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The Summoner is Going c242 Part 2

What monster did we first encounter in the S3E1 map?
It looked a little like this:

Amenofuchikoma　Lv.3
Monster　Enemy Target　Active
Battle Position: Ground　All Attribute Resistance

It had quite a unique name…. Amenofuchikoma.
According to Konohana, the name referred to a pitiful horse that was skinned by Susanoo in Japanese mythology.

That definitely piqued my interest.
All Attribute Resistance?
I didn’t even know what to think about that.
From its outer appearance, it looked like any regular horse.
But its coat was what set it apart.
In fact, its coat was what attracted my attention first.
It was something that we couldn’t miss.

It reminded me of the Rabid Horses I had fought in the past, but this one was even wilder.
But its rampaging didn’t help it much. It was outnumbered.
As Zangetsu came in close for a charge, both my spear and Nias’s spear pierced its torso, and it fell over onto the ground.
It didn’t take long to finish it off.
The main issue was with its item drops.
I was hoping to get its skin, but it didn’t drop it.
It only dropped meat.

【Material】Amenofuchikoma Meat　Raw Material　Grade C+　Rarity 4　Weight 2
The meat of an Amenofuchikoma. It is a high quality cut of meat, with a lot of flavour. Will sell for a high price.
It is also usually marketed as a nourishment food.

『Meat!』

「Meat, huh. What about the skin?」

『I don’t think it’s going to be possible for us to get its skin as an item drop. I checked around on the forums, and it looks like nobody else has managed to get Amenofuchikoma skin either.』

Haruna’s answer was immediate.
It looked like she had done her research in advance too.
I see…
I was actually looking forward to getting its skin as an item drop. With an ability as unique as All Attribute Resistance, I had a feeling I could expect great things from it.
But I suppose it couldn’t be helped.

「I wonder when the Area Portal in this map was cleared…」

『I think it was about 10 days ago that the Guide Team formed a Union and then cleared the Area Portal of this map together.』

「Feels like…. Quite a while ago.」

『I guess so. The Guide Team to the south is apparently starting to make their moves on the S4 map.』

「What…. Why S4?」

『They say they wanted to spend some time looking for gemstones. It was in response to a complaint on the forums that the income from normal items wasn’t as good anymore.』

「Hmm… I see.」

Konohana’s answer made sense.
But it was bad news to us.
I see…. So the Guide Team thought that the items in S3E1 weren’t valuable enough to bother grinding for them…
Well, as long as we could get some delicious ingredients by the sea, all would be well worth it.
Maybe there would be some nice materials to make equipment out of too, to help in clearing other maps.

「Well, as long as we can get to the sea, I’m not about to complain. I suppose we can just satisfy ourselves with that.」

『I’m satisfied with just meat!』

『As a cook, I’m definitely very interested in seeing what kind of ingredients this map can offer us.』

Ooh!
Adele and Irina were fired up!
Yep, those seafood ingredients would be very good to have.
I was quite interested.
Well, not for the purpose of cooking. Just for the purpose of eating.

I used Call Monster to check the area around us for monsters.
When I did that, I was surprised with what I found.
I sensed Amenofuchikoma here and there, prowling about by themselves.
It would be impossible to continue eastward without running into at least one of them.

Oh, I see…
Well, we were all on horseback, and we were in a Union. It wasn’t going to be a big deal.
But if we had to go on foot, that would be an entirely different story.
We would be up against horses with far superior mobility to us.
It would be difficult to intercept their attacks too.

In fact, even when we were travelling by horse, outrunning them was quite difficult.
Especially because those Amenofuchikoma would ram into us without any hesitation.
Sometimes, I wished that they would attack in a flock, just to make the process of hunting them more efficient.

But for the time being, I also knew that if that were to happen, we would be in a real pinch.
That All Attribute Resistance ability that they had was no joke.
Spells didn’t work at all on those horses.
No, spells did work, but they were strangely ineffective against them.
I was thinking that I could use area of effect magic spells if we were to get overwhelmed, but it looked like that wasn’t going to be an easy way out for us anymore.

