36 Episode 35: Slavery and Shelling

I thought I would be stopped when I came back from the forest and showed my guild card, but I was just bypassed.

Catherine didn't have a guild card, but I wondered if there was any other way to check.

I went back to the inn and got another room.

I've taken another room at the inn, so you can practice making magic tools there, and the results will determine what you do in the future.

If it's useful, you're welcome to it, but if it's not, you'll probably have to sell it or something.

I'm not going to take a slow learner just because I can afford it.

"Um, is it okay for a slave to have a room by himself?

Hmm?　Isn't a slave usually given a room?

It's true that an inn is like an inn, and slaves may be able to sleep together.

But I have some money, and there is no need to cut costs.

No problem, I'm going to go run some errands.

That's right. Errands.

We came back here from the place where we saw the giant spider club, but we didn't encounter any returning demons during that time.

The way it retreated from the Metal Lizard makes me think that there might still be a boss.

The Giant Spider Club was definitely a bit strong. But even though I've gotten stronger, I'm still not as good as Metal Lizard.

I'll report it to the guild just in case. I might be able to defeat the boss by myself, but I don't want the town to be damaged by the fleeing monsters.

When I entered the guild, the atmosphere inside was rather hectic. There was only one person at the reception desk. You talk to the receptionist.

"Excuse me, I have something to report about demons.

"I've already heard that Rush Sheep and Red Wolves have attacked, is there anything else?

They'd already reached it. The gates were fine, so either it hadn't been long since the assault, or there were no demons like Gargon that could do effective damage to the outer walls.

Anyway, Rush Sheep. I let you off the hook, and now you've returned the favor.

Anyway, something's wrong. A spider.

"Yes, I found a giant spider crab about two hours ago, and I killed it immediately.

"Two hours ago, a giant spider crab. Where in the forest is it located?

Two hours ago, the Giant Spider Crab. Where in the forest is it? - From here, go out the gate on the Tubai side, turn left, and it's about an hour and a half's walk on a woman's legs.

Okay, I'll report back. What are you going to do now, Kaede?　I would be very grateful if Kaede, who is said to be a rank fraud even though she is ranked E, would participate in the defense.

Defense. I'm not sure what to do, but I'm sure you'll be able to do it.

On the other hand, if you dispose of the boss class, there's a good chance the mooks will retreat. It might be safer to kill the boss as soon as possible.

Kill any demons that appear in the process, but not to the extent that they interfere with your big game hunting.

I'll go look for the big ones and kill them. I had a similar problem in a town I was in before, when I crushed a big one, it stopped attacking.

I understand. You must have a constitution that makes you prone to trouble or something. You seem to be strong, but try your best not to die.

Of course.

I left the guild and ran to the outside of the gate. When I met the Metal Lizard, fortunately or unfortunately, I was just running along and met him.

This time it might not go so well. I need a more convenient means of searching for enemies.

So I'm going to start practicing flight magic, which I failed earlier.

Spying with magic is useful, but visual scouting is still the basic. Even if the magic doesn't reach far, the light does.

So, this time, I'll just focus on floating. The last time I used this spell, I imagined that it works by pushing a part of my body straight.

Then, if I lift my legs, I should be able to float straight. Let's try it.

My legs are caught. I turn halfway and hit my head on the ground.

Apparently, this is not good. I wonder if I need to align my center of gravity with the direction of the force.

Now I jump forward, parallel my body to the ground, and apply force to the front side of my body. I was able to float.

This makes it easy to scout. It's hard to land, but ...... you can manage it even if you crash. But it hurts, so I'd rather not.

I went up about 10 meters. You can see your surroundings clearly. I could provide forward thrust by using the side of my foot.

In the meantime, I tried to gain altitude to see if there was anything. There is something wrong with the forest in the distance to the right.

It's too far away to see very well, but the color is different, brownish. It also looks like it's moving.

The rest of the forest is lush. Obviously it's different there.

I flew over there and found out what it was. A bunch of those big giant spider crabs. They're that big and they swarm? I don't see anything else strange. Probably there is no other big change.

They've been driving those poor, stupid Rushpees away.

I'm gonna make Rushpe feel better about what he did to me. Kill them all.

