Ch.15Stat Farming! (2)

The apostles who drank the unidentified potion immediately dropped the bottles in their hands and screamed in agony.

“Arghhhh…!!”

They were in such pain that they rolled on the ground, convulsing.

Soon, visible changes began to occur in their bodies.

The first change appeared in their heads.

Their once relatively full heads of hair fell out one by one until nothing remained.

The next change was in the skin of their entire bodies, including their heads.

Their human skin seemed to melt away gradually, and before long, it transformed into scales reminiscent of reptiles.

The final change occurred throughout their entire bodies.

Their overall physique grew enormous, with some sprouting wings and others growing tails.

Watching this series of transformations, Lilly reacted with a disgusted expression, as if she had seen something incomprehensible.

“Ugh… what on earth is that?”

“I thought you knew what was happening?”

Lilly had known something would happen from the moment the enemies were incapacitated.

So I questioned her reaction of seeing this for the first time.

“Until now, the ones I’ve seen would at most self-destruct from magical overload. I’ve never seen them transform into such strange forms before.”

Simply put, she was saying that apostles were programmed to self-destruct when incapacitated.

Since they all behaved consistently, it was right to think there was some forced mechanism at work.

Judging by their conversations with each other, they didn’t seem completely controlled, but they weren’t treated well enough to suggest they had come through legitimate contracts either.

‘Still, I understand why they used that.’

The potion they used was a Shapeshifter’s Potion.

A potion created from a recipe obtained through the quest “Shapeshifter Craving Dragon Power.”

Since it could be obtained from an NPC that appeared quite frequently, it wouldn’t be strange for anyone who played this game seriously to know about it.

‘The problem is that the recipe they obtained was a failure.’

Drinking the potion made according to the recipe changes your race to dragon-kin.

As a dragon-kin, your stats increase significantly, and you gain scale skills.

However, the benefits ended there.

The potion’s effect was to turn you into a dragon-kin, but what form you would take was unclear.

Bluntly put, your body might remain human-sized while one part grew disproportionately large.

And above all, there was the risk that the person drinking the potion would enter an uncontrollable berserk state immediately after drinking it and die two hours later.

‘They probably weren’t carrying it around to use it…’

I could understand them drinking it since they had to self-destruct anyway.

However, I couldn’t comprehend why they would specifically carry it around for self-destruction.

I continued to speculate about their intentions, but I wasn’t given much time to do so.

“””GRAAAAH—!!!”””

The three beasts, having completed their transformation, roared while staring at me.

A sight that would make an ordinary person’s knees buckle.

Seeing this scene, Lilly checked my condition and spoke again.

“Let me know if you need help.”

“It’s fine, I deliberately waited for this.”

Naturally, my answer was a refusal.

I still needed to check my current condition, and since I was fighting anyway, I wanted to steadily build up my stats, which is why I had waited for their transformation.

Besides, it was only polite to wait for a transformation to complete.

“Fine, fine. I can’t talk you out of your stubbornness. Just don’t get hurt.”

Lilly let out a hollow laugh as if she couldn’t help it.

As Lilly, who had briefly stepped forward, moved back again, the apostles reacted by charging at me.

Clang-!

The clash of sword and scales.

The second battle between me and the apostles began immediately.

One large and powerful.

One small and agile.

One grotesquely shaped.

Though they had transformed into dragon-kin, their positions hadn’t changed much.

The warrior used his superior physique to hold me in place.

While the warrior and I exchanged blows, the archer looked for openings to attack.

And during all this, the mage prepared something.

A structure so identical it could be called completely the same. However, there were also clear differences after they became dragon-kin.

‘The scales are too hard.’

Unlike before when I could continuously accumulate damage, it wasn’t easy for my sword to penetrate their scales.

This was true not only for the warrior who was withstanding my attacks head-on but also for the archer who had abandoned his bow and was moving like an assassin.

‘They’re in a berserk state, but unlike the Owl, they’re not mindless, which makes this difficult.’

In fact, since they entered the berserk state and stopped using skills, it became harder to predict their timing.

Still, that was the extent of it.

The hard scales and continuous coordinated attacks were troublesome, but they wouldn’t bring me defeat.

‘First, let me think of a strategy slowly…’

Just as I was trying to think of a strategy while defending against attacks coming from all directions, there was a reaction from the mage who had been preparing something in the back.

The mage’s body had grotesquely enlarged head and torso.

It wasn’t suitable for movement, so I wondered what it could do in that state.

And the answer was surprisingly simple.

“…GRAAAAH—!!!!!!!!!”

The mage, who had been silently glaring at me from one spot, opened its mouth and fired a high-powered breath.

“They have fire resistance anyway. Is that it?”

The warrior was also within the breath’s range, not just me, but it didn’t seem to take much damage, probably due to its fire resistance.

Thanks to that, I was only able to dodge the breath after kicking away the persistent enemy that was sticking to me.

‘So they won’t let me keep enduring, is that it?’

This time, since the archer was at a distance, it was relatively easy to dodge.

However, if both the warrior and archer were binding my feet when the breath came, it was uncertain whether I could avoid it.

“Sigh… really, I have no choice.”

Originally, I had planned to slowly exchange attacks and build up my stats, but thanks to the breath, I needed to modify my plan.

The power of the breath was such that a direct hit would definitely cause serious injury.

With plenty of potions left, I could probably overcome one serious injury, but it became awkward because Lilly had warned me not to get hurt.

To avoid getting hurt unnecessarily, I needed to end the battle quickly.

With no other options left, I began to utilize my cultivation technique.

The form of my magic remained the same aura.

The property of my magic became specialized against dragon-kin.

* * *

In this world, there exists a title called Slayer.

For whatever reason, it’s a title given to those who engage in mass slaughter or specialized hunting of specific races.

And nine out of ten who receive such titles possess a very unique magical property.

A property honed solely against the race they hunt.

This property specializes in neutralizing the characteristics or properties possessed by that race.

* * *

Slash.

The scales that hadn’t been scratched even after dozens of collisions with my sword were now helplessly cut.

A sudden change for the apostles who had been confident their scales wouldn’t be cut by my sword.

This change resulted in the warrior losing an arm.

“GRAAAAH–!!”

The pain of losing an arm must have been greater than expected, as the warrior screamed.

Thanks to that, a huge opening appeared.

I didn’t miss that opening and immediately cut the throat of the one who hadn’t regained his senses yet.

“That’s one down.”

Without needing to drag it out any longer, I turned to finish off the remaining two.

And in response, the archer charged at me head-on.

The archer tried to attack me using agility as a weapon and attempted to dodge my attacks, but it wasn’t enough.

From the start, as an archer in a berserk state with lost rationality, he didn’t have the ability to exchange blows with me.

So it didn’t take long for me to cut off both of the archer’s arms and then behead him.

However, it seemed that the short time was what the archer had been aiming for.

At some point, the mage had fully charged and was firing its breath at me.

Instead of trying to dodge the breath, I stood facing it and gripped my sword properly.

“They say a Sword Saint can cut anything. While I’m not quite at that level…”

After a brief deep breath, I raised my sword high and brought it down on the approaching breath.

It was a very clean but not particularly special cut.

However, it was a sufficient strike to cut through the breath shot by the mage.

This feat would normally have been impossible.

But the mage was a dragon-kin, and breath was a dragon-kin’s specialty.

So with the same properties as a Dragon Slayer, it was possible now.

The mage had exhausted all its magic.

I slowly approached the mage and spoke.

“Would you mind giving me some information?”