144. Aim




 Six floors below Nifonium, I was hunting poison zombies in the poisonous space today as well.

 I continued to practice sniping with my pistol that I tried last time, today.
 This time I tried not to take them down in a single blow.

 Aim from a distance far enough away to snipe.
 First the arm, then the knee, then the ear.......

 Sniping to weaken it so that it doesn't fall even if it hits you.
 To be honest, this one is harder, it's much harder to hit and not knock them down than to hit and knock them down.

 But I still do it. If you just want to take them down with snipers, you can use tracking rounds. When you shoot them, they aim at the vital point of the monster and fly in a straight line, never missing their target.
 It was only this morning that I realized that practicing sniping at vital points with normal bullets was inefficient.

 That's why I'm aiming at it now so that I don't take it down.
 If you're asking me if there's any point to this, it's probably not that much.
 There's no point in doing this in the first place.
 You're not going to be able to get rid of all the monsters that you've defeated once, you can just repetition them all.
 But I still do it to learn techniques so that I won't be in trouble if something happens to me in the future.

 So I do it, I dare to do sniping that I don't take down.
 I shoot through the limbs, and then the headshot at the end.
 Repeat the process.

 It was a little over time, but I was able to raise my intelligence from A to S today.

     ☆

 We returned to the mansion once via the transporter room.
 Nihonium didn't need a magic cart, so he came to get one for the afternoon's trip to Tellurium.
 Life had become completely patterned lately, but something outside the pattern happened.

'Oh, good, there's Lyota.
What's the matter, Alice?

 His companion, Alice, was scuttling up from across the hallway.

 Alice Wonderland.
 She's a girl who, due to her background of being born in a dungeon, can intuitively know the structure and where the monsters will appear once you enter the dungeon.
 At the same time, she has the ability to turn monsters into friends.

 The three monsters on her shoulders.
 Pull, Honehonen, and Bongbong.

 All of them are monsters that she defeated in the dungeon and made into friends, and now they are deformed in a plush, plush form.
 Normally they are in that form, but if she commands them to, they will return to their original form and fight with her.

 If I were to divide her specialties by game profession, she'd probably be a summoner, at the very least.

 She gave me a rare look as if she was begging me for something.

"Will Ryota be free after this?
I'm just going to tellurian as usual, and I'll help you if you need anything?
'Really? Then come with me!

 Alice said and walked ahead of me.
 Walking in the direction I came from, the only thing beyond that is the transporter room.
 I guess it's a dungeon errand. ...... Well, most errands in this world are born out of dungeons.
 In the meantime, I arrived in front of the transporter room.

'Do I have to go to the dungeon?'
Yeah, I'll go first. You guys come over now.
"Oh, wait, wait, wait.

 The transporter room - grabbed Alice just before she jumped into the dungeon and held her back.

'What's wrong Lyota, do you need to get ready?'
No, I don't. You need to tell me where you're going.
Okay. Seventh floor, Bismuth.
Wheat?

 I asked Alice if the other day's incident was still trailing off.

'No, not that one,'

 I guess that's not what happened.

I guess it's easier to explain in person.
'I see that too. Okay.

 I nodded and Alice disappeared, using the transporter room first.
 With that, I also enter the transporter room.
 Let's see...I think it's ...... Bismuth's seventh basement floor.

 It's not just a matter of time before you'll be able to get to the level of a dungeon you've been to.
 When I learned that, I asked Eve, the most experienced adventurer among my fellow adventurers, to bookmark all the levels of Ciclo's dungeon with all of us.
 So although I didn't conquer it on my own, I can go to the seventh floor underground in Bismuth, too.

 I flew using the transfer room.
 The seventh floor of Bismuth, it was a dungeon snow level.

 The magical snow falling on the crystal floor of Bismuth.
 It was quite a fantastic sight.

'Lyota, this way, this way.'

 Alice, who had come before me, took my hand and started running.

'Wait, wait, wait, wait, I'm not running away,'
He's going to run away.
That girl?

