Chapter 41: The Distance and The Barrage

I followed two adventurers that were the vanguard and went out through the thinly open gate on the outer wall. The rest of the party was also coming.

I didn’t notice when I took the exam, but I could see what seemed to be a remnant of a rock-paved road, which spread in front of me.

That said, it seemed that it did not serve as an actual road, at least, nowadays, but it ended up being sort of a landmark.

「Let’s go. 」

One of the muscle-looking men spoke and ran in the direction of the road.

After all, their speed rate was clearly different from the adventurers I had seen so far. Their speed was remarkable, but it was slow when compared to my running speed, even if they ran with the help of magic.

However, it would be cruel of me to run extremely fast to the point of making them waste their magic. The digits of our MP was 6 or 7 times different.

I noticed that the one behind me was about 10m away from me, and the one after me was likewise 10m away from me.

If something happened right now, it would be difficult to move in case of emergency.

I saw a few trees around, and only short grass grew in the surroundings, so the outlook was good. It was unlikely that a sudden attack from the distance would defeat us.

After running for 10 minutes or so, we encountered monsters. A flock of about five Black Wolves.

I saw many monsters within the visible range, but this was the first time for us to engage in a battle since we started running.

This time I was the one to be protected, so I decided to do nothing unless it was necessary. If I killed them immediately, I would take away these adventurers’ work.

If necessary, I would take up the front while they fought.

Okay, what were they going to do…?

The battle was over while I was watching. It was not even a battle per se.

When the two vanguard adventurers looked at each other and nodded lightly, they increased their speed a little and widened the distance between us. Then, they cut off the Black Wolves that came at us.

There were two on the left and three on the right.

Perhaps it slowed down when swinging the sword, and by the end of the battle, the distance had returned to normal. Whoa, scary.

It was truly a party with overkill powers.

After that, the journey went smoothly. I did not even have to move my fingers to fight.

The vanguard adventurers killed off the enemies in front, and there were no monsters to follow us from the side or back in the first place.

Unfortunately, all of the monsters that had attacked us came head-on.

The rest of the team seemed to have no work, but it was probably a good thing.

「It’s about time to eat. Let’s take a short break. 」

When they killed about 20 more monsters, the vanguard leader, Uno, spoke aloud.

As we had a meeting, I took out the stored the items, which were mainly food, and gave it to Uno. After Uno finished eating, he threw the next meal to Cuatro.

Even though it was our first meal, it looked like a very simple dish. Somehow, it looked like stick-shaped cookies*.

Even if one of us was thirsty, we did not have to hand over the water since each one of us had our own magic tools. I was not that thirsty because I haven’t eaten yet.

It seemed to be customary to turn the order of eating counterclockwise from the vanguard side. Therefore, the order was from the vanguard toward the person at the middle until the person at the end.

It may be an advantage since there was no need to think about or remember the order, rather than the counterclockwise order itself.

After a while, it was my turn. I was a little worried about the taste, but I put it in my mouth and chew it.

…Hard. I did my best to chew this thing. I finally broke it when I chewed it with force, but was this something that ordinary people ate?

For example, normally, one could hold a dead branch and try to break it without being conscious of it. If it were a sturdy branch, it would be hard to break.

However, if one put effort into it, it would surely break. In other words, if I were not thinking about putting any effort into it, then my strength would be much lower than the status, at the level of ordinary people.

Therefore, I had a hard to trying to chew it. This probably meant that I needed stronger jaw strength and tooth strength.

I may not be qualified to go to Decibator if I could not chew this much.

Neither the taste nor the texture was good. It had a weird flavor, not sweet nor salty. Besides, it stuck in the mouth.

Terrible.

However, in this situation, I could not afford to eat decent food by myself, so I had no choice but to eat it. Yeah, it was bad.

It may be excellent in that even a small amount of nutrition would be beneficial to the body, but it was still a very unpleasant experience.

Well I managed to eat it. It was bad, but it did not mean that I couldn’t eat it.

After everyone ate.

The tension had dropped, but the speed had not slowed down, and the journey went smoothly.

At this point I wondered if I ran for about an hour, when suddenly an explosion occurred nearby. It was an explosion with a radius of 1m or so.

「It’s the Ixprondre! It’s staying around this area! 」

Ixprondre …?

There were no monsters around. Suddenly, there was an explosion even though there was nothing around us.

