Translator: Charlotte　Editor: Weasalopes

Interception was the most basic tactic for a party that was centered around Jericho.
But this time it might not be such a good idea.
If this enemy works on the same principles as the Floating Eye, then we need to get ourselves as much initiative as possible.
Now the biggest question was if Obsidian will be able to hold his ground against it?

Obsidian moves in to attack the Floating Bomb while it closed its eyes.
But the attack itself never came, because it was interrupted by something.
Looking closely, Heather was riding on top of Obsidian"s back.
Apparently she was the one who launched that attack that stopped Floating Bomb from using its ability.
Ohhh, nice support!
Utilizing tactics such as these might prove quite useful from now on, so I better keep that in mind.

Jericho runs towards the demon at full speed.
Mumyo follows only a few steps behind him.
Obsidian attacked the Floating Bomb and reduced its HP bar by about 20%.
This is bad!
If this enemy was the same as the Floating Eye, that one attack should have cut his HP by at least 50%!
For now, it was keeping its eyes closed.
Once he opens them, the attack will hit us with its full strength.
Maybe now"s the time to use it?

「Spell Vibration!」

With Weapon Skills I won"t have to worry about my HP decreasing so it"s going to be that much easier on me.
The MP cost of this particular Weapon Skill seems to be equivalent to the cost of a wall spell.
Well, that doesn"t matter for now.
What really matters is the state of the monster we"re fighting against.

The Floating Bomb"s eyes were opened, but no attack was coming our way.
Did I do it? Has my spell succeeded?
No time to think about it now.
Obsidian"s next attack made the Floating Bomb crash into the ground.
This is our chance to strike!

Pressing it against the ground with my hands I kneed it between the eyes many, many times.
Even when Jericho and the others caught up to me, I was still kneeing him in the same spot.
After a short while the monster was dead, its eyes closed for good, never to be opened again.

《Due to a victory in the recent battle your【Kick】skill has leveled up！》

Another one of my physical skills has leveled up.
Good.
As for that other spell I used…
I don"t even know if that Spell Vibration worked as it was supposed to do or not.
Moreover, I don"t know if the potential benefits of using that spell are going to be worth the relatively high MP consumption.
Maybe it"ll be better to forego using it entirely in favor of some other physical skill?
As I was pondering that, a strange this has dropped from the defeated monster.

【Material】Peat Raw Material Quality C- Rarity 2 Weight 2
Mud-like charcoal. Also known as gra.s.s charcoal or Tropical Peat.
Low quality fuel component.

Reading the flavor text proved to be not of much help.
Well, might as well keep it and use it as a subst.i.tute of wood for cooking.

Now then.
I feel a little worried about further encounters with more Floating Bombs as we might get our backsides handed to us if we"re not careful, but let"s go further inside for now and worry about that later.

At the end of the path there were 7 more Floating Bombs.
I was totally not expecting it.
The first thing I thought about when they all closed their eyes at the same time was to run like h.e.l.l.
Will I be able to reach one of the side pa.s.sages in time?
But Jericho was the real problem here.
Due to his size, he won"t be able to run fast enough to avoid receiving damage.
What should I do then?

I turned the corner and looked at the Floating Bombs.
They are still chasing me.
They really are simple-minded.
As I run I select and prepare the spells I"m going to use.
The only downside is that Obsidian is the only member of my current party who can properly fight airborne enemies.
All of them turned the corner and headed straight towards me.
Naturally, their eyes were wide open.
They were ready to attack at any moment.
This is bad, and I"m not even joking right now!

「Dimensional Mirror!」

I placed an invisible wall between me and them.
Their flame attacks failed to reach me.
The blazing inferno that as meant to burn us alive was stopped by my wall.

Additionally, this wall spell has the effect of reflecting the enemy"s attack back at them.
So if everything goes smoothly, they are going to kill themselves with their own attacks.
The flames have finally subsided, and shortly after that my Dimensional Wall was dispersed.

The demons were all alive and well.
And their HP bars remained completely intact.
Not good.

I fire the spell I have selected in a hurry, the one that will hopefully prove to be effective against monsters that are apparently immune to fire.

「Aqua Slash!」

After firing my spell, Jericho stood in front of me like a sentient wall.
As soon as he did that, there was something strange about the demon"s behavior.
They all had a red marker above their heads, the one that signaled being afflicted by an abnormal status effect.
I look at it carefully.
Apparently they were all 『Rooted』in place.
Not simply frozen in place.
They were literally rooted to the ground and couldn"t move at all!
Is this our chance?

Jericho runs towards them until they are at his feet.
And he stomped them all.
Looking at their HP bars, they still had around 80% of their total health remaining.
Hey, that"s not even half their HP bars, WTF?!

Mumyo caught up to Jericho and attacks them with his weapon.
Even if they were unable to move they could still blink their eyes and by doing so they unleashed a flurry of fiery attacks on him.
Thankfully he blocked all of them with his shield so he received no damage at all.

