Using Gacha to Increase My Companions and to Create the Strongest Girls' Army Corps Chapter 25

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Translator: Raizu
TLC/Editor: Sushi

Chapter 25
The Northern Cave

[Now then, today we're going manastone hunting!]

The next day, we welcomed the morning in high spirits besides 1 person. And right now, we're outside the Royal Capital's northern gate.

[Hmm, your tension is expectedly low.]

[Of course it is! I was forcibly put to sleep last night, then when I think of the nightmarish days that are about to start from today…]

The 1 person in low spirits is Noru. She's really depressed. It's hard to read her facial expressions as you can't really see her face, but I can tell to some degree from her voice.
Regarding forcing her to sleep last night, I tried to alleviate her mood by giving her some good food but that didn't work. Despite that, she still shrewdly asked for more helpings.

[Fufu, you can rest a.s.sured Noru. This Onii-san, he was saying something nonsensical like hunting 600 monsters a day. I have properly dissuaded him, am I right?]

[Yes… I am very sorry.]

I trembled when I recalled what happened last night. Honestly I'm a little happy about what happened, but I don't want to go through that again.

(EN: google serotonin to find out what it is)

I almost lost my marbles. It felt like I almost awakened and opened the door to something I shouldn't.

[Muu… If that's really the case then I'm okay with this… So, where are we going today?]

[Ah, we have already went to the Forest in the south where the Eagle Warriors are, so I'm thinking of going around to the East, West, and Northern hunting areas.]

[Is it possible to go to all those places within today?]

[It should be alright. We'll only be checking out the locations. Confirming what type of monsters are in those areas and their status, and the rare monster variants too.]

Investigation is the main objective this time. We won't be hunting for a long periods of time just confirming what monsters appear where, then choosing the location where we can hunt the most efficiently with our current combat power.
Regarding getting rare monsters to sp.a.w.n, hunting of the base monsters efficiently seem to affect this. Clearing out the normal ones quickly directly affects the sp.a.w.n rate of the rare monsters.

[So this is the Cave in the North.]

[It feels kinda eerie.]

We rode the Magic Carpet, and travelled to the monster hunting ground to the North.

Luminescent crystal stalact.i.tes that sprouted out of the ground can be seen all over. Thanks to that, the interior of the cave is bright and visibility is decent.
Pillars of rock can be seen here and there, the area is overall fairly wide. And before us, were a whole bunch of scorpions about 1m in size that were scurrying around.

[These are quite big in size…]

[Ooh, these monsters look kinda cool.]

[You two sound so casual.]

With glossy purple bodies, they walk around while making clickety sounds with their two claws. There is also a big stinger on the tail, getting pierced by that would give the human body more holes than it already has.
Time to check its status as usual.

=====

Race: Armor Scorpion.

HP 1000

Attack Power: 200

Agility: 15

Unique Ability: Poison Immunity
Skill: Poison Sting

The heck is with that defense power!? But they have low-ish HP because of that.
Then there's that poison sting… This looks to be troublesome.

[Hーmm, this looks iffy to make any kind of conclusion.]

[Is there a problem with our compatibility(with the monster)?]

[Ahー, no, it's not that bad. But when I thought about your "problem"…]

[Eh, you mean me?]

This location is suitable for Area Hunting. The monsters have low HP and low Agility. If we attack with magic which ignores defense, then these monsters are considerably favorable to us.
If Estel can get all of them in one fell swoop with her magic, considerable efficiency can be expected.

[That's right, I'm thinking of getting Noru to be the "lure". They have c.r.a.ppy magic resistance and low HP too, they might be pretty ideal monsters for us.]

[Lu, lure? Okura-dono, don't tell me… You are telling me to be bait?]

[Yessu, that's totally it.]

[This person really is a cad just as I thought! Why, why must it be me! Did I do something bad!?]

[That's not what I meant, I was thinking of taking turns with you as I felt bad for placing much of the burdens on you. But then, Noru you have Al・Rakie, while I don't have anything to help me nullify poison if I were to lure them. Since we are going to do it now, letting Noru to do it would be more ideal.]

[Oh, so that's what you mean. Sorry for jumping the gun just now…]

I should have explained it to her beforehand. Me and Noru will take turns being the bait, the idea is to get them all to clump up together then have Estel finish them off with AoE magic.
Unlike back in the game, friendly fire is a thing here, which will be a slight problem. We just need enough distance away from the other party members and we'll be just fine.

[Does that mean it isn't possible to use the hunting method you thought of?]

[That's sorta right. However I want to see how much the baiting strategy would work here, so would you mind doing it 1 time? Here, use this. And the Nike Shoes too.]

