Lizardman (4)
Serina let out a sharp hiss as she saw the intruders suddenly appear before her. “Kyaaak! Karura!” She thrust her hand forward in a hurry. The streams of water that had been rippling all around her shot straight toward them.
“Whoa?!”
Park Jihun and his party instinctively dodged the sudden surge of water. But the moment the streams touched the ground—
Crunch!
Instead of simply splashing across the floor, the water sliced straight through the mud like a blade. It was exactly like a high-pressure water jet. They say water fired at high pressure can even cut through rock. This felt exactly like that. If they hadn’t dodged, one of them would have been sliced clean through.
“What the hell? Is that magic?”
“Looks like it. She doesn’t even have a weapon… but her name is Lizardman Knight.”
The moment Shin Jiyeon said that, she reached out and grabbed one of the floating streams of water. It instantly transformed into the shape of a sword.
“...She must be a magic knight,” Briana said, swallowing nervously.
“This is fucking broken. What kind of balance is this?”
A named magic knight at D-rank? Jihun couldn’t help but wonder if the difficulty had glitched out.
Swish!
Serina charged straight at Park Jihun’s group, swinging her blade of water.
Facing a female-type monster.
Alpha Male skill has been activated.
Stats have increased.
This effect will last as long as the target remains alive during battle.
The enemy is temporarily stiffened and intimidated.
“Briana, fall back and provide support! Kar, circle around behind her! Jiyeon, stay on standby for now!”
He gave quick orders to his familiars and met her sword with his own.
Twitch!
Her body stiffened for a split second, but that was all. She recovered from the stun far faster than Kar had and swung her blade at Jihun again.
Crunch!
“Ugh?!”
The tremendous force pushed his whole body back. Even at the same D-rank, the difference between a named boss and a regular monster was massive. Her strength was no joke. If the intimidation effect hadn’t weakened her a little, he might have been sent flying. Her raw power was almost on par with a C-rank.
And that wasn’t all. Because her weapon was made entirely of mana, it crushed down on his synthetic-metal sword like it was nothing. Jihun’s blade was high quality, but every clash with the water sword chipped its edge.
Strong power, high resistance to his stun and intimidation effects, and even magic on top of it all. She was an incredibly difficult opponent.
If he let Shin Jiyeon help, he could subdue her in seconds. But he couldn’t do that.
For Alpha Male’s taming effect to activate, he had to completely dominate the target. That meant he had to prove he was stronger than her. His familiars could assist, but he couldn’t rely on someone overwhelmingly stronger like Jiyeon to finish the job for him.
On the other hand, that also meant he could accept help as long as he was the one delivering the overwhelming defeat.
Whip!
“Kyuk?!”
Briana’s whip flew toward Serina.
Thwack!
“Ugh?!”
Serina kicked Jihun away from their blade lock and deflected the incoming whip with her water sword. But Jihun hadn’t been pushed back nearly as far as she expected. He quickly regained his stance and charged in again.
“I’m pretty confident in my body, you know!”
Bam!
“Kyaaak?!”
He slammed into her with his shoulder, and the combined force of his strength and weight sent them both crashing to the ground.
Splash!
They plunged straight into the muddy swamp below. Briana’s whip immediately wrapped around Jihun’s body and yanked him back up.
“Okay.”
The instant he was lifted out of the swamp, Jihun brought the flat of his sword down hard on Serina’s head where she lay in the mud.
Wham!!
The heavy impact sent water and mud flying in every direction.
‘...She’s gone?’
Serina was no longer where she had been. But a quick scan of the surroundings showed no sign of her escaping. Which meant…
“Under the swamp…!”
He realized it, but it was already too late.
Splash!
Serina burst up from beneath the swamp right under Jihun’s feet.
“Whoa?!”
The sudden rise knocked him off balance and he nearly fell, but Briana’s whip was still wrapped around his waist.
“Master, are you alright?!”
Briana yanked him hard, pulling him clear of the danger.
“Yeah, thanks to you. I’m alive.”
He had survived thanks to Briana, but the situation was grim. Even after all those attacks, Serina hadn’t taken a single hit. On top of being able to use water-blade magic, she was using the swamp terrain perfectly. There didn’t seem to be any way to deal with her.
‘At least the water-pressure blade doesn’t seem like something she can spam.’
If she could have used it repeatedly, she would have finished him off with it immediately in that last exchange. The fact that she hadn’t meant the spell probably had a fairly long cooldown.
But knowing that didn’t exactly give him a way to beat her.
“Krrk.”
Serina seemed to have figured out how to make things difficult for her opponents. She let out a small laugh and sank back into the swamp with a deep plunge.
“Fuck… she’s smart.”
Neither Jihun nor the others could enter the swamp. It was so thick with mud that they couldn’t see inside it. There was nothing they could do until she came back out.
