The Genius of Cloning in the Academy City-Chapter 145: Violet, to the Dark and Deep Dungeon (3)

Violet was in a crisis.

The enemy was a high-level monster, and in the blink of an eye, our entire squad was devoured!

"Ugh! If we’re swallowed, we’ll die instantly!"

"I’m so scared! Kyaaah!"

The Violet clones that had died screamed as they returned to the network.

The Violets swallowed by the black, slimy body melted away without leaving a single bone behind.

At least, after learning the hibernation ability, it was effective to lose consciousness to disperse the pain if it felt unbearable.

It took time during battle, though.

"Fire! Fire!"

While Violet Squad 3 dashed between the tentacles to buy time, the Violets in the back fired their rifles.

It was like throwing a stone into a deep swamp—nothing happened. The creature’s slimy body regenerated in an instant.

"Heavy artillery, forward!"

"Fire!"

The heavy weapons team, equipped with rocket launchers and grenade launchers, stepped forward.

The most powerful weapons infantry could use flew through the air, hitting the monster’s body.

A brief flash and a loud explosion!

Parts of the monster’s body shattered and scattered in all directions.

"Haha! We’re winning!"

"They said it had physical immunity, but was that a lie?"

Confident in our victory, we launched another heavy artillery attack. After the second explosion, smoke temporarily blocked our vision.

"Huh?"

"It blocked it."

Squad Leader Violet tilted her head. Noxtera was perfectly fine. We even saw parts of the body that had been detached earlier crawling back toward the main body and being absorbed again.

"It really doesn’t work."

The one to answer our doubts was Irene, who had been watching from behind.

"It hardened, that’s why. Throw in a crossbow or something."

This was unbelievable; in just a short time, the creature had solidified its soft body.

Indeed, Noxtera was a powerful high-level monster.

Its form resembled a slime from a typical fantasy game.

The problem was, unlike the beginner-friendly slimes often used as punching bags, Noxtera was an advanced monster with unique powers.

When classifying monsters by rank, there are various standards: how much firepower they have, their intelligence level, their defense capabilities, and whether they possess troublesome traits. ṝÅɴóβĘȘ

And this creature had the characteristic of being almost impervious to any physical means of attack.

Weak attacks are absorbed, and strong ones are adapted to and blocked.

"Levi! Hit it hard!"

A Violet on the roof urged, and a giant bolt flew through the air from above. A hole was blasted through Noxtera’s hardened body, but the wound was quickly sealed.

"Huh, that didn’t work either?"

"Idiot! That thing doesn’t have a core or heart. What’s the point of making a hole? Just break it into pieces or burn it!"

Lucian, while preparing his magic, shot me a disdainful glance.

Burn it? According to the data we gathered, its weakness was fire magic. So it’s weak to fire, right?

"Ah! It’s flying!"

"My leg’s broken!"

"Injured ones, over here!"

This chapter is updat𝙚d by freeweɓnovel.cøm.

The Violets were knocked into the air by tentacle hits.

"Ugh! There are so many of them, and they’re disgusting. Violet, do you have anything useful?"

Kalia yelled toward me, slicing through the tentacles with a sword wreathed in flames.

Each tentacle she cut fell limp, releasing smoke. It was a moment where Kalia’s unique abilities truly shone.

But the monster’s size was just too big.

"Hang on! Just a little longer! I’m preparing to attack!"

While Irene, Kalia, and Granite were busy cutting away tentacles up front, the Violets didn’t stand still either.

A series of Violets pulled out Molotov cocktails.

"I’ll burn it all!"

"Flame of purification!"

As Lucian prepared his attack, he grabbed the arm of a nearby Violet in shock.

"Are you crazy?! Do you want to get hit by its fiery tentacles?"

"You said burning it would work! This is Violet’s special soy grenade. It can reach up to 2,000 degrees!"

"It’s meaningless unless it’s magic!"

Ah, so that’s the issue. The problem of a world where magic is the all-powerful solution.

But that’s fine. Our Violet can use magic too. The results of the magic I learned from Professor Albert—let’s show them here!

"Flame thrower!"

The Violets extended their hands.

The most basic of basics, a flame thrower, spewed from their palms. The tentacles recoiled and retreated.

"Huh?"

The reason the tentacles retreated was to gain elasticity.

The Violets who had been using the flames were knocked down after taking the attack.

"Argh!"

"The monster’s not stupid; it won’t just bake from a beginner’s spell like that. Get out of the way, everyone! I’m going to break it and burn it down!"

As the team members quickly backed off, Lucian snapped his fingers.

It was his usual magic arrow attack, but this time, the arrows glowed with a dazzling blue flame.

From the magic circle behind him, six arrows flew consecutively, striking the monster hard. The wounds didn’t heal immediately.

But that wasn’t enough. Lucian unleashed an even more powerful attack.

A flame spear, as large as a telephone pole, plunged into Noxtera’s black body. Flames shot up high.

"Got it!"

"No, it’s not enough!"

Just as we began to celebrate, Noxtera emerged from the smoke.

Its size had shrunk a bit, but only the outer layer had fallen off. The creature hadn’t been shattered as we’d hoped.

"Ugh! Phase two?"

