Moth to a Flame (2)
A Guardian with pitiful attack power—ah, the best method was to, kyaaaak!
Take monsters with pitiful defense, and hit them all at once—
“Hot! Ow, ow! Aaaagh!”
It was the kind of annihilating pain you got from grabbing a red-hot strip of dried fish with your bare hands. My head swam; for a second my lungs simply refused to work. The barrier wrapped around my body flickered for an instant… ugh?!
The Man-Eater’s tentacle vines fled of their own accord. The Bespoids charged at me as I approached their nest, but they were insect-type monsters weak to fire from the start—so they only circled and then backed off.
Urgh! Ghk!
Exactly as planned. The heat made my brain feel like it might short out for a moment, but the pain resistance I’d been grinding so hard was more than enough—gah?!
“Aaaaagh—!!!”
Ignition inflicted DoT damage and a status effect that locked you down. If you had a decent amount of the pain-resistance passive, the DoT came with intermittent full paralysis. Like right now—ghk?!
Thought and body locked up together; terror painted the world scarlet. Or maybe the red was just because I was actually on fire…
“Hey, you crazy bastard?!”
Sir Kaiden nearly jumped out of his skin and sprinted toward me.
“Stay back!”
I didn’t even have the brainpower left for polite speech. Both hands still clutched the torches; all I could think about was hurling them into the Bespoid nest.
“Uwaaargh!!!”
I already knew exactly where the wasp monsters nested. All I had to do was keep running—
“You die and I die with you!!!”
Kaiden bellowed as he chased after me. He looked exactly like a moth diving into the flames.
“Get the hell away!”
You lunatic! If you put me out right now, I die!
The situation was desperate, my body was roasting, the barrier flickered like some neon sign I’d never seen in my previous life—and on top of all that, a reaper with a giant blanket was charging after me as if he meant to snatch my life away.
“Kh! Goddammit, you crazy son of a—! So this is what it was?! This was the whole damn plan!!!”
What are you even yelling about, you madman!
“Think it through one more time! Why throw your life away over some family power struggle?! Is that all your life is worth to you?!”
My skull was throbbing and my heart was pounding so hard it felt like it had moved into my ears; I could barely make out what he was shouting. So I decided to ignore him.
It was fine. In my previous world this would have looked like self-immolation, but here divine blessings—the power of the gods—existed. Even if you doused yourself in lantern oil and lit it, the fire went out cleanly after exactly two minutes. I’d already tested it on my own body; no problem at all!
All I had to do was run like a maniac during that window and set the Bespoid nest ablaze. Victory would be mine. Normally the Man-Eater’s tentacle vines made getting close nearly impossible, but—
“Gyaaaaah—!!!”
Once you were under the Ignition status, Man-Eaters turned into non-aggressive mobs. That meant I could torch the Bespoid nest without any real danger.
Almost there!
Whoosh!
The oil-soaked, blazing torches sailed straight into the mouth of the enormous Bespoid nest. A structure woven from wood pulp and Bespoid digestive fluids was extremely flammable. And the queen, whose wings had already degenerated for egg-laying, would have a hard time dodging!
Wiiiiing! Wiiiiing! Wiiiiiiing!
The Bespoids that had only been circling me suddenly flung themselves at the nest in a desperate attempt to save their queen, if nothing else.
“Huff, huff, huff!!!”
That was all I needed to see. I spun around and ran for my life with everything I had left, putting the nest behind me. After a long stretch of pure sprinting I spotted Kaiden sitting on the ground, face of a man who had given up on everything.
“What are you doing?! Run!!!”
The pain was gradually going numb. My barrier was shattered and the smell of my own cooking flesh hung in the air—but I had survived. I was alive.
Sizzle!
After what felt like forever I finally cleared the Man-Eater and Bespoid territory. The second I confirmed it, I threw myself onto the ground and started rolling.
Sizzle—!
“Huff, huff, huff…”
I was recreating the real-world equivalent of the roll-dodge that cleared the Ignition status faster in the game.
“Heh… heh-heh… hah… heh-heh…”
Ahh. So the Slash-and-Burn Farming meta really wasn’t easy… It had taken a lot of courage, and actually doing it had been brutal. Still, I was alive, and one Bespoid nest was thoroughly finished. Every last Bespoid had thrown itself at the nest to protect the queen, so sooner or later they would either die or have their wings burned off and lose most of their aggression. Insect-type monsters had low defense to begin with; this method let a Guardian smash through the hellish 10–15 level bracket at ridiculous speed.
“Are you out of your mind?!”
I was still sagging with relief and satisfaction when Sir Kaiden caught up, grabbed both my shoulders, and roared in my face.
“Huff… huff… Please calm down. I had a plan.”
“Your plan was a suicide charge?! Why the hell would you pull a stunt like that?!”
Even while holding me by the collar he frantically checked me over for injuries.
“No, this… what even…”
“Perhaps we could have this conversation without the collar, Sir Kaiden.”
“Uh… yeah…”
He took a couple of steps back and stared at me in pure confusion.
“What… what the hell just happened? I honestly can’t understand any of this…”
From his perspective it must have looked like I was trying to burn myself alive. So I decided to explain calmly.
“Fire attack… yeah, fire attack. Definitely useful. Usually you’d use a mage for it, though.”
