The SSR Spearman (Doesn’t) Hide His One-Shot Damage - Chapter 7

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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 7

* * *

“Forgive me for the late introduction. Please, call me Rian. I belong to the Underground City now, but I was once a researcher at the Magic Tower.”
“…”

Damp air. Gloomy, sickly light.
Countless pillars stretched irregularly up toward the ceiling.
A place where lives deemed filthy and disgraceful settled down and barely clung to survival.

Right now, I’m strolling through the heart of the Underground City, escorted by the Dark Mage who, in my previous life, slaughtered countless citizens of the Empire.

‘These guys were the boss-level enemies in the original work… and now they’re recruitable characters?’

And three SSRs right from the start?
This is ridiculous.
No matter how well you pull early on, getting two R-grades and one N-Rank is considered a decent result.

‘Could it be possible only because it’s a Hidden Route…?’

I was utterly dumbfounded.
Guess playing games for so long really does pay off.
…No, actually, now I’ve gone and fallen right into that very game myself…

[Rian harbors a faint affection for you.]
[Rian’s Trust Level toward you has risen!]

But this Dark Mage.
His Trust Level was climbing at an alarming pace.

‘The Empire’s heroes hated me no matter what I did. Here, it’s the complete opposite.’

It felt strange.
I’d played this game over and over, but this was the first time I’d ever won the favor of an enemy faction like this.
Naturally, I don’t fully know these guys.

…Well, when they appeared as enemies, their character information windows were mostly hidden.

In the first place, recruiting them was impossible.
All that’s left in my memory is the bitter struggle of meeting them as foes.

‘But on the Hidden Route… these guys can actually become my allies?’

Of course, even a hero pulled from Fate Summon can later turn hostile depending on their Trust Level.
Still, for some reason, I felt certain.
At the very least, these guys wouldn’t go swinging an axe and vowing to kill me, nor would they betray me so easily. That’s how sure I felt.

‘Fine. Then let’s properly start the Hidden Route.’

First, I need to track down the Special Mutant that has infiltrated the Underground City.
For now, I’ve decided to try pulling some information out of this Dark Mage named Rian.

“Rian, is there anything unusual? Something about the current state of the Underground City residents who are undergoing mutation, perhaps.”
“Ah, the groups that are mutating slowly are being quarantined separately. As for the ones progressing quickly… well, you already know.”

If one has a certain degree of Resistance Stat, they won’t immediately transform into a Demonic Monster even when exposed to the vapor.
So they endure as long as they possibly can, and if they later receive Holy Healing, they can be fully cured.

But what if the mutation progressed quickly?

At a glance, twisted corpses lay piled up in every corner of the city, their bodies grotesquely warped.
They had probably been dealt with just before the transformation was complete.

“So they’re culling them by hand.”
“Eh…? Ah, since I’m letting them die right before they mutate, yes, by hand. You’re right about that.”

[Rian’s Trust Level toward you has increased!]

For some reason, her trust in me went up again.
Even if our bond had been inherited, this was a bit embarrassing.

‘Wasn’t trust supposed to be a stat that barely budged?’

I was puzzling over it when—

“By the way, Setanta, about your companion being held in the isolation room.”

With her dark gray hair hanging loose, Rian asked me with a strange look in her eyes.

“He called me a Dark Mage.”
“….”
“Every time I use magic, I have to pay a price… I wonder how he knew that.”
“Wait, that guy isn’t some kind of Empire spy! I think you’ve misunderstood—”
“What’s curious is that I’ve had a similar experience.”
“Huh?”
“I dreamed that you saved the world.”

…
…I saved the world?

Not destroyed it?

* * *

‘She shouldn’t be able to find me now.’

That guy kept treating me like a savior and sparkling his eyes at me, and frankly, it was becoming a burden.
So I slipped away at the first chance I got.

Ding!

[Rian’s Trust Level toward you has…]

Yet the trust-increase messages were still popping up one after another.
He seemed to be completely out of his mind.

[TIP – A Hero’s interests and actions are strongly influenced by their .]

Just then, a message appeared.

‘…Oh, right, that guy was Morrigan.’

Only now did this bizarre situation start to make complete sense.
In this game, SSR Heroes tend to follow the ‘unfolding of the myth’ assigned to them.

-Seriously, are there any normal SSRs? Especially the Rom Federation mercenaries lol. They cheat on each other all the time and kill each other, it’s total soap opera chaos.
└All the Rom Federation SSRs are Greek Mythology, so they’re trash to begin with.
If you want a quiet playthrough, just use the Empire’s SSRs. They’re Round Table knights, so they’re kind of like scholarly types.
What are you talking about? Lancelot had an affair too, and Arthur had a mental breakdown because someone stole his wife.

