So, This Is How You Use It

Thud-thud-thud.

With the ‘skeleton exoskeleton’ donned on my body, I swung the ‘Blood-Colored Awl’, and the moving statues were mercilessly felled.

― Be careful behind you, master.”

But that wasn’t the end. The number of statues swarming toward us was simply too great, showing no sign of decreasing.

Listening to Chunsik, I turned my head back and swung the ‘Blood-Colored Awl’.

* 【You use Hardened Blood.】

At the same moment, I scattered the blood stored inside the ‘Blood-Colored Awl’, firing it like bullets.

Puh-puh-puh-puh-puh!

The blood bullets struck the statues’ bodies, then ricocheted and brought down other guys as well.

Yet even the fallen statues did not cease moving.

‘Tendons of the Abyss’ clung to the shattered fragments, and those fragments then started moving as new entities.

“Hoo.”

A rough breath escaped me from the exertion.

How are we supposed to handle this?

“Hiyaaaap!”

Behind me, Serena was also smashing statues with her martial arts.

Her fists were those of a human weapon, cloaked in all sorts of buffs. With a speed and precision hard to follow with the eye, she demolished the statues in an instant.

But even the statues she destroyed moved again as new ‘tendons’ clung to them.

“Hiyaaaap!”

Nevertheless, Serena’s martial arts showed no sign of stopping.

Whether the statues restored themselves or not, she’d simply throw her fist and break them again.

Tzztzzt.

The tendons stuck again.

“Hiyaaaap!”

Broken again.

Tzztzzt.

Restored.

“Hiyaaaap!”

Broken again.

Restored.

“Haaaap!”

“Serena, I think you should try a different method.”

Just as she caught her breath and was about to run out again, I barely managed to stop her.

There’s no point in spending effort if they’re just going to be restored anyway.

“No matter the aftereffects of Abyssification, surely they can’t just keep on being restored endlessly?”

So you want to just keep breaking them until they’re totally destroyed?

When I asked, Serena nodded fiercely, as if that was the correct answer.

“But if they really are restored indefinitely, we’ll just wear ourselves out for nothing.”

Miriam clicked her tongue and showed a troubled expression at Serena’s words.

Even Chunsik shook his wolf’s head up and down.

It seemed even the undead, dullahan, agreed.

― I think it will just keep repeating unless we cut those tendons.”

Chunsik spoke plainly. Miriam looked embarrassed as she glanced at him.

“How… how can a wolf’s head talk? I mean, why is it just a head in the first place…?”

Come to think of it, this was Miriam’s first time seeing necromancy in front of her. Such a reaction was only natural.

“He is the incarnation of Thrag, our Red Wolf Tribe’s god.”

“Oh, I see…”

Seeing the doubtful look on Miriam’s face, I realized I’d blundered.

That’s the completely normal reaction.

Barkal and Serena had just accepted it too easily, so I’d been saying it without thinking, but of course Miriam was suspicious.

Still, she didn’t seem likely to pursue it. The more pressing issue was dealing with the statues crowding in.

“Tendon…”

Serena mouthed the word Chunsik had spoken, then shook her head.

“No matter how much I struck them, those tendons never disappeared. If you can’t cut them, maybe it’s ineffective…”

“They didn’t snap either.”

I shook my head this time.

With the statues constantly restoring, I’d been looking for their weakness.

Trying to touch the ‘tendons’ was part of that process, and even if the ‘Blood-Colored Awl’ hit them, nothing dramatic happened.

I was racking my brain for a solution to this hopeless situation when Miriam spoke in a serious voice.

“Hits don’t work. Tearing doesn’t work either.”

What now?

Have you got a solution?

“Should we turn back?”

What?

I stared at Miriam.

Her face looked genuinely ready to give up breaking through and turn back.

“Our objective is to kill the dungeon’s master and close the dungeon, right? So, let’s call this route a bust and find another way.”

“What about Barkal, who went ahead first!?”

“I figure he can take care of himself…”

As she continued, miriam trailed off under Serena’s gaze.

“That’s a rat-like way of thinking!”

Serena’s voice rang out with a forceful rebuke. Miriam shrank a little in response.

“We can’t abandon our comrades. An adventurer party, a Dungeon God, goes together even if it means dying!”

An intense conviction radiated from Serena’s voice. Honestly, I can’t fully agree with dying together no matter what, but I get her underlying message.

To be fair, miriam also made a reasonable point.

Barkal charged ahead, ignoring his companions. That’s admittedly making his comrades shoulder the burden.

But people can’t always act rationally—especially in situations like this.

“Hm?”

