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…the place we had arrived at was what seemed to have been a beautiful garden. I could see various pillars and fountains around the area adorning the area, so it was certainly very nice to see the flowers growing here for the owner of the castle when this city was fully operational.

Sadly, that beauty was gone now… in place, instead of beautiful flowers, only snakes could be seen leisurely passing time. Well, unless you're a lover of them, you'd probably just get goosebumps at such a sight.

…at least it was an open place, I really wouldn't want to be trapped in a closed room full of snakes! Unless... these snakes had the upper body of a beautiful young girl!! Why couldn't it be something like that? I'm still wondering and regretting this!!

“Should we attack head-on?”

“M-ost are just weak snakes…I think we can do it”

“…”

Well, the fact that there was a door that looked like it was locked waiting to uncover some treasures inside the building surrounded by snakes, had also caught the attention of these girls. They must be thinking the same thing as me!

Still… these girls were too motivated! I had somewhat forgotten about Saeko's feisty personality... and how carefree Shigure could be too!!

Yes, maybe more than 50% of these snakes have a strength of just the first soul level, but being surrounded by them would still be pretty bad for anyone at the second level! And that's not counting the problems of the strongest snakes that were even stronger than Shigure!!

"...no, first we will attack them by surprise and reduce their number"

Before these girls grab their weapons and try to charge at the enemies in front of us, I speak to stop them. While I also have a bit of confidence that the three of us would prevail in a battle against a large number of snakes, there was no need to put ourselves at unnecessary risk!!

Quickly I pull out several BIMs and hand some to the girls. Saeko already knew about these, so I just have to explain a little to Shigure who was looking curiously at the little bomb in her hands.

…I have to stop her several times from trying to activate it due to her curiosity!! The truth is that these bombs still scared me more than the snakes in front of us, so I couldn't help but worry and feel uneasy while she was holding one! If she activated it near us, then there was no doubt that we were screwed!!

“Throw them anywhere you see multiple snakes gathered”

""…Yes""

Even though they seemed a bit discouraged at not being able to fight head-on, the girls followed my instructions, and together with me, we started to throw the BIMs quickly.

When we do, the snakes finally seem to notice us and start hissing, but before they can do anything…

“ Shaaah~!!”

[ Tsuuuun !!] [ Tsuuuun !!] [ Tsuuuun !!] [ Tsuuuun !!] [ Tsuuuun !!] [ Tsuuuun !!]

…several black holes begin to form around them!

Aside from the fact that these were the deadliest I had, they were also the quietest! The latter was the reason for choosing this type of bombs this time... if we made too much noise, we might still have more snakes return to what seemed to be their nest! That would only complicate things more.

““ Shaaah ~!! Shah ~!! Sssss ~!!!””

…this was more effective than I thought. Practically the number of enemies had been reduced by at least 2/3 parts!! Now, most of the snakes were dead or dying on the ground!!

Even the two snakes that surpassed the 5th limit of the 2nd soul level did not escape the effects of the black holes that had ripped them apart! Well, maybe it was also because I focused on throwing quite a few of these bombs around them and they were totally taken by surprise.

“Now, girls, you can freely fight with the remaining enemies”

""Yes!""

There was no longer any point in us continuing to hide, so while the surviving snakes were in complete disarray and agitation, we went out to take advantage of this while holding our weapons.

We cut down any enemies blocking our path, further reducing the number of these snakes. Perhaps the only unfortunate thing about all this is that the materials and crystals had probably been reduced a little... or maybe a lot, but it was a price I was willing to take!

“ Shaaaaa ~!!!”

“C-Careful! There is still one Big Snake alive! ”

Unexpectedly, it seems like there was a third snake with considerable strength that escaped my sight before… [Level 173] is what I can see above its head when I see this one! Like its companions, it was a snake with black scales... only its size was much larger! It easily exceeded 15 meters in length!!

…I wonder if this one was under the other snakes? Since I didn't see it before and it had various bleeding wounds on its body now, that possibility was quite likely! Even part of its head was gone!

Damnit, how is this snake still alive?! It's a bit unfair the vitality that Monsters have!!

“ Shaaah~!!”

The snake focuses its remaining eye on the two girls who were fighting together, and in the next moment, it opens its mouth exhaling what looks like a cloud of poisonous gas!

"Ha!!”"

The good thing is that both of them had heard my warning. So when the snake attacks, Saeko steps forward and uses her sword creating a gust of cutting wind that splits the poison that was fast approaching them!

Oh~ That was certainly quite impressive! The sword of wind that comes out of the sword Saeko was holding even managed to hit the snake's scales creating another wound on its body!

…if I remember correctly, her weapon should be at least [E] rank, so it's not hard for her to fight opponents still stronger than her. Also, this time it seems that her compatibility against that snake too played an important role.

“ Sahaaa ~!!”