“Should I help?”
Shin Jiyeon, realizing the situation was going nowhere, cautiously offered. But Jihun didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be thinking. Instead, he asked a question.
“These boots… they don’t have an output limit, right?”
“Huh?”
“The magitech boots. No upper limit on the mana floor output, yeah?”
“Um… probably…?”
She had never even considered the concept of an output limit before, so Jiyeon tilted her head and answered in the affirmative. Jihun nodded at her response.
“You stay back for now.”
He put Jiyeon on standby again.
#
Splash—
Even though it was a muddy swamp, Serina swam through it as freely as if it were clear water. From below, she could feel the vibrations of the intruders standing on the mana floor above.
“Krrk.”
Excluding the most dangerous enemy who still hadn’t stepped forward, she chose the next biggest threat among the three. She shot upward toward the human male.
She planned to knock him down like before, then finish him off with the water blade whose cooldown had just finished.
Swoosh!
She surged upward as fast as possible to throw him off balance. Just as she was about to burst through the surface—
Bang!
“Kiiheeeek?!”
She slammed hard into something solid.
“Krrrk…?”
She had been swimming upward at full speed and never saw it coming. Her mind went completely blank. For a moment everything turned white, and when her vision returned, the whole world was spinning. She had a serious concussion.
“Kwaaahaha! Gotcha! My ‘Careful of the Glass Wall’ strategy was a success!”
Jihun burst out laughing at the sight of her. But he was also staggering, his head clearly spinning. That was because he had poured nearly all of his mana—close to total depletion—into the magitech boots.
Of course, Jihun had no real ability to control mana. He simply didn’t have enough mana to control in the first place. But thanks to the magitech boots, he had gained a rough sense of what mana was and how it moved. Using that, he had managed to forcefully inject a huge amount of mana into the boots.
With that mana, he created an extremely thick and powerful mana barrier right beneath his feet. He had lured Serina straight into it so she would slam her head against it. Since a mana barrier was basically a defensive shield that could even let someone float in the air, making it thick and solid should turn it into a wall. That was the idea behind his plan.
His strategy had been a huge success. Serina was now completely dazed, her vision spinning from the impact.
“Hahaha! I win, you little lizard girl!”
Jihun barely kept his balance as he pointed his sword at the neck of the limp Serina, who had collapsed in the swamp.
Alpha Male hidden effect has been triggered.
A chance to enforce submission is granted against a completely defeated female.
It was a moment of total victory.
#
Since having sex on top of a swamp while nearly out of mana seemed dangerous, they moved together to a spot with solid ground and a large tree, carrying the still-dazed Serina with them.
“Wow… Sunbae, you’re actually insane.”
As they walked, Shin Jiyeon shook her head in amazement.
“Those boots are supposed to be for mana control practice, but… I never thought you’d be able to adjust it that precisely in just one day, especially with such low mana reserves.”
Thanks to his stat inflation, his mana had reached 67. Still, it wasn’t nearly enough for him to release mana outward, create spells, or coat weapons with it. Yet despite that, with the help of the magitech boots, he had forcibly adjusted and pumped a massive amount of mana into them, then used the mana barrier like an actual wall.
“Maybe Sunbae is actually a genius?”
Even without Alpha Male, his innate mana control talent might be exceptional. That was how impressive it looked.
“...I don’t know. I just decided to do it and it worked.”
Hearing that, Jiyeon shook her head again, muttering, “As expected of a genius…”
That was exactly what real geniuses always said, wasn’t it? ‘I just tried it and it worked.’
“Hehehe. Still, this is great. Thanks to subduing her, I get to touch this whole lizard girl body.”
Squeeze, grope.
“Khhng…”
While keeping her arm around Serina’s shoulders and dragging her along, Jiyeon began running her hands all over the lizardwoman’s body. She was drooling with delight.
“Hiiiik, her skin is so soft! So smooth! Is it because she does mud packs every day? And even though she has a human-like body, she’s slightly cool to the touch! Haaah, haaah… A human that feels like a reptile… I can’t hold back… Huh?”
When her hand touched the scale armor, she paused.
“This isn’t scales. It’s just armor?”
“Oh? Really?”
Surprisingly, most of the “scales” attached to her body were actually armor. Only her thighs, lower legs, and the parts of her arms not covered by gauntlets had faint blue scales. Everything else was armor.
In other words… if they stripped it all off, she would be completely bare.
“That’s fucking hot…”
“Haaah, haaah… bare skin, bare breasts, nipples, pussy…”
Only her limbs had a few scales. Once the armor came off, she would be a pure white, naked beauty. Just imagining it made Jihun’s cock stand rock hard, and Jiyeon’s face melted into a lewd, sloppy grin.