BXBX NOVEL Chapter 28, Setting Up the Skill
Chapter 28, Setting Up the Skill
Next day. In the morning, Tsutomu bought a substitute for Garm’s damaged equipment, some anti-heat measures, and heat protection equipment to fight the fire dragon. Then, they began to invade the 57th floor according to the strategies they had made in the previous meeting.
Basically, the first thing they had to do was to discover the Black Gate without being found by the monsters as they followed Camille’s lead to advance through the valley.
The orcs would occasionally shoot arrows, but other than that, they surpassed the enemies without a hitch and discovered the Black Gate. They defeated the Wyverns in the following 58th floor with ease and immediately proceeded to the 59th floor.
“…We’re here.”
Camille, who had stepped her foot on the 59th floor, muttered with a serious look. Camille once said that she might regret it if she took over the guild’s leader position from her husband upon challenging the fire dragon, which was why they purposely stopped after opening the gate to the 59th floor.
Three years had passed since Camille had been sick, in which her husband preceded her as the guild leader. It was a good thing that her husband stepped in since Camille wasn’t a dexterous woman. Although she has the skills as an adventurer and a personality to stand before others, she wasn’t really good at negotiations or complicated clerical work. When a problem arose, it was the vice-captain who had to back her up.
This was why Solitt company, the most influential newspaper company, could pressure the guild. They were wondering if it was her or the vice-captain who was more suitable to become a guild leader.
Actually, Camille herself had also begun to wonder if the vice-captain was more suitable to become the guild leader. Even though he was kind of a feeble man, he was skillful with his work. Plus, he could handle social relationships and negotiations easily. Considering this an opportunity, Camille temporarily handed over the position of a guild leader to the vice-captain. If this turned out well, then that’s good, but if it doesn’t, she’ll change it back.
It doesn’t matter to Camille even if her husband had to entrust the guild back to her to keep her status. She could just die a martyr and become a receptionist later.
“Alright, we’ve reached our goal for now.”
Tsutomu thought that it would take them until evening to reach here, but the time showed that it was only around three P.M. Tsutomu felt delighted because they finally arrived at the 59th floor earlier than planned thanks to Camille. Then, he put the Magic Bag down.
“Well then, let’s practice using the anti-heat measures and heat protection equipment for this floor before fighting the fire dragon. Not that there are many of them, though.”
Tsutomu rummaged through the Magic Bag and took out a transparent cylindrical bottle, iron mallet, and some red-colored fireproof equipment made of clothes.
Dozens of insects with round, grey shells were kept inside the bottle. They were monsters living outside the dungeon called Bursting Insect, which would explode and radiate when they were on the brink of death. The ones inside the bottle were young ones.
The bottle will light up when it was shaken well enough to kill the insects, then it’ll explode and radiate. It was a popular tool similar to Flash Bang which light was used to distract the fire dragon’s sight when fighting it. This radiating bottle was the easiest to use to temporarily blacken out the dragon’s eyes.
When the dragon’s eyes were blackened out, they’ll use the iron mallet to break the green crystal on the dragon’s forehead, which has the size of a fist. Doing so will prevent the fire dragon from flying freely in the sky.
The red fire dragon had a body length which could be boasted for being able to step on and crush people with ease. It was impossible for the dragon to lift its body and fly in the sky with that mighty length just by using its wings, so it certainly needed another force. Its source was from the crystal on the dragon’s forehead.
The fire dragon drew the force of the wind from that crystal, just like the Fly spell that Tsutomu used. The powerful wing could only control the force, so if that force was gone, the flying ability would also vanish. But if it doesn’t, then it’d be able to glide through the sky.
“Alright, here you go. The size should fit you guys.”
Tsutomu handed over the red hooded robe to them, the surface felt rough. The two of them also received some equipment for defense.
“These fire attires are made of red thread, huh. How much does it cost?”
