arc3 · 043-ch43

Episode 43: Twin Poison Serpent

Suzuka intended to run at just a light jogging pace, but with his rapidly improving stats combined with the benefits to his Agility from "Protection of Water Blade Weasel," he was moving at nearly the same speed as if he were actually running.

He was able to clear District 2 in less than an hour.

"Oh, a Madness Serpent Mimic. Might as well take it out."

Changing course toward the Madness Serpent Mimic lying flat and disguised among the grass, Suzuka also aimed to warm up his body before reaching the area boss.

The Madness Serpent Mimic drops an item called "Mimicry Serum." This item can cure the poison emitted by the Twin Poison Serpent, the area boss of District 3. It's also effective against poisons from Earth's venomous snakes, like pit vipers, making it a fairly important item.

With the benefits of "Ring of Twin Poisons," Suzuka's Status Abnormality Resistance is level 3, so unless he actually gets bitten by the Twin Poison Serpent, he won't suffer poison severe enough to require serum. Still, having items is always better than not. He hasn't been selling the serum and has accumulated a fair amount so far. Since his storage still has plenty of capacity, there's no problem with adding more.

After confirming there were no other explorers nearby using his Presence Detection skill and visual confirmation, Suzuka drew a single short sword from storage.

The sparsely blue-tinted scabbard had a texture like it had been carved from animal bone. The handle was wrapped in tanned leather, and through the gaps, a navy-blue material—the handle's core—was visible.

With this short sword in hand, Suzuka approached the Madness Serpent Mimic. With Presence Concealment at skill level 3, it was plenty effective even on Floor 1, District 3. It wasn't at the level where someone standing right next to him wouldn't notice, but he could approach quite close without being detected.

District 3 is hilly terrain with undulating ground covered in scattered small hills, but since visibility isn't poor, surprise attacks are difficult. However, with Presence Concealment, even surprise attacks become easy.

From the perspective of a third party who could perceive Suzuka, he was approaching close enough that they'd be shocked the Madness Serpent Mimic wasn't attacking.

Carefully circulating mana throughout his body without letting any leak out, Suzuka also flowed mana into the short sword using Magic Manipulation. When he drew the short sword from its scabbard, a beautiful blade of deep lapis lazuli color revealed itself.

"...Hah."

As he let out a short breath, Suzuka moved. Swinging the short sword down from above, a deep slash cut into the Madness Serpent Mimic along the sword's path.

"GYAAAAAAGHAAAAAAGHAAAAA!"

Having taken the attack and finally recognizing Suzuka's presence, the Madness Serpent Mimic immediately lunged at him. Its deeply slashed torso couldn't keep up with its movement and the wound widened further, but it didn't care as it bit toward Suzuka.

For Suzuka, who had defeated many Madness Serpent Mimics, this degree of attack no longer even disgusted him—it was even predictable, as if to say "I knew you'd come at me like that." Using the Evasion skill, he comfortably evaded the incoming bite attack, and as they passed each other, he severed the Madness Serpent Mimic's head.

Even after its head fell, the torso kept bouncing around, but when he stabbed the fallen head with the short sword, it turned to smoke and was absorbed into Suzuka.

When monsters die, everything—blood and all—turns to smoke, so no blood or fat remained on the blade, but he wiped the blade anyway to gaze at it, for atmosphere's sake. The deep lapis lazuli blade, like peering into the ocean depths, moved as if spreading ripples.

"Thought I swung it well, but still not good enough, huh."

The weapon Suzuka stored back in its scabbard and put in storage with frustration was a weapon dropped by the Water Blade Weasel... enhanced through Snatch.

Name: Calm Short Sword

Grade: Rare

Details: A short sword crafted from the tailbone of an individual Water Blade Weasel that spent many years flowing mana into its tail. When mana is infused, it can generate a blade of water. If handled by someone unskilled, ripples spread across the blade.

Suzuka was likely frustrated because ripples spread across the blade after his slash. Even though his Swordsmanship skill level has grown to 4, his technique is still not quite worthy of wielding this sword.

This short sword. Normally, the dropped item is called "Water Blade Weasel's Tail," and while it's also a short sword, the blade isn't this blue—it's a weapon that's just sparsely tinged with blue on a white background. Since that's cool in its own right, when "Water Blade Weasel's Tail" dropped two days ago, he happily made it his main weapon.

Anyone knowledgeable would recognize it as an area boss drop, so he continues to use "Underling's Pride," the magic iron pipe made of magic iron, in places where people might see him. But deep in areas where area bosses appear, there are no people, so he'd been using the short sword to practice.

And then yesterday, while fighting a Water Blade Weasel using the short sword for the first time, he suddenly recalled fighting Boss Fox.

When he fought Boss Fox, there was a time he defeated it while knocking its weapon—a metal club—out of its hand, and the metal club remained enhanced due to the influence of the Snatch skill.

