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ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 649: Extremely Natural and Unnatural Life of a Miniature Garden Part 2

Bansai-san seems to have noticed something that we others must have clearly omitted here. I just wonder if the eel-lizards are classified as fish or maybe reptiles, because I get that distinct feeling that their actions must be fueled by their equivalent of a brain, because those are actions that reek of intelligence.

At the same time, Akitsu Akane was talking about something with Emul while he was sitting comfortably on her lap without a single care in the entire world (mostly because the enemy sensor function was relegated to me and everyone felt at ease knowing that someone like me would be safekeeping everyone else from danger). Rei-san is looking at me with a keen eye while also vigilantly staring at the ground. As expected, Rei-san’s eyes are like that of a first-class hunter…… She looks like a crocodile who has adapted to this kind of waiting game in hopes for ambushing her unsuspecting prey.

「Sanraku-kun, there is something I would like to try in here for a moment. An experiment of sorts. Could you possibly equip the most destructive equipment that you have and try to use it all at once?」

「I could, but why?」

These guys are probably all fish, right? So maybe they have still some sense of judging things as if they are underwater? That’s why I think here in this situation, the Aradval Rebuild Blue Predator sword are going to make the best combination that we could use against enemies like that.

GASA! GASA! GASA! GASA! GASA! GASA! GASA! GASA! GASA! GASA!

「Woooaaaahhh!?」

「Sanraku-kun!?」

「Oh yeah, I knew it! The main condition for which those thing pick their aggro targets is “The Degree of Danger They Pose!”」

「Yeah, the commentary is nice and all, but let’s hear all about it sometimes later, hall we!? Rei-san, if the aggro gets too much for me to handle, please support me……!」

Let’s start with the Deadly Secret Art “Utsuro Mikagami” and let’s do this! Come at me, you eel lizard that hides in the shadows like a complete coward!

I then jump away to safety, and at that same time one of the Swimming Mines jumps out from below the ground level and lounges at the afterimage created by my freshly activated skill. But that’s just an illusion, so sorry about that! As for my main body, I used the opportunity created by the decoy to get back to the safety of the elevated rock formation while reorganizing my weapons. It’s really funny to see monsters attacking an empty space thinking that they are actually doing damage to you. Yes! Crawl around like an idiot! See if I care about that in the slightest!

After a while, the monsters finally realized that their prey was no longer here, and so the Explosive fish started to sink back into the soil one after another, and most probably swam away from here……

「Alright then, Mister Teacher. Please explain.」

「Please don’t call me that. I don’t think that a title like that suits me, anyways. But anyway, the reason? The reason I managed to notice that was because I was keeping tabs on the monsters across three previous layers.」

According to Bansai-sensei, and it’s really impressive that this was an insight from someone outside of the SF-Zoo guild, a guild formed solely for the purpose of admiring the ecology of monsters and animals in here, it was that Maxwell who they have fought on the third layer was clearly “too smart”, even if you subtract the fact that it was a somewhat of an unique monster out there.

「Somehow, you can tell that its behavior felt strange, especially if you are someone who is forced to operate under some form of restrictions.」

「Really? I was too busy fighting, so I didn’t have time and I didn’t care about that.」

「Sure, its movements seemed to be very monotonous but…… Rather, I feel that it didn’t move much except for the time when it needed to adjust its distance……」

「No, I mean it, I’m really sorry but I really did not care about stuff like that in the middle of the fight……!!」

「No, really, I don’t blame you for acting like that.」

In my defense, I don’t know much about it because I haven’t fought Maxwell all that much. But instead, I had a pretty good deal with Newton, so it’s easy to remember how that went.

In the first place, it was like a living thing or a collection of pasta, but it was strange, especially the way in which it was using its tentacles. Every time it tied up its tentacles in a way that was easy to avoid and predict…… I was wondering why would it even want to act in such a weird way for quite a while now.

「Simply put, the monsters that appear in this Behemoth, including the explosive fish, have a thinking routine that is closer to humans…… Or rather, they are thinking exactly in the way that we humans do? I treated it as something that wasn’t there or could be ignored for the time being, but now it is becoming increasingly more pressing matter.」

「So the reason they all jumped at me was because they see me as a threat and wanted to eliminate me, is that it?」

But so far everything sounds convincing enough to me. At first, I was surrounded by fifteen monsters or so, because most of the walking players were unarmed. It goes without saying which is more dangerous, at least when it comes to a group of people with their bare hands versus a group of people with bladed weapons, maces and firearms.

Well, normally the solution here would have been simple enough: don’t band together and don’t pose a threat. However, I get the feeling that things are not going to be so simple in here at all……

「So, does that mean that as long as your hands are going to be empty you won’t get targeted? You will be in the clear? Is that how it works here?」

「Actually, this is the other way around, Akitsu Akane.」

Thinking about it right now, this is a way more annoying limitation than I would have initially expected.

If my guess here is going to be a correct one, the Players are faced with a certain choice in this very situation: they have to choose between getting the bamboo shoots with their bare hands…… or wielding their weapons while being wary of Swimming Mines that swarm all around them trying to take them out. What’s making this whole situation worse is the fact that you don’t even know when the mines are going to approach you and how many of them are going to be there.