Chapter 441
by post_apiChapter 441: Scared Stupid?
The meat mountain violently crushed the houses lining both sides of the street. Thick tentacles shot from its body, piercing through the walls of these dwellings as easily as tearing through tissue paper, hunting down and devouring members of the human race who had clung to hope while hiding inside.
“Ah—”
Screams were invariably cut short abruptly.
Only when another tentacle shattered a wall—destroying most of an already precarious house and exposing the two people concealed within—did the scene shift.
Three figures darting swiftly across nearby rooftops now had a clear view of the tentacle’s target.
It was a mother and daughter pair whose faces could only be described as breathtakingly beautiful. The daughter appeared around seven or eight years old, while the mother looked remarkably young, perhaps twenty-three or twenty-four.
Strangely, even facing this terrifying tentacle assault, neither woman showed fear or panic.
Had they… frozen in shock?
The bearded, world-weary middle-aged man leading the trio of adventurers found himself thinking.
But now was clearly not the time for such thoughts. If they didn’t act swiftly, that mother and daughter would surely be shredded by the gaping maw at the tentacle’s tip.
“Rocco!”
The middle-aged man urgently called to a young man behind him.
“Leave it to me, Master Lloyd!”
Rocco, already prepared, flicked his right hand—instantly summoning a dagger shimmering with violet light.
Allowing such a mother and daughter to perish beneath this grotesque abomination would be a sin…
Though this thought crossed his mind, Rocco’s focus became razor-sharp.
With a single, forceful motion, he hurled the dagger.
*Screech—*
A flash of purple light. The thrown dagger struck true, embedding itself in the tentacle hurtling toward the mother and daughter!
“ROAR!!!”
Pain lanced through the appendage. The tooth-filled maw at its tip unleashed a bizarre, agonized shriek.
“Well done!”
Lloyd cheered.
Yet their relief was short-lived. Expressions shifted dramatically once more.
Rocco’s dagger had indeed halted the tentacle’s attack, but it had also provoked it.
After its cry of pain, the tentacle lunged anew at the mother and daughter—this time with terrifying speed!
When the tentacle was mere half a meter away—at that critical instant—a transparent Magic Shield materialized abruptly before the two women.
*BOOM!*
The tentacle slammed into the shield with colossal force, denting the suddenly-appearing transparent Magic Shield inward. Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface… leaving it looking perilously fragile.
Still, it had blocked the lethal strike.
“Hmph, two sillyheads! Seems you still need my lady to save the day when it counts.”
A haughty feminine voice sounded from behind, prompting sighs of relief from Rocco and Lloyd.
“You really helped us out, Sherry!”
“Less talking, more saving! I can’t hold out much longer! This disgusting tentacle is incredibly strong!”
Lloyd and Rocco wasted no more words, their figures darting across the rooftops until they reached the collapsed building where the mother and daughter were trapped.
Just then, the Magic Shield conjured by the girl Sherry reached its breaking point, shattering into starlike sparks under the tentacle’s assault.
The tentacle crashed down with a thunderous impact, and then—
Sssshing!
A flash of white light—the thick tentacle, nearly half a meter in diameter, was cleanly severed in two by a single blade stroke.
The severed portion thudded heavily to the ground, blood splattering everywhere.
Yet the gaping maw at the tentacle’s tip remained undeterred, still snapping vigorously toward the mother-daughter pair nearby.
At that instant, a massive hammer plummeted from above, smashing the blood-filled maw into pulverized fragments that exploded outward!
“Done!”
After the strike, the young man hefted the hammer—nearly as large as his own torso—onto his shoulder.
“Done nothing! This is just the beginning! Hurry and get them to safety!”
Lloyd, gripping a hefty longsword, scolded his disciple without turning, his gaze fixed intensely on the enraged tentacle flailing wildly through the air from its wound.
Rocco hastily acknowledged, but as he turned to locate the mother and daughter…
The pair had just let out two startled cries—the young, beautiful mother scooped up her child and fled down the street toward the city gates, keeping pace with the other civilians…
“…Had they been scared stiff until now?”
Rocco muttered blankly, watching the distant figures of the retreating pair.
“Hey! They’re long gone, and you’re still staring? Dolt who freezes at the sight of a pretty woman… She already has a child!”
Sherry, clutching her magic wand, finally caught up. Seeing Rocco’s dazed look, she snorted coldly.
“I wasn’t—”
The young man started to defend himself but was cut off by renewed combat sounds nearby.
He whipped his head around.
There stood their master, longsword in hand, clashing with a fresh tentacle emerging from the flesh mountain.
For Lloyd, who had reached high Class A rank, even these swift, tough-skinned tentacles posed little threat—one or two were easily manageable.
Yet the moment he cleaved this one apart, over a dozen new tentacles erupted from the monstrous mass!
Simultaneously, they shot toward his position.
“Damn it.”
The middle-aged man cursed inwardly, but his movements never faltered.
He pivoted and weaved, evading attacks while slashing at the junctions between tentacles and their maws.
Where he dodged, thick tentacles hammered the ground, shattering cobblestones into debris and kicking up clouds of dust.
Blinded by the haze, Rocco could only grit his teeth and sheathe his dagger.
His concealed blades were coated with lethal poison, but observing the earlier tentacle’s wound revealed its ineffectiveness against this abomination.
Though lethal to sub-Class A monsters, the toxin’s potency drastically diminished against Class A or higher foes.
Rocco hesitated to intervene—and Sherry, a long-range mage, faced even greater limitations.
…
As the trio fought desperately…
The four members of the Hyena Adventurer Team still showed no intention of joining the fray.
“The ‘White Lion’ struggles. A truly rare spectacle.”
The keen-eyed, lanky youth who’d first spotted them remarked gleefully.
“Let them fight. Before the army or the other two Adventurer Squads arrive, we mustn’t let these three die. Our reputation would suffer.”
The bespectacled leader of the Hyena Adventurer Team spoke impassively.
His authority was unquestioned—the archer and mage beside him nodded instantly at his words.
Though privately scornful of Lloyd’s life-risking heroics, the glasses-wearing man maintained his composure.
Yet he couldn’t shake a nagging thought: The mother and daughter saved earlier had vanished without a trace. He’d kept peripheral watch… Had they found another hiding spot?