I want to finish this dungeon and the mystery before lunch, so we'll tackle this Aberrant with our full power. Aoi reached the rest/return area first, which is empty, so I interrupt her rest and just summon her and the golems. Then we move on at a fast pace.
Hana turns to our little calamity on legs and curiously asks, "Hey, Aoi, those flames were cool, but why are they blue? I've never heard of a dragon with blue flames."
And my lovely dragon is quite happy to answer, "Blue flames have a higher temperature. I was having difficulty adding a strong 'consume' abstract magical concept to my flames, so I just increased their temperature enough to melt the metal. But the funny thing is that my flames don't burn me anymore, so I did make them fully magical."
"Cool, or rather, hot!" I joke with a smirk and make finger guns, making the girls smile at my dad-ness.
But the frivolous and happy mood soon ends and is instantly replaced by concern as Alissa detects the Aberrant… or rather, just the edge of the monster, as it's simply too large for her to sense all of it, and what she does sense is the size of a damn whale.
Ciel then soberly reminds us, "So, the guild reported that a fellowship of four likely challenged this monster and got wiped out. We should use summons to search for their corpses or any remains."
"Fools," Yunia quietly remarks, sounding disappointed.
"Daredevils," I mournfully add.
"They make a living by risking their lives, and that sometimes leads to them taking too many risks in the hope of growing faster," Alissa remarks with a surprising amount of empathy. Then she gives me a confused look. "What? I was trained to be an advisor so that my adventurer master wouldn't kill himself."
I really wish that I could caress her furry ears right now, but my gauntlets and her helmet are in the way, so I do it to her soul, and her bound tail twitches inside her armor.
--
As we approach the Aberrant, Alissa realizes that it's actually the second boss of the flower path, a flytrap hidden under a few centimetri of soil. It's just that it's massive, and it's connected to a huge root, which snakes out of Alissa's [Sense Presence] range. I don't like that we can't see the whole monster, so I believe that it's best we wake it up before we actually engage it.
"I agree with your idea," Alissa immediately states, as she was reading my mind, literally.
"Doesn't hurt to try," Yunia follows up, as she was also literally reading my mind.
So I just summon an earth-Lina and a nature-Yunia, then order them to fuck up the flytrap.
The two elementals use their control over their respective elements to pierce the mouth of the flytrap. If this was the boss of the flower path, then that would've been a grievous wound, but instead, the root under the flytrap bursts out of the ground and slams itself onto the elementals.
Earth-Lina is buried under it but survives while nature-Yunia manages to dodge the thick root. The fly trap at its end is completely destroyed, as it wasn't made to be used like this, but the thick root simply stops after this one attack.
Then the earth begins to tremble, and a mountain appears far ahead of us.
We see a huge, castle-sized bulb emerge from the ground. Then it hits the low ceiling of the dungeon and actually fucking cracks it, making the whole floor tremble. The bulb is a dark brown as if it's the biggest onion that there ever was, but then we see the innumerable thick roots connected to its bottom, which are lifting it up. And these roots are just like the one that slammed onto earth-Lina.
"Okay, what the fuck?" I calmly question the absurdity of this monster.
Then the Onion partially unpeels itself, revealing an ugly, dirt-covered, baby-like face with bulging eyes.
Oh, no.
I open a [Gate] in front of me back to the castle, and Alissa immediately crosses through it. Then everyone's vision darkens as a mind-blowing screech ruptures our eardrums.
"REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE," the mandrake-like Aberrant lets out its shrill cry.
Alissa takes control of me and summons a number of light-Ciels and wind-Alissas. The Ciels [Heal] our ears while the Alissas make us float and create a vacuum around us, stopping our bones from being shaken out of our bodies from the vibration caused by the Aberrant's voice.
Shit, isn't there some sound-protection enchantment we could use?
"I could… add a function to the [Wind Armor] blessing to create a sound, uh… dampening barrier, but it would… continuously consume our MP to fuel it," Lina slowly remarks through [Bind] as she recovers from the pain.
The Onion Mandrake continues to screech for about ten seconds, then its voice starts to die down.
Doesn't hurt to have the function since it seems that Big Onion won't be constantly screaming the whole fight.
"Alright," she replies with an internal nod.
Once the Onion stops, the elementals lower us onto the ground. Then I open a [Gate] and send Lina back to the castle while Alissa returns to us.
"Thanks for saving my ears," my lovely foxy wife warmly states. Then she takes off both our helmets to give me a kiss on the lips, but she immediately puts them back on for safety.
