CH 38

The Second Big Hunt

Translated by Dawn

Edited by Dawn

“[Aqua Ball]!”

For Wild Dashboa that hadn’t noticed me, I now launched my special “aqua strategy”.

A sphere of water released from my hand covered up its entire face, blocking its breathing.

Wild Dashboa, who had noticed something was wrong with itself, is flailing around, but it was unable to get rid of the water covering its face.

Just when it seemed that the game would be decided easily, an unusual situation occurred.

“I see. It’s certainly no ordinary monster. I never thought that my special aqua strategy would be defeated.”

Suddenly, the Wild Dashboa’s body was covered with what appeared to be a thin membrane. The familiar membrane was nothing more than a state in which physical enhancement was in effect.

Normally, physical enhancement was the ability to use one’s inner magic power and wrap it around the entire body to improve physical functions, but there were other special ways to use it.

It was a secondary ability that prevents the intervention of other people’s magical power by enveloping oneself in one’s magical power. In this case, the aqua ball I used fell into that category.

The Aqua Ball, which was made with my magical power, was blocked by the Wild Dashboa’s magical power, and the magic-formed water sphere was atomized.

Magic was basically a physical phenomenon that used magic power as its source. Magic could be used only because there was magic power. It was no exaggeration to say that this was the common sense of magic in this world.

Since the nature of one’s magical power and that of others were different, they didn’t mix like water and oil. Using that characteristic, Wild Dashboa succeeded in nullifying my Aqua Ball this time.

For a moment, I was puzzled by the fact that I had easily defeated more Dashboas and Forest Wolves than I could count on both hands, but just as I began to wrap my head around the fact that I would just have to try other means, it rushed forward as if to interrupt my train of thought.

“Bumoooooo”

“Damn pigs. How can such a straight line attack hit—what!?”

I avoided his rush just before it was about to hit me. This was something I had always done against dashboards, so it was a routine move for me.

The speed of the rush was a bit faster than that of a Dashboa, but even so, it was easy to avoid because of its simple movement. I was able to avoid the Wild Dashboa, which rushed forward on the expected trajectory, but something unexpected happened.

“Guuh, I see…….so that means you are not classified as a higher species for nothing, huh.”

The moment I evaded the attack, it immediately regained its stance, changed direction like a missile with a tracking function, and rushed toward me again.

I was unable to avoid the Wild Dashboa, which moves with excellent dexterity for a giant body over three meters tall, and even fell into a situation where I almost received a direct hit from its rush. However, no matter how much I was caught off guard, I couldn’t simply let it hit me.

“HAAAAHHH!!!”

At this point, I activated with all my might the physical enhancements I had been training for day after day. When something membranous like a barrier appeared around my body, my bodily functions improved dramatically.

With this power, I succeeded in killing the momentum of the Wild Dashboa’s rush with my right arm outstretched.

Perhaps it had never met a creature that could catch its thrusts. Its expression of bewilderment showed that it had not caught up with the fact that its own rush had been stopped.

“Ho, it’s quite a rush to compete with my full physical strength. No, considering that my body is only twelve years old, I might as well say it’s my lack of training.”

“Bu-bumoooo!”

Except for a few high-ranking adventurers, almost no one could catch the rush of a Wild Dashboa that made full use of body reinforcement. But I was able to do it.

But for my part, I knew that I would have to be strong enough to even dispel the sparks of fire that rained down on me and struggling against a monster of this caliber was out of the question.

The opponent, Wild Dashboa, was also baffled by the fact that its rush was caught, but it tried to crush me with even more force. I succeed in making it retreat by striking it with my free left arm.

The Wild Dashboa screamed from the shock and pain of the blow, but the damage itself did not seem to be too great, and it soon came rushing back with a menacing roar.

“Ho, ha, if I had known that you would be tracking me, is this the best you could do?”

“Bumooo!?”

As I looked at Wild Dashboa, who was beginning to show signs of astonishment and fear at the fact that he was losing all of his rushes, I was searching for a way to end this battle in my mind.

I wanted to avoid ways to hurt my opponent and get the material as intact as possible. The best way to do so would be to suffocate with an aqua ball.

However, this guy would use their magic power to counteract the aqua ball made with my magic power by using physical enhancement, thereby nullifying the aqua ball. What then?

“Un. I’ve come up with a few ideas, but I’m not sure they’ll work. Well, if it doesn’t work, I’ll just have to think of another way.”

I would try to use one of the moves that came to mind among several means. First, I would just keep avoiding the attack of the guy who was still rushing toward me.