That’s right.
It’s as if they’re pulled along by fate, and they just go ahead and do it.
Whether it’s adultery or murder…

‘Whenever some messed-up sudden event popped up, it was usually this kind of situation.’

By the way, for SSR heroes, this Unique Myth is also their source of power.
If you follow their deeds from the myth, their stats rise as if achievements were being unlocked.

-When I was raising Setanta, I got a tip about stat boosts.
└What is it?
└That muscle-bound tank who shows up as the boss of the hostile faction? The one called Ferdin. If you kill him with Setanta, his stats go up permanently.

Apparently, it’s a special event that only pops up for SSR heroes…
A special event that boosts stats.

-???Seriously? I already took that one down with a different character.
└Guess the permanent main-dealer stat boost is gone, huh lol
└But why would Setanta’s stats go up?
└Setanta is Cu Chulainn, right? In the original myth, he kills Ferdin, so the devs probably added it as a special event?
└Huh? I looked it up and it’s Irish mythology? How was I supposed to know something that obscure?

That’s right.
That barbarian with the massive build, the one named Perdi that I glimpsed earlier.
If I cut his throat with my own hands…?

All my stats would rise permanently!

‘…But I’m not a pixel character on a monitor anymore.’

Ambushing and killing a character who’s just standing there without any reason, that’s a bit…

Of course, if he’s the type who does bad things, then I’ll have to make him ‘good,’ I suppose.

‘For now, I’ll focus only on advancing the Hidden Route.’

I shook off the thought and decided to dive into the full-scale route guide.
That’s also why I’d slipped away from that pesky Dark Mage and ended up alone.

[Bringing up the checklist.]
[Hidden Route progress: 0%]
-『Purify the Underground City』
-『???』
-『???』
…

‘Mutants should be showing up about now. Why is it still so quiet?’

Hmm, at a glance, nothing seems out of the ordinary.
Where on earth is this thing hiding-

Crrk-

“…!”

In an instant, a bone-chilling sensation came crawling up my spine.

I turned my gaze around.
Through the corpses that had been dealt with beforehand, before the mutation…
Something like a tentacle was writhing.

‘Could the special mutant have been hiding among the bodies?’

The moment I was about to rush over.

[Warning! A boss-class demonic monster has appeared.]
[The level gap with the boss is extreme. Retreat is recommended!]

“Krrrrrr…”

Something enormous and reddish-brown began slowly pushing itself up from among the corpses.

‘So the special mutant the quest mentioned… is this thing.’

A body tightly wrapped in a dark red shell.
Thick tentacles stretching out long from where its arms should have been.
That form I had seen countless times.
The boss of the dungeonized stood right before my eyes.

“Gwaaak—!”

In the blink of an eye, a single resident of the Underground City was skewered through the stomach by its tentacle.
I didn’t even have time to run over and save them.

“Get out of the way, damn it! Move!”
“Aaaaaaah!”

Shoving one another aside, people scrambled to flee in a frantic uproar that erupted on all sides.

Whirr—!
I immediately drew my spear and gripped it in my right hand.
Without meaning to, a thin trickle of cold sweat ran down my face.

‘By the book, this is a tricky bastard you’d only take on after the midgame, with a proper party.’

As things stood, my level was low, and I hadn’t properly geared up.
It was no different from a level 3 player skipping the newbie stage and charging straight into the deepest level of a dungeon.

And yet.
For some reason, I didn’t feel like I was going to lose.

‘…Making the impossible possible was always my signature play.’

[Using Curse Resistance Potion.]

To guard against any possible mutation, I pulled out a potion in advance and gulped it down.

Thud,
…thud,
……THUD!

As if it were finally about to launch its attack, the giant mutant began advancing toward me.

Wherever its feet touched the ground, thick clouds of dust rose.

“Krrrrk!”

The creature that had closed to within five paces suddenly twisted its body in a strange way.

Swish-!

It lashed a tentacle horizontally at me.
Huge, yet quick; heavy, yet sharp.

Tadat!
I stepped back quickly, opening a gap that was close but not quite within reach.

“Grrk?”

Once its attacks failed to land, the tentacles multiplied, one after another, lashing out in a wild frenzy.

‘Think I’ll carve off a few.’

I slipped my spear point forward and clipped the tip of a tentacle it had swung at me.

Schak.
Then came a squishy give through the spear shaft.
One tentacle tip was sheared clean off, spraying dark red blood.

“Gwaaaaaaaaaaah-!”

It seemed to have lost its temper completely, writhing and beginning to shriek.

‘…Now!’

I darted in toward the creature, too busy thrashing to guard its own body.
Gripping the spear tight, I swept up at a slant and slashed across its torso.

