The SSR Spearman (Doesn’t) Hide His One-Shot Damage - Chapter 24

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 24

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The giant spider gave its feeler legs a few twitches side to side, then shook off the knight who had been skewered beneath its foreleg and crushed flat, the way someone might shake a sock off their foot.

Splat.

The knight’s corpse, no longer even resembling a person, sprawled across the floor.

“Uh… uhhhhhhhhh…”

The last surviving Imperial Knight watched his comrade’s end, his trembling lips moving soundlessly a few times.

[The target Hero is under extreme stress.]

[Status Ailment – Terror!]
[The target Hero’s overall Status will drop sharply!]

And on top of that, they’ve slapped a Terror status ailment on me right at the start of the boss fight.
Fine, my combat ability is pathetic since I’m an N-Rank, but my Mental Strength is this hopeless too? My head is throbbing just thinking about it.

Clack, clack, clack.
Before long, the giant spider began circling in place, its thick legs moving up and down.
It looked for all the world like it was hunting for its next prey.

Swish.
I immediately drew my spear and took a combat stance.

‘So the only healthy people left who can fight are my party members… and one SSR New Character?’

I’ll be the main damage dealer.
Rian will stay on standby and serve as my trump card, casting a decisive large spell in just the right moment.

Ailin can fall back to the rear line as a support damage dealer, and she can handle protecting the mage or the wounded.
She’s a physical and magic DPS all-rounder, so she can prepare for all sorts of emergencies.

‘Then what about the New Character from the Rom Federation?’

I was just wondering how best to use the New Character when it happened.

“H-hiiiiiik.”

Hecate suddenly went pale, gasping for breath,
then dragged the limp Achilles along by the leg and scrambled off into a corner, crawling on all fours like a dog.

…Thud!

Whether she’d slammed her head into the wall and passed out or simply collapsed, she dropped to the floor and lost consciousness.
It had happened in the blink of an eye.

‘She didn’t do a thing, and she just bashed her own head and fainted, retiring on her own?’

What on earth just happened in the blink of an eye…?
I could hardly believe what I had just seen.

A Hidden Route-exclusive SSR Hero status…
Is this for real?!

Chak, chak, chak!

Even through all of it, the blue spider kept circling in place.
It paid no mind at all to the two mercenaries of the Rom Federation lying unconscious in the corner.

‘…But he really is optimized for staying alive.’

The giant spider boss tends to prioritize prey that’s still moving and kicking.
So if you lie in a corner like a corpse, at least you won’t be the first to die.

So he’s a hero concept that’s useless in battle but has an uncanny knack for dodging death’s edge?

I was so exasperated that I ended up almost admiring it…

“Ahh… AAAAAAAAH!!”

On top of that, the deranged James let out another scream.

“J-James! Shut up! Please, keep it down…!”
“Aaaagh! Aaaaaaaaah-!”

…
…Chak.

At last, the giant spider came to a halt.
Toward James, the source of that ear-grating screaming, and the Imperial Knight comrade beside him.

“J-James…! Get up, please!”
“…Ngh, ugh.”

The spider’s eight legs, which had been moving in that strange rhythm, settled one by one onto the ground.
The spider’s pedipalps splayed open to either side with a sharp *shwack*.

“Damn it! I’m done with this! Survive on your own!”

And at that very moment, just as something white and clumpy was about to burst from its chewing mouth—

“…?!”

Snatch!
The Imperial Knight James suddenly grabbed the collar of the comrade knight who had been trying to flee right beside him.

“Wh-what…?! James, what do you think you’re doing…!”

Pshhk!
Right after, the web shot from the spider’s mouth struck the chest of the knight James was holding.

“J-Jam…!”

Pshhk! Pshhk!
In an instant, the knight’s body was wrapped up in a white bundle of webbing.

It was as if he were raising a shield to block an attack.
James thrust his comrade forward and used him to block the webbing.

“Mmph…! Mmmmmph!”

Now even his mouth was sealed shut with webbing.
He looked every bit like a larva, transformed into a human cocoon.

“Mm… mmph! Mmmmmmph-!”
“Haaah… haah…!”

James left his comrade lying on the floor, now a cocoon, and scrambled off toward the corner.

Clack, clack, clack.
The blue spider crept closer to the white cocoon, its legs twitching with each step.
Like a predator returning to a kill it had already caught.

‘So he used the comrade who just tried to help him as a shield and then abandoned him…?’

I’d seen scenes like this in the game, but watching it play out in person stirred something in me.
When you played the original game, moments like this came up now and then, heroes with rotten character sacrificing their own party members without a second thought.

‘I once had an N-Rank I’d brought along as a throwaway, and when it suddenly triggered a trap, it got an SR killed in its place… I was utterly dumbfounded.’

That’s why I never recruited throwaway heroes with needlessly high Intelligence.
Those types were far more likely to pull the same stunt James just did.

“Kieeeek-!”

At last, the giant spider stopped in front of the cocoon and stretched its jaws wide with a crack.
Through the gaping mouth, dozens of razor-sharp fangs were visible. It looked like it meant to chew the cocoon-wrapped knight whole.

‘At this rate, he’s finished.’

Still, he’d been a decent sort, trying to look out for his comrade. It’s a shame.
Not that an Imperial bastard’s life is any concern of mine.

Hmm…

…Still, he seems like a good guy, doesn’t he?
Maybe I should give him a hand.

With a flick, I spun my spear once and got a fresh grip on the shaft, just as the moment came.

Whoosh!

“…!”

All at once, the world flashed. A golden flame, like molten gold, wrapped around the giant spider.