Flaming arrows were hard to land accurately in a dense forest, and the Man-Eaters protected the nests with their vines, so even a hit often failed to catch. The standard method was for people blessed with mage-type classes to clear the nests with fire while knights or warriors escorted them. I simply didn’t have a mage connection right now, so I’d gone with the most reliable method available.
“Is something wrong with your head? Then why not just run with a torch? Why set your own body—ah… ahh… so that’s why.”
Man-Eaters and Bespoids would never attack a character under the Ignition status. They were extremely weak to fire, so they simply got out of the way on their own.
“Hoo…”
I let out a long breath and looked toward the forest, which now smelled rather appetizing. Time to finish the job.
“I can handle Man-Eaters well enough, so please just follow at a distance again this time.”
“I give up. Do whatever you want. Ugh…”
Leaving Sir Kaiden behind, I walked slowly back toward the Bespoid nest.
The real charm of Slash-and-Burn Farming, after all, was the harvest, wasn’t it?
Step. Step.
Bespoids were properly level 15. I’d entered the dungeon at level 8; after the earlier hunting I was already at 10. The condition for Shield of Faith (Lv.3) was to hit level 15 and then visit the Cretus Church for a specific event. Normally reaching that level took a considerable amount of time, but—
This is it!
I finished off the wingless, perfectly roasted Bespoids one after another. It was as monotonous as gathering fallen grain.
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
Insect-type monsters had weak necks to begin with, and now their wings were gone and their bodies were cooked soft on the ground. A single downward smash with my iron kite shield was all it took. I had set the fire and I was delivering the finishing blows myself, so full contribution was recognized and experience began stacking naturally.
Sss… sss…
The occasional Man-Eater vine that tried to approach? That was only dangerous when Bespoids were covering the air.
Bang! Bang! Crunch!
I crushed the vine coiled around my ankle and went back to gathering the fallen “grain.” The rich, roasted smell was starting to make me genuinely hungry.
Just finish this batch and rest a bit.
In the game you got no contribution from monsters that had burned completely to death. For whatever reason reality worked the same way, so I needed to harvest while they were still fresh.
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
“Whoa… this… hey, what even… this works? No, this shouldn’t be possible…”
Sir Kaiden watched my work from a short distance, repeating over and over that it made no sense.
“Is this the Guardian way…? No, this is the kind of thing that would get the Inquisitors called, isn’t it? Uh…”
He frowned in deep thought for a moment, then suddenly let out a short laugh with a strangely light expression. It was the look of a man who had decided that since he couldn’t understand it, he would simply stop trying.
That’s life for you, Sir Kaiden.
Sometimes things that made no sense had to happen, or life would never sparkle with such varied colors.
Ahem.
After I finished gathering every last “ear of grain” and even managed a meal, exhaustion crashed over me and I yawned. Setting yourself on fire was brutal even with the pain-resistance passive, and jumping five levels in one go had left me mentally drained as well. It felt like a disconnect between body and mind. So I decided to start preparing for sleep a little earlier than usual.
“I feel weird saying this, but this really isn’t a great place to sleep, Edwin.”
Sir Kaiden crossed his arms and scanned the surroundings.
“This is Demon Spider territory—nasty things that use paralysis poison. If one clamps onto your neck while you’re out, you freeze solid and get dragged back to its nest.”
He drew a thumb across his throat to make the “and then you die” part crystal clear. I already knew about Demon Spiders. They were man-sized giant spiders with a crimson skull pattern on their backs. They didn’t kill prey on the spot; they injected paralysis poison and hauled the victim home. Continuous exposure to their venom caused the skin to necrotize, and then they slowly ate the rotting parts. Victims got to watch themselves being eaten alive. The behavior was so diabolical that people had named them “Demon.”
“So if you absolutely have to sleep, I’d recommend the cave that shows up if you head west from here. Our rookies use it as a rest spot all the time.”
I shook my head. Determined not to repeat my earlier mistake of surprising him, I decided to share the sleeping plan in advance.
“I came here specifically to get bitten by a Demon Spider, Sir Kaiden.”
“…Huh?”
“Demon Spiders are extremely territorial. Once one of them has you, you don’t have to worry about any other monsters. You can sleep in complete peace.”
Their silk was described as soft as the finest silk. It was still spring and a bit cold for camping; a natural sleeping bag that wrapped you up snugly would be wonderful. No more wasting condition on half-sleep while constantly listening for monsters. It was the safest, most reliable way to sleep in this dungeon—and the best way to keep your condition at peak. Of course, only if you had the status-ailment resistance passive.
“…Is there actually something wrong with your head?”
“It’s a matter of efficiency, Sir Kaiden.”
“No, this is efficiency… ugh, my head…”
Sir Kaiden insisted he had to prepare for the worst and volunteered to take the night watch. Night deepened—
Crunch!
“Ugh!”
Something sharp forced its way into my neck. My limbs shuddered and breathing became a struggle. I cracked my eyes open just enough to see the giant spider clamped onto my throat.
“Edwin.”
Sir Kaiden’s hand was already on his sword hilt. I gave the tiniest wave of my left hand. I’m fine.
I get to sleep somewhere warm and safe, and as a bonus my status-ailment resistance passive goes up.
Truly, the name “sleep-learning method” fit this excellent outdoor rest perfectly.
“Crazy bastard…”
Demon Spider venom was already sold on the open market; I’d tested it myself and knew exactly how long the effect lasted. So this wasn’t madness—it was a perfectly rational night’s sleep, Sir Kaiden.
See you tomorrow.
I let my trembling eyelids fall closed.