Sentinel
"Ceramic horror!"
With a single shout brimming with resentment and humiliation, Ray activated Azurail.
She shook her hand as if it still tingled and quickly put distance between them.
"Ray? What are you doing here?"
Elroen’s narrow eyes, which usually carried that signature street-smart distance, widened to twice their normal size.
An intrusion no one had anticipated.
Elroen’s brain might have frozen in confusion and unease before joy or relief could even register, but the next moment the square had already descended. Our group had drawn the Sentinel’s attention, spreading the agro like fire on dry grass.
The Sentinel swung its halberd in a wide arc, blocking our approach, then halted for a brief instant.
Four sudden intruders had appeared out of nowhere.
Calculating whether to prioritize the original target or eliminate these new threats first.
I calmly briefed Ray on everything I knew about the Sentinel.
"The texture is similar to porcelain, but the material is completely different. It’s harder than steel."
"You could have said something like that earlier."
"Isn’t the one who jumped out before hearing the answer the real culprit?"
Ray pressed her lips shut at once.
There wasn’t time for further discussion anyway.
The Sentinel had already marked us as the primary targets.
"Retreat!"
Lucre moved forward.
Gripping the shield on his back, flames of aura erupted across his entire body.
Fast.
Even though he had sprinted from a complete standstill, the acceleration was terrifyingly fierce.
Just like the reputation of the worst monster on the second floor.
Despite being only third-grade among the five ranks, the Sentinel before us displayed an output that defied imagination.
They clashed.
Kwoong! Creak—!!
The bone-chilling friction sound erupted from Lucre’s shield as it received the descending halberd strike.
The kind of blow that made you think of lightning.
Even Ray might struggle to withstand it, but Lucre handled the strike flawlessly.
The vanguard had fulfilled his role perfectly.
Now it was the rearguard’s turn.
"Undine!"
Leaf summoned her spirit, while I pulled Ray’s power to its absolute maximum output, and she charged forward like a bullet.
However, the Sentinel’s defense was absurdly solid.
Leaf’s water jet and my mana bullet were blocked by the magic barrier.
Ray’s fist, which could tear through magic barriers with her Argentooth, couldn’t even create a scratch on the Sentinel’s surface.
A clear, resonant bell-like tone rang out, erasing the urgent battle atmosphere with a chill that didn’t match the situation at all.
Is magic blocked by the magic barrier, and physical attacks by the self-surface wrapped around like armor?
Unbelievable defense.
It didn’t have any weak points like the eyes or mouths of other living beings, no mucosal areas.
The Sentinel’s eyes were already closed, like those on its biscuit-like face.
It couldn’t open its eyes, so there was no way it could open its mouth either.
"Lucre-nim, doesn’t that have any weaknesses?!"
"None! The entire skin is ceramic! As far as I know, it has to be pierced by output!"
Just charge it with pure power?
That defense?
This guy is truly disgusting.
"Insane… So trying to pierce the magic barrier won’t mean anything."
"No, you just need to attack at the exact moment the barrier is torn."
Ray shouted at me as if what I said made no sense.
"Huh? Arjentus doesn’t work at long range, right? It only activates when it’s in contact."
"Don’t worry. I’ve already done it once."
"…You’re planning to use it?"
"What else can we do?"
I had never thought we could hide it forever.
It would eventually be revealed.
If that was the case, there was no point in hesitating to use it when necessary.
"First, I’ll try breaking through with the water jet. If that doesn’t work, we’ll use your Exhaustion to stop its movement."
"…Yes!"
At that moment, Leaf recalled Aerial.
She poured all her mana into Undine, her voice carrying a strong will to create a cool breeze hole through the Sentinel with a super high-pressure cannon at maximum output.
"Trust me."
"I will."
Just before departure.
A voice that wasn’t conveyed by sound but by mana resonance.
[Wait a second!]
Fire magic.
Despite its usefulness, it was one of the magic that hit the caster hard, which was why none of us three had mastered it yet.
Of course, Lucre, the martial arts type, couldn’t have learned it.
While there was a technique to transmit signals through aura fluctuations, supposedly a passing message from the martial side, it couldn’t convey voices as clearly as fire magic could.
So the only remaining option was—
"Elroen?"
Elroen had an elven touch, that was for sure.
[I’ll bind its legs. Don’t use it.]
I had noticed Elroen was about to do what we were trying to do by placing my hand on Ray’s shoulder.
Bind the legs?
I knew she was going to use spirit arts, but hadn’t she already refused?
How had she managed to be persuaded?
[Believe me. This time, I’m sure it’s possible.]
Elroen’s fire magic was filled with a conviction that left no room for doubt.
It wasn’t just for me; Ray was looking at me with a suspicious expression, half-doubting, and studying my face.
After the brief moment of hesitation, I removed my hand from Ray’s shoulder.
"Just follow me for now."
"If it fails…"
"We’ll come save you. Don’t worry."
