Chapter 163: Disaster Pill Bug
A large black ball, the Disaster Pill Bug, rapidly closed in on us.
Its massive body made its attacks incredibly powerful, but that wasn’t all — the bug was extrely mobile. The combination of these two factors made it ridiculously difficult to deal with.
We’d already experienced the extent of this combination head on several tis. We barely managed to dodge the bug’s attacks only to have it suddenly turn on the spot and fly in our direction on several occasions. We would’ve long been squashed if not for our ability to teleport.
One couldn’t even get away from the damn thing by taking to the air, as its Air Jump skill allowed it to chase its prey in all 3 dinsions.
Even more troubleso was the hardness of its shell. Poking at it with anything other than an all out attack would only leave it with a scratch. That would be fine and dandy and allow us to accumulate damage and all, if not for the fact that the insect could regenerate. Its defenses were as solid as Rynford’s.
And if you thought that was all, then boy, you’ve got a whole ‘nother thing coming. The Disaster Pill Bug was capable of throwing a counter with Vibration Strike the mont we tried to attack it. Its detection skills seed to make it capable of figuring exactly when we were going to strike each and every single ti.
It didn’t seem like we were going to beat the bug by kiting it and poking at it sporadically. In fact, we were racking up more damage than it was.
But that honestly just made things a lot simpler.
「Nn. Sa as usual.」
We just had to do as we always did and finish it off with a single powerful blow.
「Master.」
『Roger.』
Transform was one of the skills I’d used the most in our exploration of Ulmutt’s Eastern Dungeon; I’d practiced it hundreds upon hundreds of tis. The Katana form was one of the forms I’d assud the most, and hence, I was now able to take it in an instant. I’d even beco capable of maintaining it for an hour with relative ease.
「Master. Going.」
『Alright! Urushi, lure the boss real quick.』
「Ruff!」
We hid our presences as Urushi provoked the pill bug and got its attention.
The large black ball imdiately turned in Urushi’s direction the mont he threw a spell at it. The wolf was in his larger form, but he still looked puny next to the giant pill bug regardless.
「Grooowl!」
Urushi was not only more agile than Fran, but also capable of diving into the shadows if need be, so I was pretty sure that he wouldn’t have any issues if all he needed to do was dodge the pill bug’s attacks. His efficacy as bait was furthered by the fact that his magical strikes allowed him to ensure that the enemy stayed focused on him.
We finished all necessary preparations in a re few monts.
That said, there wasn’t actually enough space for us to use the thing we used on Rynford. The ceiling was too low; we couldn’t fall far enough to build up all the kinetic energy we needed to make the technique work. I wasn’t too sure how things would end up going, so I didn’t dare pour every last bit of magical energy I had into my blade.
That said, we did have a plan. None of the dodging we did was aimless. We hadn’t just been running away.
Fran waited for the exact mont the pill bug struck a wall and imdiately went on the offensive right as it lost all montum.
She used a combination of my threads and Air Compression to fire herself off in the bug’s direction. That, of course, wasn’t all. She threw both wind and fire magic into the mix to accelerate herself even further. She activated weight manipulation and cloaked my blade in the elents twice over as she drew from a sheath of compressed air. Every last bit of destructive force she outputted was concentrated on the very tip of my blade.
「Haaah!」
『Nice!』
I’d been pretty sure of our victory, but it looked like I’d been underestimating the Disaster Pill Bug. It was a C ranked threat. C ranked threats were more than just one trick ponies. The bug was capable of much more than re offense.
The pill bug suddenly used magic emission and caused its body to begin rotating in the slash’s direction, an action that negated a fair portion of the damage that would have otherwise been inflicted.
As a result, her slash only managed to leave a large gash in the magic beast’s shell; its internals remained unhard.
『Damn!』
「Strong as expected.」
『But we’ve at least made enough progress.』
I an, it would’ve been nice if we were able to finish him in just one hit, but not doing so was just fine as well. We’d already planned ahead, just in case.
We focused our attentions on the wound that we’d just opened.
『Looks like it worked just the way we thought it would.』
「Nn. Can’t regenerate when frozen.」
Our elent of choice hadn’t been the combination of the usual fire and lighting that we’d always loved to use. It’d instead been ice/snow.
The experints we conducted regarding elental weaknesses had led us to co to realize that wounds inflicted through ice/snow magic would regenerate at an abnormally slow rate.
We’d created the perfect weakness. All we needed to do now was launch an attack into the crack we made in its shell and we’d be golden. In other words, we secured ourselves a ans of attacking the bug’s internals.
「Once more.」
『Let’s finish it off!』
「Woof!」
The only problem was that the pill bug would likely rotate in much the sa manner as it had earlier. It’d be pretty hard for Fran to attack the exact spot she was aiming for.
『Alright, here’s the plan. We’ll let Urushi attack imdiately after he finishes one of those spins. It’s gotta take a good amount of force for him to spin like that, and he probably uses a tonne of magical energy every ti, so he probably can’t do it in rapid succession.』
「Nn. Urushi, leave to you.」
「Woof!」
We kicked ourselves into gear so that we could bring the damned thing down. Urushi started spamming magic at it in order to draw its attention while Fran and I quietly awaited an opening.
It didn’t take long for opportunity to knock.
The pill bug emitted a bunch of magical energy in order to hunt down Urushi, but missed and crashed into yet another wall.
Fran imdiately leapt at the pillbug, whose open wound just so happened to be facing us. Everything was perfect. All we needed to do was hit the damned thing one more ti.
『Let’s do this!』
「Haaaah!」
We launched a second attack with everything we had behind it —
— Only to realize that we hadn’t grasped the full extent of the pill bug’s strength.
I’d thought that the tides of battle were in our favour and that victory would soon be in our grasp. In fact, I hadn’t just thought it. I’d been convinced of it by none other than the Disaster Pill Bug itself.
Sheet! How the hell!? I lost to a re bug in a battle of wits!?
Sothing burst out from within the bug’s wound the mont Fran was about to slash it.
It lured us in and made sure to attack from a range at which we would be unable to avoid its strike. That said, it seed that it’d been pushing itself, as its actions had caused its MP to plumt.
「Nraaah!」
『Sheettt!』
The insect compressed its magical energy and launched a projectile from within its broken carapace.
Our eyes were instantly filled with naught but a single flash of white.
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