Arifureta Vol 9 Chapter 7 (2/2)

However, at that moment,

“ROOOOOOOOOOAAAAAR!!!”

“Kh!?”

Hearing the bellowing, majestic roar, a gigantic serpent came to attack from right under Hajime who was in mid-air with its opened mouth.

Maybe because its whole body was clad in magma, neither heat perception nor sign perception noticed it in this place filled with magma. Moreover, the ocean magma itself was filled with magic power so magic power perception also didn’t notice it, so the gigantic Magma Serpent was able to completely make a surprise attack.

However, Hajime twisted his body using his superhuman reflex and was barely able to evade the mouth.

In the place Hajime was before, crunch, the Magma Serpent chomped and pa.s.sed through. Hajime flipped his body in mid-air just like a cat, aimed the muzzles at the pa.s.sing Magma Serpent’s head and fired. The flash with certain killing destructiveness didn’t miss its mark and hit the Magma Serpent’s head, blowing it away.

“What !?”

However, the raised voice was not the Magma Serpent’s death throes, but Hajime’s astonished voice.

Naturally, the cause was the Magma Serpent. After all, the Magma Serpent’s head was certainly hit and burst, but the thing scattered was only magma, none of the inside matter. He had seen demonic beasts cladded in magma in «Guryuu-en Great Volcano», but they were only wearing the magma, and had their own flesh. None was composed of only magma.

Hajime immediately recovered and tried to shoot the other parts of the creature to experiment. Numerous flashes mercilessly penetrated the Magma Serpent’s body, but as he thought, there’s no flesh at all. This Magma Serpent seemed to be composed of only Magma.

Though surprised, Hajime had immobilized the Magma Serpent for now by blowing all over of its body, so he once again jumped towards the middle island using “Aerodynamic”, pa.s.sing by the serpent’s side.

However, the Magma Serpent’s attack hasn’t ended yet. At the moment Hajime pa.s.sed through its side, it suddenly hurled its body towards Hajime even though it had lost its head and parts of its body.

Hajime made the shotsh.e.l.l in his artificial arm burst and barely succeeded to evade using its recoil. And at this time, a chill ran down Hajime’s spine. Following his instinct, Hajime burst out the shotsh.e.l.ls in succession immediately and used “Aerodynamic” to withdraw from there in high speed.

One attack after another, the Magma Serpents came out of the ocean of magma, chasing after Hajime’s track. Those huge mouths crunch, crunch, chomped.

Retreating while rotating in the air, Hajime landed on a nearby foothold. Yue and the girls came to his side. The barrage of blazing ma.s.ses temporarily stopped.

“… Hajime, are you unhurt?”

“Ah, no problem. More importantly, the real things finally appear.”

Yue, who was worried about his safety, touched his arm. Hajime returned her touch, and answered without looking away from the front. Fwuush With each sound, Magma Serpents appeared one after another before Hajime.

“As expected, that middle island is the last stop. Well thee seemth to say defeat us if thou want to pa.s.s.”

“But, the one Hajime-san shot before regenerated, you know? Are they beatable?”

Around 20 Magma Serpents appeared, glaring at Hajime’s party. Even the Magma Serpent that received gunfires from Hajime before had already restored to its former appearance as if nothing had happened.

s.h.i.+a was frowning as she pointed that out. At Raisen Great Dungeon, she was confused by the regenerating knights, but now she was calmly thinking on how to pa.s.s this. It was shown by how her rabbit ears were restlessly moving about. Wryly smiling at s.h.i.+a who became quite courageous, Hajime told them his guess.

“It might be similar to the Vachram from before, having a core, a magic stone, to form the magma body. Though my magic eye cannot specify the location because the obstruction from the magma… there’s nothing else but to destroy the core.”

Everyone nodded at Hajime’s words and they simultaneously attacked the 20 Magma Serpents.

The Magma Serpents rose like the solar flare shot out ma.s.ses of flame from their mouth as they tensed. The twenty attacked from all direction. Normally, one would be swallowed by the numerous ma.s.ses of magma without being able to escape.

“It hath been a long time since this one used this attack! So, taste all of it!”

A huge amount of black magic power appeared before Tio’s thrust her hands out. It then compressed in less than no time, and fired in the next moment. It was the Ryuujin tribe’s Breath.

Thus the black flash, whose dreadful power forced Hajime to defend with all of his might, eliminated all of the Magma Serpents in front of Tio without any trace left. Furthermore, she swung it as if it was a black colored flash blade and annihilated other Magma Serpents.

Immediately, eight Magma Serpents were annihilated, thus Hajime’s party dashed out from the hole of the encirclement.

As expected, by annihilating them without leaving a trace, the magic stone would also be annihilated no matter where the location was, but it was the Great Dungeon’s quality to not make it that easy.

The 12 remaining Magma Serpents instantly crushed the foothold where Hajime’s party were before, falling into the ocean of magma and disappeared, but their numbers went back up to 20 the next time they re-appeared.

