Excelkitus Beneath the Den (3)
The entrance to the third floor.
We'd come straight here right after my regression, and yet it had taken us a full two months to make it back. Apparently, we'd been quite busy in the meantime.
Kiiiiiieee—
A colossal pterosaur shrieked down from the sky. Astonishingly, that thing was a variant FirePtero — a mutated specimen at least twenty times the size of the ordinary kind.
"That one's…."
"Yep. Pretty big, huh?"
"Yes. It's enormous."
Jeanne offered that brief observation while gazing up at the sky. She didn't look particularly shocked.
"Hyung, what's our approach going to be here?"
The third floor was a volcanic zone, lava streaming across its every corner. The setting, as far as I could tell, placed us in the immediate aftermath of the birth of Karkamus, the Primordial Red Dragon. In Nezer's creation myth, natural disasters came into existence the moment Karkamus was born — so the scenery fit the story well enough. That absurdly oversized mutant FirePtero was probably connected to it too, though I couldn't say for certain without digging deeper.
"How to approach it, huh…."
The textbook method for clearing a volcanic zone was, first and foremost, to eliminate the lava. Most monsters in these regions weren't seriously affected by molten rock, which meant the hazard fell entirely on our side. It was terrain that worked against us in every engagement — so neutralizing the terrain had to come first.
My initial thought had been to do what we did on the second floor: flood the place with seawater. But rapidly solidified lava would leave the weakened ground prone to collapse, so that was out. Besides, skipping the seawater on the second floor would have dragged that clearing out considerably, and in terms of efficiency, using it there had been the right call.
Which meant removing the lava was close to impossible — at least with the means we currently had. I couldn't use magic, so there was nothing to be done about it.
That left exactly one option.
"We're only going to hit the monsters."
"How?"
"Like this."
What Lee Jun pulled from his Pocket was… a gun. An absurdly huge gun. A lump of metal that towered far past his own height, something that could only be described as a weapon of slaughter. Yes — it was far too large to be called a mere rifle.
"…An anti-materiel sniper rifle?"
"Correct. Specialized for large monsters."
"It's practically a cannon, size-wise."
"The barrel itself was built from a modified self-propelled howitzer, so 'similar' is fair."
In truth, the rounds it fired were nearly the same size as artillery shells. Packed to the brim with compressed mana inside, one shot could honestly sink a fair-sized warship.
"You hold it like this, rest it on your shoulder, and fire."
A firing stance that could just as well be called a rocket launcher's. Admittedly, bullpup anti-materiel rifles like the M82 did sometimes get fired that way — the only difference being that this thing held a single round bigger than an anti-tank rocket and operated exactly like a genuine rocket launcher. It even looked bigger than a Panzerfaust.
"…Then why call it a sniper rifle?"
"Feels like something Armea noona would name."
"Ah. Then that tracks."
Timothy's guess was dead on. That girl slapping whatever names she pleased onto weapons was an activity with an ancient and storied history — a tradition that had carried on even after she became Chief of the Technical Bureau.
"Anyway, it's got a guidance function built in, so we're going to pick them off one by one with this."
Naturally, ordnance like this could only clean up the small fry. The giant FirePtero from earlier would require the courtesy of a visit to its nest. We'd clear out the regular monsters first, then finish things off.
The moment he said that much, Siara flopped down onto the ground.
"What? Then we've got nothing to do this time?"
You might think — well, someone does have to fire the sniper rifle (not a cannon). But that assumption would have been wrong.
"Nope."
"Huh?"
Lee Jun thumped the rifle where it stood planted in the ground.
"This thing. I can't lift and fire it myself."
"…You can't be serious."
"I'm going to need your help, Siara."
"……"
Don't overestimate me, please. You think a body with zero mana can hoist this thing around and shoot it?
"Th-then why did we even bring it?!"
"Because somebody can fire it. That's reason enough."
"Don't say it so coolly! You're just telling me to do all the work!"
"I'll hold it too."
"That won't help at all!"
"That's harsh."
Well, I did prepare the equipment. So I suppose… I'll have to pitch in too?
"Ugh… why me…."
"Siara, a little more to the left."
"I got it, so you lift with me too!"
"I am holding it. It's just not moving."
"……"
{The more I watch, the more I'm reminded… you really are weak.}
I know. I've survived this long thanks to keeping good company.
{Sigh. Such a waste of a cute doll.}
I agreed with Silhouette's assessment. But does cuteness put food on the table? Does being cute save our lives? No, it does not. What saves us is the firepower of our weapons.
Strong firepower brings benefit in every conceivable way. Just like right now.
PUUUWAANG—
The flying round struck the FirePtero dead-on, and the instant it did, the flames along its wings reacted to the formula etched into the shell—
KWA-GWAGWAGWANG!
A catastrophic chain explosion blossomed across the flock.
"Wow…."
"Explosive rounds are perfect for the ones that travel in packs."
"That must've taken down twenty at least?"
"Then we only need to fire about ten more times."
The third floor didn't have an especially large monster population either. It was just infuriating because they flew. Though, come to think of it, if there were a thousand flying monsters up there… this couldn't be the third floor to begin with.
"Alright, next one. That direction this time."
"Okay! Fire right away!"
"We have to reload first, so hold on. Turn the barrel the other way while we wait."
"…Ugh, fine."
Siara whined as she heaved the muzzle around. She had plenty of strength — the limitation was simply being a doll. Small size meant she had to move far more than the job should require. Even so, complaints were all she offered while actually executing every one of Lee Jun's instructions without fail.
"Ugh, if my real body were here I'd be firing one of these in each hand…."
