The man stretched his arms back again to kill the annoying things using ‘Provocation.’
But as the summoned creatures took a defensive stance and blocked his path layer by layer, he drew out the weapon he was holding and soared back into the sky.
His gaze naturally followed the weapon that took off into the air alongside that guy.
‘… It’s a peculiar shape of spear…’
The long trace it left as it stopped on the ground.
What left it was a spear that barely exceeded one meter.
The blade, although simple, had a typical shape with its tip narrowed; however, a very thin baby blade about 20 cm long extended sideways, making it easy to be hit if one didn’t dodge properly.
It was presumed that ‘Nefie’ was instantly severed in the first attack due to that baby blade. It was likely a performance made possible because the harpy had an unusually slender waist, but that baby blade’s sharpness looked formidable as well.
‘The combination of the harpy’s high-speed flight and the spear user’s thrust… It’s troublesome.’
“Haah—! I’ll slice up all these vermin!!”
“Wooooo!!”
– The warrior’s shout invigorates the allies!
– Strength +4
– Strength +4
The battle between the man who forcibly evolved using ‘Evolution Stone’ and our party, starting with the shouts of Orc Warrior Dotti 1 and 2, began.
“Kikikik— What a useless act— What are you going to do with that increased strength? You won’t even scratch me, kekek.”
“Everyone, capture that guy!!”
Squeak—!
Since ‘Provocation’ has a pretty long cooldown, we had to endure the guy’s attacks with our bodies until then.
Swoosh—
Thud—!
“Grraaah…!”
About thirty summoned creatures formed a formation around Yeon-hee, but they were defenseless against the combined attacks of high-speed flight.
The Lizard Squad, putting up a cross defense with their arms extended, had their heads and arms completely severed, instantly turning into chunks of meat.
At least the initial numbers, including No. 1, stopped at the loss of arms, but it was hardly a consolation.
“Filthy! Low-level! Monsters! How dare you block me!!”
Boom—! Bboom—! Boom boom boom—!
With flashes of lightning, the spear continued to unleash attacks while swiftly moving along the narrow alley’s wall.
Vrooom— Vroom—!
The attacks of the summoned creatures sliced through the air incessantly, and the guy laughed maniacally at the sight of such creatures.
“Tch… As expected, with the current summoned configuration, it’s difficult to deal with aerial units without ‘Provocation.'”
I had to fill the gaps of the summoned creatures, but if I couldn’t hit with the abilities I had, it would be meaningless.
It was quite regrettable not to have someone with the ability to definitely stun or bind a specific target.
‘It’s too fast. That skill can’t just be used so freely, can it? The Evolution Stone really is overpowered!’
I could suddenly feel why issues related to ‘Evolution Stone’ never ceased. This guy reached areas that one might not touch even after a lifetime of effort by giving up on being human.
“Hahaha!! This feels absolutely exhilarating!!”
Looking at the guy whose eyes were rolling back, you could tell how much satisfaction and pleasure he was experiencing.
Of course, at the same time, the guy’s body was quickly transforming into something non-human, but he seemed oblivious to his own condition.
The man, nearing transformation into a monster, once again activated high-speed flight and flew toward Yeon-hee.
Squeak—
‘Where do you think you’re going—!’
Whoosh—
“Try grabbing my arm again, you little shit!!”
Bam――!
“Ugh!”
He tried to block the guy aiming at Yeon-hee but instead received a counterattack to his chest. It seemed he had aimed for me since I was defending in the first place.
It looked like he had been waiting for revenge after I had grabbed his arm last time and left him with a blue bruise. What a vengeful little punk.
Luckily, thanks to the ‘Acceleration’ bestowed upon me by Ran, I was able to react to that attack.
As I sighed in relief and was about to throw a bomb toward his escape route, I realized I had missed something by looking at the man’s grinning mouth, which seemed to be splitting apart.
Crack—!
‘Oh no…!’
