Chapter 127: Zone 5 (2)

“Whew. No doubt about it—these things are tough.”

The corpsmen began collecting the byproducts from the Bone Dinosaur they had just brought down.

They were the Security Corps’ elite hunting team.

At present, they were in the middle of a hunt in Zone 5.

With the fog making it nearly impossible to maintain a proper line of sight, Zone 5 was a dangerous hunting ground even for high-level Climbers strong enough to take on the monsters that inhabited it.

Even so, they came because the rewards were worth the risk.

The Mist Ghost Core, dropped by one of the monsters found in Zone 5.

Ever since it had been discovered that the core could serve as a catalyst for further stabilizing magic-stone-based mana power generation, it had become a name-your-price commodity among companies researching monster byproducts.

And money wasn’t the only reason people came.

On rare occasions, there were Climbers who ventured into Zone 5 simply for the thrill of it.

“Man, you really can’t see a damn thing out here. Come in alone and you could get killed without anyone ever knowing, huh?”

A corpsman on his first Zone 5 hunt muttered as he glanced around.

Another corpsman replied in a leisurely tone, as though eager to display the composure of a veteran.

“You ever hear this one? They say that Taylor woman hunts and wanders around out here all by herself.”

“...What? Seriously? Isn’t that completely insane?”

“It’s a famous story among the Climbing Bureau staff. Apparently, she’s doing it to fill the Zone 5 gauge faster for Person123.”

“Well, then I guess that means we’re helping out too, huh? Ha ha.”

The corpsmen traded jokes back and forth.

A round of combat had just ended, and everyone had relaxed a little.

“Don’t let your guard down. Stay alert.”

Justin, the Security Corps’ Deputy Commander, reined them in before they could grow careless.

Person123 had disclosed detailed information about Zone 5, and by now the proper hunting protocol had more or less been established.

But even so, a single careless mistake in Zone 5 could mean death.

Just a few months earlier, a level-42 corpsman had had his head torn off by a Stick Insect in the blink of an eye and died on the spot...

“...Above you!”

Sensing something, Justin roared.

A massive Stick Insect launched itself from a nearby tree, hurtling down toward one corpsman’s head like an arrow.

The targeted corpsman reacted a beat too late.

And then—

Flash!

A streak of light flickered through the fog, and lightning blasted the Stick Insect apart.

Its lifeless body dropped to the ground.

The corpsmen froze, staring at the corpse in stunned silence.

“Wh-what the...?”

Even Justin couldn’t make sense of what had just happened.

...A new anomaly in Zone 5? I’ve never heard of anything like this.

Dumbfounded, he could only stare in the direction the flash had come from.

***

The moment Radiant Incarnation came off cooldown,

I immediately put my plan to exterminate the monsters of Zone 5 into action.

Whoooosh!

At the very rear of Zone 5, along the boundary between Zone 4 and Zone 5, I activated Radiant Incarnation.

‘Here we go.’

I began circling outward from the innermost reaches of Zone 5.

Almost immediately, I spotted a Bone Dinosaur.

I cast Flame Strike.

Without even bothering to watch the fireball reach its target, I shot away again.

Next, I ran straight into a Mist Ghost.

It was one of the variants capable of creating doubles of itself.

Before it could even register my presence, Lightning Strike hit it and blew it apart.

Bone Dinosaur, Stick Insect, Great-Claw Ghoul, Mist Ghost.

Those were the four types of monsters found in Zone 5, with Bone Dinosaurs having the highest spawn rate.

In any case, I tore through the area at the speed of light, killing every monster I encountered.

Of course, because the fog restricted my field of vision so severely, my original plan—to spiral outward from the center and sweep Zone 5 clean in a single orderly pass—proved impossible.

Partway through, I completely lost my sense of direction.

But that didn’t matter in the slightest.

Even flying around at random, monsters kept popping into view like fish in an overstocked pond.

That was simply how fast I was moving.

In the span of a single second, I killed more than ten of them.

And that was only because I had to pause for an instant each time I attacked.

Without those tiny delays, I could have killed far, far more.

And so I began sweeping through Zone 5 in earnest.

‘Hm?’

Along the way, I ran into other people as well.

They looked like Climbers affiliated with the Security Corps.

One of them appeared to be getting ambushed by a Stick Insect, so as I passed by, I blew it apart with Lightning Strike.

Kill.

Kill.

Kill.

