Who Needs Magic in a Fantasy World Anyway?

Chapter 114: Bad Beetle, Good Beetle

"Gross gross gross!" Koko yelled as she quickly performed a series of backflips in order to avoid the barrage of mucus that the beetle queen had spat at her.

"It's acidic! Don't let it hit you!" Neren yelled from a short distance away before grunting as he raised his shield to block two of the queen's razor-sharp legs than had been headed towards him.

"I wouldn't want to touch it even if it wasn't deadly!" Koko cried as the pale-green substance bubbled and fumed while melting several sections of both the stone bridge and webbing around her.

"Look out! It's doing something with its wings!" A mage in their group yelled as the beetle queen landed in front of them and stood on its multiple hind legs, though it was too late for Koko to prepare for anything as the beetle queen moved all eight of its wings forward at the same time, creating a gust of wind so powerful that it lifted Koko slightly off of her feet. However, as she attempted to get low to the ground so that she could resist it, a flying Neren hit her and they were both sent tumbling backwards. And if the globs of acid snot, weapon-like legs and the ability to fly weren't enough, the beetle queen now let out an ear-piercing shriek that seemed to ring inside of Koko's head and began to make her see double for some reason.

"Its-! Its roar has a confusion effect!" Neren struggled to say while Koko held he hands over her ears seeing as Neren's voice sounded like it had come from several different directions around her and was echoing in her mind. However, that wasn't the most alarming thing seeing as the frames of all of the adventurers around her started shrinking until she could hardly see them.

"Oh, come on! Not again!" Koko protested, though thankfully they didn't quite become stick figures and the surroundings remained the same, so it wasn't quite exactly like the hallucinations that she'd experienced with her last dungeon. However, when she attempted to get up so that she could fight again, she immediately fell back to the ground as the confusion had apparently made her completely forget how to use her legs.

"Priests! Cure those affected by the roar and be ready to defend against it next time!" Dedrick's voice echoed throughout the chamber. But while the priests started working instantly and the priestess that had already been Neren's group before rushed to help him first, the monster they were facing wasn't going to wait for them to recover as it jumped up into the air and started flying towards them. And while she'd seen it coming, Koko couldn't move out of the way in time as the beetle queen slammed more of its legs into Neren's shield as he defended himself. But after it failed to injure him, it turned its sights on her before swinging several of its legs in Koko's direction.

Unable to defend herself as she'd lost most of her control over not just her legs but her arms as well, Koko was powerless to stop the monster as its legs connected to her right sight and she let out a short cry as the sharp edges immediately pierced through her skin. And while the legs thankfully didn't manage to remove her right arm entirely as she was afraid that they would, they'd struck her hard enough to send her into the air and eventually off of the stone bridge entirely. Though rather than falling into the webbing that nearly acted like a secondary floor, she'd managed to find a large gap wide enough that she avoided it completely before plummeting into the darkness below.

"Sen-!" Koko attempted to call out for her pet before she was interrupted by her throat filling with what she guessed was blood. Though thankfully the beetle must have understood her as a glowing red light appeared from beneath her before she landed on Senshi's back and the beetle began hovering in the air.

"Thanks..." Koko thanked it in a whisper after coughing up the blood in her throat before looking down and shuddering as she saw what the beetle queen's attack had done to her. Because while the injury on her upper arm was just likely the one that she'd had on her left arm before with the bone being visible and  the muscle around it being torn to shreds, the wound on the side of her stomach was of more concern seeing as her blood-soaked white robes were cut nearly to her belly button and everything from her waist down was tingling as if it were turning numb.

While hopefully stopping just before it'd hit her spine, the beetle queen's sharp leg almost succeeded in cutting Koko in half. And while she could look down and see her wound, unfortunately, Koko couldn't even move her arms in order to try to stop the bleeding. But even If she couldn't hardly speak due to the blood that kept welling her throat, Senshi thankfully somehow knew instinctively what she wanted as the beetle began flying upwards to the webbing again before passing through a large open section of it and emerging on the other side. And after arriving back at the fight between boss monsters and adventurers, Senshi then flew Koko over to where the reserve groups were waiting.

"Koko?!" Both Christina and Richard yelled at the same time when they saw her.

"Don't worry. Doesn't even hurt." She gave them a slight smile as Senshi landed. "Just kind of feels cold, really."

"I don't suppose that this'll make you reconsider chasing after dangerous situations, will it?" Austin asked as one of the priests used either some kind of spell or skill on her that surprisingly healed her injuries almost instantly.

"Did you get hit by the confusion too? You're talking crazy." Koko replied before slamming her right fist into her left palm. "Now is the time for revenge!"

"Yeah, I thought not..." Austin sighed from behind her as Koko ran towards her temporary group again. And now that she was both healed and whatever had affected her mind before was cured, she was ready to give the monster an actual fight this time.

"Alright, time for round two!" Koko shouted up at the monster that was currently flying over their heads and attempting to shoot its mucus at a rogue that was circling the exterior of the chamber while dodging all of the attacks.

"We need to find a way to ground it." Neren, after only glancing at her once when Koko returned, stated.

"Aim for the wings! Got it!" Koko yelled before wondering just how she was going to get up to the beetle queen. Because even if she could jump relatively high, she didn't think that she'd be able to reach it. But luckily she now had a way around this particular obstacle, and almost as if it were reading her mind, Senshi walked up next to her and she immediately hopped to her normal place behind his head. "Let's go get her, Senshi!"