The tail.
A tail that looked like it had a fist-sized iron orb attached to it hit my chin properly. I hadn’t even registered it because the tail had suddenly burst out from my back.
At the moment I was hit in the chin, I noticed scales densely covering the exterior of the tail. Just like…
‘The tail of a Lizardman?’
I had no idea why there was an iron orb attached to the increasingly thin tail of a Lizardman, but that guy’s tail had that shape, and it was effective for making unconventional attacks.
Half of my chin was precisely severed, and my health dropped instantly by 30. Thankfully, my chin had thickened through job changes; otherwise, I would have been done for with my initial body.
‘I almost died for real! Uuugh- something’s coming up from inside.’
The moment I got attacked by the guy, something inside my body wriggled and tried to crawl out, and I threw it up at the man.
Splaaargh―!
“Wheeeek- What the hell!!”
Gray Mold Poison
– When receiving 20% or more health reduction damage at once, it releases gray smoke around that decreases movement speed by 30%.
As my health dropped, the trait I obtained from the Gray Mold activated.
Being barely close to the guy, he inhaled quite a bit of that gray smoke.
Flap—!
After staggering once, he hurriedly flapped his wings and tried to fly up again.
“Where do you think you’re going!!”
Twirrrr—
Kyaahhhh—!
The cooldown had returned, and the Dotted One and Ddak-ddak-i used ‘Provocation,’ causing the guy, who was about to fly up without looking back, to jerk his head around as his thoughts were drawn away contrary to his will.
That’s the true fear of ‘Provocation.’
Then, at that moment, the resummoned summoned creatures all lunged at him.
– Kwoooooo!!
– Clang-a-laaaach!!
Orcs, Lizardmen, and zombies piled on top of him, smashing him down, while the resummoned creatures kept throwing their bodies at him to ensure he couldn’t move at all.
“Gotcha! You bad guy!”
He looked completely trapped and unable to escape. With dozens of summoned creatures piling on him, he must have weighed several tons.
Clang-a-laaaach―!
However, what I overlooked was that he wasn’t a normal reborn creature.
Thin, thread-like things flailed in the air like cigarette smoke, emitting light, and where they passed, only the sight of summoned creatures being sliced into dozens of pieces and spraying blood remained.
‘Shit… What the hell is that?’
From the guy’s body sprouted dozens of tentacles resembling the baby blades attached to his spear, wriggling around in search of prey.
Most of the summoned creatures were rendered unable to fight.
“Hihihihik— This is it!! The power I wanted!! Overwhelming— Ahh!”
His eyes were constantly shifting left and right as if he were feeling extreme pleasure, and his pants were soaked in some sticky substance.
‘Here, eat this, you disgusting punk.’
But the summoned creatures visible to the eye weren’t everything.
He overlooked me, who was preparing in stealth.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom—
“Whaaat!!”
[Flame Cut]
Crrrunch!!!
There was no more time to capture him. I tossed ten bombs behind the guy who was laughing like a maniac and exploded them, taking one of his arms with the Flame Cut.
‘I aimed for his neck, but he dodged!’
“Body Reinforcement!”
Swoosh— Bam— Pshhh!
Since a while ago, Body Reinforcement had been diligently slashing at the man’s monster body.
Vroom— Boom—!
“Chiaaa!! Die, you bastard!!”
Seemingly annoyed by Body Reinforcement’s attacks, the man swung his spear wildly at her while bearing the full brunt of the bomb damage.
At that moment, Body Reinforcement stood still as if she had never moved.
‘Smooth thinking. She remembers what I said well.’
Yeon-hee had taught Body Reinforcement just one thing. Don’t engage directly when the enemy is attacking.
Body Reinforcement was distinguishing itself beautifully in that regard. When he attacked, she would quietly wait in an incorporeal state, and when things calmed down, she would attack again. That would surely drive the opponent insane.
