Chapter 86: Confrontation - The Strongest Prototype Chimera
“Ah, ah… my pride and joy of a Chimera… before it could even fight again.” Ganei was utterly heartbroken and disappointed.
Hmm, maybe I should have let it fight a little? But it’s best to defeat an opponent on first sight quickly. It would be terrible if I waited and it used a powerful secret technique.
Well, either way, it’s an opponent I’ve already defeated. I should quickly retrieve it and get back to subjugating the remaining child Chimeras.
It was then that I had that thought.
“Huh?” I suddenly noticed something was wrong.
The corpses of the child Chimeras floating on the subterranean lake had vanished. Did they sink to the bottom of the lake? No, all that’s visible on the lakebed are the bones of monsters and Chimeras.
Then where did the child Chimeras’ corpses go? Just then, the surface of the subterranean lake suddenly burst open, and something appeared.
“Hah!? This thing is!?”
What appeared there was the form of two Chimeras.
“No, wait!”
That was wrong. It wasn’t two Chimeras. It was the right and left halves of the giant prototype Chimera that I had cleaved in two.
“Could it be alive!?”
Yes, the Chimera, which should have been halved, rapidly restored its body by absorbing the corpses of its own children floating nearby. The severed halves connected at a tremendous speed, finally restoring even the head, and it returned to its original form.
What incredible regenerative ability…
“Hah! Ha, hahahaha!! That’s right! That’s right! Considering a long battle with the White Calamity, I incorporated the powerful regenerative abilities and vitality of creatures like the Hydra into the prototype Chimera! It won’t die just from being sliced in half!!” Ganei shouted excitedly at the Chimera’s revival.
Or rather, I wish you had told me that sooner.
“Speaking of Hydras, they were monsters with multiple heads that regenerated no matter how many times they were cut. The countermeasure is to cauterize the severed necks so they can’t regenerate further.” Lamies verbalized information about Hydras while fighting the child Chimeras.
“Hmph, exactly! But this prototype Chimera has enhanced regenerative ability! You won’t be able to neutralize its regeneration just by cauterizing the wounds!!” Ganei happily argued back to Lamies. “To defeat the White Calamity that once plunged us into the depths of despair, that Chimera has been given the abilities of many monsters!! Now, how will you fight, boy!!”
Wait, wait, why are you making moves like an enemy, Ganei? You’re supposed to be on our side, aren’t you?
“More importantly, since you created it, wouldn’t the Chimera listen if you just ordered it to stand down?” Liliera asked Ganei.
Oh, that’s a great idea, Liliera! Opponents with regeneration are a pain!
“Hmmph, I thought it would be interesting to see it fight the boy seriously. Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. …Prototype Chimera! It is I! Ganei, your creator! Behave yourself!!” Ganei spoke to the Chimera.
“…” The Chimera turned its head towards Ganei, and the two stared at each other.
And then…
“KISHAAAAA!!”
As the Chimera screamed, the child Chimeras cried out in excitement. Then, the child Chimeras that were fighting Risou and the others suddenly swarmed towards Ganei alone.
“Wh-what is this!?”
Why!? Why are they attacking their creator, Ganei!?
“Or rather, doesn’t it make sense that they would resent the parent who abandoned them?”
“…”
Oh, that’s right. At Lamies’ calm words, we all couldn’t help but reluctantly agree.
“This is no time for agreement! Just help me!” Ganei shouted, defending himself with defensive magic, and everyone snapped to attention and rushed to his aid.
“But this way, the Chimeras are fixated on that old man. We’ll chip away at the Chimeras from behind!”
“Yeah! If we don’t have to worry about defense, it’s even easier to fight than before!” Rodi, taking cues from Risou’s instructions, pointed out the advantage of the Chimeras concentrating on Ganei.
“I see, he’s the decoy.”
“Yeah, and a good decoy, one who won’t cause any hard feelings if something happens to him.”
“After all, the old man caused this himself.”
The adventurers nodded, feeling free to use him as a decoy, and began their attacks on the Chimeras.
“You people!! You’ll regret this later!!”
Well, Ganei is protected by defensive magic, so I’ll leave that side to Risou and the others.
“In that case, I’ll deal with this guy!!”
Thus, the curtain rose on the battle between me and the prototype Chimera.
$diamond$
“KISHAAAAA!!”
As the prototype Chimera roared, the surface of its body began to peel away with a ripping sound. No, wait, those are wings. Wings that had been attached to the sides of its long, slender body were spreading out.
What is it planning to do!?
Pukyo-kyokyo
Just then, a strange sound echoed through the air. It was definitely caused by the prototype Chimera’s wings. And the next moment, a massive amount of bubbles burst out from the prototype Chimera’s wings with incredible force. No, wait, I see something inside the bubbles. That’s the main attack!
I used Flight Magic to evade the bubble barrage. When the bubbles hit the ground or the walls, they violently exploded, blowing away the surroundings. Hey, hey, what a dangerous attack! This whole cave might collapse if this continues!
“Kyaah!?”
Just then, a scream came from Liliera and the others behind me. Crap, did a stray shot go that way!?
