3 bar menu

Chapter 217 Part 1

---

Translation: Charlotte
Editor: Weasalopes

---

Right before we reached the boss room, we decided to have all the players who had already cleared the boss before go on ahead.
But even then, a lot of players were still left behind.
Only 9 out of 26 parties went on ahead, leaving 17 parties to fight the Buer Guards.
It was still a large number of parties.

Well then.
There was nothing we could do except prepare for the boss fight.
Just in case, I used as many strengthening spells as I could.
I had a feeling the Buer Guards themselves wouldn’t be that strong, but it was a form of insurance.
It had a feeling that area-of-effect attack spells would work just fine with any of them, so there would probably be no problems there.

~o~O~o~

《This is the gate to a branch in your path.》

《Will thou be a challenger unto us? 》

《It is good to head south. Thou will see the will of the gods on the mighty mountains.》

《It is good to head west. Thou wilt find a place of refuge in which the fire dwells in the wasteland.》

《It is good to head east. Thou will know the breath of life that the sea harbours.》

《But those are our thoughts, our ways.》

《If thou will not defeat us, it will all come to naught.》

《Challenge us.》

《Fight with us.》

《Show us.》

《Show us your power.》

~*~

The sound of the info screens resounded around me.
Haruna and the other parties who had gone ahead suddenly disappeared like ghosts.
Although, it was probably us disappearing, not Haruna. The dimension we were being moved to was specifically to fight the boss.
The space we had to fight the boss seemed quite wide.
The ceiling and the walls reflected the light coming from the 【Flashlight】 spell.

And from the ground, something started to come up.

Alright…
Was that the monster we were waiting for?

~*~

Buer Guard　Lv.4
Event Monster　Monster
Monster　Enemy Target　Active
Battle Position: Ground　Poison

~*~

Yep.
I had heard about what it was going to be like from Haruna, but it truly was disgusting indeed!
It looked like bigger Buer Slave, but that wasn’t all.
The amount of mucus it was covered in was no joking matter.

~*~

「True Practiced Spirit!」

I wasn’t planning on using that Martial Arts skill.
But I decided to use it anyway.
I didn’t want to have to look at those disgusting creatures for any longer than I had to.

From the ground one after another, Buer Slaves started appearing as well.
Stop it. Stop appearing.
What kind of torture is this!?
Red markers just kept on appearing out of the ground.
My task was just to get rid of those red markers one by one.
As long as I focused on just the red markers and not the monsters, it would be a bearable game to play.

~o~O~o~

『This is Irina, the left wing has been completely annihilated!』

『Konohana here on the right wing! We’ll clean this side up soon too!』

『The dead bodies are disgusting to look at too! Come on! Hurry up!』

「Don’t panic. Bear with it for a little bit longer.」

~*~

The Buer Guard I was fighting against went down quite quickly.
But I had a feeling the disgusting impression it left on me would last for a lot longer!
Maybe that was it’s true strength…

In any case, I used my mace to finish it off.
It was technically a boss, but I still took it down within seconds.
That was great.
I had to use an area-of-effect attack spell to get rid of all the surrounding Buer Slaves.
What about the bodies of the Buer Slaves?
Nope, not thinking about it.
They were all in front of me, but I refused to look at them.

~*~

『Right wing here! All monsters confirmed dead!』

A report came in through a whisper.
At the same time, the bodies of the Buer Slaves all began to disappear.
Good!
Disappear faster, until I can’t see them anymore!

~*~

《Thy power has been shown to be right.》

《Thou may proceed onwards.》

~*~

Nice.
That probably meant we could go through the barrier.

~*~

《Summon Monster 『Florin』 Level Up! 》
《Please add 1 point to a desired stat.》

~*~

But before that… There was a Summon Monster level-up to take care of.
Before heading anywhere, I had to deal with that first.

The stat that went up with the level-up was DEX.
I put another point into VIT.

~*~

Florin　Bat Lv2→Lv3 (↑1)
DEX　17 (↑1)
AGI　19
INT　10
STR　8
VIT　9 (↑1)
SPI　10

Skills:
Bite　Flight　Echolocation　Evade　Ambush　Suck Blood

~*~

Nice.
Were there any more info screens to deal with?

