I wake up in the middle of a grassy field.
I remember being caught in a cave-in and falling in a deep darkness, but this peaceful sight is no different than the thirty-first floor.
Where am I, I start to wonder, but sitting here won’t bring me answers, so I put my right hand on the ground to get up. I feel something soft. I turn right and see Fuuma sleeping.
Hey wake up, I say as I shake it, but it just starts to noisily grind its teeth.
What a pain, wake up already. I smack its ass to force it to wake up, but I guess I do it harder than I intend, because it gets up and starts neighing.
As Fuuma gets up, it immediately starts looking around with caution.
We were just fighting, so it’s checking what’s going on.
It then looks at me, trots over to me, and kicks me in the ass.
I collapse.
Fuuma’s kicks are intense, and I groan while holding my ass.
I get closer to it, asking what that was for, and it shows me a hand mark on its ass, showing I did it first.
That’s quite the red leaf.
Hey hey, how can you prove I did it?
It’s just a mark. Did you hit something while you were sleeping?
No? You don’t move around that much in your sleep?
You!? Where do you get off!?
How much have you kicked me!?
Fuuma kicks me every night when we camp. I’ve been tying it up so it can’t move, but lately it’s been cutting the ropes with magic in its sleep.
Because of that, I’ve been sleep deprived for half of this exploration.
When I tell that to Fuuma, it replies that it should be saying that.
What? What do you mean, I ask, and apparently I’ve been punching it away.
…Let’s be friends.
We’ve made up for now, and start exploring to see where we are.
The whole area around us is green, all the way to the horizon. The grass is ankle high, so the ground is soft and easy to walk on.
I get on Fuuma, and we explore.
Fuuma’s hooves dig into the ground, most likely because I’m riding it. I look into the horizon while thinking I should diet a little more, and while it’s still far away, I see something rising from there.
What suddenly appears looks like a high-rise building.
It couldn’t be a bigger mismatch with the rest of the scenery. I realize it’s a giant monster when it slowly bends and burrows into the ground again.
Then I feel the vibrations and hear the noise.
The ground shakes, and a low sound echoes.
That monster is like a calamity.
It’s not just the ground that’s shaking.
Fuuma is also trembling at the sight of this monster that’s too big.
I pat its neck, with my hand that might be shaking too.
We wait for the vibrations to stop, and go explore in another direction.
I can’t fight that.
Even monsters have limits.
I could tell by looking, that monster isn’t just big, it was exuding an immense amount of magic energy.
If my magic energy is a puddle, that’s like an ocean. If its body is as tough as it looks too, I’d have no chance of winning.
Fighting would be for nothing, I’d just die.
I need to get out of this floor quickly. It’s too scary.
I control Fuuma as it runs a little faster, and we advance.
We don’t know when that monster might pass. I get that Fuuma is anxious, but if it keeps running like this it will run out of stamina.
I calm Fuuma down so it runs at its usual pace, and all the vegetation in the range of my Spatial Grasp suddenly moves to grab us.
The grass is stretching rapidly.
I mow it with my greatsword of fortitude and wind blades.
Fuuma also tries to respond with Wind Magic, but the moment its legs are bound, it can’t control magic energy, and falls.
Fuuma!?
I immediately jump down and cut the grass holding it with Earth Magic.
I also control the earth around here to try and cut down the grass, but it keeps growing to attack us.
“Limit Break!”
I grab Fuuma, swing the greatsword with one hand, and use See Through and Wind Magic with Parallel Thinking to cut and eliminate all the grass.
Still, it’s endless. If new grass grows every time I cut, I’ll reach my limit first.
Then I should pluck it from the ground. I increase the area of effect of my Earth Magic as much as I can, crush it.
The growing grass stops and withers. The area around us is left without any grass.
What was that all about, I think as I take water from the Storage Space.
I undo Limit Break and put Fuuma down, and it starts wriggling.
The way it exhales and trembles when something bad happens reminds me of an overworked middle-aged man.