“Oi oi, I’ve confirmed the disappearance of the magic stones, you know? Was defeating it not the condition to clear this trial?”

Hajime’s expression distorted from the doubt. Hajime had activated “Light Speed” at the time Tio’s breath was about to reach the Magma Serpent and he confirmed the moment when the magic stone inside Magma Serpent was annihilated by the Breath using his increased kinetic vision.

Hajime came to doubt the condition for conquering this dungeon, and s.h.i.+a raised her voice while pointing at the middle island.

“Hajime-san! Look at that! The wall is s.h.i.+ning!”

“What?”

When he looked at the middle island, it was indeed as s.h.i.+a said. A part of the rockwall shot light as big as a fist. He didn’t notice it up until now, but the orange-colored light was coming from some kind of crystal buried under the wall of rock.

Hajime used “Farsight” to confirm it, but although it was difficult to confirm due to camouflage, he understood a large amount of similar crystals were buried on the rockwall of the middle island in orderly fas.h.i.+on. The middle island was cylindrical, so considering the interval between crystals and the island’s surface area, around 100 crystals were buried. And the crystals that currently shooting out light were eight… the same number of Magma Serpents Tio annihilated before.

“I see… so we need to defeat a hundred of these Magma Serpents to clear it, huh.”

“… In this heat, fighting a hundred of them… it matched the dungeon’s concept.”

Needless to say, having suffered from the heat and surprise attacks, the challengers were driven into the situation where they needed to concentrate the most in the very end; nastiness suitable for a Great Dungeon.

Indeed, even Hajime’s party were quite exhausted, mentally. However, their expressions didn’t show any exhaustion, they were wearing fearless smile because they had found out the method to conquer the dungeon.

They regained their spirit when they came to understand what they must do, and they once again attacked the Magma Serpents. Along with the downpouring ma.s.ses of magma, the Magma Serpents made irregular movements to catch and burn their prey.

Hajime’s party spread out again and respectively began to counterattack.

With dragon wings grown out of her back, Tio floated using the wind she regenerated and used tornado along with vacuum blades to attack, bombarding the serpent. It was a wind element, mid-ranked offensive magic, “Imperial Cannon.”

“This is the ninth! Presently, this one is leading, Master! If this one defeated the most of them then this one wants a lot of rewards (punishments)! Of course, only two of us at night!”

Tio shouted while slas.h.i.+ng the ninth Magma Serpents to pieces. Hajime tried to refuse with an amazed expression, but s.h.i.+a interrupted him.

“Wha-! It’s unfair if it’s only Tio-san! I am also entering this challenge! Hajime-san, one night with me if I win!”

After shouting, s.h.i.+a jumped above a Magma Serpent and swung down Doryukken onto its head from upper-stance. At the moment of impact, ripple of light blue colored magic power spread, next a violent impact was generated. The serpent immediately exploded from the head part until the ocean of magma. Sparkling minerals fluttered from the remains of Magma Serpent. It was the magic stone crushed by the impact from “Magic Shockwave”.

Ma.s.ses of magma were approaching s.h.i.+a, who was still mid-air from killing one of Magma Serpent, from behind. s.h.i.+a used the recoil from Doryukken’s outburst and evaded. However, as if it was aiming for this, a Magma Serpents with its mouth opened come attacking to where s.h.i.+a would fall.

However, s.h.i.+a wasn’t that worried about it, she threw a disk taken out from the holster on her back into the air. It was a disk with diameter of 30 centimeters, and it didn’t fall but floated slightly lower place than s.h.i.+a. s.h.i.+a put her foot on it weightlessly and once again danced in the air.

The disk used the same principle as Cross Bit to float in the air, becoming foothold, and moving according s.h.i.+a’s will by using induction stone. This, coupled with s.h.i.+a’s weight adjustment, made it possible to do a combat like “dancing in the air”.

With its calculation coming off, the Magma Snake pa.s.sed through the empty s.p.a.ce under s.h.i.+a. Transforming Doryukken, s.h.i.+a aimed the muzzle towards the serpent and pulled the trigger. What shot out wasn’t the usual bullet but a slug bullet.

However, it wasn’t a normal slug bullet. It was a bullet created from special ore that Hajime endowed with characteristic of “Magic Shockwave,” thus it would generate shock wave from the supplied magic power at the same time it hit the target. By force alone, it far surpa.s.sed the grenade bullet.

Along with the roar of Doryukken, the fired slug bullet didn’t miss its target while hitting the Magma Serpent from back of its head, thus from its head to its body, the Magma Serpent was swallowed by the regenerated explosion. That impact once again crushed the magic stone which now fluttered as it sparkled in the air.

“Oi, girls. You, don’t just selfishly…”

“… Then, I want one day of date for the two of us.”

Hajime opened his mouth to retort on Tio and s.h.i.+a’s one-sided compet.i.tion, but he was interrupted by Yue who also wanted to partic.i.p.ate in the compet.i.tion of annihilation. Putting aside the things at night, the increasing number of companions decreased their time alone, so Yue seemed to want a one full day of just the two.

