Chapter 9.4
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Translator: Reflet
Editor: Weasalopes
「H-Hiroshi-san……？」
「Artiem, you alright？」
「I am. I am, but……」
「Then don’t worry yer little head about it. This is ma job.」
Hiroshi consoled Artiem, whose voice was shaking. After Haruna healed him, his rejuvenated body turned back toward the evil ent. As she looked up at the back of the man who had protected her numerous times, she stood back up, pressing down on her heart to quell its increase in tempo.
「Haruna-san, ready fer Over Accelerate？」
「Sure, but will you be okay？」
「I healed just now.」
Haruna was worried about the damage he had received, but Hiroshi answered calmly. It was as if the loser persona had hidden itself, much like when he was working on making things. Haruna felt her heart skip a beat, but she was still concerned.
Then again, the battlefield is always a place of shifting circumstances. Just when you would think that the scales had tipped in their favor now that Haruna’s group had showed up, the evil ent decided to begin its last futile attempt at defeating them by summoning a large horde of hunter trees.
「More followers!? Y’know, I don’t think we should dawdle any further! 」
「I’ll use Flame Buster! Hiro, suppress the shockwaves for me!」
「Gotcha！」
Leaving Haruna hanging on whether she should use Over Accelerate or not, Tatsuya got ready to unleash an attack to end the fight.
（What am I…doing here……？）
Artiem asked herself as she noticed everyone rushing to the scene to fulfill their various roles. The amount of hunter trees had increased, but that was probably the most that would come out of the ent’s final struggle. She no longer had anything she could do. In fact, trying anything in this situation would make her a hindrance.
She knew from the beginning that she would be a nuisance. So although she occasionally commented on Hiroshi’s actions, she never displayed opposition, generally following instructions in a meek manner. A mere amateur like Artiem wasn’t able to make accurate decisions.
Still, just as with exploration, she was not a complete amateur in combat. Maybe not in the earlier half of the boss fight, but in the later half of the boss fight, she could have done so much more. And yet, all she had done was play by the book and attack the hunter trees without truly paying attention to the overall situation. If she had actually focused, there surely must have been a way to prevent Hiroshi from being defenseless on the receiving end of his opponent’s special move.
The same could be said for attacking. Even if she were ill-suited for fighting this opponent, she should have at least done something to hinder their attacks. Not even considering her options and simply attacking her opponent was something any child in the village could do. At this rate, she would just end up being like a child with ridiculous proportions.
（There…there has to be something I can do！）
Hiroshi was lethally bad with women, and yet he had been kind to Artiem and had protected her with his life. At this rate she would be constantly relying on him. Artiem wanted to help him, and in a way that only she could.
As she was searching frantically through her head to see what she could do, Tatsuya’s magic was completed. Even when he burned the new hunter trees to the ground, three seconds later, the same amount would emerge from the ground. Haruna’s magic was still incomplete. Artiem heard someone’s voice. A large quantity of roots and branches pierced through Hiroshi. She heard another voice. The evil ent sucked up Hiroshi’s blood, regenerating. Someone called out.
（……oh……）
Cooling her head by listening to the voice, she understood her role. Until now, Artiem had only been a mere elf in title, despite Aranwen naming her a priestess and her dedication day and night to the cleansing process. It was only at this time that she truly became Aranwen’s priestess.
「Everyone, please stand back a bit！」
Archem shouted out. Everyone stopped moving momentarily as they heard that sudden command. Unconcerned with this, she began speaking in a language unknown to any human, directed at the ancestral spirits who were letting out voices of anger and sadness from being woken up from their sleep.
（I’m begging you！）
Artiem continued to emit the foreign sounds from her mouth, clearly stimulated by something as she put her everything into one wish. With Artiem’s wish successfully delivered, the ancestral spirits made all the newly added hunter trees wither and die, intervening with the roots of the evil ent that had infiltrated the earth and preventing it from summoning any more monster trees. The evil ent’s branches thrashed out in a roar, its roots writhing at the surface. However, each and every one of the ent’s movements were blocked by the ancestral spirits, who had taken Artiem’s mana in exchange for granting her wish. Although there were no lyrics and there was no rhythm to it, the sounds coming out of Artiem’s mouth were part of a song.