In fact, the damage that we could do with arrows was usually greater than the damage we could do with level 3 attack spells.
These horses were not joking around with us.
Their resistance even included a resistance to abnormal status conditions.
And on top of that, they didn’t drop skins, but only their meat!? I was starting to understand what the Guide Team meant by the map being unprofitable.

Well, in some ways it was good, because it meant we could hunt without having to rely too much on attack spells.
I was just worried about the amount of time we would have to spend grinding through the monsters.
I just wanted to get to the sea already.

Fort Crab　Lv.2
Monster　Enemy Target　Passive
Combat Position: Ground　Earth Attribute　Water Attribute

「Is that….?」

『I think so…』

『It’s big!』

Adele’s description was on point.
It was a hermit crab.
It was also very big.
If I had to compare it to something, I would say it was about the size of Gokame.
Where did it even find a shell that big….?
I was honestly quite a lot more curious about that.

『That monster apparently has the ability to regenerate its HP bar.』

『When it feels threatened, it can increase its DEF too. It apparently took the Guide Team Union almost an hour to take one down.』

「I guess we can ignore this one.」

『Agreed.』

『Is it sunbathing right now? It looks quite comfortable.』

As Adele pointed out, the monster seemed to be enjoying the sunshine without a single worry on its mind.
I definitely wanted to try taking down one of them at some point, but for the time being, we decided to ignore it.
We kept going.
Mobility was our main priority!
We kept heading eastward with more haste, until we were interrupted again.

Ophion Snake　Lv.4
Monster　Enemy Target　Active
Battle Position: Ground　Water Attribute　Earth Attribute

Why did something like this only happen when we were in a hurry!?
It was quite a big monster too!
Its surface was slimy, not too unlike an eel.
It also had no eyes.

『This one can spit venom! Please be careful!』

『Avoid melee attacks as much as possible! Even if you do manage to hit it, its scales are so thick that you’ll do half damage!』

『What!?』

Wow.
The warning cries from Haruna and Konohana didn’t make it in time.
It was already in front of us, and it was already looking like it was about to attack us at any moment.
As it came closer, I thrusted my Lion Sage’s Lance at it.
It slid off of the scales on its skin.
Nias also tried thrusting her Swordfish Spear at it.
As expected, Nias’s spear simply slid off too.
What is this?

A moment later, it spit a ball of a clearly venomous liquid at me, but I managed to dodge it.
But…
I looked behind me to see smoke come up from the ground.
Was this thing spitting out venom or acid? Or maybe… Both?
I didn’t want to get hit by that.

「Can I burn it?」

『Yep, it looks like that’s the most effective method right now.』

『Looks like there’s not too many issues with defeating it…』

「Let’s just defeat it. Get it over with as soon as possible.」

I chose and started casting a spell.
I was going to roast this snake in a single shot.
Even while I was casting the spell, the monster did not stop spitting its venom at me.
I had to get Volff and Helix to stop attacking it.

「Enemy Burn!」

I shot the spell at it after dodging one more ball of acid.
Did it work?
It worked, right?
The monster’s HP bar was cut down to half in a moment.

『Enemy Burn!』

Adele followed up my attack with the same spell.
And with that, the monster drew its last breath.
Yeah… It was a solid plan.
It was dead, but…
Suddenly, a foul stench filled the air.

『I meant to tell you this earlier, but this monster lets off an ugly stench after its defeated.』

『The recorded item drops are just Pebbles too…』

「Hmm… I guess I’ll make sure personally.」

I tried collecting its item drops.
I certainly only managed to get pebbles.
On top of that, the smell when I approached it to collect the item drops…
I definitely lost more than I gained in collecting those pebbles!

「I guess we can just ignore this guy going forward.」

『I don’t like the smell!』

『It’s a tough monster in a… psychological way.』

Everyone else was in favour of the idea of ignoring the Ophion Snake going forward.
Yep, it sounded like a good plan.
But what else could we do on the map?