Ray was already glancing at me with a hint of distrust as we followed Elroen’s instructions while Lucre and Leaf took the lead.
She was such a simple soul.
Once our agreement was set, I told Leaf.
"Elroen is going to bind its legs. Nothing will change. If Ray leaves a gap, we’ll strike."
"…Ah, I understand."
What?
She had seemed like she had something to say, as if she was chewing on her words.
But now wasn’t the time for that.
I turned my head away from Leaf, who had closed her lips, and watched Ray’s back as she ran.
Thinking about the magic I had newly acquired from the floating altar.
Elroen’s encounter with the Sentinel had nothing to do with pure coincidence.
And it wasn’t that she had any intention of fighting it.
Elroen’s objective was the very place the Sentinel was guarding.
That was why she had studied it.
How to lure the Sentinel to the monster-free square she had scouted in advance and cause a collapse by triggering the spirit Oread contracted with the mountain and cave.
The core of that plan was what was known as the live-burial plan.
She believed that by drawing the Sentinel to the square and having Oread trigger the collapse, she could neutralize it without direct combat.
Spirit arts were influenced by the contractor’s skill and the power’s amplitude, but the amplitude was ultimately determined by the spirit’s inherent power.
Even if the contractor’s original power was rated 10, the spirit could still unleash 30 or even 50 with its own strength.
That was the charm of spirit arts.
Of course, that applied to the old-generation spirit arts that preserved the spirit’s power intact.
The current new-generation spirit arts were different, but since Elroen was an old-generation spirit mage, it didn’t matter.
Anyway, the plan was good, but the result was disastrous.
The sudden refusal of Oread had been the trigger.
Oread, who had maintained an unusually good relationship with Elroen and rarely refused her requests, had now shown an extreme backlash.
In fact, she hadn’t even requested something as massive as collapsing the ground to summon Oread in the first place.
But now, Oread was more obedient to Elroen than ever.
She was confident that even if she asked for the ground collapse again, Oread would happily comply this time.
Now.
It was possible.
The moment Ray planted her foot on the ground—
Elroen commanded Oread.
"Hold it, Oread."
Instead of the gentle tone she had used to appease Oread until now, a cold, businesslike, emotionless voice flowed out.
And Oread faithfully carried out the order.
Puwooong—
The ground, as if it had become a swamp, became mushy and swallowed the Sentinel’s feet deep down.
Shifting balance.
The halberd’s trajectory that Lucre had been swinging missed.
Lucre, a skilled tracker and fighter, didn’t miss the opening.
Gripping the shield and charging forward.
Although the Sentinel had a much larger body than ordinary humans thanks to its lower body like a horse’s, it wasn’t even 4 or 5 meters tall.
The Sentinel swayed from Lucre’s shield attack.
And Elroen clenched her fist.
"Grab it."
The mushy ground instantly hardened into solid rock.
The earth, returning to its original rock state, firmly gripped the Sentinel’s legs.
Shifted balance, unmoving legs, shock from the shield impact.
In the completely powerless state of the Sentinel, Ray’s fist didn’t strike but scraped, tearing its magic barrier completely.
The translucent magic shell was ripped away, revealing the smooth self-surface beneath.
A single water stream pierced into it.
Kwa kaka ga ga ga ga!!
It wasn’t so much piercing as being torn apart.
The water pressure cannon turned the Sentinel’s self-surface into powder that scattered into the air.
Insufficient…
The output was lacking.
Just as Elroen was quickly looking for a backup plan, a black bullet’s trajectory was drawn in the space where the water stream had subsided.
Zzeo-eo-eoeng! Zzae-aeng!
"Ah?"
Elroen couldn’t help but let out a startled exclamation.
She recognized the attack.
She had seen it several times and actually experienced it during training.
But the power of that attack had only reached the level of “surprisingly heavy” at best.
Yet with an attack of that power—
Even though Leaf’s water jet had caused considerable damage to the surface, it had completely pierced through?
Creak—
Despite Elroen’s shock, time continued to flow indifferently.
The body of the Sentinel, which now had a massive hole drilled straight through it, swayed unsteadily.
Struggling with its legs stuck in the ground, the Sentinel collapsed unsteadily and completely stopped moving.
Activity halted.
Or death.
Three pairs of eyes turned toward the entity that had silenced one of the strongest monsters on the second floor with a single strike.
Even the one who had fired the magic bullet stared down at her own hand in disbelief.
Amazing.
The magic I had received from the floating altar.
Compression Reinforcement.
It was, quite literally, an auxiliary magic that established mana condensation as a single technique.
In truth, it was just a rather simple auxiliary magic.
The best you could do with it was to use Compression Reinforcement to make the outer magic defense even more solid.
But for someone with infinite mana yet lacking in instantaneous output, that was equivalent to a divine boon.
Cheat… this is cheating.
Smite.
That was Roman’s third magic.