Golden Experience

Chapter 178: “Skeletal Ghidorah”

“Call them, but make sure not to leave holes in your defenses.”

Deas and Queen Beetle are instructed to be on alert, just in case.

Then, 30 red skeletons were summoned in the square.

The three fierce Dragontooth were also summoned. These three seem to have no need for anything extra, but that’s not for Rare to determine.

Sieg’s Skeleton Knights step back as if under pressure. It seems that the Spartoi are more prestigious than the Skeleton Knights.

“All right, let’s give it a try! Come on, hurry up and lay your egg!”

“Blanc, your choice of words!”

“…Fine. [Philosopher’s Egg].”

As soon as a large crystal egg appears, Blanc gives instructions to the Spartoi.

“All right, everyone, dive in!”

“Eh? Everyone?”

Following Blanc’s instructions faithfully, the nearly 30 Spartoi gather around the Philosopher’s Egg.

The egg swallows the red bones one after another, and inside the egg, Spartoi who had relaxed are floating.

“Do you know a mouse called ‘lemming’, Rare-chan?”

“…I was thinking the same thing. Anyway, it’s not stopping, is it? I think it’s already over 10 bodies. Perhaps the recipe varies with different species.”

The crystal egg that swallowed all the spartoi swelled up to a much larger size than with the skeletons earlier. Perhaps to about the size of Ururu.

“Huh? All of them… Hey Blanc, what about the Dragontooths?”

“Eh? Ah? Where’d they go?”

“If they’re gone, there’s only one place they could be.”

Inside the egg with the Spartoi.

“Is it okay? Well, if they got in, there should be no problem with the fusion.”

It’s clear from the incident with the skeletons that unnecessary parts won’t get in.

“If you think you can do it, that probably means you should do it! Just go ahead and do it!”

Blanc is overwhelmed with excitement, losing her ability for calm decisions.

But honestly, I’m interested, and if we stop now, the MP for the [Philosopher’s Egg] will be completely wasted. Whether MP consumption depends on the egg’s size or the number of fusion materials is unclear, but at this point, it’s much more than the time with the gashadokuro*. (T/N: the big samurai skeleton that was fused earlier)

“Then the Philosopher’s Stone.”

“Ah! Use my blood for that!”

Blanc bites her finger, and with the injured fingertip, she approaches the egg.

“Ohhhhh? It’s sucking, sucking, sucking!”

Blood pours from Blanc’s fingers, from what seemed like a small wound, and it’s all being absorbed by the egg. Along with that, Blanc’s light, visible with the [True Eyes], gradually fades.

“Hey this is bad! [Medium Heal]!”

“It’s not catching up!? [High Heal]!”

Lyra and I cast as much Healing Magic as we could remember, and since it wasn’t enough, we took turns using [Treatment] to somehow avoid her death from blood loss. If it were Blanc’s bare LP, she would have died five times from this.

I hand Blanc a potion as she collapses and looks at the egg.

Inside the egg is dyed reddish black, and I have no clue what’s happening.

“…I don’t know if I can continue this. It’s definitely a bad idea.”

“If we stop here, a lot will be wasted. Like Blanc’s LP and our MP used for recovery, and so on.”

“…C-Continue, please.”

“Well, if Blanc says so. [Athanor].’”

The golden lamp glows, and the reddish black substance begins to shine in a vivid rainbow color.

“Oh, good. It seems to be back to normal from here. [Magnum Opus].’”

<<[Magnum Opus] cannot be executed. The target Dragontooths and Spartoi have been tamed by another character.

To proceed, permission from the tamer character is required.>>

“Oh.”

“Oh.”

Our voices overlapped. It seems that a message is also being sent to Blanc at the same time.

“I give permission! I will pay!”

<<Resuming the process.>>

“I see how it is. Well, it’s not information that can be used elsewhere.”

“Eh? What is?”

“I won’t explain.”

Rare treated Lyra coldly.

After that, the MP consumption was enough to start eating into my LP.

I’m glad I had enough, but it was dangerously close to dying due to negligence. After this is over, I’ll need to take an MP potion

Similar to earlier, with [True Eyes], someone with huge LP is trying to get out, wriggling in the light.

