Level Eater
Chapter 162

When informed about a monster so skillfully hidden that simple detection magic couldn't find it, Cardina, Jeanne, Nana, and Athena angrily insisted on going to defeat it themselves.

However, Tatsuro accepted their feelings but asked them to hold back, saying he and Ai would handle it themselves.

Cardina, unable to argue when the victim himself said so, offered to take care of all the small fry. Incidentally, Leah, though angry, understood she couldn't defeat the enemy alone and silently watched over the situation.

"Then, I'll leave all the small fry to you. We'll focus on that mysterious monster." (Tatsuro)

"Alright, we'll be going then." (Ai)

With those words, Tatsuro and Ai rushed toward where the mysterious monster was.

"Peweei!!" (Cardina)

"That's right. This is unforgivable, Sister Cardina." (Nana)

"I don't know who they are, but Dad and the others will settle the score with them. We'll clear the way." (Athena)

"Everyone..." (Leah)

An anger so intense that even their ally Leah trembled filled the air, and all four began to transform into their true forms.

"Peweeee" (Cardina)

The first to take the lead was the eldest, Cardina.

When Cardina transformed to her [True Form], she kicked off the shield surface at her feet and charged forward, slashing with the claws on both hands at anything trying to block Tatsuro and Ai's path. When surrounded, she spread her hard wings and used [Dragon Wing Blade] while spinning, cutting down rows of sea dogs.

Then, using earth magic to create fine sand and spread it in large quantities on the shield surface, she set it up like an antlion trap and made it flow, dragging in all the surrounding sea dogs and scattering them.

"Neigh!!" (Jeanne)

Jeanne, moving slightly behind Cardina, changed into a form with a body twelve meters long and thick, sturdy red-black scales. She simply charged with brute force into the group of sea dogs in the opposite direction from where Cardina went.

Unable to even scratch her thick skin, they were crushed, mowed down, torn apart, and pierced. Some tried to challenge her bravely even in this situation, but others tried to flee in fear. However, Jeanne didn't allow even that.

She activated wind magic, drawing them in like a vacuum cleaner and then tearing them apart with her powerful claws.

"Leah, it's best if you stay behind me. You'd be in the way around my other sisters." (Nana)

"Yes. Please take care of me, Nana." (Leah)

"Of course. My pleasure." (Nana)

Even in her transformed [True Form] adult appearance, which seemed calm on the surface, Nana couldn't completely suppress the boiling anger deep inside. She walked gracefully towards a group in a different direction from Cardina and Jeanne, exuding an intimidating aura.

Her height was no different from that of an adult woman, so foolish sea dogs that couldn't even read the intimidating aura mistook her for prey and came toward her.

She smiled, flashing her canine teeth at them, and while being conscious not to affect Leah who was sticking close behind her as instructed, she cast a powerful curse of slowness on the surroundings using curse magic.

It affected those nearby first, then gradually spread like a virus, eventually covering about a quarter of the shield floor area. The sea dogs struggled desperately to step forward with bodies that had become as heavy as iron.

"My, my, they're just like turtles. Fufu, how adorable♪"(Nana)

First, she killed those who came close to her by bringing down the fangs Leah had processed for her onto their skulls.

Then she walked towards the group of sea dogs that now took several seconds just to take a single step, draining their vitality completely with [Dragon Drain].

As if taking a stroll, she wandered here and there through the gaps in the sea dog group, drying them out with [Dragon Drain], and occasionally finishing them off with her own hands as if she had just remembered to do so.

For those that still had excess energy and more vitality than other individuals, resisting death, she forcibly activated their vitality with life magic, then drained it all at once, turning them into mummies.

Leah, told by Nana that this was a good opportunity to level up, crushed the dying sea dogs by swinging down a giant hammer on them.

"I'm going all out too───"(Athena)

Athena's transformed [True Form] was almost no different from her [Adult Form].

The only difference was that from about halfway up her upper arms to her fingertips, and from about halfway up her thighs to her toes, amber-colored tattoos resembling tribal patterns were engraved. (T/N: Not to spoil the mood, but am getting Barbarian-like vibes from Athena)

And from these tattoos, something like amber-colored smoke welled up, swaying and drifting around Athena.

The true nature of this smoke was Athena's dragon power made visible, but it had no meaning just floating around her.

However, if she used magic and transformed that dragon power...

"Haa─"(Athena)

The smoke changed into purple lightning, becoming a mass of electricity that scorched everything it touched.

Next, Athena activated her skill [Dragon Path], exclusive to this form, drawing a straight rail of dragon power right to the center of the group in the section not handled by Cardina, Jeanne, and Nana.

And she didn't forget to qualify this rail with lightning magic.

"[Dragon Armor]" (Athena)

While preparing the rail, Athena also activated the skill [Dragon Armor].

Then, amber-colored armor began to cover her body.

First, her head was covered by a full-face helmet modeled after a dragon's head. From the neck down, she was clad in slim amber-colored armor that followed her body line.

The hands were modeled after dragon hands with each fingertip sharply pointed, the feet were shaped like dragon feet, and from around her waist hung a long, flexible tail modeled after a dragon's tail.

This tail moved according to Athena's will and strangled a nearby sea dog. Finally, since the dragon armor was also a manifestation of Athena's dragon power, it could naturally be imbued with the attribute of lightning magic.

Its complete appearance was like that of a dragon-human hybrid clad in purple lightning.

