First Dungeon Boss (Part 3)

From the wound of the monster, a glimmering crystal shine surprises Oria.

"A magistone…?" Witnessing the innards of the monster in front of her, the young girl realizes a crucial thing. "W-Wait, can it be…! The information when I appraised it… the system says that this Mollis monster is umm... powered by a strong magistone field. Could it be that crystal in its body is the strong magistone?"

Suddenly, the monster radiates a frail light all over its body as if it's going to change form.

"What's it doing? I don't feel any immediate danger or anything, though…" even so, the young girl took a defensive stance as a precaution.

Finally, Oria notices the change in the monster's flesh. "H-Huh…!"

In her jade eyes, she discovers that the Mega Mollis's body is regenerating. The wide-open wound on its body is closing, reshaping the lost flesh, and ultimately blanketing the large magistone in its body once more.

"It's… closing its wounds… no way! W-What about its HP?" the young maiden shiveringly checked the monster's status.

<Mega Mollis>

HP: 1,000/1,341

MP: 20/75

"N-NO! I can't allow it to recover back to full health! I must stop it!"

In a hurried move, she tries to land a powerful blow with her Argent Slash again, hoping the monster's HP to stop regenerating. But unfortunately, the creepy being unexpectedly counters her art by shooting out all outermost tiny magistones from the surface of its body.

"Aaagh!"

Flurry of magistones showering to all sides like bullets, grazing Oria by surprise. Her arms suffer terribly, for she reflectively used them to protect her face. Her legs, too, faced the same tragedy. Many scratches tear the surface of her skin and clothes like slices of knife. Blood is undoubtedly seeping from her wounds.

Thankfully, her resistance skill, [Pain Alleviation] mitigates her sense of ache slightly. Additionally, the skill also negates any faculty limitations on her body and mind due to the pain. She's not disabled by that powerful attack.

<ORIA ARGENTORA>

HP: 192/704

"Uuuh… My HP is getting too low… that's right. I still have those potions from Faruk. It's time to use them!"

Oria takes one bottle of potion from her pocket. She gets confused as she looked at it, "What am I supposed to do with it…?" the child just realized she had no idea how to use the potion.

"Oria! You may ingest it or apply on your wounds!" Faruk suddenly yelled. "For a spread-out injury like that, it's preferably better to drink the potion."

The little girl looks at Faruk and nods to him in a happy smile. "Thank you for the advice, Faruk! Then, I'll drink it all!"

Without thinking anything further, Oria opens the bottle seal and drinks the entire potion. While so, Faruk just remembers, "(Oh, right… I haven't told her that herb potion is…)

"—Bleargh! It's so bitter!" Oria puked out some of the liquid. "Aah, but I have no other choice. Come on, Oria, you can do it! Hold your breath and… *gulp-gulp-gulp* eeergh…!"

The aftertaste is abysmally bitter. That's not the end of it. Oria just remembers, "Oh, yeah… The potion won't take effect instantly like those purple ones… I'm really in trouble, aren't I?"

Oria readies her wand once again. She puts down the emptied glass bottle on the stone floor gently, and then she checks the monster's status once more.

<Mega Mollis>

HP: 1,341/1,341

MP: 11/75

"Seeing its status now… Aww, the HP is full again! Wait, huh? Its MP is super low now!" Oria noticed. For a short while, she thought about it, then finally realizing, "Ah… I see. It must have used them to recover itself back to full health! If that's the case, I think it won't be able to heal itself anymore! And my status…"

<ORIA ARGENTORA>

HP: 210/704

"Compared to mine… uugh, I must be careful. Just one wrong step will certainly put me on the edge again."

Closing the system screen, Oria readies her wand. The monster in front of her has fully recovered. But somehow, it's not moving yet. Seeing this, Oria decides to attack with a magic.

Pointing her wand forth, she imagines the sewer waters forming a small sphere once more. A dark green water ball has taken form and finally, she launches it at the giant mollusk.

"Aqua Shot!"

Like a bullet shot from a firearm, the water ball hits the monster. But then, Oria recognizes the same rippling effect after it impacted it. She thinks that something is off. "It doesn't really… hurting it?"

She opens the monster's status, and as she expected, the monster isn't receiving too much damage.

<Mega Mollis>

HP: 1,199/1,341

MP: 11/75

"Does it mean water magic barely do any damage to it…? If that's the case…!"

Oria closes the status screen and performs another magic. In her mind, she pictures the same wind frisbee again. Lifting her eyelids, she casts the wind magic.

"Ventus Blow!"

Rolling in the air, the invisible wind chakram successfully slices the stationary mollusk creature, in which Oria immediately checks the status to see the monster's HP.

<Mega Mollis>

HP: 884/1,341

MP: 4/75

"It's not effective, too?" her eyes quickly looked at the monster. She then notices the monster is still radiating light. It literally gives her a revelation of what's going on. "Ah… c-can it be… it's not moving yet because it's still recuperating? Its MP is about to reach zero! Is it also the reason why my magic was ineffective against it?"

Her thoughts were spot on.