I just got to the top. There's a lot of them. Disgusting.

When I killed them earlier, I cut off their legs and then crushed their bodies, but if they can fly, why don't I just kill their bodies from the start?

I heard that metal lizards attack with magic from above. So I'll give it a try.

It's the familiar rock spear, a rock spear of such a size that you can make it in 10 seconds.

I'll blow your beautiful head off!　The spear bites into the spider about 10cm and shatters it. Considering the size of the spider's head, it doesn't seem to have much effect. In fact, the spider is fine.

With the same amount of magic power, I try fireballs and spraying water, but they have no effect. If I take more time, I might be able to do something, but there are a lot of enemies. There are 200 of them. Where the hell did they come from? It's a sea of spiders.

Well, what should we do? Sword for now. I've seen that a magic sword can cut their heads off. I'll do a dive slash.

I'll increase my forward speed and slash the head while lowering my altitude. And then I'll charge straight into the ground.

In a panic, I raise my upward thrust as fast as I can to gain altitude, and succeed in getting back up from the ground.

After all, this flight magic is difficult. It doesn't seem to be suitable for steep descent.

In the first place, a dive attack is a maneuver of an airplane, and it may not be compatible with this spell, which is more like a helicopter that uses thrust directly upward to fly.

So, what is an offensive maneuver that is compatible with a helicopter?

There is no such thing. Helicopters aren't that kind of vehicles in the first place.

It may be able to fly in some strange ways, but it's not for actual combat.

So what should we do? Shoot a hellfire?

Maybe not hellfire, but something like a real cannonball might work.

In the first place, a rock spear flies straight without any thrust, and a fireball explodes. If it explodes after being stuck, it can blow up the inside.

It's like a fireball inside a thick rock spear. I tried it, and I was able to make it.

I tried it on a spider, and it exploded after biting into it. However, the explosion was not so good.

In addition, it exploded without penetrating much, so it was almost the same as exploding on the surface.

What should I do?

First, penetration. We can do something about that. Basically, the power of magic is proportional to the magic power consumed. And of course, the thicker it is, the more powerful it becomes.

So we can make a long and thin rock spear. It consumes more magic power and has a smaller cross-sectional area. That's the bullet itself.

The explosive part raises the temperature anyway. For some reason, fireballs explode after they land, so this should be fine.

It's not hot even when it's near you, and in fact the magic of the fireball is like flying explosives.

It's done. It's a rock spear, 2m long and 5cm in diameter, with flame magic encased near the tip. It takes about two seconds to make.

I'll put it into the spider's head.

The rock cannonball struck and shattered from the tip.

Only the first half is broken. But the second part soon hits the spider's head and shatters as well.

The explosion occurred when the first spear shattered, but it was a surface explosion. It makes no sense at all.

Apparently, the ratio of length to thickness was too extreme.

I had no choice but to shoot several spears of different thicknesses, knowing that it would reduce the efficiency, and found out the thickness that would not break.

The rock spear, 2m long and 8cm wide, bit firmly into the spider and exploded and scattered from the inside.

It took about three seconds to generate. That's within the practical range.

In addition, the rock spear might have the effect of a fragmentation grenade.

This is the first spell I've developed properly. It's a shame it doesn't have a name. I'll call this spell "Exploding Shells".

While generating 10 explosive shells at a time, I'll try the dive slash again to practice the flight spell.

Or rather, since you're not dropping bombs, there's no need to swoop down. You can just slash while flying straight up.

The problem is that you have to pass through the area just in front of the spider to slash properly, but I got the hang of fine tuning it as I flew around. Even if you can't do a steep descent, this is a practical level. Follow the moving swarm of spiders, and just keep slashing and shooting explosive shells.

After a while, there were no more demons around. It seems that the spiders had no means of attacking in the air.

In fact, I think it took me longer to store the corpse in the item box.

There's no overlap, and the speed is at the level of bullets, unlike when you plunge a spear of rock into a pack of green wolves. It's not like the days when you were a noob.

One hit, one kill. The defeated demons probably won't return to Lisbon, and I don't want them to, but I look around and don't see any demons coming back. This isn't the capital of Portugal, though.

There were 208 spiders, and they all fit in one item box. It's a mysterious standard.