Chapter 49

[Translator: Dawn ]

[Proofreader: Alissa ]

Chapter 49: [Free Exploration] Hidden Back Alley

“From now on, I dictate the tactics!” 

I looked back. 

“Jupiter, Demian!”Jupiter was already gathering mana in both her hands, but Demian was in a panic. 

Two gigantic golems emerged from both sides, driving the two vanguard knights into a corner and causing a rampage. 

It is understandable to be in panic in a situation like this, but you gotta get yourself together! I pinched Demian’s cheek. 

“Ouch, oww! It hurts, Your Highness!” 

Tears welled up in Demian’s round brown eyes. Alright, I think he’s come back to his senses. 

“Order! We will first attack the golem that Lucas is holding onto.” 

Lucas and Evangeline are both very sturdy knights, but if I had to categorize their roles, there was a little bit of difference. 

Lucas is a bruiser. He is an all-rounder who can tank and deal damage also. 

He can perform both roles well enough, but he cannot perform both of them perfectly. 

On the other hand, Evangeline is basically a pure tanker. She is a unit that specializes in blocking the opponent’s attacks. 

“Evangeline! Switch to a fully defensive stance and hold the golem off. Lucas! We’ll be backing you up now!” 

While Evangeline is blocking the attack of the golem alone, the standard tactic is for the rest of the party members to take care of the other one. 

In fact, Evangeline was doing very well blocking the attacks with her shield. 

“Jupiter, blow the golem’s breastplate armor off!” 

“Your wish is my command.” 

“Demian, have you gotten yourself together yet?”  

“Y-yes!” 

“When Jupiter blows off the golem’s breastplate, you aim for the exposed core, can you do that?” 

“I will do it!” 

Demian nodded his head, gripping his long-barreled rifle tightly. I also nodded my head back at him. 

Clank! Clank! 

Lucas was now pushed off all the way to the right in front of me. 

Guoo— Guoooh! 

The golem slammed down with a series of gigantic fists, and Lucas tried to parry them all with his sword strike, but his legs kept backing away. 

Large monsters like golems are small in number, but each one of them is very strong in return. 

Not only that, this one has the title of ‘Elite’, so it’s only natural that he’s having a hard time against it head-on. 

“And that’s why we do party plays!” 

After shouting, I stretched my arm forward. 

Flash-! 

A flash of lightning dropped down. 

The lightning strike from Jupiter struck the upper body of the golem. The charred metal plate cracked. 

However, the plate was so sturdy that it only charred and cracked. It was able to withstand the magic attack from Jupiter. 

“Tch, it wasn’t enough!” 

Jupiter clicked her tongue, but I shook my head. 

“No! It was enough!” 

Clunk! 

Demian was already aiming his magic gun toward his target. 

Demian doesn’t need a huge gap. Just a very thin crack, that is all he needs. 

“Pull the trigger~!” 

At the same time, I shouted, Demian pulled his trigger, 

Boom-! 

The triggered magic bullet was blasted off from the muzzle and spewed bright yellow flames. 

“Woah?!”Unable to handle the recoil of the rifle, Demian collapsed backward. 

Just before Demian rolled on the floor and hit the wall, I ran over and received him with my body. Thud! 

“Your Highness?” 

“Cough! Are you okay?” 

“I-I’m fine. But the golem?!”I smiled at Demian as he wasn’t able to get a grasp of the situation. 

“Look.” 

A smile of relief appeared on Demian’s lips as he followed the direction I pointed at with my index finger. 

Rumble… 

The golem was slowly falling down. Its two knees had already reached the floor, and its upper body was slowly falling down to the ground. 

Jupiter’s magic created a crack in the breastplate, and Demian’s shot dug through that crack and accurately pierced through its magic core. 

The gigantic golem stopped working in an instant. 

“Sigh.” 

Lucas sighed in relief and lowered his longsword. 

“It was pretty hard.” 

“It was an elite monster, which is stronger than normal monsters. It seems that you were flustered because it suddenly got much harder compared to Area 1.” 