For the ten minutes that Radiant Incarnation lasted, I had to hunt as much as humanly possible.

Every now and then, I checked the gauge.

It was rising at an absurd rate.

‘Can I actually pull this off?’

At this pace...

If I handled things right, I might actually fill the entire gauge.

That was when the Demon King spoke.

– I could simply freeze the whole lot of them with my power. Why bother scurrying around like this?

‘Can’t do that.’

If I used the Demon King’s power without restraint, I could unleash absurd wide-area attacks like the ones I had used on Floor 9.

But there might be other people nearby, just like there had been a moment ago.

With my vision this limited, I couldn’t exactly cut loose with an enormous area-of-effect attack.

Still, partway through, I switched places with the Demon King.

Even the brief pauses required to stop time and cast my magic skills were beginning to feel wasteful.

The Demon King flew around in my place, freezing the monsters throughout Zone 5.

My only concern was that, if I somehow managed to kill every last monster in the zone, their respawn rate might not be able to keep up.

Whether there was simply an unbelievable number of monsters already spawned, or whether they respawned extremely quickly,

I couldn’t tell.

But they just kept appearing.

[Zone 5 (99.9%)]

The ten minutes came to an end.

I had no idea how many monsters I had killed in total, but whatever the number was, it had to be staggering.

Radiant Incarnation deactivated, and I checked the gauge.

Annoyingly, I was still short by 0.1%.

Of course, that much could easily be taken care of through ordinary hunting.

I should be able to summon and kill the Zone 5 Boss before the day was over.

Before doing that, I left Floor 5 and opened the Communication Channel.

[Person123: I’ll be taking on the Zone 5 Boss shortly. Anyone currently in Zone 5 could get caught up in the fight, so I’d appreciate it if you could leave the area.]

There had been people hunting there earlier.

It would be dangerous if any of them accidentally encountered the boss before I did.

The Zone 5 Boss had to be at least around level 100.

[Ignition: What happened to the Zone 5 gauge? Wasn’t it at like 80% a second ago?]

[Plié: Yeah. It suddenly shot up insanely fast. Is it bugged?]

[Statute: What bug lol]

[Advent: Huh? Person123 posted that he’s going after the Zone 5 Boss? Check the Nightmare Channel.]

[Spaceship: Don’t tell me Person123 filled the Zone 5 gauge?]

[Resilon: Judging by that post, looks like he did...?]

[GreenTea: What the hell is going on now, how’d you even do that lolololololol]

I closed the Communication Channel, which had descended into chaos, and entered Floor 5 again.

Then I resumed hunting to fill the remaining 0.1%.

After some time had passed...

[The Zone 5 Boss appears.]

The message appeared.

I climbed onto Plli and began racing around Zone 5.

As expected, the fog was the real problem.

With my vision obstructed, finding the boss looked like it might take forever.

Even so, I focused as hard as I could and relied on Sixth Sense.

Because it was a boss, Sixth Sense should react much more strongly to its presence, allowing me to extend my effective search range.

‘Don’t tell me I won’t even find it today...?’

With that thought lingering in my mind, I roamed Zone 5 for quite some time.

...Should I just give up for today and try again tomorrow?

Just as that thought began to creep in—

“...!”

I snapped my head toward one side.

Sixth Sense had reacted.

Very faintly.

I immediately sprinted in that direction.

‘It’s the boss.’

Before long, a monster emerged from the fog.

I dismissed Plli and dropped to the ground.

It looked like...

A white jellyfish?

More or less standing upright on its tentacles.

No.

Looking more closely, it was actually hovering slightly above the ground, almost like a ghost.

And, naturally, it was enormous.

Judging by its presence, it seemed roughly the same size as the Zone 4 Boss.

I felt nothing but satisfaction at finally having found it.

There was no real tension.

Even through Sixth Sense, I could tell it was comfortably within the range of what I could handle.

And if, by some slim chance, things became dangerous, I could always draw on the Demon King’s power.

Anyway...

This thing gives off almost no presence even when it’s standing right in front of me?

Fwoom!

Without making a sound, the jellyfish boss writhed and slammed one of its tentacles down at me.

I lightly hopped to the side.

The tentacle smashed the ground where I had been standing into rubble.

I stopped time while still in midair.

After completing Mental Concentration, I fired a fully charged Destruction Ray.

Shooooo...

‘Hm?’