Just a few seconds later, the faint light that blanketed the monster is gone. Now, the monster's antennae flash out beacon-like lights. Its four eyes are targeting the young girl.

"Eeep! I-It's going to use that stinky water cannon again?" Oria notices the incoming danger.

…But her Danger Perception skill is telling her otherwise. Somehow, she feels calm. Shortly, the Mollis's flashing lights dissipated.

"Eh…? It's not attacking?"

Her eyes then capture the sight of the monster bending backwards again. It's going to attack just like before. Oria's danger perceptive skills warn her about the impending doom and quickly, she leaps sideways, avoiding the line of attack.

As the monster squashes the platform, it is stunned like before again. While so, Oria assessed the situation.

"That's right… I remember the monster lost some of its MP because of using that smelly water attack. Right now, the monster has zero MP, which means… it can't use anymore of those annoying attacks again!"

With that, Oria grasps the chance in the air and charges at the monster. Stunned, the monster can only surrender to her relentless art and magic attacks. A few moments later, the monster stands again, but barely able to sustain itself. It looks visibly exhausted. Unable to perform any magic, the monster proceeds to use its physical attacks on Oria.

Meanwhile, Faruk assesses the situation from the air.

"(Mega Mollis is a difficult monster to be defeated by a group of people, let alone a single person. Though so far, she's performing well against it on her own. She slowly shows her true nature, both in personality and how she reacts in a critical moment.)"

The Mega Mollis is desperately trying to kill Oria. Unfortunately for the monster, the little girl has already learned all of its attacks and knows how to dodge them properly. To add insult to injury, she's growing faster and more agile every time the monster tries to land an attack on her. Meanwhile, Oria keeps on striking Argent Slash, and her wind and water magics. It is just a matter of time before the monster is slain.

Somehow, Faruk thinks otherwise.

"(She has performed outstandingly well. But still… I wholeheartedly believe she won't be able to kill it. Mega Mollis has a certain mechanism that as long as the core magistone in its body is still intact, it will never die. Meanwhile, Oria is gaining fatigue as time passes.)"

After series of relentless magical attacks from both Oria's [Weapon Witchcraft] art and her magic skills, the monster is turning into a lump of flesh. As Faruk had expected, Oria is growing tired. She breathes pantingly, bending to her knees as she profusely sweating.

"It's… huff… not dead yet…?"

<Mega Mollis>

HP: 24/1,341

MP: 0/75

"(I have calculated the child's limit long before the battle begins. She is tired from trying to get through this dungeon. How many times she's nearly killed? She's poisoned by a monster that shouldn't be here, she was nearly scorched by the steam of her anomalistic fire magic.

Battling against multitude of monsters surely takes the toll on her stamina. And now…)"

By the end of his thoughts, Oria falls to her knees. Her legs can no longer sustain the weight of her body. Fatigue has taken over her.

Looking at her from above, Faruk sighingly thinks, "(I had seen this coming. That dungeon boss was difficult to be defeated by a group of four people, let alone Oria herself. I let her fight it on her own so that she can experience battling tough monsters. Once she's tired, I plan to take care the rest and annihilate the monster.

Oria… She has performed well enough for today's training. She has gained some skills and leveled up a bit. It's more than enough. It is high time for me to eliminate that monster now…)"

As Faruk descends to her like a savior, he is shocked.

"H-Hey… Oria, what are you…?"

The young girl stands up again. Unknown to her master, her years back at the slave camp had built her physique to withstand tiredness. She takes a long, deep breath and let it go calmly. She opens her eyes.

"N-No… not yet. I must slay the monster…! Or else… I won't be able to finish today's training… Faruk won't be happy…!"

"No need to push yourself more than this, child!" Faruk tries to stop her, but she has reactivated her [Weapon Witchcraft] and regained control of her light knife. She charges at the defeated monster for one final strike to put an end to it, once and for all.

"ORIA! Grrr, you little—"

Annoyed by the girl ignoring his words, Faruk immediately prepares a high-level magic. The Observer sphere is emanating the brightest of light. He's willing to outrun her charge to exterminate the monster himself.

Meanwhile, Oria in her run checks her status. Her status shows that her AP still has 40 points left, just enough to land one final Argent Slash at the monster. As she closes the screen, she pulls the knife backwards, ready to deliver the last blow, not knowing an almighty magic is about to be unleashed from behind.

The little girl is tired, but she's forcing herself past her limit. She pushes her foot against the floor to jump towards the giant molluscan being.

"UMPF!" Much to his surprise, Faruk instantly holds his magic from activating. His protégé has entered his line of firing so he halted his magic immediately.

Finally, the young protégé of the Silver Dragon strikes at the Mega Mollis.

"Argent… Slash!"

The silver horizontal slash tears through the monster, but unexpectedly, the monster releases an excruciatingly deafening scream that sends the entire room into quaking chaos as if everything is crumbling apart. In one final desperate act, the monster sacrificed its antennae and eyes to explode.

In the wake of the flesh explosion, a visible force field negated Oria's art just before it hits the core magistone.

"N-No…!"