“About five pieces of large magic stones. Seems like it was on high demand, so it was quite expensive.”
“…I heard that the current market price is three pieces of stones, though.”
“It’s alright. We could still afford it.”
The fire dragon’s breath was a scorching hot breath which could sweep away a wide area. Its preparation time was short and could launch many attacks. Even if they could read its movements, it might be unavoidable – depending on their location when it attacks. Due to that, Tsutomu bought these fire attires regardless of the expense.
If one gets directly hit by the overwhelming amount of heat from the fire dragon’s breath, they’ll instantly die if they were wearing normal equipment, even if their vitality was B-. However, if they were using the fire attires made of red fire dog’s skin woven with the red spider’s thread, even someone with D+ vitality like Tsutomu could completely withstand the breath.
The apprentice young boy at the store’s reception desk thought that no one would be able to buy things from their store since they were currently overpriced. Tsutomu could still remember the boy’s astonished face when he took out fifteen pieces of large magic stones of the best quality and specified the size. He’s exaggerating a bit so that he could make them seem to be worth more, but the size was actually almost the same as what the market had.
“If the fire dragon’s breath is coming towards you and you can’t avoid it, you should cover your body with the hood and turn to your back. If you do so, you should be able to resist. Nevertheless, if the dragon scratches the robe with its nails, it will immediately get torn, so please be careful.”
Tsutomu imitated the dragon’s movements as he practiced and informed the two about the precautions. Although the movements were simple, the trio repeated the movements many times until it was imbued to their bodies.
“The fire dragon’s preparation before breathing out fire is noticeable. It will draw in a deep breath, and the throat will start showing faint signs of shining. This is its basic movements. There are some more of its attacks which we need to be cautious of, but I’ll talk about it when we return. For now, we need to be more cautious of the breath, so whenever I shout ‘breath’ during battle, please do the movements I’ve told you before.”
“Understood.”
“Breath!”
The three of them immediately covered themselves with the hood and crouched on the spot. Tsutomu lifted his face, feeling surprised by their reaction speed.
“Ah, it’d be troubling if the robe got torn, so please take care of it.”
These fire attires made of red thread have good fire resistance, but they were prone to attacks, which was why Tsutomu kept the equipment in the Magic Bag until they challenged the fire dragon. Then, he picked out the radiating bottle.
“When you hear me shouting ‘I’ll throw the radiating bottle now!’, please close your eyes. The bottle will explode three seconds later.”
In the game, a radiating sword also existed, in which the Attacker used to strike the dragon again and again after throwing the radiating bottle to make it feel frightened. So it was only natural that Tsutomu tried to put that into practice, but he confirmed that it wouldn’t work in this world upon observing it once.
The fire dragon has some bits of intelligence, so once they used the radiating bottle, it would hardly fall for it the second time. Hence, the radiating sword from the game couldn’t be used here. He was quite taken aback, but it might be useful later, so he bought a dozen of it and used some for the practices.
“We’ll also practice using the radiating bottle at the start of the battle. When you hear me shouting ‘I’ll throw the radiating bottle now!’, please close your eyes.”
“…Don’t you think that’s a waste?”
“One shot would cost 20000 gold, it seems. Well, I still have this much, though.”
“You made an expression like you’re an overnight millionaire.”
Tsutomu retorted in response to Garm’s dumbfounded look by making a pose of rubbing his thumb over the tip of his index finger, signifying money. Camille’s eyes also shine with astonishment.
“Alright, let’s make the best use of what we had decided on yesterday’s meeting to level up while also taking measures on how to fight the fire dragon. Ah, Camille. I have a few things I wanted to try out while you’re using your dragon form, so please prepare yourself before I’ll cast Haste, alright?”
“Oi, oi, you’re still not giving up on that?”
“I’ll give up if this didn’t turn out well! Please!”
“Whatever. Suit yourself.”