“Liliera!?”
I hurriedly looked towards Liliera and the others; the ground near Liliera had been blasted, and the Chimeras that seemed to have been caught in the blast were sprawled on the ground.
“Are you all right!?”
“Y-yes, we’re fine. Don’t worry, we weren’t hit!” Liliera said, resuming her fight with the Chimeras.
I’m truly glad no one was hurt. I was careless. No matter how wide it is, this is a closed space. There’s a risk that stray shots from the prototype Chimera could reach everyone.
I drew the prototype Chimera’s attention and moved in a direction where stray shots wouldn’t head towards the others. This way, everyone should be able to fight safely.
However, in this fight, it seems better to focus on defense rather than evasion, so that stray shots don’t accidentally hit my allies.
“High Protect Shield!”
I generated several large, transparent shields woven from magical power, preparing to defend myself from the prototype Chimera.
Pukyo-kyokyo. Once again, the ominous sound signaling the bubble attack echoed from the prototype Chimera’s wings.
“Bring it on!”
As if responding to my words, the bubble attack assaulted me again. But the transparent magical shields protected me from the prototype Chimera’s attack.
Now, it’s my turn!
However, the opponent is a monster with powerful regenerative abilities. The effective approach would be to use large-scale attack magic to completely annihilate the opponent, leaving no trace, but since this is underground, a reckless high-tier spell risks collapsing the entire cave. A magic powerful enough to defeat this giant Chimera without allowing it to regenerate, and one that can subdue it without collapsing the subterranean lake… Furthermore, I need to defeat it in a short battle to prevent the cave from collapsing due to the Chimera’s bubble attacks.
“In that case, maybe that one.”
From the spells I know, I chose the one that would cause the least damage to the surroundings. And timing it for the moment the prototype Chimera’s bubble attack ended, I unleashed the magic.
“Take this, Prison Ice Pillars!”
With the spell’s activation, countless gigantic ice pillars grew out from the water, ceiling, and walls, extending towards the prototype Chimera.
“Such magic cannot stop that Chimera! As you can see, it has a long, slender body. It can move freely even in the narrowest spaces!” Ganei, surrounded by a swarm of child Chimeras, boasted about the performance of his prototype Chimera.
Yeah, I’ll defeat it without hesitation.
Just as Ganei said, the Chimera slithered and dodged the onslaught of ice pillars. However…
“Mh? What is it?” Ganei noticed something was off.
The Chimera initially dodged easily, but as the large number of ice pillars grew from every conceivable angle—vertically and horizontally—blocking its escape routes, its movements gradually slowed.
That’s right, this spell wasn’t used only for attack. I created it as a cage to prevent the prototype Chimera from escaping.
As the prototype Chimera’s escape routes were increasingly blocked, an ice cage was finally formed around the Chimera.
“B-but with the prototype Chimera’s huge body, it can shatter an ice cage of that thickness!” Honestly, whose side is he on?
And as if sensing its creator’s wishes, the prototype Chimera launched another bubble attack to strike the ice cage. However, even as the surface of the ice cage was blasted by the bubbles, it immediately regenerated. After all, it’s ice, and with water all around, regeneration is simple. And this was the other reason I chose this spell: to minimize damage to the cave interior from the prototype Chimera’s bubble attacks.
“GYUWAOOOOO!!”
The prototype Chimera, enraged, roared and charged the ice cage, a tremendous roar echoing through the cave.
“Did it work!?” With the crash of the prototype Chimera’s massive body, Ganei was convinced that the ice cage had shattered.
But he’s naive.
“…Wh-what!?”
Yes, the answer was the exact opposite. The prototype Chimera, which crashed into the ice cage, didn’t shatter the cage; instead, it began to freeze from the point of impact.
“The freezing cage that freezes and kills anyone who tries to escape—that is the magic of Prison Ice Pillars!”
“Another ridiculously precise spell…” Liliera’s astonished voice could be heard from the land.
“No, no, it’s just normal anti-monster-in-a-closed-environment subjugation magic.”
“A normal person can’t conveniently use a magic spell to defeat a giant monster in such a precise location.”
Huh? I don’t think that’s true.
“Oh, right, Liliera is originally a warrior. I bet a magic specialist like Lamies can use it.”
“I-I don’t know about that…”
“Teach me that magic later too!!”
“Just focus on the enemy in front of you for now, you Magic Idiot!!”
It seems he didn’t know about it. Well, Lamies seems to specialize in Wind Magic.
“Anyway, that’s why you can’t escape this ice cage!”
Even as we spoke, the ice cage was adding more pillars inside, narrowing the space, and the prototype Chimera was becoming increasingly unable to move. The prototype Chimera opened its wings again to try and attack through the gaps in the cage, but its wings touched the narrowed space and froze.
In response, the prototype Chimera breathed fire from its mouth, and the ice cage began to melt rapidly.
