Floor 4 (2)
< Photo of a man in sunglasses giving a thumbs up >
Wooow friends~ It's your Newbie uncle here~
Cutting straight to the chase, today's guide is on the Black Sludge.
It's stupidly easy if you have the right gear, so even you E-Rank losers should follow along carefully.
< Man pointing at a Black Sludge with a surprised expression >
The Black Sludge.
A luck-siphoning metamorph bastard that shows up as the Floor 5 mid-boss.
It's the gatekeeper of Floor 5, tormenting newbies since time immemorial.
< Black Sludge utterly destroyed, leaving only its core >
The commonly known strategy is destroying its weak point, the core...
But the damn thing is so annoyingly small that smashing it is no joke.
In the first place, melee-type losers can't even get close without poison resistance.
And even with resistance, anything below B-Grade won't last long.
But with just ONE piece of equipment, subjugation becomes so easy that not only E-Rank losers but even complete non-Awakeners could clear it...
And that equipment is...
< Photo of a hand gripping a round grenade >
A fragmentation grenade.
I'm not bullshitting, for real.
Actually, it doesn't even have to be a grenade — any kind of explosive will do.
A decent D-Grade explosion magic should work too.
The key point here is that the explosion has to go off 'inside' it.
< Black Sludge exploding with a grenade embedded in it >
You don't need to know the detailed principle — just think of it like an underwater explosion.
Shockwaves travel through liquid with brutal efficiency, so the core shatters no matter where it's hiding.
Obviously the mucus splatters everywhere when it blows, so smart losers should take cover far away and throw it.
< Sunglasses man taking a verification shot with his sword >
Of course, I killed mine with a sword.
Where would you find a scrub without poison resistance anyway?
"Ahh. Completely understood."
Having pored over SaveTheNewbie's strategy guide, I nodded along with the expression of someone who'd just achieved enlightenment. So basically, I just needed to blow it up? Whether it was a grenade or magic, I could just stuff it inside that thing and — KA-BOOM!!
The author of the guide himself seemed anxious, but it was a pointless worry. I already had one organic magic powerhouse that could replace a grenade.
"Can you use explosion magic?"
"Ex- explosion magic? My fire attribute is only 3rd Circle..."
3rd Circle would be about C-Grade in skill terms. Its raw explosive force would probably outstrip your average grenade anyway.
"Can you put a delay on the explosion?"
"Something like that... yes, I think I can manage."
"Okay. That'll do."
Firepower was more than covered. All that remained was to ram an explosion spell straight down that blackened ppeokkeumi's gullet.
"Let's do this."
After leaving a short reply for SaveTheNewbie, I immediately conjured a metal pillar at my feet and launched myself forward.
Fwoosh!
Wind whipped past my ears as the scenery stretched into long streaks. A faint sense of weightlessness, my whole body firing away like a cannonball.
Whoosh, SCREEEECH!!
The moment the distance closed, vines came flying at me like tentacles, right on schedule. Each one twisted at grotesque angles as if it possessed a will of its own, and they came surging toward me, spitting air-tearing cracks like whips.
CLANG!!
I formed a metal plate out of thin air and blocked them. Perhaps because Iris's magic had already severed most of the tentacles earlier, each one hit with pathetically little force compared to before.
But...
'Damn it... I don't have much candy left.'
Blocking the vines to protect Iris a moment ago had cost me dearly. I had maybe three more metal-pillar leaps left in me, and the shields — which cost even more — I could probably only manage once or twice more.
So I gathered the metal I'd spent blocking the vines back into my inventory, then drove the sword I'd been carrying straight into the ground.
THUD!!
Using the embedded sword as a central axis, I loaded myself with acceleration. My body, riding the centrifugal force, traced a full circle in the air. The pursuing vines all sailed harmlessly past my trajectory, which had bent nearly ninety degrees on the spot.
Thanks to the brief breathing room, I kicked off the ground again and sprinted forward.
Swish!
But had it decided it wasn't going to let me close the distance anymore? The creature braided its missed vines into a thick cluster, forming a trunk the size of my whole body.
Huuuum──
Then the absurdly thick vines swept horizontally, scything across the ground like a harvester.
"Ugh...!"
I pressed my body flat against the floor, lowering my stance and sliding underneath. The swung vine grazed past inches in front of my face.
KRA-KOOM!!
"Kyaaak...!!"
Trees crumpled like straw stalks as clouds of dust bloomed outward. Iris, who'd been preparing her spell, shrieked at the sight, but I ignored her and kicked off the ground, rising again.
Anyone who's played a soulslike knows it's common sense: a big attack leaves you wide open afterward. And I had no intention of wasting the sliver of opportunity I'd just earned.
"Transmutation!!"
Fwoosh!!