When Fuuma was caught by the grass, the magic energy was in disarray and it suddenly collapsed.
Maybe that grass monster has a paralyzing effect.
That’s pretty scary.
From looking at Fuuma, I assume it didn’t recover right away after being cut free from the grass. It’s one thing if one of us is caught, but if both of us are caught at the same time, there’s probably no saving us.
Also, the whole place is a grassy field, so we don’t know where those monsters are. It just looked like normal grass until we were attacked, it’s impossible to tell just by looking.
Suddenly, the scenery in front of us is scary.
A green world.
Grass monsters and a stupidly huge monster. Maybe everything I see is monsters.
That giant monster might attack any time.
The difficulty spike is making me dizzy.
I’ve been mostly overpowering monsters alone, so I haven’t been feeling like my life was in danger.
And as I feel like my scared heart drags my body, I hear neighing.
It’s like Fuuma’s soul is yelling that it’s also here.
Yes, I look at Fuuma, and feel stronger.
That’s right.
This small glutton horse is stupid, fat, reads manga, bothers me in my sleep, and hurts me, but… Won’t I have better odds of survival on my own?
Suddenly I feel anxious, but tell myself it’s better than being alone, as I ride Fuuma.
◇ ◇ ◇
I cut the grass with Wind Magic as we advance.
I haven’t figured out a way to deal with the grass monsters, so all I can do is cut grass, which uses a lot of magic energy.
But I think this might be the way to go.
Normal grass just gets cut, but grass monsters regenerate when cut.
The battle begins the moment it does so, but it’s a world of difference compared to suddenly being attacked when I’m unprepared.
Still, even if it’s easier to fight, I take them down the same way.
I crush earth in a diameter of twenty to thirty meters, because if I don’t get it by the root, the grass will keep regrowing.
It does a number on my magic energy.
I’m focusing on Magic Energy Circulation to recover, but it can’t catch up to the consumption.
I take breaks after taking down grass monsters, but I keep them short because I want to find a path before it gets dark.
After taking down more grass monsters, I drink water and try to keep going, but Fuuma looks at me with watering eyes like it’s telling me it’s hungry.
Some time has passed since we woke up, so I prepare food so we can rest for a while.
I take sky fighting fowl meat from the Storage Space, cook it in thin slices, and serve it in bread with lettuce.
I don’t want it to be too full to move, so we have a light lunch. We’ll have a stronger meal once we’re safe.
Fuuma doesn’t complain, most likely also understanding the situation… That was never going to happen, and it instead complains for me to put more meat on the plate.
Once we’re done, I get up to keep exploring, and fire a rock spear behind me.
The noise of it hitting something hard echoes, and I sense it’s been blocked.
The reaction I suddenly felt on Spatial Grasp was like something came out of the ground.
I turn around and swing the greatsword of fortitude to defend myself, and block an attack from a monster that suddenly appeared.
I feel an intense impact, and I’m flung back.
I go back quite a bit, bounce a few times, and use Limit Break when I land.
The monster that flung me away is a three meter tall giant armor. I say armor, but it’s an earthy brown, so it looks more like an earth doll.
It’s holding a big club, and swings it around like a person as it goes after Fuuma.
Fuuma dodges with the help of Wind Magic, but the armor earth doll is really fast, so it can barely escape. It would be one thing if the chakram worked, but the monster heals its cuts immediately.
That vicious club is swung down to crush Fuuma. It tries to dodge, but won’t make it in time.
I control the earth with Earth Magic, and shoot myself like a bullet.
I can’t adjust my trajectory, but I aim precisely at the earth doll and thrust my greatsword of fortitude as if returning the favor.
I focus strongly on destroying it, infuse magic energy, and destroy the torso of the armor earth doll.
Its upper and lower halves fall separately.
That body is hollow.
I exhale thinking it’s over, but it starts regenerating.
Both the upper and lower halves regenerate separately, and now two armor earth dolls are standing in front of me.
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