This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/MrIzuarel on 2024-12-02 22:09:24+00:00.
Chapter 123
When we arrived, we immediately started with the preparations.
I didn't pull the crystal immediately out because I had noticed that the best place to deploy it wasn't always the entrance of the dungeon. Instead, we had found an interesting cliff where most monsters would be unable to reach the crystal. It would also cause us a lot of issues reaching it, but that was acceptable if the bosses here were unable to do the same.
Since the difficulty was in the lowest setting, a cleaning of the dungeon before starting the destruction was useless. I had tried this method before and noticed that everything had been respawned once Gaia's mercy started doing its thing.
I stretched my wings out and started flying towards the cliff. That was the only good thing about this dungeon. It allowed us to fly, unlike most other dungeons, but I wasn't sure if flying would help us during the final phase considering the many dangers we would face.
I found the place where we had planned to put Gaia's mercy and started the whole process.
As expected, the whole dungeon shook like crazy and grew several times in size. It wasn't just length and width, but also height. Slopes became steeper, distances bigger, and areas larger. But that wasn't the only thing changing. The weather became even harsher, and the cold became worse than before.
My girls had already been instructed about the plan, so we opened our wings and flew away.
I think I never cursed internally as much as when I flew inside that dungeon. The cold in the air, paired with the strong wind and the snow, made it really painful to flap the wings around. But I bit my tongue and powered through, just like most of my girls.
Our first target was the most annoying boss of that dungeon. We started clearing the area of the ice foxes of this dungeon.
Don't let the name fool you. Those vile beasts were by far the most annoying and difficult monsters of the bunch. They were able to launch ice spears at us and could use illusions to fool us, making them a very dangerous monster to confront inside this dungeon.
Thanks to their illusions, spotting them or avoiding their ambushes was difficult. Until we were literally pounced by them, a deep search was useless, but we were functionally immortals, so we powered through the initial clash.
We searched for the boss statue and found it after a while. It was actually easier than we thought because the black of the structure had a great contrast with the white of the snow, almost as if someone had cut a piece of reality in the white of the mountains.
Thankfully, the snow didn't stick to the statue, which was a bit abnormal, but since I didn't understand every aspect of magic, I simply ignored it. That's when we put the real plan into motion.
My girls were sent to a lake close by and prepared for the fallout while I waited for their signal. Once everyone was ready, I simply crashed "accidentally" against the statue, and while trying to separate myself from it, I rubbed off as many of the small shards as I could.
Needless to say, I didn't survive the many monsters I had summoned.
Forget two and three stars, I saw four and five stars monsters merge to form the peak of powerful monsters in that dungeon. There were thousands of them after the accidental release.
I revived myself, and we waited a bit until my cooldown was over, then started the real plan.
The area of the foxes had a special feature that most other areas didn't have. A frozen lake.
Now, what would happen if one of those powerful monsters stood on top of that lake? Nothing. The weight of that fox would do nothing to the thick ice of that lake. But what about thousands of them?
I ordered one of the girls to deploy one of my hunter's traps in the middle of the lake, making sure to attract only the foxes with it, and waited for the results.
As expected, once most of the foxes were on top of the lake, the ice could no longer endure the weight, and the ice broke. In less than ten seconds, every fox was swimming in the lake and trying to reach the shores.
We were mostly unaffected by it because we simply flew above their heads, but we weren't idle. We could not use weapons, but we could use other objects without problems, so we used planks from my woodworking job to keep the foxes away from the shores. This worked better than expected because none of them managed to escape once inside the water. At the same time, we relentlessly harassed them.
Those foxes needed to stay still and yell those laughing sounds to cast magic, but how could they when they needed to swim and open their long snouts would drown them?
It took quite a while, but we disposed of them after a while. However, during that time, I noticed something strange.
A few of my girls were using a skill I didn't recognize. As the green nagas flew over the foxes, their tails light up with a green aura before fiercely piercing a head of those foxes. If it had been an animal, it would have been a fatal injury, but those foxes brushed it off like it was nothing. So, after finishing the last of those swimming white mutts, I approached one of them and asked them directly.
That's when I realized that she was using a skill I had unlocked by doing quests, but I was unable to use it myself. "Poison tail" was a negligable skill, but the green nagas were able to use that skill for some reason. I was confused about that fact. They should not have been able to use that skill, but then I remembered that I also had the skill "Scratch" that I should not have been able to use.
Seeing how I was able to use these skills, I suddenly remembered how Gaia had mentioned that she had been bending the rules for me. With that realization, I understood why I was in a bad spot. I also understood that I had been an asshole when I told her I would not stop the summoning. Yeah, I should feel bad for this!
Being humbled in such a way, we marched towards the statue of the boss. There were still a lot of smaller crystals on it, but the majority were taken off of it. We dispersed a bit and then took the time to clean the statue properly.
What came out of it was quite unsettling. It was a priestess, wearing the typical japanese priestess clothes, but there was more to it. Animal ears, nine tails on her back, and a strange staff in her hands.
I knew this was a nine-tailed fox from the folklore, but I was uncertain about its origin. It could be the folklore itself, film, or game where that monster had been integrated. I knew this boss would be a headache as I had terrible compatibility with magically gifted enemies, and this monster was an expert at fooling others with magic.
In a desperate effort, I attacked the statue with all my might. I was almost hoping this would trigger something, but the strange smile on its face didn't change. I was almost certain she was mocking me, but I had no choice but to go away.
I left a few girls there to keep the statue clean and went on with my work.