As I listened to Serena and Miriam, I felt a faint vibration in my chest.

What’s this?

I don’t remember putting a cell phone there.

Relying on the familiar sensation, I reached into my clothes and pulled out the ‘Shard of Vespers’ I’d picked up before.

An item I didn’t know how to use.

Bzzzzt──!

But as I lifted the shard, something strange began to happen.

As if to prove its own existence, the shard started to emit a faint glow.

Once it was touched by the light, the ‘tendons’ clinging to the statues began to shrink.

“Huh?”

Seeing this, Serena pointed at the tendons with her finger.

“I’m not sure, but… it feels like we can get rid of those tendons now.”

Is that intuition?

But honestly, I felt the same.

Shard of Vespers.

The item’s effect was said to ‘manifest beings of the abyss’ into reality.

That meant, with ‘manifestation’, perhaps they could now be killed, didn’t it?

Before I could say anything, Serena lunged at a statue.

“HYAAAAAAAH!”

With a spirited shout, she slammed her fist forward. The statue, now, crumbled with an ease that made one doubt it was even made of stone.

Thud-thud-thud.

But the problem was what came after. Up to now, the statues had kept coming back because of the ‘tendons’.

Now that we had the ‘Shard of Vespers’, would the restoration still occur? We anxiously watched the statue.

Wriggle.

The tendons moved within the broken fragments. But before long, they went limp and then vanished into dust.

“We did it!”

Feeling that her attack finally worked, Serena cheered and redoubled her punches.

“You’re dead!”

Her fists, filled with devout faith,

Wherever they landed, the tendons disappeared.

“Now we can kill them!”

With a radiant smile almost inspiring reverence in the onlookers, Serena,

“Let’s kill them all!”

uttered words so chilling you’d never suspect she was a priestess of Liberas, the Goddess of Love and Virtue—all while keeping that smile on her face.

“You’re sure she’s a cleric?”

Miriam asked. I nodded.

Honestly, since coming here, she’s the only cleric I’ve seen. Now, Serena has become my standard.

* * *

“Grrrrrr…!”

Barkal gripped his axe tightly, looking at his brother Darsan, who had begun to be devoured by a ‘tendon of the Abyss’.

“Darsan.”

Barkal called his brother’s name.

With the tendons latching on, Darsan’s muscles had become monstrously swollen, but that was all.

He was resisting.

Resisting whatever power the ‘tendons’ bestowed.

He was screaming in agony, struggling with all his might to cast off the tendons.

Is it that he has a sense of self?

Or is it instinctive rejection?

Either way, Darsan was defenseless.

That’s why Barkal raised his axe and approached Darsan.

The situation didn’t matter.

What mattered was performing the funeral rites for a barbarian who betrayed his kin.

“Thrag.”

It was then that a red wolf stepped in front of Barkal and blocked his way.

Barkal knew—that this was the incarnation of Thrag, the Red Wolf Tribe’s god.

“Why do you block my way?”

With the god barring his path in warning, Barkal expressed his confusion.

It was not the same kind of warning as before.

Barkal could sense a bit of Thrag’s intention. It was as if Thrag was whispering, “Don’t kill Darsan now.”

“Why?”

Thus, Barkal had to wonder.

Why would their god, Thrag, try to protect Darsan, who killed his own kin?

“Grrrr…”

The red wolf, Thrag, gazed at the suffering Darsan, as if hoping the tendons clinging to Darsan’s body could somehow be cast off.

Yet Barkal could not bring himself to feel the same.

His brother had killed a fellow tribesman.

He was here solely to end that brother’s life and bury him.

“Thrag has spoken.”

At that moment,

A voice came from behind, and Barkal turned his head.

“Sage.”

A barbarian who had escaped the tribe alongside him.

At the same time, the wisest of their tribespeople:

Dmihtan Elvar.

Seeing his face, Barkal closed his eyes. Losing his senses at the sight of Darsan and rushing forward without a word had been wrong.

That’s why Barkal couldn’t easily meet Dmihtan’s eyes.

“Your brother Darsan is a criminal who has killed his kin.”

“I know.”

“But Thrag says it could not be helped.”

“What do you mean?”

Barkal tilted his head at Dmihtan’s words.

He couldn’t understand. How could you brush off killing your kin with ‘it couldn’t be helped’? That thought swirled in his mind.

In response, Dmihtan simply walked up and raised his hand.

In his hand was a sort of fragment. From it, a faint light emerged and began to dissolve the tendons on Darsan’s body.

“This is…?”

Barkal knew those tendons were not easily cut. So it was only natural that he was startled by how easily they now disappeared.

—

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep