Jujutsushi Wa Yuusha Ni Narenai

Chapter 75: Basilisk Observation Report

I’d started preparing for a possible solo Basilisk subjugation, and for that I needed a way to safely observe it.

“This looks good enough.”

The first of those preparations was stealth equipment. Basically, I’d made a ghillie suit.

I first took all the Goma rags I’d pilfered, and fashioned together an overcoat with the use of Blackhair threads. I then dipped this coat into one of the bubbling purple bogs and as I expected, the clothing was now died the same color. I added random bunches of weeds and mushrooms on top and done.

Still, the Basilisk didn’t have eyes, and making this camouflage might have just been a huge waste of time, but I wanted to believe it wasn’t. Well, at least I now got another use out of Blackhair bind: now I could make string with it. In string form, I could actually separate it from it’s shadow, or my body, and it’d last quite a while.

Depending on how I practice with this, I might be able to make my thicker and longer tentacle hairs last longer too.

Another new way I’d used Blackhair Bind was for climbing trees. This Curse had grown a lot from the noodley tentacles it made when I first got it. Now, my tentacles had the strength to hold down a thrashing Goar, so obviously they could lift up my less than 50 kg body.

And no, it wasn’t like I was swinging tree to tree like Tarzan, but now I had the option of climbing up places and survey the area.

The camo suit and tree climbing practice took all of the first day.

And only thereafter did I start my focused observation on the Boss of this poisoned zone.

So anyway, since I’m still alive, I guess it’s going well. The Basilisk didn’t seem to notice me at all. I didn’t know if it was just ignoring me or it actually hadn’t detected my presence. And I didn’t want to test the waters just yet because it was still seriously scary, so I kept up my observation from afar.

And once I’d done that a few days, I learned 3 things.

Number 1: the Basilisk mainly eats Mandragoras.

It the morning, it gets up from its resting place, crosses over the crescent shaped moat and goes towards the Mandragora field just beyond. It then uses its short but thick front nails to dig out and eat the plant creatures. And it eats with gusto. So much gusto in fact that it made me want to eat one too.

Here I was thinking that if it ate that many, that fast, the field would be empty in no time… But the next day, I saw that the area that the Basilisk had grazed on had regrown its portion of Mandragora already. And that made me think. This whole spot must be a special area where its made so that Mandragoras grew at an alarming rate. It might just be how the dungeon keeps the Basilisk in its spot, like with some kind of magic fertilizing device.

So this completely ruled out biding my time until it starved and weakened.

Alright, Number 2: It eats other monsters too.

This was something I saw when I was getting kind of sleepy while watching the big white thing laze around all day.

A group of Gomas had come, chasing after a Matango. I was so fucking glad I had my ghillie suit on, like holy shit. Gomas being here and collecting mushrooms meant that this zone was part of their hunting grounds too. And if they found me, I’d have one more problem to deal with.

The rowdy bunch of Gomas didn’t notice me at all and made a lot of noise chasing down the running mushroom.

I guess they didn’t want to breathe in the Matango’s spores, which must’ve been poison or something after all, so they only did ranged attacks like throwing stones or torches or using their bow and arrows. Because of this slow method, they couldn’t quite finish off the Matango and had made it to the banks of the crescent moat, Basilisk territory.

And when the Gomas stepped into its field of Mandragoras, the Basilisk made its move. It’s large body was not the fastest, but it moved almost silently. It waded into the crescent pool without making a sound, approached the new invaders quietly, like a preying alligator, and ――

“Boaahhhh!”

It raised its head from the bog and coated the annoying Gomas with its acidic breath. With a color closer to black than purple, this breath looked deadly, much more putrid than the gas it released when it yawned.

Bathed in the toxic smog, every one of the Gomas instantly started writhing in pain, flooding blood from their mouths, and then falling dead. Their black skin instantly began blistering, with red popping bubbles, and melted away.