Ooh, that would be pretty cool. Even if right now she was a cute little rabbit plush.
And then—
Jeanne, who had been quietly observing until now, came over and tugged at Lee Jun's sleeve.
"Hm? Jeanne?"
"What if we tried a different method?"
A different method?
"For example, what kind?"
"Like this."
She placed a small pebble on her open palms. Before long, it began to rise into the air.
"That's…."
"If the FirePteros gather in flocks, I thought this could help."
Certainly. It was a clearing method built on monster behavior, just like Lee Jun had used on the second floor. Given the nature of Jeanne's ability, possibilities like this were practically endless.
"You said if you put in a soul that could fly in life, it gains flight?"
"That's right. The reverse works too."
Put the soul of a flying creature into an object. Put the soul of an ordinary creature into a winged object. In both cases, the thing gains the ability to fly.
'That's practically chimera work.'
In the broadest sense, it wasn't so different from crafting chimeras. Her ability was literally named Necromance, after all — same skeleton as necromancy. Every living body was filled to the brim with another energy called aether. It was that aether which made directly reshaping a body through magic so difficult, and made interfering with the inside of another's body nearly impossible. When necromancers commanded the undead, what they primarily manipulated was said to be that very aether.
'Jeanne's unique ability probably runs on a similar mechanism.'
But research on aether was, at least on Earth, completely nonexistent. With no foundational knowledge, there was no research to even begin. The Lich King of the Nezer dimension was said to be deeply learned on the subject — but there was no way to reach him from here. Unless a Reproduction Gate matching that era appeared, anyway.
Still, even from these scraps of information, Lee Jun had pieced together quite a lot. One of those things concerned flight. Put a bird's soul into a rock, and the rock flew. He had no idea what principle made it work — but empirically, it did.
"So we strap a bomb to the pebble and send it up?"
"I think that's a good idea too."
It was unquestionably faster and more efficient. It had been a while since we cleared things alongside Jeanne, so Lee Jun hadn't thought of it — but this was clearly the better way. And the one whose face lit up most at the proposal was Siara.
"I vote yes! I approve of that method!"
"It was heavy, huh."
"It-it wasn't heavy! It's just, how do I put it… this is faster, isn't it? You said we need to clear this floor quickly!"
The way she bristled was adorable. Tease her a little more here and she'd no doubt insist on the sniper rifle for the rest of the floor. That would be entertaining too, but… as Siara said, clearing quickly was the right call. Better to let it go here.
"Alright, let's try it Jeanne's way."
Lee Jun said, pulling adhesive bombs from his Pocket.
As expected. Once again, explosion is the answer.
The FirePteros detonating in unison across the sky looked like nothing so much as a fireworks display. When it came to clearing convenience, traveling with Jeanne was overwhelmingly superior. Being able to harness the monsters' souls exactly as intended carried enormous advantages — the one drawback, that she couldn't directly control them, hardly even registered as a drawback.
"Good. Looks like the small fry are all handled."
Now only ash drifted through the volcanic zone's sky. The pterosaurs that had been wheeling overhead in flocks were gone without a trace.
"So there's just that one left from before?"
"Probably."
"Even from far away, it was truly enormous."
"Ha, you could've told me it was a Simurgh instead of a FirePtero and I'd have believed you."
"Oppa, no it isn't."
"Siara, it's called a metaphor. A metaphor."
The mood was rowdy and lighthearted — four people on what might have been a casual stroll up the hill behind the neighborhood. Except what these four were climbing was nothing like a neighborhood hill.
"Man… it's hot, though."
"It's an active volcano."
Glub-glub—
Boiling lava coursed all around them. The four of them were picking their way upward along the only walkable ground — and, in an utterly contrived design, the third floor's volcano had set paths where its lava flowed. Which meant there were places it didn't flow, and those lava-free channels ran unbroken all the way to the summit. So that the thing could, somehow, be climbed on foot.
Of course, only one path led to the top, so the nest could only be reached by taking the exact correct route. Lose your way and the trip stretched out enormously — or worse, you could find yourself trapped between lava flows. Not that Lee Jun had any risk of that; he had the route memorized cold.
"Wow, this place feels really artificial~"
Timothy had a point. Lee Jun had found it strange too.
"Maybe it has to be climbable, that's all?"
"That's what I'm saying. Volcanoes don't usually accommodate those kinds of concerns before they erupt."
"Hmm. Fair, I guess."
The two dolls chattered away, tucked into Jeanne's arms. Being plush dolls, touching lava would be catastrophic for them. They could technically have just gone into the Pocket — but they hated it, said it was stuffy in there.
"Whew… but seriously, it is really hot."
"Is it?"
"Yeah, well, I actually feel heat properly."
Lee Jun said, wiping away streaming sweat. He glanced at Jeanne walking beside him, but she showed no sign of discomfort whatsoever. Ah, how I envy mana.
"Hmm… what should we do?"
There was a mini fan in the Pocket, but nothing like that could chase off the heat of molten rock. If Yelena were here, he'd have asked her to cast a frost spell or two. Unfortunately, not a single one of the four of them could use magic—
And in that moment, after much deliberation, Jeanne found her answer.
Flutter-flutter—
"Is that cooler for you?"
Hand-fanning. That was it. She held the dolls in one arm and waved her free hand briskly at Lee Jun's side.
It was true. The heat hadn't vanished — but at the very least, he could forget he was hot.
"Thank you. That's plenty cool now."
"Good. I'm glad."
She said it with a small smile.
"……"
That smile still didn't come easy to get used to. Well — one step at a time. This time, at least… we had plenty of it.
And before anyone noticed, we had reached the summit.