One thing Isagi was certain of — his skills didn't activate outside the Dungeon.
If they did, how could he have spent the better part of a year in Solingen with the Goddess and Cecil, living peacefully without a single incident?
Then what...
Had something gone wrong right now?
Could it be because of the Dragon Palace before him... on account of it being part of Leviathan's remains?
For that matter — those so-called "Three Great Commissions": Behemoth, Leviathan, and the Black Dragon. Were they Monster Rexes, or something even more exceptional than that?
At this point, the answer seemed to be the latter.
"Prepare for combat."
[Wolf's Devouring Feast] latched onto his diving suit, as if he'd been draped in another layer of impossibly heavy armor.
But then that jet-black viscous fluid slowly seeped inward — until eventually, even the diving suit itself was "swallowed" into its interior.
That familiar sting of pain.
Strangely, it made Isagi feel a little more at ease. The heavy, chaotic "abnormal statuses" that had been weighing him down seemed to be forcibly suppressed; his mind was finally able to focus on the battle ahead — and at the same time, the armor yanked his body into motion.
Don't call me a puppet.
Within the twisted crystal jungle, the "Spirit Shark Demon" stood out prominently — its entire body draped in a filthy, murky dark teal.
Shark — as in, a shark.
The upper half of its towering frame was entirely that of a shark: hunched forward, that blade-like maw hanging slightly open to reveal rows upon rows of densely packed, razor-sharp teeth.
Its lower half, however, was comically small — stubby little arms and legs that looked almost ridiculous by comparison.
What a plain-looking Boss.
And yet.
In the next instant, Isagi felt the water around him shudder — and then it was already right in his face.
[So fast!]
Unlike monsters on land, aquatic monsters had also proliferated over a millennium — but without adventurers periodically culling them, they had split into two extremes: absurdly numerous and weak, or vanishingly rare and terrifyingly powerful.
Among them were even individuals that had survived for over a thousand years.
What a monster's natural lifespan actually was had never been definitively established.
In theory — the stronger the monster, the longer it lived. The "dragon species" stood at the very top.
Ordinary monsters had fixed power levels, and through breeding grew progressively weaker, shortening their lifespans further — a vicious cycle.
But among them existed outliers: Enhanced Species.
They could grow stronger by continuously devouring Magic Stones, surpassing their natural limits.
And in the open ocean, they were utterly unchecked — there was no shortage of their own kind to devour, turning every kill into raw power.
Isagi estimated the "Spirit Shark Demon" before him was somewhere around Lv.5 to Lv.6 — a level of power that, even outside the Dungeon, would qualify as a "nation-destroying" existence.
The Moonlight Greatsword in his hand clashed directly against the creature's massive head.
The sudden ambush had even God Baldr caught off guard — he couldn't even identify what kind of monster this was. The ocean was simply too vast, home to too many varieties of creature. And an Enhanced Species that had devoured who-knew-how-many of its own kind would barely resemble its original form by now.
It had likely lost any resemblance to its baseline species entirely.
"Isagi, we —"
Lefiya and Haruhime still couldn't chant magic.
The young Elf girl was trying desperately, barely managing to scrape together the faintest thread of mana.
"Banish all before thee — sacred rod that breaks all evil!"
"[Dio · Staff of Bacchus]!!"
Electrical conductivity in water was excellent, and their opponent was an absurdly fast monster — so choosing an ultra-short chant spell with a "Paralysis" attribute and a lightning element made perfect sense.
But.
The magic Lefiya had barely forced out at this moment carried less than a tenth of its normal power.
The faint current was almost invisible to the naked eye — just a few thin threads of gold flashing past, grazing the surface of the monster, doing nothing at all.
This is bad. The environment right now is impossibly disadvantageous for our side.
Neither Haruhime nor Lefiya could exert any real strength. In that case —
The Spirit Shark Demon kept shaking its enormous head back and forth, then threw open its jaws and lunged at him — snapping and tearing — and every so often, it would also launch a roaring sonic blast from within its maw.
Aside from its absurd strength, Isagi was just barely managing to hold his own.
But this couldn't continue.
Just then, his eyes landed on little Saika drifting beside him.
The oblivious little thing was actually joining him in attacking the Spirit Shark Demon. Like a tiny cherry-blossom-pink ball, she blew bubbles and flung herself forward with a cheerful little grunt, accelerating headlong into the monster's massive skull.
And — you know what — it was actually kind of working.
Each time Saika collided, the Spirit Shark Demon's colossal head would shift just slightly off-axis as it let out a pained roar — which, of course, was completely swallowed by the surrounding water.
Saika was also surprisingly clever about it.
Whenever the Spirit Shark Demon turned its attention toward her, she immediately exploited her tiny size — vanishing into the beast's blind spot in the blink of an eye. Then she'd wait for Isagi to launch an attack and draw the monster's focus, before sneaking back in and accelerating for another ram.