‘What?’

A scorching gust rolled over me, and then the air around us turned cool again.

I turned my head to find the source of the heat.
There stood Ailin, gripping an Iron Wood Sword.
Of all people, she was the one who’d come to the aid of the Imperial Knight.

Crackle, crackle…

Then, somewhere nearby, the acrid stench of burning flesh stabbed at my nose.
Puzzled, I looked again.

“Mm…! Mmph! Mmmmmmph!”

The knight who’d been bound in spider silk was thrashing on the floor, howling wildly.
Only now did I notice that roughly a third of the Imperial Knight’s white cocoon had vanished, scorched black.
The knight’s two legs and feet… were gone.

‘…Did the Imperial Knight’s lower body just get blown off by that attack?’

Huh.
Wait…
Was she actually trying to help?

“Hff! Hhnnnng…!”
“Oops, my hand slipped. Sorry you had to see that, Setanta.”
“….”
“Really, I’m sorry, Setanta.”

Ailin was actually apologizing to me.
Not to the Imperial Knight who had just lost his lower half to that attack.

‘Now that I look at her, her expression is strange, too.’

Her brows were knit as if she were troubled, and her eyes looked sorrowful.
Yet the corners of her mouth twisted oddly, as if she were sneering…
Her face wore an expression I truly could not read.

“….”

Wait a moment.
She didn’t do that on purpose, did she?

“Kiyy? Kiiiiyy…”

The giant spider stopped its movement toward the knight who had become a cocoon and began glancing around.
It seemed to be searching for the source of the golden sword aura that had been burning it.

“Setanta, rest for a moment. This time, let me take on that thing.”

Ailin took a deep breath and poured mana into her weapon once more.

Whoosh!
Then she swung the Iron Wood Sword through the empty air, and a dazzling golden mana surged toward the spider.
But the flames that touched its body flared briefly and then died out.
Even after being engulfed by the fire again and again, the creature seemed on the verge of turning red, only to drift back to its cold blue.
As if to say its body could never heat up from something this trivial.

‘Nothing’s getting through at all?’

It wasn’t a proper flame spell, but the sheer firepower should have been enough.
Apparently, since this boss was wrapped in frost, its body refused to warm up easily.
Far more than I had expected.

“Ailin! Can you raise the output any further? To the maximum!”
“…Understood.”

Whoosh!

An even larger flame rose along the path of her sword strike.
Yet the spider still looked as though it had taken no damage whatsoever.

Instead, along with the stench of scorched flesh…

“Gyaaaaaaaah—!”

The death throes of a human being, wracked with agony, rang out across the entire Boss Room.

‘Huh?’

A sudden ominous feeling made me turn toward where the white cocoon had been.

Crackle, crackle…
Eventually, the flames began to die down.
Only the head and upper chest of the Imperial Knight remained, left there in the open.

“Gah… gaaah…”

The upper half of the knight, which had been caught at the very edge of Ailin’s attack trajectory, had been swallowed by the full-power Sword Qi and burned away.

“Ugh…”

The Empire’s knight twitched a couple of times before his whole body began to shudder, convulsing violently until he breathed his last.

[… has returned to the bosom of the Goddess.]

“Oh my, I seem to have failed to control my mana output properly.”

Ailin turned to look at me, a melancholy shadow crossing her face.
Her translucent lavender eyes even looked wistful.

“I’m sorry you had to witness such an unsightly scene again, Setanta. As you can see, I don’t really know how to cast proper magic.”
“…”
“So when I attack by pouring out every last drop of my mana, these little mistakes happen from time to time.”

So what you’re trying to tell me is…
That burning the knight’s lower and upper body away in sequence was merely a mistake in mana control…?

‘There’s no way that’s true.’

In that instant, I had an instinctive certainty.
No matter how I looked at it, this was deliberate…!

“Kieeeeeee-!”

While I was lost in thought for a moment.
The giant spider let out an enraged roar and began pounding the floor with its eight legs.

‘…This isn’t the time for this.’

First, I had to take this thing down and think afterward.
I readjusted my stance once more.

“…”

Yet the more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed.
Why was that spider bastard still perfectly fine?

By the standards of the original work’s Hell Mode, by now it should have turned red like a boiled lobster and fallen into a Groggy state.
Its regeneration should have stopped and its movements should have ceased, leaving it lying there so I could carve it up right away.

‘But it came out wrapped in cold air, and it isn’t even warming up from being hit with fire.’

Spiders are ectothermic, so they can’t regulate their own body temperature.
That’s why the standard strategy was to either provoke it into violent movement or raise its temperature with fire until it fell into a Groggy state, but…
If its body temperature won’t rise even this much, then what on earth am I supposed to do…?

“Setanta-nim! That spider seems to turn a little redder every time the flames touch it…!”

Rian shouted at me, his face tight with urgency.

“Spiders are cold-blooded…! I’d bet that demonic monster shares the same trait! So what if we heat up the area around it even more?”
“….”

They say he’s a genius mage, and it looks like his head works just as well.
He found the standard guide strategy in a heartbeat, didn’t he?

But unfortunately, that strategy won’t work in this run.
The fact that it’s cold-blooded is the same, but…

…Hm? Wait a moment.

‘Cold-blooded… did he just say cold-blooded?’

A thought flashed through my mind like lightning.

Could it be…
Maybe following the old guide isn’t the right answer after all.

“Setanta-nim! I can cast one more spell! So let me cast Flame Magic right now…!”
“No, please use Frost Magic instead.”

I answered firmly.

…Frost Magic.
That’s going to be the key to this run’s strategy.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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