Chapter 487: Resound, Grateful Legacy — A Super-Exciting Battle Where You Shoot Blocks Into Your Opponent's Face
Apparently, the boss is called the Modified Base-Construction Golem "Developer."
Up until a little while ago, I'd been thinking something like "Manufacture" would've been a more fitting name...
But that was before we actually faced it.
Right now, we're being forced to understand exactly what the "land developer" part of "Developer" means whether we like it or not.
Araba: "Sunraku! The terrain is changing...!!"
Sunraku: "I can see that! JUMP!!"
Ejection, solidification, then a rush.
We leap clear of the routes taken by enormous cubes that come racing in along perfectly straight trajectories, trying to fill up the "field" like something out of a block puzzle game.
The next instant, solidified gel cubes closing in from both sides crush the spot we'd just been standing in between them.
Araba: "Sunraku, I know next to nothing about the wisdom of the Divine Era, but... that thing attached to the belly of that giant Golem... Unless I'm mistaken, is this going to keep happening forever as long as the gel inside it doesn't run out?"
Sunraku: "Pretty sharp! That's exactly right!!"
The Modified Base-Construction Golem "Developer."
So just like we'd been told beforehand, it must originally have been the mother unit for "Ants"... the main Golem that coordinated them.
Its bizarre form looks like someone stuck the upper half of an ant onto a honeycomb, and that structure probably doubles as a hangar for its worker ants, the "Ants."
If that were all it had, it'd just be a noncombat unit.
But the two absolutely enormous storage tanks attached to either side of its honeycomb-shaped abdomen have transformed it into an impregnable fortress.
Sunraku: "They look like they were slapped onto the thing by an idiot, but the synergy is way too nasty...!!"
The Aguacate flashes with magical light at the muzzle and fires a magic round.
The bullet flies straight ahead and slams into one of the Technomagigelus closing in on us like zombies in a zombie movie, blasting it backward along with the gel bastard behind it.
Sunraku: "Figures I can't punch through the core in one shot... Saina! Can you hit the tanks?!"
Saina: "Report: Destroying the tanks with the ranged attack methods available from our current coordinates appears impossible."
"Developer" already has two tanks bolted onto an abdomen far too sluggish to begin with, so high-speed movement obviously isn't happening.
But the sheer mass that compensates for that is way too troublesome.
This thing is the mother unit for "Ants" and the producer of the Technomagigelus.
Bopon! Bopon!
With a pair of weirdly deflated sounds, blobs of gel are fired from the "turrets" mounted on the tanks.
Like bubble tea, each blob has little metal core pellets mixed throughout the gel. The moment they slam into the ground, they split and multiply, rising into humanoid forms as they do so before advancing on us as soldiers protecting their mother unit.
If that were all it did—if all we had to deal with was a swarm of Technomagigelus—it wouldn't be that much of a threat.
The problem is that this thing is "Developer," the one that creates terrain.
Several of the Technomagigelus fired from the tanks gather around "Developer."
With oversized forelegs shaped like a mantis's sickles, "Developer" sweeps the Technomagigelus together into a single mass.
The lump of gel twists and warps like modeling clay...
And eventually becomes a gigantic cube of solidified gel containing multiple cores.
Then, naturally, it gets remotely controlled.
It drops straight down from above.
Flies in from the right.
Comes crashing into a wall from the left...
Shit, what game am I even playing right now?!
A puzzle game!?
Don't tell me the damn things explode if I complete a row or something!?
Araba: "What do we do, Sunraku?!"
Sunraku: "Araba, thin out the Technomagigelus! Without their cores they're just gel, so cut down the total amount!!"
Araba: "Leave it to me! Come, Nereis!!"
Nereis: "Mm."
Araba isn't very mobile, but he's the type with high raw firepower. Pair that with Nereis's magical support and mowing through trash mobs is easy.
The instant a monster is defeated, it disappears and turns into an item.
No matter what, we have to keep the gel from reaching "Developer."
Shit.
Was it too hasty to assume that because this is the boss of a trash-mob area, the boss itself would be trash?
Or are those tanks simply the kind of object that can't be destroyed?
And putting that aside, THESE BLOCKS ARE DANGEROUS!!
Sunraku: "Shit... Saina, think we can destroy the gel blocks?"
Saina: "Most attacks are negated by their sheer mass. Destruction itself is possible, but I do not believe it is practical."
Hmm...
Wait.
Think.
The trash mobs around us are only a little over level 30.
