SWNOVELXO Chapter 97
Like shooting bullets, I fired countless tiny suit fragments from my hands.
Most of them missed since they were flitting around actively, but it didn’t matter. I could recover both the misses and the hits.
While I was busy blasting away avian-type monsters, a sudden thought flashed in my mind.
If I can retrieve the suits… could I control them too?
Since I had plenty of time and wasn’t in a hurry, I figured I might as well give it a shot.
“So… is this how it works?”
I gathered the small suit pieces into a black sphere and sent it flying in a somewhat dance-like motion.
Since it was my first time controlling it, the trajectory was messy and awkward, but I quickly adapted and moved with the grace of a dancer, piercing through the monsters as if they were extensions of my own body.
After retrieving the suits, I noticed they’d shrunk significantly from their original size. Note to self: be careful while controlling them.
Since no monsters were closing in, I checked the room to see if I’d missed any humans who might have gotten hurt.
Surely, a few monsters must have slipped in and caused mischief. But strangely, there were none. It was odd; the monsters never missed an opportunity like that.
As I wondered about this bizarre situation, Darużej asked, representing the refugees, if everything was over.
“Probably. It seems I’ve dealt with everything in this area, so there shouldn’t be any more for a while. Anyway, I’m going to go off on my own for a bit.”
Honestly, I just wanted to enjoy this suit fusion state for a little while longer.
“Isn’t it better to stay together? If another attack comes, I might not be able to handle it!”
“Have you been attacked during all this time? No, right? But the moment I got up, you rushed at me like a ghost. I’m starting to think they’re targeting me.”
Having crafted a decent excuse to venture out alone, I reassured them that nothing would happen and leaped out of the building.
“W-Wait!!”
Darużej shouted in shock as I dove through a shattered window instead of using the stairs. But I didn’t stop.
Who moves down stairs when you can save time? After a cool leap, I shot a suit-made cord toward the building’s wall.
Then I pulled back the cord, which was generously coated with adhesive, and stuck it to the wall.
Jump, shoot the cord, stick. I repeated this process and was amazed at how fast I was going. And then came my welcoming committee: the monsters.
The moment they spotted me, their eyes lit up, and they charged at me like crazed maniacs. What’s with that? Were they waiting for me? They all looked deadly, but…
If they weren’t ghosts, I could slay anything.
With no need to worry about the surroundings, I released a massive amount of hydrochloric acid, mass-murdering the nearby monsters.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had generated matter without a care. By the time I felt a strange sense of liberation, I sensed something odd.
A chill ran down my spine, and all the hair on my body stood on end. Something titanic seemed to be coming…
Following my instinctual warning, I rolled on the ground, just as a blinding beam of light scorched the spot where I had been standing.
That… I’ve seen that before. It’s the laser that sliced Im Changwon in half! Why is it coming at me?
As I looked toward where it had come from, a massive super giant stem monster with gigantic purple eyes stared right at me.
Wait, am I really the target? I was just joking around, but is it really locking onto me?
Just as I was panicking, I narrowly dodged the second laser that came hurtling toward me. Cover was useless; that laser could melt through rock and steel.
If I die, I’ll come back anyway, but I don’t really want to kick the bucket.
It’s too much fun to die. Plus, I feel like I’d lose points. I probably didn’t get many points for dying at the start; another death would really put my score at risk.
As I pondered whether to run for the rest of the time, I eventually reached one conclusion.
Let’s just kill it. What’s stopping me?
Once I had that thought, I really felt up for it. Even if I might not be able to kill it, I had to at least give it a try, right?
Let’s get those points.
Once my adrenaline kicked back in, I pumped a ton of magic into the suits that infiltrated my muscles and dashed forward at a speed that might even catch up to the slowpoke Minho.
I dodged the incoming lasers by bouncing off walls and floors.
Some monsters tried to hinder me along the way, but I took care of them by spraying poisonous gas as I ran.
However, all this element consumption wasn’t ideal. I could recover the suits, but I couldn’t recover the elements.
No matter how much of a super-Blanca mode I was in, I wouldn’t get far without essential elements.
So I had to conserve, but conserving meant interruptions. Controlling the suits still felt clumsy, so I was wasting them too.