Kagagagak-!

Unlike the tentacle tips, though, its torso didn’t so much as scratch.
If anything, the recoil sent a shudder up the hand gripping my spear.

‘So it’s still not possible now.’

Even if I was born a bamboo-spear damage dealer.
Without any growth, and with a pathetic excuse for a weapon in this situation…
It looked like landing a real blow would be difficult.

“Kwerrk!”

Before long, the bundle of tentacles struck back.
I sprang backward like a coiled spring, flipped once through the air, and landed clear of its attack.

“Hah…”

My heart was pounding and the hair on my head stood on end.
Is this what dopamine feels like?
My vision flushed red, and a strange excitement set my heart thrumming.

‘First, let’s clear the tentacles.’

I kept a steady distance, backing away from the creature as it charged in with shrieks,
Sseureong-!
and immediately switched to my longsword, deciding to lop off the tentacle tips one by one.

‘…Kite it, cut off every tentacle tip, then go for the kill.’

I’d posted a guide on the forum back then.
I remember being puzzled that, aside from me, nobody had actually pulled it off.

-Solo-clearing the Underground City boss is possible if you have the trait (video link)
└??????????
└? What on earth happened?
└Kite it and dodge every tentacle while cutting, then at the end, slowly pry off the belly lid with brute force (author)
└Wait, how do you solo that and not take a single hit while dodging all those tentacles?

‘Why can’t anyone do it?’

It was a bit tricky, but it wasn’t impossible.
In the end, nobody could manage it, and only the view counts on my guide video kept climbing.

Shing!

Just like in that guide video, I kept my distance, hovering just out of reach, and sliced through the tentacles.
Every time my blade swept through, they dropped away in clumps. Shlop, shlop.
Bunches of tentacles fell away, like harvesting spoon worms.

“Kr-kruk, kr-krrrk-!”

…Splat!
The moment I severed the last tentacle tip, the mutant began to tremble all over and flush a furious red.

Tadat!

Squeezing between the limp, drooping clusters of tentacles whose tips had been cut off and lost their strength,
I quickly dove in close to its chest.
Before long, my hand found the monster’s hard, coarse outer shell.

‘The heart must be right here.’

The thick shell at the center, where it was especially red and seamed.
Into the gap there, I jammed my fingers in all the way,
…Rrrip!
and began tearing at the hide with brutal force.

“Kruk! Krrrruk…! Kruk-!”

The mutant’s thrashing, shrieking cries rang so loudly they made my ears go numb.
Ah, before I knew it, a slimy, lukewarm tentacle had wrapped around my body.
As if it were desperately pushing me away to survive.

Sshhk-.

But when things didn’t go its way, it now tried to strangle my neck.
…You damn thing.

‘Don’t go changing the game genre on your own!’

I ignored the clammy sensation and focused solely on putting force into my hands.
Crunch, crrrunch-.
The sounds of muscle, ligament, and bone twisting reached my ears.
One second felt like an hour.

…
…Ttudduk!

Then came the sound of something snapping.
*Squelch-.*
Something like a blood vessel stretched taut before tearing free, dragging along the thick, horny skin.

‘…Finally.’

On the thrashing creature’s chest, a gaping wound of raw flesh came into view.
I snatched up my spear at once and drove it deep inside, twisting as I went, as if gouging it out.

“Gwaaaaaaah-!”

Just as a howl rose up, bubbling like oatmeal boiling in some hellish pot.
The tentacles that had been clinging to my body so repulsively all went limp at once.

[Level up.]
[You have successfully eliminated the Special Mutant of the Underground City.]

[Hidden Route progress increased!]

[Hidden Route progress: 1.5%]
-『Purify the Underground City』 (Complete)

‘Phew…’

Like a dog shaking off after a bath, I shuddered my whole body, flinging off the slick, viscous fluid clinging to me.
Victory is mine.

[A Hidden Item has dropped!]

Soon, a violet smoke began to rise from near the gaping heart of the fallen mutant.
*Shuuu-.*
It writhed and wobbled, sinking down to the floor before finally settling into the shape of a small glass vial.

‘Oh, nice loot.’

There are bosses that, upon death, will occasionally spit out a Hidden Item with a certain probability.
This guy is exactly that kind.

I quickly snatched up the violet glass vial lying at my feet.

Essence of the Tentacle Monster, which permanently boosts one’s regenerative capacity.
But the price of gaining that power, according to the setup, is a curse from the gods.

In a word…
‘Let’s call it a cursed elixir.’

[Warning! – This item is expected to inflict a fatal debuff!]
[It is strongly advised that you use it with caution…]

*Pop.*
I immediately pulled the cork off the elixir.

—————
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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