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Volume 8 Chapter 1 Part 7

The last thing that I want is other people discovering that I can use magic, even though I am not technically a Mage.

 

I guess I will have to depend on Roxanne more than ever before now.

 

「Priests and monks wear it, too, so if anyone asks, you can always say that you have one of these Jobs equipped.」

 

So what Sherry says is basically that if I decide to wear Alba in the Labyrinths, I might as well deceive people that I am not a Mage, but either a Priest or a monk. As long as I don’t encounter Gozer or other members of the Knight Order of Hartz Duchy, there will be no problem, but just to be on the safe side, I should better not head anywhere outside of the Labyrinth with the Alba equipped.

 

Alba is light and can be tied around the waist with a strap, so it shouldn’t be hindering my movements, which means that even if I switch to using Durandal with the Alba equipped, there should be no sense of incongruity for me.

 

「Although it might be a little bit weird for someone claiming to be a Monk or a Priest to be fighting with a sword, but a monk fighting on the frontlines in the Labyrinth should not be anything too out of the ordinary, right?」

 

「Yes. Because the more the firepower a Party is going to have in the vanguard position, the better.」

 

Roxanne confirms my words.

 

Since the size of the Party is limited t only six people, I don’t think that I can afford to have any of my Party Members take on an exclusively healing-oriented Job. If we want to clear the Labyrinths out as fast as possible, then we have to focus everything that we have into firepower, so it’s goo to hear that a Monk who’s going to go berserk with a sword in hand is not going to be treated as anything out of the ordinary.

 

Feeling pretty good about myself and the performance of the new piece of protective gear thus far, we continued the exploration of the Labyrinths.

 

During that exploration, I also took a moment to test how my new Staff of Offerings was performing in actual combat, and I have to say that it was going exactly how I expected it to do. The increase to the power of my Spells granted by the 「Increase INT x2」Skill was nice, but other than that, it was not too different from my previously used Rod of Offerings.

 

We shortly reach the Boss Room of the fifteenth floor of Haruba’s Labyrinth, most likely due to the accumulation of all those times when the duration of the battles against the common enemies has been shortened. Either that, or maybe it was also partially because Miria was feeling more enthusiastic than usual?

 

「Okay Sherry, since the main enemy on this floor was a Bitch Butterfly, then what its Floor Boss variant is going to be?」

 

「The Floor Boss variant of Bitch Butterfly is Madame Butterfly. It’s basically stronger version of Bitch Butterfly without any major changes to it. The chance of it using its paralyzing abilities is also going to be higher, so we need to be that much more careful of it.」

 

Sherry briefs us on the Boss while we enter the Boss Room.

 

Because we never broke through sixteenth floor of Quratar’s Labyrinth, this is going to be our first time fighting against the Floor Boss variant of Bitch Butterfly.

 

「X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X.」

 

Roxanne translates everything that Sherry just said to Miria, because teaching her everything one word at a time would simply take too long, but that is one more incentive for us to make Miria familiar with the Brahim language quickly.

 

When we enter the Boss Room, two monsters appear. A single Bitch Butterfly and a Madame Butterfly. Madame Butterfly has a large eye-like patterns printed on its wings. Honestly, it looks more like a moth than a butterfly. There is also not much hair on its body, however, there’s long hair growing around the eye patterns, which kinda makes it look like the extremely creepy eyelashes, but the more I stare at them… the more I realize that those patterns are actually pretty alluring and hypnotizing to look at, definitely having that “madam” feeling to them. Fascinating, truly fascinating. Other than that, they also have something that looks like a bluish-black eyeliner around the eyes, which doubles down on the “madam” feeling that I just mentioned.

 

If a girl put on a makeup that looked exactly like that then I would’ve probably didn’t mind staring at it for longer, but because it’s something that’s worn by a monster, there’s neither the time nor reason for us to continue staring at it.

 

This Madame Butterfly is our enemy that’s barring our entrance to the higher floor, and because of that, it needs to be exterminated with extreme prejudice.

 

Dispatching of the Bitch Butterfly that accompanied the Floor Boss was nothing difficult for me at this point, so after it has fallen onto the ground and disappeared in a cloud of green smoke, I could swiftly join in on the attack on the Madame Butterfly.

 

Because it is a Floor Boss that can paralyze us if we let ourselves be hit by its attacks, I cannot attack it recklessly. I need to be more cautious about my approach. I have seen what’s going to happen if I get paralyzed, and if its every bit as unpleasant as getting myself poisoned, then that’s all the more reason for me to avoid it happening to me at all costs, but as long as Roxanne’s concerned, there’s no way that she’s ever going to make such a careless blunder, so instead of worrying about her, I can focus all of my attention and efforts on avoiding the attacks of Madame Butterfly myself.

 

That’s why I move on to executing my tried and true strategy for fighting the Floor Bosses: move behind it and molest its ass with Durandal as much as possible.

 

Oops! Be careful there or you’ll end up being hit for real as Madame Butterfly starts flapping her giant wings that are covering the most of the arena that was the Boss Room.

 

I saw that their attack was incoming, so thankfully I was able to dodge it in time by lowering my head and rolling out of their supposed trajectory. Just goes to show how much being careful can actually do for you.

 

Miria seems to be fine too, and like I thought, there’s no need for me to be worried about Roxanne, because she also emerged out of that attack without even a single scratch on her, and since Sherry is wielding a spear for this battle, chipping away at the Madame Butterfly’s body whenever she could, she should be a safe distance away from the harm’s way.

 

All in all, everyone seems to be safe, and that’s all that matters for me.

 

With Madame Butterfly’s initial attack finished, it was time for us to switch back to attack, and once the four of us surrounded the Floor Boss from every possible direction, disposing off of her was quite simple and fast since she was too dumb to realize that constantly facing the one who attacked her while we were doing that from all around her won’t let it perform even a single attack again.

 

After a little while, our group of four finally succeeds in defeating Madame Butterfly. It drops down to the ground, turns into smoke and dissipates into nothingness.

 

「A Magic Crystal, desu!」

 

Miria shouts excitedly as she picks up the thing that remained after the Floor Boss was gone. Is there really a Magic Crystal?

 

I can’t see it myself, but 「Identify」 shows that there really is a Magic Crystal there.

 

Miria runs to me with the Magic Crystal in tow, forgetting to bring me the other Drop Items that should also be there. When she presented it to me, I saw that what she was holding in her hands was a Black Magic Crystal. How did she noticed something that appeared out of nowhere so fast?

 

「As expected of Miria. Well done.」

 

「Yes, desu.」

 

I lightly pat Miria on the head.

 

It’s unfortunate that I can’t play with her cat ears right now, but it cannot be helped at this moment since she has her protective gear on, and telling her to take it off just so that I could scratch her ears does not seem like the best idea, even if the Boss Room us empty now.

 

「That reminds me, we previously found a Magic Crystal in a Boss Room as well. Are Magic Crystals easily found in Boss rooms?」