「Resist Fire!」

I cast my next spell.
With this, we won"t be harmed by fire anymore.
There"s no reason to be afraid anymore.
Even if they"ll do an attack like that previous big one, it"ll do no damage to us.
I look straight into the eye of the demon who was the closest to me.
And I smash that eye of his into a b.l.o.o.d.y paste with my Tonfa.
As many times as it takes to finally kill him.
I"m happy to report that the strategy 「Hit it "til it dies」 proved to be very effective.
When it died it literally popped like a soggy cushion.

From the side, a giant fireball was fired my way.
I"m going to be hit by it.
It"s too big to avoid.
The damage is not that big, but it"s not something that can just be ignored.
Worst case scenario, I might even catch DoT from the Burn status.
So I move from enemy to enemy as quickly as possible.
And I shower each and every one of them with a flurry of blows.
Knees strikes., elbow blows, headb.u.t.ts, thrusts.
And of course stomping them to death.

So, who"s next?!
No one, apparently.
No one is next.
Because all the enemies were dead.

I glanced at the b.l.o.o.d.y paste left after Jericho"s stomps.
What a dreadful sight. Not to mention the smell.

《Due to a victory in the recent battle the Summoned Monster『Jericho』has leveled up！》
《Please add 1 Bonus Point to any statistic of your choosing！》

How can I make Jericho even more terrifying than he is now?
Hmm, since his VIT went up during the level up process, let"s go with adding that 1 point to his STR, just so he could hit like an even bigger truck than he is now.

Jericho Wood Golem Lv5 → Lv 6 (↑ 1)
DEX 5
AGI 5
INT 5
STR 35 (↑ 1)
VIT 35 (↑ 1)
SPI 4

Skills:
Strike Kick Magical Resistance 「Slight」 Self Repair 「Slight」 Defense

But I guess he"s already plenty strong as he is, unless I want to change him into a Master Stone Golem later.
Now that"s a scary idea.

I empty my potions and gather the peat off of the corpses.
I also learned what the weakness of these guys was.
I guess you really have nothing to fear if you have a proper countermeasure to any threat up your sleeve.

But I did happen upon one unexpected obstacle.
The branching paths were winding rapidly.
That means there"ll be that much more dead ends for me to worry about.

During my trek through them, I happened upon a single Floating Bomb.
It was pa.s.sive towards me, but I attacked it nonetheless.
It did try to fight back, but thanks to our preemptive strike it was our total victory.

But that was a big mistake on my part.
I realized I"ve been walking in circles.
Huh?
When did this happen?
Apparently a trap must have been activated somewhere behind me.
The pa.s.sage that I came through was blocked by a huge rock.

So where do I go from now?
I carefully observed and circled around both walls on the left and right side of the corridor.
But I couldn"t find anything.
Some Floating Bombs attacked me as I was trying to continue my investigation.
Okay, this is getting more than a little annoying.

It"s obvious that normal means won"t do here.
Then let"s do this.

I used Sense Magic.
Apparently there is something magical about a corridor ahead.
A magically hidden door with a lock on it.
So, what"s behind them?
Treasure?
The lock was unlocked as soon as I used an unlock spell.
I tried pushing where I thought the door was.
No good.
No, it"s moving, but very stubbornly.
So I asked Jericho to push it for me.
With his strength, the stone doors were pushed in with ease.

This made me realize that sometimes strength and violence were the only answer to certain problems.
Which brings us to the fact that I have not been raising my STR stat enough.
Well, as long as there are other alternatives I guess it does not matter all that much.

Suddenly, the pushed rock dropped a bit below the ground level.
And a pa.s.sage revealed itself to me.
Sine there is no way for me to go back anymore, I have no way to go but down.

There was a hall.
It closely resembles the place where I fought against Gozu and Mezu last time.
But there were some differences.
In the middle of the room was a staircase.
It was leading further down.

As I approached the center of the room, something started to emerge from below.
What?!

Clay Golem Lv. 2
Monster Target Subjugation Active

A Golem made of clay.
It is slowly approaching me.
There"s no need for hesitation.

I select a spell and execute it.
I ordered Jericho to fall back and send Obsidian forth towards it.
He flew behind his head and attacked it.
What"s the damage it did?
Almost nothing.
This is really bad.
Is it that strong?

Let"s see how"s Heather going to do.
She covers her hands with winds and unleashes her Wind Blades on the golem.
How much damage did that do?
She barely did around 10% of his HP in damage, but still, it"s better than nothing.
Looks like magic attacks will work better than physical ones here.

「Physical Enchant: Fire!」

I chose to strengthen Jericho since he"ll be able to go head to head with that golem.
I then strengthen Heather and allow her to support Jericho and Obsidian from the distance.
Jericho runs towards the Clay Golem and initiates a fierce exchange of blows.