Eventually, after laying the rail cutting through to the center of the group, Athena placed her foot, wrapped in smoke-like lightning, at the starting point. She took out a dragon bone spear made by Leah from her [Item Box], held it with both hands, wrapped it with amber-colored smoke leaking from her armor, and imbued it with purple lightning as well.

"Well then, please die──"(Athena)

With a loud Bang!! Like electricity crackling, the moment they thought they heard it, Athena's body, thrusting the spear forward, shot forward like lightning along the dragon power rail.

With a Zugagagaga!!, a mass of electricity cut through the group, and by the time it reached the center of the group, the path was strewn with charred corpses of sea dogs that had been run over and killed.

But still, more than half of Athena's assigned area remained.

So this time, she swung her spear around in the center of the sea dog group, scattering purple lightning, rampaging like a storm, and rapidly reducing their numbers through one-sided slaughter.

Supported by Cardina and the others who were clearing the way like this, Tatsuro ran while holding Ai's hand, tracking the monster that had blended with the sea.

That one seemed quite confident in its hide-and-seek skills, not realizing that its location had been pinpointed. It kept drifting near the edge of the shield floor on the sea surface, going with the flow of the sea, and shooting water guns the moment Tatsuro and Ai's eyes were averted.

So Tatsuro stood a bit away to make it think they hadn't noticed, left the defense to Ai, and started infusing water magic into the sea around the hiding monster.

And like in enclosure fishing, he gradually brought the seawater surrounding the monster under his control.

Then, being careful not to be noticed by the monster while conscious of the natural movement of the sea, he now mixed fire magic into the seawater under his control and started to boil it rapidly.

It seemed to finally notice the anomaly at this point, but it was too late. It tried to escape, looking for places that weren't hot up, down, left, and right, but during that time, its own body also absorbed the surrounding heat and started to boil, raising steam and reducing its volume.

If nothing was done, this monster would completely turn into gas and die.

The monster itself seemed to understand this instinctively, and unable to bear it any longer, it canceled its water body and jumped out onto the shield floor created by Ai, returning to its original form which was about twice as large, with an unnaturally swollen belly like a pregnant woman, but otherwise almost the same form as a sea dog.

"─Now!" (Ai)

"Haa" (Tatsuro)

Ai told Tatsuro the timing when it was about to land, and Tatsuro held his staff and activated the pre-prepared mixed magic of fire and light.

This created a red light-emitting plate at the monster's landing point, instantly building a box enclosing six sides centered on that point.

This way, if it tried to change into water, it would evaporate, and even in its original physical form, it could only scream as it was burned from below.

"We caught it properly!" (Tatsuro)

"Yeah, now we can do whatever we want with it───What!?" (Ai)

Just when Tatsuro and Ai thought it was impossible to escape and turned their attention away for a moment, the large sea dog started spewing water about 3 cm in diameter like a laser from its mouth straight at the front plate.

The water turned into steam from where it hit, filling the box with mist, and then it cooled the temperature of the plate with that water, creating a tiny hole.

Not missing this chance, it turned into water form again and forcibly pushed its body out through that small hole, evaporating more than half of its body, but managing to escape outside splendidly.

Then, returning to its original form again, its volume had shrunk to about one-third, and there stood an emaciated former large sea dog.

"Wuuu..."

"Hyah!" (Ai)

It had weakened considerably, but not wanting it to escape if left alone, Ai approached with one leap and kicked up with her right foot.

With a splash of water sound, it avoided the danger by changing into water to evade Ai's kick.

The fact that this kick was a sudden action and Ai couldn't put much spirit into the attack was also a big factor.

Seeing the body that had scattered into water spray in the air starting to return to its original form in mid-air, Ai immediately wrapped her whole body in spirit and struck with a palm heel strike.

This time, as intended, it blew away most of its body.

So thinking this was the end, to their surprise, with the last tiny part that remained, it turned into a water gun and launched a suicide attack on Tatsuro.

"Tatsuro!" (Ai)

Tatsuro had been watching the moment of this last desperate move, so while he couldn't perform the feat of dodging this water bullet, he could at least fill its line of fire.

"Haaaa!" (Tatsuro)

He thrust his staff forward, deployed magic as quickly as possible, set up multiple high-temperature light plates that had been containing the monster earlier in the line of fire, and for good measure, hardened his coat.

The 8 cm water bullet kept penetrating through one plate, then another, gradually shrinking its body, but with four plates left before reaching Tatsuro, it completely evaporated and disappeared.

|You have reached "Level: 52".|

"Tatsuro, what happened to that guy?" (Ai)

"My level just went up, so it must have definitely died." (Tatsuro)

"We couldn't use [Level Eater], huh." (Ai)

"Yeah. It seemed to have quite a bit of SP, so it's a sha──"(Tatsuro)

"Hm?" (Ai)

Suddenly, a silver box about 30 cm in size appeared from where the sea dog had supposedly disappeared and fell with a thud.

"What's this?" (Ai)

".......As far as I can analyze, there doesn't seem to be any trap-like thing." (Tatsuro)

"Then, shall we open it?" (Ai)

"I'd like to, but let's open it after regrouping with everyone else, just in case." (Tatsuro)

"I see, I see, Roger that!" (Ai)

So as the two looked around again to regroup with Cardina and the others, they saw hundreds of sea dog corpses scattered here and there.

And furthermore, many sea dog corpses were floating on the sea surface as well.

""Uwaa......""

The two grimaced at the overly tragic sight of these monsters and walked towards where Cardina and the others, who had already finished their business, were gathering, carrying the mysterious silver box.