These days I could take it out on the spur of the moment just by thinking of it in my head. On the other hand, when I am calm, I tend to have many miscellaneous thoughts, so there were times when I had to take it out by saying the commands verbally for it to come out properly.
When I walked towards the passage where I could see that light outside before, I was still able to see the light. It was hard to see at night, but it was actually a good thing. If it had been daytime, Bert might have noticed it.
After about 30 minutes of walking through the passage, killing the giant rats and skeletons that appeared sporadically, I found myself at the end of the passage.
“Ah…”
The bottom of a deep canyon that seemed to go on forever, spread out before us, illuminated by moonlight.
I was able to get out properly. I didn’t show it on my face or voice, but I was surprisingly moved. But–
[Gurruu]
“…”
A few Hellhound-like demons that I inadvertently encountered were snarling at me, glaring at me. Inadvertently.
[Gaaaw!]
One of them spat flames from its mouth and showered me with it, so I ran up the rock surface of the canyon, which was 10 meters wide and about 50 meters high, and fired a Chant of an AoE spell.
“[Ice Storm]”
[gyann]
Hellhounds scream as they were caught in the 5th class’ combined AoE magic of water and wind [Ice Storm].
Ice Storm’s base attack power was 60, plus magic power and skill bonuses, giving it an attack power of 194. The Hellhounds’ magic defense was 50 at rank E, so the damage that could pass through would be 123.
The Hellhound’s HP was 300, so it was still healthy. But the reason I shot the ice magic first was to slow them down by lowering their body temperature.
“[Fire Ball]”
I followed it with a 5th class flame AoE attack magic [Fire Ball]. Hellhounds spit flames, but they didn’t possess resistance to fire.
The flame system would cause the status effect to burn, so an opponent who was not resistant to it would be set on fire and take additional damage. With these two shots, the total damage exceeded 250, so what was left was to finish… Huh? There were five of them, but only two remained.
Oh well. I’ll cut the rest of them down with my zanbatou.
[Gyaan]
Could there be individual differences between monsters? Thinking about it, that should be obvious. Unlike in the games, there were people ranging from macho to skinny, and there were differences in their abilities, so from now on, I need to take that into account when I fight.
Well, anyway, let’s leave that for another time….
“…”
The demons in the canyon came close to me because of the loud battle. Starting with a few level 20 equivalent trolls.
“[Ice Storm]”
The opening ice storm was the way to go. Now, time to raise some skills.
I shook my Zanbatou and sent the blood and gore off.
Actually, this action didn’t mean much. It’s just me making it look cool like an old man who wants to look good. Since then, I fought for two hours and hunted more than 50 demons while advancing through the canyon, but the Zanbatou did not have a single chip, not even a cloudy spot on the blade.
Well, I wouldn’t want the blade to chip because it was one of a kind, but this thing was too sturdy, right?
I didn’t take good care of it for two years, but it still looks brand new.
I had a hypothesis, but it was so out of the ordinary that I turned my eyes away from it.
What I noticed was that when I was inadvertently attacked, there was both impact and damage, but not a scratch on the Witch Dress. There was not even a scratch on my Witch Dress.
My Witch Dress was made of cloth. It may be reinforced with metal at key points, but it was basically a cloth-like material. It was surprising to find out that it did not even splinter when subjected to blades, similar to bullet-proof, blade-resistant armor.
It was a game item, so it probably would not break? But my rational mind whispers to me that such a setting would be impossible in the real world.
So, I came up with something even more ridiculous than that.
For example, this Ridil, the blade portion of which, was created using the game’s polygons as a single shape. So, it might have become a “mono-molecule” in the form of a blade, now that it became real….
It would be more than an artifact, an “OOParts”. What about the cloth? Was it possible that the fibers were mono-molecular too? I wondered.
Well, let’s not think too deeply about it. Even if it did not break, the impact and damage would still happen, so there would be no change in the way I fight.
Anyway, I wondered if this was the valley that separated the royal capital from the Arceides frontier territory.
It may be far from the Demon Forest, but the area was filled with magic. I pushed through for two hours fighting, but it felt like I still had a long way to go.
According to my player experience, it was around 1:00 a.m. I could go back to my room immediately by using [Space Transition], but my MP had decreased by about half after all the fighting I had done up to this point.
I was still recovering slowly, but if I had continued to fight at this pace, I would probably need another hour to recover.
After another 30 minutes or so, I left the canyon and entered the deep forest.
What’s that? The magical elements were thick. Did I end up in the Demon Forest? Was it really that close?
The distance from the royal capital to the frontier region should be about 250 km in a straight line. Yet it would take 10 days by horse-drawn carriage to actually go there without going through the valley and the large forest.
I was unable to investigate the extent of the magical forest, so maybe it had reached the outskirts of the Capital.
I didn’t have a choice. If I found someplace better, I would move one of the markings over here.
Even though this was called the Demon Forest, players would still come over because of their night vision, even though the forest was untouched by humans, it still felt fantastic to be near it.
“…Nn?”
My long ears, which were also wasted on performing well, caught what seems to be a scream from far away.
…another strange flag? “I doubt that there would be any decent “people” in such an eerie forest….
I was still somewhat curious, so I turned my feet in that direction.
What if it was just a goblin being attacked by orcs?
After a few minutes of running through the forest at the speed of a sports car, the sight of a village suddenly opened up in front of me. I stopped in my tracks when I saw the dark-skinned inhabitants being attacked by a group of demonic wolves.