"We all went deaf from that, so you wouldn't suffer more than we did," Roxanne whines with a pout.
And Alissa gives her an apologetic smile. "Sorry. But still, I'm thankful that I was spared."
"Hmph…" the unhappy succubus grumbles one last time, but then she drops it completely.
"How would other Lords deal with this Aberrant?" I question Yunia.
"Call the Lordsguard and possibly even the Expeditionary Division, then start a siege to take this thing down," she calmly answers.
"There's too much risk of others dying," I remark as I glance at the Companion girls, and I just know that they're smiling under their helmets. I really don't want to call my men when it's possible for us to deal with it ourselves.
Not to mention that the siege could take days… and I suddenly get a faint feeling of urgency telling me that I wouldn't have the time to see the siege through. I recognize that this feeling is "foreign," which means it's definitely a sign from the Gods, but we don't have time to ponder upon its meaning.
"There's nobody around here, so I'll pull out Patrono and carve my way through its ugly face," I boldly state.
"No, Hana will carve her way through its ugly face," Alissa immediately stops me, and I frown at her party-pooping.
"Hell, yeah! Gimme that sword!" the resident barbarian exclaims and extends her hand toward me.
I pout, which is hidden under my helmet, then [Equip] Patrono and give it to her.
"Love you! Bye!" she shouts as she summons her wings and flies off towards Big Onion.
I unsummon the elementals, then summon a few Hollys and Shads to keep an eye on her and also to search for any remains of the missing fellowship, but considering how strong that root was, I have little hope that there's anything left of them.
"Can I eat the monster?" Aoi quietly asks, starting to get hungry due to all the references to onions. She can't eat metal, so all she's had to eat were the Flower Dancer snacks between the bosses.
I hum thoughtfully, "Sure? Just let Hana attack it first so that we know what we're dealing with."
"Yay," she childishly cheers, actually attempting to sound cute, but she mostly just sounds silly due to her deep, double, draconic voice.
Hana approaches the mountainous bulb like a rocket, and Patrono's shine attracts the monster's attention. Its ugly mug slooowly turns to her, then it makes the angriest grimace that an ugly baby could ever make.
Six of its huge roots shoot towards her to smack her out of the sky, but she just grins fearsomely, accepting the challenge head-on. She un[Equip]s her armor, covers her body with her scales, then prepares the Heavenly Weapon for a slice.
The first root comes in, and she swings Patrono as she activates the [Extend] enchantment on it, splitting the root into two.
RULES OF NATURE!
But then a bunch of sticky sap spurts out of the wound and covers her.
She closes her eyes and just flies through it, now using my summons as her eyes. She slices two more roots, but then the sticky sap starts to quickly harden, binding both her movements and the flapping of her wings. This also blocks her airways, so we all tense up in worry.
But there's no time to think. The fourth root arrives, and now she can barely move her arms fast enough to slice it up. She's also slowed down, which allows the rest of the root to hit her, swallowing her up in the open wound.
FUCK!
She [Equip]s her armor again, intending to use [Blink], but it simply doesn't work…
Desperation sinks in, and I immediately summon her, but I get a weird sensation, a rubbery "resistance" that pulls back on the "string" of Hana's [Bind] within my soul space.
Everyone immediately shoots forward at full speed to save her while I pull on that godsdamn string as hard as I can. I start to overcome the "resistance" with sheer force of will, but then I feel my MP drain down the thread.
There's enough mana in the air to use [Redirect Mana], so I just give the thread as much as it wants.
Suddenly, the thread stops resisting, and a glowing ball appears before me in the air. Then it takes the shape of Hana, but she's still completely covered in a thick layer of transparent sap. And she promptly begins to fall down as she's unable to move.
I reach out with [Telekinesis] and grab her, then start to lower her down as we spam [Clean] on her face, trying to free her face so that she can breathe. She tries to un[Equip] her armor, but the same "resistance" as before makes the spell fail until she feeds it a ton of mana.
Alissa then pulls out a dagger and starts to cut at the sap to open a hole so that Hana can open her mouth.
"I've got something for that!" Roxanne exclaims through [Bind] and pulls out a flask of acid.
I hesitate for a second in fear of what Roxanne has planned, but Alissa is having difficulty cutting it, so I allow Roxanne to do what she can.
We quickly land, and Hana's immobile body is lowered down, then Roxanne starts dripping the acid over her mouth. The liquid creates a loud, sizzling sound with every drop as it melts the hardened sap and releases a very pungent smell of vinegar.
