Dungeon's Final Boss: Banished by My Boss, the Goddess, to Earth—So I'll Continue My Past Life - 70

Chapter 70: Critical Hit

ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー

“Co-Come at me!”

Mio shouted as she raised her large shield.

“Don’t screw with me, woman!”

As a miner-type Awakened, Mio’s shout carried no mental coercive effect whatsoever. Even so, Vancet took the bait and swung his infamous sword at the shield.

One look at Vancet’s face made it clear. He was confident… Confident that his sword could easily slice through the massive shield. And well, his confidence didn’t come without any base.  That sword was the world’s first mythical class weapon. It had fetched a price of one trillion yen at auction.

Just looking at his expression made it obvious. He must have achieved various victories up until now… Against monsters, and likely even against other Awakened. There was no doubt he had stacked up considerable combat experience.

However…

CLANG!

“Whuh!?”

But the sword was deflected by the large shield.

“What!?”

Vancet’s face contorted in disbelief, his already red face turning an even deeper shade of red.

“D-Don’t mess with me!”

He struck the shield again with his sword, but the sword couldn’t slash the shield. In fact, not even a scratch appeared on the shield’s shiny surface. 

“What the hell is this!? What’s going on!?”

Then he suddenly snapped his head toward me.

“What did you do!?”

He finally noticed me, who had been observing the battle from the sideline.

“Nothing… Or so I’d like to say, but I applied a simple debuff.”

“A debuff!?”

“I’m support-type, after all. This is a perfectly legitimate strategy, wouldn’t you agree?”

If enhancing abilities was called a buff, then weakening them was called a debuff. Support-types could use both… Or, well, some couldn’t, so it wasn’t always a given that support types could use debuff and buff skill,  but both abilities definitely fell under the support-type umbrella.

Personally, I usually thought it was better to just strengthen allies rather than waste time debuffing monsters that would vanish quickly anyway, bBut for long battles or when you expected allies to take heavy hits, using debuffs was the logical choice. 

That said, the reason the sword couldn’t cut wasn’t solely because of the debuff.

“It’s BEEP-out, you know!”

“More importantly, while you were caught up fighting the shield user, it looks like your teammates are in serious trouble.”

“What!?”

Vancet, who had completely forgotten about his party in his rage, turned around. There, his comrades were being attacked by the Seraphim piloted by Claire and Heaves. They seemed to be A- or B-rank Awakened, but since they’d been hit by my debuff, their movement had slowed down and couldn’t keep up with Seraphim’s movements. With a single swing of the arm, they were sent flying.

It seemed Claire and Heaves didn’t want to use Seraphim’s weapons after all. Using a heat knife was one thing, but if they fired the stake gatling at those awakened, there’d be nothing left but carnage.

“Ugh!”

One of Vancet’s party members flew past him and crashed into the wall.

“A civilian operating that and overwhelming Awakened fighters… Heaves’ inventions really are something, aren’t they?”

“Yes, they’re super handy!”

Mio nodded. Come to think of it, the automatic translation devices we used were also one of Heaves’ inventions.

“Don’t screw with me!”

Vancet turned his attention to the Seraphim, changing his target.

“Vancet!”

“Just because a brat’s riding a toy doesn’t mean she stops being a brat!”

“Says the guy who got cocky just because he picked up a sword!”

“Shut up!”

After a few exchanges, one of Vancet’s strikes embedded itself in Seraphim’s left arm.

“Ugh, again!?”

He must have thought he could sever it, but that didn’t happen and Claire’s group didn’t waste this opportunity. Vancet was too focused on Seraphim’s left arm.

“This is the end for you!”

The unharmed right arm clenched into a fist and drove straight into Vancet’s face.

“GUOOOH!”

He was blown back again, slammed into the wall.

“You guys still wanna keep going!?”

Claire shouted after confirming Vancet had hit the ground, her voice intimidating the rest of the party. They exchanged glances, then tossed their weapons to the floor in surrender.

“We were just following company orders.”

“Your father’s orders, to be exact.”

“Don’t give me that crap!”

Claire’s anger exploded at their words.

“So you’ll do anything you’re told!? You attacked so many Awakened here—”

“It was your damn father who wanted that!”

Vancet shouted.

Damn, the guy’s tough.

“Whatever he’s planning, it was your father who tried to monopolize the orichalcum and picked a fight with other countries here! It was your old man who started a war in the invisible battlefield of the dungeon! Don’t act like you can just wash your hands of it!”

“What!?”

“If you’d just leaked this information to the public, this would’ve blown up into a major scandal. But you didn’t! In the end, you’re just like him! You only care about yourself!  A spoiled brat who doesn’t know the first thing about the real world, who wouldn’t even know how to walk without Daddy’s money! Don’t act like you’re better than us and preach at me!”

“Ugh…”

Hmm. I hadn’t realized Claire’s family, the Saloon Group, was that deeply involved in the Peschel Dungeon. Now that I thought about it, they did say orichalcum was valuable as a source of rare metals.

Rare metals were often used in electronic components. I’d thought they might be building a supercomputer with it, but maybe the Saloon Group really did have some other purpose. Not just building a supercomputer for bragging rights, but for something specific…. They needed orichalcum to build that thing. 

Well, either way. That meant Claire had secrets even from me. Still, that was that.

I whispered something to Mio and asked her for a favor.

“Hyah!”

“Mio?”

“Ugh… Fine.”

Was she just startled from the sudden request? Blushing furiously, Mio glared at me, then gripped her pickaxe again and started moving.

“You’re acting like that thing wasn’t built with Daddy’s money, like it’s your own power that created that thing!”

Vancet hadn’t lost his will to fight. He tried to approach the Seraphim again.

“Take this!”

Mio swung her pickaxe from the side.

“What!?”

Too busy ranting, Vancet hadn’t noticed Mio closing in. He tried to block the pickaxe with his sword on instinct. The pickaxe head pierced the flat of the blade.

CLANG!

With a metallic shatter, the sword broke apart beautifully.

Perfect. Now we could bury the fact that something like that was ever considered the world’s greatest sword.

ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー

T/N: We all know the destruction of the sword is Jiro’s main goal.