However, its figure is incomparably larger than the already big samurai skeleton, and the color of the light indicated that its LP maximum is very high.

It has a deeper color than mine.

In other words, this monster possesses LP surpassing me, a Demon Lord.

“Is this okay…”

This is a staggering figure, even discounting the fact that my LP is halved from the usual.

Lyra seems to be seeing the same thing and is now even further away.

Eventually, from the light, something appeared, crushing the crystal.

It was a three-headed dragon with a body of reddish-black bones.

Its size is almost the same as the crystal egg from earlier, meaning it is the size of Ururu.

Then, a stagnant air began to fill the surroundings.

“!?”

“Uh-oh!?”

“Woooooow! Cool! That’s so cool! Super cool! What is this! It’s a dragon!”

Since the appearance of the three-headed bone dragon, it seems we have suffered some damage.

The gradual decrease is similar to when I’m exposed to direct sunlight, but the slanted sunlight is blocked by the treants and does not reach this plaza.

If it’s just this level of slip damage, I can offset it by natural recovery. Not a significant problem.

The natural recovery amount is determined by the maximum value, so Rare’s LP natural recovery amount is currently reduced.

However, due to the effect of [Demon’s Armor], the damage is converted to MP. Therefore, it is the MP that is decreasing. And since the maximum value is higher here, the amount of natural recovery is also higher. Slip damage from burns in the past was such that natural recovery could not keep up, but now it seems to recover enough to heal the burns themselves. However, we do not know if the burns are healed by the recovery of MP, and we do not know if the [Devil’s Armor] is applied to damage caused by abnormal conditions such as burns.

If I’m taking damage, does that mean this damage went through the [Demon’s Shield]?

Looking at it, the LP of the four [Demon’s Shields] was also gradually decreasing. Since there is no natural recovery for these shields, once it decreases, it stays that way. Also, the shields cannot be restored by recovering LP. To return the shields to their perfect state, they have to be destroyed once.

For normal attacks, the damage can be transferred to the shields by blocking with the [Demon’s Shields], but range attacks affecting the entire space like this cannot be blocked with the [Demon’s Shields]. In other words, this type of damage is a very effective form of harassment for the current me.

It was fortunate we were able to quickly demonstrate this, but it is frustrating that the first created [Demon’s Shields] were made pointless so simply.

Looking around, Blanc, Sieg, and the skeletons seem fine, but Lyra is moving away in pain.

“So the undead group took no damage.”

Undoubtedly, this three-headed bone dragon is the responsible one.

“[Appraisal]. Uh, Skeletal… Ghidorah… it seems?

Is the slip damage due to this passive skill [Death Aroma] or something? Is it so smelly that you could die?”

“Stop making baseless accusations! It’s not smelly at all! How can it be smelly when it’s so cool!”

Blanc doesn’t feel anything, probably due to racial characteristics or because she is its master. In reality, nothing actually smells, it’s more like the air around is just dead.

Skeletal Ghidorah’s LP is surprisingly about four times that of Rare. Even if [Art is long, life is short] was not acquired, it would still be double.

Other than that, he does not seem to be able to match Rare’s abilities at all, but he is still one of the stronger ones compared to those under Rare’s command. In general, I would say that they are Ururu-class.

Considering that Ururu was a raid boss that would give trouble even to me in ground battles, it can be understood how dangerous this Ghidorah is. Moreover, this Ghidorah seems to be able to fly in the air. One-sided attacks from above won’t work.

The skills are really interesting and I have never seen many of them before. Most of them seem to be species-specific skills, and there is not much that can be reproduced by another race. The only one I can think of is [Sky Drive].

It’s terrifying that this huge body can use [Sky Drive], but besides that, it also has [Flight]. The wings seem to be just skeletal, but it’s probably the usual magical thing.

“Can’t this skill [Death Aroma] be turned off? My LP is decreasing, and my World Tree is taking damage. If it can be turned off, I would like you do do it.”

“Oops, sorry about that. Let me check… Looks like it can be turned off!”