Given that it can produce them almost endlessly, whatever level the main body itself might be, this isn't the kind of boss that directly goes wild on you.
The field is square.
That's exactly why the block attacks travel in straight lines.
The Technomagigelus it creates as trash mobs fall into two patterns: the ones that attack us, and the ones "Developer" uses to make blocks.
Destroying the blocks isn't practical, and once they're placed, they stay where they are...
At the very least, touching them doesn't seem to trigger any kind of attack.
In.
That.
Case...
Sunraku: "Like this?"
I move up against the wall and bait out a gel block.
I dodge the falling block, then fire into the wall of the boss arena.
The gravity gimmick activates.
The gel block gets shoved away, sending Technomagigelus flying as it goes before smashing directly into "Developer's" face.
Sunraku: "...Oho?"
That had...
A little too much momentum, didn't it?
Don't tell me these things are objects that automatically get launched at a fixed speed once they enter the gravity gimmick's area of effect?
Sunraku: "Which means..."
Yeah.
This really is a puzzle game, isn't it?
But now that I know that, things get simple!!
Sunraku: "Araba! Saina! Break the floor or a wall and you can send the gel blocks flying!! Just make sure you don't hit an ally, then smash the bastard with them!!"
And if we break a wall...
Something comes along to repair it!
Sorry, "Developer."
I'm taking control of your "Ants"!!
I put a bullet into the "Ants" that comes over to repair the wall I'd shot, steal control of it from its mother unit, and jump aboard.
Sunraku: "Saina, take over!"
Saina: "Acknowledged. What is the next order?"
Sunraku: "Climb directly above it and aim for the head!"
Tag.
I jump off the moving "Ants," Saina somersaults through the air over me, and lands directly in its rider's seat.
We did that entirely on vibes, but damn, you're dexterous...
Sunraku: "Arabaaa!!"
Araba: "What!!"
Sunraku: "I'm about to start blasting blocks all over the place, so dodge them with sheer guts."
Araba: "What the hell!?"
Just a test run.
Triple-stacked block tower, launching now! Let's go, asshole!
Sunraku: "Uno! Dos! Tres! Feuer!!"
Oh?
That ant bastard just countered a gel block flying at itself by generating a brand-new gel block and smashing them together.
Sunraku: "Interesting...! Shall we make this a proper slugfest?!"
Araba: "Wai—I'm the one in danger here! Stop!!"
Sunraku: "Full barrage! Fiiire!!"
Araba: "NOAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"
◆
The gel blocks that had been piling up go flying forward and backward all across the field.
When a gel block comes straight for me, specifically targeting my position, I destroy the floor and send the thing flying straight upward.
Sometimes I forcibly dodge by launching myself instead.
Because of the way the gravity works, the gel blocks end up flying in the same direction, but I turn that to my advantage and use it to adjust my position along the horizontal axis.
When I run out of rounds, I slash a gel block and recover MP.
Looks like even in block form, they still retain their monster classification.
Several gel blocks have already slammed into "Developer," and its movements have clearly slowed down.
I can use these things to replenish my ammo and as ammo themselves...
Nice.
I'm getting into this.
Sunraku: "All right, left sickle destroyed!"
Apparently it can't pull off anything clever like undoing the fusion at the last second.
Not that it matters anymore.
Sunraku: "Araba! Sweep them away...!"
Araba: "You ask the impossible... but I'll make a path! Nereis!!"
Nereis: "Aye... [Kuga Hatou]."
Using Araba's mana, Nereis unleashes that power.
A colossal wave of mana surges into existence from empty space, overwhelming the Technomagigelus and sweeping them from left to right.
With the materials it needs to make gel blocks stripped away, "Developer's" remaining right sickle cuts through nothing but empty air.
Sunraku: "It's a present. Don't be shy—take it."
I fire all four remaining rounds into the wall.
Parting the water from [Kuga Hatou] that now covers the floor, gel blocks go skidding across it at tremendous speed.
Sunraku: "Strike! And now... Saina!"
Saina: "Confirmation: Commencing sniping."
With its face exposed after taking the gel block head-on, a sniper round slams into it from directly above.
This isn't some rifle like the one I bought.
It's a high-powered rifle designed on the assumption that it'll be operated alongside a Tactical Machine Beast.
Like hell a nearly dead trash boss is surviving that.
Sunraku: "Stage clear. Open the gate... Isana."
I have no idea where she actually is, but I point toward the heavens with a grin.
At the same moment, "Developer" collapses with a death-rattle of grinding metal...
And with that, the boss of the First Shell Layer has fallen.