Chapter 316: A Moving Epic: "The Poor Elephant" (Excerpt from the Final Section Only)
The Cloud Dive Elephant. To a player, it's blindingly obvious, but it has a camouflage trait: it hides from other monsters by cloaking itself in clouds. And that means the bastard has the ability to control clouds to some extent.
With a great roar, its long trunk began sucking in the clouds blanketing the land, and the cloud level—not the water level, mind you—started to drop. I see. The reason those hornets didn't run was that they had this thing up their sleeve, is it? No wonder they were so full of themselves…!
Sunraku: "Emul!"
Emul: "Hai naaah!"
Sunraku: "Rejoice, it's prime time for farming Vorpal Souls…!"
Emul: "Heheheh, I'm gonna show you the power of the evolved me, wa—!!"
With a fshaah!—a sound like a hissing cat—I set Emul onto my head and fixed my gaze on the Cloud Dive Elephant, still chugging clouds through its trunk.
Sunraku: "Emul, we're starting with a feeler. Send a Magic Edge—with all the bonuses stacked—right at that elephant. I'll knock those cocky hornets out of the sky… so don't you dare get thrown off!!"
Emul: "Understood completely, wa—!"
Emul's reply and the Cloud Dive Elephant blasting a curtain of cloud from its trunk happened at practically the same moment. For such a huge body, it pulls some pretty technical attacks, huh? Still, no way a boss is gonna trip over his own minion's smokescreen… and—there!
Sunraku: "Whoa, that actually landed."
A Dominione Hornet that had tried to ambush me using the cloud curtain made contact with a fairly haphazard swing of Duxram, Blade of Aspiration, and went flying. Tch. Figures, not quite a critical hit.
Sunraku: "Better to get out of this cloud for starters…!"
I mean, there's been this heavy thump, thump, thump bearing down on me for a bit now—ah, shit, that's close!!
Sunraku: "Emul!"
Emul: "[Magic Edge]!!"
A split-second after my leap, an enormous mass crushed the spot I'd just occupied. But too bad—what awaited it there wasn't me, but the blade of magical force Emul had fired. It landed a hit on that thick, clearly high-VIT hide, but as expected, a single blow wasn't enough to count as an effective strike.
Sunraku: "That said, with its raw firepower behind it, doesn't look like it did zero damage… Emul, get that one thing ready. This is perfect for a live-fire test."
Emul: "R-Right, wa… but, um, it'll take just a little while, wa…?"
Sunraku: "Not a problem. I'm not so slow that a bunch of small fry and a lumbering oaf can pin me down… you know that, right, Emul?"
Judging from the speed that elephant used to come charging here when called by its boss, its top speed seems pretty damn high, but its acceleration is garbage. Add that giant body to the equation, and there's no way it can start off on light, quick feet. Honestly, monsters that are stupidly huge and still move fast are the weirder ones to begin with—the Cloud Dive Elephant's movements feel way more natural, actually… An ambush I can see coming is just a punching bag. Here we go, materials acquired.
It seems they're putting on airs with actual tactics—the Dominione Hornets, combined with reinforcements flying in from somewhere, had me surrounded, trying to drive me toward the cloud curtain. But these guys are making one big mistake. An encirclement means nothing if you don't have the holding power to keep the target pinned inside!!
Sunraku: "Outta my way, outta my way, move it!"
You damn bugs—what you're missing is the grit to hold your ground. You've got flight capability, sure, but that just means a good hard smack sends you backing off in a hurry. Still, let me give you high marks for your encirclement.
After all…
Sunraku: "Lining up just makes you easier to clean up! Drop your goddamn materials!!"
Sucks for you! An elephant that takes time just to turn around is low priority—today's main objective is your lives. I kept mowing down Dominione Hornets one after another while occasionally dodging the Cloud Dive Elephant's charges.
In this kind of hunting game, the target monster spawning trash-mob escorts is a given. If this were Lycagon or something, I'd wipe the grin off my face, but just messing with a plodding elephant I don't even need to kill? This quest is stupid easy.
Sunraku: "Doesn't look like they're spawning infinitely, but having played their trump card, they don't seem too keen on retreating either…"
Having materials come flying at me is great and all, but if these guys keep spending every last member of their clan on annihilating me, it's just a hassle. I've already racked up a hefty number of materials, and I could disengage anytime, really… but I still haven't finished the main course.
Sunraku: "Emul, you ready?!"
Two pat-pat taps against my head. One tap would've meant no; two taps…
Sunraku: "Alright! Let's hit 'em with one flashy bang and then head home!"
Two taps was the go signal. With my gun turret mounted on my head, I swatted away hornets while securing a position directly in line with the elephant's face.
Sunraku: "Gotta say, this has a real matador vibe… heh, lookie here, flappy-flappy, I'm all fluttery-fluttery~"
As I fluttered the Lapistella Cloak like a bullfighter's cape, even a brain thoroughly conditioned by hornets seemed to understand it was being mocked. With a roar that could only be called a scream, the Cloud Dive Elephant launched a full-on charge.
Whether the species just lacks any concept of consideration or sympathy, or whether it harbored resentment despite being tamed, it plowed through the Dominione Hornets in its path and kicked up the clouds blanketing the ground, charging straight ahead with the sole aim of turning me and Emul into paste.
Sunraku: "Emul, my head's vibrating. Stop trembling."
Emul: "………!?"
As if to say, "How can you be this calm right now!?" Emul hammered my head with rapid slaps—so I flicked her forehead, and the moment of impact drew ever closer. I'm not actually using any MP or casting any magic, but since I had nothing better to do, I struck a pose, holding my palm out in front. Let's see, a finisher line, a finisher line… uhh…
Sunraku: "That momentum… I'll be taking it, if you don't mind…!"
