Chapter 97 : Dragon Girl’s and The Fairies’ Artifact

With help from the knights, Aria and co. arrived on the fifth floor of the labyrinth without wasting too much stamina. There, letting out a loud warcry, a bipedal cow-headed monster appeared in front of them. This monster’s name was Minotaur.

「Great, that’s just the right opponent for you, Stella.」

「YAAAY! TARGET DUMMY FOR MY NEW WEAPON!」

Stella couldn’t hide the ferocious expression on her face as she delightfully screamed upon hearing Prince Julius’ words.

「BUMOOOOOO――O!」

The Minotaur rushed at the party with a loud warcry.

Stella leaped forward and drew her new artifact, a giant ornamental shield called 〝Caladbog?.

The Minotaur attacked Stella’s Caladbog with its metal pole.

This attack was supposed to generate a loud clang, but for some reason, that didn’t happen. It was as if Stella’s shield, Caladbog, had absorbed all the impact from Minotaur’s attack.

Stella curled her lips to form a wide grin as if she were a predator who had caught its foolish prey.

In the next moment… she drew her greatsword-type artifact, 〝Claiomh Solais?, and slashed at the Minotaur.

DOGOOOOOOOOOO――OOOON!!

The Minotaur’s body was blown back far away along with a thunderous sound. Stella rapidly closed in on the Minotaur, whose body struck the wall behind it. She thrust Claiomh Solais into the Minotaur’s heart.

―― Yup, you did a great job in mastering your artifact, Stella.

―― Yaay! Tama praised me!

Stella looked extremely delighted when Tama telepathically praised her.

Aside from the usual black jet iron, another rare alloy called vibram was added into Stella’s artifact.

Vibram was a special alloy that could absorb the impact of an attack and cancel it to a certain threshold.

Stella’s Caladbog hadn’t even flinched upon receiving Minotaur’s attack. The reason for the absence of the usual clang was that Stella’s Caladbog had absorbed all the impact.

Following that… the Minotaur’s body was blown back when Stella had pointed her Claiomh Solais’ tip toward the Minotaur.

The creator of those artifacts, Vulcan, the artifact smith, had a skill that could modify the special trait of vibram from Invalid to Absorb. Moreover, she had also added an ability called ‘Firing Convergence’ on Stella’s sword to release the absorbed impact.

In short, the current Stella could release the impact that was absorbed with her shield artifact, Caladbog, from her greatsword artifact, Claiomh Solais.

The Minotaur was blown back due to Claiomh Solais’ ‘Firing Absorption’.

With this, Stella had gained the greatest power-up from the pair of offense and defense artifacts. She could now perfectly play the role of the tank in their party.

「Uhm… Here comes the reinforcement.」

The party’s scout, Howard, noticed four Minotaurs approaching their direction.

「Your Highness, let us fight too!」

「Ri~ght. Please leave those cows to u~s!」

Lily and Faeri expressed their eagerness to fight upon seeing another batch of monsters.

「Okay then, now it’s time for party battle.」

Julius accepted their request and left this batch of Minotaurs to the Aria and others. As for him, he was saving his power and restraining himself from entering the battle. He did not want to waste his energy until the battle against the Four Demon Dukes since his condition was far from his peak after pushing himself too far during the Ragnarok.

「YA~Y! IT’S SHOWTIME!」

「Now we can back up Aria and co. to the fullest with our magic~!」

Lily and Faeri cheerfully readied themselves behind Aria and Stella.

「Let’s go, Stella-chan!」n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

「Humph! Those cows aren’t a match for me regardless of their number!!」

Aria and Stella took a step forward as they exchanged glances. Stella took out Caladbog and charged ahead.

『MOOOOOOOO!?』

The poor Minotaur who received Stella’s charge wailed with an agonizing look on its face. It was blown back toward the same place where Stella’s first victim had landed

The other Minotaur that had been standing right beside the one blown away stabbed its spear toward Stella. It had an angry expression on its face as if it wanted to say ‘How dare you to do that to my comrade!’, but―

「HUMPH, BEGONE!!」

Just like before, Stella pointed her Claiomh Solais’ tip toward the incoming Minotaur. And just like before, this Minotaur was blown back along with a loud resounding impact.

Stella had absorbed the impact from her previous charge with Caladbog and fired its convergence force with Claiomh Solais.

『MOOO!』

『MOOOO!』

The other two Minotaurs chose to observe the situation since they couldn’t make sense of what had happened to their comrades just now.

Aria broke into a sprint to finish off the hesitating duo.

But still, as expected of Minotaurs, their mind broke out of confusion, and they quickly switched gears. They swung down their axe to block Aria’s path.

「NOW! 《Fairy Bullet》!」

「Here I co~me, 《Branch Whip》~!」

Lily and Faeri, who were waiting for this moment, unleashed their respective skills. And then, an unbelievable phenomenon occurred in this place.

Lily’s 《Fairy Bullet》moved in a curved orbit. It appeared that the bullets were circling Aria.

Traveling in a gentle parabolic orbit, the bullet pierced through the left chest of one of the Minotaurs with a ‘Pasun!’ sound.

Following right after that, Faeri’s 《Branch Whip》 grew even further after it caught the other Minotaur’s feet. It grew upward and entangled the Minotaur’s leg, arm, and head.

Just a few days ago, Lily’s 《Fairy Bullet》 could only travel in a straight line and Faeri’s 《Branch Whip》 could only attack from above.

But under Beelzebub’s training, both of them had learned how to properly control and invoke their magic skills. The result of the training was the new ways Lily and Faeri could use their skills.

Besides, the power of their respective skills was showing tremendous growth despite having yet to receive Tama’s 《Divine Protection of Lion King》.

It was the effect of Vulcan’s artifact, 〝Defaiyon Ring?.

Defaiyon Ring was the name of an alloy ring which included a metal called admantite. Admantite’s main trait was enhancing the magical power of its wearer by consuming its owner’s mana.

That kind of mana consumption was normally regarded as inefficient, but… it was no problem for the fairies. The two fairies’ mana pools were simply too vast. They alone were enough to summon numerous undead in addition to an Undead Dragon. That’s why these artifacts were perfect for Lily and Faeri, whose mana pools were almost inexhaustible.

「YOU’RE THE LAST!」

Along with those words, Aria, who had just finished off the two Minotaurs blown back by Stella, had already closed in on the Minotaur that was entangled with Faeri’s 《Branch Whip》.

「Nya~! Good job everyone, your first coop battle with the new weapons is PERFECTNYAN!」

Vulcan delightfully cheered when she saw the four of them perfectly cooperating in the battle. She had never expected that these four would get used to their new weapon so quickly and accomplished such seamless coordination in a battle in their first try.

Naturally, there were still some gaps before they reached the Four Demon Duke’s level, but their cooperation was… reassuring at the very least.