Volume 3 Chapter 15.4
Translator: Reflet
Editor: Weasalopes
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「But yeah, there you have it. It’s your turn now」
「Give ‘em hell, Hiro.」
「Y’all be sayin’ that, but I don’t think it’s gonna work.」
「Thrash ‘em around till they go flying into the stratosphere!」
The elder members of the group attempted to motivate a half-hearted Hiroshi with rough words. In actuality, if Hiroshi did not use Titanic Roar right here right now, there was a good chance that the golem would turn the tables. There was also the option of using an extra large pom, but unfortunately, even using the largest one they had would not reach the power of an extra skill and the destructive power always had the possibility of scattering, so it was incredibly dubious as to whether they could take the golem down or not.
In the end, Hiroshi had no choice but to become a hero.
「Kay, I’ll do what I can y’all.」
He answered, swinging the heavy mace around above his head and charging at the golem, who appeared to be getting ready to intercept him, but then all of a sudden it did something very strange.
「What?」
「For some reason, I’m getting a seriously bad feeling about this.」
「Wait, if it’s plucking its arm off, there can only be one thing it’s trying to do.」
The four of them nodded at what Mio just said, panicking as they spread out. But unfortunately for them, their opponent’s movement was far quicker, and the golem threw its left arm at them before they could completely escape.
「I ain’t lettin’ ya do that!!」
The golem’s arm was flying at them with incredible momentum. Hiroshi intercepted it with all of his might, suffering record-breaking amounts of damage as he took the mass head-on, but still managed to prevent it from reaching the other four. But the attack’s might overwhelmed Defensive Circle, and although Hiroshi had prevented the bulk of the arm from going any further, he was not able to nullify the entire attack, leading to……
「Haruna!?」
「Haruna!!」
One of the fragments from the arm that Hiroshi had stopped flew at Haruna, of all things. Nearly all of the momentum from the arm had been lost in the process, but it didn’t change the fact that the fragment was as big as Haruna herself was. Unable to even shriek at the direct hit, Haruna went under.
「Haruna-san!」
Of course they couldn’t leave her there. Hiroshi ignored the boss and went to move the rubble out of the way, but the golem leaped in front of him to challenge him. The moment he saw that, a switch flipped inside Hiroshi.
「Stay……、outta my way!!」
Dashing at the golem as it landed, he used Smash to lunge into it with his entire body. If the golem had landed, it would have crushed both Hiroshi and Haruna, so this plan was more than just excessive; it was reckless. But nevertheless, Hiroshi had succeeded in launching the golem far away, tumbling onto the ground.
As the payment for his bold move, a decent amount of blood spurted out from the previous wound, but he did not care about that in the slightest right now.
「I don’t care ‘bout the stupid ingredients! Hurry up ‘n pass on to the next life!!」
Its feet torn off from being launched away, the golem could not stand up. Hiroshi took advantage of its helpless state by slamming his strongest attack into it. The extra skill that had never activated no matter how much he tried up till now had already gathered max power like it was an everyday thing, pulverizing the golem and behemoth into dust. Naturally, Hiroshi himself received some knockback, but his body wasn’t so fragile that it had a severe effect or anything.
Splitting the core in half with some difficulty using the leftover handle, Hiroshi dropped everything and rushed to Haruna’s side.
「Haruna-san, you okay!?」
「No, I……、don’t think I……、can really、say that this time……」
The debris that had hit Haruna had enough weight to where even the other three friends together could not lift it up with all their might. Hiroshi lifted it up like it was nothing, worriedly looking down at Haruna. Apparently having double Makoto’s strength really paid off.
「For now……、return heal……」
Haruna reverted her body condition back to before the rubble hit her, standing up a bit drearily. While she was at it, Haruna also used Healing of the Goddesses and Accelerated Regeneration Extra Skill: High Speed Regeneration on Hiroshi to fully heal some of the wounds he had generated.
「Hmm, I get the feeling that things would have been much worse if I hadn’t been wearing this cutter shirt.」
「And maybe that brooch as well?」
「Yeah, maybe.」
Haruna nodded a bit cheerfully at what Makoto had pointed out. She had been protected in more ways than one by the man she loved. No way she wouldn’t be happy.
「Still, I never expected you to get that pissed, Hiro. Like hot damn.」
「That’s cuz even a loser like me can’t just stand there calmly when one of my pals is about to be killed.」
Expecting something a bit different than the word “friend”, Haruna grimaced as her hopes and dreams were completely shattered. In Hiroshi’s case, he probably would have gotten seriously angry and crushed the golem regardless of if Tatsuya or Makoto had been in her place. Haruna knew full well that there was no special treatment for her.
