In contrast to the giant rhino-like monster who was stopped in its tracks, Futaba-san slowly approached it with her jet-black halberd in her right hand. Despite walking lightly, I could see a terrifying amount of power concentrated in her right arm.
By now, I was already familiar with this action. It wasn't so sort of magic, just a skill that enhanced her already abnormal strength. In short, a martial art.
「――『Shock Strike』！」
Her black iron halberd was swung down with trendous power. And then, due to its sheer speed, it was as if Futaba-san's halberd transford into jet-black light and struck the side of the giant rhino's head.
Her martial art ended in a flash, which accompanied by an unpleasant sound of cracked bone.
「BRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAA…」
At that mont, the giant rhino suddenly whined. The reason being the inside of its head, in other words, its brain had already turned into paste due to the ultra-strong shock it received from Futaba-san's martial art.
『Shock Strike』：The blade fired an extrely powerful shock to destroy the enemy from the inside.
Futaba-san had learned this martial art after the boss battle against the Living Dead.
Though I could hardly understand its effect, just from the martial art's flavor text or when she tested it, according to Kotori's analytical eyes, it seed to be a martial art that increased the user's firepower and delivered an extrely powerful tremor toward the target's body from the user's blade.
That's why when we tried that skill on a fairly large rock, it turned into smithereens as soon as it received Futaba-san's strike. And that giant rhino was by no ans unscathed after receiving that kind of attack right on its head.
「Oops, it died already??」
Futaba-san let out a disappointed voice as she saw the giant rhinos fall on its side, twitching for a second, and die.
「Huhm, thank goodness. It turned out this big monster is not even that powerful.」
Seriously? That giant wasn't actually that powerful? Or else, the 『Berserker』's power was more powerful than my expectation…
「Yeah, thanks for defeating it quickly, Futaba-san.」
I decided to play along with Futaba-san who was smiling a girlish smile.
I lost to her. It seems I need to beco stronger…
===
After Futaba-san insta-killed the giant rhinos, Natsukawa-san started the exploration of the tower imdiately.
The inside of the tower resembled that of a lighthouse, the few rooms that we found inside resembled that of a temple. Yup, there was nothing at all, the tower had long since been emptied. To be exact, there was a room on the top floor with sothing that looked like a small transfer magic circle engraved on a stone pedestal.
But it didn't show any reaction when we touched, struck, or got on top of it.
「Do you know what this is, Kotori-san?」
「Uhm, this is…」
Anyway, it seed that only Kotori-san, the 『Sage』 knew what kind of magic circle it was. If she saw it and still didn't know what it was, then this pedestal was nothing more than an object d'art but…
「Ah, this one huh, well I can sohow understand these parts around this place!」
Despite what she said, none of us understood what she ant.
It seed that the only one who would react to her statent was the one who could perceive the secret hidden within the magic circle.
Surely, the magic circle on the pedestal let out a pale light when Kotori-san touched its surface as if she was operating it. I an, it didn't show this kind of reaction when I and the other mber of our group touched it before.
「What's the result, Kotori?」
「U~hm, let's see… it seems there was a huge castle straight ahead of this place? Or perhaps, a temple? There's sothing like transfer magic circle… over there.」
「Wow, you can even locate the position of the transfer magic circle.」
「This pedestal seems to have better performance than our compass note.」
I see, it's just as Class Rep had said, this pedestal seed like a high-performance GPS with a map that was obviously far better than our compass. Perhaps similar kinds of pedestals were built all over this dungeon.
「Do you understand anything else aside from that, Kotori?」
「U~hm… WAAAH, t-there… there seems to be a lot of gomas living around the castle.」
The information we gained from the pedestal with the mapping function was a lot more than my expectation.
Another thing that I concluded upon hearing her previous remark was the fact that this pedestal not only conveyed a bird’s eye view like a certain Goo*gle map, it could also relay live footage directly to its user.
And then, as a result of seeing the situation, the user could get a rough grasp of the terrain around the location.
In addition, the user could also understand the type of monsters that were living around the area. Though keeping a tab on an individual monster was close to impossible, it was surprisingly possible to keep a tab on an extrely powerful monster, or monster that lives in a crowd.
For example, Kotori could see the dragon that we saw flying above us when we just arrived in this area and the crowds of monkey-like monsters that had attacked us before.
And then, the castle where the transfer magic circle was located seed to be the gomas’ stronghold.
The scale of their army seed to have far surpassed the monkeys we saw before. Though she had no idea about their exact number, it was at least around a hundred or two.
To be honest, I didn't want to get close to gomas’ stronghold due to the difference between our numbers but… we had no choice but to move forward. Because even if for example we're looking for another way, we should at least see the situation over there first.
Thus, we departed from the ruin, entering the jungle again――
「BUGERA! GUBA, GADOOBA!」
And just as I thought, we t gomas’ corps along the way.
Though the current us could easily deal with them, I was forced to re-evaluate my evaluation of them after I realized that the corps we t was only the smallest part of gomas living in that castle, their numbers were far beyond us.
「Their equipnt is rather nice for a re goma.」
「I'm sure that they get this equipnt from those ruins.」
We found so treasure chests after we spent so ti searching the ruin. Almost all the content was things such as iron sword, spear, axe, sturdy bow, and arrows, weapons that were literally useless for the current us. But, it definitely looked like a grandiose weapon for gomas whose civilization was close to that of primitive humans during the end of the stone age.
「DOWBA! GURU, ZEGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!」
In addition, the third group of gomas we t was composed of the tall and muscular, warrior class gomas, the 『Govu』, in short, elite of the elites.
Their weapons’ quality far surpassed the weaponry of the gomas we t so far, so of them were even equipped with magic items.
「Guh, 『Ice Sagitta』 isn't working on them.」
They wore accessories that increased defense, 『Guard Ring』 just like us. It seems that every single govu of this group was equipped with that ring which invalidates low-rank magic and Natsukawa-san's knife throwing.
「HAAAAAAAAA――『Rupture』!」
And yet, it was proven insufficient against Futaba-san's power.
『Rupture』：The blade severs and smashes the enemy that encounters it.
That was the second martial art she learnt after she defeated the living armor boss. According to Kotori-san's analysis when Futaba-san was testing her new martial art, it seed this 『Rupture』 was rather similar to mine and Asuna's 『Flash』, it only raised her slashing strike.
Strike type attack with 『Shock Strike』 and slash type attack with 『Rupture』.
For Futaba-san who was equipped with those two martial arts, the elite govus were nothing more than a target to test her new skill and raise its mastery.
Three govus with magic item were bisected in two at once when she used 『Rupture』, another three blown back quite far away with one strike of her 『Shock Strike』, and a normal, single swing of her halberd slew another three.
「Even if you call them warrior, they're just a bit more powerful than gomas.」
Maybe, Futaba-san could take down the gomas’ castle by herself. I felt miserable thinking of such a cruel plan.
Get a grip, , I've to protect Futaba-san!
Though I barely got a chance to fight… I have to do my best during the boss battle.
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