Pioneering the Apocalyptic World - Chapter 48
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Chapter 18: The surprise attack
“Kyaaaaa!”
“Uru!”
I barely managed to get away from the roots with only a slight graze, but Fricka was unlucky (or should I say that she was lucky that it didn’t stab her) caught by her clothes and thrown into the air.
I immediately asked Uru for rescue her, but she had already jumped up even before I asked, she caught Fricka in the air and already landed. As expected from Uru.
However, Uru didn’t put Fricka down and she looked forward??in the original direction that we were going?? and ran.
At that moment, a root protruded from the position where Uru had stood until just a moment ago.
“Hyee!?”
“Rion, It’s still coming! Let’s run!”
“G-Got it!”
Whether it was because of her incredible wild intuition, or because she sensed them instantly in the moment that they protruded from the ground, Uru ran as though slipping through the spears of roots while holding Fricka.
The roots attacked not only from the bottom but also from the sides, but I cut them off with the Ork Fang Axe that I took out of the QA box. If they are made of wood, it’s not that hard to cut them because the correction applied from the axe type tools. They are changing into materials from the instant that they were cut off…… But as expected, I don’t have time to pick it up, Gununu…!
The roots coming from the front are being deflected skillfully by Uru who is moving her body and daring to hit them as they graze her??without leaving a single scratch on her impregnable skin??cleverly preventing them from hitting me. From time to time, Fricka, who was watching hers incredible feats from the VIP seat, let out a scream, but she had no choice but to put up with it.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize the tree roots were monsters!”
“No, it’s my fault for forgetting that such a kind of monster also exists!”
As a matter of course plant-type monsters also exist.
There are mandrakes that give out a instant death effect laced screams when pulled out, plants that walk skillfully by their twisting roots, alraunes, and dryads that rather than monsters are a type of spirit that sometimes give the player benefits.
There also treants. I’m sure that this attack are from them. they looks just like a tree, and hides by mimicking as a tree, stabbing the players who approach them unprotected. Their role as a surprise attack type monster is a common point with Silent Killers.
That said, if there were so many treants lurking around, Uru would probably notice them… So why?
Their presence are faint… Was it hard to tell because they were buried in the ground rather than mimicking trees?
…… No, wait, in the first place??
Where’s the main body?
It’s all “roots” that are attacking us. Everything, including the branches and leaves, are part of the treant’s body and their weapons, so that is not strange… but what about the trunk?
Are all the trees growing around us treants? No that’s wrong, because of their foliage, a treant, who started to move and attack, is noisy both visually and acoustically, so even I could understand where it is.
Is their entire body buried including the trunk? I can’t say for sure that is not possible, but…
??……No way?
A certain possibility flashed through my mind.
Even while moving my hands and feet, I compared the attacking roots with the trees around us… And the possibility of that being true became even higher.
If that’s really the case… Just thinking about it sends chills down my spine.
In addition, I heard Uru’s cries announcing the worsening of the situation.
“Rion, Fricka, miasma is spewing ahead! Use yours items!”
“!? Understood!”
“Y-Yes”
I took out a Holy Mist and used it. Of course, I gave them to Fricka (and to Uru too) in advance.
There is more leeway in numbers than when we were fighting the Chimera, and if Uru decides that it must be used, it should be used without hesitation.
“Tch… I thought we were being guided, but…!”
Uru spit it out these words with a growl.
Guided, huh… From the fact that the miasma started to became visible, it must be so.
If it die with just the roots, that’s fine. Even if it don’t die, the monster will invite Its prey to him so that It could be dealt with certainty. In this case, the monster side will be ready to intercept us, so the difficulty level will rise even further than now.
It’s a little hard to see due to the fog of miasma, but there’s an unnatural space where the forest becomes a glade.
In the center of it, a black wall is towering over the surroundings.
……No, that’s wrong.
“Haha… It looks like it’s worth of breaking, right…?”
“That… is…”
I could hear Uru’s fearless yet somewhat cold voice and Fricka’s murmur mixed with fear.
In front of us was. A so great that for a moment, It looked like a black wall-
Overly gigantic tree??A monster was there.
The size is one or two times larger than the sacred tree that was in the Alness Village.
And the whole thing, including the leaves, is completely black. Is that the effect of the miasma?
The reason why I can declare it a monster is simple.
Because the branches, the roots, were wriggling.
Because a large hole in the trunk??A mouth opened vertically that leaked miasma and a pair of hollow eyes that were lit up with an eerie dark light blaze, was there.
??Wooooooooooooooooooooon
Maybe some of the sounds I thought were wind blowing were this guy’s screams.
This monster seems to be a type of treant that is closer to evil spirits than others treants, an Evil Treant. As a characteristic It has a face, something that a normal treant doesn’t have.
As an another characteristic, in addition to the fire attribute being It’s weakness attribute, just like a normal treant, It is weak to the holy attribute, which is also a weak point of evil spirits, but that does not mean that the subjugation difficulty is low because of that. This is because their drain ability strengthens the regenerative power that is a characteristic of plant type monsters.
And as I expected, my bad feeling was right.
The roots that attacked us were all from this Evil Treant.
The color of the roots and the trunk matches, and there is no other tree with the same color around here.
It is unknown whether it was originally a huge tree, or whether it grew while absorbing the surrounding resources, but the current situation does not change either way.
The problem is that the roots are stretched all over the place in a super wide range. I don’t think it’s possible that there were only roots under our we passed.
And by using its roots to absorb nutrients in order to sustain itself, the surroundings have fallen into a weakened state effect, and at the same time, miasma was scattered around.
In other words, it has a drain ability so strong that is capable of giving the surrounding areas the weakness state effect… It will be tough, this battle.
But… how did it get so big…?
Or maybe it’s just that the roots are long (although just ‘that’ is a threat) and the cause of weakness state is a different thing… The dungeon core is somewhere else…?
“Hmm……?”
There are things that look like monster materials scattered around the surroundings. Were the monsters being eaten from instant that they were born?
……Don’t tell me the cause that the Silent Killers have been appeared in mass is because this guy was eating all monsters, right? No way… As expected the range is too wide… Hahaha…
“Rion, I’m going to attack it! Think of a breakthrough while defending with Fricka!”
“… Ah, understood!”
There’s no time to think about it, let’s focus on subjugating this Evil Treant for now.