Chapter 100: Living Mail

Translator: ShiroiKaze/Soyokaze Translations

As we approached the mask, sure enough the armor moved.

This is what we expected.

They wordlessly glared at us… And the battle began.

The curtain opened with Haster’s magic.

He used [Wind Dusting]. His main attack, creating a myriad of tiny [Wind Blades] to create pressure differences to multiply their power several times over.

But even with that magic, it was ineffective against the living mail.

They’re hard enough that they could be enchanted with [Toughness]. The follow-up [Ice Sword] attack from Marielle was similarly repelled.

“They’re solid, be careful!”

Taking that in, Miss Levy and Alec ran in to continue the attack.

Miss Levy slashed at them six times in a single breath with her magic swords. With their magic power enchantments, we finally managed to put a scratch on them.

“Owowow… That there’s too solid.”

“Get down!”

With her movements dulled by the pain in her arms, Alec shouted over to her, and started a side swing with Gram.

Just as it having the name of a holy sword would suggest, it’s both hard and sharp.

He took it with both hands, and put all the strength of his body into a full swing. Normally it wouldn’t be unusual for this to cut it clean in two, but it was stopped just the same.

They’re unreasonably strong against physical attacks.

“In that case…”

Two enemies.

One of them is already wrapped up with taking Alec and Miss Levy’s slashes.

Probably can’t fire off a strong effect and high power magic over here.

Haster is moving toward the remaining one right now. I sniped at that one.

I used a [Heat Ball]. However, I compacted all its heat into a small effective range.

After sending all my magic power in to raise the heat as much as possible, I sent it flying like an arrow to collide with the living mail.

With sizzling sounds, it burned the shield and melted the armor… It didn’t go enough to penetrate, but it was successful at inflicting heavy damage.

“It looks like hitting it directly with magic power is effective.”

Both Haster and Marielle used magic that causes a phenomenon and then secondarily uses that phenomenon to physically inflict damage.

“Haster! Marielle! Magic that directly hits it with magic power!”

“Understood.”

“I-I thought as much… Hohoho.”

“Mary, don’t bluff.”

“Urk, very well.”

While this exchange was happening, Haster had completely entered close quarters combat range.

One of them slashed at Miss Levy, but her dodging abilities are far above those of an ordinary person. She handled the attack with room to spare.

The remaining one cut toward Haster, but he used his footwork to dodge the sword, and closed in to deliver a counterattack.

“Physical damage really isn’t going to work, huh.”

This is making me want to see the physical power of the Demon Lord match up against these.

As I thought about that, Marle threw a water bag at the feet of the living mail Alec was facing.

Water scattered everywhere from the impact. Marielle used that to cast [Viscous], turning the water into a slimy substance to hold its leg.

Unlike [Freeze], which would turn it completely solid, the sticky substance coils about to unfailingly obstruct movement.

“When did you two come up with that little combination…?”

“I was just thinking about how I could be helpful in battle too.”

Tehe, Marle stuck out her tongue and smiled.

It’s an adorable gesture, but the thought process here is pretty vicious.

Having its leg suddenly immobilized mid-battle, the living mail’s posture broke. The remaining leg was swept by Alec.

Once it fell to the ground on its back, Alec shoved his sword into a gap in its right arm.

“Sis, left arm!”

I understood Alec’s intentions when he said that. I fired a [Heat Ball] at the armor’s left arm, and ended up completely melting it.

With its right arm pierced through, and its left arm lost, the living mail no longer had a chance at recovering. It would probably have a hard time even getting back up.

Miss Levy should be able to skewer it as much as she wants now.

One left.

“Uraaaaah!”

When I looked over there, Haster had done a one-armed shoulder throw on it, and got on top of it to beat the living out of it.

It was a mount position.

With its arms held down by his knees and the middle of its chest gouged out, its operations became obstructed, and it could no longer knock him away.

That makes the match settled on this end too.

Now we just need to take our time burning it while he holds it down for complete victory.

~*~

“Good work everyone. That was a workout.”

“Whew, they were solid. Not sure what I’d do if my delicate little fingers done got hurt.”

“That was some nice support, Marle.”

“Mary helped too you know?”

“Hooohohoho, keep the compliments coming.”

Everyone must have lost all focus once the battle ended, as they began chatting as much as they wanted. I left them behind to take the mask.

Before being relieved, there’s something I was curious about.

I knew simply holding the mask wouldn’t activate its “curse” from when I “Appraised” it, so there was no problem with that.

Analyzing the details revealed that there were two enchant slots remaining, but… Hmm?

“Yuuri, how’s it look?”

“I think I should be able to remove the curse without any problems. Even if I remove it, there shouldn’t be any problems.”

“Which means it can be an emergency means of recovery.”

“Yeah, well the only one who will probably need it is Marielle though.”

“However… I am no fan of the design. Could it not be replicated on a different mask?”

If she wore the mask, that would certainly bring about the birth of the Blonde Curled-Hair Hannya. That’s far too chaotic an image.

“Hmmm… With this “curse” in the way… I think replicating it would be a little difficult.”

“W-well I sacrifices must be made in situations like this, so let’s just put up with it.”

“Is it really such a bad design? It’s got a certain charm to it when you take a good look, don’t you think?”

