However, I wasn’t confident that my throwing ability would be enough to get the perfume to land where I wanted it to. Even though the bottle didn’t need to hit the Cerberus Lion directly, I still needed it to land close to it. Should I summon Rick? I don’t want to waste a tamed monster’s orb, though...
While I was trying to figure out what to do, Sukegawa came over to me.
“Silver-Haired, you keep pacing back and forth holding that bottle. Are you gonna use it or what?”
Pacing back and forth? Uh-oh, did I look like a space cadet?
“I need to throw this item to use it,” I explained.
“Oh, yeah? Let me handle it, then!”
“That would be helpful. Okay, so—”
“Hraaah!”
Before I could explain what I wanted Sukegawa to do with the perfume bottle, he swiped it from my outstretched hand, and in one fluid movement, flung it away.
“Ah!” I said in shock.
“Huh?”
I didn’t even have a chance to stop him!
“The lid was still on!”
“O-Oh, for real?”
The bottle spun as it flew through the air, but the perfume stayed sealed inside. Just as I was thinking this was a failure, the trajectory of the perfume bottle curved like a boomerang and hit Cerberus Lion square on the nose of its center head. I heard the sound of the bottle breaking and then its contents spilled all over its face. Sukegawa’s impulsiveness might actually have an effective outcome. Call it a disaster-turned-advantage?
“Graaawr!”
The Cerberus Lion, its face now drenched in perfume, was pawing at its face like a cat. It clearly looked negatively affected by it.
“That was not what I was expecting, but I think the perfume is doing something?”
“R-Really?”
“Hmm. Maybe.”
“Okay, cool! So it turned out all right in the end!”
Sukegawa gave me a thumbs-up and started laughing as if to brush aside his mistake. He wasn’t sorry at all, was he? However, his sense of relief only lasted for a short moment.
“Grrrrr!”
“Huh? Silver-Haired. Is the lion...looking at me?”
“Sure is.”
“I knew it!”
All three of the Cerberus Lion’s heads were staring in our direction, its eyes contorted with anger. It was mad all right.
“Roooaaarrr!”
“It’s running for us! Silver-Haired! What do we do?!”
“How should I know?!”
Clearly, splashing perfume directly on the lion drew a tremendous amount of its aggro. All I’d meant to do was mess with its sense of smell and annoy it a little...
The Cerberus Lion rushed straight for us—that is, straight for Sukegawa. As soon as we ran in different directions, the boss followed after Sukegawa.
“Aaahhh! No fair, Silver-Haired!”
“Damn it! This is bad! Sukegawa’s in trouble! What should we do?!” I shouted, but I couldn’t keep the relief out of my voice. Sorry, Sukegawa!
“You could say it with a little more urgency! You don’t sound too concerned!”
Hey, if you have time to complain, then maybe you’re not actually in that much danger after all!
“Just keep running!” I yelled.
Still, the fact of the matter was that I couldn’t let Sukegawa die here. I was already barely contributing. How could I look everyone in the eye if I were to blame for reducing our fighting power?!
“Olto! Help!”
“Mm-mmm!”
Olto boldly leaped into the Cerberus Lion’s path.
“Roaaar!”
“Mm-mmm!”
“O-Oltooo!”
Three minutes later, and we had successfully yet narrowly evaded death.
“Sukegawa and I both survived...” I sighed in relief.
Byden used his quick thinking and pulled the boss’s attention to him with a technique that boosted aggro. If it hadn’t been for him, Sukegawa would probably have died. He was a lifesaver.
As for Olto’s attempt to save Sukegawa...
“Mmm...”
“Don’t sweat it, bud. There was nothing you could do. Okay?”
“Mm.”
The Cerberus Lion snapped all three of its heads forward in what looked like a superpowered bite attack, easily getting past Olto by sending him flying back. I was amazed the attack didn’t kill him, but Olto was disappointed about it.
“You’ll save him next time,” I said encouragingly.
“Mm-mm!”
“I’ll die if there’s a next time!” Sukegawa shouted.
In any case, I needed to put more thought into using items from now on. Although it was on Sukegawa for not listening to me explain anything before he threw the perfume bottle.
I only had one other item that I had prepared on my own. And it was...a bomb! Not a crazy bomb like one of Rikyu’s—it didn’t deal much physical damage, but it was a type of bomb that burst and spread its contents around. It might be more accurate to call it a bang snap or a firecracker.
I had made a wooden tube and stuffed it full of powdered gale plants and chili pepper. I then used Engraving (Wind) to ensure that the chili pepper was spread over as wide an area as possible. I got the idea from bear spray. A stimulant was a great way to attack all five of an animal’s sharp senses. This bomb was sure to do the trick and harass the Cerberus Lion! I can’t wait to see what it does!