But Roxanne quickly succeeds in opening a hole for Hana to breathe through.
Patrono is still stuck out there, so I summon it using [Equip], and I feel the same "resistance" as with Hana. The sap can't stick to the blade, but it can stick to the handle, and I'm forced to use four times the usual MP to summon the Heavenly Weapon.
"Use Patrono to cut the sap," Alissa suggests, and though I have some reservations about using such a dangerous weapon on my wife, the situation calls for it.
But first, let's temporarily return to the castle since it's safer there.
--
After a good five minutes of cutting, melting, burning, and ripping the sap off of Hana's body, she recovers her full range of movement. We had to shave off all of her hair and her eyebrows, but after a round of [Regeneration], it grew back as good as new. Her skin is itchy and irritated from the repeated [Clean]s it took to remove the sap, but that'll subside in a few hours.
Her armor was easier to clean since we didn't have to be as gentle, though we still took care not to damage it since that would irritate Lina.
And now that I have a good look at it, this sap is just like silicon glue. It's transparent and rubbery but very firm, and it sticks to things like nothing I've ever seen.
"I could study it," Roxanne remarks as she takes a look at the chunks of sap with an enchanted lens. "It seemingly has only very simple mana signatures in it, so, if we find out what it's made of, I could replicate it with relative ease."
I scholarly add, "It's likely made of silicon, but I know very little else. Silicon glue is a complex compound, and I have no idea how it's made."
She shrugs. "Well, doesn't hurt to try."
I hum in agreement and nod, but that will have to be left for later.
The fact that both [Blink] and the summon through [Bind] were blocked is worrying, but we immediately understand why it happened. Any teleportation spell detects anything that's "attached" to the target and takes it with them. Otherwise, your clothes would always be left behind.
Hana was "attached" to the whole damn Aberrant due to the sticky sap, but there was no way that [Blink] could teleport such a massive monster, which is why the spell failed. [Bind]'s summon tried the same thing, but when it couldn't, it seemingly tried to "sever" the sap, and that's why it needed a lot of mana. And [Equip]'s summon is the same as [Bind]'s.
But now we need to answer the most important question.
"So, how do we defeat that Aberrant?" I begin the Ryder Family Meeting.
"I could just keep blowing it to bits," Roxanne casually suggests.
"And likely flood the dungeon floor with that sap," Yunia rejects.
"Well, maybe just the brain, then?" the pyromaniac succubus argues.
"To gather enough mana for that would take a while, yes?" I soberly question, and she nods. "Then we'll need to keep it distracted."
"The Field Gun that obliterated Reinhold," Alissa eagerly suggests.
And I immediately support her idea.
"We don't have a lot of shots for that one," Lina wisely cautions while enchanting our armor.
"We can make more," I retort, then smile as I turn to the girls. If everyone helps, we can organize a production line and quickly manufacture a whole batch of them.
--
The whole set of eight Ryder Special 120mm M1 Field Guns will be used for this battle. We now have a wide variety of shells to test, and this fucking Onion Mandrake will be our test subject.
The shell we used to evaporate Reinhold was full of gems and random enchantments that activate upon contact, but now, we've properly distributed them in a logical way. We'll test each type of shell a few times and take notes of the damage inflicted to find out which is better at what.
With the help of more Companions to man the guns and observe the mountain, the Lordsguard to evacuate the dungeon floor of adventurers, and the court mages to provide everyone with escape [Gate]s and personal wind elementals for vacuum shields, we surround the Aberrant with our Field Guns, then we begin the experiment.
I sip my not-earl-gray as I amusedly watch the big-O screech its non-existent lungs out from the comfort of my seat floating above the mini High Trees, yet not a single sound passes through the vacuum shield surrounding the wives and me. The monster's ugly face is warped in the most hateful expression it can make, but this sight is so sweet to me that I put less sugar in my tea so that I don't get sick of it.
As for the shells, [Wind Magic] pairs well with shrapnel shells and air burst; [Fire Magic] work best with incendiary rounds; Roxanne's Draconic Climax is the only material with enough power to be used for shaped charges; [Earth Magic] can be used for excellent frag shells; [Water Magic] is… actually doing more damage to soft flesh than the other explosive enchantments, but that isn't that surprising considering that mixing [Water Magic] and [Fire Magic] together is exactly what Roxanne's [Explosion] does by creating a steam explosion directly inside the target's body that rips it apart.
And with Lina's [Sound Barrier] enchantment, nobody needs to hear a single sound as the rounds fly and the Onion screeches in rage and pain.
