Cogwheel Stragglers.
In other words, the God of Machinery’s warriors who were left behind.
A monster with decayed flesh barely maintaining its original form, resembling a skeleton with a tallic body.
It might seem similar to a Human Golem, but there’s a difference in purpose.
A Human Golem is given a second life with a new body to a warrior who has died once or is on the brink of death.
It could be considered a leisurely retirent life.
Thus, their duties are mostly security or patrol. The first Human Golem we encountered was patrolling the Safe Zone we ascended to on the 3rd Floor…probably the residential area for ordinary believers.
In contrast, the Cogwheel Straggler, though defeated and broken, is rusted and corroded in places.
Nevertheless, those who were modified to engage in war…especially the War of the Fallen Gods.
Their combat power should not be underestimated.
Screech-!
The creature exhaling rotten-slling vapors, raising a massive stake.
Is it a kind of pile bunker? Surely a weapon equipped to defeat an enemy more powerful than itself.
In the War of the Fallen Gods, there are limits to what an ordinary soldier can do, even after being modified with the power of the God of Machinery.
The fact that it aid such a weapon at soone who looks as weak as …no, not at , but at Lydia and Benny who were behind .
Such an insolent creature.
I smirked and took my stance.
“It’s ti to be discharged.”
With that mutter, I kicked off the ground. The distance closed in an instant.
Did it not expect to charge first? It hesitated briefly before turning its gaze towards .
From its hollow eye sockets, I caught a glimpse of clicking gears. And then.
Clank!
As if reloading, its arm retreated a full length backward.
Not knowing how far it would extend, I decided to avoid it entirely rather than adjust the distance.
“One shot first!”
Swinging my hand sideways, I fired three arrows from my Wrist Crossbow that had been loaded.
Swoosh!
The arrows flew not at a single point but in a straight line horizontally. The geared soldier responded by raising its opposite arm.
Half-destroyed and rusted, it was once a shield likely adorned with elegant patterns.
Judging by the complex chanical device attached, it seed to have functions beyond a simple shield, but…
It was difficult to guess its original shape, as only traces remained, perhaps shattered in the mont of defeat.
In other words, it couldn’t cover a third of the upper body now, but it was still a thick and sturdy shield.
Even though the arrows were fired at a fairly fast speed after several enhancents, they weren’t enough to pierce such a large tal mass.
Ting ting!
The arrows bounced off with a light sound. But it didn’t matter. This was what I hoped for.
The arrows scattered in all directions. Just as the arrows, which caused no damage, were about to pass the Cogwheel Straggler.
Fwoosh!
Suddenly, an imnse amount of light burst from the arrowheads.
Unlike the Explosive Arrows used against the Human Golem before, these were Illumination Arrows.
Originally used to shoot far away to brighten areas out of reach…
If activated from such a close range, it can briefly rob the enemy of sight.
Thanks to prior preparation, I opened my eyes just before the light burst.
I thought it might not work since its eyes were already rotten and crumbled, and it was perceiving the world with the remaining sensory aid of chanical devices… 𝑅𝐀𝐍О𝐁Εs̈
But it still seed to heavily rely on visual information, as it was quite flustered.
Taking advantage of this mont, I activated the Cloak of Invisibility and the Sound-Eating Footsteps. And at the sa ti, the Boots of Haste.
It felt like I was hiding within a thin veil isolated from the world. Simultaneously, my body beca so fast that it was hard to control.
The overlapping effects of Haste and speed increase during stealth, combined with the breakthrough effect of Sound-Eating Footsteps.
I entrusted my body to that overwhelming swiftness and moved behind the Cogwheel Straggler.
Perhaps because I completely erased my presence along with becoming invisible. Despite barely recovering its sight, it couldn’t find and looked around in confusion.
A constantly moving nape. I aid a dagger infused with aura at a seemingly important black tal box located slightly above it.
Clang!
A sharp tallic sound accompanied by the box distorting greatly.
I couldn’t completely destroy it, possibly due to my lack of strength and the limitations of using a dagger.
“Tsk.”
I thought it would work since I infused it with plenty of aura.
The tals on the 3rd Floor are all tougher than I anticipated. Moreover, it’s neither truly alive nor a wicked entity, so the Unicorn Dagger’s special attack barely works.
Until now, I held a superior advantage due to elental compatibility, making battles relatively easy. But this ti, it’s the opposite, this is a Floor where I am at a disadvantage.
I should probably start using the greatsword from now on.
Creak-
When attacked, the creature that detected my position turns its neck 180 degrees to look this way. Then its body follows with a spin.
Rotten flesh crumbles and falls to the ground, and a nauseating stench wafts over, but…more dangerous than that is the loaded pile bunker swinging this way.
