24. Popularity Isn’t All I Have

At a glance, the Orikuto looked just like an ordinary, jagged boulder. But even though its glowing, crystalline texture reminded me of molten lava, it emitted absolutely no heat.

It’s like a slime with a rocky texture, was my initial impression.

I closed the distance in a flash and brought Eleanor down in a powerful overhead slash.

「Hmph! It’s tough.」

Despite putting considerable force behind the blow, the edge of the blade only managed to sink a mere few millimeters into its body. It moved with the sluggish grace of a giant mollusk, but its defensive density was absurd.

(It’s coming!) Eleanor warned sharply.

「Tsk!」

Reacting instantly to Eleanor’s cue, I kicked off its rocky body and leaped violently to the side. The exact microsecond I pulled my blade back, the creature lurched forward, trying to swallow me whole with a sickening bang as its maw slammed shut right where I had been standing a fraction of a second earlier. I landed lightly a short distance away.

「If I got swallowed by something with that kind of hardness, I’d be in a world of hurt.」 (From the inside, it might be more fragile than you think,) Eleanor remarked offhandedly. 「Classic cliché line right there,」 I joked back, though I had zero intention of testing that theory from inside its stomach.

The Orikuto stretched its amorphous mass outward, launching a follow-up attack. I spotted a sharp, jagged fang-like protrusion at its tip, clearly intent on trapping me. I sidestepped the lunge and brought Eleanor down in a two-handed downward arc, aiming straight for a temporarily exposed section of its body.

A dull, heavy impact shuddered up my arms, leaving my hands completely numb. It felt like I had slammed a solid wooden baseball bat straight into a frozen concrete floor with all my might, yet I hadn’t even cut a third of the way through its mass.

「Oh, shiiitttttttttttttttt!」

I roared, pouring every ounce of physical strength into my muscles as I forced Eleanor’s edge deeper.

「Uuuooooooooooooo!」

Gagagagagaga—! The grating, screeching sound of steel grinding against compressed stone echoed through the cavern. Through sheer brute force, I finally managed to cleave the Orikuto’s body entirely in two.

「Incredible……」

I heard Io’s awestruck voice echo from behind me. That was the kind of praise I liked to hear, but there was no time to celebrate.

「What the…?!」

I was dumbfounded. The two halves of the Orikuto that I had just severed with all my effort rapidly whipped back around, cleanly fusing themselves back together into a single, unbroken mass. Its regenerative properties were practically identical to a slime’s.

(I see. So that’s why this thing is classified as a nightmare to hunt, Eleanor noted, sounding genuinely impressed despite herself.) 「……Fine. Bring it on!」

Taking a sharp breath, I repositioned my grip on Eleanor and rushed back in. I sliced it into pieces. Gagagagaagagagaga! I battered and hacked away at the Orikuto’s body from every possible angle, sending sparks flying and chunks of glittering stone scattering across the cavern floor. I kept up the brutal assault with relentless enthusiasm.

「Haa…… haa……」

By the time I was completely out of breath, the Orikuto had finally collapsed apart—shattered into dozens of separate pieces across the ground.

「If I’ve gone this far……」 (No, not yet!) 「──!」

My eyes widened in shock. Right before my eyes, the scattered chunks of the Orikuto began to twitch, slowly crawling back toward one another to reassemble. Pure physical force wasn’t enough to permanently put it down. On top of that, my hands were still throbbing numbly from the heavy impact, and I wasn’t sure my arms could sustain another round of that heavy pounding.

「Kakeru-san! My chant is finished!」 「──！ Fire it!」

The second I yelled out, I vaulted backward, holding Eleanor defensively in front of me.

A blinding bolt of lightning cracked down from the cavern ceiling, striking the Orikuto dead center. Instantly, the monster froze, locking up completely as paralyzing currents surged through its body.

I let out a breath, looking down at the paralyzed beast with mixed feelings. Io hurried over to my side, her eyes shining.