Exuding aura of having fun, however, the magic Yue activated was a brutal one. It was her latest favorite, “Thunder Dragon.”

However, due to her being more and more skillful on using it, the “Thunder Dragon” that appeared was numbered seven. At almost the same time, they moved toward their respective targets. Thundering roars rang out. The Magma Serpents who were trying to devour Yue was conversely devoured one after another by the group of Thunder Dragons without even leaving a ma.s.s of magma behind, so their magic stone inside their body had also broken.

Seeing that spectacle, s.h.i.+a said, “As I thought, the most powerful enemy is Yue-san~!” Tio said, “Yue is bugged! Twas absolutely odd!” Both of them made hasty expressions while cursing. They pull out more severe attacks, adding the number of things they annihilated.

“… It’s not like I care. But, they seem to having fun.”

Shrugging his shoulders towards the three enthusiastic girls that made him as the prize of the compet.i.tion, Hajime somewhat given up. Then, without turning around, he rapidly fired Schlag over his shoulder towards the incoming Magma Serpent behind him.

The bullets were fired evenly on the Magma Serpent’s body and the impacts blown the serpent’s body. At the same time, the impacts made the magic stone fluttered in the air. Repelling the ma.s.ses of magma that flew from the previous half body, Hajime pinpoint shot through the falling magic stone right before it fell into the ocean of magma.

The bullet Hajime fired from Schlag was the similar exploding bullet like s.h.i.+a’s. However, because it would be problematic if the bullets were too big, their power didn’t reach slug bullet’s. Of course if he used Schlagen, then it would be possible to bring out that much of a destructive power. However, it was the first time the bullets were used, similar to an experiment, so he only used the two guns.

The normal sized bullet didn’t have the power to blow away the Magma Serpent along with its magic stone, so Hajime now used around 2 shots to blown off the magma armor and sniped the exposed magic stone using Donner’s pinpoint attack. Naturally, the Schlagen was capable of ignoring the magma armor and penetrate through the magic stone, but it had too much penetrative power added that it wasn’t easy to locate the magic stone thus wasn’t suitable for aiming at the magic stone.

Now, another two Magma Serpents were attacking Hajime from his right and left, but he withdrew in high speed using “Aerodynamic” and “Ground Shrinker.” He flipped mid-air and fired Schlag in inverted pose.

BOOOOM!

One explosive sound rang out. However, the fired ma.s.ses of killing intent were four. The Magma Serpents, who were attacking from right and left with tremendous momentum didn’t have any chance to be confused from the suddenly disappearing prey. They were attacked by the impact coming from above thus had its magma bodies dispersed, exposing the core, the magic stone.

At the same time, two flashes of light were fired from Donner and shot through the two magic stone without even one millimeter of error.

If one looked, the crystals regularly buried on the outer circ.u.mference of the rockwall of the middle island mostly emitted light, only eight haven’t. That was done even though not that much time pa.s.sed since the real fight begun.

If Hajime’s party’s guess, where «Guryuu-en Great Volcano»’s concept was for a prolonged battle while having one’s concentration down due to nasty environment, was right, then the expectation of the creator of this trial could be said as completely off the mark because they were Hajime and his party.

Tio’s Breath destroyed more Magma Serpents

— Six left.

s.h.i.+a used a blow from Doryukken and at the same time fired the slug bullet into another Magma Serpent, blasting them.

— Four left.

Two Magma Serpent were trying to do a pincer attack on Yue, ambus.h.i.+ng from below where the ocean of magma. However, above them was “Thunder Dragon” coiling around Yue, obstructing them thus it became a standstill. Following that, the two Magma Serpents were now attacked by four “Thunder Dragons” from both of their sides, and were devoured.

— Two left.

A Magma Serpent was rapidly charging at Hajime while scattering bullet-like ma.s.ses of magma. However, Hajime was swaying like a dancing falling leaf and avoided the ma.s.ses of magma. When he was about to be devoured by the Magma Serpent, he fired Schlag and they pa.s.sed through each other. The serpent blown away while the inertia made the magic stone jumped out which then sniped by Donner and Hajime didn’t even need to look at it.

Finally, the last Magma Serpent was surprise attacking from the ocean of magma below. Hajime flew up using “Aerodynamic” and fired Schlag, towards the interior of the opened mouth of Magma Serpent coming from below.

At the moment of impact, red shockwave scattered the magma. The gap created slightly revealed the magic stone. Hajime poised the Donner in his right hand. When he was about to fire the last attack, he watched Yue and the girl’s satisfied looks.

“This is the end.”

Looking at it in the edge of his vision, Hajime fired the last attack for the sake of conquering «Guryuu-en Great Volcano».

— And at that moment.

FUUUUWIIIIIISHHHHH

A beam poured down from above.

The light looked like divine punishment shot from the heaven, was the light that mortally injured Hajime before. No, it might be far stronger than that. The attack even made the air screamed was fired, aiming at the time of battle where Hajime most wide opened — swallowing Hajime along with the last Magma Serpent.

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