Tsutomu clasped his hands together, begging for forgiveness to Camille. She gave Tsutomu a bitter smile as she pulled out the big sword that stabbed into the ground, then began searching for the enemies after Tsutomu applied Fly on her.
Since the Wyverns were currently flying in the sky, Tsutomu stayed on the ground and watched over the battle. Garm tried to attract the attention of five orcs and two wyverns. This standing position was to keep Tsutomu and Camille from getting stabbed by the flying splinters.
Camille kept her dragon form and stayed in the air, though she was actually really eager to chop the wyvern’s wings off with her large sword. But Camille mustn’t kill the wyvern without cause, since it will run about freely in the sky to avoid her big sword as it shrieks with a threatened voice, and attract other monsters.
Wyverns didn’t spit scorching hot breath like the fire dragon, but it could fly freely in the sky with its flexible wings similar to the bats. If there was an opening, it would try to stab people using its tail’s splinter, which has trickles of paralysis poison. Those who were unfamiliar with air combat would get hit by the splinters, then being gnawed right after they were unable to move.
The wyverns swung its tail like a snake, shooting splinters to people. It tried to block Camille’s surroundings first so that she couldn’t escape. Then it tried to tear off her face by attacking from the front using its bird-like claws. Camille stopped its attack using her sword, then snapped sideways.
Camille, who had been pursuing the enemy, pierced the sword to the wyvern’s flank which stance had been knocked down. The wyvern’s blood gushed out to Camille’s right arm.
“Enchanted Flame.”
Camille’s special attack was to pierce through the enemy’s body with her sword, then scorching its insides. Upon piercing through, she released her grip to the big sword, leaving the sword stuck into the wyvern’s body which was now struggling in pain. Camille flapped her wings and immediately parted from it. Lastly, the sword thrusted from its splinter tail to its wings.
Another wyvern gliding in the sky noticed Camille and approached her, trying to attack her with its splinter. After confirming that, she took in a deep breath. Then, a small, red scale that stuck on her throat glowed, after that, a vigorous flame wrapped the wyvern and its splinters. The wyvern’s body was completely wrapped in flames, then it began falling to the ground while making weak shrieks.
Camille stabbed her big, flaming sword to its belly as it fell down, then she retrieved the sword back with a snatch from the wyvern which has begun to turn into particles. Keeping herself flying low, Camille slashed the orcs which were aiming at Garm diagonally from its back. Following that, she turned around and blew three orcs away on their belly with her sword. Camille immediately stopped moving her sword as the orcs tumbled and turned into particles.
“Ooh, I wonder if she noticed it herself? What a great movement. Heal.”
Tsutomu aimed the spell to Garm’s left arm, then took a glance at Camille, who was currently chasing the orcs. Then, he began applying Fly on himself and flew to the air, playing his role as a support.
Like usual, Camille’s movements were out of the ordinary. Garm could control his mana. Same goes to controlling aggros gained from the monsters. There was definitely some kind of control over the mana of any kind of skills. Tsutomu had even checked the duration of his supporting skills. In addition to that, it was impossible for the current Tsutomu to keep applying his support skills to every of Camille’s movements for each seconds.
[Since I can’t apply the skills directly…]
When Tsutomu swung the staff, a blue aura emerged in the direction Camille was heading.
[I could set it up like this.]
Tsutomu tried to put the set up of the skills he had just come up with at midnight into practice. If he did it like this, unlike the shooting method, it wasn’t much different from the flying skills, so Tsutomu guessed that the duration was probably not that short.
Upon stepping into the blue aura, Camille’s speed increased even more. She was so fast that Tsutomu’s eyes could barely catch up with her. The orcs definitely wouldn’t be able to fight Camille with that extreme speed of hers, thus Camille attacked its arms with a single blow. Then its foot with another blow. The orc, whose body has been scraped off, died and turned into magic stones.
The Haste skill was uninterrupted until the orcs were annihilated. The duration was a bit shorter than the flying skill. Tsutomu reckoned that this skill lasted about forty seconds earlier when compared to the usual Haste.
