The World Is Overflowing with Monster, I’m Taking a Liking to This Life

“GUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

Explosions ensue from Sora’s breath attacks.

Pillars of fire rise up as she roars.

“~~~~!!”

It’s scary how Peony is able to block her attacks.

Dozens if not hundreds of roots and vines are protruding out from the ground and protecting Peony from Sora’s breath.

The speed at which they’re reacting to the incoming attacks reminds me of the Dark Wolf’s “darkness” which has an automatic defense function.

Considering its impressive defense, Peony probably has a similar skill.

I’ve learned a couple of things about Peony during the past three days of preparation.

Its roots and vines provide “automatic defense” which fends off any attacks that are about to land on Peony.

This happens even without Peony “intending” to do so, and it can be considered a part of Peony’s reflexes.

Basically, it’s a cheat ability.

Of course, this only applies to its “defense”.

Peony’s “intent” is clearly necessary when it comes to its “offense” and “predation”.

Without the need to worry about its defense, Peony concentrates its attention on attacking its enemies.

—However, this creates a window of opportunity for us to take advantage of.

“Ichinose-san! Kiki!”

“Yes!”

“Kyu!”

I give them the cue.

The jewel on Kiki’s forehead glows, and the light envelops Ichinose-san’s body.

This is Kiki’s “Support Magic – Buff”.

Ichinose-san positions herself while holding the monstrous rifle known as the “Ichinose Special Ver. 2.0”.

“—Here goes nothing.”

She pulls the trigger and fires.

The bullet zooms past the surrounding buildings and flies towards Peony.

Unfortunately, moments before it could hit Peony, the bullet gets blocked by one of the roots that have emerged from the ground.

The bullet from the rifle is much smaller and faster than Sora’s breath attack, but Peony’s “automatic defense” doesn’t let it pass.

The monstrous rifle on Ichinose-san’s hands specializes in penetration, but its bullet has been stopped by one of Peony’s roots.

It’s really absurd.

“Again!”

Ichinose-san loads another bullet and pulls the trigger.

These bullets have the power to threaten monsters like Titan, but none of them are reaching Peony.

Its thick roots and vines are preventing them from doing so.

“And again!”

Ichinose-san continues to snipe the enemy.

Kiki’s “Support Magic – Buff” and “Reflection” are alleviating much of the burden that Ichinose-san should be feeling from using the rifle.

Because of that, she can shoot dozens of times without rest.

Around her tenth shot, I tell Ichinose-san to stop.

“That would be enough for now, Ichinose-san.”

“Already?”

“Yes, Peony may notice us if we shoot too many times.”

I’m not sure whether Peony’s smart enough to “think”, but it’s better to be safe.

“I’m up next.”

The “shadow” beneath my feet spreads out and engulfs me.

Using Momo’s “Shadow Migration”, I leave the “Safety Zone” in an instant.

To maximize the distance between us, I reappear at the opposite end of the City Hall from where Peony is standing guard.

“—‘The Art of Ginormous Growth’.”

I activate my Ninjutsu and create a giant clone of myself.

“~~~~~~~ ♪”

Peony reacts immediately to the clone.

It extends its tentacles in an attempt to devour me—or rather, the giant clone of me. [1]

“Now, Sora!”

‘Umu!’

Sora, who has been flying above me, burns down Peony’s tentacles from their root.

Her attacks are similar to laser beams.

Her breath attacks have become much more versatile now that it has leveled up.

Rather than burning down the tentacles from their tip, it’s far more efficient doing it this way.

Needless to say, Peony’s tentacles regenerate in the blink of an eye and proceed to chase after my giant clone.

With this, I’m convinced.

(…As I thought, Peony “prioritizes” certain things over others.)

This is the second thing I noticed about Peony.

It decides what to do based on its “priorities”.

In Peony’s eyes, preying on others, a.k.a “eating”, is everything.

“Battles” are just the means to that end.

If there’s a bigger and more worthwhile prey in the vicinity, it will prioritize “predation” over “battle”.

“GUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

“~~~~~~~~~!!!”

However, Sora’s breath attacks are preventing it from “hunting” its prey.

Annoyed, Peony cries out in its peculiar voice.

For someone like Peony who is dying to have a meal, there’s nothing more infuriating than being disturbed during its “hunt”.

It shoots out some of its tentacles towards Sora.

Nevertheless, the number of tentacles directed towards her is nothing compared to the number of tentacles chasing after my giant clone.

‘You’re underestimating me!’

Sora easily dodges Peony’s attacks as if to prove her point.

In the meantime, the giant clone of myself gets captured by Peony’s tentacles.

It’s alright though.

After all, that thing is just a clone.

It neither hurts nor itches to have it devoured.

In fact, this is a great opportunity.

“Sora, fire!”

‘I would’ve done so even without your reminder!’

Sora soars into the sky at supersonic speed.

She’s much faster now than she was three days ago.

By using the SP that she had accumulated, we were able to raise some of her skill levels.

The skills that got raised were mainly offensive skills, mobility skills, and “Reduced MP Consumption”.

We raised “Reduced MP Consumption” to LV 6 so that Sora would be able to unleash her breath attacks more frequently.

“GUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

A flash of light blurs past me along with her roar.

By firing her Dragon’s breath in rapid succession, Sora burns away all of Peony’s tentacles in one go.

“~~~~~~~~~~~~~!”

Naturally, we’re met by Peony’s fierce retaliation.

While defending against Sora’s breaths, Peony extends out another wave of tentacles from the ground and tries to catch Sora off-guard.

‘—Your resistance is futile!’

“!?”

Sora slips past them without breaking a sweat.