Even though it was a monster, it would not be able to keep moving forever. First of all, my priority was to reduce its strength so that it would not be able to resist.

After 30 minutes of evading Wild Dashboa’s attacks, it seemed that its magic power had run out, and the physical enhancement it had been covered with was gone.

Its breathing had become more labored, and the frequency and momentum of its rushes were gradually decreasing. It was probably safe to execute the operation by now.

……What? Am I not battered? Well, not as bad as this guy, but not bad enough. No problem at all.

“Bumoo….”

“You fought well. But you’re done here. Take this!　[Snake Wave]”

I unleash snake-shaped attack magic created by water magic towards the slow-moving Wild Dashboa.

The snake-like torrent of water was aimed right at the Wild Dashboa’s mouth, as though it were being sucked in.

All the water gets sucked into the Wild Dashboa’s mouth, filling its lungs with water.

Exactly. I came up with this strategy …… that if you couldn’t suffocate it by plugging up its mouth, you could force the lungs themselves to fill up with water so that it couldn’t breathe.

Magical inhibition released by others in physical reinforcement only takes effect outside the body. However, the situation would be different if it were to drown out the magical power of others that had entered the body.

As explained earlier, one’s magic power and the magic power of others did not mix. It would become a mess, like water and oil.

And if this were to happen inside the body, one’s magical power and the magical power of others would cancel each other out, resulting in the consumption of magical power. In other words, you would be in a state of having used magic even though you did not use it.

Currently, this guy had used too much power to strengthen their body, so their magic power had decreased to an extreme level. It was not difficult to imagine what would happen if water made with magic power entered its body in such a state.

“Gobo, gobobobobo”

“You did well for a higher species, but you were no match for me.”

The oxygen that was not being supplied at any time gradually slowed its movement. All that leaked out of its mouth was water, and it tried to breathe for air, but my water magic, which entered directly into its lungs, would not allow it.

After a few minutes, Wild Dashboa’s huge body lay motionless on the ground.

“It’s over……. Let’s get on with the dismantling then.”

Without lingering on the afterglow of victory in the battle, I immediately started the dismantling process. Perhaps I could work on the Wild Dashboa a little, but I didn’t want to ruin the freshness of the material by doing so, so I quickly began the dismantling process.

However, I would like to say this. Thank you Wild Dashboa, and goodbye Wild Dashboa.

“Let’s leave the draining of blood for now, and let’s start skinning the pelt…….Hmmm… so hard! You can’t get an iron knife in there!?”

I was able to cut the neck when I was draining the blood, but the Wild Dashboa was too hard for the knife to go any further.

I put off dismantling for now and started thinking about going back to town to look for a knife that could dismantle the Wild Dashboa when an idea struck me.

“That’s right. If you can’t do it with a knife, maybe you can do it by using magic to dismantle it?”

Fortunately, the body structure of the Wild Dashboa itself was no different from that of the Dashboa. In other words, it should be possible to dismantle it using magic, as long as the incisions were made in the right places.

“Let’s try it…….[Blow cutter]”

To perform the dismantling with magic, I manipulated the blade-like magic made with wind magic as if it were a limb. The sharpness of the blades was not comparable to that of knives made of iron, and I was able to dismantle them as easily as if I were cutting pudding.

“It’s done……. Isn’t this faster than dismantling with a normal knife?”

With regret as to why I didn’t try it sooner, my face breaks into tears at the fact that this will shorten my daily dismantling work.

At any rate, the dismantling was completed without any problems, so the next step was to examine the materials I had acquired.

“Let’s see……pelt, meat, bones, fangs. So far, it’s no different than a normal Dashboa, but the magic stone is huge. It’s about the size of a tennis ball, isn’t it?”

The materials I obtained were all the same as dashboards, but their quality was incomparably better, so much so that I could tell without using an authenticator.

The magic stone obtained from the monster was also large, measuring four to five centimeters in diameter, compared to the five millimeters in diameter of a normal Dashboa magic stone.

The amount of materials that could be obtained from a giant body of over three meters was immeasurable, with at least 300 kilograms of meat and several dozen times the amount of pelt and bones that could be obtained from a dashboa.

“Even with my new magic bag, I can barely fit it in…….I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t hunt any other monsters on the way here, huh?”

If I had hunted other monsters, I would have had to throw away the materials. ……Dangerous, dangerous.

“Yoshi, now that the demolition is over, let’s just go back to the town, but….there’s still something I have to do right–?”

Muttering to myself, I began to solemnly prepare with a grin on my face to do a certain thing.