Chapter 648: Ivory-san Loves Breeding

"What is that weapon!?"

"It's like a boss weapon you can craft on the Fourth Layer if you get the license from the Fifth Shell Layer of Leviathan."

"Wait, is it strong...?"

"Probably strong, but the disposable magazines cost extra."

"How much do they cost?"

"I could only afford six of them, including the price of the gun itself. But even if I saved up money and bought a hundred magazines, it's not like I can just fire endlessly."

One shot of the spear warhead gave 10%. In other words, if I used up five magazines, that would happen. Considering the charge time, it seemed like something I could only use during fairly long battles, but still...

Well then, brushing off the barrage of questions, we arrived at the Fourth Layer. Some players had been left behind on the lower layers by those dangerous greats, but there were also some who stayed back voluntarily to farm materials, so all I could do was wish them luck in their endeavors. Well, if push comes to shove, they always had the option of using the guys who had permanently settled in the Second Layer as meat shields.

『On this layer, we will test your survivability.』

"Are you saying you didn't see enough of it on the previous layer?"

"Well, to be fair, that was definitely survivability too..."

"It's a forest!!!"

"Well, you're certainly not wrong about that, Akitsu Akane."

Because a significant number of players dropped out on the Second and Third Layers, the number of people here is... oh, exactly fifteen. The maximum limit for a single party. The Professor and Bansai-shi had also casually survived. Well, they're rear support, so if they had been wiped out, we wouldn't have been able to defeat Maxwell-kun... Bansai-shi's appearance is really deceptive, isn't it?

"Hm, do you need healing?"

"Nah, because of my Scars, any full-body healing gets repelled. I'm fine since only targeted part-healing or potions work on me."

"Then I'll give you this."

I received a Recovery Potion. I can't win... I can't win against his capacity as a human being...!!

『There is only one condition to clear this layer. You must slip past the vigilance of the roaming obstruction creatures and bring 'this' item, which exists somewhere on the field, to me.』

Saying that, what Ivory displayed was... what the heck is this, a bamboo shoot?

『I have named it the Crown Bamboo Shoot.』

"Oh, so it really is a bamboo shoot."

"No matter how you look at it, it's gleaming black, though."

"Should we look for a bamboo grove, then?"

"Hmm. Ivory-kun, is it possible for me to receive a copy of that image?"

『I do not mind.』

For the time being, all the surviving players gathered in a circle. Since we fit perfectly within the limit, we formed a single party with The Professor—who had taken the initiative—acting as the host.

"I am The Professor, and I've been temporarily assigned to decide our course of action. I look forward to working with you all."

Fourteen voices echoed out in response, "Looking forward to working with you!" and the strategy meeting began.

The first topic raised was, "Just how dangerous are these so-called obstruction creatures?" We had already confirmed on the Third Layer that whenever Behemoth creates biological organisms, it never ends well.

Even Maxwell, whom we picked a fight with on our own terms, was a formidable enough enemy to cause several dropouts. If something of that caliber was actively trying to obstruct us, acting alone would equal instant death.

So, we decided to stick together as a group of fifteen for now. After walking through the somewhat mountainous field for about a minute...

"Hm?"

I pulled the trigger reflexively. Rather than the "JavelinSpear Warhead" mode specialized in single-hit piercing power from earlier, I used the "NeedleNeedle Warhead" mode specialized in bullet speed and rapid-fire. Like a machine gun, it let out a satisfying Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta! sound as the bullets pierced into the thing approaching us across the ground.

"Eh, what!?"

"Did you find something?"

"Nah, something was approaching, so I shot it, and it turned out to be this guy."

"You've already killed it..."

What the heck is this thing? It evokes a sense of nostalgia, but at the same time, I feel a sense of sheer annoyance... I mean, it's basically a miniature version of a Mud Digger. That thing was a bizarre chimera fused from a shark, a catfish, and some sort of land creature, but this one looked like a mix between a lizard, a catfish, and an eel. It was maybe around a meter long, give or take.

