arc3 · 048-ch48

Episode 48: Crisis or Opportunity

A single Madness Serpent Mimic closed in on Inurakuse, who had raised her large shield. The Madness Serpent Mimic, moving as if sliding across the ground, showed movements far faster than expected.

But Inurakuse didn't panic. Manipulating her heavy shield with skill, she strongly shield-bashed the face of the Madness Serpent Mimic that leapt at her and sent it flying back.

"KIRIN!!"

"【Water Ball】"

Responding to Inurakuse's shout, Kirin unleashed a follow-up attack. Using the water magic Kirin had manifested, a water bullet the size of a basketball was forcefully fired out.

The water bullet hit the head of the Madness Serpent Mimic that Inurakuse had knocked up, causing it to recoil and successfully knocking it over sideways. Without missing a beat, Kirin leveled her spear and delivered a follow-up attack to its defenseless belly.

But the enemy wasn't just the Madness Serpent Mimic.

"NYAKO SWITCH!!"

Inurakuse headed toward Nekoyashika. Nekoyashika, who was fighting a Curtain Frog, hadn't been able to land any effective hits, but it seemed she had managed to poison it, and damage was slowly accumulating.

Taking over from Nekoyashika, Inurakuse blocked the Curtain Frog's charging headbutt with her shield. The Curtain Frog's headbutt, which possessed tremendous power, could be easily stopped by the "Rabbit Demon's Shield." It really is worth being an item dropped by an area boss.

"【Paralyze Mist】!!"

The paralyzing mist from Nekoyashika's poison magic enveloped the Curtain Frog. Whether the paralysis had taken effect, the storm of headbutts unleashed like a machine gun gradually subsided.

"NYAKO-CHAN WENT OVER THERE!"

Looking in the direction of the voice, the Madness Serpent Mimic that Kotori had been handling was switching its target to Nekoyashika and closing in.

"NYAKO!"

"I'M FINE!! WANKO-CHAN, I'M COUNTING ON YOU FOR THIS SIDE!!"

Trusting those words, Inurakuse slashed at the Curtain Frog, whose movements had slowed due to paralysis.

Meanwhile, Nekoyashika focused on the approaching Madness Serpent Mimic. Serpents have swaying heads that make it hard to aim, but since Madness Serpent Mimics are maddened monsters, they only come straight at you. However fast, if you can read the attack, you can defend against it.

"UNNNHH!!"

Nekoyashika desperately deflected the attack with her round shield. The creature had opened a massive jaw that seemed capable of swallowing someone like Nekoyashika whole in a single bite. Though Nekoyashika had high stats, she couldn't deflect an attack from a monster nearly 10 levels higher as easily as Inurakuse could.

As a result, she managed to successfully deflect the Madness Serpent Mimic's attack to the side. But the Madness Serpent Mimic, with its attack deflected, instantly reversed direction and attacked Nekoyashika again, as if asking what of it.

"Bad snake-chan. Bad children get punished."

"【Enchant Paralyze】!!"

Kotori, who held thick-bladed swords in both hands, had caught up to the Madness Serpent Mimic. The Madness Serpent Mimic tried to seize Kotori, but she slipped past like cotton fluff dancing in the air. Conversely, after Kotori passed through, countless cuts appeared across the Madness Serpent Mimic's body surface.

The paralyzing poison applied to the weapon infiltrated its body through the cuts.

"All that's left is to cook it or roast it."

The Madness Serpent Mimic, now thoroughly permeated with paralysis, still continued to struggle, trying to move. Nekoyashika felt repulsed by the movement, which seemed like abnormal behavior you wouldn't expect from a living creature, but Kotori felt nothing.

She simply thought that all that remained was to turn it into smoke.

Spinning like a tornado, Kotori rained a flurry of attacks down upon the Madness Serpent Mimic, which had fallen and was struggling. After repeating this several times, the Madness Serpent Mimic turned into black smoke and was absorbed into the zoo members.

"TH-THIS ONE IS TOO!! SOMEONE HELP!!"