It seems that we will be hunting down a small number of elite monsters in Area 2 as we go through the rooms. 

It’d be better to just consider every room as a boss room at this point. 

It was at that moment. 

“Why are you acting like the situation is over?” 

I heard a scream. Surprised, I turned to look. There stood Evangeline still blocking the attacks of the other golem. 

“I’m still in trouble!”“Oops, sorry. You were so quietly doing well.” 

“How can you say this is quiet?! I’ve got dents all over my shield!” 

Clank! Crash!Evangeline’s shield, which was receiving fierce attacks, was starting to glow white. 

It was Evangeline’s first skill, Damage Store. It was storing all the damage that the golem was inflicting. 

“Yeesh, whatever! Take this!” 

The light gathered in Evangeline’s shield moved to her spear. Evangeline held out her white shining spear with all her might. 

That was Evangeline’s 2nd skill, Damage Payback! 

Thwack-! 

All the damage that had been stored was shot out all at once. 

The power of that attack was truly terrifying. The tip of Evangeline’s spear pierced through the golem’s sturdy plates like soft tofu. 

Boom! 

Then it exploded inside the golem. 

The golem’s right half was tattered as if a bomb exploded inside. 

“Oh!”I exclaimed without knowing. 

This is the skill combination of the strongest tanker, Evangeline Cross the versatile! 

Guo, Guooh… 

The golem, staggering, got one of its knees on the floor. 

“Alright, time for the finishing move—!” 

And in that instant. 

[Translator: Dawn]

[Proofreader: Alissa]

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Slip! 

“Huh?” 

Stepping on the fuel leaking from the golem, Evangeline spun in mid-air and splendidly fell to the floor. Thud! 

“……” 

“……” 

A moment of silence. 

Not a single person from the party, not even the golem, was able to move at that moment. 

Evangeline was lying on the floor, not even moving. 

I thought she passed out, but seeing that her earlobes were dyed red, I think she was just too embarrassed to move… 

Barely blocking the laughter that was about to leak out with my hand, I gestured to Jupiter. 

“J-Jupiter! Emergency situation! Finish it off.” 

“Yes, sir~!” 

Jupiter, who was laughing, snapped her fingers. 

Crash! 

Lightning struck and burned the golem’s left half to black. The golem was slammed to the ground. 

“Fuu~” 

After blowing the tip of her finger, Jupiter smiled. 

“Thank you for yielding the finish to me, Lady!” 

Hey, don’t be so mean to that kid! She’s already going through so much. 

“……” 

Evangeline still wasn’t moving. I put my hand on my forehead and let out a shallow sigh. 

I guess her trait, [Clumsy], was activated there. 

‘Now that I think about it, Evangeline really is quite clumsy.’ 

Even when we first met, she didn’t notice my punch. 

Same with her getting sick after teleportation. And this time, she slipped because of the fuel on the ground. 

‘I can just laugh it off now, but it can be extremely dangerous in some situations.’ 

As I was thinking that, Evangeline rose from her spot as she stumbled, and turned around. 

I could see her two eyes that were bright red. If anyone made fun of her mistake, she was going to kill that person. 

“Ehem!” 

We all cleared our throats and avoided Evangeline’s gaze. 

Let’s not mention it since it won’t cause anything good. 

“Lady Evangeline, are you alright? If you’re injured, I can heal you…” 

Oh god, he’s kind but too slow at reading hints! 

Demian rushed to Evangeline’s side and used healing magic. 

Evangeline’s forehead was red and bulged, and when Demian’s healing magic touched her, she quickly healed. 

“……” 

Though, it seems that the magic wasn’t enough to heal her pride. 

Evangeline trembled with her reddened face as if she was about to explode at any moment. 

“Oh? Have you hurt your face too?” 

I hurriedly removed Demian who was tilting his head. Our boy is very kind, but he’s a little too slow at reading hints!“Ehem! Alright! Let’s take the items from these golems. They must’ve dropped some good items since they were very strong.” 

“Y-yes, Your Highness.” 

