The Saintess’ Serious Mode 3
[I was a little, surprised.]
“I thought you were done in there as well!”
Rin was safe.
I thought it might’ve been a big loss for a large hole to have been opened on its body, but it appears that Rin [Opened the hole itself]. As expected of a slime, it’s even able to do emergency evasion methods like that huh.
Though thanks to that, we have a huge hole in the room’s ceiling now.
[When she, held out that hand, I got a bad, feeling.]
“As expected of Rin. You got my respect, boss.”
[Kukuku, I am, strong, after all.]
You could say that again. Still, that saintess is also something. She somehow evaded Rin’s attacks while chanting, managing to let off that cannon-like magic at close range. I don’t think I’d be able to do that even if I knew I’d be fine dying.
[I’m a bit, hungry. Kehma, mind getting, eaten?]
“Nn? Sure, go for it.”
[Nom. Om nom…]
Rin quickly gulped down the messenger golem. It feels like it’s been a while since that happened. Also, it wasn’t whether or not I’d get eaten, but if I minded it huh. Me getting eaten was already done and decided on huh… well, it’s fine. Yep.
Looks like the saintess won’t be able to defeat Rin after all. Mine dungeon’s protector is a wall! [1]
… I might raise a flag if I keep going, so let’s stop there.
For now, the saintess doesn’t look like she’s going to come back today, so how about I get back to the gargoyle mass production stuff? The main thing I’m working on right now is fire arm gargoyles that have thirty fire magic formations engraved onto their arms. I’ve made ten of them so far.
Using an iron golem as the base, I hybridized it with clay shoulders so that they wouldn’t damage themselves with the heat… Their iron arms will be super hot because of the fire, so they’ll burn stuff when they touch it. Fufufu. I also took the chance and polished them. It’ll be awesome if they roared while glowing a hot red.
Although… it burns through a stupid amount of magic stones. It’s to the point that it takes 10 DP worth of magic stones for their arms to be active for an hour. Because I’m using practically identical magic formations, they take up 300 DP per.
Looks like they’ll be able to do various things too. Expand your dreams, gargoyles… [2]
… Huh? But hasn’t it become a physical attack rather than a magical attack after all?
Hmmm, I could try it out if I summoned a ghost-type monster. Let’s give it a shot when the saintess’ seal expires.
*
The second day that the saintess was taking it seriously. So that she could confirm the black wolf’s death, the saintess carefully looked into the room—and the black wolf looked back.
The saintess hurriedly took a distance from the room. To put it in a way easier to understand, she ran away.
She didn’t hesitate at all. She knew firsthand that she would be dead if she delayed her judgement at all.
“Hah, haah, haah…”
After taking a sufficient distance, the saintess calmed her rough breathing.
… Impossible, was the wolf immortal? The gaping hole from the day before had closed as well. She thought about things like that.
There was nothing she could do but kill it immediately. Maybe it would die if she destroyed its head?
Is it an immortal beast? Still, as long as it was a monster that belonged to the dungeon, its healing should be slowed through the effects of [Treaty].
If it’s a dungeon boss, all the more—
… Just then, the saintess realized that something was off.
There was nothing in common between the demons that appeared in the dungeon and the black wolf.
That was the usual trend for dungeons.
For example, fire-attributed, demi-human-type, or beast-type.
Right, that way, you could even call a dungeon’s monsters the dungeon boss’ subordinates.
The monsters that appeared in this dungeon—other than the jellies that appeared in places—could be roughly divided into being either goblins or golems.
Both kinds of monsters were close to being earth-attributed.
The demi-human goblins and the bio-magical golems. Their commonality was a bit weak, but—
—in a place like that, there suddenly appeared a dark-attributed beast type.
Going with the usual course of events, it wouldn’t be odd for the boss monster to be a goblin or a golem. Something with a humanoid shape for example. It’s not like the boss monster has to share things in common with all of the demons, but… at the very least, she’d never heard of something like a boss that didn’t share anything in common with the other monsters.
Dark-attributed. Beast-type. Overwhelming physical strength. Immortal resilience. She couldn’t find anything in common. It was obviously unnatural.
“… Perhaps, no, it’s… it’s not without precedence, it’s possible…”
The saintess thought.
(Perhaps, is that black wolf a field monster that has no relation to the dungeon?)
She felt that was the correct answer.
According to the preparatory audit, this dungeon named [Ordinary Cave] originally only had goblins. It went through a transition phase, becoming able to also have traps and golems.
Moreover, magic swords as well.
Considering the course of events, it was a pretty possible thing that it was just a field monster unrelated to the dungeon that took up residence here.
… The original encounter was near the second floor, causing the saintess to be summoned over. She heard from the guild’s report that it had destroyed the [Gate of Wisdom].
In other words, wasn’t that alone enough proof that it came from outside of the dungeon?
Using that conclusion… that black wolf was probably entirely unrelated to the dungeon.
In that case, [Treaty] wouldn’t have any effect on the black wolf.
It was a very worrisome fact, but at the same time, that meant that since it wasn’t related to the dungeon, that also meant it wouldn’t revive if she completed defeated it.
Then she’d only have to go all the way this time.
The saintess made her decision.
She began the incantation for [Ray of Judgement]. In exchange for its strength versus wicked existences, this magic had an incredibly lengthy incantation. It was natural as something stronger than the upper class to be so long, but due to its incantation’s length, it wasn’t suited for combat. Instead, it was often used as a [Warning] of the light god punishing sins.
But the saintess held no doubt that it wouldn’t be effective against the black wolf this time.
Because this time, she would aim for its head.
She looked into the room with the black wolf in it before the incantation completed.
The black wolf… wasn’t there.
(… Huh? It’s not there?)
She wondered. However, she couldn’t stop the incantation once it was started.
Timidly, she took a step into the room. She thought that it might have hidden itself in a blind spot from the entrance, but that wasn’t it… perhaps it had moved out of the room?
If it was a monster irrelevant to the dungeon, that might have been the case. It would be strange for it to stay in a room that it knew might endanger its life if it stayed. It would only do something like that if it had circumstances as to why it couldn’t move, was confident in its ability to win, or was just an idiot.
But what should she do? The incantation had already completed. Firing it for no reason would just cause her to collapse from running dry on magical power. She didn’t have the time to stick around any longer.
[Gurururu…]
She heard the wolf’s growl. From behind her.
“—[Ray of Judgement]!!”
The timing was great. She hadn’t had much more time. Turning around to look at the damage the beam did, it coincidentally managed to hit the black wolf’s head.
“I did it—!?”
The wolf’s head burst open. However, the saintess felt a sizzling bloodthirst.
Her body lost strength, falling down to the ground in accordance with gravity.
… The headless wolf’s foreleg cut through the air, straight towards the saintess’ upper body.
(Impossible—how is it moving without a head!?)
While her consciousness blurred due to running out of magical power, the saintess saw something unbelievable. A burbling black mass grew out from the area that its head should have been, producing a new head.
“Ha, haha… what… just what are you…!”
[Garoooo…!]
Snap.
The saintess was eaten by its newly-reformed head.
With only one day remaining, how could she bring down this black wolf?
The saintess couldn’t even begin to guess.
Footnotes:
He used a special “I” here, so I used a special “I”.
This has appeared a few times in this series, but I have no idea what it’s referencing. Should be obvious what it’s saying though. 夢が広がる