Was this little one perhaps a little too clever?!
Not that it changed the situation much. Saika's current strength was clearly still too limited to be decisive.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Lefiya was still desperately trying to gather magic. Unable to use her preferred fire-attribute spells underwater, she had switched to chanting Alicia's ice-attribute magic instead.
"O forest, become a bowstring. O ice crystals, become a great arrow! The drawn bow carries the will of the spirit peaks — this is —"
"[Glacial Arrow]!"
Since the magic's power was being suppressed, she compensated by pouring more total mana into an extended chant.
Under the young girl's relentless effort —
A bolt of silver ice instantly pierced through the Spirit Shark Demon's body — but then shattered almost immediately, leaving only a shallow wound that didn't seem to penetrate nearly deep enough.
Still not enough.
The magic's power had been diminished far, far too much.
And to force the magic out at all, the toll on her stamina and mental energy was doubled — in just that brief span of time, Isagi could already hear Lefiya's labored, exhausted breathing over the communicator.
This can't go on.
An idea surfacing quickly, Isagi made the call: he sent Teardrop Big Bro — who had been stationed the entire time protecting Lefiya and Haruhime — forward to relieve him, taking over the fight against the Spirit Shark Demon.
Then he beckoned little Saika to pull back from the front line with him.
There was no way to speak underwater.
But as if reading his mind, the little one understood his intentions immediately — darting with surprising intelligence over to Lefiya and Haruhime's side. And then, just as before, she began greedily gulping down the mana residue left by Alfia that continued to drift and swirl all around the group.
At the same time.
"Haruhime, cast your level-up magic on Saika."
"...?"
Hearing Isagi's instruction, the fox girl was completely baffled.
Saika could receive her level-up magic?!
She's a monster, isn't she... wait, does Saika even have something like a "Level" in the first place?!
They had tested it before — when her level-up magic was cast on ordinary people, it had absolutely no effect. But it could be used on Xenos... and even applied to monsters, strengthening them as enemies in the process...
In that case, it should probably work on Saika.
"Understood!"
Strictly speaking, this was Haruhime's first time adventuring alongside Isagi.
But the girl standing here now was nothing like the one who had once lived in the Pleasure Quarter — always timid, always at a loss, always adrift.
At the very least, she knew this much: in the middle of an adventure, you follow orders. Without question.
Just like Lefiya, she strained with everything she had, converting her mental energy into mana, and began her attempt to cast the spell.
For Haruhime, this was of course immensely difficult.
She was only Lv.1, with barely any adventuring experience — worlds apart from a seasoned veteran like Lefiya at Lv.5.
But the rule hadn't changed.
An adventurer must never let the thought of "whether I can do this" take root in their heart.
They must do it. They have to do it!!
"Grow larger —"
Golden radiance began to pour forth. From the very first syllable, the girl's voice carried a noticeable tremor of exhaustion — and yet she pushed through, continuing to chant.
"Its strength and deed — ten thousand treasures, ten thousand wishes. When the bell rings, pray for glory and dreams made real.
"Grow larger —"
Push on. Keep going. Don't stop.
Grit your teeth and hold.
Whatever it took — she would chant this magic to completion.
"This body that has swallowed the divine feast — bestow upon me the golden light of the gods. Return the mallet to the earth, grant thy blessing."
Her mind held only that single, unwavering belief.
"Grow — LARGER!!"
"[Uchide's Mallet]!!"
The golden radiance transformed into a dazzlingly beautiful little hammer, and it dropped squarely upon Saika's head — round and plump as a steamed bun, roughly the same size.
The little one just blinked there, completely oblivious to what had happened.
But soon.
The change began.
As a faint golden light enveloped her entirely, as the scattered sparkling motes of mana dissolved away one by one — she slowly, gradually took shape as a tiny human figure.
Like a Spirit —
Only much, much smaller.
The tiny little girl had long, wavy hair the color of cherry blossoms, dressed in an ethereal gown of sheer gauze that drifted and billowed softly as she floated in the water.
And then.
She continued devouring the remnants of Alfia's mana drifting all around her in great, greedy mouthfuls.
Just as Isagi had calculated.
After leveling up, Saika's eating speed had increased dramatically — by an enormous margin.
He could almost feel it tangibly — the heavy, oppressive mana that had been sealing away their abilities was rapidly dissipating, and the "abnormal statuses" that had come with it were fading at breakneck speed.
At the very least.
In Saika's immediate vicinity, the mana residue floating within the Dragon Palace was visibly — practically with the naked eye — streaming into the little jellyfish's belly at a rapid pace.
This is so much easier!
The combat strategy was working. From here, all they had to do was wait.
Wait for Saika to devour every last trace of the mana residue Alfia had left behind — and in the meantime, leave it to Teardrop Big Bro to hold off the Boss!
This was Isagi's specialty, after all.
Wasn't this precisely what Teardrop Big Bro was for — his most proper use?!
____
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