Chapter 204: Railgun Charging! Hunt and Kill the Destroyer (Patreon)

Purple slime kept dripping down.

A pitch-black, dragon-shaped monster with an exposed skeleton dropped out of the rift.

Its limbs were long and thin.

Its hind legs bent backward like an insect's.

There was almost no muscle on its body, only a shell wrapped around the bones like a layer of cold armor.

Blue-purple light flowed slowly along that "armor."

Its name was—

[Juggernaut].

It meant—

[Destroyer].

When the Dungeon suffered severe damage it couldn't repair on its own, it expelled one. Like the white blood cells of a labyrinth, it existed solely to eliminate threats.

And at the very moment this monster had just left its "mother body" and descended into the world—

"I've been waiting for you!"

Ryuu's pupils contracted sharply.

She saw a familiar crimson figure that had somehow dashed up beside Juggernaut before it even touched the ground.

The next instant, a flying kick wrapped in raging flames slammed into Juggernaut's spine.

Boom!

The newborn monster was driven straight into the floor of the twenty-seventh level.

Ryuu's mind went blank for a moment.

"Juggernaut..."

"Got caught by a first-encounter kill?"

"You can... fight like that?!"

She swam to shore as fast as she could, not bothering to wipe the icy lake water from her body, her eyes locked on the battlefield.

Natsuka's preemptive strike had given her enormous confidence.

Suddenly, she felt that the so-called "Destroyer" might not be as unbeatable as she'd imagined.

Meanwhile, at the main battlefield in the center—

The two-headed dragon's corpse was slowly crumbling into ash.

Just as expected, Shadow had used a self-destruct to claim the last sliver of the floor boss's life.

But his true goal wasn't just to leech experience. It was to become the final straw that broke the wall, forcing the [Destroyer] out for good.

A purple-black monster landed heavily.

Sora took command first.

"All positions, prepare to fire cannons!"

Kitagawa, Utaha, Saori, and the others who weren't well suited to close combat immediately wheeled the heavy cannons toward the designated zone.

The first giant metal shell struck Juggernaut's body.

The remaining low-level players, using the little [Dexterity] they'd gained, handled their arquebuses and opened fire on the monster in the pit.

Bang, bang, bang, bang—

Firearm and cannon technology was still immature. The damage of any single shot wasn't impressive.

But every hit was equal to part of a heavy blow from a Lv2 adventurer.

"Hsss—gaaah!"

The monster let out a shrill, eerie wail.

Great clouds of black gun smoke churned and spread all around.

At the same moment, Natsuka's body turned to starlight and reformed beside Sora.

"Pick up the pace."

"This kind of firepower can hurt it, but it can't kill it."

The words had barely left his mouth.

Juggernaut, which had just recovered, had already vanished into the smoke.

It sprang up like a grasshopper, then clung to the crystals on the ceiling like a gecko.

Sora's expression didn't waver in the slightest.

"Switch positions!"

"Kitagawa, you go first!"

Kitagawa grumbled.

"Next time you'd better buy me the Argonaut limited-edition hero outfit!"

Even as she shouted that, her hands didn't slow down at all.

After relighting the cannon's fuse, she hugged a satchel of explosives and charged in herself.

Bang—

The cannon fired.

Naturally, a shot like that couldn't hit the fast-moving Juggernaut.

But the monster was drawn to Kitagawa and targeted her first.

It took only a blink.

Kitagawa turned into a streak of golden light and vanished.

The next second—

Boom!!

The satchel of explosives hanging from Juggernaut's claw went off.

The blast knocked the monster's huge frame slightly off balance.

"Let's go too!"

Saori pushed up her glasses, and the swirling eyes behind the lenses gleamed alarmingly.

"This human-bomb style is my first time experiencing it."

She was thrilled beyond words.

"Normies, all of you, explode for me!"

Boom!

Then came a second. Then a third.

The little players carried out the final "suicide squad" operation in their own ways.

Sora's gaze never left the battlefield.

"Still not enough."

"Luring it into the cannon's firing point is still too much trouble."

Did he have no choice but to go in as bait himself?

Just as that thought crossed his mind—

Natsuka suddenly spoke up.

"Hey."

"Want me to go give it a little Conan-science shock?"

Sora tilted his head to look at him.

"You sure about this?"

"If you die, we'll be in a tough spot."

Natsuka grinned and waved a hand.

"It's fine, it's fine."

"Right now, I basically have two lives."

"Besides, I'm curious where my limit actually is."

As he spoke, he switched his Development Ability to [Time Return].

Seeing how confident he was, Sora didn't object. He just signaled with his eyes for Shiro to continue the arrangements.

Shiro nodded lightly and pointed at a coordinate that had been marked long ago.

"Target position B."

"Lure it here."

At the same time, Sora pressed [ST].

"Second Battalion Commander." "Haven't you finished putting together our Italian cannon yet?"