“Marle, I can’t agree with your sense of taste.”

This is charming? Yeah, no. I feel sorry for her sensibilities.

“There was something you were wondering about with this, Yuuri?”

“Yeah, well… I don’t think I’ll figure it out unless I put some serious research into it.”

“Sis, what about this armor? Is there anything we can use it for?”

Hrm, right, if we could make armor with as much defensive power as this, then would we be able to take a hit from the Demon Lord?

“Ooh, not a bad thought coming from you, Alec. I grant you a compliment.”

“What’s with the condescending attitude?”

One of their chest pieces are completely melted away, so I guess it can’t really serve as a reference, huh?

The other one was slashed up by Miss Levy, but if I just complete the slashed portions of the magic circle, then I should be able to analyze…

“This isn’t [Toughness], is it?”

“Hn? Oh, really ain’t.”

“This is… Something I haven’t seen before.”

A magic circle that Haster has never seen? That’s a harvest in a different sense.

Tracing the flow of magic power, I guess at the spell’s effect.

“Hmm, the magic power is guided from here to over here… Huh? There’s no formula to preserve the material’s strength?”

“And it was still that hard?”

“Yeah, this is something else… Something without any kind of strengthening or bonding formula, and it’s still that hard because… Wha? Could this be some kind of time stasis?”

“Time stasis?!”

If the object gets fixed in place at the moment the circle is carved in, then it would certainly make it impossible to destroy with physical attacks.

Destructive power is the result of an impact propagating through space over time.

If time is disconnected from it, then the impact will simply be cut off at that moment.

“Then what, if we put this armor on, then we get eternal youth like sis has?”

“Not quite. The circle is only carved into the armor. It can only grant its influence to the armor itself.”

“Then what happens if we carve it into our own bodies?”

“That’s… Probably not a good idea. A human body having its time stopped is the same as saying it’s dead.”

It would probably stop synapses in the brain from firing, and stop the heart as well.

In which case they wouldn’t be alive any more.

Maybe it could be used like cold sleep though?

“It might come in handy for people with incurable diseases, at which point we could ‘entrust the treatment all to the future’.”

“Such things would simply take my handling of them… And besides, I have heard the World Tree can produce the miracle drug, “Elixer,” which can cure any disease.”

“Marielle, how many people do you think can even make it this far?”

“I-I suppose you have a point.”

Does this girl even realize she’s already in the area of legends?

It’s friggin’ floor 921!

The only ones in history who made it this far are Bahamut, the Demon Lord, and us.

“Anyway, about this armor. Though the effect extends to the connected parts, the main portion is the chest piece… If we just take this and process it, we can probably make use of it.”

“Can you replicate the spell formula?”

“That’s… Probably not going to happen. I don’t know anything about this unbelievable technique of [Time Suspension] myself.”

“And you don’t know what’ll happen if you make a poor imitation?”

“Yeah.”

It would be pretty awful if I try to replicate it with my limited knowledge of it and cause it to ‘confer the time suspension to the wearer’ of the armor or anything like that.

“Kind of a waste that we destroyed one of them…”

“Well, not much we can do now. Getting one of them is already plenty good enough.”

In truth I wanted to take it back and research it to put it into some practical realization though.

“Well then, this chest piece… Size-wise it would fit Alec or Haster I suppose?”

“I’ve got my dragon scale, so I don’t need it.”

“Anything that makes it harder to move is going to give me a disadvantage in close combat.”

“Then, Miss Levy…”

“I ain’t takin’ somethin’ that heavy.”

Miss Levy’s emphasis on speed and Haster’s use of close combat make it so they can’t effectively use this chest armor.

Even so, it would be a total waste to leave something with so much defensive power aside.

“M-Marle…”

“It looks like it’ll get in the way when I’m searching for traps… I’ll pass.”

It certainly wouldn’t be good for our main scout to have her searching ability drop.

“Why don’t you wear it, Yuuri?”

“How am I supposed to even walk wearing something like this?”

The chest plate alone is practically 5 kilograms you know?

That’s a sixth of my body weight. Not gonna happen.

By process of elimination, Marielle ended up being chosen to wear it.

~*~

“Owowow! They’re being crushed, you’re going to crush them!”

“That’s fine by me! Flatten! Disappear, goddammit!”

“Mary, stop struggling! Come on, this is why I keep telling you to exercise more.”

“What could possibly be harder exercise than searching the labyrinth?!”

For now we fixed it in place with a rope to tailor a simple breastplate together, but… A single important problem came to light.

Her breasts.

The armor is designed for a male body, so the chest portion doesn’t match at all.

Moreover, Marielle has useless… Yeah, pointlessly huge breasts.

And so, while crying bitter tears, I was squeezing her into the chest armor, and trying to fix it in place.

The men couldn’t very well participate, and Miss Levy was busy holding her belly and laughing while she watched us.

“Help us out already, Miss Levy!”

“I can’t… Jus’ can’t… Stomach’s hurtin’ it’s so funny! Ahahahaha!”

I can hardly blame her for laughing.

With everything complete she became a blonde, curly haired, hannya masked, side-boob breastplate-ed, hard to really put into words, thing.

A later story:

When we got back to town, the guards made a huge fuss about a monster appearing.

Marielle couldn’t leave her room for the whole break day.