ch1-ch20 · 011-ch11

Chapter 11

Fighting the floor 5 Floor Boss.

The opponent was a three-meter-class Skeleton Knight.

Facing him was the veteran adventurer from another world, Sai.

In his hand, a short sword.

An ordinary short sword, about seventy centimeters, purchased at the Shinjuku Adventurer's Guild.

The Floor Boss chamber. The door closed.

The Floor Boss chamber was a large circle.

Despite the Skeleton Knight being three meters tall, the ceiling was also about three meters.

In other words, the height was just barely enough for the Skeleton Knight to stand.

The room and the enemy were exactly as he'd seen in the streams.

"Alright, since the up-and-coming adventurers are probably watching, I'll fight while giving commentary. Honestly, I was thinking of taking it down unarmed, but I want to show you how to fight large opponents, so I'm using the short sword on purpose."

The Skeleton Knight was seated in the center, but seeing Sai, it stood up.

From its perspective, this would be a continuation from the five-person party—a back-to-back fight, maybe.

"This big hulking body... a giant-type Skeleton Knight, huh. Probably because this thing's crammed into this room, it can't jump or anything. The ceiling height and its height are about the same."

Saying this, Sai walked around to the right side of the Skeleton Knight's sword hand—the left side from a frontal view.

"When you're up against a knight-type with a sword and shield like this, even if it's scary, the front line should position themselves on the sword side. The back line goes on the shield side. What goes for both of you: position yourself where neither the sword nor the shield can hit you."

Adjusting his stride, calmly measuring the distance between himself and the enemy, he continued talking.

"When you fight a strong enemy, having the back line stand behind the front line is orthodox reasoning, but against a big, powerful enemy like this, the initial strategy for the back line is how to stay out of the enemy's field of view, and for the front line, how to keep blocking the enemy's field of view."

As he was talking, the Skeleton Knight thrust at him.

Sai dodged to the left.

"When the party splits into two groups, the front line must be careful not to get in the mage's line of fire. In this case, the mage should aim for the head and upper body. That way, the lines of fire won't overlap."

The Skeleton Knight closed the distance and delivered a diagonal slash, but Sai dodged further left.

It was like circling clockwise around the Skeleton Knight while dodging.

"A giant Skeleton Knight is pretty much like a giant race. Not very smart, but their physical strength is tremendous. If you take even one hit, you'll almost certainly be injured at first. Still, if you're about to get hit..."

A horizontal slash came flying.

The attack that had been the decisive blow that collapsed the previous party.

"Don't ever try to fully block it!"

Sai caught the blade with his short sword while letting the momentum carry him backward, launching himself back.

"When you're about to take a hit, you'll block with your sword or shield, but getting cut would defeat the purpose, so block while not killing the recoil and jump back. Ride the momentum. That'll reduce the damage a bit. Be careful not to ever fully stop the blow."

Sai was blown backward, but immediately got up after receiving the hit and flowed left again, clockwise.

"The best option is to retreat backward and get out of the sword's range, but that's not always possible. When you absolutely have to take a hit, handle it like that. Then get up immediately and move to a safe zone."

Showing no sign of damage, Sai continued talking.

"If the back line were right behind the front line, you couldn't do something like this. That's why you split into two groups. The front line keeps aggro at all times, while the back line stays behind the enemy. You can do that, right?"

After that, the Skeleton Knight attacked many times, but Sai dodged or deflected each one.

Throughout it all, he talked through several examples, explaining how to fight.

"Next, I'll talk about some tips for attacking."

Saying that, he brought his short sword forward.

"This enemy is a Skeleton Knight wearing armor, but because of its size, there are plenty of places where the bones themselves are exposed."

He held the short sword forward so the camera could see.

The tip of the short sword pointed to the exposed bone areas.

"For example, the hand bones are visible at the gauntlets, and while it's wearing a chest piece, the area around the stomach is exposed, right?"

He tapped the bones with the short sword, poking at them.

Whether this action irritated the Skeleton Knight, it attacked wildly.

But each time, Sai dodged to the outside of its range, or passed under its armpit to circle to the other side.

It never once hit Sai.

"With human-sized skeletons, it's difficult at first, but with large skeletons, there are certain parts to target."

Sai deliberately paused.

To give the five-person party, who were probably watching, time to think.

"That's right. The gaps between the bones."

Skeletons. Monsters that move their bodies freely through magical power, even without muscles.

