Chapter 380: The Threat of the Monster Whale

Was my prediction correct in a bad way? The monster whale seemed to breathe with lungs, not gills. After all, it had been staying on land and rampaging for more than two or three minutes. I had built the log house to be quite sturdy, but it had still received repeated violent impacts from the monster whale’s tail fin and torso, gradually losing its shape. It would be sturdy if it were in the shape of a perfect box, but in a state where it had begun to collapse diagonally, it couldn’t maintain that strength.

As the log house creaked and slowly collapsed, Arte and Till hugged each other with teary eyes.

“……Boy. Protect everyone for me. I will go out alone and lure that thing toward the forest.”

“Eh? That’s dangerous. With that size, even if we make a back door, you’ll be crushed if you’re unlucky. And there’s no time to use magic……”

Saying that, I looked up at the monster whale through a gap created by the tilted log house. Its movements were hard to predict, and its range was abnormally wide. Sometimes it swung its tail fin without jumping up, snapping large trees like toothpicks. To be blunt, I think it has about the same power as a body slam from a medium-sized dragon. In other words, a single blow that even Dee, Arb, and Law working together would be blown away by.

Panamera tried to attack with magic to see if we could somehow break through the situation, but because I had prioritized safety and hadn’t made any windows in the log house, she couldn’t quite gauge the timing. To use magic, she would have to step outside the log house, even just a little.

Because of those circumstances, we were in a situation where we were trying to figure out how to escape the log house.

However, Panamera looked up at the ceiling, which was getting closer and closer, and shook her head side to side.

“It has been broken down this much in such a short time. It wouldn’t be strange if it collapsed at any moment now. It would be more dangerous for everyone to go out. I will go out alone and throw my sword into its eye.”

Shrugging her shoulders, Panamera announced that and gave her sword a swing with one hand. If Panamera says she will do it, she will definitely manage to draw the monster whale’s attention. However, I thought the chances of Panamera surviving that were about fifty-fifty.

“That is dangerous. In that case, I will manage something. I might be able to withstand it by creating Wood Block walls at the very last second.”

Unusually, I rejected Panamera’s opinion and strongly proposed my own. At that, Panamera widened her eyes for a moment, but then burst out laughing and patted my head.

“Aren’t you a fine knight. But in my estimation, that is dangerous too. We somehow survived earlier, but depending on how it hit, we all might have been crushed, right? Well, rest assured, Boy. Let me show you just how reliable your ally, Count Panamera Carrera Cayenne, can be.”

Saying that with a fearless smile, Panamera headed toward the entrance of the log house. Looking at her back, overflowing with confidence, made me feel like things would somehow work out, but in reality, it should be a tough situation. After all, right before our eyes, a monster whale the size of a large ship…… no, perhaps the size of a school building, was rampaging and shaking the earth. And it was targeting the log house. It truly was a gamble of luck.

I desperately racked my brain trying to figure out if I could do something, but I couldn’t organize my thoughts. The opponent was too big for Arte’s puppet, so its effectiveness would likely be thin. If only I could make it out of mithril at least…… no, if I did that, Arte wouldn’t have enough magical power.

Of course, there was no time to make an armored carriage. This had turned into a truly bad situation. Even while I was agonizing over it, Panamera was about to go outside.

Just as I thought that, Arte and Till came toward me.

“U-Umm……”

“What is it?”

Being called out to, I answered in a state with little composure. Perhaps sensing that atmosphere, Arte’s expression became slightly tense. Seeing that out of the corner of her eye, Till spoke up in her stead.

“Lord Van. Can you make a basement? If we are underground, perhaps we might avoid being crushed……”

Being told that by Till, I involuntarily let out a loud “Ah!”

“A shelter! I see, there is that option!”

Why hadn’t I thought of something so simple? Well, normally you couldn’t just make a shelter on the spot, but the current me could do exactly that.

“Ms. Panamera! Come back! We can survive!”

“O-Oh……! What is it? What do you intend to do?”

When I called out to her, Panamera obediently complied. Thank goodness. She was right on the verge of jumping outside.

“Everyone, gather around me!”

“Y-Yes!”

When I called out, the three of them gathered right beside me. Confirming that, I crouched on the floor and rapidly deformed the Wood Blocks used for the floor and pillars. I used the soil and stones in the ground to reinforce the left and right walls, and created floors and walls with Wood Blocks in the empty space, making a simple basement.

“Th-There’s no time……!”

The depth was about one and a half meters. But even so, underground is underground. Violent sounds that seemed to signal an imminent collapse echoed from the ceiling, and I reflexively entered the basement and created a ceiling.

Right after my vision was completely dyed in darkness, the sound of something heavy and large falling continued to echo repeatedly through the ceiling.