Chapter 56
Chapter 56
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 56
Chapter Title: Floor 9. Isn't This Edible?
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Floor 9. Isn't this something you can eat?
After sorting through the shattered, unusable potions and the scrolls whose magic had faded away, I was left with just enough to fit entirely into my original bag.
In terms of ratio, that was about a 30% loss.
It stung, but chalk it up to surviving thanks to those items. Rationalization is a key part of flexible thinking.
"Is that enough now?"
Blue Tongue had waited patiently while I collected the scattered items around us and fumbled into my armor. She must have instinctively sensed I was done, because she rose from where she'd been perched on the tree stump.
"How's it look? Pretty convincing, right?"
A knight clad head to toe in plate armor, a massive white greatsword slung over his shoulder.
The kind of romantic ideal any man would envy.
Sure, the full set of heavy gear tanked my evasion rate hard, but tanking hits with high defense was way easier than trying to dodge every other blow.
Besides, the enemies' attacks were getting sharp enough to be scary. Fighting in light armor was starting to feel dicey.
"Hm. You looked more like a warrior bare-chested, scars on full display. Still, it's similar to what those humans wore—the ones who came shouting about conquering this jungle. All dead now, though."
"Just curse me out already..."
I couldn't help but click my tongue at Blue Tongue's badmouthing, delivered without a shred of malice.
"You'd look way cooler in this one than that armor."
"Even if you knock it down 10 GOLD at a time like some infomercial until the first digit drops, I still can't afford it?"
I finally lost it and knuckle-rapped the top of the suspicious merchant's head as she casually recommended that 39,990 GOLD breastplate again.
Thwack!
"Ow—!"
The merchant dropped the breastplate in her hands and rubbed her head like it hurt.
And I knew full well it didn't.
The merchant who revealed herself as some "dream demon" was Level 30. A scratch was all a Level 10 scrub like me could manage.
"Customer, that's too harsh."
"Isn't the harsh part your conscience for trying to hard-sell to a poor neighbor like me? Let's take a moment to reflect together."
I could feel her stare boring into me intensely from behind her mask, but I turned away completely, showing my ironclad resolve not to yield to the sales pitch.
For some reason, the gaze prickling my back felt like it was intensifying, but it had to be my imagination.
"So, how do you summon the guardian?"
More importantly, I needed to remake the guardian before tackling the alraune.
I couldn't use Kali right now due to the matchup, and neither Severa nor the slime were great against a magic-user like the alraune.
As a quasi-boss, the alraune had high specs and was tough up close, but at its core, it was a mage.
Not a straight firepower nuker like Severa, of course, but a debuffer that blanketed the whole room with light damage, poison, and other status effects. If you were weak to magic, you'd be helpless.
'No status resistance means instant eject to Floor 1.'
The safest bet was chugging a purification potion or an immunity draught, but those weren't easy to come by. If the guardian could properly suppress the alraune, it was worth deploying.
"You place the statue and potion on the medium in the village and perform the ritual."
Blue Tongue blinked as she stowed the statue and potion I'd handed her into her backpack.
"But first, we need to catch a slime blob."
"Slime blob?"
"Yeah. Like I said, the guardian's a magical creature based on a slime blob. That human mage borrowed the way local bosses spawn and recreates it artificially."
That jogged my memory of the boss descriptions in their text.
Giant slime blob, mutated from cannibalizing its kin. Sewer King, bloated on the dungeon's magic. Alraune, born from condensed jungle mana.
'Stuff 'em full of mana to force growth?'
If that worked, you could probably manufacture bosses outright.
I didn't know much about magic, but the text descriptions made it a reasonable guess.
"Alright, off to catch a green slime blob. Habitat's nearby."
Blue slime blobs in the sewers, green ones in the jungle.
Same levels, health, everything—just a palette swap in color.
If they were even stronger, it'd make sense, but I wondered why include them at all. Guess it was for the lore.
Seeing I had no objections, Blue Tongue turned to go. I thought of the slime slumbering in my backpack and paused.
Couldn't my slime become a guardian too?
"Hey, Blue Tongue. Hold up a sec."
"Hm? What is it, human."
She stopped at my call and turned, her tail sweeping a long arc across the ground.
"Can you only have one guardian at a time?"
"The mage said never make two. They might cannibalize each other, mutate, and slip control."
Fair point. If a guardian already at quasi-boss level went full giant slime blob mutant, it'd be a catastrophe.
"So, if there's no alraune, you don't need the guardian anymore?"
"...Human, what are you thinking."
"Not planning any harm. Just asking. What's it worth to you guys in trade?"
