Chapter 195: [Arc 5] Chapter 1-7: Crawling Terror

Dino's PoV:

The black mass that is known as the "Draug", Wiggly, attacked the magic shields produced by us dark elves and the mage goblins by throwing tentacles created from its fluid body at them. 

While we were struggling to escape, the Karasuna underlings looked at our struggle with glee despite still being bound and lying helpless on the floor. The Draug does not seem keen on attacking them, despite its vicious appearance. 

"Dino, we gotta skedaddle, ssu~!" shouted Rald as he tried to carry the unconscious lady Zaria out of the room.

"That is easier said than done. What about lady Zaria? Is she alright? Did that creature hit her with any unusual skills?" - Dino

"No, ssu~..., but does someone even need a reason to freak out at looking at that thing? It's pure ugliness, ssu~!" - Rald

A fair point. Even me, who was born and raised in the great Dungeon, Damavand, could barely stand looking at this creature. No monster of Damavand could hope to match this fiend in disgustingness. 

The creature kept on attacking us with its tentacles as we tried to escape from the building. This thing is more than likely to be an expert of three-dimensional combat. Fighting it inside the building would be granting it an extreme advantage. And we may hurt some of the yakuzas if we fought there, and if that happened, we could kiss our hostage plans goodbye.

"Keep at it, ssu~! Don't let it get to you, ssu~!" - Rald

Rald kept on encouraging our troops as we steadily reached for the entrance. The Draug simply moved after us while slamming at our shields, almost as if it was toying with us. Several of our allies seemed to notice the creature's behavior, just like me, but they did not move from their positions and focused on letting all of us exit the building. 

That our front lines did not collapse is thanks to Rald's excellent leadership. He shouted out orders to keep people calm and especially chided people who looked like they wanted to storm out and attack the bizarre slime. All while carrying lady Zaria's limp body. 

"[Shadow Fence]!" - Dino

I produced my own set of hindrances to delay the slime beast, but it easily slipped past the holes of the fence without taking any damage. Or so it seemed like, but the bone-like protentions of the Draug got stuck in the fence, That resulted in the slime-creature taking the Shadow damage from the skill, making it flinch and give the rest of us time to run for the exit.

Oh, and the [Shadow Fence] skill is a different variant of [Shadow Wall]. In exchange for blocking less space due to the holes in the fence, the damage is higher compared to the Wall-skill.

The damage stalled the creature long enough for us to sprint for the exit. It was when we finally saw our goal when Rald:

"Hey..., it stopped following us, ssu~." - Rald

...eh? He is right... Please do not tell me that thing is-

*Splatt!*

My words were cut short as the creature itself was flying through the air into the corridor we were currently located in and hit the wall with a loud crash. We were looking at the self-repairing slime in confusion induced by the sudden event until a sharp "Run, ssu~!!" from Rald made us run for the exit.

After finally exiting the building, everyone started to prepare for the battle with the monstrous creature.  As part of his preparations, Rald handed over the unconscious lady Zaria to one of the hobgoblins, the Therianthrope mumbling in her sleep.

"...ten thousand..., my savings..., not my fault..." - Zaria

...I am having the conflicting wishes of knowing and not knowing what it is she is talking about. I am forced to take care of the problem at hand, so it seems I need to accept the latter wish.

The Draug transformed its body into a snake-like figure and slithered towards us with a speed that people would not expect from it. The creature tried to attack one of the hobgoblins, but Rald threw one of his tomahawk axes at the creature's exposed bones to distract it. 

Annoyed by the attack, the Draug ate the tomahawk ax while it was in the air after being repelled by the bone armor. We witnessed as the ax gradually dissolving in the corner of the Draug's mimicked snake-mouth. Venom? ...no, this must be acid. Or maybe "decay" itself?

Anyway, the beast tried to attack Rald after its "meal", so I stopped it with another fence. Multiple of them, thanks to the [Shadow Copy] skill. It still pales compared to master Garami's skill to multiply any skill, but it did make enough fences so it could work as a wall and stop the Draug's charge.

Tasting another dose of Shadow attribute damage was enough for the Draug to turn his attention away from Rald and toward me. Several skulls emerged from the beast's body and produced shadow-like spheres that it fired toward me. I escaped for my dear life and did not save anything to do that. 

I used [Shadow Step] to improve my legwork and dodged most of the spheres, but two of them were too close for comfort. Luckily, I had the desperate idea of using [Shadow Replica] to block a sphere with my clone, and I managed to guard against the last sphere with another [Shadow Fence] + [Shadow Copy].

Thank the gods and master Garami that the cooldown period for the latter was over. But my MP is dangerously low. I am starting to feel the characteristic nauseating sensation that comes when your MP is starting to run empty. 

However, as opposed to my MP, my luck was not yet dried out. 

My playtime with the Draug had given the hobgoblin mages enough time to prepare their spells which they launched at the Draug's back. I used the time to escape behind a tree. No more fighting for me today. I am not master Garami. I cannot recover my mana in the blink of an eye, and I have been using it all day. 

The beast was bombarded with spells, but it didn't seem to take much damage. Not that it's easy to differ whether the spells do damage it or not. Except for one instance. 

Just as the beast was about to fire another round with the shadowy spheres from before, an incredible gust of wind hit the Draug in its back and sent it flying into the trees. The collision broke several of them and collapsed on top of the Draug who was knocked unconscious after the last hit.

Did lady Zaria wake up? That was my first thought, but then I saw her still lying unconscious and guarded by one of the warrior hobgoblins. Then who...

