CH55: Demonic Beast
“Well then, I’ll start the lecture right away. Since it’s the first day, we’ll start with the basics. You may already know them, but they’re important, so consider this a refresher. I’m going to talk about the monsters you’ll have to defeat.”
In the labyrinth, you must fight against monsters and beasts.
Knowing the characteristics of monsters and beasts can make a big difference to your survival rate, so this is something you must know.
“First of all… the basic premise is that magical beasts have a habit of attacking people. There’s no clear reason for this, but the most popular theory is that they breathe in the magic in the air and target the dense magic that’s accumulated in their bodies.”
A hexenbiest doesn’t attack another kind of hexenbiest.
But since demonic beasts breathe too, they are thought to have dense magic inside their bodies.
Although this theory is considered to be the most likely, it is inconclusive because there are many factors that can be ruled out.
That’s why hexenbiests tend to go where there’s a lot of people. But that’s not the only thing that determines what a hexenbiest does. Hexenbiests don’t go after other hexenbiests… But they do go for the hexenbiests.”
This would be another hexenbiest action that disproves the previous theory.
The moment it turns into a hexenbiest the hexenbiest will try to take it into its body.
Moreover, the priority of the action is quite high.
There is no change even if you take one or two magic stones into your body, but if you take in a lot of magic stones, the more magic stones you take in, the more powerful the beast becomes.
“If a small group of people and a single person with a magic stone are far apart, they will often attack the one with the stone. Not absolutely, though. They’ll attack anyone who attacks them. Well, that’s to be expected. It’s not a strange thing for a creature with a survival instinct.”
That’s why attackers have to be careful not to gain too much hate against monsters.
It’s not a position you can just attack without thinking.
“You see a lot of defenders have magic stones on their equipment? That’s because they use this habit of the magical stone to attack while flicking it in front of the magical beast, so that they can gain the beast’s hate and gather their attacks to themselves.”
“Oh, I see.”
Sophie mumbles something that makes sense to me.
What’s wrong?
No, no, it’s nothing.
Sophie is too shy to answer.
I know what she’s like, and normally that’s fine.
But that’s not gonna work here.
“If you’re wrong, you’ll learn it wrong. If you’re wrong, you’ll learn something wrong, and if you’re right, you’d better share that knowledge with everyone else, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, yes. Yes. Last time when Orn-san was fighting the Black Dragon… before the fight he wore a necklace with a magic stone around his neck… right? I wonder if that was also to gather the black dragon’s hate towards you.
“… You’re right. You were watching me under those circumstances.
Hearty kudos to Sophie.
The recruits must’ve panicked when the black dragon showed up.
And I don’t think it’s possible for her to watch my every move and remember them.
When they were being attacked by a group of Orcs… she was able to handle that many of them just in time… maybe Sophie has a wider vision than I thought.
“Sophie, that’s amazing! I can’t believe you’re even watching Shishou do that!”
Thank you very much.
Sophie’s face is turning red as if she’s afraid.
I’d like to give them a little bit of confidence this way.
“Let’s get back to the point. The principle of how demonic beasts behave is as I’ve already explained. Some explorers bring a lot of battle armor with them when they explore the labyrinth. But you shouldn’t do that.
“That’s because you need the magic stone to use the magic tool?”
Logs are asking questions.
You’re right. It’s true that a grimoire for combat is useful because it makes it easier to cast offensive magic. But you need magic stones to use them. The more magic stones you have the more likely you are to be targeted by magical beasts so it’s best to only bring carefully selected items with you.”
“But if that’s the case, why don’t you just put it in the storage grimoire?”
“If it’s in a storage spellbook it’s less likely to attract hexenbiests than if you hold it in your hand, but it can’t be zeroed out… Well, let’s say that the magical stone emits a scent that only magical beasts can pick up. If you put it in a storage spellbook it’ll suppress the smell to some extent but it’ll leak out a little. So the more you have, the easier it will be to attract the monsters.”
“Oh, yeah. I didn’t know that. You really know a lot, Master!”
Log looks at me with respect.
You’re really losing it.
This may be unrelated, but I’m reminded of the importance of first impressions.
“… Well, well, I know a lot of things… Also, have you ever heard that the longer you stay in the labyrinth, the more likely it is for demonic beasts to appear as time goes on?”
“Oh! I know!” The labyrinth gets serious when the explorers get tired!”
Not a few of the less knowledgeable searchers have said so.
That’s what I thought when I first became an explorer.
“This is also the reason for what I said earlier. If you keep searching the labyrinth there will be more magic stones in the storage grimoire. The magical beasts are attracted to them so the frequency of encounters with magical beasts increases as time goes by. That’s why it’s better to judge when to return based on the amount of magic stones you’ve obtained rather than the time it takes you to return.”
This is just a side note, but my storage magic tool is able to suppress the smell of magic stone even more than ordinary ones.
I really don’t know what’s going on in the mind of the old man who made this.
I can’t even decipher the enclosed artifact at all…
