CH 275

Episode 275 – A Series of Disadvantageous Battles

The Mask Queen held her staff at the ready and then swept it in our direction. The tip of the staff glowed red, and what seemed to be a fire-attribute spell came flying straight at us.

Thinking that it would be seriously troublesome if the spell had a target-seeking function, I lightly sidestepped the fire-attribute spell, but I didn’t notice any changes. It hit the ground and dissipated.

…As expected, the Mask Queen doesn’t seem to have great personal fighting capabilities.

That spell just now was most likely the weakest of the fire-attribute spells, [Fire].

As irritating as it was, it was probably alright for us to just focus on the mummies without devoting any attention to the Masked Queen.

“It’s a dog mummy!” (Rosalie)

Hearing Rosalie’s exclamation, I removed my gaze from the Masked Queen and looked over at the magic circle from earlier. There were two dog-shaped mummies being summoned.

And further behind them, there were also several mummy summons that bore a resemblance to the Canyon Monkeys.

“There are bird mummies and bat mummies above, too.” (Aruna)

In response to Aruna’s voice, I looked up and saw several bird and bat mummies as well.

I almost panicked when I noticed the breakneck speed at which the Mask Queen was summoning mummies, but I exhaled deeply and quickly calmed myself down.

“Rosalie-san, please take care of the monkey mummies. Aruna-san, please take care of the bird and bat mummies. I’ll take down the dog mummies.” (Lewin)

“Mhm. Can you handle two by yourself…?” (Aruna)

“If it’s not too dangerous for you, please cover me, Aruna-san!” (Lewin)

It might have been asking too much, but I dashed forward, weaving through the oncoming magic as I made my way to the center of the floor.

Standing inside the magic circle were two dog-shaped mummies, just like the one that I had just fought.

Sure enough, both of them were completely wrapped in black bandages, and the places where the bandages were coming undone were different from the dog-shaped mummy from before. If they were in the same spot, it would have been much easier to defeat them, but… there was nothing that could be done about that.

Before the dog-shaped mummies had been completely summoned into being, I circled carefully around the magic circle to try to inspect the areas that I’d need to attack.

One of them had an opening in the bandages near the heart, and another one had an opening on its lower back, which gave me the feeling that it would be pretty tough to defeat them.

The moment I finished inspecting the openings in the bandages, the summoning finished, and the two dog-shaped mummies leapt out from the magic circle. They seemed to already know that they had the advantage in numbers, since they didn’t show any sign of hesitation to attack. As they charged towards me, I faced them with a calm demeanor.

Their attack patterns consisted of claw swipes, bites, paw stomps, and body slams. I wanted to somehow make their attacks hit each other, but… it probably wouldn’t turn out so conveniently.

To start things off, I circled around until I reached an angle where the first dog-shaped mummy would block off the second dog-shaped mummy’s line of sight of me. Then, I began to attack the one closest to me, which had the opening in its bandages near its heart.

I had thought that it would be troublesome to deal with two dog-shaped mummies, but they continued their assault without any coordination. Not only that, their bodies were too big, making the area too cramped for them to fight effectively. I stood my ground, making sure not to move away from the two dog-shaped mummies. The moment an opening appeared, I weaved my sword in and thrust it into the gap between the bandages.

I must’ve started getting the hang of fighting dog-shaped mummies, as I easily struck a deeper blow than I’d expected. The dog-shaped mummy took a deep wound in its chest, causing its movements to cease.

I wanted to make sure to finish off one of them right here and now, so I dodged the other dog-shaped mummy, which had wrapped around and attacked, and set my sights on the one that had already taken a hit.

Claw swipe, bite, paw stomp.

I avoided all of the attacks that it had sent at me without using my sword to intercept. When I saw an opening appear, I threw myself under the reach of the injured dog-shaped mummy, ending up beneath it. I slipped under it and stabbed my sword straight up, right into the stomach of the dog-shaped mummy.

The nasty-smelling body fluids of the mummy came pouring downwards. My face twisted in disgust, but I didn’t stop moving there.

I pulled out my sword and immediately rolled out from underneath the dog-shaped mummy so I wouldn’t get crushed. The dog-shaped mummy came crashing down to the ground, and I proceeded to finish it off.

That intense exchange of attacks and maneuvers caused my muscle cramps to worsen, but I couldn’t stop here.

There was a new magic circle appearing, and I could already see the figure of another mummy being summoned out of the corner of my eye.

While keeping an eye on the Mask Queen’s magic, I continued to press the attack on the surviving dog-shaped mummy.

This remaining one had a gap in its bandages around the lower back and tail area, and I couldn’t expect to do any damage unless I aimed for those parts.

In what little time I had, I desperately worked my brain, trying to find a way to defeat the troublesome dog-shaped mummy, but… messy, roundabout ways of defeating it were too annoying.

Having come to that conclusion, I stopped thinking about trying to weaken it and decided to face it head on.

Whenever it went for a bite attack, I concentrated everything on meeting it with a counterattack.

The dog-shaped mummy hadn’t been able to hit any attacks as it would have liked, so it was now continually making wide swings.

It was pretty risky to approach a large, swinging opponent. But regardless, I came within point-blank range to try and bait out a bite attack. It swiped at me, so I backstepped and then sidestepped the follow-up body slam. Afterwards, I threw myself right in front of its face and then lightly leapt backwards to create some distance.

In an attempt to catch me as I jumped back, the dog-shaped mummy extended its neck and tried to snap at me with its jaws. I barely avoided it, and I followed up by plunging my sword into its eye. The force of the dog-shaped mummy’s biting attack was added on top of my own, transmitting a strong response to my hands through my sword.

The dog-shaped mummy fell forward on its paws, collapsing to the ground. Laying there motionless, it then proceeded to turn into ashes.

It had been a close fight, but I had managed to defeat two dog-shaped mummies.

When I surveyed my surroundings, I saw Rosalie-san mowing down several monkey mummies and Aruna shooting the bird and bat mummies out of the air without missing a single shot.

By the looks of things, I didn’t have to worry about the two of them. I just needed to worry about myself, who seemed to be faring the worst out of the three of us.

I walked over to the mummy that was being summoned, which I had spotted with my peripheral vision during the battle with the dog-shaped mummy.

It was about twice as large as the dog-shaped mummy, which I’d already felt had been pretty big. It looked down on me with an imposing stance.

Clearly wrapped in black bandages, it looked a lot like the Anchor Bear that Ahmed hunted when I first had first gone on a quest commission with the [Azure Alliance]… I think this is a bear-shaped mummy.

It gave off the most intense aura of intimidation that I had felt to date, making cold sweat break out all over my body.

This was probably the last fight in the battle against the Mask Queen.

I decisively pushed all of the half-assed feelings out of my head and resolved myself to dedicate my remaining strength to fighting this bear-shaped mummy.