The moment Bron got petrified, Rina pulled us all the way to the back with an enormous force. I struggled due to the sudden jerk, I got on my knees and puked everything in my stomach. I felt dizzy and nauseous. The force with which I got pulled was too much for me to handle, but I could feel it, I was recovering fast.
"What happened to Bron!? Why has she turned into s-stone? Is she alive??" Rina asked, her voice cracked.
"There was..." I panted and pointed ahead towards the floor, "... The dust and grime mostly hidden it, but there was a gap of about two centimeters.... a boundary separating these two areas... Bron stepped over that gap...." I coughed and wiped my mouth of the puke.
"No way, then i-is she d-dead?"
Emy roared, was denying her comrade's death, was she grieving, or was it the declaration of revenge? I didn't know.
I didn't say anything. Tears welled up in Rina's eyes.
I could have avoided it. If I had been more careful, if I had been warier then Bron wouldn't have been caught in that trap. I fell for its distractions, I got fooled by its appearance, it took me too late to realize that even if its appearance was similar to the other monsters on this floor, it was still a boss monster. Even if it was too dim to clearly see that boundary, even if that trap was well hidden, I should have taken more time to observe everything. It was my fault! If I had realized it even one second earlier then.....
"Don't think too about what happened, think about what you'd do now." Rina tapped my shoulder.
'Fuck it, I am such a fool!'
*Baaamm* *Bamm*
Still pale from the shock, I looked through the corner of my eyes, the boss monster was punching the floor.
"Is that motherfucker throwing a fit that it couldn't petrify all of us?" Rina muttered agitatedly.
No, it wasn't punching the floor because it was frustrated. That bastard isn't that simple nor even that intricate. That bastard had something in mind for sure...
"Rina! Be ready to intercept." I said.
"Intercept what?" She looked ahead, her eyes widened. The boss monster was readying to throw the debris that it obtained by busting the stony ground.
"Get behind me, all of you!" She yelled out her lungs.
"We already are!!!" I yelled with the same loudness and searched the bag for one of the mana chalks.
It laughed in its same irritating high-pitched voice as it swung its long thin arms wide and launched the debris at us. A series of high-speed projectiles collided and devastated the walls of the cave-like arena. But none of it reached us. They were either redirected or stopped mid-air, like this massive chunk of debris floating right in front of us.
"I think this is yours!" She yelled as she launched all the debris she could back to the boss monster. It didn't dodge, it just shut its eyes with its palm and took all the barrage of debris on him.
I doubt that it will cause him much damage, seeing that it just took it head-on.
Rina's paused her onslaught. The big-headed and big-bellied boss monster opened its eyes and crouched down to pick up the debris that dropped close to it. It got up with some effort and launched the debris here again. Again, Rina returned it with even more momentum and quantity. The boss monster again closed its eyes and took the barrage on him. A catastrophic game of catch was being played in this dungeon.
I needed to calm down, I trusted Rina with my safety and closed my eye to take a few quick deep breaths.
'Why is it not dodging? A better question, why is it not moving from its place at all and coming here to kill us with its own hands?'
It may be likely as it had so much trouble getting up and crouching down. I could think of multiple reasons from my observations so far, but the most plausible ones were... First, if it gets away from that area then the petrifying trap might not activate again, or it could petrify the boss monster itself. The second would be its oversized stomach. Well, it was having some trouble getting up and crouching down, maybe its just lazy...
Anyway, this game that it is playing with Rina. It isn't just trying to kill us with these simple debris. No, as I had thought earlier, this bastard doesn't think that simply nor even that intricately. All the debris this bastard is launching here is also aimed towards the walls, sooner or later they'll crumble and we'll get crushed if we didn't move ahead and if we moved ahead, we'll get turned into stone statues, that is to say, we are dead either way. This area and this trap, all of it favored the boss monster. No, all of this area is a trap constructed by the boss. It was all intentional.
But there must be a way... and I think I have some idea about that.
Back then, it was just for a moment and not even that clear, but I think I saw one of Emy's feet step over that gap too. But for some reason, she didn't get petrified. The fact that her whole body didn't cross the boundary could be one of the reasons but I have to make sure of it, I have to make sure of everything about that trap. I don't like making the same mistakes twice.
I will ascertain each and every detail about that trap, find a way to bypass it, and then kill that bastard.
It took me a whole minute to finish drawing the summoning circle, after that, one after another, I summoned a dozen of sheep of different sizes and herd them towards the trap. The sheep that I had summoned were the variant that existed on this earth, though there were a few differences between the sheep of this earth and the old earth like these were more muscular and had bigger horns, the main behavior remained the same, they followed each other by heart.
I initially thought to make a contract with one of the sheep and let it guide others to the trap, but I didn't have any contract slot left. That's why Fena took the responsibility to guide the flock in the direction I wanted.
The barrage of debris was still being exchanged, the boss monster was starting to launch even bigger chunks of the shattered floor. Rina, although she was powerful, could only do so much at a time. Now, she even had to protect Fena and the flock of sheep I sent from getting crushed by the debris too.
I observed as Fena sat a couple of steps away from the boundary to guide all the sheep to the boundary. The herd as it ran past the boundary got turned into stone one by one. Yes, one by one.
I saw it. A pattern.