Chương 53: 1-52 Dig in

"Again!" Josef urged Linda.

"Hit it like you mean it!" With a furious roar, the knight brings down her weapon on a frozen bulge right in the middle of the crater they dug out. Her greatsword was marred by obvious wear and tear, but it was still holding on as an impromptu pickaxe.

"Fuck. You!" Her glibness had run out somewhere between the third and fourth time they had to vacate the elemental's head.

"Didn't think you knew such uncouth words," he teased her, eliciting another rage-filled roar from his companion. That was also around the time he figured out that she did indeed hit harder when she got angry. He should have realized that sooner, considering she told them about her Berserker class stone, but stirring her temper had always seemed like a bad idea before. Now that their success depended on the intensity of her hits, though, he was going to poke the bear, so to speak.

He would deal with the fallout once their lives weren't on the line. With four of the walkways around the room now collapsed from the monster's desperate attacks, as it tried to dislodge them from its head, only two more of the life-saving platforms remained around the hexagonal room. Two more than were required, as far as Josef was concerned, because he was looking to end things right then and there.

A point in favor of his estimate was the very bulge Linda was whacking away at, as if it were an ugly ore node that had personally wronged her. In truth, the thing was soft, squishy, and highly regenerative. The elemental's core had taken several devastating swings when they discovered it on their current rodeo, but it healed up every time Linda lifted her weapon for another strike. Even as someone who could heal himself in battle, that speed of regeneration was downright appalling.

Fortunately, putting it on ice worked about as well as it did with everything else, even if the useful staff appeared to be approaching its limits. Shoving mana through it was becoming an increasingly difficult challenge, as if something was blocking the way through. Considering he was likely abusing it in some manner that was not intended by the creator, after it was already bent at an angle, it had held up surprisingly well.

All that remained was to shatter the frozen core in front of them before that creature came up with some new way to ruin their day. Which was unlikely, as ever since they put it on ice, the boss had become remarkably docile. Maybe doing so had forced it into some kind of hibernation to save up on mana? Going by his experiences so far, having your core isolated like this had to be very detrimental to its health. In fact, it was more surprising the rest of its body wasn't rapidly dying off.

Josef could only guess that it was probably all that sewage streaming down towards it, supplying enough mana to prevent it from degenerating, albeit only barely so. Compared to the high amounts making up its own body, the incoming fluid just couldn't compare at all. He could tell, after all, he was a sort of mana connoisseur. Hopefully, no one was ever going to call him out on effectively having consumed sewage.

Soon enough, when the ringing sound of Linda's strikes began to dampen, he once more moved up to the core, jabbed it with the staff and tried to re-freeze it. Pouring in more and more mana, the frost refused to spread, barely reaching beyond the point where metal met flesh.

"Are you even trying?" The knight finally saw her chance at getting him back for the teasing.

"Aren't you a little young for performance issues?" Sputtering, Josef stopped himself from calling her something worse, as he wasn't ready to have his head bitten off by a raging beast. Instead, he struck back by delivering the cold, hard truth.

"It's not working anymore. The thing's pretty much busted." It was bad news for them, because once that ice melted, the boss would likely return to its much more active behaviour. On top of that, if they already struggled to destroy it like this, how were they supposed to do it once it could regenerate itself? Ramming his hands inside to drain mana was easy enough on this fleshy thing, but there was too much for him to remove it all. Great for a refill, but useless if they wanted to kill the creature.

In a similar vein, pulling the core out and moving it away also wasn't possible, because it was too big and heavy for that. Maybe if they had the time to fully excavate it all around and roll it like a boulder, but there was no time for that. At this rate, all of their work was going to be wasted, because once everything thawed back out, the flesh would fill back in eventually. They were one step away from greatness, only for everything to fall apart at the last hurdle. It was infuriating beyond measure.

Linda certainly agreed with him, if the renewed intensity of her attacks was anything to go by. She would have probably made even angrier noises, if doing so was humanly possible. Or was it elvenly? Either way, they needed to adjust to a new plan. Joining her with his own mace, his feeble strength made a laughably small difference in their progress to break the core apart, but at this rate, every bit would count. He also reached out to his familiars, asking for their support, or better ideas if they had any.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. At least Pretzel could share hers, unlike the bunny. Speaking of Dusty, where had that rascal even gone off to? The last time Josef saw him, he was trying to bait strikes from the boss with little success. He hadn't seen his first familiar ever since that first walkway collapsed. Did he fall off and was swallowed while they were all distracted? No, there would have been a notification if the rabbit had died like that again.

He tried with some vehemency to feel for their connection, attempting to get anything from Dusty. What he got in return was a scrambled mess that made no sense whatsoever. Which, considering everything else, meant that the guy was fine. Probably. Still, he would have liked to know where his familiar was and why he wasn't helping them. Josef tried to calm himself, as blaming Dusty wasn't going to change anything about the situation they were in.