If all the Specters in Nargul’s dungeon followed that sort of behavior, the dropout rate for D-rank hunters would increase by at least several tens of percent.
‘Phew… That was tough.’
The bomb attack was the decisive blow, and with the Flame Cut taking away one arm, his mobility distinctly decreased.
“Grrr… Damn it!”
“Kwoooooo!!”
Dotti 1, whose arms had all been severed, let out the warrior’s cry again, and the summoned creatures, with no intact limbs, charged at him once more.
Even without legs, they crawled with their arms to grab him; if they had no arms, they would bite at his skin with their teeth. It was near obsessive persistence.
They seemed cute when viewed at home, but when faced on the battlefield, there was little difference from zombies.
Swish— Swoosh—
Every creature that lunged was slaughtered by the monster’s slender blades, but Yeon-hee did not hesitate to exhaust her summoned creatures.
There’s no winning against the numbers, they say. The number of summoned creatures was too great for a now sluggish opponent to handle.
“You bad…! You bad person!! Why the kids!!”
As if to vent her anger, she kept resummoning them even though they weren’t needed anymore.
The man, who once had a glimmer of hope when cornered by my attack, began to show a face of fatigue as he was continuously killed and resurrected by the summoned creatures.
“Dammit! Stop it! Stop it, you filthy things!”
And not long after, the man began to show signs of rapid decline and could no longer land a single attack on the Lizard Squad and Orcs.
‘I overexerted myself when I was swarmed earlier. I had also spammed my skills from the start…’
Boom! Thud! Plop—! Thwack-thwack-thwack!
“St-stop! I— I’m not the one to—”
Being surrounded by dozens of monsters and beaten down with bare fists… Can there be a more miserable end than that?
“Kkaah— Ugh— S-save me—”
Now, the man’s eyes were popping out of their sockets, and tentacles began to crawl out from within.
The monster that was once human was desperately recalling past memories, crying out for mercy.
“Everyone stop! That’s enough now…”
Yeon-hee commanded the summoned creatures to retreat and, looking at the man, saw the creatures he had defeated at least twice now still drooling in hunger.
“Kkhhh… Grrr… Kkek…”
Step—
I stepped closer to him, and Yeon-hee couldn’t bear it and turned her head away.
The monster had been beaten so severely that its skin was stuck to the ground. He seemed to have tried to maintain at least his face until the end, gasping for breath as he looked up at us.
“W-what did you do to… the kids… did you really make that child like that?”
“Kek… S-some… Hoo- honk— A few of the orphan kids… Ke-hihihihih… Cough—”
‘Orphanage… Tch—’
The monster, struggling to coordinate its breathing, began to answer Yeon-hee’s question in bits.
“I don’t know… Who cares about that… Let the brats die… Khuk khuk—”
“W-why would a person do such a thing to innocent kids… How could you!!”
As Yeon-hee trembled in anger, the man rolled his one remaining eyeball and said,
“Hihihihik— How did I do it? Grind them up… Grind them up and suck them dry…”
“… What…?”
“Keheh… You wanna know? When they’re ground up, the screams of the kids are just so—”
Crunch―!!
Before more terrible sounds could emerge, I stomped the man’s head into the ground. I wasn’t seeking any valuable information from interrogating such a psychopath. I just hoped Yeon-hee would now realize that too.
– You have defeated an upper-level mutant (C).
– You have acquired a mutant possessing the skill of the monster ‘Neos Harpy.’ You can activate the trait [Thievery] to steal it.
– If you don’t steal the skill, you will instead receive the ‘Fragment of Corrupted Life Potion.’
‘Wow… The system is showing such flexibility? Giving me a choice.’
Naturally, my choice was to receive the fragment. The harpy’s skill could be obtained right away by going to ‘Harpy’s Nest.’
‘I choose not to steal.’
– You have acquired the Fragment of Corrupted Life Potion. (4/100)
‘… Giving three of these means… Ha…’
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