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Chapter 221 Part 3

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Translation: Charlotte
Editor: Weasalopes

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But before I started heading south, I summoned Volff, Zangetsu, Helix, Rig, and Nias.
Although I was in a rocky wasteland, getting around on horseback was still possible.
Anyway…
Well then, let’s get going.

~o~O~o~

So, what was my first encounter with an unknown monster like?
First of all, it was a bird.

~o~

Crimson Peacock　Lv.3
Monster　Enemy Target　Active
Battle Position: Ground, Air　Fire Resistance　Poison Resistance

~o~

Yep.
The name seemed very simple, but that wasn’t the issue at hand.

~o~O~o~

The fight was unexpectedly tough.
It wasn’t the peacock that made things difficult, but the terrain I was fighting in.
It was only one peacock I had to fight too.
But it took me a while to finish it off.

The reason behind that was the many boulders scattered about
They were a big distraction to chasing down the peacock once it started running away.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Zangetsu was having trouble, but even Volff was finding it tough to catch up to the peacock.
While only for a short while, it had the ability to fly too.
I was very grateful for Helix to counter that ability of the Crimson Peacock.

So, what would I get from it?
Yep, the item drops were as expected.

~o~

【Material】 Crimson Peacock Wing　Raw Material　Grade C+　Rarity 3　Weight 1+
The wings of a Crimson Peacock. It is mainly used for decorative purposes.

~o~

It still looked like I could use the item for something down the road.
It was nice to get some more items of different materials, but looking at the Rarity, it looked like they were still relatively common.
I had to keep going. Mainly to reach a point where I could fight monsters with more delicious experience points.
I hurried onwards.

~o~O~o~

But even though I was prioritizing movement, I still ended up fighting three more Crimson Peacocks, before I ran into another type of monster.
A dinosaur?

~o~

Mononykus　Lv.5
Monster　Enemy Target　Active
Battle Position: Ground

~o~

It was pretty small compared to a Raptor.
It actually looked more like an ostrich.
But there were a lot of them!
From just a short glance, at least 30.
Hey hey hey hey!

~o~

What do you want from me?
At first, I tried to crush them out one by one.
But the boulders were really getting in the way!
Eventually I gave up and just used Fire Storm and Thunder Shower as much as I could.
Even with area-of-effect attack spells, the efficiency of the Mononykus-killing process was very slow.
My spells would of course miss the monsters hiding in the clefts of the rocks.
Thunder Shower was a little better, since the attacks were coming from the sky, but there were still some cases where the Mononykus were able to avoid the attacks.
It was very tough, emotionally more than anything else.
And on top of that, there were a lot of them, and they were fast. There were even some cases where Volff got overwhelmed and the Mononykus were chasing Volff instead.

But that was where Nias came in.
She sang a smooth, calming melody with long, sustained notes.
The sound of her lyre was also very calming.

As the many Mononykus around us slowly fell asleep, I dealt the finishing blow with a spear to monsters left and right.
Both Volff and Helix also went around making use of the opportunity to take down as many of them as possible.
Yep, with Nias’s songs, the fight suddenly got a lot easier.
But it definitely did have a big burden on Nias’s MP bar. She wouldn’t be able to keep pulling off that strategy for long.
I took them all out as quickly as possible.

So, what were the item drops of the Mononykus?
I got an Ancient Stone.
Yep, from all of those monsters, I only got one Ancient Stone.
It definitely was a very subtle harvest.

~o~O~o~

But that didn’t matter. My main goal was still to keep heading southwards.
There were other players going to and fro around me.
Were they hunting the monsters in the area too?

~o~

Ankylosaurus　Lv.2
Monster　Enemy Target　Active
Battle Position: Ground

~o~

In terms of size, the next monster I ran into was about the size of a car.
Not like a small car, but a big one!
It was big, was the point I was trying to make!

