Volume 4 Chapter 12.4 (1/2)
Volume 4 Chapter 12.4
「The water depth up to where the mire begins is about seventy centimeters. Rafts can easily float.」
「That’s pretty deep. Well, I definitely don’t want to swim it.」
Everyone nodded at Makoto’s comment when they noticed the black, poisonous purple, yet oddly vivid blue surace of the water. Even if they did drink panacea potions, no one was going to step a single foot near this liquid.
「And so the good option is to use the rafts. But can you make them？」
「Heck yeah, rafts are easy peasy. Plus I have a buncha wood supplies I ain’t used.」
「How long does it take to make?」
「15 minutes with our team’s size, but I don’t like the idea of goin’ out immediately, so first let’s have Haruna-san practice ‘n try makin’ a small one.」
Hiroshi told Makoto what he thought before bringing out the materials right away. Tatsuya and Makoto just shook their heads at the mountain of wood that came out.
「Hiroshi-kun. I thought we ran out of wood, but we still have this much？」
「Remnants from makin’ storage for miso, mill ends from makin’ the True Furnace Tower, rebuildin’ Kakashi-san’s workshop, we got a lot mate」
Haruna asked the same question on Tatsuya and Makoto’s mind, and Hiroshi explained roughly how they got the amount they did. In most cases, supplies could never be fit evenly, especially when it came to larger scale factories.
Then again, the leftovers from the miso and soy sauce storages were due to the elves/forest giants going at it a little too hard and taking down every tree monster around them, pushing a large amount of wood supplies on Hiroshi even though he had no idea what to do with it.
「Anyhoo, Haruna-san. This is prolly the last part of Making Mastery, so do yer best.」
「……Rafts do that much for levelling？」
「Well not on yer first try obviously. It’s too hard to make small boats without doin’ rafts first.」
「……Yeah, totally agree on that.」
Haruna expressed to Hiroshi, getting on the job. Following his instructions, she found some decent sized logs and tied them together with maneater vines. After one hour, she had made a raft with enough space for one person to ride on.
「Phew, that was tiring……」
「Good job. I went ahead ‘n made one myself, so first let’s check out yers.」
Hiroshi said, throwing the raft onto the swamp that Haruna had made and pushing it out with a smash kick. The raft, now moving at fiercely high speeds, suddenly got launched away by something and split into pieces.
「Okay, as expected. Bro, Mio, go ahead ‘n git the projectiles ready.」
「Roger」
「Looks like it’s time for the big one.」
Looking at the gigantic fish (a fusion between a goby and catfish), the group quickly began their counterattack. Judging by the size of the miasma, this was probably a mid-boss. The miasma in the swamp was the thickest with this fish while the other fish were normal-sized and with less miasma, so they were not an issue.
「This is Hiroshi we’re talking about, so I thought he’d say take out the fishing rod, but not this time I guess」
「Well it’s a bit far for that. The string wouldn’t go that far.」
Hiroshi told Makoto why he wasn’t going for the fishing. In fact, if it weren’t for the distance issue, Hiroshi could easily catch the fish with his fishing skill and raw horsepower. However, when you were separated by more than 100 meters, you really couldn’t throw that far. The fishing rod wasn’t even made to reach that far.
「So with that, here’s the next one!」
「Alright」
「Ready whenever you are」
Tatsuya and Mio announced they were ready, and Hiroshi smashed the second raft into the inlet. And this time, to deal with the giant fish…
「Holy Octocannon！」
「Snipe Roar！」
Tatsuya and Mio unleashed their coup de gras.
Tatsuya had the usual octocannon, which was normally 25 meters, but extended with mana. It also had the newly-added four level activation sequence, which shot out four times the original amount. The big fish’s miasma was slightly less than Barold’s first form, so it wouldn’t be able to escape with no damage.
Mio’s Snipe Roar was an advanced shooting skill specializing in distance and penetration. It cost the least out of all the defense-piercing skills, but it didn’t have any added effects like Armor Break and wasn’t all that high in the ranking of power adjustment, simply good at KOing enemies with critical hits.
Those two moves hit the fish right on point as it howled, fiercely charging at the group, but-
「Hyaah！！」
Hiroshi launched it away with a smash attack before it got on land,
「So we take it down to three」
Makoto used her Gale Slash. Maybe things would be different if they just got here, but by this point a mere mid-boss, not even as strong as Barold’s first form, was no enemy for them.
「……I didn’t even get a piece of the action……」
Haruna was the only one who didn’t attack the midboss, mumbling slightly sadly. She felt left out for not being able to add to the combo chain.
「Ah～、I was really getting into it、sorry」
「I know, but I didn’t even get to use support magic.」