Chapter 595: Our Banner Shall Be Carved into Immortality
Author's Preface
I'll get serious soon (I'm already out of energy)
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Let's talk about a certain clan.
The name of that clan was 【Fossil Miners】; exactly as the name implies, they were excavators of fossils... a clan primarily focused on digging up fossils.
Starting with the fossil items excavated from the Diremarsh Waste, they diligently dug for fossils right in the middle of enemy territory, carrying pickaxes, shovels, and swords to challenge the underground, and made many discoveries.
For example, a decayed, giant assault spear.
For example, the skull of a beast with its lower jaw bitten off by something.
For example, a mysterious insect-type monster that awakened and underwent eclosion upon being excavated and exposed to the outside air.
When they encountered it, that monster had the appearance of a "cicada"; yet despite being Level 50, out of the fifteen Fossil Miners players present at the time... with an average level of 80, it took respawning a full two-thirds of them—ten people—before they finally managed to subjugate it.
Just what the heck was this monster? What was presented before the barely surviving players wasn't the name of a dropped item, but... the naming rights for a newly discovered monster.
Undiscovered Monsters. These were monsters whose discovery by players was so rare it could be counted on one hand—monsters waiting to be named.
In this game, most monsters are named by NPCs. However, monsters that have never been discovered or named until now, while rare, are not entirely nonexistent. They had encountered one of them... a mysterious chrysalis that transforms its adult form into something entirely different for each individual depending on its environment.
Once the respawned players made it back, they held a discussion. The topic, of course, was the name of the newly found monster. And so, they named the chrysalis this:
───Even they wouldn't last forever. Some issue might occur causing them to disband, or they might naturally fade away.
But they wanted to continuously show, right until the world ends, that the people gathered here at this exact moment were undeniably the ones who found and defeated this monster.
That is precisely why this monster had continued to sleep deep underground, completely unrevealed even to 【Library】 until this very day... quietly, so that the next person to find it would be caught entirely by surprise.
They were the Fossil Miners, the plural of those who mine fossils.
And this monster was... the possessive case of those who mine fossils.
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『Monster: Unprecedented Discovery!!』
『Subjugation Target: FM's Chrysalis "War Orphan"』
『Combat with an Exordinary Monster will now begin.』
New content just rammed into us via a sneak attack!!
"Guh... Everyone scatter!!"
"piiii!!"
I caught sight of a certain coward letting out a pathetic shriek and fleeing before anyone else, but I can't bring myself to blame her. After all, describing our current situation would be like saying a truck was flying around a cramped space at tremendous speed...!!
"Guh, what the hell is that Super-Weapon Rhinoceros Beetle!?"
Zugan, dogon, repeatedly crashing into the inside of our cramped safehouse, the massive frame charging at us as if explicitly stating "Alright, time to kill you" the moment we entered its line of sight is a beetle-type monster reminiscent of the Quad Beetle we fought back in the nostalgic Thousand-Color Tree Sea Cave. It's not a Caucasus type with many horns, but a two-horned beetle with a heavily developed thoracic horn similar to a Hercules. I wonder if Mom could provide a more detailed explanation?
But its shape is far too dangerous to simply call it a bug. Normal rhinoceros beetles obviously don't grow horns equipped with some kind of projectile mechanism, nor do their front legs evolve into pincer shapes.
And above all, they don't do some mecha-like, robotic transformation into a flight mode and charge at you! What kind of transformation is that?! The forewings retracted and morphed into blades, and the hind wings look like fighter jet wings!!
"Watch out!!"
"my masterpiiiiieeece!!"
Art doesn't perish! Survive, and you can just make it again!!
But what do we do? Our current situation is the best yet the absolute worst. Locking a flying-type monster inside a cramped bug cage is a nice move, but since we're stuck inside it too, it's instantly turned into a steel cage deathmatch. The pros and cons are way too extremely polarized! And more than anything, the sheer fact that it's an Exordinary that spawned in Sigmonia gives me nothing but premonitions of a mortal struggle!!
"l-let's run outside..."
"You realize there are bugs waiting outside, pissed off at the noise, right? What do you want to do?"
"e-either way, I don't wanna dieee!!"
"Then fight back! Prepare for combat!! I'll hold the aggro! Emul and Saina, prioritize survival and provide rear support!! Wim... ah, Sammy-chan-san, I leave her in your care!!"
"i'm being officially informed of my exclusion from the battle force!?"
There's that too, but purely from a Unique Scenario EX standpoint, it'd be a huge problem if you died. A super huge problem. To begin with, I barely have a grasp on this thing's capabilities. All I remember is that its STR is high and it can use poison... I think.
But I don't have the free time to leisurely reminisce about my party members' stats right now. Dammit, this is literally just a bug throwing a massive tantrum inside a bug cage...!!
But who do you think I am? I'm the son of Hizutome Eika, the mad insect-lover who insists on a process of capturing cockroaches alive and observing them before dealing with them! My decade-plus of knowledge and experience from living in a house where lacking insect-resistance meant death is currently tracking the movements of the bug thrashing around in this cage!
"Right there!!"
I'm really glad I deactivated Critical Speed. If I used that in such a cramped space, I'd end up as a stain on the wall before that Chrysalis-whatever could even run me over.
Readying the Final Blade of Aspiration's End With the Hero and the Aspiring Blades of the Hero, I score a critical hit against the blades morphed from the cyborg beetle's forewings—the adult FM's Chrysalis that came flying in on a trajectory like it bounced off the wall and dropped diagonally downward!
However.
"O-Go-Moah!!?"
"Sunraku-san!?"
"Trash damage! Don't worry about it!"
No good, the difference in propulsion is way too vast. If I take it head-on, I'll lose without a shadow of a doubt. Switching to a parry at the very last second was seriously the right call, and getting a critical hit was pure luck.
"This is going to be a pain..."
As long as it's flying, attempting close-quarters attacks goes hand-in-hand with self-destruction. That mass alone is enough of a threat. Or rather, large monsters are generally terrifying just based on their mass; this cyborg beetle is simply no exception.
But the reality that most large monsters don't just stop at mere physical mass is the standard not only in ShanFro, but in action games as a whole.
"Warning: High-density magical energy reaction... I believe it is a bombardment."
"It's seriously fully committing to the cyborg bit...!!"
The next instant, a laser beam fired from its developed upper horn punched straight through the inner wall of our safehouse. Stop itttt! There goes my security deposit and key money!!
Well, I'm living here rent-free without permission from the Scorpion, so security deposits and key money don't mean a damn thing anyway.
Author's Afterword
By the way, regarding the Fossil Miners, there haven't been any particularly troublesome incidents; their member count has grown, and they're happily digging up fossils on the New Continent today as well.
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