The way I once saw Gomas eating a human was chilling, but this was terrifying in a whole other vector.

But I was used to death by now. I wasn’t shocked to the point that I’d forget to analyze this attack.

“… So it can’t melt clothes?”

The Gomas looked awful, I mean, they always did, but all these Gomas were just pulsing meat now. And yet, non of their clothing or weapons had sustained any damage. This didn’t happen with my Rotten Bog. Which meant that the Basilisk’s breath didn’t melt inorganic things, or it didn’t have a strong enough acid or reactive component to do it. It could be some kind of poison that only affected living things, or an acid that highly specialized in melting them.

Still, that shit is scary. The Gomas all died from taking in one breath, and, I only noticed it later but, the Matango had also died writhing around. The mushroom monster obviously didn’t have blood and had become a withered husk.

“One shot of that and I’m dead.”

And I don’t think holding my breath would help. This reminded me of that one movie with the terrorists using this kind of poison gas. What was it, VX gas or something?

Anyways, after its prey had died, the Basilisk waded out of the bog and ate it all up.

Finally, Number 3: the Basilisk’s lifestyle.

This was something I could confirm only because I had Hirano-kun’s watch, since inside the dungeon, there was no day and night, it was all lit up from above, all the time. And since I possessed this ability to measure time exactly, I was able to get a good estimate of the Basilisk’s daily lifestyle.

The Basilisk ate its staple of Mandragoras in the morning. Only once. But if other monsters entered its territory while it wasn’t asleep, it will hunt them down and eat them. I’ve observed it doing this twice, once with the previous incident with the Gomas and the Matango and another time with a lone Matango wandering around aimlessly.

It sleeps at night. It went to sleep right around sunset time, and didn’t move at all until sunrise time. It didn’t move much during the day either, but it still waddled around, sometimes raising its head in a yawn, so I knew it was awake. It kept completely still at night so I marked that down it as not awake.

This was the info I’d obtained over a 3 day stakeout. I had to suffer through a lot of boredom to get to this point, since the Boss was essentially like a NEET, it just lazed around all day. I even had to pull all-nighters so I could measure its sleep cycle.

I’d prefer to get more long term data on the monster, but I wasn’t exactly killing time here. These three days of observation should give me a good enough estimate of the Basilisk’s behavioral patterns.

Now then, let’s address the main issue.

“I have no idea how to kill it.”

I didn’t have any attack strong enough to kill this thing.

There was the possibility that I could sneak up on it at ‘night’ time, but if it woke up, I’d be at a complete loss as to what to do, and, of my life. I’m dead if that destructive breath hits and I’m also dead if it kicks me with those clawed paws.

I’d have to prepare a stick or two of dynamite if I wanted to kill that mammoth of a creature in one go. Needless to say, I did not in fact have a method of manufacturing such a Nobel prize winning explosive. If Mei-chan was here, I bet one solid blow to the head from her would do the job, but I had to think realistic, not miracles.

“So I can’t sneak up on it, then… Uhhh, maybe set a trap?”

I had to think like a caveman trying to hunt a mammoth. I can’t challenge it head on since that would be extremely stupid, but I could trap it, seal its movements, then keep attacking till it dies. I saw this historical documentary where there was a picture of cavemen who’d dug a pit where they dropped the mammoth and were all stabbing it with their spears.

“Can’t do that either. I’m just one person, and how the hell am I going to make a pit that big anyway.”

This was still a solo mission. I guess with Rem it made two of us, but still, I couldn’t see us two prodding away with a Goma’s spear doing much to the Basilisk.

And digging a pit that large wasn’t exactly a viable option. Even with shovels, I highly doubt I had the stamina or will power to build even a human sized pit, let alone one for a 5 meter long creature.

And let’s say I worked my ass off and did dig a Basilisk sized hole, and let’s also say that I somehow got it to fall in. With the type of body it has, I could easily see it just climb out like an oversized newt.

