Chapter 140: Traps For Guardians

Chapter 140: Traps For Guardians

With everyone now on board with my plan, we were starting the preparations right away.

Our biggest hurdle will be slowing down that all-star guardian team

Right, the plans fine and all, but we cant even fight those things head on

And even running away isnt gonna be easy

The frontline fighters, Ueda and Nakai, added, quite seriously, despite themselves.

They were right, of course. I knew first hand how strong those spirits were. Talking about the time they completely obliterated the superior Rem, created from Tendou-kuns drops, and even one-shot the versatile Arachne. Their breath attacks were seriously bad news.

If they hit us with those when were on the run, were pretty much dead. I wasnt sure even Yamada, with his defensive calling, could withstand that sort of damage.

Dude, what about my Eis Mist? Dont think we can use that when theyre chasing us, right? If they lose us and head back to Reina, youre as good as dead, man

Nah, Ill be fine if they end up coming back. But for this plan to work, we need to make sure they chase after us

In the chase scene, Yamada will hold the rear as our primary defense wall. In front of him, Shimokawa will be in charge of slowing them down with his barrier spells and Rem is to support with arrows.

Then, well have Ueda and Nakai who cant really do anything other than run, and after them, me in my 2Shade clone, taking the lead riding on Raptor.

Right, aside from our positions, I also plan on setting some traps, dont expect too much though

Thisd put me in a real bind. The fact that this cloud zone was pretty much empty. Unlike the jungle zone before this where we had lots of trees and stone to work with, this place was just white gas. Other than that stupid cloud creature we hadnt seen any monsters either. So monsters drops were off the resources list too. We had to make due with the scarce materials in our square.

Yeah, so, where are we gonna be leading them?

Is it the room with the gas trap? Thats a good place to fight

If we were trying to literally stop them, we wouldve fought them in the fairy square Reina was in, as Nakai had suggested before. But in a head on fight, wed be the ones undeniably on the losing side. So that was not an option to consider.

We bring them here, to this fairy square. The plan is to imprison them here

Get real, Momokawa. Howre we supposed to do that when theres no door?

Wow, even Yamada caught on; I, shouldnt make him out to be that stupid, honestly.

Well need to draw away as many of them from as possible. Step 1 is trying to isolate Ayase-san

If they get all the way here, dude, you dont think theyll get worried and go back?

Then well have to pause the operation. Ill use my clone to see if they come inside, and only then go to Ayase-san. So even if they came back, Ill be OK.

If this part of the plan failed, wed just need to retry with a different room. This wasnt anything problematic.

My second reason for choosing here is that this is where we can block the entrance best

And? go on

Well make it look like they caught us in a dead end by running here. Then, when all of the guardians are inside with us, Shimokawa, youll cast the thickest Aqua Mist you can and youll all run out of the square. Once you make sure everyones accounted for on the outside, use Aqua Arma-Shield to block the entrance. The rest of you will use logs to make a wall behind the water barrier.

This way was much safer than trying to fight 3 guardian beasts at once.

Engard was the only powerhouse among them. Ramdane was bird shaped so I dont think it can push down a wall, and SOUMA didnt seem so physically strong either. So long as we can withstand Engards tackles from the other side, the barriers should hold.

Correct me if Im wrong, but your water magic is stronger and easier to use if theres real water around, right?

Nnot exactly like that, but if I had to keep up the shield for a while, having the water around totally helps

But, where are you planning to get those logs?

Yeah, we aint in the jungle anymore

Look around you, weve got lots

I gestured at the fairy walnut trees all neatly lined up around us.

Eh? Is it really alright to cut these down?

Feels like one of those faux pas

And we wont get any more walnuts either

They were surprisingly adamant about it. I guess having fairy squares as their only safe space all this while made them a bit attached. Me too, I wouldnt cut down the trees or break the fountain or ruin the water just for the heck of it.

Im sorry for miss fairy too, but theres no choice

Life or death and all that. To err is human, to forgive divine, yeah? I sent that little prayer to the statue on the fountain.

And dont forget, whether the plan succeeds or it doesnt, we cant stay here that much longer. Worry about food later

Our survival depended on whether we could beat Reina.

Alright, lets get right to practice

The team cheered in response. Also,

Im back~

Isnt it just his acid pits?

I also thought about laying on rotten bogs here and there to try and slow them down But then I got an interesting idea, and once I tried it, it worked pretty well. Men like a challenge, as they say.

Shimokawa-kun, lets show them

Right on, dude

I wasnt the only one skipping lumberjack duty. Shimokawa, our other magic user, was the same. The two of us had used this time to conceive one particular trap. Now, feast your eyes on what happens when you put together Shaman and Aquamancer

Acid Shield!!

