Pull it out, stab! Pull it out, stab!
Technomagigelus is strong against magic and weak against attacks from Skills. On top of that, because of the level difference, even a bad damage roll is enough to kill one in a single hit.
But, you know? Yeah...
Sunraku: "HAHAHA! They come with a 'call for allies' command!? It's a feeding frenzyyyyy!!"
Pull it out, stab! Pull it out, stab! The floor is getting absolutely covered in gel, but as soon as my foot touches it, it turns into an item. I'll let that slide as game logic, but once the gel instantly gets bottled, all I have to do is touch the bottle and off it goes to Inventoria.
Sunraku: "Thirty-five...? Tch. If they're trash mobs, the spawn rate should be more like fifty a minute..."
No, wait...
This area is arranged like a maze with container-like obstacles, but the core of a Technomagigelus is an ordinary solid object, so they can't just squeeze through the gaps.
Naturally, they have to follow the passages too... Don't tell me the golems are getting lost in the maze as well...
SPLAT.
Sunraku: "...Oh. They can come from above too."
That's good news. When it comes to three-dimensional movement, that's my specialty. I can't do it right now because Bradion is so damn finicky, though!!
...I can't, anyway.
Sunraku: "Saina."
Saina: "Acknowledged: Composite Transforming Armament 'Makeup Box' activated. Gatling Mode... commencing sweep."
A meteor shower of bullets raced across the steel sky.
The magical projectiles rising from below blasted apart the bodies of the supposedly magic-resistant Technomagigelus with ridiculous ease, exposing their cores and pulverizing them.
Saina: "It is simple physics. A body merely 'shaped' into human form by a mechanical core... need only be blown away."
Sunraku: "And thanks to you, now it's raining gel!!"
Saina: "Intelligence dripping with gel...!!"
Pretty sure that's the R18 kind.
Maybe because their main bodies had been destroyed, the gel coating us from head to toe turned into items one after another as it touched us, and bottles began dropping to the ground with heavy clunks.
We stared at them with expressions that were hard to describe as we continued farther and farther ahead...
...
......
............
Sunraku: "So, we went around cutting down about three hundred golems, old and new, but we'd gotten way too far away, so we came back for now. Here, souvenir."
Araba: "What is this?"
Sunraku: "Beauty gel."
Araba: "What did you actually go there to do!?"
Infinite item farming... I guess.
Sunraku: "Anyway, one thing's clear. Searching for the boss the straightforward way is a waste of time."
Apparently the clan Tottori belongs to specializes in this kind of thing, but unfortunately, this is Leviathan's First Shell Layer—the outermost layer, and therefore the area with the greatest surface area—on a ship bigger than some islands.
Trying to find a boss of unknown size somewhere along the inside of that enormous whale-shaped shell is just way too difficult.
At the very least, it would be reckless for the first player to arrive here... even if I had the maximum possible party size of fifteen.
Sunraku: "Meaning there has to be some kind of hint somewhere... or some intended way to clear this."
Like how defeating the Blockers in Ruluiath weakened Ctarnidd, maybe there's some kind of shortcut built into the stage gimmicks.
And my guess is...
The clue is above us.
Sunraku: "Saina, check the top of that object."
Saina: "Acknowledged."
This is the annoying part of moving as a party. Even if I want to scout ahead, Bradion is way too hard to use.
I mean, judging by that title I somehow picked up, Maximum Speed: Speed Holder, apparently nobody can touch me when it comes to pure speed... but man, it's just too damn specialized.
Saina: "Inspection complete: Nothing in particular was found."
Sunraku: "Got it. Then where were those gel golems coming from...............?"
Saina: "That direction."
I see, I see?
Every single golem that the AI governing this ship flat-out said, "I made these," is coming from one specific direction...
I stared at Isana with my salmon eyes, but Isana just kept smiling away like she was having the time of her life.
Hmm. I'm not that scumbag Pencilgon, so I'm not particularly good at squeezing information out of people...
Sunraku: "This is only a hypothesis, but if you challenge the maze honestly... you can probably minimize the amount of combat."
If you stay in one spot too long, reinforcements apparently drop down from above... but conversely, if you keep running through the maze without stopping, there's a good chance you'll only have to deal with random encounters.
Sunraku: "On the other hand, if you travel along the 'top' of the maze... you'll probably have to fight a ton of enemies, but you can shortcut the maze itself."