The unpleasant sensation of continuous damage disappears, and the air around seems to have cleared somehow.

Lyra runs back to us.

“Phew, phew. We’ve got a badass over here. I [Appraised] it, but I could only see the species name. I’m pretty sure that it outranks Blanc, so will it listen?”

“Uh! Right! I forgot! What if it doesn’t listen!”

“No, you heard me. Now.”

Until now, even NPC rumors among civilians mentioned dragons, but it’s deeply moving to see one with my own eyes, even if it’s just bones.

I’d love to get my hands on one, but it may be incompatible with undead, treants, and insects.

If anything, I’d like to try keeping a fresh, or rather a living dragon anyway.

“Weren’t they originally Lizardman skeletons? So if I catch a bunch of regular Lizardmen and fuse them, can I create a living dragon?”

“Spartoi, which is a rumor, is said to be made from dragon fangs or bones. And the Dragontooth is pretty much the same. Even if it’s possible, it seems like you need to reincarnate it several times to get close to a dragon.”

“Do you want to do it too, Lyra?”

“Of course. My country having a guardian dragon! It would be a super bluff.”

In reality, there are even national flags based on dragon legends, it’s very compelling.

If I’m going to do it anyway, I would like to add a Demon Lord element and create a one-of-a-kind pet, but I don’t know if such a variation is available, and before that, I have no Lizardmen.

“Even if it’s not Lizardmen, if it’s a lizard-like monster, it seems possible to do something similar. So, from now on, let’s prioritize telling each other when we find habitats of such monsters.”

“Let’s do that.”

“Phew. But it’s a good thing we didn’t do it in the royal castle. If we had done it in the courtyard, it would have been a disaster by now.”

The royal castle would have collapsed, causing an unprecedented catastrophe with many casualties. The survivors would have had their lives slowly eroded by the [Death Aroma], and it’s unimaginable how much damage would have occurred in the end.

“Hey, if Blanc summons this one over a suitable city and drops it, it would be devastating, right?”

It’s a tactic that I was considering for Ururu. If it were Ururu, it would not be recognized as a monster as long as it doesn’t move, but in exchange, Ghidorah has area-of-effect slip damage, which is more effective depending on how it’s used.

“All right, decided! Your name is Burgundy!”

“Oh, are you giving it a new name? With three heads, I thought they were the dragontooth kids from earlier.”

“Huh? Is that so?”

To Blanc’s question, the three heads nodded.

It seems that the middle head is Crimson, the right head is Scarlet, and the left head is Vermilion.

In the end, Blanc decided to call the specific heads by their previous names and call the whole body Burgundy.

In [Appraisal], the name displayed is Burgundy, and it also mentions the individual names for each head.

“Now that you’ve settled down, next is zombies. Let’s get it done quickly.”

***

T/N: I have to say I’m not sure if ‘dragontooths’ is the correct plural of dragontooth, but ‘dragonteeth’ just felt strange for some reason.

About the Skeletal Ghidorah, the name seems to be a direct reference to the character with the same name from kaiju movies, whose name is based on the word ‘hydra’.

I generally try not to ramble, but while I’m on the topic, it’s an interesting challenge having to decide on wordings like these. There’s all kinds, some are pretty obvious at a glance, some are really tough, some have many options that work, etc. For example, Rare’s skill, [Art is long, life is short], written as [???????????] but with furigana saying ‘Ars longa, vita brevis’. I personally like the idea of leaving it in latin, but at the same time I get the feeling that the next time people read it, they might go ‘what the heck was this again?’ and won’t know where to even look for the answer, since there’s no real resource about this series in english (that I know of, at least).

Anyway, recently I’ve gone back and modified a couple of wordings that I wasn’t fully confident on, nothing really major though, and I’ll probably keep doing that along the way if I feel like something about the text can improve. I’ll bring it up if it’s important. And also, it’s fine to offer me wording alternatives and things like that, or any feedback if you think it’s appropriate.

And while I’m here, to everyone who has pointed out errors and inconsistencies, thank you! And to everyone who has thanked me, you’re welcome!