Extra Skill: Totem Call. This was the ultimate skill that priestesses tended to have. Normally, this skill was the most important one to acquire in order to call oneself a priestess. Without a certain kind of disposition, this kind of power was impossible to attain for humans. This was the same skill that Aearis had possessed from the minute she was born and used unconsciously. Artiem, meanwhile, had only just recently mastered it.
「Haruna-san！」
「I got it！ Over Accelerate！」
Hiroshi and the others had momentarily stood there dumbfounded, but once the spirits scolded them, they hurriedly snapped to. Encouraged by Hiroshi and the spirits, Haruna activated her trump card: the spell she had been chanting. Still, humans couldn’t normally hear the voice of a priestess, even with all the power in the world. If the five Japanese were able to hear that, then could they possibly be the guests from the Unknown Continent?
「Just give it up already mate！！」
With a high pitched battle cry that only he understood, Hiroshi thrust the pole axe at the evil ent with reckless abandon. From his viewpoint, he unleashed 70 attacks in 100 seconds, but to everyone else it was like a second. A rift spread across that side of the room, and at last the dungeon’s boss had fallen.
「Return to normal～」
「The space is freed～」
With the death of the evil ent, the dungeon was destroyed. Briefly after the isolated dimension dissipated and the dungeon returned to normal, the octo-gals (who had been behaving oddly well during the boss fight) began flying around the perimeter in a strangely happy manner.
「You guys were pretty well-behaved earlier. Why the relapse?」
Hiroshi, not paying any attention to the area’s restoration, was focused intently on disassembling the evil ent. Tatsuya, who had been watching him with a rather indefinable smile on his face, turned to look at the octo-gals as they began clamoring suddenly, calling out to them.
「We were for serious though～」
「Heavy air～」
「We’re good children, we know when to speak～」
「And what’s the real reason？」
「We don’t like getting hurt～」
Tatsuya smiled awkwardly at the honest answers of the octo-gals, turning to look at the Japanese and the elf girl as they stared at Hiroshi with incredible looks on their faces. Well, maybe just “staring” wasn’t quite right; they had jealous looks in their faces as they looked at Mio helping out Hiroshi.
「Hey, Makoto.」
「Yes, yes, I know.」
「What do you think is going to happen？」
「I mean, I’d still say that Haruna has the advantage, wouldn’t you？」
The two elders of the group secretly got excited over Hiroshi and his strange ability to attract women to him despite being a loser. This was the famed “popular phase” of one’s life. Usually this would be one of the best times to be popular, although of course they thought it would have been better for Hiroshi’s popularity phase to be after his symptoms got a bit better.
「Still, why do you think he’s getting all the girls？」
「It sounds weird to say this, but women really like gaps in men’s personalities. Hiroshi kinda has something about him that tickles our maternal instincts, I guess?」
「Ah, okay.」
She was probably referring to when someone who seems pathetic shows that they can in fact have a cool, reliable side to them. In that sense, they would end up having an advantage over someone who is merely cool and reliable. Even in the case of an elf like Artiem with a different perspective and background, this concept did not change.
「Besides, any woman would be happy to have someone put their life on the line for them.」
「That makes sense, yeah.」
「Well, Elle and Artiem don’t seem like the type of girls to want what others have, so in that sense I guess you could say that it won’t end up turning into much of a quagmire, right?」
「Although first we need to see if the dude will even accept the advances of women before things turn into a quagmire.」
As they were communicating quietly, the octo-gals who had been flying around suddenly began acting up again.
「Chem-chan, long time no see～」
「Chem-chan, so big～」
「Chem-chan bouncy bouncy～」
「Chem-chan sandwich～」
The octo-gals, who had been flying around looking at the outside a moment ago, began to fly toward Artiem and capture her in a mob, jostling her as they did so. Of course, it was your typical all-range sexual harassment attack.
「Hyan！？ Hee！？ Hey, hold it！？」
Artiem tried to resist as she let out an oddly erotic voice. Hearing her voice, Hiroshi stopped his work momentarily before deciding to ignore her and continue on his disassembling procedure. He was clearly letting sleeping dogs lie.
「Chem-chan, hot～」
「Chem-chan, cute～」
「Chem-chan, striped～」
「Umm, hey, don’t do any of that right here！！」
「Then once we get out of here we will～」
Understanding the situation somehow, the octo-gals kidnapped Archem and took her somewhere far away from Hiroshi. What was striped, you ask? Well, that is a secret. Artiem had gone to such lengths to blossom into a priestess, and yet she still had plenty of sex appeal.
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