"What the hell are these things?!"
"Gah!"
"Fork!"
With the sudden ambush, a chaotic melee broke out.
In fact, I could see confusion on the faces of the Hermes Familia members.
But I wasn't particularly worried.
They were veteran adventurers in their own right.
After a brief moment of confusion, they quickly shook it off.
They each did what they were normally responsible for, protecting those who needed protecting and fighting where they needed to fight.
Thanks to that, they were able to handle the monsters admirably even in the middle of the chaos.
Among them, the one who stood out most was, of course, Ais.
Moving here and there as if riding the wind, she gave proper support to anyone who needed it.
Because of that, no one suffered any major losses in the fight.
"Lulune! I'm checking! Is the magic stone inside its mouth?"
"Yeah! Yes! So please do something about that thing already~!"
"You don't have to tell me."
Whoosh, boom!
"The weak point is inside the upper jaw! Have three people handle each one!"
The next person to shine on the battlefield was Asfi.
As her hand moved, violent explosions erupted inside the monsters' mouths, killing them instantly.
After taking down two of them that way, she quickly assessed the battlefield.
She issued the right orders to the scattered members and reversed the situation in no time.
As expected, she was an excellent all-rounder in every sense.
"I'm a little curious about the manufacturing method for that thing. If you mass-produced it and sold it, it could probably make a pretty nice profit. Or maybe that's also something made with a 'Mystery' ability? If so, that'd be a shame. Maybe I should ask about it later?"
Meanwhile, I leisurely watched the battle unfold in the middle of the field... no, observed it.
Thanks to that, I was also able to get a rough idea of what the thing Asfi had thrown actually was.
At a glance, it looked like she'd thrown some kind of small bottle.
Apparently, it was less a Molotov cocktail and more a small bomb made in the style of this world.
It was small enough to hold between your fingers, and it exploded almost immediately after being thrown, so it was very similar to a grenade from my previous world.
If I used that as a reference, maybe I could make a one-ton spear that exploded when swung next time...
Thunk!
"Hm? What?"
As I was busy watching... no, observing, I suddenly felt a reaction from behind me.
Wondering what it was, I turned my head and saw a new-type monster with its mouth wide open, desperately trying to bite me.
Though it still couldn't break through the barrier of the Moon Spirit Slime.
This was basically bulletproof glass... no, something even better, so something like that wasn't going to work.
Even Won Bin ajusshi couldn't get through this.
If it wanted to break it, it would need at least a Thompson pistol loaded with bone bullets.
I'd already prepared a countermeasure just in case, so it wasn't a problem.
"[Horn]."
Thud!
I'd already figured out the monsters' weak points long ago.
At my command, a long, thick spike shot out from the Moon Spirit Slime and pierced the monster's magic stone.
That killed it instantly.
"Interesting."
Usually, a living creature's vital points aren't easy to see from the outside.
The same goes for Dungeon monsters. Since the magic stone is their weak point, it's usually buried deep inside their bodies or placed in the safest part of them.
But these new-type monsters were different.
Just opening their mouths wide was enough to reveal the magic stone.
Biologically speaking, that was an incredibly impractical and dangerous form.
What on earth was the Dungeon thinking when it made these things?
"Or maybe there's some other reason they had to be made that way."
That was worth thinking about, too.
As I was pondering that, the area around us had gone quiet before I knew it.
The battle was already over.
"That last fight may have drawn more enemies. Let's move immediately."
"So that's the rumored new-type monster..."
"Hard, fast, and there are so many of them. I hate them."
"Sword Princess, you seem to know these new-types well. Would you mind giving us some information?"
"Yes. Okay."
At Asfi's request, Ais told everyone everything she knew about the new-type monsters as we moved along.
I also listened closely to her story, intrigued by this new knowledge.
Then, all of a sudden, the conversation turned to me.
Why was the flow of the conversation like this?
"I saw earlier that that magic tool was automatically protecting you from outside your field of vision. It was a much more impressive item than I expected."
"Hmph! More than that, Asfi's item is way more impressive!"
"Be quiet, Kikus. Keep watch properly."
"Eeeh... but I really do like Asfi so much~!"
"Wow, that's severe. How embarrassing."
