arc2 · 027-ch27

Episode 27: Rabbit Armor

　Summer vacation exploration day 3. Today too, he kept finding places with overgrown grass to charge into, continuing to hunt the One-Horned Rabbits that appeared.

　In Suzuka's line of sight, a One-Horned Rabbit was munching on grass. This pattern likely means there's another One-Horned Rabbit hiding nearby.

　That's why he focused on the One-Horned Rabbit acting as bait. He could feel two of them in the grass, but he ignored them.

　To use the body reinforcement skill he recently acquired, he concentrated on letting mana fuse with his body. Even though he acquired the skill, the skill level was still low, so he couldn't use it smoothly yet. He was trying to use it as much as possible to get used to the skill quickly.

　After confirming that mana had sufficiently filled his body, he fixed his aim on the One-Horned Rabbit, which was pretending not to notice while eating grass. When he used body reinforcement, his body moved easily as if he was wearing an assist suit. He wasn't used to that sensation yet, so if he didn't concentrate, he would sometimes miss attacks.

　He put power into his legs and kicked the ground. The other two were waiting for Suzuka, holding their breath and approaching, but they couldn't match Suzuka's reinforced speed, only able to helplessly pass behind him.

　The One-Horned Rabbit that was eating grass also sensed the crisis and tried to temporarily retreat, but as it turned around, the magic iron pipe shattered its rear that was facing Suzuka, turning it into smoke. Suzuka confirmed this out of the corner of his eye, and without stopping his movement, he fluidly chased after the other One-Horned Rabbit.

　What he learned from continuously fighting One-Horned Rabbits was that the first strike wins. Because they're quick, you tend to end up taking a defensive stance. In fact, when Suzuka first fought One-Horned Rabbits, he took a waiting posture against One-Horned Rabbits running around him.

　But with that approach, it's hard to read where One-Horned Rabbits will attack from, and you end up letting the opponent seize the initiative. Especially since One-Horned Rabbits can coordinate, they sometimes attack with 2-3 at once, making them unmanageable at times. However, by attacking on his own, Suzuka was able to limit One-Horned Rabbit movements to some extent and easily defeat them.

　For Suzuka, whose level and skills were evolving daily, One-Horned Rabbits were no longer enemies.

　Moving perpendicularly to match the One-Horned Rabbit trying to avoid the approaching Suzuka, he finished it off in one hit. The remaining One-Horned Rabbit charged at the moment Suzuka finished his attack, but he stepped back one step to dodge, and in turn attacked the One-Horned Rabbit that had missed, safely turning it into smoke.

"Hehe. Getting used to body reinforcement, aren't I?"

　He started having leeway in battles with One-Horned Rabbits too. By moving around himself and defeating them one by one, he can steadily take down three One-Horned Rabbits. If this were a combat style of standing still and aiming for counters, he probably couldn't handle three alone at once.

　As practice for skills and as opponents for leveling up, One-Horned Rabbits were just right. Especially since Gale Rabbits, the upper species of One-Horned Rabbits, also appear in District 2.

　Like Clay Pot Turtles, Gale Rabbits are magic-using monsters, but like One-Horned Rabbits, they have both long and short range attack methods as they also charge in. These guys have high levels and sell for high prices, so he definitely wants to hunt them all.

　Suzuka, with only a brief rest, set out walking to find the rabbits' habitat—the grassy patches—in search of the next prey.

◇

　Summer vacation exploration day 5. Thanks to consecutive days of dungeon exploration, his level rose to 16. He would probably reach level 17 today.

　Because he had kept hunting rabbits recently, his exploration method in District 2 was becoming established. First, basically ignore Floor 1 monsters. Since it takes an hour to walk to District 2 normally, fighting unnecessarily would cut into the time he could spend active in District 2. As a test of luck, he limits himself to taking down a few Drunken Sheep aiming for mutton if they're around.

　When entering District 2, he heads for areas with many One-Horned Rabbits. Thanks to consecutive days of exploration, he's vaguely grasped where they're distributed. On the way, annoying numbers of Wooden Goblins appear, but he ignores those. If he defeats them, wooden weapons clutter storage, and they're low level so they're lacking as practice opponents. Occasionally he fights to warm up his body, but otherwise skips them.