Still, despite that, Hiroshi throwing aside his items with reckless abandon to come and rescue her was one of the few things in life that made Haruna unbelievably happy, because it meant she was just that important to him.
「Haruna-san, I’m real sorry……」
「About what?」
「If I had properly sealed the attack, this woulda never happened. I’m real sorry……」
「C’mon, that’s ridiculous. Perfectly controlling the trajectory of cracked fragments? I don’t even think Doul himself would be able to.」
「But I’m a tank. Can’t just let a ginormous attack like that get behind me, mate.」
He seemed to be shocked that Haruna almost died. Hiroshi was more than just depressed.
「If the tank had blocked all the attacks, we wouldn’t have to worry about armor.」
「Sensei, the monsters in this world aren’t going to be defeated just because of a paper-thin wall standing in their way.」
Makoto and Mio gave Hiroshi the solemn truth in order to comfort him. Truthfully, the battles Hiroshi had been in until now were all too stable. Usually the tank was not the only member able to handle a fair amount of damage. There were countless times in the game where teams had been utterly destroyed by a great attack to the rear guard.
「Umm, Hiroshi-kun. If it’s the tank’s job to not let the team get attacked from behind, everyone else’s job is to not get KO’ed from a surprise attack.」
「Precisely. Now then, let’s end the evaluation meeting and see what loot we got.」
It was already enough to brag that they had gone up against a golem that huge and survived without anyone getting seriously wounded. Tatsuya thought about all this as he changed the topic to the materials that Hiroshi had ignored. Not just Hiroshi, everyone was remorseful that they almost let Haruna die. He didn’t have to shoulder it by himself.
「Sensei, if you refine the rubble around the core you might be able to get some oricalchum.」
「Really now? ……Yup. If I do it well I might be able to do somethin’ about Makoto-san’s katana.」
「Hiroshi-kun. Can you use this core for anything?」
「Lots of ways to use it, but let’s put it on hold.」
They discussed as they secured a good amount of stone for building materials and any brick that remained. Stone, brick, and sand were all in the center. A lot of it was high-ranking material that was really difficult to obtain, and Hiroshi beamed happily at all of it.
「Oh yeah, just thought of something.」
「Mm? Whazzat?」
「Could we eat this if we cooked it?」
「I think we could, mate.」
「Are we seriously eating these kinds of things again……」
Tatsuya asked with a dejected face as they harvested. There weren’t enough machinery parts, so the day would likely never come when they would eat it. But he also knew that was not absolute. Low-quality products should be made into earthworms. That was the earnest wish of a man who lived in the heart of the city.
「Come to think of it, what happens to the Sweltering Tower after this?」
「It’s still an isolated dimension over here, so maybe it’ll sprout back up?」
「Sprout back up……」
Grimacing at Hiroshi’s wild statement, Haruna glanced at where Sweltering Tower would have been standing and then gaped in shock. Of course anyone would when they saw such a sight.
「It…literally sprouted back up……」
「I said it as a joke, but wow, wouldja look at that.」
The tower had sprung up out of the ground like a bamboo shoot right when Haruna looked at it.
「I wonder what caused it.」
「Maybe it reset once the drop items were collected?」
「Ahhh, that makes sense.」
Tatsuya brought up the common trait that most dungeons shared, and everyone highly agreed with him. Sweltering Tower was not an instance dungeon, which reset for every new party that entered in. But on every floor after defeating a boss, the monsters and chests would always reset. It wasn’t too difficult to see this as an extreme version of that format.
Each boss on each floor of the Sweltering Tower would respawn either via 30 minutes to 8 hour intervals after defeating them or by defeating the evil ifrit on the 15th floor. The respawn time for the evil ifrit was randomized, and unlike the other floor bosses it would not respawn any other way. Other than preventing a group from monopolizing a boss, this was also to prevent floors from resetting from overhunting. The amount of time it took for bosses to respawn differed each time, so instead of staying on one floor to rack up experience it was more effective to go to an instance dungeon.
「It seems that you made it out.」
The queen walked over to where they were, probably having already seen the tower sprout back up.
「Anyone hurt?」
「The escape went off without a hitch.」
「Glad to hear it.」
Hiroshi said as he approached the tower and patted it down.
「What are you doing?」
「It’s all over so I was thinkin’ of gettin’ some more bricks from here.」
「That would probably break the tower. I’d rather you did not.」
「It’s fine. I won’t take off too much, plus give it eight hours and it’ll be right back, mate.」
「Well, okay, but don’t overdo it.」
The queen looked at Hiroshi with an exasperated smile when she realized he would once again be fixated on materials. In the end, Hiroshi was still Hiroshi.
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