Inurakuse, who had been trading blows with the Curtain Frog, called for help. Though she was able to parry all of the Curtain Frog's attacks, Inurakuse's attacks were only shallowly cutting the body surface and not dealing any lethal damage.

"【Water Cutter】"

Water blades rained down upon the Curtain Frog's back.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Wanko-chan. Kotori-chan seems to be done too, so all that's left is to beat it to a pulp."

Inurakuse wrapped her spear blade thinly with a water blade and swung it. The spear, now with increased sharpness, split the Curtain Frog's skin, which had been that hard, and dealt clear damage to it.

"NYAKO-CHAN!"

"I KNOW! 【Enchant Poison】"

Carrying dual swords enchanted with poison, she delivered a follow-up attack to the Curtain Frog's back, which had been cut open by the water cutter.

A monster that's tough and formidable when fought alone, but when challenged by multiple people, it can be defeated without any danger. When the Curtain Frog had its final headbutt deflected by Inurakuse, it turned into smoke.

"Haa, it was hard. I thought it was Rabbit Demon Iron Skin for a moment there."

Inurakuse let out a complaint without thinking. It seems she was tired from facing a Curtain Frog of such high level.

"S-Snake-chan just went over to Nyako-chan on her own too. I-I'm sorry."

"It's fine, really. Trying to control a Madness Serpent Mimic is wrong in the first place."

As Nekoyashika said, the Madness Serpent Mimic is a monster that's difficult to manage hate for. It doesn't consider things like taking damage or exposing a defenseless body—it just heads toward the explorer that catches its eye. Holding back a Madness Serpent Mimic, which moves in ways that are biologically incomprehensible, is a nearly impossible task.

"NYAKO-CHAN too should do more than just deflect the Madness Serpent Mimic—it'd be good if you could get at least one hit in. Raising her swordsmanship skill is probably one of the goals for District 3, too."

Kirin seemed to have been watching Nekoyashika's movements and pointed out that she couldn't continue like this.

"I-I know. I'll try to move forward more proactively."

In a small party like zoo, even though she's a magic class, she can't just stay in the back and be protected. It would be fine if she could just fire magic like a fixed emplacement, but that level is still far off.

"How was WANKO-CHAN? Well, I probably don't even need to ask."

"Yeah! It's seriously amazing! It's completely different!!"

Her impression of the "Rabbit Demon's Shield" was the highest possible. Inurakuse held her shield up high, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

"Kotori-chan needs to get creative with how she draws aggro too. Since Madness Serpent Mimics head toward explorers that catch their eye, you either need to attack with enough strikes that you can't look away, or get behind the Madness Serpent Mimic so it physically can't look at you."

"Y-yes. N-next time, I'll blind its eyes first."

"That works too. Each of you has your own challenges, but it's good to know we can fight the Madness Serpent Mimic and Curtain Frog, which are upper species in District 3, without any problems. Well then, shall we go?"

Having received feedback from Kirin about the previous battle, the members, each facing their own challenges, continued exploring in search of the next monster.

◇

"T-TAMA-CHAN is rolling around."

Just as they were thinking it was about time to head back, Kotori said that. When she looked in the direction Kotori was pointing, sure enough, a Sphere Moon Snake was rolling around.

The Sphere Moon Snake is a monster that curls its body up like a ball and moves by rolling. So rolling isn't unnatural. But a monster moving was unnatural.

Monsters rarely move from their place. But when other explorers are fighting nearby, they get drawn there and move.

In other words, someone else was fighting in the vicinity.

"Kotori-chan, can you hear anything?"

"F-from the direction TAMA-CHAN is heading, I-I think I can hear some sounds."

Kotori answered Kirin's question. Kotori's specs are high. If Kotori can hear it, there must be a sound.

Normally, they would have ignored it. But something about an explorer's intuition felt caught on something.

"Let's observe the situation a little."

With that, Kirin followed after the Sphere Moon Snake.

