162 . The Boss Room

「At dungeon’s deepest part?」

『I think so . The boss should be on the other side of these doors . 』

A day had passed since Fran and I discussed the terms of her evolution . And since then, we’d finally reached the dungeon’s 20th floor, its deepest depths .

In front of us stood a single door . Its intimidating frame stood at a height of almost ten meters . It had a property that made it deflect magical energies, so we couldn’t really discern as to what was in the room it led to .

We could feel a bit of bloodthirst leak through the door, but, that alone wasn’t enough for us to discern the extent of the boss’ strength . All it told us was that the boss was our foe .

「Dungeon Master inside?」

『Probably . My guess is that the answer is yes, but I don’t really have anything to back it up . 』

「I see . 」

『The info we have on the boss is all over the place, so I honestly can’t even make a good guess as to what we’ll encounter . 』

The eastern dungeon was the type that didn’t have a set boss . Apparently, there were about 15 different bosses . The one that ended up appearing would typically be the one that was best suited to combat the challenging party .

Weaker parties would sometimes be pitted against E ranked bosses, monsters even weaker than the High Ogres that one could encounter on the way to the boss room . More powerful parties would sometimes be faced by boss monsters labeled as C ranked threats . In other words, the bosses could be so powerful that they ended up transcending the dungeon’s rank .

Mages have studied the dungeon and come up with a theory to describe the phenomenon . Said theory states that the precise boss that’d spawn was actually based off of the actions the party took as they made their way through the dungeon .

We did gather ourselves a bit of info on the stronger bosses that the dungeon was known to spawn, just in case .

The number of known C ranked possibilities totaled to 3 . There was the Tyrant Saber Toothed Tiger that I’d fought in the past, the Smog Hydra, a six headed monster whose smoke would inflict all sorts of different status conditions, and the Specter Lord, a creature that’d summon and make use of the spirits of the dead .

Erza had fought both of the first two species . Amanda had stated that she fought the last back when she herself was a C ranker . In other words, both cases served to evidence that stronger individuals would end up facing off against stronger enemies .

Dias, on the other hand, seemed to be completely exempted from all combat . His face more or less served as a pass that’d let him get through the dungeon without having to face off against a boss .

I’m pretty curious as to the type of boss we’ll end up having to face off against . We could take it easy if the boss turned out to be rather weak or something, but I’d end up feeling a bit miffed cause that’d mean that we were thought to be weak . That said, I’d really prefer if we weren’t forced to face off against something that wastoopowerful .

Honestly, I was hoping for a D ranked spawn . That sounded like it’d be the most ideal .

That said though, there wasn’t actually any issue in having a more powerful enemy spawn . Ulmutt’s Eastern dungeon was unique in the sense that its boss room didn’t lock you in .

You could make an escape so long as the boss didn’t kill you instantly . Apparently that was one of the terms of the contract Dias and the Dungeon Master had signed .

We’d even be able to just use Dimension Jump to teleport out so long as there weren’t any magic related restrictions in place too .

I planned to immediately test whether or not we actually could teleport out of the boss room . If so, I figured that we could totally just fight whatever was thrown at us regardless of how powerful it is, cause we’d at least have ourselves a life line .

『Alright, let’s do this . 』

「Nn!」

「Woof!」

And so, Fran gave the door a push .

It groaned as it opened and revealed to us the boss room’s contents .

「Ball?」

『Looks like one . 』

「Woof?」

The thing that awaited us was exactly what Fran had described . It was… some sort of ball . Its shape was a bit irregular, so you couldn’t really say that it was a perfect sphere or whatever, but it definitely was some sort of ball nonetheless .

Hmm… how do I put this? The boss looked like it was made out of a bunch of huge turtle shells stitched together to form a ball . It actually kind of resembled a gigantic, black pineapple of sorts . It’s hard exterior looked to be about 20 meters in diameter .

I honestly couldn’t tell what the hell it was based purely on how it looked, but it seemed pretty strong .

_______________________________________________________________

General Information

Species: Disaster Pill Bug (Insect-type Magic Beast)

Level: 45

HP: 522

MP: 521

STR: 335

VIT: 339

AGI: 412

INT: 101

MGC: 298

DEX: 151

Skills

Air Jump: Lv 5

Harden: Lv 8

Presence Detection: Lv 5

Regeneration: Lv 8

Vibration Strike: Lv 7

Resistance to Mental Abnormalities: Lv 8

Resistance to Abnormal Status Conditions: Lv 8

Rush: Lv 9

Magic Resist: Lv 7

Magic Detection: Lv 5

Magic Emission: Lv 7

Reinforced Carapace

Lightweight Carapace

Hardened Carapace

Reinforced Regeneration

Automatic Mana Regeneration

Weight Boost

Greater Vitality Increase

Description: A pill bug that’s undergone an abnormal evolution . It’s body is covered in a hard shell . Its wings do not allow flight despite it being an insect-type magic beast . Its main method of attack is to charge at its target whilst relying on the weight of its massive body . It can use Magic Emission to suddenly change directions . It is very difficult to inflict damage upon . It is classified as a C ranked threat despite being roughly as powerful as a B ranked threat in combat .

Magic Stone Location: Heart (Center of Body) .

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The boss was a top tier C ranked threat, a foe of unquestionable strength .

I was honestly wasn’t really sure as to whether or not we’d actually be able to damage the damned thing . It had a whole tonne of resistances and could even regenerate . Luckily, it wasn’t capable of casting any spells, but honestly, its inability to do so was more or less negligible given how powerful its charge could be .

『Fran! Urushi! Let’s go all out!』

We started off with a preemptive strike . That is, all three of us fired off a spell .

『Inferno Burst!』

「Tornado Lance!」

「Grooowl!」

The pillbug moved at a near unbelievable speed and dodged all three spells in a heartbeat by rolling away .

Even just watching the action filled me with a sense of revulsion . There was no start up or anything like it . The pillbug simply went from being stationary to suddenly moving around at a super high speed . My guess was that it’d used its ability to emit Magical Energy .

This battle was one that was impossible for us to win lest we threw away the presumption that heavy things with massive frames were also slow and clunky .

「Enemy attacking . 」

『Dodge it!』

The Magic Beast rolled in our direction as it used its Rush skill . This must be how Indi*na Jones felt when whenever he met himself a giant rock . The large black ball gave off an incredible sense of pressure .

「Kuh!」

『Are you okay, Fran!?』

「Nn… Just a scratch . 」

『The fact that it’s damaging you just by giving you a little bit of a scratch is one hell of a problem . 』

Its high speed attacks were already capable of causing quite a bit of damage on their own . The fact that it had access to Vibration Strike only served to make it even more deadly . You could end up taking a lot of damage just from having it scrape you .

More importantly was the fact that it had magic resistance . We couldn’t damage it from afar by bombarding it with spells .

『What a pain in the ass!』

「But first powerful enemy in long time . 」

『What do you mean?』

「Given chance to become even stronger . 」

God damn battle maniac!

But, you know what? I guess that’s in part what makes her so reliable .