　This is because if he keeps hunting monsters in District 2, storage gets cluttered. Actually on day 3, items ended up spilling out because they didn't fit in storage.

　Having reached level 16, storage also increased to 61, so items no longer drop when exceeding storage, but items drop to the extent that he has to have them purchased by the buying center every day.

　About 40 items have started dropping per day from one exploration. Since monster levels are also rising, the fact that many micro magic stones appear is also a cause of storage clutter.

　This storage is convenient but has a shitty design.

　It's no wonder Suzuka accidentally swore. Storage doesn't stack items, so 1 item consumes 1 slot. That means if 2 micro magic stones appear, 2 slots get consumed. Micro magic stones are still random drops, but from now on when fighting enemies where magic stones are guaranteed drops, no matter how much storage he has, it won't be enough.

　Fortunately right now only micro magic stones drop and they're small, so when storage starts overflowing, he takes them out and moves them to his backpack to handle it.

　Low-level explorers exploring Floor 1 have small storage capacity and don't even have backpacks that can hold storage items. So while storage can overflow, that's rare.

　If the total number of storage is small, with a party of multiple people, items get distributed, so they can cover it with numbers. Also, with multiple people, rear guard jobs appear too, so it's possible to counter this by using large bags.

　Also, the number of monsters Suzuka defeats per day is high. Including Floor 1 monsters, it's over 60 per day in terms of numbers. Since he spends about 8 hours in the dungeon per day, that's 8 monsters per hour. On the other hand, Explorer High School students who act in parties defeat about 40-50 per day. Fewer than Suzuka.

　This is a benefit unique to being solo, largely due to being light on one's feet. With parties, they explore aligning their pace so walking is slower, and they become more cautious about how to enter battles. With solo, rest time, route, and battle start are all freedom. Quick exploration is possible.

　And many explorers can't maintain high stats like Suzuka, so other explorer parties' single battle time takes several times longer than Suzuka's. Since safety is Explorer High School's motto, steady fighting style was also a factor taking time.

"It's here! It came, it came, it came!"

　In Suzuka's line of sight was a rabbit different from One-Horned Rabbits, with two twisted horns growing.

　Gale Rabbit: Level 17

　Another rabbit-type monster appearing on Floor 2. Gale Rabbits are magic-using monsters, and the magic they use is wind bullet magic that fires compressed wind, and buff magic that boosts speed including themselves and surrounding allies.

　Wind bullets have poor visibility and are hard to dodge. With Suzuka's current defense value, a direct hit wouldn't be fatal, but in solo combat, having his unsteadiness exploited would be unbearable. Around Gale Rabbits, 3 or more One-Horned Rabbits are definitely present in a herd. If he shows an opening even once, he'd get skewered by speed-boosted One-Horned Rabbits.

　Such a strong enemy, but Suzuka happily charges in. Reason is simple. Gale Rabbits drop armor series.

　From District 2 onward, there are monsters that drop armor series. On Floor 1 District 2, Gale Rabbits and Green-Yellow Wolves are the target monsters. The drop rate is low, but Gale Rabbits seem to have a higher drop rate than Green-Yellow Wolves, perhaps because their appearance numbers are low to begin with.

　There are 5 types of armor total, and since they're random drops, duplicates happen. For higher level monsters or area bosses, they apparently drop items that are complete armor sets, but that's still a long way off.

　Suzuka was lucky, and has dropped 5 armor pieces relative to the number of Gale Rabbits defeated. And he had all 4 types. The 5th one was a duplicate, but until then he hadn't gotten duplicates, so he thought they wouldn't duplicate when dropping.

　Since from tomorrow he plans to mainly defeat the last monster of District 2, wolves, he wants to complete the rabbit armor set today if possible. Leaving aside whether he'll use it or not, if he can, he wants to aim for completion.

　The Gale Rabbit, noticing Suzuka's existence, immediately fires 3 compressed wind bullets. The 3 bullets had a slight time difference, and their trajectory seemed to guide him to the right if he dodged honestly.

　As a matter of course, there was a One-Horned Rabbit with speed buff waiting on the right, so Suzuka slipped under the wind bullets like ducking under them, and closed in on the One-Horned Rabbit at the edge.

　When there are multiple enemies, it's important to reliably take down the weak ones first. Even if they receive speed buffs, if they're One-Horned Rabbits caught by surprise and moving slowly, he can easily catch up.

