Itai no wa Iya nanode Bōgyo-Ryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu 347

Defense Specialization and the Trial 2

As soon as they teleported, the momentum at which they fell also changed, and the two found themselves standing on solid ground.

They were in the center of a circular room. And from the walls, were passages leading out at equal intervals. As Maple looked at her surroundings, the light that had stayed at their feet after the teleportation began to move along the ground. It then pointed to one of the passages.

“Is it saying that that’s the right one?”

“No, it leads to a magic circle for when you want to leave.”

“Huh? We can leave that easily?”

“Yes. As for why they allow you to leave whenever you want… Here they come!”

Just as Sally said this, monsters of various types began to come out from the other passages. There were some that looked familiar, while others were limited to this event. There was no rule as to what kind of monster would appear.

“In any case, just keep killing them!”

“Okay!”

That was all Sally knew. She wasn’t the best when it came to fighting hordes when alone, and this terrain was not doing her any favors. That was why she had quickly decided to retreat. She needed Maple’s help here, as they made a good team.

“Prioritize any enemies that look like they’d have piercing attacks!”

“Yes! ‘Deploy all Weapons’!”

There was only one passage where monsters didn’t come out of, and so she kept her back towards it as a guarantee of safety, and started to fire ahead of her. Sally looked at the monsters that were being hit by Maple’s fire, and chose the ones that looked especially dangerous and cut them down.

“Oboro, ‘Fire Child,’ ‘Crossing Flame’! ‘Water Coat’! ‘Double Slash’!”

Sally used Oboro’s skill to envelop herself in fire, allowing her to deal fire damage to the monsters with every attack. Furthermore, she used ‘Water Manipulation’ which adds an automatic pursuit effect with the water. There was also ‘Pursuing Blade,’ which meant that one attack from Sally would always be followed by extra damage three times.

And though each was small, when her twin daggers slammed into an enemy with a chain of attacks, there was nothing they could do to resist. ‘Double Slash’ was just a simple attack, but they were doubles due to her dual-wielding, and this resulted in damage being dealt a total of 16 times. At this point, she was beating out numbers that were so far away from what the skill was supposed to be capable of.

“Let’s keep going! ‘Predator,’ ‘Hydra,’ ‘Oozing Chaos’!”

As Sally dealt the finishing blow to one monster after another, Maple avoided Sally’s battle area and used long range damage skills to tear the monsters apart. Normally, the player would be in the center as monsters attacked them from every side, leaving no room to escape. But in order for these monsters to reach Maple, they had to brave a rain of bullets, damage skills, Sally, and two monsters.

If you wanted to kill Maple, you would have to get past Sally and deal a heavy blow. But it was also impossible to defeat Sally and make a clear path ahead without defeating Maple.

This was too difficult a demand for monsters whose strength was in their numbers alone.

The waves of slimes, orcs, goblins and other common monsters began to thin out. Finally, Sally cut off the head of the last one, and the room was filled with silence.

“There were so many of them.”

“Some of them were event monsters, so we should pick up the materials.”

Just as the two finished gathering the materials in the room, the ground started to shake, and they stepped away from the passage entrances. Even if they were supposed to go through it, it would be very dangerous to do so while monsters were still being spawned. After a brief wait, hordes of monsters began to come out once again.

“More! Alright, we’ll do it the same way…”

“Yes. I want to defeat a little more and see what happens.”

As if to say it didn’t matter how many monsters were sent to them, the two mowed them down one after another. In fact, their momentum did not slow down at all, and the number of monsters decreased rapidly.

As Sally was quite comfortable now, she had time to think about the monsters and wonder if there wasn’t something different this time. While these monsters were not exactly all the same as the previous wave, they were still common monsters.

And it was clear that this second attempt to reach Maple would be just as unsuccessful as the first. It was all pointless if they couldn’t get close enough to unleash a piercing attack.

It just felt like a replay of the first wave. And it wasn’t long before they were all blown away.

A large goblin who was late, was the last one to appear from the passage. And Sally was waiting by the entrance and unleashed a chain of attacks on it before it could even raise its sword.

“Phew. That’s the second wave cleared.”

“I can still go on!”