◇

After walking a bit, the other members could hear the clamor too. From the tense angry voices, it was clear this wasn't just a normal battle.

Since District 3 is hilly terrain, there are many blind spots if you want to see far. Even now, the voices were coming from the opposite side of a hill.

"This number... isn't this a monster train?"

Inurakuse summed up the scenery below. A monster train generally refers to explorers fleeing from monsters and a horde of monsters chasing behind the explorer. But the explorers before their eyes weren't fleeing—they were standing their ground and fighting.

However, since the number was too high for just surrounding monsters having gathered during a long battle, Inurakuse seems to have judged it as a monster train.

"There are two parties. They got dragged into it, I suppose. How unfortunate. They're trying hard, but it seems impossible."

Nekoyashika said it in a cold voice. Were there two parties based on the numbers? One party was somehow managing to block the monsters' attacks, but the other party was in a terrible state.

They were probably suffering from the Madness Serpent Mimic's panic, but far from being useful, they were dragging down the party that was trying hard.

"Ah! RISU-CHAN is there in so many!! Th-that's a bargain!! I WANT TO DEFEAT THEM!!"

Kotori's eyes were sparkling, perhaps concerned about the swarm of Nut Bombarrel Chipmunks.

"Eh, we're going?"

"Explorers who pull off that shitty move called monster train should just die, you know?"

Conversely, Inurakuse and Nekoyashika weren't keen.

As Nekoyashika said, explorers are taught that monster trains are an act to be avoided, and they receive repeated warnings not to let that happen.

Monster trains don't occur unless you flee from monsters to begin with. In other words, monster trains are proof of fleeing the enemy—acts of losers—and furthermore, as was happening now, they are extremely harmful acts that drag surrounding explorers in along with them.

Therefore, while they sympathized with the explorers who got dragged into it, not a speck of the will to play the hero and help them welled up.

But Kirin seemed to be different.

"Whoa whoa whoa. You two are pretty cold, aren't you. You're fellow students attending the same school. Don't you want to help them?"

Whether Kirin was trying to persuade the two or proposing that they should help, she brought up the topic. But when the two looked at such a Kirin, they hunched over as if shivering from goosebumps.

"Gross. Stop it, Girrin. That's something you'd be the least likely to say."

"That's right, Girrin. Have you ever looked at your own face in a mirror? You've got a criminal face. A criminal face."

Completely rejected by the two, Kirin couldn't say anything more. She had tried her best to put on a sincere face, but it had the opposite effect.

"Putting jokes aside, what's your honest feelings? Are you helping them?"

"Of course. We're going to help."

"......And your honest feelings?".

"That's obvious, isn't it!! WE CAN FIGHT A MONSTER TRAIN!! This is a chance we might never get again, you know!!".

With her previous utmost sincere face nowhere to be seen, she was beaming with a full smile, her eyes blazing brightly.

"Look, Nyako-chan! It's not often you get the chance to fight that many monsters at once!! It'd be a waste to go home without experiencing it, right!? Hah!?".

Below, the explorers were fighting desperately. The numbers were high for the District 3 upper monsters—Madness Serpent Mimics, Curtain Frogs, and Rock Earth Dragons—and they were clearly over capacity. Even so, the party that wasn't losing heart and resisting the Madness Serpent Mimics' panic was probably excellent.

"I knew it'd be something like that. Girrin helping people... yeah?".

"That's right, Wanko-chan. Seeing Girrin being crazy as usual makes me feel relieved.".

"N-Nyako-chan is sweet too. I-It's only natural for Girrin-chan to be a loony.".

Kotori joined in, and the others all nodded in agreement.

"Kotori-chan, we'll have a talk when we get back. And, everyone's answer?".

"Sure~".

"Haa, I hope my swordsmanship skill level goes up from this.".

"I-I don't like the talk.".

All of them nodded willingly. Seeing that, Kirin's smile deepened.

"Let's go then. Encountering an event like this right after entering District 3—we're lucky, aren't we?".

With that, zoo ran out to join the monster train.