The Snatch skill is one where directly seized items drop enhanced. At first, he thought the effect wouldn't trigger unless he actually acquired the item, like when he took the magic iron pipe from Underling Fox. But thinking back, with Boss Fox, he just knocked the metal club away—he didn't perform any seizing action. In other words, he thought perhaps items separated from the monster's body in general become subject to this Snatch skill's effect.

"Water Blade Weasel's Tail" is, as the name implies, a weapon made from a Water Blade Weasel's tail. The Water Blade Weasel is a monster like the kamaitachi. It's a large weasel with sickles for hands, and its tail, longer than its body, becomes the blade.

In other words, if he can sever the Water Blade Weasel's tail, Snatch might activate. With this flash of insight, Suzuka put it into practice.

With a magic iron pipe, tearing off the tail would have been quite difficult, but thanks to having "Water Blade Weasel's Tail," the short sword, cutting off the tail wasn't that hard.

The result confirmed his hypothesis. When the Water Blade Weasel was defeated, its tail was wrapped in smoke, and after the smoke cleared, this "Calm Short Sword" lay there as a single dropped weapon.

This Snatch skill. It's probably a Unique Skill, but it was also a skill where he couldn't really feel its strength.

Using a rest day during summer vacation, Suzuka had researched skills as well. That's because while he was happy when he obtained the Snatch skill, he never used it in District 2. He had doubts about its usefulness.

When he looked into it, he learned that just because it's a Unique Skill doesn't necessarily mean it directly translates to strength.

For example, the most famous skill in Japan as a Unique Skill is the Sword God skill. This appears to be a skill that allows understanding of sword principles, and it's manifested by the first guild master of Mōko Fukusō, a special-grade guild in Osaka, as well as members of Futoufukutou, a special-grade guild in Tokyo.

It's a skill that's in a league of its own from Swordsmanship skills, and just manifesting it gives you the power of a match for a thousand—a balance-breaking skill. Other skills that dramatically improve physical abilities or skills worthy of being trump cards also came up in large numbers when he researched.

But there were also skills that weren't like that. For example, a Status Abnormality Immunity skill. Depending on the monster, it could be a killer skill, but it doesn't exactly raise combat power. It might connect directly to combat, but compared to the aforementioned Sword God, the difference is severe.

Skills come in three types: Common, Rare, and Unique. Just because something is Unique doesn't mean it's strong, and just because it's Common doesn't mean it's weak. Many Unique Skills are classified as Unique either because there are too few explorers who manifest them to properly understand them, or because they're genuinely rare.

It changes depending on what you place importance on, but speaking strictly about combat, the Common skill of Swordsmanship would be more useful than the Snatch skill.

When he researched, many famous people commented that "Skills are about mastery, not rarity. Keep improving." Mastery being important is truly the case, and it's said that explorers with a high Swordsmanship skill level are overwhelmingly stronger than those who have many Rare skills.

Snatch is a fixed-type skill with no mastery, and since usable monsters are limited, he was disappointed when he researched it. It's just a skill that's rare, nothing more.

It was a dead skill in District 2, but he learned from research that there are still plenty of monsters where it might be useful as he continues exploration. There are monsters equipped like warriors, and District 3's area boss, the Curtain Frog, wears a mantle, so he's been tearing it off every time he fights.

Enhanced items mean he can't easily sell them, but being able to definitely steal strong items made him reconsider that it's still an excellent skill. But with the Water Blade Weasel's Tail incident, he learned it's actually a broken skill.

In other words, if it's a monster with claws as drop items, cutting off the hands guarantees a drop, and if it's a monster like Fresh Green Great Wolf that drops eyes, gouging out the eyes guarantees a drop. This skill, which can enhance even the monster's own materials not limited to weapons, held the power to dramatically strengthen himself through items.

"If I understand skills more, maybe I can get accessories with this skill too."

The item he wants most right now is an accessory like "Ring of Twin Poisons," but he can't bring himself to try it because he doesn't know how to snatch it. If he could just get that, Snatch would become a skill with performance that ranks quite high even among Unique Skills.

"Yeah. Want to take down a few more. Pseudoviscous would be good if possible."

Pseudoviscous is an amorphous, translucent monster. Without the cuteness of a character from a national game, it has an appearance like Beto-〇n. No matter how much you attack its body, you can't damage it—you can only defeat it by destroying the core constantly moving inside its body.

Since its body is made of acidic mucus, it's a troublesome monster because your weapon will deteriorate unless you thoroughly cover the blade with mana using Magic Manipulation, but it's also an attractive monster that drops potions.

With Suzuka's Magic Manipulation, his weapons won't get damaged, and since it moves slowly, it's also an easy monster he can kill in passing if he finds one.

But its translucent form makes it hard to find, and unless Presence Detection is fully active, it can attack from unexpected directions while fighting other monsters, making it troublesome.

Seeking such a Pseudoviscous, Suzuka started running.