There aren't any walls up there, so you can charge straight ahead with a perfect view.
Well, it might be rough on Araba since he doesn't exactly do much flying or jumping... Ah, sorry. Lu-Araba-san. Yes, yes.
Sunraku: "But all that does is change the distance a little. There has to be something else..."
Isana: "It's time for the 'Isana' Weather Report~!"
What the hell was that out of nowhere? Did this piece of junk bug out?
Hearing "weather" in connection with Divine Era stuff made me—and everyone else—tense up a little as the holographic woman who had suddenly appeared spun around and began speaking.
Isana: "Today's forecast for the First Shell Layer calls for 'Gravity Rain' caused by insufficient maintenance! Please exercise caution!!"
Sunraku: "If you already know something's going to happen because of insufficient maintenance, then do the damn maintenance."
Isana: "P-Please exercise caution!"
Yeah, yeah. Forced event. Got it. Sure.
But what the hell is Gravity Rain? Gravity falling down like raindrops doesn't even make any—
SPLAT.
Sunraku: "...Gel rain?"
A Technomagigelus suddenly fell from above, slammed into the floor, and splattered gel everywhere.
Just how fast did that thing fall from...
...fall from?
Sunraku: "...Oh. That's how it works."
So what you're telling me is this?
The gravity control inside Leviathan is malfunctioning because of poor maintenance, so enemies fall from the floor to the ceiling...
...and then fall from the ceiling back down to the floor?
Maybe it's the other way around, but there's one thing I can say for sure.
Sunraku: "EVERYONE, RUUUUUN!!!"
I looked up.
Those shitty raindrop golems—gel with chunks of metal packed inside—came flying in from somewhere, then directly above us their vectors suddenly turned downward—
Araba: "Yeah, I'm probably dead."
Nereis: "Lu-Araba, giving up is bad."
Sunraku: "Saina!"
Saina: "Acknowledged: Commencing transport."
Araba: "Oghh!?"
SPLASH-SPLASH-SPLASH-SPLASH-SPLASH!!!!
A torrential downpour of gel smashed into the places we'd just run through.
Idiots. Homing area attacks are practically synonymous with "they can't hit you if you keep running."
Heh. As long as we keep running and don't get forced into a dead end, there's no way they'll—
Oh.
That's a dead end.
Araba: "Kh... I was able to behold the Divine Beast before my death. I have no regrets...!!"
Sunraku: "Don't just give up on your own, dumbass!!"
Should we shoot them down with Saina's Makeup Box in Gatling Mode?
No. Even if we blow their bodies apart, they won't turn into items unless we destroy their cores.
Gel or not, somehow they've become lethal rain hurtling at us like fastballs. If even one gets through, worst case, it hits me square in the head and kills me.
Dying because you got pelted to death by jelly rain would be the same level of moronic death as cracking your head open on the corner of a block of tofu.
What do we do? Take the gamble and intercept them...?
Wait.
If it isn't maintained, things get sent flying?
What exactly is supposed to be maintained in the first place?
Gravity goes, like... up... down...
Sunraku: "...The floor!?"
What are the classics of any dungeon?
A complicated maze...
and traps that activate... when you step on them...!!
Sunraku: "Saina! Break the floor!!"
Saina: "Why... No. Acknowledged: Form Change: Make Up — Triple-Acceleration Hammer: Impactor... activated."
With a series of heavy mechanical clanks, the Makeup Box transformed through movements whose mechanism I couldn't even begin to understand, becoming a hammer fitted with cylindrical boosters.
Saina raised it overhead.
Saina: "Boosters activated. Commencing demolition."
Saina's slender frame brought the enormous hammer crashing down against the floor.
A deafening impact.
Cracks raced across the metal floor, but instead of breaking—
VWMM. (The sound of part of the floor glowing red.)
???: "Oh."
???: "Nwoah."
???: "Wa—"
Sunraku: "ISANAAAA, YOU BETTER FUCKING REMEMBER THISSSSSSSSSS...!!!"
Apparently, you can fix old-fashioned electronics by smacking them, but doing that to Leviathan’s floor just damages it.
We had stepped onto a section of flooring whose gravity vector had suddenly shifted in a completely abnormal direction.
And just like the gel golems that had been raining down from the sky, our bodies were hurled helplessly into the air without wings...