 What does it mean?
 Suddenly, I saw the monsters perched on Alice's shoulders.
 Pulling, honking, bong-bonging.
 They're cute little Alice's friends.

 Could it be .......

'There they were.'

 Alice brakes suddenly and stops, almost hitting her as she runs ahead of me and I stop in a hurry.

'Look at that, Lyota,'
Huh?

 Alice looks at where she's pointing. There was a monster at a great distance.
 It's so far away that its figure is so blurred that it's hard to tell.

You mean that monstrous thing over there?
Yeah, prickly. They're calling me.
Yeah, it's a spikey name.

 I knew it.
 The fact that the monsters are named like that means that they're going to join us.
 The three monsters we had so far were like that, and they were already named right before we joined them.
 In other words, it's the same this time.

Why are they spiky?
You know, the monster in here is called the Needle Lizard.
'Needle Lizard ...... needle lizard. I see.

 I kind of imagined it and it made sense.
 Come to think of it, the upper floor is a chameleon. Based on the trend of the dungeons so far, maybe Bismuth means that everything is reptilian.

 While speculating on this, I ask Alice.

'So, what am I supposed to cooperate with?'
You have to defeat the spiny spikes to get them to join you, but you can't defeat the Needle Lizard until you have the spiny spikes on your body first.
We're on the seventh floor.

 Cyclo's dungeons have a special way of defeating monsters above the sixth floor underground, which is why you need a license.
 It seems that Bismuth's seventh floor is the same.

'But if you get too close, it retracts the spikes.
'So that means you have to do a spike from out of range and then take it down,'
Yeah. I don't know.
...... I'll take care of it.

 I guess all that practice is going to come in handy sooner rather than later.

 I'm going to draw my two guns. I put a conventional round in it.

"How hard are the spikes?
'Yeah, pretty hard. Not as hard as Arsenic's rock.
Regular bullets are too much for you: ......

 Hold your gun and approach the monster.
 As you get closer, the figure gradually comes into view.

 A Needle Lizard.
 A stocky, stocky reptile with spikes on its back.
 It may be closer to the image of a dragon than a lizard.

'Stop, if you get any closer, it will retract.
Okay.

 I follow Alice's senses and stop in place.
 I kneel on the ground, two guns at the ready and thrust out.

 I close one eye and take aim.

 Sniping.
 The sniping I've been practicing for the past few days.
 The needle lizard has stopped, I can hit this one.

 Sweat is beading on my hands.
 Failure is not an option.
 No, it might be forgiven, but it's a monster to be Alice's companion, and I don't know what kind of negative effects it will have if it fails.

 So, failure is not allowed.
 I'm going to take a deep breath and concentrate as hard as I can.
 The landscape around me disappears, and even the dungeon snow that's pouring down around me bursts from my consciousness.
 I can see the Needle Lizard - the corner.

 Dun-dun-dun!

 The trigger is pulled in succession.
 The normal bullets launched from the two pistols fused in the middle and became penetrating bullets and flew away.

 The piercing bullets that flew while spinning - all bullets hit the spikes of the Lizard Needle.
 It didn't hit the main body at all, only snapping the spikes.

'Yes!'
Off!

 Alice ran off in a mad dash.
 On the way, Pulp, Honehone, and Bonbon also returned to their original form, along with their fellow monsters, Alice beat the Needle Lizard to a pulp.

 After the fierce battle, the Needle Lizard collapsed, disappeared with a poof, and then transformed and regenerated.

 A stocky plush toy, with spikes on its back (the texture of which would be pudgy if you touched it) appearing and retracting.
 Alice picked that thing up - the spiked spike - and nuzzled its head.
 Togetoge also rubs his cheek against Alice.
 It looks like he's safely become a new friend.

 With a wave of his hand, Alice and the others come back.

'Lyota! Thank you! Here, say thanks for the spiky spikes too.

 Alice with a big smile on her face, and Spiked Spikes with her charming face, moving in and out of spikes.
 Thus, she had added another one of her friends.