◇

After that, he defeated one Sphere Moon Snake and a group of two Madness Serpent Mimics, and decided to challenge the area boss, Twin Poison Serpent.

In the end, he couldn't find a Pseudoviscous, but that couldn't be helped.

Twin Poison Serpent: Level 48

The top of District 3's hierarchy yawned, as if sizing up the challenger.

The Twin Poison Serpent is a two-headed giant serpent even larger than the Madness Serpent Mimic. Its thick body, which arms couldn't even reach around, was protected by powerful muscles and sturdy scales, and the first time he challenged it, he struggled considerably to deal damage.

The poison each head handles is of a different type—one is poison, the other is paralytic poison. Not only does it shoot poison and bite to inject poison, but the troublesome part is that it breathes out poisonous fog around the area boss.

The poison it breathes out is weaker than taking a direct hit, but it affects physical condition enough to clearly feel status abnormalities. If paralysis sets in, a sensation like your legs going numb while sitting in seiza makes it hard to move your legs properly, interfering with combat. If poison sets in, headache, nausea, and fatigue are severe, making combat impossible. It's a double-punch state like Corona and flu combined.

It's not enough to immediately make you unable to fight, but it's absolutely poison you can't ignore. As a result of taking that poison repeatedly, Suzuka was able to raise Status Abnormality Resistance to skill level 2.

He remembers consuming many serums before acquiring Status Abnormality Resistance, since this poison is cured by "Mimicry Serum," which the Madness Serpent Mimic drops. With Status Abnormality Resistance at skill level 3 thanks to "Ring of Twin Poisons," in this state the poisonous fog is nullified, so unless he takes a direct hit or gets bitten, he probably won't need serum.

Facing the Twin Poison Serpent hissing and sticking out its flickering tongue in threat, Suzuka didn't feel any particular anxiety. This was his ninth battle, and he even felt happy that it appeared properly.

The two glared at each other. No words were needed here. Eat or be eaten. There was no choice but one of the two.

When he drew "Calm Short Sword," lapis lazuli mana light flickered like heat haze from the blade as if he were pouring in a tremendous amount of mana. He thinly wrapped the blade in water. He could shoot water blades, but Suzuka had mastered a technique that extended the water blade to make up for the short sword's short reach, allowing him to unleash attacks with unpredictable reach.

"SHAAAAGH!!!"

The head that controls poison shot multiple poison balls, enclosing poison in spheres. Suzuka immediately evaded sideways and continued running toward the Twin Poison Serpent.

That action was probably anticipated. The head that controls paralysis sprayed paralytic fog toward him, constructing a defensive wall of paralysis. But to Suzuka, who has Status Abnormality Resistance, that poison was meaningless.

To the Twin Poison Serpent, careless in thinking Suzuka would hesitate or stop his attack due to the paralysis fog, Suzuka struck. He attacked with the resolve to cut through, but he could only inflict a wound slightly deeper than superficial.

"As hard as ever."

The attack that would have sliced through a Madness Serpent Mimic only inflicted a wound on the Twin Poison Serpent. He's thinly wrapping the blade in water with "Calm Short Sword" to improve sharpness, but it's still not enough to bisect an area boss. As long as ripples spread across the short sword's blade, it might be impossible to cut it down in a single strike.

For enemies covered in thick scales and superior in defense, if you don't have the technique and sharpness to cut through the defense itself, striking weapons like the magic iron pipe might be more effective.

But being able to inflict even a wound is enough. Suzuka also uses Poison Magic simultaneously, mixing poison into the water membrane covering the blade. His single attack didn't cause poison status, but he had already confirmed with the monster in front of him that even poison-handling monsters can be poisoned if attacked repeatedly.

Using unfamiliar Poison Magic along with magic generated from weapons requires considerable concentration, but by fully spinning his brain with Thought Acceleration, he somehow manages to cope. He's using his brain enough to give him a stress fever and wants to ease up, but since he learned after entering the dungeon that continuing to use it makes it second nature and easy to handle, he keeps pushing through, exercising two magics at this crucial moment.

The Twin Poison Serpent swung its tail down hating Suzuka, so Suzuka stepped back and opened distance from the Twin Poison Serpent. Looking at the Twin Poison Serpent, the head that had raised its guard seeing its paralysis was ineffective, and the head that was enraged at being wounded, both glared at Suzuka.

The first time he fought it, his attacks didn't properly connect, and he repeatedly nearly died from taking the poisonous fog again and again, so it was truly a battle to the death. But now that he has Status Abnormality Resistance, it's no different from sealing the area boss's greatest attack, and it can no longer be called a strong enemy.

"Still have two more waiting. Let's finish this quick."

With those words, Suzuka approached the Twin Poison Serpent again. It desperately resisted with paralytic and poisonous fog, plus attacks using its tail and two heads to not let him approach, but ten minutes later, it transformed into a giant black smoke.