Defense Specialization and the Tower’s Second Floor
The next day, the two who had conquered the first floor move towards the second floor.
Anyone who has cleared the first floor can start straight from the second, without having to go through the first one again.
The first thing that they see when they set foot on the second floor is a passage whose walls are entirely covered by books.
The tall bookshelves reach the ceiling, and the passage is about as wide as the ones on the first floor.
“A library, huh?”
“That’s what it looks like. Hmm, so there might be many enemies who use magical attacks.”
“This passage is too narrow; I can’t ride on Syrup here…”
Just as Maple says, it is often impossible to ride on Syrup while indoors.
When you’re flying in the sky, you can avoid hitting many things, but such is not the case with this event.
“Shall we continue by foot, then?”
“Yeah. Well, this might take some time…”
The two of them begin to walk quickly through the passage.
Some other passages form a crossroads with this one, and all of them are fashioned in the same way, their walls completely filled with books as well.
“Where should we go now, Maple?”
“To the left?”
“All right then, to the left.”
And so, the two of them turn left on the crossroads.
At that moment, a book suddenly pops out from the shelves and shoots itself towards them.
“…! Whoops!”
With her sharp reflexes, Sally quickly twists her body, dodging the incoming flying book. At the same time, she prepares her daggers, ready to counterattack.
The book does not lose its momentum, even while red damage text floats above it.
Then it opens itself up, revealing sharp fangs near the edges of its pages, which normally one would not find on a regular book.
With that same momentum, it bites into Maple’s face.
“Aah! I can’t see! I can’t see! Sally! Take it off me! Take it off meeee!”
Maple tries to make it fall off her face by violently shaking her head, but the monster’s grip is too strong.
“Ah, just a moment! ‘Double Slash’!”
Sally launches a vicious attack, quickly and repeatedly hitting the monster’s weak spots over and over.
Its HP must be set to be rather low, since the monster quickly falls down and disappears into a flash of light.
“It took me by surprise… But that’s how the monsters in this floor are. ”
“That’s right. But I don’t know where will they come from next… ”
The fact that she doesn’t know where they come from doesn’t mean that she cannot dodge them, but she is still keeping her eyes peeled around the area.
However, since there are no signs of any monsters nearby, they start to wonder if they need to pass through certain areas to make monsters appear.
“Do you need me to use ‘Dedicated Affection’?”
“Yes, please. Wind magic is a ranged type of attack.”
After asking Maple to use ‘Dedicated Affection’, Sally drinks a potion and fully recovers her HP.
Then, the two of them continue to go through the bookshelf-ridden passages, full to the brim with books.
“You know, the book from before wasn’t that strong?”
“How so? Was its attack power rather low? Or…”
Even if Maple were to receive a powerful attack, those who see the attack will not be able to judge how strong it actually is.
When it comes to the degree of strength an attack has, one and a thousand are the same to Maple.
“Don’t these strange books remind you of Kanade?”
“… The boss might be like that. It might have a big array of attacks. ”
“I see. I wonder if there’s anything we could use as information lying around here? There are just so many books…”
Maple reaches out for the bookshelf to her left and tries to take out one of the books. However, the book is stuck in place and won’t budge.
“It’s no good. It won’t budge,”
“But something like that has to be here somewhere. Back on the first floor, we went straight for the boss without exploring the entire floor first. Well, let’s keep looking!”
“Yeah!”
Just as Maple delivers her cheerful reply, another book flies out from the bookshelves.
As soon as it reaches the ceiling, it starts letting out lightning bolts.
The lightning runs through a large area, and shines brightly with a roaring sound as it strikes the floor.
“What do we do, Sally? Should I shoot it?”
“Yes, it’s too bright.”
After recovering from the attack’s surprise, they discuss what to do next.
Maple deploys a gun and takes aim.
The light of the first laser makes the falling lightning disappear, and the next laser pierces through the book, burning it.
And so once again one of these monsters is brutally defeated by a merciless attack.
“Ha ha ha! If there are no traps around here, with monsters like these we might be able to do this easily!”
“You’re very reliable! Oh, it seems that there are three books coming now.”
From a distance, three books enwrapped in light float towards the two of them. When Sally sees them and calls out to Maple, the latter realizes what to do next.
“Leave it to me!”
She points her weapons at the other end of the passage.
If many monsters want to attack Maple, they have no choice but to go through there and get in the range of Maple’s attack.
Their hunt has just started, but Maple, who can make full use of her abilities, can’t do anything but deal with these small fry for now.