Volume 5 - CH 5.16

「Do not worry, master. I am perfectly fine with it.」

What we are doing here, allowing Sherry to be attacked on purpose, is essentially different from being suddenly attacked while fighting seriously, so Sherry will not be able to feel the genuine shock of being attacked like that because she is already waiting for the opponents to attack her, so she is basically anticipating the damage that is going to be inflicted upon her by the opponents.

However, what is the most worrisome at the eleventh floor of Quratar’s Labyrinth is the possibility of being caught au in the Green Caterpillar’s sticky threads, because if she ends up getting immobilized by them, even if it was on purpose, then she is not going to be able to do shit to protect herself, and needlessly putting Sherry’s life in danger is not what this experiment is all about.

A lot of the enemy groups now contain Green Caterpillars. It is starting to look pretty dangerous, so it is going to be a lot safer to go and try our experiment in a more convenient place without as much of these disgusting bugs as there are here.

Guided by Roxanne, we looked for a group of monsters to confront. The first handy group that we found consisted of a Green Caterpillar and two Escape Goats. Now, with these guys here, the experiment might just work out. Great job, Roxanne! That is what I have initially thought, but the Green Caterpillar did not use his thread spitting attack until the end.

「That was a boring group of enemies.」

「Too weak.」

「And they did not even use any Skills.」

Roxanne and Sherry looked at me strangely. It looks like the Japanese puns do not get translated all too well in Brahim. I should have expected as much. Maybe I should just drop any attempts at witty humor if they are just not going to work?

The next group of enemies consisted of three Green Caterpillars. Is this battle going to be just as easy as the previous one?

「Here they come!」

Seeing that, Sherry immediately moved in to try and take out two of the enemies at the same time by swinging her Club at them. Her strike connected with the Green Caterpillars, but they did manage to spew out their threads before that happened. Because of the impact of the blow that Sherry dealt to them, their slimy bodies have been stretched in a direction in which I am pretty sure that no normal body, be it a bug’s or a human’s should ever be stretching, but like I already said, it did not stop their threads from hitting Sherry in the end.

In this situation, I am sure that Sherry could have avoided being hit by those threads if only she tried it, but instead she chose to accept that attack head on, and after she has been covered with the Green Caterpillar’s threads, she also chose to quietly accept their attacks that came at her next without even a word of complaint. That was the moment for me to act. I chose which magic to use, thought about its name in my mind, and then fired it at the enemies

(「Fire Storm!」)

All this time, Sherry was not panicking and continued to stand there, acting calmly. This must have been her intention all along. She knew that even if she manages to catch the enemies with her Club and strike two of them at the same time, at their current level it is not going to be nearly enough to destroy them, so instead, she chose to accept a few of their attacks as she waited for me to finish them off.

「Fire Storm」was properly activated, and covered all three of the Green Caterpillars with the sparks that exploded into a fiery explosion after a short while. They all fell to the ground and turned into puffs of green smoke, so when it was finally over, I immediately came over to Sherry in order to check up on her. After all, she was still attacked a few times after she delivered her strike to the monsters, so she is definitely going to be in need of healing, even if only for a little bit.

「How are you feeling, Sherry? How was it?」

「I am feeling fine, master. There really was a noticeable difference, because even though I was hit by the Green Caterpillars a few times, their attacks did not seem to have as big of an impact as they had before, so I guess that must mean that my defensive power has definitely improved. Well, there are still some parts that are not clear to me because I was only hit those few times so I could not measure everything up properly, but at this point I do not think that dealing with the attacks of the monsters here on the eleventh floor of Quratar’s Labyrinth. Also….」

「O-Okay now, the most important thing is that you are safe and unharmed.」

I forcibly summarized Sherry’s story, because it was beginning to look as if she was about to go on another lengthy talk about all of the things and aspects related to what she just went through, and if I guessed correctly, then she was about to suggest that in order to conduct a much more thorough testing she should allow herself to be caught by the Green Caterpillar’s threads and allow them to hit her even more than they did just now, and that is just impossible and out of the question. She has already done enough and played her part, proving that the changed equipment does indeed make a difference and caused her to withstand more attacks than she could face before, and for the time being that is more than enough contribution from her in my book.

「Yes, I am most definitely unharmed. In fact, I feel that I could really use some more thorough testing in order to see exactly how much more damage I could possibly take an to what point I could withstand the increased amount of attacks before….」

「Then, do you want go to the eleventh floor of the Vale Labyrinth next?」

I quickly changed the subject to defuse the situation that was about to head of in the exact direction where I thought that it was going to go.

「Oh yes, we can definitely do that to see how are my new defenses going to fare against the monsters there instead. Good thinking, master!」

It is not good thinking, but common sense! Anyway, since Sherry expressed her agreement, we went to the eleventh floor of Vale’s Labyrinth next. Fortunately, the eleventh floor of Vale’s Labyrinth was not as hard as the eleventh floor of Quratar’s Labyrinth, so we did not have as many problems traversing through it. As long as Vale is concerned, we should be doing pretty okay here. Now that Sherry had her equipment changed for a better one defense-wise, I feel like I can safely kick back and observe her battles here on the eleventh floor of Vale’s Labyrinth with the confidence that she is going to be fine and will safely pull her own weight around. That might sound as if I was worried about her performance, but trust me, I was not all that worried since the beginning, because I knew that she was going to make it work one way or another. We then fought our way through the Vale Labyrinth’s eleventh floor until the evening and then we went back home.

While I was in the middle of preparing dinner, Sherry continued to make dumplings from the broth of the dried-up Shrub Rose leaves. I have to say, the finished product looks quite big, definitely bigger than I have initially anticipated. Instead of being of the same size as the three-colored dango that you put together on a skewer, but instead it is as big as a peony rice cake.

「There. It is all dried up nicely and cleanly. And since it is our first time ever making it, we are only going to mix in flour and sugar into it.」

「I see that you have also made it pretty big, huh?」

「That is because you do not actually need a lot of them in order to make this plan work. You can put one of them in the kitchen where you have last seen it, and then we can place the rest of them near the entrance to the house.」

Sherry then set the dumplings.

Maybe it was only my own imagination, but in my opinion they looked pretty dignified on that table. They look pretty reliable, so I want them to live up to their reputation and prove to be as useful as Sherry describes them to be.