「W-Wow, Kakeru-san! This is the first time I’ve ever seen someone tear an Orikuto apart completely by themselves. In fact, I’ve never even heard of such a feat being possible!」

Io spoke with absolute reverence—her voice practically overflowing with respect. But honestly, it left me feeling a little complicated. If I could have just dealt with the whole thing solo from the start, I wouldn’t have needed the party setup at all……

「Sorry about that, I got a bit carried away. Let’s hurry up and mine the Orikudite while it’s paralyzed, then get out of here.」 「Wait, you want to leave right away?」 「Yeah. The Orikuto is paralyzed right now, but it’s going to shake it off and start moving again soon.」 「Does it recover that fast? What if I pump more magic into it to keep it locked down?」 「I can keep it pinned while you chant, but I can’t mine the ore and cast magic at the same time by myself……」 Io stammered apologetically. 「Normally, an Orikudite mining operation requires a dedicated party of at least five spellcasters. To guarantee safety, seven or more is strongly recommended.」 「That’s how many hands you need just to keep the rotation going?」 「Yes. If a solo miner tries it, the standard strategy is to drop a single lightning spell, harvest as much ore as humanly possible during the brief window, and then run for your life. It’s immensely dangerous because the paralysis duration varies wildly, carrying a huge risk of getting mauled mid-extraction.」 「I see…… Alright, then let’s just harvest as much as we can right now before it wakes up.」

My original plan was to mine as fast as humanly possible during the window and use my Warp Feather to bail out the moment things got tight. But as I turned back toward the beast with my pickaxe, reality intervened.

「Kakeru-san! It’s moving already!」 Io shrieked in panic.

To my utter surprise, the Orikuto was already beginning to twitch and slide across the stone floor. I immediately stepped forward, placing myself directly between the monster and Io with Eleanor raised in a defensive stance.

「Is the paralysis interval always this short?!」 「Sometimes it wears off instantly like this……!」 「What about your lightning magic?!」 「It takes time to build up the mana for the next cast!」 Io cried out, her voice on the verge of tears.

Damn it, we can’t mine safely like this. I briefly considered grabbing the girls and warping out of the cave to reset.

Just as I was about to trigger the escape, my eyes caught movement from Helene.

She had remained quietly composed ever since our encounter with the beast began. Now, she was staring straight at me, her expression deadpan and unblinking.

A sudden flash of insight sparked across my mind.

「Helene! Throw a magic ball at this thing right now!」 「Understood!」

Without a moment’s hesitation, Helene pulled out one of the Magic Balls (Black) I had gifted her earlier and hurled it directly at the Orikuto’s rocky core.

The sphere sailed through the air and impacted the monster’s carapace, instantly shattering. The magic ball automatically targeted the enemy’s weakest elemental attribute—which, in the Orikuto’s case, was lightning.

A deafening thunderclap erupted as a massive burst of lightning exploded across the cavern.

Without thinking twice, I lunged straight into the electrical discharge, throwing my arms around the Orikuto’s body so we both absorbed the full shock of the magic simultaneously.

「Kakeru-san?!」

Io gasped in horror, a completely natural reaction to seeing someone willingly dive into high-voltage magic. But everything was going exactly according to plan.

「Are you alright, Kakeru-san?!」 Io shouted anxiously, with Helene rushing up right behind her.

「I’m fine. Hardly any damage at all.」

I casually flexed my arms to prove my point. I wasn’t just putting on a tough front; the physical feedback was barely a mild tingle, comparable to accidentally bumping your elbow against a sharp corner.

「More importantly, you two focus on extracting the ore while I keep this thing locked down.」 「Eeeeeh? But how—?!」 「I think I’m starting to get a feel for how this works……」

Deciding to demonstrate, I visualized the flow of magic and channeled lightning attribute mana directly through my own body, replicating the exact mechanics I had just witnessed.

A bolt of lightning surged from my hand, striking the Orikuto and instantly freezing its movements once more.

「Lightning magic! Wait, Kakeru-san, did you just learn it on the spot?!」 「Yeah, they say if you’re skilled enough, surviving or absorbing a magical attack gives you a chance to acquire it natively, right?」 「That’s true, but usually people don’t just do it casually!」 Io stammered. 「Well, it is what it is—and speaking of which…」

Visualizing the mana circuit further, I snapped my fingers and fired a second consecutive bolt of lightning.

CRACK-CRACK!

Two rapid-fire strokes of lightning hammered down onto the Orikuto’s body back-to-back.

「Apparently, I can pull off multi-cast barrages, too.」

I said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Whether it was my high affinity or the sheer multiplier of my All Abilities ×777 cheat skill making spellcasting effortless, I wasn’t entirely sure, but the results spoke for themselves.

「So I’ll handle crowd control from here on out. You two just focus entirely on the mining.」 「Yes!」 「Understood.」 「Oh, and don’t worry about weight limits or how much you can carry—we can just warp straight back to the mansion with our haul anyway,」 I added with a grin.

Turning back to face the twitching Orikuto, I locked my focus, ready to suppress it the exact second it tried to stir.