Chapter 61: Battle Begins
A few hours later, Jin and the others had reached the vicinity of their target monster.
Their opponent was a monster ranked higher than them. Just like their previous battle with the mutated species, information about the enemy would once again be the key to victory.
The group carefully advanced so as not to be discovered. Jin, with the Stealth skill, led at the front, with Aria and the others following at a short distance behind.
Perhaps other monsters were avoiding this one out of caution—according to Jin’s MAP, there were no other monster reactions nearby.
Keeping low, Jin slowly moved toward the monster’s location and cautiously peeked out from behind the rocky outcrop.
And what entered his line of sight was… something that looked like a giant ball of moss, roughly the size of a small hut.
“!?”
Jin instinctively doubted his own eyes, but upon checking again, it was of course not moss.
It was still plant-based, yet on closer inspection, the sphere was merely formed by thick vines coiled tightly around something. The vines bore many red-black streaks—marks typical of magical beasts. There was no mistaking it: this ball of vines was the monster.
Jin turned and motioned for the others to come over.
The three were just as startled as Jin when they saw the monster, but after confirming its presence, they stepped back a little to hold a brief meeting.
“So… what is that? Anyone know?”
Jin asked. All three shook their heads at once.
Every monster they had encountered so far had been based on animals or insects. This was the first time they had seen a monster, apparently based on a plant.
“At the very least, it’s not something found around Lients. I’ve never even heard of a plant-type magical beast.”
Aria said apologetically. But if even Aria, who was the most experienced among them, did not know it, then they had to handle this with great caution.
“At this point, we won’t know until we actually fight it. But we should at least prepare some predictions based on imagination. Let’s consider a few patterns and respond flexibly depending on how it acts.”
They couldn’t afford to cling too tightly to their predictions, but thinking ahead was only natural.
Using Jin’s words as a starting point, they discussed possible behaviors the monster might have and the countermeasures for each. After deciding on several strategies, they finally prepared to confront the tentatively named Vine Beast.
Keeping low to the ground, the four carefully approached the Vine Beast. Jin and Aria took the front line, with Erza and Rachel following behind them.
Once they drew close enough, Jin and Aria began chanting without changing their posture.
“Flames of mana, gather and strike down our foe…”
In front of Jin hovered a “notepad” bearing the magic symbols for Fire Arrow. It was a transparent window that didn’t obstruct his vision, with only the magic scripts displayed in a semi-transparent state.
This was something Jin had devised using his own abilities, inspired by the casting trick Clark once told him about. Of course, he wasn’t relying solely on this—he had been diligently studying magic scripts the whole time to learn magic properly.
Jin traced the symbols with his eyes, reproducing them in his mind as he carefully recited the chant. And then—
“—Fire Arrow!”
With his shout, a blazing arrow shot out from his extended palm, streaking toward the Vine Beast.
This was the moment Jin successfully cast magic in this world for the first time.
Suppressing his rising joy, Jin immediately began chanting Fire Arrow again.
“—Fireball!”
Because her chant was longer, Aria’s spell launched slightly later. But following Jin’s direct hit, her Fireball struck the monster cleanly as well.
“……?! ……!!”
Hit by two surprise spells, the Vine Beast violently unfurled the vines it had wrapped around its body. Its appearance changed completely—there was no mistaking it for a mossball anymore.
What stood before them was a massive, green, four-legged creature roughly the size of a van. From its back sprouted six large vines that writhed and twisted like living tentacles.
Its four legs clung to the ground like tree roots, almost as if it were drawing nourishment straight from the earth.
It looked as though someone had used plants as raw materials to construct an animal—an unnatural fusion of beast and vegetation.
“……!! ……!!”
The Vine Beast, its roots still embedded in the ground, was unable to move and continued to take Jin and Aria’s spells head-on. It thrashed desperately, whipping its vines around, but Jin and the others were positioned at the very edge of their attack range—well out of reach.
The monster let out a voiceless scream as it was bombarded one-sidedly.
“Fire Arrow!”
“Fireball!”
On the surface, it looked like an easy, overwhelmingly one-sided battle in Jin and Aria’s favor—yet none of them wore expressions of carelessness. A monster believed to be B-class or higher would never go down this easily.
Jin was focused solely on reducing the enemy’s stamina as much as possible while they still had the advantage.
Chanting as they advanced, the group slowly approached just to the edge of the monster’s attack range.
For reference, their formation at this point was a diamond shape: Erza at the front, Jin and Aria slightly behind her on the left and right, and Rachel bringing up the rear.
The idea was that if any attack reached them, Erza would intercept it, while Rachel focused entirely on support and healing.
Their uninterrupted barrage continued for some time, allowing Jin to shave off roughly one-third of the enemy’s HP bar.
But in the next instant, the Vine Beast tore away the vines covering its mouth-like area, opened its jaw wide, and let out its first roar.
“GYAAAOOOOO!!!”
With that roar, the Vine Beast struggled violently, attempting to rip its legs free from the earth. Several roots snapped with sharp, tearing sounds.
Seeing this, Jin immediately cut his chanting short, shouting sharply as he broke into a sprint.
“Move!”
“Got it!” “Yes!”
Erza and Rachel answered with force and rushed forward with him.
One of the first things they had planned for was whether the Vine Beast could move or not. They had predicted it might be immobile due to its plant-like nature, but they had also prepared a second plan for the possibility that it could move.