Makise Kurisu's irritated voice came back over [ST] at once.

"Stop calling me Second Battalion Commander!"

"And I'm not Christina, either!"

Natsuka followed the voice with his eyes and froze.

The thing Makise Kurisu was pushing out had been guarded very carefully by Sora.

Until just now, it had been disassembled into parts and hidden in a metal case.

Assembled, it looked to Natsuka like a "tank base" with a giant muzzle.

Yet the equipment on the chassis looked strangely familiar.

It resembled the energy-storage device the School District had used.

Only Sora had modified it further.

On top of that, there were rings upon rings of brass-colored coils wrapped around the barrel...

The longer Natsuka looked, the more familiar it seemed.

"What the heck is this thing?"

Makise Kurisu caught her breath, aimed the muzzle at the position B Shiro had indicated, and answered in an extremely calm voice.

"Isn't it obvious?"

"It's a railgun."

"R-railgun?!"

Natsuka was completely stunned.

"Can the DanMachi world's current technology even produce something like that?!"

Faced with his country-bumpkin reaction, Makise Kurisu was a little lost for words.

"Ah, ah..."

"You seem to be thinking of this thing as way more advanced than it is."

"In fact, compared with making shells and cannons, this is actually easier."

"At least we don't have to worry about which raw materials and recipes to collect."

Natsuka's face was one big question mark.

"What do you mean by that?"

Shiro had already put a hand to her forehead.

"It's simple."

"The principle of a railgun doesn't go much beyond middle-school physics."

Sora spread his hands.

"Basically, anyone with decent hands-on skill, even a middle schooler, could put together a mini version."

"It's just that, power-wise, it's not essentially any different from a spring."

Natsuka blinked, completely sincere.

"Sorry."

"I'm a bad student."

"Could you speak in human language?"

Makise Kurisu sighed and simply demonstrated with both hands.

"You've seen this gesture before, at least."

"The left-hand rule and the right-hand rule."

"Even if you weren't paying attention in class, your hands must have flipped around plenty while you were doing problems."

"The essence of a railgun is a special weapon that uses Ampere force to propel the projectile."

"The real difficulty isn't the principle."

"It's that once you weaponize it, the electricity demand is absurdly high."

"To reach a practical combat standard, you need at least five hundred megawatts."

"That's roughly the same as five households using power at the same time."

She shrugged.

"But doesn't the School District have the Magic Stone levitation technology ready-made?"

"That's the same as already having a foundation."

Natsuka fiddled with the device, the dusty knowledge in his head feeling like it was being forcibly pried loose a little at a time.

"Ohh—"

"I still can't remember the specifics, but I do remember the feeling of flipping my palm back and forth while doing problems."

The next second, his eyes lit up.

"So you're saying that as long as you know the principle, then pile on current and magnetism, you can build this thing?"

Sora nodded with a smile.

"Of course, there are details involved, like how to store the energy and how to release it all at once."

"But with the Doctor here, none of that is especially hard."

Natsuka stared at the cannon, unable to contain his excitement.

"I don't care."

"Anyway, this thing can fire right now, right?"

"Then can't I just use a gate to send the shot straight into Juggernaut's face and be done with it?"

Sora shook his head.

"Are you sure you can lock onto that guy?"

"Uh..."

Natsuka stalled on the spot.

To redirect a railgun shot through a gate, he first had to precisely lock down both the muzzle and the target's coordinates.

The moment Juggernaut started moving at high speed, his gate would have to shift along with it.

If the gate couldn't keep up, the shell would simply miss.

He looked again at Juggernaut darting around among the players.

Slender.

Fast.

And the damn thing could jump.

On top of that, a railgun's effective range was extremely concentrated, with nearly all its power packed into an area about eighty centimeters across.

No radar, no auto-targeting. Hitting a target like that was ridiculously hard.

Worse, a railgun's muzzle velocity was frighteningly fast, close to ten times the speed of sound.

A few hundred meters might as well be zero distance for it.

With the gate carrying an obvious risk of error, Sora shot the idea down on the spot.

And once the monster shifted its aggro onto the railgun, one swipe of its claw would smash the device to pieces.

So they only had one chance.

Natsuka stared at the battlefield and asked.

"You had the players self-destruct earlier."

"Was that to wreck its mobility first?"

"Exactly." Sora nodded.

Natsuka kept following the train of thought.

"So my most important job right now is to raise the hit rate as much as possible."

"Best case, take out its hind leg?"

Sora reminded him.

"I've been watching it."

"Once it senses an obvious magical fluctuation, it instinctively throws up a magic shield and stops in place for a moment."

"As if it's going out to meet the magic head-on."

"That's our opening."

Natsuka's expression turned serious.

"Got it."

"I'll drive it into a dead end first."

Just then, Shiro had already taken up position at the controls with Makise Kurisu and begun fine-tuning the muzzle.

Ryuu had also just reached Natsuka's side.