Then, Shigure who takes advantage of the path created by the wind blade comes to stand a few meters from the snake and also attacks it with her sword! Even though her weapon wasn't as high-rank as Saeko's, that didn't prevent more cuts from appearing on the snake's body for every slash of it!

When the snake puts all its attention on her, and my heart tightens a bit, Shigure avoids the blows of its tail with which this one tries to hit her deftly! Also, before she fully retreats, Shigure doesn't forget to throw some stars that hit directly at the remaining eye from the snake!!

“ Sha~ Shaaaa!!”

Whether from the pain of completely losing its vision or because of all of its injuries, the snake writhes on the ground as it hisses in agony. Taking advantage of this, and getting out of my surprise at seeing the girls fight, I eliminate the enemies around me and run towards them too!

I couldn't sit around and just watch the girls perform, right?

As I run, I exchange my two swords for the cursed bastard sword I haven't used in a while. It's not that I didn't want to use this or it was weaker in range than my other weapons, the problem is that the fighting style with this one wasn't very suitable against strong people... to attack, it could only be through wide movements that left many openings which could be very bad!

But to deal with a huge snake I couldn't ask for a better weapon!

With the flames emanating from the sword surrounding me, I run around the body of the snake which doesn't seem to notice me. Then, when I reach its head, with all my strength I drop the blade hitting the scales!

It was tougher than I thought… it wasn't hard to get past its scales, but… I feel the rebound on my arms when I hit the skull!!

"S-Shaaaa ~..."

…It wasn't until after the 4th or 5th blow that I feel like the sword finally goes through the skull! It wasn't easy to do it either… if it wasn't for my good balance and also that the sword stuck in its flesh at least, I wouldn't have finished this one so quickly! The snake jerked violently from each hit and I almost was sent to fly in the air several times!!

When I see that from the bleeding eyes of the snake some flames escape and it loses its strength, I knew that I had achieved my goal! When the snake collapses completely lifeless to the ground, I roll a few meters to mitigate the impact.

…being about 10m above the ground was still something quite worrying, you know?

“…f-inished with the rest?”

"It seems that many snakes are running away seeing what was probably their leader dead"

"Okay, let's pick up all the good things and finish off any snakes left in the place."

In the end, it takes us a while to do this alone. As I thought, the profitable stuff was reduced a bit, but given the number of enemies in this nest, it was still even a reasonable amount of profit!

What's more…

“Now it only remains to see that place!”

"Yes"

"U-n…"

We approached the building that had caught our attention earlier. It didn't seem to be an ordinary place... even though various buildings had deteriorated from time or the battle that took place here, this one was exempt from it! The reason was probably those symbols we could see on the walls… probably protection runes!

These must be the reason those snakes couldn't break through the walls, windows, or doors of the building. But now, the problem was if we could do it…

“…do you know how to open this, Alex-san? Maybe it would have been good to bring Emilia-chan or Kurisu-san.”

"...unfortunately, I'm not as good as them at these things"

Put aside being good at this, the truth is that I did not understand any of these symbols! Well... it's impossible to be skilled at all things. Besides, I didn't mean to be either. But that was not a problem, at least we have someone in our group who specializes a bit in these things!

...the bad thing is that they are not here now. And bringing them here can be very dangerous for them... at least we should reduce all the risks if we try something like that.

"D-id we try to force it open?"

“…maybe it's a good idea. We have nothing to lose by trying."

[ Clanck !] [ Clanck !] [ Clanck !]

After Shigure's suggestion, both girls use their swords to hit the weakest spot from their point of view. But as I thought, they don't even leave a mark where they focus their attacks...

“…It seems like it's useless. Do we give up and go somewhere else? ”

"U-n...it's pretty tough... m-y sword doesn't seem like it can cut through it. "

“…no, I want to try one thing first”

Telling the girls to back off a bit, I grab one of the same BIMs as the ones we used earlier. With my strength that isn't much different than the girls, it was probably impossible to try to break an opening on this place… I wasn't that cocky to think that I could pull it off on my own.

But if there was something that could do it, then surely it was one of those BIMs! You couldn't underestimate the power of that thing!!

[ Tsuuun !!!]

Taking the proper precautions, I threw one of those bombs at the door, timing it properly so that it directly hit the door in front of me…

The black hole is created a few seconds later… and the door seems to glow a bit as it feels the force that was trying to swallow everything around it. Luckily, this doesn't last long!

""It opened!!""

…well, instead of opening, a large hole appears in the door allowing us to see inside!

[Well, that's not strange… that BIM would surely even be a threat to a 4th soul level existence! Furthermore, if it weren't for the fact that it was considered slow to activate, even someone at the 5th soul level couldn't help but frown upon seeing something like that! ]

Yes… as Aurora says, the power of technology cannot be considered useless or underestimated!!