"Who did that, ssu~!?" - Rald

In response to Rald's shout, my sensitive ears noticed a small sound coming from the building. An enemy? They are at least so for the Draug, but what is their stance toward us?

With bated breath, I turned around to the building and saw...no one? 

"*Squeak*!" - Tinkletop

...oh, lady Zaria's little the mouse? I didn't see him there. Or, to be honest, I didn't even notice he was missing at all. But then, where is the person who...

"Heads up, ssu~!" - Rald

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With a loud noise, the Draug broke through all the wood that had fallen on top of it and let out a ghastly roar.

In return, Rald stabbed the ground with the bottom of his one-handed ax and produced a green glow on the ground. Several vines grew from the light and went toward the Draug and ensnared it.

"It's only gonna last a moment, ssu~! Strike it...now...ssu~?" - Rald

Rald's orders to attack dissipated before they could leave his mouth at the sight before us. The vines entwined around the monstrous slime were starting to gradually turn black. And as if the miscolor was the sign of a disease, the vines were gradually starting to decay.

It must be the acid-like ability that dissolved the ax from before. It seems to be not limited to the creature's mouth. Thinking about it, that "mouth" was just the Draug's body taking the appearance of a mouth, not a real one, so it is not that surprising seeing that its whole body has this decay ability.

"Everyone, forget about close-range, ssu~! Use magic instead, ssu~!" - Rald

A good plan.  But there was someone who was ahead of Rald in this matter. Someone who had been preparing a magic assault from the very beginning. 

"*Squeeaaaak*!!" - Tinkletop

Lady Zaria's little rat had created a huge magic circle in yellow and black colors while we were occupied with the Draug. A large amount of what appears to be black-colored lightning emerged from Tinkletop's magic circle and struck the black, undead glob of slime. 

"Wow, ssu~. You can even see its bones, ssu~," commented Rald as he watched the result of..."lord" Tinkletop's lighting attack. 

"The bones were already exposed." - Dino

"Guess that's true, ssu~, but even so..." - Rald

Since continuing with this conversation would be pointless and time-consuming, I only nodded to Rald's statement.

However, despite the impressive lightning strike, the Draug was not worse for wear, even if many patches of its body were smoking. One of its skull mouths produces several smaller spheres than the first batch and fired them at Tinkletop.

The brave little mouse, however, escaped from the barrage with a speed that only a little rodent such as him could have. In addition, Tinkletop created more magic circles and released short bursts of lightning at the Draug as it ran away from the shadow spheres. 

The battle between the magical mouse and the wicked slime of death was growing more intense as they ran into the woods and pelted each other with long-range attacks. The Draug was durable enough to take the lightning bolts with its body, and Tinkletop's speed and usage of the woods as covers made sure he remained unharmed. 

And it is not like we were just sitting here. People other than me, who is empty of MP, that is. The magic casters created walls to defend Tinkletop, shot the Draug with spells when it was needed, and granted enchantment spells to the little mouse. 

It should be only a matter of time..., I hope. I cannot see the end of that weird slime's bottomless stamina. How is it even alive in the first place?

My attention moved away from the fight between the two representatives for the "most common Dungeon monsters" as I heard someone trying to leave the building.

"...crap! They noticed us!" - Samemaru

Uhhh..., you could try to not shout so everyone else could hear you, no? What was his name..., "Samemaru"? The grunt who lady Zaria had a bone to pick with.

"Tch! You guys, get them!" shouted the Samemaru-fellow, but his words fell on deaf ears. The other members of the Karasuna clan ignored him as they looked up into the sky for some reason.

"...huh? Hey, you bastards! Start acting...alive..." said the Samemaru-fellow before taking a peek at the sky like his men before turning silent. Is this some sort of trick to distract me?

"......oh, oh no, oh no, oh no! Run!!" - Samemaru

And then they all started to flee in panic. Against my better judgment, I tried to take a glance at whatever they had been looking at while preparing my short sword to take them on...

What..., WHAT IS THAT-!?

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Kigal-Note/Monsters/Beast: Miracle Mouse

Description:

The Miracle Mouse. An intelligent mouse monster who evolved from different rodent-type monsters into this strange miracle of the monster world.

Miracle Mice are rare creatures that only see the light of day if they manage to obtain enough stats, skills, and classes so that they fulfill the many requirements for this incredible evolution path.

It is more likely that mice tamed by adventurers will have this chance compared to wild rodents or those tamed solely as pets, as a rat monster working for an adventurer is more likely to have been groomed into quite the assistant for the adventurer. 

Appearance:

Miracle Mice are large mice-type creatures, but not bigger than a normal housecat, with grey fur and black stripes. Its fur pattern is quite similar to that of a tiger. They prefer to be dressed in clothes made by humans. 

Abilities:

Miracle Mice have an incredible talent for magecraft along with the characteristic speed of any rodent-type creatures. This makes it possible for them to dart around the battlefield while throwing magic spells at their target in an extreme version of a game of cat and mouse where the mouse is the one to stop the opponent (cat or no cat) from catching the mouse.

In addition, Miracle Mice have a high intellect and can easily learn skills and spells. Some individuals may even be better than educated humanoids. This allows them to easily attain a huge number of options for them, making these critters quite unpredictable. The lack of a racial attribute makes it even more difficult in predicting what a Miracle Mouse can do.

Dino's comment: Indeed. Who knows what "lord" Tinkletop can do.

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