suit this floor better than swords."
The clear, visible weak points lit a fire under the party. They drew swords, nocked alchemical arrowheads, and, watching the camera lift into the air, stepped out into the clearing.
Like an RPG boss that politely waited while you held a strategy meeting in plain sight, the thing had stayed quiet—until the moment a single foot entered the open ground. Then it slammed a spear thick as a building beam into the dirt with a heavy thud and reared its upper body in threat.
"Kr, shaaaaaaak—!"
"I won't let anyone get into real danger, but don't let your guard down!"
Its size turned even a hissing leak of air into something close to a roar. No reason to flinch, though—I simply advanced with shield and mace.
A body swirling with Holy Power and mana that never repelled each other was filled with the confidence that it would not yield even to a six-meter giant; if anything, raw physical power alone could crush it. The massive trident came down as if sucked onto the shield I thrust forward.
KRAAAANG—
"Sha, shaaak?!"
A spear thicker than a human torso, wreathed in black energy, slammed down with full force—yet the game-skin shield reinforced with mana didn't even take a scratch. The height difference was adult giant versus kindergartener, but holding it was no problem; if anything, the reflection damage seemed to have shaved away some of its aura.
The giant Naga's black aura flickered like a candle in the wind the moment it struck me. As expected, once you hit Upper-grade, things didn't drop dead from a single reflection hit.
Was the mana saturating its body acting like a kind of MP shield? Even so, every attack still drained its own mana, and once that mana was gone the health would start dropping. And the ones who could accelerate that drain were the party members standing right behind me.
"I'll hit the lower half first! Going—!"
Katie kicked off the ground and charged through the thick dust. Her target was the massive snake lower body crushing the clearing under its weight. Rather than the upper body rearing several meters high, she meant to rip every reverse scale off the lower half first.
It wasn't a pair of human legs but a thick serpentine trunk that thrashed and writhed in panic—yet a natural 4★ Sword Princess was never going to lose to a mere thrashing snake tail. Especially not with three people covering her.
"At least the eyes don't have scales!"
The instant the giant Naga's head turned toward Katie as she leapt clean over the whip-like sweep of its tail, an arrow slammed into the cheek it had just exposed. Thinking it nothing serious, the giant Naga raised its recovered spear and aimed at Katie—now much closer than I was—but—
POOF—!
What had struck the cheek was an alchemical arrowhead. Apparently not meant for damage, it burst with a small explosion and a brown gas cloud briefly blinded the creature.
"Han… help…!"
"May the Goddess grant her protection!"
Seizing that exact moment, Manash's sharp spear lunged in like a ghost. Unlike the giant Naga's blackened aura, his still-blue aura drove straight for the reverse scales just below the waist. At the same time a pure-white barrier of Holy Power unfolded over Katie's head.
KAAANG—! A deafening crash, a heavy blow blocked, and a crack spiderwebbed across the barrier. That a natural 5★ Prospective Saintess's shield—which had never so much as wavered until now—had split open showed just how powerful a boss strike laced with aura truly was.
But the fact remained: the strike had been blocked again.
The brown gas had blinded the giant Naga. Katie, who had been targeted, smashed another reverse scale on the tail. Manash's dark-blue aura hammered the reverse scales under the waist again and again until they tore free.
"Kiya, ssshaaaaaak—!"
Tar-thick black blood welled from between the shattered scales, and the creature roared in fury. That was the full extent of its resistance.
When the roar scattered the gas and its vision cleared, what met its eyes was Katie—who had been thrashing the tail scales—and Manash—who had ripped free the reverse scales under the waist—both diving neatly behind my back.
"How many arrows left?"
"Fourteen that can still disrupt vision!"
So all it could do was grit its teeth, pray my shield would finally break, and thrust its spear again.
Needless to say, there was zero chance of my shield breaking on a mere 40th floor.