I hate being in pain, so I think I'll make a full defense build

Itai no wa Iya nanode Bōgyo-Ryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu 280

Defense Specialization and the Floating Stones

At their next destination. It was an area with strong wind and boulders that were floating due to some hidden power. The floating boulders looked like they had been torn directly from the ground, which resulted in a lot of places to hide. Furthermore, it seemed like this affected the players, as their movements were light as if gravity was weaker here.

“I think it’ll be harder to dodge… Maple, do you mind if I get accustomed to this before we move on?”

“Sure! This place is amazing. It’s so strange.”

Maple hopped around and then floated downward as if she had closed her wings.

“This place isn’t like the previous event, with its ‘power of the stars.’ So I’ll have to minimize the time I’m floating.”

Sally spent some time checking her movements until she was satisfied. Then they started walking.

“The wind is so strong. I feel like I’ll get blown away if I’m not walking.”

“Speak of the devil!”

“Huh? What!?”

As the two of them walked, a terrible wind blew, and a giant boulder came flying towards them.

Here, Sally’s earlier practice came in handy, and she was able to dodge it easily. But Maple did not have a chance.

The boulder hit her head-on with a loud smash, and she went flying into the air. After bouncing around several times, Maple bumped into a different boulder and fell to the ground.

“Maple! Yo-you sure flew far…”

“Th-that was a surprise… I didn’t think something like that would come flying out of nowhere.”

Maple picked herself up off of the ground as if nothing had happened. Sally was relieved to see that Maple was the same as always, and she offered her a hand.

“Well, it seems like they are carried by the wind. So we just need to be careful of the direction that it’s blowing in.”

“Yes, okay! I’m just glad that it wasn’t a piercing attack. Now I know it will be fine as long as I use ‘Dedicated Affection’!”

“Thank you. I’ll dodge what I can, but having insurance is helpful. Besides, it’s hard to move in this area.”

“Let’s go this way since the wind is blowing from the right!”

“Here it comes again. This time its rubble!”

Sally pulled out her two daggers and concentrated. She had dodged rocks like this a number of times before. She blocked the first with a dagger and then twisted away from the next, before jumping out of the way of the others.

As she did this, the blue aura around her grew larger. Her STR was going up.

“Phew…”

“Wow, Sally!”

“Well, I want to raise all my abilities before reaching the boss. So I really concentrated while doing that.”

Sally seemed like she was already used to the changes to her movement in this area. And so she was able to smoothly dodge the flying rocks and boulders after that. It was a clear difference from Maple, who was being hit loudly by the rocks, one after another.

“Oh, there are monsters.”

What had appeared in front of them now, was a wolf and an eagle that seemed to be made of shining, white wind.

Just their eyes were a glowing red, and it was clear that these were no ordinary creatures.

“Oboro, ‘Shadow Clone,’ ‘Illusion’!”

Sally ordered. At first, she seemed to split into five, but then that doubled.

Each of them moved to attack the wolf and the eagle, but the two creatures shook their bodies, causing wind blades to be unleashed and shred up the clones.

“I just needed a small opening! ‘Pinpoint Attack’!”

Sally jumped high and slashed down with her daggers at the distracted eagle.

And in a flash, the eagle dispersed into a mist.

“So, they are coming with numbers then!”

If each individual was weak, that meant they would surely have enough prepared so that they would still be a threat.

Just as Sally realized this, the wind started to blow all around them. A pack of wolves surrounded them on the ground, and eagles targeted them from the sky.

“Maple! I’ll leave the wide-area attacks to you!”

“Okay! ‘Deploy all Weapons’! ‘Commence Attack’!”

She shot down the wind blades and rocks that were flying in the air as she spun around and attacked everything around her.

That being said, since there were so many, some of the wind blades slipped through.

“Ouch?! Ah, piercing! Uh, ‘Pierce Guard’!”

“I’ll bring their number down too! Oboro, ‘Cross Fire’!”

The flames that Oboro unleashed exploded loudly as they hit the wolves. Then they spread out to the other wolves that were nearby. And while it was not that strong, it was more than enough to deal with wolves that were made of wind.

“Thank you! Alright, now this…”

Maple changed her equipment to green clothes, and activated ‘Poltergeist.’ Then she swung the laser wildly as if it were a beam saber. Like this, she would be able to kill the enemies in the air, which were difficult for Sally to reach.

While there were so many, they couldn’t do anything to Maple, once piercing attacks were no longer a problem. And so they were hardly a threat.

“Phew… While they took me by surprise. They weren’t that strong.”

“Yeah. I was able to dodge a lot of them.”

“Oh, that’s right! So Oboro let’s you make even more clones now! It’s amazing that you can make ten!”

“Well, the five I made with Illusion are close to Mirage. And they are just decoys that can’t actually deal any damage.”

“Right. But Shadow Clones can do damage.”

“Well, we should go now. I don’t want to be surrounded again.”

“I agree!”

And so they continued on their way. But this time, just a little faster.