“This old lady loves doing this~” 

After nodding their heads, Lucas and Jupiter both quickly ran to the golems. 

‘I still have to heal her!’, said Demian as I dragged him away. 

Evangeline, who had been standing there for a while, murmured softly. 

“Being so considerate like that makes me even angrier, y’know…” 

But we were already speeding toward the golems over there. 

Evangeline, who was staring blankly at our backs, screamed out loud. 

“Just make fun of me! Laugh at me! Aah! Where are you all going?! Aaaah!” 

From the two steam golems, we were able to retrieve a large chunk of magic stones from each one. 

I held the magic core in my hand and measured its weight. I think it will be worth some money. 

“Hm… All of these look somewhat expensive.” 

Lucas tilted his head as he held up the engine of the golem equipped with the magic core. 

“But because I do not know anything about alchemy… I’m not sure which one’s the important part.” 

“I don’t know either. So just take the ones in fine condition.” 

On the other side, Jupiter was picking up only the shiny parts and putting them in her pocket. 

A gold bug, indeed. She seems to smell money very well. 

“Darn it… Why did the fuel have to spill there…” 

Evangeline was mumbling to herself while rummaging through the remains of the golem. Looks like she needs a mental recovery. 

“Ahem!” 

I approached her after clearing my throat and admonished her. 

“Hubae, don’t be embarrassed because of something like that. Others live after making bigger mistakes. Falling down after spinning two and a half laps in the air because you stepped on fuel is not even a big enough mistake.” 

“……” 

Evangeline’s pointed eyes flashed terrifyingly. It seemed that her protruding fangs would bite me at any moment. 

Hmm, maybe this wasn’t the way to cheer her up. I’ll just keep my mouth shut. 

Lastly, I checked on what Demian was doing. 

“Hmm.” 

He was seriously examining the wall that the golem appeared from. I approached him. 

“What’s the matter, Demian?” 

“Look over here.” 

Demian pointed at the inside of the wall. 

“There’s something there, Your Highness.” 

“Something?”My eyes widened as I approached the wall. 

Buried in the rubble of a collapsed stone wall… It was definitely a treasure chest! Nicely done, Thousand-Miles Eyes! 

“Good job, Demian!” 

I was just about to search for that, but Demian found it in one go. 

If Jupiter finds out that there’s a treasure chest here, her ‘Goldbug’ trait is going to activate, driving her crazy. It’s better that I open it quickly. 

The box was subtly shaking. 

Besides, that shiny thing between the lid and the main body… That’s teeth. 

‘It’s a Mimic.’ 

A mimic is a monster that pretends to be a chest. 

It will actually drop items upon defeat, but opening it without proper preparation will cause a bad situation. 

As I was about to call on the other members to take care of it, I suddenly thought of something. 

“……” 

I took a turn around. I saw depressed Evangeline. 

She had only gone through tough situations ever since she came back to this city. 

Her equipment was destroyed by my triple-seven punch, she found out about her father’s death, and she just made a bad memory with her mistake. 

She seemed especially embarrassed by her last mistake. Understandable. 

Her pride must be high because she had just graduated from the Academy at the top of her class, and she made a dumb mistake like that while on a real mission. 

‘Maybe I can cheer her up a bit.’ 

I gestured for Demian to come near. 

“Demian, come here.” 

“Yes, Your Highness.” 

Demian walked close to me. 

“Listen well, Demian.” 

After wrapping my arm around Demian naturally, I pointed to the treasure chest. 

“From now on, I’m going to intentionally touch that Mimic that is pretending to be a real treasure chest.” 

“Sorry? Ah, okay…” 

I continued to explain to Demian who wasn’t quite understanding this well. 

“And I’m going to intentionally get caught and eaten.” 

“…?” 

“Alright? You got that?” 

Demian looked up at me with an expression saying that he didn’t understand at all, then… 

“All the pain goes away~” 

He carefully caressed my forehead as he cast healing magic on his hand. 

No, I didn’t hurt my head! I’m completely fine right now! 

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