~o~

I had seen Rock Beasts about as big before so it wasn’t a very surprising sight.
But still, the Ankylosaurus had an egg-shaped lump at the end of its tail, which it was swinging around to try and hit me with it.
It was definitely very scary!
Its movements were a bit dull, but if it could get a direct hit with that tail, it definitely looked like it was no joke going to hurt a lot.
I would have had no issue with the Ankylosaurus if I was fighting it out in the plains.
But where I was, there were a lot of boulders here and there, making dodging a lot more difficult than it had to be.
It turned out to be quite an annoying enemy!

Unlike the Raptors or the Mononykus, the Ankylosaur moved around on four legs.
Its whole body was covered with scales. It was like a natural armour.
Even when Nias stabbed the Ankylosaurus with all her might, the drop in its HP bar didn’t even reach 10%.
And that was considering the fact that she was also riding on Zangetsu. With the momentum from Zangetsu’s charge, her spear had a lot of destructive power.
The whacks from my Capture Rod of Torture did next to nothing too.
What a tough monster…

On the upside, I found out that the Ankylosaurus was quite weak to spells.
Helix’s blades of wind were especially effective against it.
After seeing what Helix could do, I used Enchanted Weapon on Volff, which resulted in a lot of stability to the amount of damage Volff could put out.
Well, wasn’t that nice.
But was that enough to make the fight become a piece of cake?
Nope. There was no such thing.
It was amazing to see the lump at the end of the Ankylosaurus’s tail smash a boulder that was sitting right next to me.

I knew that if I took a direct hit from that, it would mean instant death.
I was sure of it.
But that just meant I had to avoid a direct hit at all costs.

Nias’s spear had a good range.
And at a distance, I could use attack spells to deal damage and whittle down its huge HP bar.
Nias used a few Special Skills too, and shot needles of water at the Ankylosaurus.
Wait, no…
It would be better to call them arrows of water.
The needles somehow got thicker and longer as they flew through the air.

~o~O~o~

It took quite a while, but I managed to finally defeat the Ankylosaurus.
No matter how I looked at it, Volff was definitely the MVP.
Volff wasn’t only doing harassment tactics to keep the Ankylosaurus in place, but by slowly biting at its blind spots, Volff probably did the most damage to it in total.

In any case, what kind of item did I get from it?

~o~

【Material】 Ankylosaurus Skin　Material Item　Grade C+　Rarity 3　Weight 2
The skin of an Ankylosaurus. Because the scales attached to the skin are both hard and light, the skin is usually used to make armor.

~o~

As expected…
But guessing from the Rarity, it would probably only make armor as good as the armor Goki and Naraka were already using.
The difference would probably be quite subtle.
Speaking of the Ankylosaurus Skin, the scales attached to it looked quite familiar.
They reminded me of something…
It looked like the scales attached to the shields of some players I saw during the tournament.
Did they attach Ankylosaurus Skins to their shields?
The more I thought about it, the more I realized it had to be the case.

But if I wasn’t mistaken, I didn’t feel like I saw any Ankylosaurus Skins being sold at the Lava Fort.
Well, taking on just one of them required a lot of effort.
I had a feeling most players would just lose interest and avoid it at some point.

~o~O~o~

The time was after 10 am.
After fighting my first Ankylosaurus, I fought two more of them on the way to S3. The successive fights were unexpectedly free of trouble.
Before I knew it, I checked my Wide-area Map to see that the S3 map was already right before my eyes.
I didn’t actually have to look at my Wide-area Map to know it was S3. There was an obvious sign to look for.
It was a forest.
It was very light at first, but the number of the trees around me slowly increased as I kept heading south.
In no time, the landscape around me was completely transformed into a deep forest.

It was then that I checked my Wide-area Map again.
I had already gone a short distance into the S3 map.
Now then, what was waiting for me in here…?