At first glance, it might just look like a lizard, but perhaps inheriting the slickness unique to eels, it was covered in a natural ghillie suit made of fallen leaves and leaf mold stuck to its body as it approached. Noticing it was a pure coincidence.

I see, if this thing were to sneak up on us in stealth, it would definitely be a pain. The eel-lizard I had pinned down under my foot was actually starting to swell up like a pufferfish right now, looking like it was about to burst any second───

"Volley shoooooot!!"

"Wait, a volley shoot means kicking a ball while it's in the air..."

Paaaaang!!!!!

Meki-meki-meki... Zuzuuun...!!!

""""............""""

Ah, I see. So it has enough explosive power to snap a tree in half with a single blast. Understood.

『A selectively bred variant of the Mud Digger... I named it SwimineExploding Swimming Fish. I suppose the fact that it can only burrow through soft soil is an issue to be addressed in the future.』

"Keep the party formation as it is, but split into three teams of five to search for the bamboo shoots! Scatter!!"

Zaza-za. Realizing that the "sounds" shaking the ground all around us were entirely made by Swimines, we instantly formed five-man teams according to The Professor's instructions and bolted off in different directions!!

If all fifteen of us clumped together, it would just attract a proportionally larger number of Swimines, and there was also the risk of friendly fire if we tried to deal with them all at once.

"Uhh!? It's me, Rei-shi, Akitsu Akane, and... Big sis Exploding Green Peas and Bansai-shi!!"

"Y-Yes!"

"I'll be in your care!!"

"Ah, a pleasure to meet you."

"Plus one animal and one machine!!"

"Wait, they're coming, they're coming! Can I blow these things up!?"

"Everything is about trial and error, Exploding Green Peas-san!!!"

And with that, Big sis Exploding Green Peas chucked some sort of glass bottle behind us. It smashed right into the rightmost entity of the three Swimines chasing our team...

Q. What happens when an explosion occurs near explosives?

A. A chain reaction.

"Big sis, explosions are banned."

"Do you really think I'm gonna do that again after seeing that?!"

The glass bottle—which likely contained some sort of chemical with an explosive effect—exploded, causing the Swimine it hit to explode. That explosion engulfed the others, triggering a chain reaction of explosions, meaning our backs were shoved forward by the massive blast wave of a combined four detonations. Half-tumbling, we sprinted as far away from the other two teams as possible... and somehow managed to successfully escape to an area where we couldn't sense the presence of any Swimines swimming through the dirt.

"Alright... nice working with you all. So, what do we do now?"

"Hmm... from the perspective of a lore nerdLibrary member, I'd love to go back down to the Second Layer and search for information on those thingsSwimines... but since fast travel hasn't been unlocked yet, it's not very realistic. Shall we search for the bamboo shoots for now?"

"But what are we gonna do? Won't we just end up digging up those bomb fishes before we dig up any bamboo shoots?"

"We can run away!!"

"With my AGI, they'd probably catch up to me normally... How about we settle down for a moment and have a strategy meeting?"

Those words carried a mysterious persuasiveness that made it difficult to resist—or rather, made us feel there was no reason to resist... In that moment, the remaining four of us could sense that the role of "Tactician" had been silently appended to Bishojo Bansai-shi's status within our five-person group...

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Author's Afterword

・SwimineExploding Swimming Fish

A new species selectively bred by Ivory, secretly gathering data from the Mud Digger, which Sunraku generally categorizes as a "formidable enemy."

It has been miniaturized, and although limited to soft leaf mold, it is capable of swimming through the ground just like the Mud Digger. It possesses a habit of self-destructing under certain conditions, one of which is the moment of its death.

By blowing itself up, it scatters explosion-resistant eggs all across the surrounding area. Ivory speculates that it must have followed an evolutionary path to preserve its species by actively blowing itself to pieces before its bodily functions completely ceased due to death.

And since she went to the trouble of making them, she decided to use them for the layer exam.