I quickly twisted my body in fright. Then the pile bunker scraped past the spot where I was just a mont ago.
And that wasn’t even the end of it.
Boom!
With a thunderous noise, the pile bunker fired. The accelerated stake narrowly grazes past my ear.
If the effects of Haste weren’t active, surely one ear would have been blown off.
“Ugh!”
Even though it didn’t directly hit my ear, the loud noise and wind pressure left my ear stinging.
Clenching my teeth, I sheathed the dagger and swung the greatsword upward. The opponent thrusts out a battered shield in response.
Crunch!
The greatsword lodged into the edge of the shield with a vicious sound. Unfortunately, it lacked the power to pierce through.
While the greatsword remained firmly lodged, the Cogwheel Straggler’s pile bunker reloaded once more.
Screech…click.
The firmly fixed pile bunker aid at .
“Damn it…”
I bit back the curse, using the greatsword as a support to lean my body.
Thanks to my innate body, young age, and various beauty Powers, my body bent like a notebook with ridiculous flexibility.
Because of this, I managed to dodge the pile bunker’s trajectory…but this was rely maintaining the status quo.
The mont the pile bunker was triggered. I swung the dagger toward the place I had scouted beforehand.
A solid construction that fixed the fired stake. But even the tal had corroded over ti.
Ka-kak!
With a dull sound, the dagger shattered part of the bracket. Naturally losing the brake that would have stopped it, the stake fired, and perhaps the internal components that took the impact were broken.
Iron fragnts fell with a clatter from the small gap connecting the body and the pile bunker.
It tried to hold on with the remaining internal chanisms, but it was already half-broken, making even that difficult. As a result.
Shoong!
The fired stake completely detached and shot off like a rocket, embedding itself in so distant mire, slowly sinking.
“Now, you have no weapon?”
Laughing with a cackle, I completely released the greatsword and drew the Unicorn Dagger once more.
The greatsword lodged in the shield made it difficult for it to move, which ans that the opponent also struggled to handle the shield.
The pile bunker, now missing its stake, resembled a mitten.
And the gesture of the Cogwheel Straggler swinging it with one arm was closer to that of a child.
“Bring it on.”
In any case, a dagger can’t cut through thick tal. But must one really cleave that ticking, fu-spewing hunk of iron?
“Hup!”
The first thing to do was to remove the flesh stuck between the tal bones and gear joints.
Slash. Slash.
The dagger swiftly skimd over the skeleton of the gear-ridden survivor. Each ti, rotten chunks of flesh fell away.
The sensation was like stripping at off a chicken leg. Yet, even after tearing off all the flesh…even the maggot-infested head and the brain inside, the remnant Straggler functioned perfectly fine.
“Haaa…”
Indeed, the body was rely a relic of the past, with all control seemingly conducted by the rampaging machinery.
I should have smashed that black box from earlier.
Swallowing a deep sigh internally, I wielded the dagger once more.
This ti, targeting the hydraulic hose extending from the heart area, spreading throughout the body.
Press… Slash.
It seed to resist slightly, perhaps due to its rather sturdy material, but soon enough, the hose snapped.
From the cut surface, a massive amount of oil vapor spewed out, emitting a foul stench.
“Ugh.”
The sll was enough to induce a gag reflex, but it proved effective.
With a noticeably sluggish movent, the creature thrusts the pile bunker like a fist.
Even when its body was intact, it couldn’t land a hit, so why would it succeed now?
I easily dodged this as well and proceeded to slash another hose with my dagger.
Fssssshhh-!
A cloud of vapor spread instantly. The oil-infused gears began to work even harder, but…it was nothing more than a final flicker.
The creature, which had been struggling for a while, gradually grew still and soon could barely move.
However, seeing that the gears in the eye sockets creak instead of the pupils, it wasn’t dead. It was just immobilized.
Given ti, it might recover, but…that ti is not now.
I twisted the greatsword and ripped it from the shield right in front of the immobilized creature. And then.
“Stop it, and die.”
I wield the weight of the greatsword, light only to , as a weapon and swing it towards the Cogwheel Straggler’s head.
Thwack!
Once wasn’t enough, so I kept striking down.
Thud! Thwack! Thud!
How many tis did I strike it down like that? Eventually, the creature’s cogwheel stopped spinning as its skull caved in.
“…Hah.”
It took this long just to take one down.
Twisting open the cogwheel at the heart to extract the Magic Stone, I asked Lydia and Benny, who were watching in a ready-to-intervene stance.
“Should we take down just a few more and then return to the surface for now?”
It’s not about getting used to combat. I needed proper equipnt and to devise a strategy.
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