“I gotta think more outside the box. I’m a Shaman, and what’s a Shaman have…”

Right, Curses. No impressive finishing moves, no indominable strength, and no lightning fast wits. What this high school otaku got from his patron God Ruinhilde was solely the power of Curses.

And so I had to work with what I had. I had to think up more and more ways to make use of these Curses.

“Okay,” I sighed, “looks like I’ll need to do a lot more experimenting.”

And once I went and decided on that, I figured I should just try out every little idea I had.

“Let’s start off with, Mud Doll.”

“GAGA?”

Oh, I didn’t mean you Rem.

I’m thinking of making a second one. Which reminds me, the last time I tried this, before that Orthus fight, I’d run out of mana mid way, and the ritual ended in failure. Currently, I could tell by intuition that I could handle having 2 at the same time without much effort, but I wanted to avoid collapsing from mana depletion if at all possible.

It didn’t have to be as strong as my current Mantis gear Rem, just making one that can wield a spear would help a lot with our DPS.

“The parts are, okay-ish.”

The mud base would be the stuff from this zone. The skeleton being a Skeleton since I didn’t have anything better. And, let’s just throw in some Mandragoras.

This should be enough for a trial run.

“Alright――”

I dropped blood from my bloodseal, and recited the full aria. Let’s see where this gets us…

“― ― Hawa!?”

My eyes shot open. The first thing I saw was the familiar white ceiling of the Fairy Square.

“Don’t tell me I passed out again?”

“GA.”

Rem nodded, standing beside me and looking down. Come on, you gotta be kidding me.

I’d went and depleted my mana again.

“Tsk,” I clicked, “gone and wasted all that time.”

I honestly felt like I could do it with my current mana, but it seems I’d overestimated myself. And here I was, so excited to get double the Rems, why does my body have to be so weak all the time?

“GA, GA!”

“It’s okay Rem, I’m not that depressed.”

Rem was patting me on the shoulder which, I guess was her trying to be considerate. I mean, she didn’t have to do it that awkwardly, but, wait, that’s,

There was another Rem.

No, this wasn’t the same one with the green Mantis parts, this new one was the familiar small, black skeleton type that I had a while ago.

“H-holy shit! It worked, it worked!!”

So apparently it took all my mana to make, but I now had an all new Vile Mud Doll.

“Awesome, now to name you――”

I was excited to name the new one, when I suddenly noticed, or should I say, kind of knew already? Anyway, because of the link I had with Rem, I understood something.

“― ― Huh, so you’re Rem too?”

“GAGA.”

Rem and the second one both nodded. Like, simultaneously to the dot, as if Rem was controlling both bodies.

I don’t know if I should say that Rem had a personality, but she was still something like an AI that controlled a body. So I’d always thought that if I made a second one, then a different AI would take control of that body.

But Rem was in fact manipulating both these Mud Dolls. Two bodies with one mind. I couldn’t really imagine how it worked, but maybe it was easy for Rem as she was born from a Curse.

“Okay then,” I accepted, “so how’s the new body? Can you move it normally?”

“GAGAA!”

The Rems started shadowboxing to prove that there were indeed no issues. The original Mantis bladed Rem swung around her Mantis blades, while the second one punched the air. Oh, it just made a kick too.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“GA!”

Rem appealed again, which for some reason, sounded to me like she was saying ‘You bet’cha!’ Must be my imagination.

Anyway, so no problems on the control front. Rem will be able to control both of her bodies without lag or confusion. She won’t get into problems in, say, moving both left arms at the same time.

What’s best of all was that both of them fighting together would not even be teamwork. With one mind, they could move perfectly in sync.

“And that makes Rem all the more powerful…”

And all bodies of Rem would be controlled by the sole Rem, making for precise and crisp movement. Oh boy, oh man, I’m getting excited! Is it finally time to unleash my Super Awesome Servant Army!?

“Beating that Basilisk, I, I might just be able to do it.”

Let’s just called the second Rem, #2.