A large black ball, the Disaster Pill Bug, rapidly closed in on us.
Its massive body made its attacks incredibly powerful, but that wasn’t all — the bug was extremely mobile. The combination of these two factors made it ridiculously difficult to deal with.
We’d already experienced the extent of this combination head on several times. We barely managed to dodge the bug’s attacks only to have it suddenly turn on the spot and fly in our direction on several occasions. We would’ve long been squashed if not for our ability to teleport.
One couldn’t even get away from the damn thing by taking to the air, as its Air Jump skill allowed it to chase its prey in all 3 dimensions.
Even more troublesome was the hardness of its shell. Poking at it with anything other than an all out attack would only leave it with a scratch. That would be fine and dandy and allow us to accumulate damage and all, if not for the fact that the insect could regenerate. Its defenses were as solid as Rynford’s.
And if you thought that was all, then boy, you’ve got a whole ‘nother thing coming. The Disaster Pill Bug was capable of throwing a counter with Vibration Strike the moment we tried to attack it. Its detection skills seemed to make it capable of figuring exactly when we were going to strike each and every single time.
It didn’t seem like we were going to beat the bug by kiting it and poking at it sporadically. In fact, we were racking up more damage than it was.
But that honestly just made things a lot simpler.
「Nn. Same as usual.」
We just had to do as we always did and finish it off with a single powerful blow.
「Master.」
『Roger.』
Transform was one of the skills I’d used the most in our exploration of Ulmutt’s Eastern Dungeon; I’d practiced it hundreds upon hundreds of times. The Katana form was one of the forms I’d assumed the most, and hence, I was now able to take it in an instant. I’d even become capable of maintaining it for an hour with relative ease.
「Master. Going.」
『Alright! Urushi, lure the boss real quick.』
「Ruff!」
We hid our presences as Urushi provoked the pill bug and got its attention.
The large black ball immediately turned in Urushi’s direction the moment he threw a spell at it. The wolf was in his larger form, but he still looked puny next to the giant pill bug regardless.
「Grooowl!」
Urushi was not only more agile than Fran, but also capable of diving into the shadows if need be, so I was pretty sure that he wouldn’t have any issues if all he needed to do was dodge the pill bug’s attacks. His efficacy as bait was furthered by the fact that his magical strikes allowed him to ensure that the enemy stayed focused on him.
We finished all necessary preparations in a mere few moments.
That said, there wasn’t actually enough space for us to use the thing we used on Rynford. The ceiling was too low; we couldn’t fall far enough to build up all the kinetic energy we needed to make the technique work. I wasn’t too sure how things would end up going, so I didn’t dare pour every last bit of magical energy I had into my blade.
That said, we did have a plan. None of the dodging we did was aimless. We hadn’t just been running away.
Fran waited for the exact moment the pill bug struck a wall and immediately went on the offensive right as it lost all momentum.
She used a combination of my threads and Air Compression to fire herself off in the bug’s direction. That, of course, wasn’t all. She threw both wind and fire magic into the mix to accelerate herself even further. She activated weight manipulation and cloaked my blade in the elements twice over as she drew me from a sheath of compressed air. Every last bit of destructive force she outputted was concentrated on the very tip of my blade.
「Haaah!」
『Nice!』
I’d been pretty sure of our victory, but it looked like I’d been underestimating the Disaster Pill Bug. It was a C ranked threat. C ranked threats were more than just one trick ponies. The bug was capable of much more than mere offense.
The pill bug suddenly used magic emission and caused its body to begin rotating in the slash’s direction, an action that negated a fair portion of the damage that would have otherwise been inflicted.
As a result, her slash only managed to leave a large gash in the magic beast’s shell; its internals remained unharmed.
『Damn!』
「Strong as expected.」
『But we’ve at least made enough progress.』
I mean, it would’ve been nice if we were able to finish him in just one hit, but not doing so was just fine as well. We’d already planned ahead, just in case.
We focused our attentions on the wound that we’d just opened.
『Looks like it worked just the way we thought it would.』
「Nn. Can’t regenerate when frozen.」
Our element of choice hadn’t been the combination of the usual fire and lighting that we’d always loved to use. It’d instead been ice/snow.
The experiments we conducted regarding elemental weaknesses had led us to come to realize that wounds inflicted through ice/snow magic would regenerate at an abnormally slow rate.
We’d created the perfect weakness. All we needed to do now was launch an attack into the crack we made in its shell and we’d be golden. In other words, we secured ourselves a means of attacking the bug’s internals.
「Once more.」
『Let’s finish it off!』
「Woof!」
The only problem was that the pill bug would likely rotate in much the same manner as it had earlier. It’d be pretty hard for Fran to attack the exact spot she was aiming for.
『Alright, here’s the plan. We’ll let Urushi attack immediately after he finishes one of those spins. It’s gotta take a good amount of force for him to spin like that, and he probably uses a tonne of magical energy every time, so he probably can’t do it in rapid succession.』
「Nn. Urushi, leave to you.」
「Woof!」
We kicked ourselves into gear so that we could bring the damned thing down. Urushi started spamming magic at it in order to draw its attention while Fran and I quietly awaited an opening.
It didn’t take long for opportunity to knock.
The pill bug emitted a bunch of magical energy in order to hunt down Urushi, but missed and crashed into yet another wall.
Fran immediately leapt at the pillbug, whose open wound just so happened to be facing us. Everything was perfect. All we needed to do was hit the damned thing one more time.
『Let’s do this!』
「Haaaah!」
We launched a second attack with everything we had behind it —
— Only to realize that we hadn’t grasped the full extent of the pill bug’s strength.
I’d thought that the tides of battle were in our favour and that victory would soon be in our grasp. In fact, I hadn’t just thought it. I’d been convinced of it by none other than the Disaster Pill Bug itself.
Shit! How the hell!? I lost to a mere bug in a battle of wits!?
Something burst out from within the bug’s wound the moment Fran was about to slash it.
It lured us in and made sure to attack from a range at which we would be unable to avoid its strike. That said, it seemed that it’d been pushing itself, as its actions had caused its MP to plummet.
「Nraaah!」
『Shittt!』
The insect compressed its magical energy and launched a projectile from within its broken carapace.
Our eyes were instantly filled with naught but a single flash of white.
_______________________________________
I’ve got some good(?) news. I’m going to be picking up Nidome No Yuusha in the near future to make up for the fact that I can’t find any good MMOs to play. I’ve spoken with the current translation team. They will be posting one more chapter as it was a sponsored chapter. I will be picking the project up thereafter.
Will this have an effect on TSKD’s release schedule? It will when I’m busy or if I find a new game to play, but otherwise, hopefully not too much. (Note that the schedule will change on Monday regardless because I won’t be on break anymore. It’ll go back to what it was in like September/October.)