“Mm?”
“...”
Olto was staring at me in full anticipation, as if he were saying, “Ooh, what are you gonna do next?” Seeing him like that actually calmed me down. I had gotten a little overexcited there.
I caught sight of the Cerberus Lion chasing Murakage in an area further away from me. Murakage had tried to approach the Cerberus Lion from behind, but the lion quickly discovered him. From that, I guessed that the perfume’s effect lasted about three minutes, and the boss’s sense of smell had returned.
“Alas, I failed to emulate KTK!” Murakage lamented.
I could see how frantic he was even from far away. What if he got chased by the boss again? He might really die.
“This might cause some unexpected results...so I won’t use it just yet.”
“Mm?”
Olto watched me quietly put the chili pepper bomb back in my inventory and tilted his head. Sorry, Olto. I’m too scared to use it right now.
While that was going on, Siegfried and Rais had hit upon an effective strategy. They kept a fifteen-meter distance from the Cerberus Lion and were circling around the boss like there was no tomorrow. I assumed the two of them were using an aggro-accumulating skill to keep its attention on them; the Cerberus Lion was locked right onto them. They had been trying to do that this whole time, and only now succeeded.
As they narrowly dodged the balls of fire flying at them at high speeds, they used Provoke and attacked the Cerberus Lion with bows and arrows to keep it targeting them, reducing the number of attacks aimed at the rest of the party. I would think that shooting a bow on horseback would be difficult, but their target was huge. Even arrows shot haphazardly were bound to hit.
I was particularly impressed with Siegfried’s and Rais’s horses, Silver and Redbud. At no point did they appear to be frightened at all. Just because this was a game didn’t mean that monsters and animals acted like robots; that much was clear just by looking at my own monsters. There were times when they became scared or overconfident and messed up. And yet, these two knights’ horses didn’t flinch even when flames shot right past them. They had undeniably survived some pretty violent battles. I supposed it was only natural that the horses of top knights would be just as remarkable as their riders.
Thanks to the knights’ efforts, the rest of the party was now able to fight from a more advantageous position. As we fought, we learned that getting hit by the fireballs didn’t deal serious damage. I myself had gotten hit several times, but my HP was only down twenty percent. And if I had only lost that much, then the other party members must have taken even less damage.
Even though each individual fireball wasn’t that powerful, since there were so many of them, they were difficult to dodge. It seemed like the boss was aiming to slowly and surely exhaust our reserves. Although I didn’t need to switch out any monsters yet, I had used up a lot of healing items.
“Just a little more...” I muttered.
“Mm?”
“Look at the boss’s HP.”
The boss’s HP was nearly down to sixty percent. If things went as Fuka said, then we should expect the boss to change things up again soon. The first stage was monitoring the situation. The second stage was curtain fire to wear us down. What would come next?
As I observed the Cerberus Lion, it came to a halt. Then, it let out a roar.
“ROOOAAAR!”
The roar had a paralysis effect, but we had equipped earplugs before starting the battle, so we were all well protected. We had decided to use them out of caution since the boss was a beast-type monster, and it was a good thing we had.
As if the roar had been a signal, the Cerberus Lion’s behavior changed dramatically. It shifted from only running around spitting out fireballs to also coming at us with close-range attacks. The boss ran up to nearby players and attacked with its forelegs as it simultaneously continued to spit out fireballs around. This situation would have been really bad if even just a few players had been paralyzed by that roar. If our tanks fell, we’d definitely be headed for defeat.
While the lion had ramped up its attacks, it had also become easier for us to hit it. We were now chipping away at each other’s HP even more fiercely than before.
“Take this!”
“Graaawr?”
“Nice! Kurumi managed to push it back! This is our chance!”
“Let’s go!”
The players on the vanguard were fighting a lengthy, fierce battle against the lion, while those of us in the rearguard were still putting all our effort into evading the bullet hell. It was like we were playing two different games.
I kept an eye on Kokuten as I continued to heal and buff, when he suddenly signaled to me with a wave. I looked at the boss’s HP—it was down to fifty percent, which meant it was time to use the items we had prepared ahead of time.
“All right! It’s finally our time to shine! I hope!”
First, I needed to see if these would actually work.
“Voilà, poisoned seafood, odorless version!”
“Humm...”
“Stop looking at it like you want to eat it! You really can’t resist food, can you? If we survive this fight, I’ll feed you as much seafood as you want!”
“Hum?”
“Yeah, I mean it! A man never goes back on his word!”
“Humm!”