Blue Tongue tensed warily, so I flipped up my visor, flashed my face, and hammed it up.
The lizard great warrior Blue Tongue didn't worship the guardian like some novel cliché.
She recognized it as a created creature—a tool to use as needed. Nothing more emotional than that.
So if the threats it was needed for were gone, maybe I could take it off their hands?
"...Even after slaying the flower king, the guardian protected the village from those green-skins while I hunted. They eat their own kind."
Grind—
Rare anger flickered in the emotionless reptile's eyes.
"The orcs are leaving this jungle now. I burned all their villages."
"Wha—"
Her jaws, grinding clack-clack, gaped wide in shock, revealing her blue mouth and tongue stark against her red scales.
"I caught that thief, torched the orc villages rivaling yours, killed the dangerous fusion beast, and if I handle that headache alraune too..."
The jungle of the Osayeris Maze: three local bosses. Lizard faction and orc faction splitting the region.
If I eliminated all that...
"Wouldn't that be worth handing over to me?"
She couldn't refuse.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Kashing—!
Sparks flew off the flat of my greatsword as the spear blade slid away.
A pale glowing orb shot from behind it—I thrust my arm out, slamming the crossguard into the lizard's solar plexus before hurling myself sideways.
"Kheek—!"
The lizard staggered back with a short shriek, clutching its chest, while the light orb sailed off into the distance.
Mud and water seeped into my armor, weighing me down, but I sprang up quick and shook myself to fling off the muck.
"Sure you don't want help, human?"
"Nah. Need the practice."
⚔ ENEMY STATUS ⚔ 『Lizard Follower』 Lv: 13 Health: 44/76 ■■■■■■□□□□ 【A lizard worshiping a grotesque idol.】 At Blue Tongue's offer, I shook my head.
Two lizard followers up front—one with a spear, one with a staff. But Blue Tongue and the merchant were hanging back, watching my fight from afar.
I hadn't had a proper scrap in days and felt rusty, so I'd stubbornly insisted on going solo.
Plus, I wanted to test out this greatsword, pieced together from orc scouting party's gear.
⚔ ITEM ⚔ 『Whitewing Greatsword』 【A greatsword said to match the color of the whitest feathers of the whitewing bird. Unlike their delicate hue, however, it is heavy.】 Tier 4 or so—good enough to carry me into the next region.
With the full plate set on, two basic mobs like these were no sweat.
"So when are we fetching Headless, customer? It's feeding time."
"Hey, no head means he can starve a bit!"
"Customer, too harsh."
She could whine Daddy, I hate you! all she wanted—it did zero damage to a childless guy like me.
All my weapons so far had been light enough for one hand.
But this Whitewing Greatsword demanded both arms, making it tricky to wield.
I swung my arms wide to loop the blade behind my back, then thrust my right hand out to lift it, using gravity to bring it smashing down.
The motion looked sluggish, but the destructive power from the blade's mass plus gravity was immense.
Whoosh— The greatsword cleaved the air, meeting the lizard follower's horizontally braced spear shaft.
The result was gruesome.
Crunch—
The greatsword snapped the shaft like a twig, pulverized the lizard's skull, and sent its eyeballs squirting out from the pressure to plop into the mud.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ You defeated the Lizard Follower. "Eugh, gross."
"Kheek!"
Clang—!
I cleaved half the first lizard follower's head off. A magic bolt from the second one, chanting behind it, struck right into the gaping wound.
The impact drove the mana bolt perpendicular into my thick plate armor like a hammer to the chest—I toppled backward.
"Guhk!"
⚡ SKILL ACTIVATED ⚡ 『Mana Bolt』 Mystic-type magic with no element. Ignores a portion of defense.
The lizard follower's mana bolts weren't elemental like fireballs, ice spears, or thunderbolts. They were mystic-type, a tier below wide-area elementals.
But magic was magic—it ignored some defense regardless. Position it right, and it was a solid weapon.
'If Severa had tanked that, the armor would've been pierced.'
Still, the lizard follower's Mind stat was low.
That was why I walked it off with just a defense penetration.
Bang! Boom!
I hauled myself out of the sucking mud, staggering to my feet, just in time for the sound of compressed air bursting followed by an explosion.
Splat.
In the blink of an eye.
The second lizard follower's headless body crumpled into the mud, raining down gobs of flesh and brains.
And the culprit? That spear.
"Sorry, human. Looked dicey, so my hand slipped... Didn't need it?"
Blue Tongue trudged over, yanked her spear from the deep mud, and eyed me with a flick of her blue tongue.
"N-No..."
Best not to act cocky.