I indulge in sadistic pleasure for a while, but the human holds back the reins on the mean dragon. It's part of my personal philosophy to not enjoy inflicting pain on monsters, which is especially relevant now that it's considered the Sin of Sadistic Torture, so this is as far as I'll go for now.
After we've tested all the different rounds and analyzed the notes, we choose the [Explosion] imitation, as it does the most raw damage to the fleshy Onion Mandrake. The other rounds are simply less useful in this situation, even the Draconic Climax one, since the target isn't armored; it's just big.
So we change our formation and line up all the Field Guns, then aim them at the Onion's forehead. But I'm not one to hold back on the matter of neutralizing a threat, so we'll follow Roxanne's plan, and before we begin the bombardment, the girls and I make a diversion to give the Field Guns more time to shoot.
Roxanne mounts Aoi, and we strap a large Fire-attuned gem and a Water-attuned gem to my little dragon to boost Roxanne's power, then the succubus begins gathering all of her mana for one big [Explosion]. This will attract the Aberrant's attention, so Aoi will fly around while the rest of us deal with the roots.
We equip our Ramodia armor set, giving us great control over nature, then each of us grows our own huge roots to wrestle with the monster's. Our enemy has more roots than we do, but theirs lack in power and finesse, whereas I can also control Patrono from range to slice up everything in its path.
The battle is messy, though, as the roots entangle and knot each other like a messy worm orgy. This is fine, as we're just buying time for Roxanne to gather her mana.
Once the monster's roots are tied up tightly enough, we abandon our roots and grow more, then repeat. To the monster's credit, it doesn't fall for the same trap twice and begins to ignore us as it focuses solely on Roxanne. Then its ugly baby face begins to warp in impotent anger, so everyone activates their [Sound Barrier], and it screams into the void, for there's nobody that can hear it.
"REEEEEEEEEEEE-…!"
I give the signal for the Field Guns to open fire, and the Aberrant's forehead is blown off, shutting it up prematurely. But the sudden attack has left it confused, and we don't waste this opportunity, tieing up every root that we can with our own.
The Companions manning the Guns diligently reload the over-engineered beasts in five seconds flat, then fire again.
"GAAAAAH…!" it screeches in pain. The wounds we inflicted before can't compare to the focused firepower of eight Field Guns loaded with the appropriate ammo, and now the Aberrant is feeling the true power of the Ryder Royal Family.
It attempts to heal itself and close the deepening wound in its forehead, but its regeneration is far too slow in comparison to the reload speed of our loyal Companions.
So the intelligent Aberrant turns towards the source of the pain and redirects all of its roots towards the Guns. But we've planned for that, so everyone retreats through the [Gate]s and relocates to the second firing zone. The monster isn't very good at detection, so our Guns won't be attacked until they open fire again.
Roxanne even uses [Redirect Mana] to refill her MP pool again for a real finisher of an [Explosion], so the Aberrant immediately targets her again, and the giant worm wrestling-orgy resumes.
But then the Field Guns open fire, and the Onion makes such a frustrated face that we actually find it funny. We're just playing around with it, as it's completely unable to deal any damage to us even though it's a fucking massive being.
The ugly baby suddenly makes a new expression, as if it's constipated, and everyone goes on high alert. The unknown is our biggest enemy here.
And it pays off to be careful, for the Onion suddenly exhales from its mouth a big cloud of yellow pollen that rings alarm bells in Ciel's and Yunia's minds. We're too spread out for me to protect everyone with Wind-Alissas, and the cloud is blocking the Field Guns' line of sight to their target. It also isn't easy to accurately hit the same spot without visual confirmation, and even Roxanne can't properly aim her [Explosion] without seeing her target.
If the girls and I used [Ritualism] to link our magic, then maybe we could control that cloud with [Wind Magic].
But that's an idea for another time.
Alissa will join the Field Guns to guide them with her [Sense Presence] while the girls and I will stick to Roxanne and Aoi so that one wind-Alissa can protect us all from the cloud while Yunia guides our tactical nuke launcher.
This is the Aberrant's last-ditch effort, a desperate attempt to keep us away so that it can regenerate, but it only slows us down for a minute.
We, Ryders, are simply too mighty.
The bombardment continues, then Roxanne's nuke finishes charging.
"End it," I calmly order.
And the dungeon trembles as the biggest [Explosion] ever is unleashed directly inside the Onion's brain.
--
--
Hall of Fame of Patrons
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