I looked around and saw the escorts looking up at the sky.

I saw something that resembled a giant bird when I looked up too. The altitude seemed to be around 1 km (0.6214 miles).

「Let’s stick to our number 1 strategy! Open the gap! 」

With that instruction, the distance between us doubled. Was it a strategy to reduce the damage?

Another explosion occurred immediately after the regroupement.

I felt like it only passed about 10 seconds since the last explosion. If we continued to receive these sort of attacks, they would surely hit us soon.

「I’ll shoot it down with magic!! 」

「Attacks from the sky are to be dealt by the city! I can’t reach it anyway, so let’s use a defense mechanism instead!」

They couldn’t reach it?

It was worth a try.

But even ordinary Decibator people could not load tons of supplies in the item box. Therefore, they often forsook attacking fierce monsters since they could lose their supplies or even lose their lives. There was no point in talking about ways to attack it.

However. I could do it. I already activated my magic armor. And as far as I could see from the explosion range, it was at a tolerable level.

「The defense is up! I’ll shoot it down! 」

I spoke and headed towards a closer area. I tried to shoot a bursting cannonball, so I aimed it directly at the Ixprondre. I wondered if it would reach it or not.

However, the cannonball arrived at the monster, but I couldn’t see if it hit it or not. It took about 2 seconds to reach it.

「You got it!? And it was so fast! 」

A voice rose from the surroundings. Certainly, my magic was originally fast and I even used a special wand. Naturally, it was even faster.

However, I still felt that the speed was a little insufficient.

It took two seconds. Ixprondre’s control was quite great when compared to other animals. So there was a chance that it could evade my cannonball.

Perhaps, it evaded my attack. Should I shoot at an inclination of about 1/12 when viewed from directly above?

When I shot the second time at that level, I reached a place not far from the monster.

When I shot the third cannonball, a roaring sound echoed and my field of vision became dyed red. It seemed that I hit it.

But as expected, the explosion was just a touch of warmth smoke and didn’t damage me.

「Is your MP okay! 」

One of the adventurers spoke while running to me. This person did not seem to be that distraught. As expected from a Decibator person.

「Yes, I can withstand hundreds of shots to that extent. There is no limit when it comes to my MP.」

It was not a metaphor. Recovery was faster than actual consumption.

「I was wondering what the capacity of your item box was like, but with that MP prowess you’re a monster yourself too!」

They were speechless about my skills. Even before I arrived at Decibator, I was already considered a Decibator person among the adventurers.

The explosive cannonball that I fired seemed to hit the Ixprondre, but to no avail.

Sure enough, it was on the verge of dodging my attack.

…But if it were on the verge of dodging, all I had to do was counterattack it beforehand.

I blocked all the areas that could be escape routes. Barrage was power itself.

I made about 100 cannonballs that consumed less MP and fired them at slightly different angles. At the same time, an explosion occurred nearby.

That bird was skillful. How annoying.

However, getting out of the way meant that it was highly likely that it would not be able to dodge it. Unless the bird was very confident in its evasion ability.

If so, there was a way to deal with it. I had to avoid giving it a gap to escape. The bird was quite large too, so my tactic should be achievable.

I expanded the shotgun magic that was for interpersonal use on a larger scale. The number greatly exceeded 10,000.

I shot as before.

The shots flew straight…exploding along the way. An explosion with a radius of about 1 m occurred, and the range of explosion disappeared probably because of the aftermath.

I could see the bird and the shots from where I was standing, perhaps because I strengthened my eyesight.

If my eyes were not wrong, the bird would also dexterously sneak into the open gap. It seemed to have survived from the attacks almost intact. What an amazing dexterity.

After observing the bird, I noticed that no new explosion occurred in the next 10 seconds.

If I thought deeply about it, the explosions so far had happened on the ground. Like a fireball that hit the ground.

So was the Ixprondre’s attacks actually an invisible bullet attack, and not an attack without bullets?

I tried to throw the same thing again, but it also exploded in the air. And the bird sneaked into the gap.

There was no explosion on the ground this time.

Apparently, the answer was correct.

It did not seem to be prevented by air or flying dust, but it basically stopped in mid-air. At that point, it changed into a physical phenomenon.

What should I do?

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*Kaede is probably referring to Pocky, which was first sold in 1966, and was invented by Yoshiaki Koma. They consist of chocolate-coated biscuit sticks.

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