Level Eater-Chapter 229

After defeating three additional giant monsters, Tatsuro and the others continued further ahead on the raft that had returned to flowing quietly.

Just as they thought they could finally relax and tried to sit down on the raft -- as if to say it wouldn't be that easy, their footing began to tilt again.

And once it started tilting, it quickly became an eighty-degree slope, causing Tatsuro and the others to take refuge on Jeanne's back after she transformed into her [True Form] before they could fall off.

"From this flow, something else is probably coming out."

"This is pretty tough. I wish we could rest a little."

"I feel the same..."

Large swarms of mosquitoes, schools of sword-like fish.

And although they had just fought multiple powerful monsters and were exhausted both physically and mentally, they couldn't properly rest because this dungeon kept moving forward on its own.

So while Cardina and the others were still fine, it was becoming a bit tough for normal humans.

Just as such complaints were voiced, detection magic sensed monster reactions.

"Here they come already. This time it's... something long, thin, and flat."

While everyone watched the water surface while following the raft that was descending at almost a right angle, wondering what this long, thin, and flat something could be, numerous purple seaweeds shot out from its depths.

Moreover, they were super-sized seaweeds with a width of one meter and length of several dozen meters.

"Looks like some huge, unappetizing kelp."

"Yeah. -- What's that?"

"Which one?"

"There's some other kind of monster attached to the underside of the seaweed."

"What kind of other monster -- oh. Is it those again?"

"Ugh. Mosquitoes!"

When the black balls attached to the underside of the seaweed fell to the water surface one after another, they hatched, skipping the wriggler stage, and became ten-centimeter mosquito monsters that began dancing in the air.

"From their reaction, they seem... weaker than the ones we saw at first. However--"

"There are a lot of them."

"That's not all! Tatsuro, the Nasty Kelp is trying to destroy the raft!"

When Tatsuro and the others, who had been distracted by the mosquitoes, looked where Ai was pointing, numerous giant purple kelp -- or "Nasty Kelp" as Ai called them -- were appearing from the waterfall-like sloped surface.

And these Nasty Kelp were attaching themselves evenly to all four sides of the raft, beginning their destruction by breaking down the footing as if eroding it from the corners.

"---You're right! If we don't stop it quickly, we won't know where to go! Jeanne and I will focus on exterminating the mosquitoes, while Ai and the others take down the kelp. Cardina, as magic support, prioritize guarding Ai and join that side!"

"Got it!"

"Peewee!"

"Neigh!"

And so when thousands of mosquitoes began dancing again, Tatsuro and the others started moving all at once.

Tatsuro, together with Jeanne, chose to combine wind and light, darkness and earth, and fire magic.

First, using a combination of earth and darkness magic, they created several tough and flexible tubes, building boxes with brightly burning fire at their ends.

And behind these boxes, they attached thick exhaust pipes.

Once that was done, they manipulated dozens of tubes using wind magic to rapidly suck up mosquitoes like vacuum cleaners.

The sucked-in mosquitoes turned to charcoal inside the fireboxes and were expelled through the thick pipes along with hot air.

For those that couldn't be sucked up and came toward Tatsuro, he activated the slime -- Secom-kun -- that had been absorbed into his coat for automatic elimination.

And Jeanne, with her hard skin and durability, could nullify the mosquitoes' attacks without doing anything.

Thus, the mosquitoes' numbers rapidly decreased.

Meanwhile, Ai and the others who had set out to deal with the Nasty Kelp began moving to approach the raft while casually fending off the mosquitoes around them.

First, Ai took out a morning star that Leah had quickly modified to adjust its size and other aspects, which they had obtained from the full-metal armor monster that Jeanne had defeated before.

Then she released light brown spirit power, extending spirit power in the shape of a monkey's tail from the spiky iron ball of the morning star.

Once she extended it to the raft, she created a monkey's right hand at its tip and grabbed hold.

Then like a Tarzan rope, Ai jumped from Jeanne's back and landed on the nearly vertical raft.

As per Tatsuro's request, Cardina followed behind Ai as her guard.

And watching this, Athena said "I see" before using the title effect of: Mysterious Transformation to change her dragon armor's shape, extending its tail even longer.

Then after making the tail disproportionately long compared to her body, she extended it to the raft and followed after Ai by grabbing the edge in the same way.

As for the last two remaining, with Nana carrying Leah next to the raft, first Leah manifested reddish-brown flames in her right hand and stroked the surface to apply fire.

Then bringing out a hammer in her left hand and overlaying it with a reddish-brown hammer of the same shape, she took out iron from her [Item Box] and lit it with reddish-brown flames as well.

She pressed the iron against the part of the raft coated with reddish-brown flames and struck it with the hammer.

Then the iron and what appeared to be the raft's wood material mixed together, creating a protruding board that became footing.

"It's safe now, so please go ahead Nana."

"Understood!"

After being let down onto that footing, Leah separated from Nana and began independently generating more footing one after another.

Meanwhile, while holding onto the edge with her dragon armor's tail, Athena ran across the raft and swung down her scythe to slash the kelp.

However, contrary to its appearance, it was unusually hard and deflected the scythe.

"What's with this thing? Despite being seaweed, it's ridiculously hard. Usually this much would cut through most things easily -- here!"