Another aluminum pillar erupted into existence and my body shot forward. The distance closed rapidly with every hiss of the wind. And there, right in front of me, the flower bud gaped its maw wide open as if to swallow me whole, baring its teeth —
"Now!!"
THUNK!!
I drove the sword I'd been carrying deep into its lower jaw.
Glug, gurgle!!
Inside the splayed flower bud, a pool of quivering purple mucus. The creature leaned its head in as if to drop me into it and clamped its mouth shut —
"Transmutation."
CRUNCH!!
— but the sword I'd rammed in locked its jaws open faster than it could close them.
Sssss...
The vertically planted metal pillar corroded in the steam rising off the mucus. At the same time, a rotting, sewer-like stench seeped deep into my lungs. But instead of throwing myself inside like before, I called the name of the reinforcements who'd been waiting this whole time.
"Iris!!"
At my call, Iris fired her explosion spell into the gaping flower bud.
"『Fireball』...!!"
FWOOSH!!
A fireball, kneaded like dough, arced through the air in a perfect parabola. It looked like a tiny artificial sun, about the size of a human head. And the moment I let go of the pillar I was holding and dropped down, the fireball landed inside the gaping bud.
Pssshhhhooooo...
......
...
...
"......"
"......"
Several seconds of dead silence.
"...Hey."
I said, glaring at Iris with cold eyes. Iris desperately avoided my gaze and muttered in a trembling voice.
"S-something's wrong... there's no way this could have fail—"
KRA-BOOOOOOOM!!!!
"──Gaak?!"
And then, the explosion went off — belatedly. Right before my eyes, the swollen flower bud tore itself to shreds. Mucus burst out in every direction as searing flames surged upward.
Eeeeeee──
"Sh...it...!!"
Thankfully I'd pre-made an aluminum shield, so I didn't get caught in the blast itself... but the shockwave of an explosion at point-blank range made both my eardrums ring with a piercing, deafening whine.
That... that crazy elf hag...!
Did she seriously decide to make me deaf?!
You could at least TELL me when the thing was going to blow!!
Eeeee──....
As the ringing slowly faded, I gathered myself and hastily scanned the scenery around me. What met my eyes was the Ferum Flower, melted beyond all recognition. Even the flower bud that had been holding mucus perfectly intact moments ago had dissolved into a shapeless sludge the instant it made contact.
Main Quest
☑ Defeat the monster — (1/1)
🎁 Reward: Floor 5 Entry Pass, High-grade Magic Stone ×10
Main Quest cleared.
You have cleared Floor 4 on Lunatic difficulty.
Distributing clear rewards.
Acquired: Floor 5 Entry Pass
Acquired: High-grade Magic Stone ×10
The quest-clear message popped up right on cue. As I collected the Floor 4 clear rewards with a satisfied expression and tucked them into my inventory, I spotted Iris in the distance, rummaging through the withered Ferum Flowers.
"What are you doing?"
"It'd be a waste... do you know how precious ppeokkeumi sap is?"
"...Are you insane?"
An elf, goddamn it. Seriously...
They're literally a species of drug fiends.
'Now that I think about it... isn't she a princess, first of all?'
What am I supposed to do if a princess is already this far gone? What on earth is going to happen to the future of the elves?
Lick!
"Ugh... it tastes like dirt..."
But perhaps even licking sap soaked into bare dirt was beyond even Iris. She spat out the sap-soaked dirt she'd scooped up with her fingers, ptooey ptooey, and turned to me.
"I think we need to go somewhere other than here."
"There's ANOTHER farm?"
"No? Not a farm — there's a wild ppeokkeumi habitat nearby, you see."
"......"
I shut my eyes tight and exhaled a long sigh. Had getting eaten by a Black Sludge not knocked any sense into her? Iris, meanwhile, skipped along in her own innocent little world, continuing to talk.
"The habitat is just up on the cliff, so if we go there—"
"Go WHERE, exactly?"
But before she could even finish her sentence, a mature woman's voice drifted in from somewhere.
Tat, tat!
Simultaneously, elves burst out of nowhere — from a spot where nobody had stood mere seconds ago — weapons in hand: bows, daggers, and the like, all trained on me.
The fact that I, EX-Rank, hadn't sensed them coming meant they were, without a doubt, soldiers of at least S-Grade skill.
Then someone stepped forward through the ring of elven soldiers surrounding me.
"Lately my daughter has shut herself away in the forest and never comes out, so I tailed her in secret to see what she was up to..."
It was a bone-white woman wearing a crown. Faded green eyes and silver hair cascading like a waterfall. Her voluptuous figure pressed against a thin dress, and eyes so frigid they were practically glacial gazed down at me.
"Speak."
"Are YOU the wretch who fed our daughter something strange?"
Iris's mother. In other words... the princess's mother.
It seemed I had, from our very first meeting, been marked by the Elf Queen herself.