As I was stuck in this pickle, light pillars rained down from the sky, obliterating the monsters.
It wasn’t the purple-eyed monstrosity that did it; the angle was completely vertical.
Suspicious, I looked up, and there was Minho, with Lucia in his arms, and Jinhyeon.
“Blanca?! Is that really you?! I thought you died—”
“I’ll explain later, but for now, can you clear the things blocking my way?! Jinhyeon, I’m counting on you!”
He’s one of us, after all. Minho and Lucia still looked a bit lost about the situation. But Jinhyeon, immediately understanding, unleashed fireballs from the sky.
With this, I didn’t have to worry about resources consumed.
Lucia seemed like she’d throw a fit if I didn’t explain properly, alternating between light and shadow blasts.
The only one without ranged attacks, Minho, carried the other two and asked me to fill him in on what the plan was.
“That thing, the purple-eyed monster! It killed Im Changwon! I’m aiming to take it down!”
“That thing?! Why?! Isn’t that too dangerous?!”
“Dangerous or not, we’ve got to score points!! I need to make up for not earning while I was dead!”
Minho seemed like he wanted to protest about such a silly reason, but he must have finally realized that this was a final exam and reluctantly agreed.
“Exactly?! You think so too, right?!”
Maybe because I was pumped, my voice came out unusually giddy. I couldn’t help but feel the primal joy of running alongside my friends.
So, surrounded by Jinhyeon and Lucia, we made our way to the super giant stem monster, finally realizing that it was halfway into the gate.
That big thing is the gate. So this is where the gate originated? No wonder the monsters started getting tougher since a while ago. So that was why.
I don’t know if the monsters around here have become stronger due to the gate, or if the quantity just tired them out. It could be both.
Either way, it was alright to head down to the kids now, and I began to think about how to take down the monster within the limited time left.
Usually, you just smash the eye, right? But how do I smash it?
“If we go, what will happen? Are we going to die?”
“No, we’re going to win.”
“No matter how I look at it, it’s impossible…! But fine, I’ll help you, Blanca. Since we came this far, let’s see it through!”
Minho seemed to seek permission from Lucia and Jinhyeon, then soon set them down and hugged me.
Jinhyeon constructed two gigantic ice pillars and encouraged me to perform acrobatics using them as supports.
I didn’t really need to die, but if they set up the stage, I had no intention of backing down.
With Minho’s assistance, I soared to a decent height, slipping away just in time to dodge a laser.
He—was nowhere to be seen. I considered he must’ve survived. I threw ropes at both ice pillars simultaneously and reeled them in, launching myself towards the monster’s eye like a slingshot.
I barely dodged a direct hit from the laser with a burst of oxygen as a reaction and finally managed to throw a rope onto the body of the stem monster.
I spread adhesive on the soles of my feet and palms, occasionally using the force of the rope to approach the monster’s eye.
More like a grappling hook than a rope.
As I got closer to the eye, the only resistance the monster could muster was blinking its eyes.
I narrowly avoided being squished by its eyelid and, while sharpening the suits, pumped magic into the suits themselves to increase their power.
Then I plunged the suits with all my might, driving the black tentacles into the eyelid and stuffing the suits into the eye itself.
I maximized the damage by making the tentacles sprout spikes and splitting them into several strands, but it still seemed a bit underwhelming to shatter the eye.
I lacked a decisive blow. If only I had something to break it.
Like a bomb, perhaps. With a sly grin, I took a deep breath and synthesized nitroglycerin.
Then I sprayed it into the eye, packing the inside with explosive material.
As I retrieved the suits, I gathered the surplus suits into a giant hammer-like shape.
Shooting the grappling hook towards the ice pillars, I distanced myself while simultaneously launching the giant hammerhead toward the monster’s eye.
While the power wasn’t nearly enough to destroy the eye, it was more than enough to ignite the explosive materials packed inside.
The eye burst open, splattering that gross jelly-like substance everywhere, and my final exam came to an end.
And the moment I returned to reality…
“…Huh?”
I realized, strangely enough, that my throat felt oddly empty.
And for some inexplicable reason, I found myself surrounded by hunters and Heros Company employees.
What on earth is happening?