Chapter 61.2

61 Part 2

He readied his daggers and quickly approached the monster.

Rhea began to shoot her potatoes from his back.

Her attacks did not miss, however, the potatoes were repelled by the monster’s body.

Rhea’s throwing ability exceeds her own level thanks to the influence of her Divine Protection.

However, not even that seemed to be enough to damage the boss.

Since the spoon worm’s body had a high resistance to blunt attacks, it received no damage.

Still, its body was pretty shaken by Rhea’s attacks.

When the potato bullets hit its body, the boss set its sights on Haruki.

However, since its body was so huge, its movements were very sluggish.

Haruki was easily able to dodge it.

Haruki delved deep into his own consciousness.

He was in a state of deep concentration.

At that moment, a light flashed in front of him.

Haruki selected the ball of light as he quickly got behind the boss’ back.

He was able to see several points where the light flashed but never disappeared.

He drove his dagger into those spots.

“Poooooohhhhhhh!!”

The boss roared.

It also bent its body several times as a reaction.

While dodging the boss’ erratic movements, Haruki cut the monster into two, then into three parts.

“So soft…”

It offered little resistance.

The ball of light where Haruki made his cuts was a visualization of the monster’s weak spots, thanks to his newly acquired skill.

–That is, “Weakness Exploit”.

Just by hitting those weak spots, the blade can cut through flesh without any resistance.

Though when he cut through the Lizardman’s tail, he did feel a bit of resistance.

“This might need less skill than before.”

Of course, skills that allow one to exploit a monster’s weakness were important.

However, when attacking while using Weakness Exploit, being able to match the target’s movements was more important than skills.

Haruki was able to engrave the positions of each weak spot in his mind.

He was also able to memorize his opponent’s movements to the point where he can use that to predict their movements.

For Haruki, it wasn’t difficult to match the monsters’ weak spots.

All he needed to do was to observe, memorize, assume, and then strike.

If one could cut down a monster with that alone, then there would be little need for specialized dagger skills.

If he wanted to raise those skills in the future, it might be better not to rely on Weakness Exploit too much.

“Karaboshi…”

Holding her own jaw in astonishment, Karen approached him from behind.

“How… How can you cut through a 1-meter-wide body with a dagger that is only 40 centimeters long? Was that some sort of Wind-based skill or anything like that?”

“Oh, not really. That was just a normal attack. The principle behind it is the same as when cutting bamboo branches in half.”

“A normal attack…”

The weak spots Haruki aimed for could be seen as gaps between fibers, so to speak.

By passing a blade through those exact spots, the bonds between the fibers can be undone.

If you hit the tip of a bamboo branch vertically with a machete, it will crack all the way down through the middle, splitting in half.

That was more or less the same phenomenon that Haruki envisioned.

However, it wasn’t clear if that principle was correct or not.

Since he had instantly raised his Divine Protection with the Skill Board, Haruki had yet to fully master his skills.

He could handle that power.

However, it didn’t feel like it was his power at all.

Haruki wouldn’t normally notice this, because up until that point, he would only raise one of his stats at a time.

But when he fought against that Lizardman, he had no choice.

Now he realized that allocating more than two points at once could cause him to feel separated from reality.

“But what is normal, anyway?”

Still unfamiliar with his own power, Haruki clenched and opened his fist. Karen’s face stiffened at Haruki’s somewhat philosophical statement.

After writhing for almost an eternity, the boss was finally dead.

The floor flashed, and a staircase appeared under the big tree.

“Ooh…”

Haruki’s eyes glittered as he saw the stairs appear.

He was trembling with anticipation out of what would be waiting for them on the next floor.

His body was heating up.

“Alright, let’s go!”

“Yeah!”

Feeling relieved after knowing she was free from the spoon worms’ curse, Karen followed Haruki, who was very excited about what kind of adventure awaited them from now on.

＊　＊　＊　＊　＊　＊　＊　＊

The 11th floor looked almost the same as the 10th.

However, Haruki could feel a nasty atmosphere clinging onto him as soon as he stepped into the 11th floor.

“… We’ve been spotted.”

He used his Detection to expand his senses, but couldn’t feel any monsters nearby.

Looking at the distance, he could see some grass moving around.

Was that distance 1 kilometer away?

The monsters had noticed Haruki and Karen from 1 kilometer away.

It seemed that the monsters on this floor had exceptionally developed perception skills.

— They can see us from so far away!

— What a wonderful place!

He wanted to say hello to each of these monsters.

Haruki took a deep breath, excited to see these monsters.

Then, after somehow calming himself down, he activated the door’s gate while on the lookout for monsters.

Immediately after that he started walking, looking for monsters.

Then, a monster appeared in front of Haruki, approaching with a proud gait.

“Oh, a covert type?”

He was half-expecting the monster to be similar to him.

But he couldn’t help feeling slightly disappointed.

What appeared in front of him was a Chacha, a half-bear, half-man monster.

“Chacha” is an Ainu word for “gramps”.

The monster was named like that because in Ainu folklore, bears were treated in the same endearing way one would treat an old man nowadays.

It had a cute name, but it would be a bad idea to underestimate it.

Brown bears are the most powerful land creatures in all of Japan.

Their sharp claws can easily cut through an oil steel drum, and a single slap across a human’s face is strong enough to snap their neck.

They can run as fast as 50 kilometers per hour, and have a lot of stamina.

They can catch their prey’s scent better than a dog, and can chase it relentlessly across long distances.

Their tough fur and a thick layer of fat under their skin make them very resistant to attacks.

Even bullets won’t do much damage to them unless they hit their vitals.

The opponent in front of Haruki was a half-bear, half-man monster, as powerful as a brown bear.

Its name, “Chacha”, might sound cute, but Haruki didn’t let his guard down.

Just as the Chacha approached, Haruki readied his daggers and got closer to it.

Then, his blade flashed.

A dagger crossed paths with a bear’s claw.