"Shut up, Lulune."
Kikus was a hopeless romantic who had barged in for nothing and gotten nothing in return.
"Please don't mind him. But do you perhaps have any spare stock, or plans to make another one? If possible, I'd really like to buy one. If that's an impossible request, then I apologize. But if it's possible..."
This girl had apparently fallen hard for the Moon Spirit Slime.
She didn't seem like someone with much material desire, either.
Still, as a mage, even if she'd only just learned about it late, once she knew something like this existed, it would be hard to simply give up and accept that it belonged to someone else.
More so than a warrior longing for a weapon forged by Hephaistos.
But still.
"Impossible. I have no intention of selling it, and even if I did, this isn't the kind of thing I can sell for money."
"Does it require a lot of rare materials that are hard to obtain?"
"That's not what I mean. It's a matter of knowledge. I'm not saying maybe, I'm saying definitely: in this world, I'm the only one who can handle this. So from the start, handing it over to someone else is impossible."
"Knowledge of magecraft? If that's all, then as a mage myself I do have some..."
"Ah, no. That's not what I'm saying. Selling it or transferring it is absolutely impossible. The kind of knowledge required to request and handle it is completely different. I'm not saying this for no reason!"
"But, um...!"
Even after repeated refusals, she still wouldn't give up.
This was unexpectedly persistent.
Was she really that taken with the Moon Spirit Slime?
Still, what I'd said wasn't wrong at all. This thing was made by combining knowledge from my previous world with materials from this one, so it was truly something no one but me could handle.
Maybe someone like the previous El-Melloi or a once-in-a-generation genius like Flat could manage it.
But Asfi was an excellent talent, yes, though not to that extent.
So if possible, I'd really like her to just give up quietly.
"Hey, you! Just how much is that silver slime thing worth, anyway, that you keep refusing like that? I can tell it's expensive at a glance, sure. But stop acting all coy and just say it already!"
"Haaah, Kikus, you again..."
Oh dear, him again.
Just like the beast-girl lady said, he really was in serious condition.
Love really was a hurricane.
It was dangerous as hell.
At that rate, he'd die young for sure.
Still, he'd barged in at a pretty good time.
Here, maybe I should try shaking them off by making them sick of it, even if only roughly.
"Fine, listen up. As for this Moon Spirit Slime..."
And so began my long lecture.
Of course, since we were in the middle of something dangerous, I didn't exactly make it long-winded.
What I roughly explained was the "types and quantity of materials used in the Mystic Code," "the level of resources consumed," "the manufacturing process," and "the magecraft knowledge required to make it."
For a full hour, I gave them the most concise explanation I could.
The result.
"M-Meryl. Do you understand what he's even saying?"
"H-Hauuu..."
Thud x2
"L-Lulune and Kikus collapsed!"
"What is this? Some kind of curse spell?!"
"M-my stomach's turning."
"Damn it! Even Sword Princess?!"
As you can see, their combat power dropped sharply.
Even I hadn't expected that at all.
"...Just what are you?"
Even Asfi, the most capable among them, was looking at me with a stunned expression, as if I were some kind of monster.
Hey, what the hell is wrong with you people?!
I'm barely anything at all!
You just haven't experienced the Great Big Ben London Star's full-course assault of nonstop intensive lectures.
That was truly horrifying!
Do you think being a Magus is something you just get for free?!
If that were the case, all those countless Magi wouldn't have needed to throw away their precious humanity.
They only gave it up because it was worth giving up.
That doesn't mean I'm defending it as a good choice, though.
Anyway, thanks to that, Asfi, though clearly disappointed, no longer demanded the Moon Spirit Slime from me.
Maybe she'd bring it up again later after this was all over.
But for now, I should savor this silence.
"Oh? A fork in the road."
"Asfi, which way this time...?"
"Wait."
Just then.
Something was detected again within the Moon Spirit Slime's sensing range.
This mana pattern was the same one I'd felt a little while ago.
"It's them."
Gwooooooh!
"Everyone! Battle stations!"
With Asfi's order, the passageway filled with fighting spirit and killing intent.
And their numbers had increased even more.
We were probably almost at our destination by now.
I was starting to want to finish this journey and head back to the surface already.