The mud red liquid in the rotten bog I set up previously, jostled violently.

Waves formed in the bog acid as it got pulled up to a single area. The whole thing quickly clumped together in place, and formed the same shape youd see in an ordinary Aqua Shield.

But it wasnt ordinary transparent water, it was my bog acid that this shield was comprised of. In other words, it was a shield that could melt flesh and bone to the touch.

This is Shimokawa-kuns Aqua Shield but made with the stuff in my bog

And man is it awesome

Shimokawa and I were all smiles.

But alas, the frontliners simply went huh. Geez, these muscle-brained warrior types just cant, anyway, leaving aside my complaints at their non-reaction, I did have to do a lot of thinking before coming up with this rather plain looking combo spell.

First, an aquamancer didnt just control water, but any kind of liquid. We even knew that he could control hot water, as we had found out when he magicked up a water gun to mess around in the bath.

Which meant that his magic didnt distinguish between hot and cold water. Furthermore, he had no problem with sugar water and salt water either. Heck he could could use the soup in my boar stew for his spells.

As for my rotten bog, the acid in there wasnt a form of liquid but a product of my curse magic. As just demonstrated, Shimokawa even managed to manipulate that but it didnt come so easy.

The first trial was a complete failure. Rotten Bog was curse magic and not recognized as a viable liquid for use in water magic.

As Shimokawa was making a fool of himself, pouring his mana into the un-reacting red mud in a dead serious face, I hit on an idea. What if we mixed the acid with water, couldnt he do it then?

And the result of that: another failure. It wouldnt move when we added some water. When we poured in enough to highly dilute the bog, that did do the trick, but then, it wasnt really bog acid anymore; it was water with a little acid mixed in. The most it could do was give you a light sting.

So if water didnt work, lets just mix in other stuff. That thought, and subsequent trials, led to something that actually did the trick: Shimokawas blood.

Shimokawa was really, and I mean REALLY, reluctant about cutting himself though. But my instincts as a shaman were screaming that I absolutely must try the mages own blood, so I may have been a little forceful getting it out of him.

Teary eyed and looking like he hated my guts, Shimokawa chanted his magic and lo and behold, Acid Shield was born.

All that trial and error later, wed finally managed a way to (conditionally) control Rotten Bog with Shimokawas aquamancy. I could say we only succeeded because Shimokawa was talented in his calling. I could also say I knew squat about aquamancers out in the world, so the previous opinion was moot.

Regardless, this was a big boon for us. I was happy about it, but theres also the fact that this turned into a weakness for my rotten bog.

I needed to be careful if Shimokawa turned into an enemy somewhere along the line. Or if we met an enemy aquamancer.

Shimokawa-kun here will be erecting his usual Aqua Shields and mixing in these Acid Shields while were on the run

Engard could probably bust through a normal Aqua Shield without breaking a sweat, but if he were to get hit with acid after one of his attempts, he might opt for other, slower methods. And even if he does bust through them anyway, hed have to be sustaining slight amounts of damage.

Its unknown how well my bog acid will work on a guardian beast, but its the best trap we had. Its all we had.

Well, maybe not. Now that we could combine aqua spells with rotten bog, a lot of new possibilities will likely open up.

Basically we have to use these traps so that they dont catch up to us. Actually fighting any guardians will be a last resort only

Right, sounds like a plan

We dont want to fight them if we dont have to either

Great, so well go back to our magic practice then

The hell, you werent gonna help after all

Yamada complained, but left it at that.

Now, back to work everyone, no time like the present

Looking at their parting backs, I felt a momentary pang of guilt. These guys were working so hard because their goal was to save Reina. Im quite the villain I guess. I was using their good intentions not only to put them through harsh labor, but even have them fight life and limb for my own cause. Was I really so different from Higuchi who used violence to keep Masaru as his slave?

But I couldnt let this bother me, I couldnt let it loosen my resolve.

If I wasnt making the plan, maybe theyd have made their own rescue mission. Who knows, they couldve tried to simply talk with Reina, which was less a plan and more an unintentional suicide.

A shaman absolutely needed friends if he wanted to survive the dungeon. And honestly, weve been through a lot together now, I couldnt deny at least feeling a reluctance to let them die.

So both logically and feelings-wise, I cant let them die here. I wont let anyone else die, especially because of a bitch like Reina.

I will, get my revenge soon

My flames of vengeance were still burning high. But somewhere within that intense hate also lay the deep sorrow of losing an important friend.

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TL: Scallop