With humanoid types, especially monsters wearing armor like Skeleton Knights, targeting the gaps between bones is difficult.

But with large skeletons, targeting bone gaps is a good strategy.

Monsters with large bodies naturally have larger gaps, making them easier to aim for.

"So in this case, it's here."

Sai positioned himself behind the Skeleton Knight and swung through the gap between its hip bone and spine.

The next moment, a part of the spine shattered.

"......!"

The Skeleton Knight let out an inaudible scream.

But the Skeleton Knight couldn't move properly.

"With this, the Skeleton Knight is drastically weakened."

The Skeleton Knight tried to turn around, but its movements were terribly jerky.

The vigor from before was gone.

"Skeletons use magic power as a substitute for blood and muscles to move, but once one part breaks down, their movements go haywire. You know how it is. When the waist axis of a plastic model breaks, it's hard to make it stand, right? Of course, the floating types are a different story."

Saying that, he circled further left and sliced through the gaps in the joints of the left arm, then the right arm joints, and repeated the same process on both legs. Even so, the skeleton kept trying desperately to move.

But it was already a dead body walking.

"By the way, at this point it's practically neutralized, but skeletons can also do biting attacks, so watch out. And with that, this is the finishing blow."

Saying that, he looked at the Skeleton Knight, still trying to move even as it fell.

Sai sheathed his short sword, wiggled his hand, then drew back and bisected it from head to body with a hand sword strike.

"That last part... consider it a benchmark. Something like, 'if you can do this, you can defeat a Skeleton Knight solo too.' Normally, fighting solo isn't recommended anyway. So, that's roughly some advice for conquering a giant Skeleton Knight."

He continued with several more supplementary tips.

Eventually, the Skeleton Knight disappeared, dropping a magic stone and a longsword.

It was like the sword the Skeleton Knight had been using, sized down for a human.

"If you have any other questions, uh... send me a DM or something."

He said that, directed at the five-person party.

He hoped this would be good guidance for the young adventurers.

He spoke with that wish in his heart.

"Well then, I'll be heading on to floor 6 first."

Sai successfully defeated the Skeleton Knight and arrived at Shinjuku Tower's floor 6.

From floor 6 onward, Shinjuku Tower's atmosphere changed slightly.

In fact, from here, the number of monsters increased dramatically.

Up to floor 5, the monster encounter rate was low, but from floor 6 onward, the encounter rate increased by two to three times.

Also, enemies started forming groups.

Specifically, monsters like goblins and orcs appeared, and judging from the stream information and shared maps, traps also started appearing on the pathways.

Still, he planned to punch through here with his bare hands too.

Just as he thought that, his smartphone rang.

Sai was a man who'd never owned a mobile phone before being transported to the other world, and had only gotten a smartphone after returning to Japan after thirty years.

He had no problem with the internet since he could take it at his own pace, but getting a phone call still surprised him quite a bit.

He pressed the button. Answered.

It was just that simple, but he panicked a little. Still, he managed to take the call.

The caller was his nephew.

"Uncle... Uncle!"

"O-oh. What's wrong? You sound so frantic."

The strangely panicked tone of voice confused Sai.

This was not the kind of voice you wanted to hear while basking in the small sense of accomplishment from defeating the Floor Boss Skeleton Knight.

"Th-the seniors messed up on a trap and got surrounded by goblins...! Please go help them...!"

"Calm down, let me confirm. The seniors, that's the girls whose archive you showed me yesterday, right? Where are they?"

In a voice that sounded like he was about to cry, his nephew told Sai.

The location was floor 8. They'd been advancing while avoiding pit traps, but a hidden door ahead had released a large number of goblins. They managed at first, but apparently the back-line mage messed up and fell into a pit trap.

As a result.

The back-line girl was on floor 7 fighting a pack of wolves.

The front-line girl was on floor 8 fighting a swarm of goblins.

She was steadily starting to run out of breath, apparently.

On the other end of the line. Behind his nephew, kids who were probably his friends were shouting things like "This is seriously bad!" "But they haven't put out a rescue alert yet!" "Hiyori, run!" It seemed like a pretty dire situation.

"Got it. I'm heading to rescue them!"

It was a matter of time.

From what he'd seen of the stream archives, both of them seemed trained, and by the time he got there, they might have handled it. If it turned out to be fine in the end, that would be good.

With that in mind, Sai dashed through floor 6 at full speed.

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Thank you for reading.

Today also marks a two-chapter update. Another update is planned for 8 PM.

Thank you very much.