The Destruction Ray punched straight through the boss’s body.

But the part it struck scattered like fog.

Then, in the next instant, it returned to its original form as though nothing had happened.

I followed up with Flame Strike.

Kaboom!

A ferocious blaze erupted and tore the boss apart.

But the same thing happened again.

Its body dispersed like fog before reforming in an instant.

What the hell is this...?

At this rate, it’s basically invincible.

The boss attacked again.

A barrage of tentacles came whipping toward me.

I darted from side to side, evading them.

Then the boss itself dissolved into fog.

“...!”

Sixth Sense reacted behind me.

I whipped around.

The boss had suddenly appeared at my back.

Huh.

So it can teleport too?

Something resembling a mouth opened on the inner side of one of its tentacles.

A powerful shockwave erupted from it.

Everything in a straight line ahead—ground, trees, everything—was swept away.

Naturally, I managed to dodge in time.

After putting some distance between us, I stopped time for a moment and thought.

So far, the abilities I had identified were turning its body into fog, teleportation, and that shockwave attack.

Dodging its attacks wasn’t particularly difficult.

The problem was—

Its ability to turn its body into fog was nullifying every attack I threw at it.

...Could it be immune to magic, with only physical attacks working?

To test the theory, I charged directly at the boss.

I slipped past the incoming tentacle strikes and closed the distance.

Using Leap, I drove my bare fist into the boss’s head.

There was no sensation of impact whatsoever.

Once again, the area I struck scattered like smoke.

I couldn’t even touch it.

Using Air Walk, I dodged the tentacles lashing at me in midair and retreated again.

‘Is this some kind of gimmick monster?’

There was no way it was truly invincible.

They wouldn’t design a boss that literally couldn’t be killed, right?

Back when I was clearing a Sub-Tower, I had encountered something with a similar ability.

The Vampire Boss.

The one whose body was made entirely of blood.

I had dealt with that one by blasting its entire body away with Destruction Ray...

But that wouldn’t work here.

“Ah.”

A thought suddenly occurred to me.

Every spot where the boss’s tentacles had struck the ground had been smashed apart.

The logic was simple.

My physical force passes straight through it...

So how is it exerting physical force on anything else?

Fwoom!

Another tentacle came swinging toward me.

This time, I didn’t dodge.

Just before the tentacle could strike me, I cast Lightning Strike.

Bzzzzt!

The tip of the boss’s tentacle exploded.

Cleanly.

‘Bingo.’

I had figured it out.

This selfish little bastard...

So it only drops its fog ability at the moment it attacks?

If that was the case, all I needed to do was counterattack during that exact instant.

Despite having one tentacle blown apart, the boss showed no obvious sign of pain and swung another.

Earlier, even when I had dodged through its tentacles, closed in, and punched it directly, it had still turned to fog.

Which meant—

The window during which its fog state dropped had to be incredibly brief.

I timed the attack.

Using Teleportation, I evaded the incoming tentacle at the exact instant it struck.

And in that same instant—

Instead of targeting the tentacle, I cast Hellfire Eruption directly at the boss’s head.

If dropping its fog state wasn’t limited to the tentacle it was attacking with...

Kaboooom!

A colossal pillar of flame erupted skyward.

The boss didn’t dissolve into fog.

It took the attack head-on.

Just as I thought.

Its entire body loses the fog state when it attacks.

Engulfed in hellfire, the boss sagged and began to collapse.

This was Hellfire Eruption with its power nearly doubled by the Zone 3 Boss Bracelet and my fire-magic passive.

But a boss was still a boss.

It didn’t die immediately.

Its vitality was remarkably tenacious.

I didn’t bother moving closer.

Instead, I laid down a Scorching Zone and continued bombarding it with spells.

Before long, a message appeared.

[The Zone 5 Boss has been defeated.]

[You have obtained the Zone 5 Boss Kill Reward.]

[You have obtained the Zone 5 Boss First-Kill Reward.]

The Zone 5 Boss.

An easy clear.

I immediately returned to the Zone 0 portal and entered the Reward Room.

Now then.

Let’s see what it dropped.

“Oh.”

There were three rewards.

A boss item that appeared to be the First Clear Reward.

Judging by its appearance, it was a perfectly white orb.

Alongside it were an Epic-grade Skill Stone and a Rare-grade Skill Enhancement Stone.

One of each.

That’s quite a haul.

I began checking the rewards one by one.