“Yes. That’s good to know. Things wouldn’t be stable without ‘Dedicated Affection’ and the curtain of bullets.”

Sally was only able to deal deadly blows where her daggers could reach. She had already retreated from this dungeon once. And it would be very difficult to break through the frontline now and destroy monsters that shot magic from the back, if she was alone.

This situation was only working due to Sally’s dodging ability and Maple’s defense ability.

“If these hordes of monsters just keep coming, this would actually be a good place to rack up kills for the event monsters.”

“Yes, there are quite a lot of them mixed in.”

“If this continues for much longer, we’ll have to slowly make our way down the passage while fighting them.”

“Okay. When that happens, I’ll guard you.”

“Yes, thanks.”

They waited, wondering if it would happen again. And then the ground started to shake, as the change occurred. Compared to the monsters in the first two waves, the ones that appeared now were clearly different in that there were more machines and golems. It was a big difference. And so Sally immediately started to think.

“Maybe it matches every layer…”

“Ah! It might be!”

But Sally sounded like she was hoping to be wrong. The first and second waves had monsters from the 1st and 2nd layers, and now the third wave had monsters from the 3rd layer. Yes, the 3rd layer had many of these monsters. They looked quite familiar.

Both the field and monsters changed dramatically after the first two, and so it had become easier for her to guess.

However, if this continued, that would mean there was also a wave for the 6th layer.

“Let’s just take care of these monsters for now! They’re shooting at us too!”

“Yes. I really hope that I’m wrong…”

Now that they had speculated, they returned to facing the monsters. The 3rd layer monsters, which were machine soldiers and golems, came out of the passages and approached them slowly.

“‘Commence Attack’!”

As Maple fired off her bullets, the metal golems moved in front of the soldiers so that they blocked the bullets. Furthermore, the bullets seemed to be doing nothing to the golems, as their HP was not decreasing at all.

“Ugh. This is why I hate golems.”

“I’m not doing any damage either. Should we take them down one by one?”

The soldiers were using their guns to shoot at Maple and Sally, but just like how the golems were blocking Maple’s bullets, the bullets of the machine soldiers also did nothing. And while the golems and machine soldiers were still alive, the other monsters that were not protected were mowed down and killed.

“Alright. As always, you can leave the hard ones to me. ‘Defense Break’!”

Even now, Maple didn’t have skills to defend against piercing attacks. And so it was necessary for the attacker she teamed up with to make up for that. In a way, this was exactly how an attacker and a defender should be.

“And…what about this?”

Sally moved between the gaps in the monsters and hit the machine soldiers directly. If Sally went after the golems, the enemies might swarm around Maple. However, they couldn’t be ignored either.

Besides, as long as Sally stayed within range of ‘Dedicated Affection,’ there was no way for the golems to hurt her.

While they were both defenders, the golems were not on the same level as Maple.

“‘Rapid Current’!”

As soon as she used the skill, Sally jumped in between the monsters as a powerful torrent of water was unleashed. And while this in itself did no damage, the nearby monsters were pushed away, wreaking havoc on their formation. The machine soldiers were no longer covered by the golems, making them susceptible to Maple’s current of bullets. And like that, they started to disappear into light.

“‘Defense Break’! ‘Triple Slash’!”

They would have no trouble fighting the others now. And so for the third time, Maple and Sally annihilated the enemy who had superior numbers.

Once they had cleared the area and high fived each other, the ground began to shake violently.

“It-it’s the next one already?”

“It’s getting faster.”

The thing that then appeared in the passage in front of them was something very familiar to Maple.

“Ah! Ummm, the Machine God!”

“What!? Re-really?”

Its coloring was different, and given the boss’s characteristics, she guessed that this was just a copy. However, it was the first boss-like monster to appear.

The other passages were filled with weapons that looked like Maple’s laser guns, and they were targeting the pair.

“I see. So it’s not just the weak monsters. Bosses can also appear here as well…”

Sally realized that this dungeon was even harder than she had thought. Still, she seemed to be enjoying herself. This was all because Maple was with her to face this powerful enemy.

“Alright, let’s keep going until we clear the area.”

“This is the best part of cooperative play!”

Their opponent was on a different level compared to the other monsters. And so they braced themselves as they raised their weapons.