~*~

《Summon Monster 『Abyss』 Level Up! 》
《Please add 1 point to a desired stat.》

~*~

Well, I suppose the level-ups were in order.
They were just taking out those disgusting monsters one by one, after all, paying no heed to how filthy they were.

Oops, my thoughts were starting to go places again.
The stat that went up with the level-up was SPI.
I put another point into VIT.

~*~

Abyss　Skeleton Lv2→Lv3 (↑1)
DEX　15
AGI　15
INT　10
STR　10
VIT　11 (↑1)
SPI　11 (↑1)

Skills:
Sword　Buckler　Block　Physical Resistance [Slight]　Self-Repair [Medium]　Dark Attribute

~*~

But that wasn’t all.
There was actually one follow-up info screen I was still expecting.
Yep.
Would there be another title for me to gain?

~*~

《You have acquired the title 【Traverser of the Limestone Cave】! 》

~*~

Nice!
This would let us pass past the gate and to the hall that was behind it.
I got a level-up to some of my Summon Monsters too, so that was nice.

『We actually managed to take out all of them… And pretty orderly too.』

『I can’t believe it’s over! That was scary!』

『Let’s reform our Union and keep going.』

Hey, it was over, and that was all that really mattered at the end of the day.
I looked around me to see faces of relief everywhere.

Well then.
We still had to head into the Relay Portal.
We weren’t truly safe until we all made it into a Relay Portal.

~o~O~o~

Heading into the hall and joining together with everyone else again, we saw a branch in the path ahead.
The cave continued in three directions.
Haruna took the lead and chose the path heading left.
It was the route heading to the coast.

『There’s a fishing village called Neeme this way. It’s closer, at least.』

「What if we head south?」

『If we’re heading to the fishing village, we’ll have to pass a mountain to get there if we go south. It will actually end up being a longer trip.』

「Huh.」

『There’s a temple around the foot of the mountain too. Or to be exact, shrines? They’re apparently shrines to the twelve astrological signs.』

It seemed like some kind of Greek myth.
But the route to the mountain, along with the shrines at the foot of the mountain, were being controlled by Majin.
It was a tough situation.

~o~O~o~

The relay portal also looks like a limestone cave.
But there were no gatekeepers like the Deva King present.
That was a shame.

We decided to take a short break.
Adele and Irina arranged meals for everyone else.
Well, I guess I could leave that to them.
While waiting for meals to be served, the other players all started going around the camp, petting Summon Monsters left and right.
The Imp Gengetsu was actually quite popular.
Gengetsu did stand out a lot to the other Fairies.
The face was not so different, but the wings were a completely different shape.

The other monsters I had summoned were Denier, Florin, and Abyss.
A spider, a bat, and a skeleton.
Well, they weren’t too popular.
It was still a small number, but Summon Monsters specialising in dark environments were starting to become more popular.
I guess a lot of them were aiming for a Vampire?

~*~

When we finished eating, a lot of players took a minute to log out.
Well, they would be back soon anyway, so it wasn’t a big concern.
But the time taken to re-summon all our Summon Monsters would definitely have to be taken into account.
The time was 12:40 PM.
When Konohana and Haruna finished the roll call, we left the relay portal.
Our destination was the S1E1 map.
From there, we were going to go south to a fishing village within the S2E1 map.

The name of the fishing village was Neeme.
According to Haruna, the cave led to the coast, which we could follow southwards until we reached the village.
She thought it would be a safe assumption that we would reach the place by dusk.
We still had plenty of time.
But for the time being, it would probably be best if I left hunting monsters on the coast for another time.

~o~O~o~

Right before we left the cave, we all changed our Summon Monster teams.
Of course, we changed to teams focusing on mobility.
I did the same.
I left Volff and Gengetsu.
But I recalled Denier, Florin, and Abyss.
I summoned Zangetsu, Helix, and Heather.
In a matter of minutes, all the changes were complete.

『Let’s take the lead!』

With Haruna in the lead, we all started running out of the cave and into S1E1, riding along the coast, together with our Summon Monsters.
The landscape was completely new to me.
I could tell that the air had the smell of the sea mixed in.

---