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Protagonist　Keith
Race　Human　Male　Racial Lv23
Job　Grand Summoner Lv9
Bonus Points Remaining: 19

Skill Sets:
Sword Lv9　Two-handed Spear Lv8　Club Lv8　Dagger Lv7　Rope Artes Lv8（↑1）
Staff Lv17　Punch Lv15　Kick Lv15　Joint Lock Lv15
Throw Lv15　Evade Lv15　Block Lv15
Summon Magic Lv23　Spacetime Magic Lv13　Seal Magic Lv6
Light Magic Lv13　Wind Magic Lv13　Earth Magic Lv14（↑1）　Water Magic Lv13
Fire Magic Lv13　Dark Magic Lv13　Ice Magic Lv11　Lightning Magic Lv11
Tree Magic Lv11　Dust Magic Lv11　Lava Magic Lv12（↑1）　Steam Magic Lv11
Alchemy Lv10　Pharmacy Lv8　Glassmaking Lv6　Woodworking Lv9
Synergy Lv16　Appraisal Lv16　Identify Lv16　Discern Lv5　Cold Resistance Lv8
Grab Lv13　Horsemanship Lv13　Precise Manipulation Lv15　Ropework Lv8（↑1）
Jump Lv7　Acrobatics Lv8（↑1）　Heat Resistance Lv9　Climb Lv8　Balance Lv8
Dual Wield Lv14　Disassembly Lv12　Swim Lv6　Dive Lv6
Dash Lv6（↑1）　Endurance Run Lv5
Physical Reinforcement Lv13　Mental Reinforcement Lv13　Speedcasting Lv14
Magic Effect Amplification Lv12　Magic Range Amplification Lv12

Equipment:
Tokkosho ×3　Light Quartz Dagger ×1
Staff of Torture ×2　Tonfas of Torture ×3（↑2）
Capture Rod of Torture ×1　Needlefish Spear ×1　Swordfish Spear ×1
Beltfish Dagger ×1　Snow Beast Mace ×1
Enraged Pickaxe+ ×2　Silver Necklace+ ×1
Snow Leopard Push Dagger ×1　Gale Tiger’s Push Dagger ×1
Snow Leopard Bagh Nakh ×2
Plains Lion Bagh Nakh ×1　Fighting Bull Leather Armor+ Set
Einherjar’s Armguard ×2
Bracelet of Torture ×2　Anklet of Torture+ ×2　Prison Guard’s Black Rope ×1
Rampage Horse Belt+　Rucksack　Item Box ×2

Summon Monsters:
Bunraku　Metalskin Lv2→Lv3 (↑1)
DEX　29
AGI　10
INT　21 (↑1)
STR　14
VIT　14
SPI　14 (↑1)
Skills:
Two-handed Spear　Bow　Cooking　Magic Resistance [Slight]　Self-Repair [Slight]

Taylor　Big Crab Lv6→Lv7 (↑1)
DEX　10
AGI　10
INT　6
STR　29 (↑1)
VIT　23 (↑1)
SPI　6
Skills:
Pincer Strike　Aquatic　Earth Resistance　Water Resistance

Gengetsu　Imp Lv4→Lv5 (↑1)
DEX　5
AGI　21 (↑1)
INT　21
STR　4
VIT　5 (↑1)
SPI　22
Skills:
Flight　Levitation　Echolocation　Magical Resistance [Medium]　MP Regeneration [Small]
Light Attribute　Dark Attribute　Fire Attribute (New!)

Florin　Bat Lv3→Lv4 (↑1)
DEX　17
AGI　20 (↑1)
INT　10
STR　9 (↑1)
VIT　9
SPI　10
Skills:
Bite　Flight　Echolocation　Evade　Ambush　Suck Blood

Naraka　Skeleton Lv3→Lv4 (↑1)
DEX　16 (↑1)
AGI　15
INT　10
STR　11 (↑1)
VIT　11
SPI　11
Skills:
Sword　Buckler　Block　Physical Resistance [Slight]　Self-Repair [Medium]　Dark Attribute

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