Chapter 719: Receiving the West Wind

Author's Preface

I got slapped by a color-swapped variant so here's an update.

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Once we cross the great river, all that's left is to head to the volcano! Or so it seems the wholesaler won't let it go that easily.

We're already in the southwestern part of the New Continent; according to Ladder-shi, in areas close to the "West," glimpses of it start appearing in the monsters.

As for what exactly those "glimpses" look like... it was very easy to understand.

"What is this... lizard!?"

"It's a chameleon~ ! It's just a little bit too big!!"

"Is that it!? Is that the problem here!?"

"Here it comes!!"

Bashun!! The "tongue" that shot out like a spear or a harpoon pierced and melted the rugged rock and gravel ground like mud. There's probably no need to think about what would happen if you touched that blazing, scorching "tongue"... Rei-shi casually tanked it, but a tough-man build designed to brawl on the absolute frontline isn't a good reference. You could say that having to remake multiple pieces of equipment for females despite already changing her gender just shows the dignity of a hardcore gamer.

That said, the problem is this guy right in front of us. Its motif is probably a chameleon. Its characteristic physique, its wildly rolling eyes, and the tongue it violently thrusts out make it look as if it's saying it's going to catch and eat humans instead of flies.

But if it grabs a human with that scorching tongue, wouldn't they be reduced to cinders by the time they're brought back to its mouth? No, I guess it's not predation, just a simple attack.

"Species Name: Combustickameleon. It is a reptilian monster that raises its internal body temperature and uses a tongue heated to melting temperatures to finish off prey or external enemies."

"Is its upper body temperature limit broken or what, that ridiculously huge poikilotherm!!"

The threat of this monster with a name like a contrabass isn't just its "tongue". Its size to begin with is abnormally huge. Earlier, I compared it to attacking humans like flies, and that's exactly what it's like; the size ratio between us and it is close to that of a real chameleon and a fly.

In other words, if a 1-centimeter fly is equivalent to a human, it's roughly over 180 times the size of a real chameleon... I don't know the exact size, but even assuming it's about 30 centimeters, simple math puts it at 5,400 centimeters... a fifty-meter chameleon. No, okay, fifty meters is pushing it, but it definitely looks over ten meters.

"As expected, this is a bit too harsh of an opponent for a production-job specialist!"

"But as long as you don't die instantly, I'll heal you!"

"I haven't raised my VIT that much though-ze-wayo!!"

Imron's speech patterns are totally mixed up. But anyway, what should we do? The tongue that combus-bastard fires out with a terrifying quick-draw is certainly dangerous, but if you ask whether the main body is made of tofu, the answer is no.

To begin with, it's not just the tongue getting heated conveniently; the mechanism seems to be that as the entire body heats up, the heat concentrates in the tongue, making its body surface a troublesome hazard where touching it bare-handed deals heat damage on top of the scales typical of reptilian monsters.

Saina and I have been launching long-range attacks with guns, but they aren't landing decisive blows... honestly, I can't say I don't have the stingy mindset of not wanting to use big moves on a normal monster that isn't even an Exordinary, but even subtracting that, if we're going to close in and deal damage, equipping armor is a must.

It's a matter of compatibility; that combus-bastard shaves away my assets rather than my health. Well, what's directly destroying them is the effect of the Scars, but still, damn you Lycaon.

"Whoa, close!"

The biggest threat is the quick-draw where it violently thrusts out the tongue kept inside its mouth, but the motion where it doesn't retract the extended tongue and instead whips it around using its neck movements carries a higher risk of getting hit. Even though my skills are practically sealed due to the Reversed Position effect, if I just keep using skills solely for evasion, we'll never be able to defeat the combus-bastard no matter how much time passes.

Not just in ShanFro, being huge means being tough. Even if Rei-shi possesses extremely high firepower, this isn't an opponent she can take down alone without struggling. That being said, the strength of the avatar known as Sunraku, the core concept of its build, is being able to compensate with equipment even without skills. What's required is extreme instantaneous reaction speed; I activate the Levin Trigger: Hazard and observe the combus-bastard's movements with my own eyes.

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

Even ShanFro is a game, even that Lycaon had a preparatory tell before attacking. I've had my fill of instant-death attacks with zero preparatory tells just from Wethermon alone......... I saw it! The moment its closed mouth swells ever so slightly!!

"Dodge!!"

"Egehh!?"

A direct hit on Imron!? For a second I felt like I saw Imron turn into cinders, but apparently that was just an illusion.

"The cost is heavy, but splashing an AoE attack converted into a heal at our feet makes recovering so much easier~"

"S-Saved..."

Amazing, Cashew Nut, you placed a healing spell right at the brink of instant death at that exact attack timing? And as an AoE attack so that whoever took the direct hit, including yourself, would be covered.

Leaving Cashew Nut—who was immediately retreating backward while recovering MP—behind, Rei-shi and I stepped into the frontline, while Saina continued her gunfire from mid-range. Since light bullets can't deal much damage, the main point is to distract it with high-power single-shot bullets. From my playthroughs so far, I understand that the more excellent an AI is, the more hesitation it shows regarding aggro; all that's left is for Rei-shi and I, the damage sources, to get fired up.

"Alright, let's go!!"

You're just a reptile! There's no reason why you can win against humanity, the lords of creation! As for mobility, in the extreme case, I can cover it entirely just with Overflow! To be fair, using skills without the correction to my eyes is practically suicide, but I can just move in straight-line trajectories without using skills in the first place!!

"Sunraku....You. Please look... at that chameleon's tail."

"Hm?"

Well, isn't that strange. Even though its entire body appears to be heated, the tail section alone seems to be clad in cold air rather than steam or vapor. Could it be that it's forcibly cooling itself? And the organ for that is the tail..................... Hohn?

"Rei-shi, let's brute-force it with slash weapons."

"Understood."

I see, I see, I seeeeee? Looks like you're carrying a lot of tension there, customer... At times like this, warming it up will loosen the muscles, time for some acupunctureAreadbhair service, oraaaa!!!!

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Author's Afterword

・Combustickameleon

The strict pronunciation is something like Combustick・Ameleon.

In the volcanic belt near the West, organisms with abnormally huge bodies frequently appear. The Combustickameleon is one of them. By the standards of the western New Continent, it's out of the question, trash, you call that huge? —that's all you can say, but if you consider that it's slightly larger than the Draclus Dinocerberus appearing in the sea of trees, you should understand how dangerous it is.

It uses its entire heated body, excluding the tail, as protection against external enemies, and unleashes a melting strike by concentrating the heat into its tongue. Strictly speaking, it's not a tongue but an attack organ meant to burn enemies to death, so the actual tongue used to eat prey is located elsewhere... Meaning, it's double-tongued.

That being said, because it is a poikilotherm, it cannot regulate its body temperature on its own and forcibly cools itself by circulating the cooling mana from its tail throughout its body. As a result, the older the individual, the more brittle the scales covering its outer skin become.

By the way, its eyeballs also heat up, so during its feverish state, its vision drops extremely (when using the tongue attack, the heat from the entire body concentrates on a single point, so its vision recovers).