If anything, he had to strike harder and think less, even if the increasingly squelchy sounds of the mace's impacts brought little hope for their endeavor. Pretzel had also joined them now, and after some moments of staring down the core, began spitting water bullets at it. It was her only option, really, because she certainly couldn't crush or asphyxiate the thing. Unfortunately, neither was she going to bludgeon it into pieces, because that would require her target to be solid enough to shatter.

There was no world in which, even with both eyes closed, they could still call the core frozen. They were too late.

"Damn it all!" Linda spoke both of their minds as she kicked the thing in frustration, only to wince when she realized that doing so without armor would only hurt herself. There had to be a way to fix this. Maybe he could figure out how to use ice magic by himself after all? What if he evolved his Mana Drain somehow? Could Linda do something more useful than swinging a sword while shouting really hard?

Before his thoughts could spiral further into something even more unflattering, someone poked at his mind, calling for attention.

"What the-" Josef was deeply confused for a moment before he attributed the mess that had reached him to Dusty. Of course his familiar was up to something now, of all times. Just what was the rabbit intending to do now, when it was already too late?

"Dusty wants to do… something, I think." He shared his conclusion with the despondent knight, who looked as if she was about to collapse under the weight of frustration.

"You mean that adorably little bunny? I wasn't aware he could even fight? Not seriously, at least." That was a little rude, but not entirely inaccurate. He was a walking enigma, and impossible to pin down, but he couldn't really cause all that much damage. After seeing what Pretzel could do in a fight, he had mentally categorized the rabbit as more of a utility and support familiar.

Sensing that whatever mess of emotions and intentions was signifying Dusty's presence came closer, he suddenly understood the transmitted urge. He was supposed to get away from the core immediately. Not waiting for any clarification, he grabbed Linda by the arm and pulled her away, moments before the rabbit dropped down from the ceiling of the room. At least that was what his link insisted happened, though his mind had trouble understanding how the entity in front of him was his first familiar.

Sure, the general shape still looked similar enough to a rabbit, but everything about it was wrong. The most obvious difference was Dusty's size, having inflated to a size comparable to an elephant. However, whatever method he used to increase his height, it had left him stretched like some sort of overfilled balloon. His fur was patchy at best, only located on a few sparse spots across the body, as if the amount of it was still the same, only applied to a larger creature.

More disconcerting, though, was his head, which, aside from the massive ears, no longer resembled that of an adorable little herbivore. An oval mouth that was constantly open displayed rows upon rows of serrated teeth, like a murderous cross between a shark and a worm. From it, a black liquid dripped, which was clearly corrosive by how quickly it ate its way through the green flesh beneath them.

"Where in Sylvan's glory did that demon come from!" Linda was down on her ass, scrambling away frantically, and Josef couldn't blame her for it. Something about the view in front of him was deeply unsettling, as if he was looking at a shape that shouldn't even exist. The only reason he wasn't following the knight's example was the feeling coming through their shared link. Inside the garbled mess that came across, there was a distinct note of reassurance.

"J-Just finish this, please. If you can," Josef stammered. In response, the nightmarish bunny licked across the elemental's core, which promptly caused the boss to shudder and scream below them. Whatever that liquid was, it was affecting it badly. Then, as to prove his previous assertions wrong, Dusty opened his mouth for real. That perpetually leaking death hole was nowhere near the extent to which the bunny could open up.

It extended wider than it had any right to be, literally splitting apart not only the rabbit's face but also his throat and stomach. Everything gave way to an impossibly deep hole of darkness and teeth. Then, in a motion that looked almost sloppy, he moved over the core and went down on it, suckling on it as if it were a massive dried raisin. The chamber was drowned in the noise of ripping flesh and gnashing teeth, all while the monster underneath them made some truly pitiable wailing noises.

However, no matter how much it writhed and screeched, it could not subvert its end. Finally, with a sickening crunch, a shudder went through the boss monster as the last of its core was ripped out and swallowed. Feeling how their footing began to liquify rapidly, Josef grabbed Linda and began teleporting both of them to the nearest walkway. With barely a moment to spare, they returned to solid ground, where they could take in the final moments of the boss that had given them such a hard time.

More rapidly than its initial emergence, it was now collapsing into itself, as the sickly green faded from the sewage, returning to the ugly brownish tone it had before. In a rapid swirl, it all flushed down a hole in the center. After not even a minute, nothing was left of the elemental. They only broke out of their shocked expressions when Dusty, back to his normal appearance, turned up behind them. For but a single moment, his frame distorted as he burped up a magic core almost the size of his own body.

"Thanks." It was all Josef had to say for the moment. He meant it, too, but right now he had no mental capacity left to express himself better. When their beating hearts finally began to calm down again, as both Josef and Linda silently digested what had just happened, a loud noise startled them once more. In a shower of red-hot stone, someone had broken into the chamber through the wall.