CH 75

Chapter 75 – Vicious Gatekeepers

“This way!” (Sol)

We followed Sol and went into one of the many holes. Sol cleared out all of the monsters that awaited us, but that wasn’t the only part of a dungeon.

―Click!

With the first step I took, I felt my foot sink down into something, as if a switch had been pressed.

Then, with a ‘gugugugu’ sound, a huge boulder suddenly loomed up in front of me.

“Ah fuck, what’s with this cliché development!” (Kuzuhara)

“S-S-Saito-san?! W-What should we do?!” (Chake)

“Chake, just stay behind me. I’ll take care of that boulder―” (Kuzuhara)

The moment when I was sizing up the boulder to see if my skill could handle it…

“Puuuuuu!”

Sol swooped down like lightning, plunging towards the massive boulder. She easily pierced through the center of the rock and appeared out of the opposite side, then changed direction and pierced the boulder multiple times in succession.

In the blink of an eye, the boulder became so full of holes that it could no longer support its own weight and crumbled down.

“”……””

Well, I’ll be damned.

I thought to myself… that just one of these guys would be enough to clear the entire dungeon.

Ah, nonono, what am I thinking?! This is a match between me and Ryudou! I need to settle this!

“A-Amazing, Sol! Even if there’s a trap, it doesn’t mean anything to you.” (Kuzuhara)

“Puuu! You can praise me more!” (Sol)

In fact, if there was a trap, Sol would be able to deal with it on her own. She wouldn’t fall into any pits, and she could avoid any of the arrows that were to fly at her. Even obstacles like that boulder just now would be ineffective to Sol.

No, she probably wouldn’t even trigger the trap in the first place. After all, she could fly… A trap might only work if there was an infrared sensor or something like that.

….But there was something that I was curious about.

“..? Your face seems kind of off. Is everything alright, Saito-san?” (Chake)

“….No, it’s nothing.” (Kuzuhara)

I said that, but I was just hiding it from Chake. I didn’t want to worry him unnecessarily. What I was worried about was why we hadn’t seen any of Ryudou’s zombies.

I had heard from Sol that Ryudou’s subordinates had supposedly entered here too, but they had been turned into zombies. But it was concerning to me that we hadn’t seen even a single zombie so far.

Did they all get killed by monsters, or did they get caught up in some traps?

Those were the only reasons I could think of, but the fact that all of them disappeared in such a short period of time didn’t seem right.

….Well, there was no point in thinking about it now. First things first, I had to reach the destination or it would all be meaningless. With that, I decided to hurry onward.

After running for a while, Sol called out, ‘we’re almost there!’. Shortly after, the exit of the hole came into view.

When we passed through the exit, we reached an open space. At the end of the area, there was a red door that was bigger than anything I had ever seen before, and there were two monsters standing guard on both sides.

“According to the information we got, those monsters are the gatekeepers.” (Kuzuhara)

“Right. But… they seem strong.” (Chake)

Chake was right. With a single glance, they gave off such an intimidating aura that I didn’t want to get close. The first thing was their physique. They were roughly five meters tall. One of them was blue, wearing only a loincloth and carrying a gigantic metal club. The other one had the same appearance, but its entire body was dyed bright red. Both of them had savage faces and looked like ogres that often appeared in stories.

According to Sol, they were B-Rank monsters called giant ogres. They also boasted an incredible level of strength among B-Rank monsters, and, sure enough, even Sol couldn’t handle them herself.

“If even Sol can’t manage, then Saito-san…. I’m really just a burden to you.” (Chake)

“Chake, you just stay there. Sol and I will deal with them. Is that alright, Sol?” (Kuzuhara)

“Supporting you is the mission that Sol was given. But…” (Sol)

“Hm? But what? You worried or something? If we take those guys down, it’s over, isn’t it?” (Kuzuhara)

“Mmm…” (Sol)

Sol seemed to have something on her mind.

“Sol thinks that neither of those monsters is the Core Monster.” (Sol)

Ah well, whatever. It wasn’t like this situation was one out of those games. Even if the situation I just described actually happened, it didn’t change the fact that we had to defeat these two gatekeepers first to get to that point.

“Sol, can you take care of that red one over there?” (Kuzuhara)

“Are you sure you can handle it by yourself?” (Sol)

“…Well, I’ll manage somehow. I’m a skill user after all. I won’t die so easily.” (Kuzuhara)

I wanted to get this over with while Komon was still keeping Ryudou and the others occupied. Sol and I readied ourselves and dashed forward, closing in on the giant ogres.

It was Sol who struck first. Sol shot forward like a bullet and pierced beautifully through the belly of the red giant ogre.

“Gugyyaaaaaa?!”

Naturally, the red giant ogre screamed out, its face contorted with intense pain. Sol, perhaps intending to finish it off before it could get into a fighting stance, continued to press the attack, penetrating holes into its body like she did with the boulder earlier.

However―

“Gugyaah!”

Seeming to grasp Sol’s movements, the red giant ogre raised the metal club in its hand as a shield to block Sol’s attack. It seemed that Sol didn’t have the strength to pierce through a metal club, so she immediately distanced herself from the giant ogre and leveled a glare at it.

The red giant ogre appeared to be badly wounded, but the wound shrank and the bleeding stopped.

Regeneration… or maybe not. Perhaps its entire body was just a mass of muscle, and it had contracted its muscles to stop the bleeding.

As expected of a monster that was also B-Rank, just like Sol. It could easily withstand a blow that seemed to be fatal.

Then, the red giant ogre bellowed with rage and swung its metal club, attempting take Sol down.

Sol was small and fast, making her difficult to catch, but each swing of the metal club contained a tremendous amount of force.

Even though it was swinging and missing, the ground was creaking from the wind pressure alone. If the attack touched the wall or ground even slightly, it left a huge amount of destruction in its wake. If a human being were to take a single such blow, they would literally be turned into mincemeat.

Just as the blue giant ogre was about to step in and help the red giant ogre…

“―<Air Blast>!” (Kuzuhara)

I unleashed a shockwave and hit the blue giant ogre square in the face, causing it to flinch momentarily.

However, it didn’t receive much damage, and it calmly turned in my direction and glared at me.

“Where do you think you’re going? Your opponent is me.” (Kuzuhara)