[Setting up the skill like this might be quite useful later], thought Tsutomu as his lips broke into a smile. The effective time of the skill wasn’t bad at all. If he kept it up, it’ll affect camille’s fire power by strengthening it more, and the amount of times Tsutomu had to cast the skill will also decrease.
While Tsutomu was still busy grinning, the Kanfagaroo hopped and approached him. Contrary to its cute face, this monster, which has an appearance similar to Kangaroo, could attack adventurers with martial arts, which would break a person’s neck with ease.
It hasn’t been confirmed whether it carried a baby on the pouch in its stomach, but seldomly, the magic stones that could be obtained from that pouch had a good level of purity and were sold at a high price. But unlike the outside of the dungeon, one has to put their hand inside the pouch during the battle to check if there were any stones. Even if there were any, it was a herculean task to search in the Kanfagaroo’s stomach when these monsters excell at close combat.
Out of nine of them, Garm gained seven aggros, and Camille began to challenge the other two. Since Camille has started to move, Tsutomu set up Haste to the direction she moved just like before.
“Ahー”
But then, Camille suddenly changed her direction to avoid Kanfagaroo’s charge. Thus, Kanfagaroo stepped on the Haste spell which has been set up before. Just as it was about to move, its pace quickened.
Since Kanfagaroo’s movements had become faster, its martial arts, which had originally been keen, landed straight on Camille’s chest that she coughed violently. Another Kanfagaroo performed a High Kick on her face. Camille made an expression like her body had just snapped. Then, Kanfagaroo use its striking feet to graze Camille’s face.
“Protect. Heal. I’m really sorry, Camilleー!”
After mainly healing Garm’s left hand as he casted Protect, Tsutomu apologized to Camille with all his might.
Back to Camille who got injured because the Haste spell was interrupted and she got knocked down by Kanfagaroo. Although she was still conscious, Camille was still under the effect of dragonification, thus her fighting instinct was still stirred up. She glared at Tsutomu, who had mistakenly applied Haste to Kanfagaroo instead of her. Being glared by that pair of eyes, which has slightly narrow pupils like reptiles, Tsutomu cowered with fright like a frog which was being glared by a snake.
Despite being terribly afraid, Tsutomu attempted to cast Haste again, though he was seized with the fear that he might fail again like before. This time, Haste was being set up successfully, it immediately made contact with Camille. After receiving Haste, Camille has defeated the remaining Kanfagaroo in the twinkling of an eye.
Then, Camille also killed each of the Kanfagaroo which had gathered around Garm. The series of battles came to an end after they killed all the Kanfagaroo. This time, Tsutomu took a deep breath, feeling glad that he didn’t fail, then cured Garm’s wound completely with High Heal.
After removing her dragonification, Camille stabbed her large sword to the ground and approached Tsutomu first. She quickened her steps as she drew near Tsutomu, who was slowly stepping backwards. Finally, Tsutomu turned back and ran away with all his might.
“Haaah!? Tsutomu! Why are you running away!”
“No! You’re really scary, you know! I said I’m really sorry for my mistakeeeeee!”
“T-that glare was an accident! I’ve explained before that my fighting instinct became more stimulated when I turned into my dragon form, right!? I did that unconsciously!”
“Nonono! Th, that was really scary! Impossible, impossible, impossible! Please don’t come any closerー!”
Even though Tsutomu tried to run away with all his might, Camille rapidly chased him down and approached Tsutomu, who had instantly lost. Then, upon grabbing the back of Tsutomu’s clothes, Camille pulled him down to the ground.
Garm was quite shocked to see that set up skill he had never seen before, but then proceeded to collect the magic stones which had fallen down to the ground and he had gotten ‘friendly’ with. Though, he still took a gaze at Tsutomu, who had been caught by Camille and had her sat on top of his back.