As it turned out, the beast was indeed rooted in place—but they had already accounted for the possibility that it might attempt to break free.
One of those anticipated patterns was exactly this: the monster pulling itself from the ground to gain mobility.
So if they noticed any signs of that, Jin was to leave the long-range attacks to Aria, while he, Erza, and Rachel rushed in before the monster began moving.
If the creature gained full mobility, with six vines and all four limbs free, dealing with its attacks would become extremely difficult. To stop it from escaping the ground at all costs, the three dashed forward at full speed.
Jin, leading the charge, used Burst Acceleration, reaching top speed instantly and closing in on the struggling monster.
He pulled a glaive from Infinite Storage in an instant, gripped it with both hands, and swung with all his momentum.
“Slash!”
The black-iron glaive Gantz had finished overnight was strengthened even further by Jin’s Combat Art, and its sharpened power cleaved off one of the large vines growing from the monster’s back.
“GAAAAAA!!”
Enraged, the monster stopped struggling and swung its remaining five vines wildly, attempting to crush Jin.
Jin used Infinite Storage again to instantly equip a large shield on his left arm and braced himself. He managed to block three of the vines—but one, delayed in timing, struck him squarely.
“Guh!”
He managed to reduce the impact by slamming his glaive into the vine, but he still took heavy damage. Another vine followed up, aiming to finish him.
“Sei!!”
But that vine was cut clean through by Erza’s greatsword as she caught up, saving Jin from the follow-up strike.
Unlike during the fight against the previous mutated monster, Erza and the others were now also using black-iron weapons. Even against a B-class monster, they no longer lacked offensive power.
“May healing restore you — Heal.”
Rachel immediately activated her healing magic, restoring Jin’s health.
“I’ll take the hits! Erza, focus on cutting those vines! Rachel, stay behind me and handle the healing!”
He had narrowly avoided disaster, but there was no time to thank them now—Jin issued his next set of commands right away.
“Got it!” “Okay!”
Erza and Rachel responded promptly. Things were still unfolding within their expected range, but there was absolutely no room for carelessness.
“I’m coming in!”
With that call, Aria—who had been firing magic from the rear—rushed forward as well. She moved up to avoid the risk of friendly-fire misfires now that the battle had become a close-quarters melee.
Aria mainly fought using magic, but she also wielded a spear as her primary weapon.
However, this time, just like Rachel, she stayed in her designated position behind Jin, attacking with magic instead of her spear.
Of course, the purpose was to deal damage, but there was another reason: to split the enemy’s attention and keep it pressured.
“Fire Arrow!”
The spell Aria fired was different from before—she activated it with only the keyword, skipping the full chant.
Skipping the chant lowered the spell’s power slightly, but the advantage it offered in battle didn’t need explaining.
This meant that Aria, like Jin, had learned the skill Chant Shortening.
It was a rare skill hardly anyone acquired, and it was the very reason Aria could operate solo as a C-rank adventurer, and why she was considered No.3 in the Lienz Adventurers’ Guild.
As spells rose from intermediate to advanced levels, longer chants became unavoidable. But for basic spells like Fire Arrow, casting with only the keyword was possible.
Like that, Aria used her spear to knock away the vines and keep the monster in check, while mainly dealing damage with magic.
Jin defended.
Erza cut down the vines.
Aria fired her spells.
Rachel healed whatever damage they took.
All the time they’d spent traveling together had not been wasted—the four of them were perfectly in sync.
“Finish it!”
With Erza’s shout, the very last vine was severed and flew through the air. It was only natural that her guard loosened for a moment.
But in that final struggle, the monster’s left arm—which it had torn free from the ground—lashed out, seizing that instant of vulnerability and striking Erza.
“Guh!”
She managed to guard with her greatsword, but she couldn’t completely absorb the impact and was sent flying.
Rachel immediately ran to heal her.
That left only Jin and Aria facing the monster. Jin instantly stored his large shield in Infinite Storage, gripped his glaive with both hands, and charged.
“Pierce!”
This time, Jin used a spear technique that boosted penetration power.
As the monster raised its left hand to intercept him, Jin’s glaive drove straight into its throat. The thrust pierced clean through from its throat to its back.
But even that wasn’t enough to stop it.
Jin released the glaive and dodged the monster’s counterattack, circling to its side.
He summoned his wooden sword into his right hand, steadied it with his left, and raised it straight overhead.
“Impact!”
The strike, empowered by the martial technique, landed at the same time as Aria’s Fire Arrow—together delivering the final blow to the Vine Beast.
The monster collapsed, and the color of its HP bar faded to gray before disappearing entirely.
Only then did Jin turn toward Erza, who had been knocked away.
“You okay?”
Rachel was still casting healing magic, but Erza was already standing on her own feet.
“I’m fine. We did it.”
Assuring him she was unharmed, Erza smiled, relieved and proud of their victory. Everyone else followed, their expressions softening with shared triumph.
“Good work, everyone. It was a tough enemy, but thanks to you all, we made it through safely.”
He’d gotten angry for a moment when Erza was hit at the end, but with everyone safe and their victory certain, Jin couldn’t hide his relief.
“Once we’ve recovered our stamina, let’s head up. We’re almost there.”
The moment Jin said that, the atmosphere around them shifted.
《That won’t do.》
A voice echoed directly inside their heads—not through their ears—and something with an overwhelming presence appeared behind Jin.
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