[Alright~]

I hand Noru the Wind Bracelet. This has the Movement Speed+20% buff so I was thinking of pa.s.sing this to whoever is doing the luring.
I'll give up on Area Hunting here, but I'll at least try it once to check the efficiency.

[So I just run around the whole area 1 time?]

[Yeah, that's it. After a certain number of monsters get aggroed, do a turn and get them to gather in one spot. Then Estel will sweep them away with her magic.]

[Understood! Here I go then!]

Noru runs around while moving into target range of the scorpions, she is beginning to lead them. The cave has a considerably wide area, so the individual scorpions are all spread around in area.
Rather than defeating them one at a time with magic, it's more efficient to lead and gather them in one spot and clearing them all in one go which also helps in saving MP.

After a while Noru was running back, she probably hit the other end of the cave. Behind her was a ma.s.sive horde of countless scorpions. You could hear countless clickety sounds from their claws.
Even though I was the one who proposed this, seeing this actually happen is pretty terrifying…

[There's so many… Noru! We are firing the magic so hurry and get back!]

[All the rustling sounds from the whole bunch is disgusting. Ei~!]

After she got fairly near to where we were, I got her to circle around the scorpion horde to get the horde to stay in the area. The scorpions tried to chase her down, but the horde gradually got denser and their movements began to dull.

The moment she got out of the magic's range, Estel begins the magic attack. A magic formation is deployed in the center of the densely packed scorpions, then lightning begins coursing through the area.
Big cl.u.s.ters of scorpions get struck by the lightning, and they turn into light and disperse to become drop items.

[Wew~ This feels refreshing.]

[This is much easier than hunting them one by one. However it's scary to think what would happen when you fail the luring part.]

Thanks to the defense ignoring magic attack, even that number of scorpions got mopped up instantly. The drop items are Scorpion Sh.e.l.ls and Scorpion Claws, there are also a small amount of Scorpion Needles too.
It felt satisfying to see the mountain of items in the center. From the number of items there was easily more than 20 of them. This might just be more efficient than our previous Orc hunt.

As I finished collecting the drop items, light began to gather and new scorpions are resp.a.w.ning. There was a particularly large black scorpion among them. This looks like the rare variant here.

=====

Stinger Race: Armor Scorpion

HP: 4000

Attack Power: 1,300

Agility: 20

Unique Ability: Poison Immunity Special Effect Immunity

=====

Holy smokes… That's not something you can deal with without a magician. Also what's that Guided Poison Sting. Is that a ranged attack?

[Woah… Another menacing one appeared.]

[That one's pretty amazing. The sh.e.l.l seems incredibly tough.]

[It sure does. It also has a Thick, Hard and Stout "thing".]

[Don't describe it in a weird way… F, for now Estel, do 3 consecutive magic attacks on it. Noru get in position to defend Estel just in case anything happens. It might be able to shoot its needles out.]

Estel's weird emphasis on that certain part is probably my imagination, yeah.

a.s.suming it can shoot out its poison needle, I set Noru infront of Estel.

Estel waves her staff, and a magic formation is deployed above the Stinger. From which lightning strikes the Stinger 3 times in quick succession and it stopped moving.
Eh?… After all that caution and that's it? It was defeated it in instant without the chance shoot anything.

[That went down pretty easily.]

[T-that's why I said it's an ideal monster for us. They do however have really high defense power so Noru and I have trouble fighting them.]

[Muu… If, if you really insist, then I wouldn't mind doing the luring myself…]

I collected the Stinger's drop items, I then checked my smartphone and see the number of manastones increase by 1.

I really appreciate her proposal as this is considerably efficient but…

[Didn't you say you disliked this method, what's with the change of heart? There's no need to push yourself so hard.]

[Oh, it's just Okura-dono has been looking out for me, I feel bad for making you put up with my selfishness.]

[Hmmー, I see. Well, if the other 2 locations don't work out, then I will accept your offer. Ah, don't worry about the hunting time. We are in no hurry currently, so we'll head back when we get tired.]

After seeing her reaction last night, I'm also reflecting on how much we overdid it last time. This is definitely not because of Estel's "punishment".
Now that I know the efficiency of doing the Noru bait tactic here, I'll decide after going around the remaining locations.

[Estel… Just what kind of persuasion did you do? He seems to have become *too* gentle, it almost feels like he's a different person.]

[It's a secret. Right, Onii-san?]

When Noru asked Estel, she smiled at me with narrowed eyes while putting her finger in front of her mouth. When I saw that smile, I felt a mysterious chill down my spine.