I looked straight ahead and saw that the once green field had turned red. And it seemed like it was moving. Most likely, there were a lot of monsters there.
“No way... It’s really the Stampede.” Ariya was obviously surprised.
I couldn’t blame her. This was certainly unexpected, and if the townspeople saw this, they would probably fall into despair.
“We don’t have any obligation to protect the town. According to the report I got from my wolves, they’re all heading towards Regin. That seems to be their only objective. So, what we’re gonna do is mess with them a bit, and then retreat when we get bored.” It really didn’t matter to me if Regin got messed up by this attack. “This isn’t a boss fight for us—it’s a bonus stage.”
We got into formation right in front of the horde of monsters. Fenrir and the other wolves grouped up, and Ariya had taken up a battle stance. At the front of the horde were huge bugs. Yuck. All kinds of them too—centipedes, millipedes, spiders, pill bugs...but no insects. Hm. Interesting. They were all bugs that had more than six legs, which made it even grosser.
No Name / Bug Monster (Berserk Worm)
HP: 4367/4367 / MP: 1080/1080 / STR: 741
VIT: 5532 / DEX: 12 / AGI: 213 / INT: 5
Divine Blessing(s): Grace of the Demon King
Titles: None
I really wondered about that Divine Blessing. Did “Demon King” mean Ighnoa, that old guy I knew? Was he the one who had ordered this? No way, right? He’d die if he had. So what was that Divine Blessing about? I searched my memories of our conversation and suddenly remembered something he’d said about his Divine Blessing.
Apparently, it was a Divine Blessing possessed by all who served the demon king, and its power was directly proportional to the demon king’s strength. Oh, please, no. If they all had even a fraction of his strength, that’d spell trouble for me.
The bugs had especially high health. They’d be hard to kill, particularly with how hard their exoskeletons looked. As far as I could tell, all the bugs pretty much had the same stats. Ugh, what a pain.
“Listen up, guys. They have hard exteriors. Extremely hard exteriors. Also, there’s a crap ton of them. It’s not every day that you get to face off against these kinds of enemies,” I said, giving a pep talk to Fenrir, the wolves, and Ariya. “That is to say, this is an extremely important chance to experiment as well as a valuable training experience versus multiple enemies. Fenrir, you take command of the black wolves.”
“Understooood.”
“I doubt any of them are gonna go down too easily. I want you to come up with a strategy and work with the wolves to efficiently take them out.”
“Yes, my masterrr.”
“And, Ariya...”
“Yes?!” The way she answered made it hard to tell if she was excited or surprised.
“You can fight however you want. This’ll train you to fight multiple enemies at once by yourself. A trial by fire’s infinitely better than training with nothing at stake. I want all of you to use this experience well. Got it?”
“Yes!” Everyone replied. It’s kinda fun to role-play some kind of commander.
“I’ll fight too, but I have something else I wanna take care of. It’d be best if you all assumed that I’m not participating in the battle.” The cloud of dust kicked up by the monsters was much closer. “Okay, guys. Go for it!”
At my command, they all went off with their various instructions. This would be a great learning experience for everyone, especially Fenrir, who severely lacked any kind of strategic planning experience. It was the perfect opportunity for him to get some.
“I guess I’d better get to work,” I said as I pulled out my long sword from Shadow Storage.
I’d already used Conqueror on it, but I was hesitant to use Armament Craft on it for fear of changing its composition. Also, I planned to use it during the day, so I didn’t want it to stand out too much.
Single-Edged Long Sword (Creator: Sebastian)
Quality: A / Value: 14500 Dells
A long sword shaped like a nata. Its thick blade and rough appearance give it a distinct look.
I was surprised by its quality. That old guy was pretty good at his job. I picked up the sword and charged into the swarm of bugs.
They were making all kinds of disgusting sounds. Ugh, please stop... And they were all human-sized too. Seriously gross. Their bodies were covered in reddish-black glossy shells that glowed in the moonlight. So mega gross. Plus, they weren’t just oversized versions of bugs; they had tentacle-like things at their mandibles that resembled sea cucumbers, and there was some kind of sticky fluid dripping from those appendages. Gross. Gross. Gross! Gross!!!
At any rate, I decided to try to fight one of the pill-bug-looking monsters. After enough slashing, I was able to determine that the best I could do was leave an indent on their exoskeletons. I wasn’t able to slash through them, nor was I able to land any killing blows, evidenced by the pill bug still writhing around in front of me. Its health had decreased, but it had only taken about five hundred or so damage. This isn’t good.
Suddenly, there was a screech from behind me.
“Oh, shut up!” A centipede jumped at me, but I swatted it away with my long sword.
It got back on its feet as if nothing had happened. Their defenses are annoying. I need more firepower.
“Magic doesn’t work on them!” Ariya called out.