Chapter 639: An Overwhelming Battle

The battle near the entrance of the pseudo-dungeon was nothing short of fierce.

An overwhelming number of troll-type monsters poured endlessly from the entrance. Standing at the front without flinching were the adult human-shaped puppets Adam and Eve, tirelessly cutting the trolls down one after another.

Occasionally, trolls would manage to land a blow with their clubs, but Adam and Eve didn’t budge in the slightest, immediately impaling their attackers with their swords.

Still, even they couldn’t completely stop the flood alone, so Tauro and the others picked off any that slipped through.

Garo, the wolf-shaped puppet, used its massive body to devastating effect, smashing troll heads apart with its forelegs and kicking others away with its hind legs. Meanwhile, the gatekeeper elf riding on Garo’s back could only stare in astonishment at the overwhelming strength on display.

It was a troll hunt unlike anything the elves could have ever imagined, but then, a change occurred near the entrance.

A group of trolls, each carrying a large shield, appeared and formed a horizontal line. More followed behind them in the same formation.

Adam and Eve charged to break their ranks, but the massive shields shoved forward blocked them, even snapping their swords.

Noticing this immediately, Tauro pulled two war hammers from [Magic Storage] and tossed them to Adam and Eve as replacement weapons.

If the puppets had a weakness, it was probably their attack power. Though incredibly durable thanks to the mysterious dungeon material they were made from, their humanlike bodies were relatively light, making their strikes less powerful than their durability might suggest.

That was why Tauro compensated for their shortcomings by giving them a complete set of equipment. And because they were humanoid, they could switch weapons to exploit an enemy’s weaknesses—one of their greatest strengths.

Tauro handed the war hammers to the two of them, reasoning that if the enemy advanced with their shields raised in front of them, all they had to do was destroy those shields.

With Garo controlling Adam and Eve, it quickly understood Tauro’s intent and prioritized smashing the shields.

The trolls advanced with their shields forward, while more trolls appeared behind the formation hurling stones.

“Everyone, be careful! They’ve got ranged attacks!” Tauro warned.

At that moment, a rain of stones poured down from the rear of the troll army.

Aeris, however, calmly began chanting a spell, trusting her allies to protect her.

Ragune stepped forward, raised her modified Mirror Turtle Rectangular Shield, and activated [Area Defense], a wide-area defense with high resistance to physical attacks.

Stones as large as an adult’s head were all deflected by [Area Defense].

“Well then, I’ll give you a present too! Thunder God’s Wrath!”

With that, Aeris raised her ebony staff to the sky. Dark clouds gathered instantly overhead, and amid roaring thunder, countless bolts of lightning rained down like a storm.

The lightning swept through the trolls below, burning them to a crisp.

“As expected of Aeris, her power is unmatched against such a large army!” Zion said admiringly, stepping forward to assist Adam and Eve against the shield-bearing trolls.

With the troll army’s core forces thrown into chaos, now was the time to push forward.

While Adam and Eve shattered the shields with their warhammers, Zion lightly struck the surface of the shields with her palm—

Or rather, it only looked light.

Her strikes sent shockwaves through the shields, bypassing them entirely and blasting the trolls backward in succession.

“Zion’s unmatched in close combat too,” Aeris remarked.

Everyone’s pretty amazing, aren’t they?

Tauro thought so himself—but, as usual, left himself out of that assessment.

Perhaps triggered by Aeris’s flashy magic, a new presence emerged from the entrance, a massive troll, about three meters tall, clad in full equipment and accompanied by Dark Trolls.

“Th-that’s a Troll Grand General!? Lord Tauro, we should retreat! The enemy must’ve been waiting for us to use our trump-card magic before revealing itself!” the gatekeeper elf warned. The enemy commander hadn’t simply thrown a huge number of trolls onto the surface without thought; it had apparently been waiting for Aeris to expend her strongest magic.

“You’ve used your trump card. Now is our chance to counterattack!”

The Troll Grand General grinned and spoke intelligibly, as if confirming the gatekeeper’s analysis.

“Okay, Adam, you’re up.”

Tauro gave the order as if he had anticipated it all.

In the next instant, Adam tore off his battered adventurer gear with one hand, exposing his chest.

There was a hollow in Adam’s chest—and in the next instant, a shockwave erupted from it.

The blast swept through the battlefield, blowing away the Troll Grand General along with the surrounding Dark Trolls.

As overwhelming as ever, the attack crushed both the high-ranking monsters and their commander in one strike.

“O-one hit…!?” the gatekeeper muttered in disbelief, unable to process how such a formidable enemy had been defeated within a minute of appearing.

“Alright! Let’s sweep up the rest and move into the pseudo-dungeon!” Tauro commanded, showing no sign of lowering his guard even after defeating the enemy commander.

The others—Aeris, Ragune, Zion, Pella, and Garo—were the same. They advanced while eliminating the remaining trolls.

“Oh, this Troll Grand General’s equipment is amazing,” Tauro said, examining the corpse just inside the entrance.

“It’s a full set of magical armor and helmet, plus a shield—and the sword is a ‘Barbarian Single-Edged Blade.’ The armor adjusts to the wearer’s body, and the sword has a paralysis effect. This is top-tier gear. I’ll give it to Adam.”

Tauro said this and then had Adam equip it.

“Tauro, my [Presence Detection] isn’t working inside this pseudo-dungeon. What about you?” Ragune asked.

“I can still sense things thanks to [Anti-Inhibition], but there are still quite a lot inside. Let’s proceed with Adam and Eve in front, then Ragune, Zion, Aeris, me, and finally Garo with the gatekeeper at the rear.”

When Tauro announced this, everyone nodded.

And with that, Tauro and his party descended into the pseudo-dungeon.