　When he took down the low-defense One-Horned Rabbit in one hit, this time a One-Horned Rabbit charged in like a missile along with wind bullets. Since wind bullets only fly straight, with his brain processing speed boosted by Thought Acceleration, he can predict the trajectory the moment he sees it. So the current threat is the One-Horned Rabbit charging irregularly.

　He matched his attack to the charging One-Horned Rabbit. Entrusting his arm strength, boosted by body reinforcement, he struck the magic iron pipe, faintly glowing from mana manipulation, toward the One-Horned Rabbit's horn.

　With the definite feedback of having shattered something hard, the One-Horned Rabbit's horn shattered and immediately turned to smoke. It seems the magic iron pipe, rare grade and enhanced by mana manipulation, was sturdier than the horn.

　He dodged the other One-Horned Rabbit's attack, and again used Body Control (2) to get through the three wind bullets fired consecutively. Approaching the One-Horned Rabbit that was running around watching for the next attack timing, he also turned it to smoke in one hit.

　Whether because it's Floor 1 low level or because attack patterns are monotonous, he became able to slaughter them easily once used to them.

　The remaining Gale Rabbit showed an expression of rage and charged. Wind bullets are fast but approach straight, so once used to them, they're easy to dodge. He fixed his eyes on the Gale Rabbit charging while dodging wind bullets. Since the speed itself isn't different from One-Horned Rabbits, at the moment of passing, he smashed its side and slammed it to the ground.

　Whether because the level is high or not, it doesn't die in one hit, but he can bring it to near-death, so he immediately follows up to finish it off.

　With a reasonable amount of attention to surrounding vigilance, Suzuka hurriedly checked his storage list.

"How about it? How about it? ...Found it!! Found it, found it, found it!!! Armor boots!! It came, it came, it came!!! Now the set is complete!!"

　Incredibly, with just 1 duplicate, he managed to complete all 5 types of armor. His luck seems to have been quite good. He's skipping around in his joy.

　He immediately takes it out of storage to check. Dungeon-produced armor is convenient—once you put it in storage, it adjusts to the size appropriate for the storage's person.

　Not only that, but it's also happy that the design gets customized individually. Even for same-age same-sex people, sometimes it becomes a chic design, sometimes pop color variations.

　Since the design changes, even if the whole party wears the same armor, it maintains unity while showing differences, which is cool. It's like the costumes worn in idol music videos.

　In Suzuka's case, it became a pop-feeling equipment. A quite high-fashion design, and the armor colored in white and red is cool. Since it finished with a sporty look, not having the heaviness of armor suits Suzuka's fighting style.

　However, the white and red armor was a bit flashy. He even hesitated to wear it.

"Hmm. It's cool though. A bit embarrassing though."

　With his current neat looks, any equipment should definitely suit him. But he doesn't have that courage yet.

"Would have been nice if it was black-based. Also, because it's proper armor, it looks hard to move in."

　Even though it finished sporty, it's still armor. Hard materials like protectors are used, and thick fur is also used. For current Suzuka, ease of movement is more important even if it's paper armor. Something like a hoodie he could casually wear would be most welcome, but apparently that won't go that smoothly.

　Also, while the air inside the dungeon is spring-like, outside it's midsummer in full force. With such feelings, mentally he avoids this thick equipment.

　Also, Explorer High School students avoid rabbit-type monsters, so if he's in full rabbit armor set, combined with the flashy appearance, he'll probably stand out considerably.

　He's already diving solo. It's said that the most dangerous thing among explorers is other explorers, so here, while wasteful, it's better to store it as a collection item at home.

"But, just the shoes, I'll go with these. They're cool."

　The armor shoes aren't boots reaching to the knees, but rather bulky sneakers feeling. Shoes white-based colored with red have a cool design that fashionable young people in Shibuya or Harajuku might wear.

　The sneakers Suzuka usually wears were also worn out due to dungeon exploration, which was convenient. Since store-bought ordinary sneakers couldn't endure Suzuka's movement anymore, sneaker-like armor was just right.

　But, since the shoes he's currently wearing can't be put in storage and would get in the way, the new shoes will start from tomorrow.

　Since the rabbit armor set he aimed for was now complete, he decided to end this day's exploration and set off on his return journey.