“GUHAHAHAHAHA! Did you see that, boy! This is my Chimera’s strongest attack, Magma Breath! Inside the Chimera’s body, which is a living creature, there is a heat-resistant organ that produces lava, and its power is literally equal to a volcanic eruption, a natural phenomenon! No matter how strong you are, you can’t defeat my Chimera, which has recreated the power of nature!!”
Uh, is he explaining its abilities? Or is he gloating about his victory? Both now and in the past, technical people often walk a fine line.
For now, I returned my attention to Ganei’s pride and joy, the prototype Chimera. There was no sight of the Chimera heroically melting the ice with its Magma Breath; instead, the liquid that was once ice, melted by the Chimera itself, clung to its body and began to freeze again.
“Wh-what the hell!?”
The prototype Chimera desperately tried to melt the ice, but the speed at which it re-froze due to the cold replenished from the surrounding ice pillars was overwhelmingly faster than the speed at which it could melt them, leaving it unable to cope. As a result, the melted water became a restraint that bound the prototype Chimera’s body, making the breath attack counterproductive.
While this was happening, the prototype Chimera’s body was increasingly restrained, as if being crushed by the ice pillars, until its entire body was encased in ice and rendered immobile.
“Restraint by ice that can freeze even magma. If the opponent regenerates, the plan is to simply encase it in ice and render it immobile.”
Actually, I also had a spell that could safely and completely incinerate the giant prototype Chimera in a closed space, but if I used that, there wouldn’t be any proof that I defeated the prototype Chimera. It would be terrible if our rewards were reduced after everyone worked so hard to fight. After all, there’s a story about the Great Swordsman Liegard’s adventure, where he lured a gigantic and terrifying monster into the Great Shifion Abyss, successfully knocked it down, and won, but because the evidence of the monster’s defeat was also lost, he couldn’t receive his reward. From that incident, the inability to prove a great achievement came to be called ‘dropping your credit in the Great Abyss.’
“And with that, prototype Chimera subjugation complete!”
$diamond$
“M-my pride and joy of a Chimera…” Seeing the prototype Chimera encased in ice, Ganei dropped to his knees, crestfallen.
“I had the confidence that it was perfect, that no greater Chimera could be made…”
Hmm, maybe I went a little too far? But if I hadn’t done something about that Chimera, it would have kept spawning children and multiplying. If it had somehow gotten out into the outside world, it would have been a tremendous disaster.
“But well, honestly, I’m glad it was an opponent that we were able to defeat.”
“Hah!”
After all, the opponent was the strongest Chimera created to defeat the White Calamity, the monster that destroyed an ancient civilization along with the Demon armies. There must have been some reason why we were able to defeat it by ourselves.
“Hah… hah!!” Huh? For some reason, Ganei is staring at me with wide eyes. Ah, is it that? Is he trying to say that if the Chimera he made had been in its complete form, it wouldn’t have lost?
“Um, it might be disappointing for you, its creator, Ganei, but for us, I think we’re lucky that Chimera couldn’t use its full power. You see, it’s the strongest Chimera, so if it had displayed its true strength, I don’t think we would have been able to win…” Yes, for example, its growth might have been incomplete due to the environment, or its stamina might have been greatly exhausted from spawning children. Yeah, I have a feeling that’s the correct answer.
“Hah!!!!” For some reason, Ganei had a vein throbbing on his forehead and let out a soundless cry. Uh, is he trying to say That’s right?
“Also, I’m sure it didn’t have enough nutrition here with only the monsters and fish that flowed in. If it were in a more nutrient-rich location, the battle would have been completely different!”
“Hah! Hah!!” Ganei was flapping his mouth open and closed with several veins pulsing on his forehead. He looked like a farmed fish poking its head out of the water for food.
“Hah!! HAH!” HAH?
“Don’t get carried away just because you defeated a mere prototype Chimera!! My Chimera is the strongest!!” Ganei’s roar echoed throughout the subterranean lake. “It’s just that it was a Chimera I made a little while ago, so its performance was only so-so! If I made one seriously now, I could make an even stronger Chimera!!” Ganei stamped his feet on the ground and insisted vehemently.
“Yes, of course, I understand. It’s a Chimera that Ganei continued to research and create even after becoming an undead. It must be amazing.”
“~~~~~~!!” Ganei’s mouth was wide open, and he was trembling uncontrollably.
“Y-you just wait!! I’ll definitely create a Chimera stronger than you, I swear!!” Right after shouting this, Ganei leaped out of the subterranean lake and fled.
“…Um, what was that all about?” I clearly stated that I recognized how amazing Ganei’s Chimera was. Why did that turn into a discussion about creating a Chimera stronger than me?
Confused, I looked at the others. For some reason, everyone was nodding deeply to each other with their arms crossed.
“Man, that was a masterful display of provocation.”
“Yeah, those were a series of statements that seemed intentionally calculated.”
“He has no pride whatsoever.”
“I think it would be less painful if he just honestly passed on to the afterlife…”
“Chimera research technology seems interesting, but given how badly he lost, is it a waste of time?”
The others, who had been saying whatever they pleased, looked at me and said:
“Well, no matter what, he picked the wrong opponent.”
“W-what does that mean!?”
No, seriously, what does it mean?
