Maou no Hajimekata Volume 2 Chapter 8 part2

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist, Editor: Krizzeir

Chapter 8: Let's Witness the Fight Between a parent and Child, Part 2

「I've gotta say, that was a splendid display of power.」

「Stop that, those were just goblins.」

Aur brushes Hoderi's flattery off as something not worth mentioning.

「No, no sir, those might have been just goblins, but they were still vile and repulsive creatures that needed to be taught the meaning of fear. After all, who knows how many people they killed up to this point? 」

He also pointed that they should have killed more of them to prevent the possibility of a back attack, but fortunately no such thing happened.

「Those weren't mere threats that was a curse.」

A curse that imbued fear into the being's very soul and transmitted that feeling to the other members of the same species, as long as they had the same cursed blood coursing through their veins.

Goblins were multiplying at a very fast rate. If those creatures were the same, they should all be cursed with fear in less than a year.

「In my main Dungeon, goblins are an important pillar that supports its proper functioning.」

Yunis nodded eagerly at Aur's words.

They were weak and small, but they served as an important part of the food chain within a Dungeon. They were an excellent bait for demons and demonic beasts, and the costs of their upkeep were always relatively low.

「They are the weakest of the weak when it comes to monsters, so it is quite strange for them to behave like they own the place. Just what…」

The later part of his musings was interrupted by a giant black shape in front of them.

Glowing black scales that were as hard as iron.

Poisonous orange feet.

Orange antennae that swayed back and forth.

The shaped noticed them and stared at them with its large, red four eyes.

It was a gigantic centipede.

Even though its body was flat, it was still taller than Aur.

「Everyone, scatter!」

At the same time that he shouted, the centipede rushed at them with tremendous speed.

Dodging its pincers, Yunis delivered a solid strike right in the middle of its head.

「Man this thing is hard!」

However, the chitin armor on its head was only slightly dented, and Yunis' sword jumped back with a loud sound.

Its pincers chewed on a nearby tree as it fell to the ground in a cloud of dust. So physical attacks seemed to be not very effective against that thing.

「This is really a nasty opponent. I would like not to kill it if possible, but…」

「Is this one of Mio's pets?」

「I highly doubt it.」

She would have no problems with taming such a creature, but he never seen her dealing with insects up to this point. And in his main Dungeon there was no beasts like Giant Flies or Giant Spiders. So that effectively ruled out that possibility.

Yunis could only use her short range teleportation for about four, five times a day. And since he wanted her to save those in case of a dire need, they had to find other way to deal with this pest.

「Why don't you leave it to us, Master?」

「We'll dispatch it in no time, you'll see.」

As he was worrying about it, Hoderi and Hoseli raised their voices.

「Can you really do it?」

It was an opponent who was even immune to Yunis' sword. If someone like the hero had problems with it, then for them it would be even harder.

「We'll surely find a way.」

「Yup.」

And knowing that, they still wanted to have a stab at it.

Deciding to leave it to those two, Aur and Yunis proceeded forward. When they were leaving, the giant centipede sunk its body into the ground.

「This guy, he's preparing for a surprise attack!」

So the ground in this place was also suited for such actions.

But it didn't hide underground. Instead, it swam under it, like it was going through water.

「Hoderi, one piece of advice.」

Before they left, Aur turned around and pointed towards the passage that connected the basement level with ground level of the Dungeon.

「Lure it there if things get too hot.」

It was a narrow passage in which something with such a large body should have trouble moving around.

The siblings headed there right away, and readied their weapons.

And after several heartbeats….

The centipede burst from the ground right before them, only to have its front legs cut off.

「Wow!」

Astonished, Yunis let out a sigh of admiration.

The centipede's shell was weaker on the legs. They used that assumption and turned its movement speed against it, and counterattacked. On paper this might sound easy, but in reality it was very hard to pull off. At the very least, Tunis was sure that she herself was unable to do something like that.

But it was still too early to celebrate. They might've cut the front legs off, but it still had ninety eight more pairs of them.

As Aur watched them intently from a safe distance, he noticed that Hoseli was nowhere to be seen.

「Aur, over there!」

Following Yunis' finger, he saw that Hoseli was clinging onto one of the centipede's feet. She slowly but surely made her way up its leg and grabbed onto the main body. It thrashed around trying to shake her off, but she managed to hold onto it long enough to make her way to the second segment behind its head, and brandished her blade. It was the same one sided blade as Hoderi possessed, but it was somewhat shorter and without any decorations. She grabbed it with both her hands and thrusted it hard into the joint part between the segments. But even that wound was not enough to kill it.

As Aur thought that, its movements became dulled and eventually it stopped moving.

「All right, we did it.」

Hoseli reported as she ran towards Aur. There was no noticeable change in her voice, but if she was a dog, she'd surely be wagging her tail right now.

「What exactly did you do?」

「Applied poison to my blade.」

Aur's question was short, and Hoseli's answer was just as short.

「So you even had a poison that works on creatures like that up your arsenal?」

Whether it was just a paralysis poison or a simple lethal poison, the dosage needed to be carefully adjusted according to the body mass of the opponent. If it worked on a centipede this big, then could it be possible that it could even work on a dragon?

As if she noticed what he was thinking about, she said:

「I do not have something like that in my arsenal, I'm sorry.」

「And besides, what my sister used was a paralysis poison.」

「A paralysis poison after all? But isn't that strange then? Should it really have that strong of an effect?」

Basically, for a paralysis poison, the dosage should even bigger than in the case of the lethal one. This is due to the fact that the paralysis needs to spread throughout the target's entire body, while the lethal poison was typically used to destroy either the brain, or the heart.

「There is no need for it to be universally effective.」

To Aur's suspicions, Hoseli pointed towards the body of the large centipede.

「The centipede's move around by moving all of their legs without getting them entangled, right?」

Although they were calling it a centipede, it actually had a fewer than one hundred legs.

「But it does not mean that those insects are intelligent, their brains simply order their legs to repeat the action made by the front ones, so…」

Hoseli took her sword and pierced it into the legs that were cut off.

「If you cut off its front limbs and paralyze its nervous system, it won't be able to move anymore.」

「I see. You certainly possess a lot of knowledge.」

Only one or two pairs of legs moved by its own will and the rest was just a repeated process. Certainly, that way it could definitely prevent its legs from getting entangled.

「We assassins need to be knowledgeable about the tools of our trade, after all.」

Aur admired her knowledge that rivaled, or in some cases maybe even surpassed, his own.

「Your handling of the blade was also amazing.」

「I only decided where to pierce it, same as peeling the fruit.」

She put it like that, but Aur knew she was just being humble.

「Now then.」

He turned towards the giant insect.

It looked as if it had died, but its legs were still moving very slowly at closer inspection.

「Since it is still alive, I guess we should use it.」

Chapter end