Chapter 26 : The Truth I Don’t Want to Know
But… What a big beetle!
If only it stayed in the size it could be put on the palm of the hand, I could sell it to a collector at high price.
Its whole body was jet black.
The horn was branched like a tree, and some tolf mushrooms were growing on the tip of the horn.
The giant beetle kept chasing us.
It moved slowly, but it moved with long steps because of its giant size.
「――Alright, I’ll defeat it here!」
After we ran half of the mountainside, I found a place that was large enough to fight this giant monster.
I turned my heels back.
「No, dont. Fighting such a big monster is reckless」
Mira-san said so, but I answered with full confidence.
「Don’t worry Mira-san. You can seat and watch me killing this monster」
I held my giant hammer, rushed toward the beetle and jumped.
「Blunt Weapon Skill :【Heavy Smash】! 」
I held the hammer high over my head and swung it vertically.
The moment the hammer hit the back of the beetle, the head part of the hammer glowed, signifying that the destructive power was doubled.
It smashed through the giant beetle’s body, making a big hole in it.
*/ The Japanese of this skill is【ぶちかまし】(buchikamashi) which means “kick ass” or “kicking someone’s ass” (according to online dictionary and eikawa forum), but no way I translate it into【Kick Ass】, and then I came up with【Heavy Smash】to fit with what Hanna did.
「Hooー Killing it with a single blow. Hanna, awesome」
Although her expression didn’t change, Mira-san applauded violently.
I returned it with a guts pose.
Easy peasy.
When it comes to fighting with a blunt weapon, I’m second to none!
Well, there’s no one using blunt weapons for fighting in the first place though.
But… wasn’t it too easy?
It was a monster that came out of Magic-seal Jar, right? So I thought it would be as strong as the Rock Dragon, butー
「Hanna! Watch out!」
Mira, who was giving me applause, shouted all of a sudden.
At the same time, a big shadow rose from behind.
I looked back. There was the giant beetle that should have been dead earlier.
「Are you kidding me!? Wahyaa!」
I barely dodged the big horn that the beetle swung down at me.
Fiuh. That was close. I was off guard.
I’m sure I destroyed its body, and in fact, there was a big hole in its body.
But… It looked like the hole was regenerating.
Sticky cotton-like substances emerged from the gap between the flesh, and the body returned to its original shape.
While I kept avoiding the beetle, Mira-san explained to me.
「That’s mycelium…!」
「Mycelium?」
That means, the true form of this giant beetle is a mushroom?
「I’m sure this beetle grew that big thanks to the tolf mushrooms」
「Mira-san, what do you mean?」
「Beetle larvae grow by eating mycelium. It was originally just a normal beetle, but it ate the mycelium of tolf mushrooms and ended up being parasitized by the mycelium. Because of that it grew this big」
「Ah, the ‘growing taller’ effect from the tolf mushrooms, huh……..But it grew too much!!!」
No way there’s a person who wants to be this big!
「Not only that. The mycelium of tolf mushrooms took over the beetle’s body and kept increasing inside. The tolf mushrooms that we took were originally the mushrooms that grew on that beetle’s big horn that was buried in the ground」
「Uwaa….」
Uhh, I didn’t want to know that.
But I’m glad I knew it before eating the mushroom…
The point is that tolf mushrooms are insanely delicious but it’s dangerous if you eat it.
Your body will grow taller, but its mycelium can take over your body and eventually you lose your will.
That’s why the rumor that Mira-san told me said, “you will become violent if you eat it”.
Perhaps, if I ate the mushroom, the beetle would recognize me as one of its kind and stop attacking me.
On the contrary, if I didn’t eat the mushroom, the beetle would attack me and tried to make me one of its kind.
And the beetle that was taken over by the tolf mushroomー let’s call it the ‘Beetolf’, was attacking me with such an instinct.
In order to defeat it, it seems that I have to kill the mycelium that were nesting inside its body.
「Then, how about this!? Blunt Weapon Skill :【Smith Forging】! 」
Again, I rushed toward the Beetolf, jumped, and swung the hammer toward its body from above.
The next moment, the hammer glowed bright red, and when it hit, the Beetolf’s body ignited.
【Smith Forging】is a skill where the hammer can transfer heat to the object that I hit.
As the name suggests, it’s very useful in blacksmithing.
And the result was very good.
The Beetolf’s body was burned and started to crumble.
I could see the mycelium were dead, burned.
However, because the Beetolf kept moving around violently, and it had a very big body, the fire was dead before it burned its entire body.
And after the fire was gone, it began to regenerate.
……Well, I just have to do it again and again before it starts regenerating.
I kept doing it untuk it finally died. It was surprisingly tiring…
But, when I thought it was overー
「Hanna… Look…!」
「Hm? Gehh!」
A hopeless situation occurred.
There were two, no, three, no… it’s more than that.
Multiple Beetolfs that had similar size approaching us from the top of the mountain.
This is bad.
It wasn’t even easy to deal with one.
It would be troublesome if I had to deal with multiple giant beetles that have regeneration ability.
「Hanna, I’m sorry. Because of me…」
Mira-san murmured weakly.
「Don’t worry Mira-san. It’s too early to give up! Leave it to me!」
「But, even if you defeat the beetles, I can’t sell this kind of mushroom now…」
「No no no! Mira-san, you can just process it properly so that people can eat it, right?……..Ah!」
「What’s wrong?」
Thinking about processing, I came up with an idea to kill all the giant beetles quickly at once.
My blunt weapon skill is not just about destroying things, you know?
It also can process things. Yes. Processing.
It’s time to show how the on-site preparation using the construction technology looks like!
However, there’s a problem with this strategy.
It will take a long time.
And I didn’t think that the swarm of giant beetles would wait.
Author :
It’s Donki, who learned useful information that beetles eat mycelium.
Wait….. Is it even useful?