This time she increased her dragon power output and boosted the power by blending in the newly learned lightning and wind magic before delivering another slash.

With that, she finally succeeded in cutting through one piece of Nasty Kelp.

"Phew-- This looks like it's going to be tough."

"Teryaaa!"

"Peewee!"

"They're in top form over there. I'll go all out too!"

Pushed on by the sight of Ai and Cardina vigorously harvesting kelp, Athena also resumed action with her great scythe.

By the time Leah had finished creating enough footing, Ai and Athena were also using it, increasing their mobility as they cut through the kelp that kept emerging from the water surface one after another.

But each time, more mosquitoes were added, keeping Tatsuro and Jeanne fully occupied with them.

Everyone else was also fully occupied with harvesting the incredibly hard kelp.

To be honest, there seemed to be no end to it. Everyone was starting to get impatient at this seemingly endless situation.

Amidst all this, Tatsuro was thinking while eliminating mosquitoes.

(We need to find some kind of breakthrough... Come to think of it, where is that kelp coming from?)

In this situation, investigation with analysis magic would be difficult. However, they would inevitably be overwhelmed if they didn't do it, even if it meant pushing themselves a bit.

(Can't be helped. Magic consumption will be even more intense but...)

Tatsuro activated his newly learned skill [Multiple Thinking Lv.1] and used the additional thought domain it created to attempt underwater investigation with an analysis magic staff in his other hand.

(--So that's it! Looks like some kind of thin plate-like monster is controlling the kelp by detaching it from its back. And it can replenish it endlessly.)

No matter how much kelp was harvested, the monster they found would immediately generate new kelp and try to destroy their raft.

And each time, it diligently attached mosquito eggs.

Once he understood this, Tatsuro temporarily stopped multi-thinking.

"If we can just deal with that, we should be able to get through this."

{Hey, Ai, are you okay right now?}

{Yeah. I'm fine, but this is endless~ Did you find something?}

{Yeah. I found the source of the kelp and mosquitoes.}

{Really!?}

Tatsuro switched to telepathy to talk to Ai and directly transmitted the monster's information to her through mental imagery.

{So here's the plan. I'm going to open a path to that monster now. I want you to deliver the finishing blow, Ai. But I can only do it for a short time, so please do it in one hit.}

{Got it. But this monster seems even harder than this kelp. I'll have to give it my all.}

From the analysis magic information transmitted through mental imagery from Tatsuro, Ai steeled herself while estimating a certain level of durability.

This was because the monster not only grew kelp to detach but also grew kelp like a turtle's shell for protection.

And on top of that, its body itself boasted several times the hardness of the kelp, so even for Ai, a half-hearted attack would make it difficult to defeat it in one hit.

While thinking about this, Ai left her guard duty to Cardina and began gathering power, enveloping her right hand in white spirit power and her left hand in black spirit power.

Sensing this, Tatsuro also activated multi-thinking again and began preparing to create a path to the monster lurking in the deep water.

{I'm ready over here! Go ahead whenever!}

{I'm also -- alright. Ready. Well then, here we go -- five seconds.}

{{Four, three, two, one--}}

{Now!}

{Bring it on!}

After carefully synchronizing their timing through telepathy, Tatsuro executed water magic while not neglecting the mosquito countermeasures with Jeanne.

Then a straight cut appeared in the water surface as if splitting bamboo, and the water receded all the way to the considerable depth where the target monster was.

"Haaaaaaaah!!"

At that moment, Ai simultaneously thrust forward both arms that had been pulled back with bent elbows, bringing her wrists together and opening her palms forcefully.

Then the white and black spirit power mixed together, releasing a giant dragon with monochrome scales.

It charged forward through the path Tatsuro had temporarily opened, erasing everything it touched as it approached the target monster.

And when it made contact with the body after erasing the kelp on its back -- the jaws of the spirit power-constructed giant dragon easily crushed and destroyed the monster.

[You have reached "Level: 66".]

{My level went up quite a bit again~}

{So that means you successfully defeated it, huh?}

{Yeah. And the kelp stopped moving!}

{Looks like it. Well then, I'll head over there after killing all the mosquitoes – oops}

As Tatsuro was talking with Ai via telepathy, the water surface and raft returned to horizontal.

{Hopefully, we can catch our breath now...}

{I'd like to take a little break~}

Ai was also feeling her body ache after using such a huge technique.

Agreeing with this, Tatsuro returned to the now somewhat smaller raft after defeating all the mosquitoes.

Then using water magic to manipulate the water, he collected the monster corpse that Ai had pulverized and the large amount of harvested hard kelp.

Apparently, the monster that had been producing the kelp was a terribly hard transparent plate-like body about twenty centimeters thick with purple kelp growing from it.

That seemed to be its appearance, and they obtained a large number of fragments of the transparent hard plate.

And Leah, who was observing this with [All-Seeing Eye], was delighted that they had obtained another valuable material.

"Not only is its strength remarkable, but it also has incredible compatibility with magic power. It could probably be used as part of the material for your staff, Tatsuro-san."

"Really? Then let's collect as much as we can."

And so while piggybacking Ai and trying to recover magic power, Tatsuro continued searching more thoroughly for the remains of the monster they had just defeated.