Emul: "[Full Counter Reflection]!!"
Just before the crash, a magical array—half shield, half wall—deployed between us and the Cloud Dive Elephant. The elephant, already at the top speed of its headlong charge—or rather, trunk-long charge—had no way to choose evasion or stopping. It crashed head-on into the magical array.
In that instant, a satisfying crack—one you'd never believe came from hitting a magical array floating in midair—rang out, and the Cloud Dive Elephant's two tusks snapped right off.
Sunraku: "Hya-hoho, ivory get!!"
Emul: "You played it off all cool like you did it yourself, but that was me, wa!?"
Sunraku: "Don't sweat the small stuff!"
Nice, nice! Used against a power fighter, it's this effective, huh? Well, it damn well should be for something that cost in the hundreds of millions. Hell, it was a piece that was gathering dust even at the shop in Rabituza that handles magical tomes…!
The [Full Counter Reflection] I had Emul learn—true to its name, its effect is a counter. It eats MP like crazy and the inability to skip the incantation makes it a bitch to use, but the effect itself? Nothing short of astonishing. To put it in concrete terms: "Negates all attacks up to a limit determined by the caster's total MP, and reflects damage of the same value." Just like Akitsu Akane's Apology Cannon (Dragon Breath) scales off lung capacity, this spell scales off MP—the more you raise it, the more it perfectly defends against any attack and reflects the damage back.
It's a mirror, in every sense. Except the mirror image fires back the exact same attack. Which means, in practical terms, the Cloud Dive Elephant just experienced a head-on collision with a mass equal to its own, at the same speed. And with SLF's excellent physics calculations, the damage from two accelerating objects smashing head-on into each other skyrockets to a level that could turn I-don't-know-how-many copies of me into hamburger meat—!!
Sunraku: "Aaaah-hahahahaha! Excellent, excellent!"
An unexpected windfall, that was, but at the very least, I've accomplished my objective here with flying colors. All that's left is to go home… but it looks like those hornets have zero intention of letting me leave, pride be damned.
Several Dominione Hornets latched onto the Cloud Dive Elephant as it writhed in agony, tusks broken and face smashed in. Then, they drove their rear stingers into its hide… well, no, they didn't pierce it. That's not even scratching the surface—wouldn't even qualify as acupuncture. But for the Cloud Dive Elephant, it seemed the act of "being stung" itself, separate from any actual piercing pain, was agony. It screamed and forced itself upright.
Sunraku: "Tough gig, being a minion."
Worked to death, then discarded. Trying to preach morals to bugs would probably be less pointless than blasting sutras at a horse at top volume, but… I felt just a little pity.
Emul: "Sunraku-san…"
Sunraku: "…Yeah, you're right. Let's put it out of its misery and mourn it (and collect the materials)."
Emul: "No, that's not it, Sunraku-san… L-Look…"
Hm? What is it, what on earth… oh? The Cloud Dive Elephant isn't moving, but the ground is shaking. An earthquake? That's weird. Isn't the epicenter getting closer?
???: "BAOOOOOOOOOON!!"
???: "BARURURURURURUAAAH! RURURURURUOOOOOON!!"
Emul: "Th-The parents?!"
Was it coincidence, or was it fate?
The Cloud Dive Elephant—the Dominione Hornets' trump card, kept trained and hidden. It had screamed, thrashed, and sent ripple after ripple through the sea of clouds in its fight with me. And those cries reached the ears of its parents—elephants whose love for their child held not a single shadow of a flaw, even after being separated.
Enraged, overjoyed—emotions blazing like hellfire—two Cloud Dive Elephants a full size larger than the individual before us entered the battlefield. The situation swiftly took on the shape of a one-sided trampling.
Sunraku: "…Shit, these guys are in the same class as a Crystal Scorpion."
They seem to cool the clouds they take into their bodies, freezing them to create ice bullets, which they then fire using compressed air. And they can even select their ammo type—the ice pebbles loosed from the two intruders' trunks transformed into scatter-shot mid-flight, swatting Dominione Hornets out of the air, roughly but surely.
Heavy armor up close, ranged options to boot, plus they can lay down smokescreens… the hell is this, a hyper-spec tank? And the turret's flexible, to top it off.
The last Dominione Hornet was obliterated by an extra-large ice bullet, and the young Cloud Dive Elephant, its tusks broken, timidly extended its trunk toward its parents. The parents drew the calf close with their own trunks and stroked it with movements overflowing with emotion.
Sunraku: "Bravo… magnificent parental love…"
Emul: "So moving, wa…!"
A reunion of parent and child torn apart—mob characters though they may be, to have witnessed this deeply moving scene, I am truly honored…!!
Well, that aside, since it was us who snapped the calf's tusks, we ended up being chased around for a good ten minutes afterward by a family of elephants in a state of furious aggro (Active).
Good for you! Try not to wander off from your parents again, alright!
Dominione Hornet-Style Training Regimen
- Capture a monster and beat the hell out of it.
- Feed it just enough to keep it alive.
- Repeat the process of beating it before feeding it.
- Starve it for an extended period.
- Around the time it offers up its body for food, beat it half to death.
- Repeat this process over, and over, and over.
- Complete! A servant whose spirit of resistance is thoroughly obliterated!
A bastard bug that teaches its victims, "Don't ever think you can achieve anything by your own will." That said, in the deep sea, there's an anglerfish that just goes "Ah, nice smell… → I like you!" and then it's a straight shot to a life of servitude. So in the end, still not that big of a deal.