Hundreds of tentacles are constantly trying to land an attack, but the attacks always fall short of reaching Sora.

She slips past some of them, burns away others, and tears apart the remaining ones with her claws.

Not only is she avoiding all of Peony’s attacks, she’s even countering Peony with her breaths.

It’s the opposite of what happened during the skirmish three days ago.

Sora, who had once been on the losing end, is now battling Peony and even overwhelming it to some extent.

‘—Now!’

Sora glides past Peony’s attacks and rapidly approaches Peony’s main body.

Sora makes the most out of her attack by unleashing her breath from a distance which she wouldn’t have been able to cover three days ago.

‘EAT THIS!!’

She opens up her mouth and unleashes her enhanced breath attack.

Peony tries to hurriedly construct a wall using its tentacles, but it fails to make it in time.

ZUDOOOON!

A huge mushroom cloud is formed as a result.

Along with its main body, the wall that Peony has set up gets burned down by Sora’s breath.

*****

The smoke from the explosion clears.

‘…..!”

A good portion of Peony’s trunk has been burned to crisps.

Sora’s breath has burnt through its bark, and the resulting heat has seeped into its body.

“~~~~~~~~~!”

Peony shrieks with its eerie voice.

It immediately begins to regenerate and sends a massive number of tentacles to attack Sora’s back.

‘Hmph!’

Sora dodges them and takes a distance, almost as if she has eyes on her back.

In reality, someone is acting as Sora’s “eyes”.

“…Furu furu.”

Pechi. Pechi.

‘—Next is from the right? Okay.’

If one were to look closely, they’d see the figure of a basketball-sized Aka sitting on top of Sora’s head.

Yes, this is precisely why Sora’s movements have improved so drastically.

Previously, we’ve left Aka’s petrified clones in various parts of the town.

From their outward appearance, they would look no different from ordinary stones.

In addition, they don’t smell, and they don’t have a strong presence.

Since Aka has “Enemy Detection Invalidation”, its clones can’t be detected using skills either.

That’s how they’ve managed to survive to this day without being preyed on by Peony.

As Aka and its clones are all spiritually interconnected, they can share what they are seeing with each other, allowing Aka to assist Sora in case she is attacked from her blind spot.

“GUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

With access to innumerable “eyes”, Sora can now launch bolder attacks.

Furthermore, she could dodge Peony’s tentacles and approach Peony’s main body to unleash her deadly breaths.

“~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!!”

Her second attack also lands on Peony.

This time, the attack has landed on its canopy.

Baki. Baki.

Several of its huge branches snap and fall to the ground.

“…The giant clone has been mostly consumed. Alright! Come back, Sora!”

Although she’s quite far away, I can communicate with Sora directly using “Telepathy”.

Peony’s tentacles have ripped off a big chunk of the giant clone which is overhead.

It’s quite a gruesome sight to behold.

Sora heeds my command and stops attacking.

Peony chases after her when she tries to return, but its tentacles fail to capture Sora who has the support of Aka.

Sora reenters the “Safety Zone” without a hitch.

“You must be tired.”

‘Not really…’

As powerful as she may be, it’s evident that she’s fatigued from the color of her face.

She must have consumed a considerable amount of her MP shooting out all those devastating breaths.

“Sora, how much MP do you have left?”

“—1200.”

Sora’s max MP is 2300.

In other words, she has used up nearly half of her MP from the exchanges just now.

“Please drink this.”

I take out a plastic bottle from the Item Box.

It contains some sort of gold liquid inside.

‘…That again.’

Sora’s expression turns gloomy.

“Stop complaining. You won’t be able to recover you MP without drinking this.”

‘…I know, I know. Hand it over.’

Sora snatches the bottle from me and uses her mouth to skillfully drink its content.

That was the “MP Recovery Potion” made using Shibata-kun’s “Drug Generation” skill.

Unlike the “Recovery Potion” that Ichinose-san occasionally acquires using Gacha, the potion made by Shibata-kun has the effect of recovering someone’s MP.

He acquired this skill a few days ago, and he has been chucking out as many potions as humanely possible within the allotted time.

They taste exactly like energy drinks.

When Shibata-kun generates a potion, it comes in a small test tube.

That said, the amount of potion in each container is too small for Sora, so we’ve transferred some of them into plastic bottles.

“Peony has begun to regenerate.”

We’ve only talked briefly with one another, yet Peony has already recovered from 80% of the damages inflicted upon its tree trunk and canopy.

Sora has dealt a decent amount of damage on Peony, but it will recover fully in just a few minutes.

Its regenerative abilities are absolutely disgusting.

“…It’ll probably recover in the next two minutes.”

The third thing I learned about Peony is its recovery speed.

If Peony receives damage, it will recover in due time.

However, there is an imbalance in its recovery speed.

For example, if we were to damage the tip of its vines that are attached to the invisible barrier, it would regenerate in a matter of seconds.

On the other hand, if we were to damage the ones near its main body, it would take more than 10 seconds to recover.

When it comes to its tree trunk and canopy, it takes over a minute.

Simply put, if the damage is closer to its main body or more vital for its survival, the recovery takes longer.

Its massive frame, outrageous defense, and disgusting regenerative abilities constantly remind us that we’re fighting against an opponent that’s out of the world.

—Having said that, everything has been going according to plan.

I throw away the empty bottle of “MP Recovery Potion” and activate the next Ninjutsu.

Everything until now has been nothing more than a warm-up.

The Peony subjugation operation will now begin in earnest.

“Now, onto our next move.”

We won’t be holding anything back.

Unless we go all out, we won’t be able to defeat Peony.

****************************************************************

[1] Yes, the author uses the word “tentacles” instead of “roots”/ “vines”.