It seemed Noxtera considered Lucian, who had been casting magic from the rear, a significant threat and ignored the rest of the team, charging toward him instead.

“Ha, that was at maximum output, yet it only managed this much? As expected of a high-level beast.”

“I’ll buy us some time! Fall back!”

Dozens of Violets charged at the beast to stop it. The sight resembled a swarm of mice rushing at an elephant.

The courageous mice stabbed and bit the elephant recklessly, only to provoke its fury further.

The beast created additional tentacles and began thrashing them wildly in all directions.

“Ugh, ahh!”

An injured party. That dull Granite guy got hit by a tentacle and toppled over. Thanks to his protective barrier, he avoided serious injury, but he still rolled around on the ground.

“Aah! Irene, can we just retreat?”

Violet No. 227 hastily called out to Irene, who was locked in a struggle with three tree trunk-sized tentacles.

Her skin was reddened from the beast’s dripping fluids. If it were me, I would’ve dissolved long ago.

While a massive bolt severed a tentacle, Irene, now with some breathing room, responded.

“Well, Noxtera has a tenacious personality. Whether we fight or flee, we should be ready to die.”

“Ugh, that’s a lot to handle. Then, how about a sure way to kill it...?”

“We’ll have to chop it up piece by piece and burn it all!”

Ugh, there wasn’t going to be an easy way out. I briefly considered self-destructing but dismissed the idea immediately. It might regenerate.

In the end, it was clear the Violets would have to do all the work.

A hundred Violets wielded weapons imbued with sword energy and charged together.

“Disassemble it!”

“Cut it apart!”

The Violets clung to the beast like a swarm of ants on jelly, fiercely tearing into it. Every piece they tore off was burned and trampled underfoot.

As its body slowly began to shrink, the beast thrashed wildly in desperation.

“The resistance is too strong!”

“Command has given permission to use the Blade of Fiery Radiance!”

Our pride and joy, the five-star weapon, the Blade of Fiery Radiance, was finally unveiled. As flames were scattered through the beast, tentacles dropped off one after another.

“Should’ve used this earlier!”

We’d been saving the five-star weapon for so long that we forgot to use it. If we’d used it from the start, we wouldn’t have had to go through this ordeal.

Sensing the danger, the beast tried to flee.

“Daphne, the barrier!”

“Set up!”

To block its escape, thin barriers were laid around the beast like barricades, trapping its movements.

Though its tentacles squeezed and swallowed Violets, even more of them swarmed in to tear it apart.

Slowly, little by little, Noxtera’s size decreased.

“Haha! Die already!”

“Revenge for Squad 1! Payback for Squad 2! Fury for Squad 3!”

After the deaths of dozens of Violets, the beast finally shrank to a manageable size.

“Now’s the time!”

Lucian hurled another fiery spear. The beast shattered into pieces.

We burned every last smoldering remnant of the beast, ensuring complete victory.

“We did it!”

I turned to my team to share in the joy of our success.

“...Violet, are you okay?”

My teammates looked at me with concerned expressions. What was the problem?

“We lost too many people…”

“Huh? Don’t worry! Dying is our job anyway.”

Lucian made a face of sheer disbelief and muttered.

“Crazy woman…”

Hmm, it seemed the others weren’t as used to their teammates’ deaths as I was. They needed to get used to it eventually.

While the others rested, I gathered the injured Violets and their body parts.

“Here’s a leg I picked up. There’s an arm too; just stick it back on!”

“Got it…”

Daphne quietly tended to the severely injured Violets with a bitter expression.

It was like repairing broken dolls. Melted areas were restored with fresh, soft skin, and shattered, torn-off arms were neatly reattached as greenish magic flowed through them.

“Thank you!”

The Violets bounced back as if nothing had happened. Daphne is truly amazing!

This battle taught me something important: the value of magic.

Come to think of it, we Violets had been overly fixated on swordsmanship and weapons without ever considering using magic as a specialty.

We’d learned a few things from Professor Albert during our lessons, but pulling a trigger was much simpler than manipulating formulas. Who has time to calculate in the middle of a fight?

“An enemy that bullets can’t harm is a real headache.”

Luckily, we had trained hard in swordsmanship and close combat techniques. If we hadn’t, running away would’ve been our only option. But if there came a time when we couldn’t use guns or explosives, we’d be in big trouble.

Magic, huh. Maybe I should revisit the group calculation techniques we used before.

While Violet the Company Commander pondered this and downed a drink, vehicles bearing the logo of Aegis Academy stopped in front of us.

“Gasp, what are they doing here?”

People disembarked from the armored bus, eyeing us warily.

“Could they be here to capture us?”

“No way! Those are students. I see some instructors too.”

They seemed wary of us, though it wasn’t surprising considering our dark combat uniforms and fully covered faces.

“Who are you people?”

A familiar voice I had heard that morning called out. Turning my head, I saw Adela!

“By your appearance… could it be a recognition-inhibiting device?”

Uh-oh. She even figured that out. We might come under suspicion at this rate. Violet the Company Commander turned off the recognition-inhibiting device and removed her mask.

“It’s me!”

“Violet!”

I felt a bit nervous. Was Adela going to be angry again?

My fears were unfounded.

“Fancy meeting you again… Sorry about earlier.”

Adela gave an awkward smile.