After hearing that this weapon had outrageous power, she made her request straight away.

"Let me fire this shot."

"My Dexterity is higher."

"Leave the aiming to me."

Shiro thought it over, then nodded.

"All right."

"But you have to fire on my command."

...

At the center of the battlefield.

Juggernaut's tail lashed out and sent Yuuta, who had tried to leap on it and self-destruct, flying off as golden light.

The next second, another small black shadow darted out from behind it.

Dekomori swung her warhammer and smashed it against its head.

Clang—

A crisp, ear-splitting metallic ring rang out.

Juggernaut didn't budge an inch.

It casually raised its right claw.

With a tearing screech, it ripped Dekomori's most treasured warhammer to shreds.

That was one of its most terrifying abilities—[Destruction Claws].

Sharpness that ignored defense, a brutal counter to weapons.

"My Mjolnir Hammer V0.03! Aaaaaah—!!"

Before she could even finish screaming, Dekomori also turned to golden light and returned to base.

Yuuki, meanwhile, circled Juggernaut at high speed, observing it and gritting her teeth.

"This isn't working."

"It's too fast. There's no time to react."

"No wonder the seniors got smashed to pieces by a monster like this."

Alfia, possessing Miko, wore a grim look as well.

Spirit light flowed around her body.

Her gaze sharpened.

"Here it comes."

"!"

Yuuki ducked almost on instinct.

The next second, a claw gleaming blue-purple swept past her cheek, leaving a thin line of blood.

Clang—Alfia, who had the future-sight power of Death Eyes, seized the instant of Juggernaut's strike and slashed her sword hard into its hind leg.

Sparks flew.

Right after, she rolled where she stood and narrowly dodged the follow-up tail sweep.

The two immediately put distance between themselves and the monster.

Alfia let out a soft sigh.

"The gap in ability is still too big."

"If I were Lv3, I could finish this within three minutes."

"Not being able to even break through its defense is really frustrating."

Miko's spirit body floated behind her with both palms pressed together, apologizing over and over in a small voice.

"I'm sorry, I'm so useless..."

Few people could truly fight at this point.

On the ground, there was only Yuuki, who specialized in agility.

In the air, Kanade was harassing it.

Miko and Alfia handled the predictions.

Kuroneko had given up on curses altogether.

Juggernaut's anti-magic and nullification abilities were a terrible matchup for her.

All she could do was snatch moments to provide covering fire with an arquebus.

Juggernaut, for its part, crept slowly across the ground as if patrolling its hunting grounds.

Those crimson eyes were fixed on Alfia.

This woman was weak.

But she was always half a beat ahead of it, as if she knew what it was about to do a few seconds in advance.

Annoying. But only a "bit" annoying.

Its hind legs tensed as it prepared to pounce again.

But in the next instant, a distinct sense of wrongness shot through its nerves.

A thin crack had opened at the joint of its hind leg.

The wound from the earlier cannon hits had finally shown itself.

Right then.

On the platform of the twenty-sixth level, an enormous amount of magic power began to gather steadily.

Juggernaut looked up on instinct.

A cannon muzzle giving off terrifying magical fluctuations was aimed straight at it.

"Where are you looking?"

Natsuka leapt down from above and landed with a boom.

"Your opponent is me!"

Juggernaut's crimson pupils contracted sharply.

It was this guy.

The one who'd kicked it into the ground in its very first second of life, that was him.

And because of him, it had been surrounded and beaten by this pack of trash all the way until now.

Roar!!

The monster let out a furious bellow, kicked off with its hind legs, and its figure blurred forward in an instant.

Natsuka turned into a streak of starlight and flashed to the other side.

"Too slow."

"My turn!"

Flames wrapped around his whole body. Dragging his burning rusted blade, he charged forward, using the fire to boost his speed as he tangled with Juggernaut.

After narrowly dodging a savage claw by dropping into an iron bridge, he planted one hand on the ground and flipped his body up with the momentum.

The spirit light brought by [Selfless State] spread out rapidly.

He looked like he was dancing on the tip of a blade.

Right after, dozens of black openings about two centimeters across spread open around him.

More than forty arquebuses poked out of them all at once.

They were backup weapons he'd stored in the basement ahead of time, back when he learned Sora was researching firearms.

Natsuka thrust a hand into his 4D Pocket and squeezed the triggers.

"Surprise!"

"Let's start with an appetizer: the Demon Lord of the Sixth Heaven's Three Volleys!"

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang—

More than forty arquebuses spat tongues of fire at the same time.

The bullets slammed hard into Juggernaut's body.

Attacks like these couldn't tear through its armor, but the damage wasn't nothing.

And Juggernaut had already been burned by this kind of attack before.

It knew full well that its shield couldn't deflect physical shots like these, which carried no obvious magical fluctuation.

It tried to leap away at once.

But Natsuka had already closed in.

His burning rusted blade swept upward and cut hard into the crack in its hind leg...