My Glasses

Chapter 188 – Glasses boy and the hunting festival – part ten

There was one big problem with this new plan… One Point could only be activated through contact.

As in, I need to touch the Dragon Fish to use it.

But the Dragon Fish is in the lake. It is not within reach.

And trying to enter the water myself would surely kill me, as I certainly have no chance of winning there.

… The second plan I had originally thought of before the battle started, was to wait until the Dragon Fish tried to bite me, so that I could stab it directly with the harpoon when it got close to me on land.

However, now that I know it has a projectile attack, I can safely conclude that it’s extremely unlikely for it to ever approach me on land.

The Dragon Fish already shot its water blade three times.

I dodged all three of them, but the Dragon Fish does not seem to have any plans of changing its attack method.

The Dragon Fish understands. It shouldn’t look at this as, ‘this isn’t working’, but more like, ‘this just needs to work once and it’ll be over.’

That’s why it keeps on shooting the water blades.

Therefore, I can safely assume that this enemy is currently very calm and using a smart plan of action.

For as long as it remains calm, it will remain at a safe distance and will attack with projectiles only.

In other words, I need to anger the Dragon Fish.

******

While still holding the harpoon with my right hand, I used my left hand to take something out a leather bag in my pocket.

It was just an ordinary stone… Specifically, a stone that was just big enough to be easily thrown.

I set the Anomalous Ogre gift and threw a stone at the Dragon Fish’s face.

Sure, it was just a stone, but with the power of Anomalous Ogre, this was actually a pretty powerful attack that might be able to even kill a wild boar.

The Dragon Fish dodged it, but it didn’t matter.

I just kept throwing them. I threw more and more stones at it.

As it tried to aim its water blade, I kept on relentlessly throwing stones at its mouth and face.

I must have thrown thirty or so stones at it.

About half of them were avoided, but a decent few were able to hit, and three of them were actually able to land good hits that stunned the Dragon Fish for a moment.

Specifically, one hit it near the eyes, another at the point that the whisker came from, and the third one hit right inside the mouth when the Dragon Fish was about to spit out a water blade.

And then, the Dragon Fish roared.

It was such a loud roar that it spread ripples across the lake’s surface… And as it did that, the Dragon Fish stretched its body high above.

I already had to look up to see its head when it just had a small part of its body above the water, but it had now rose to twice that height and… It started falling towards me with a tremendous force.

Seems like I succeeded in angering it.

So, I jumped backwards just as the Dragon Fish was about to land, which lead to its head falling right in front of me.

This was my chance.

But just as I took a step towards the Dragon Fish… It too moved.

Wait, hold on… Can this Demon Beast actually move on land?

With its snake-like body, the Dragon Fish slithered through the grass and ground, and headed straight towards me.

Moreover, it was quite fast even on land, perhaps because of its slimy body.

And its mouth opened. Its bottomless red mouth opened and showed me the abyss inside it.

… Is it planning on swallowing me whole?

Ah, wait, hold on, it makes sense now.

I was sure that this was a purely aquatic Demon Beast, but this isn’t the case.

This is why the location of the two Dragon Fish sightings didn’t match. Because the Dragon Fish had left the lake and was moving on land during the heavy rain.

I have no doubts that this is an aquatic Demon Beast, but it seems like it’s capable of acting on land to some extent.

When it’s raining heavily, the Dragon Fish might decide to jump high up towards the sky, fall on land, then move around for a bit, essentially taking a stroll.

… Well, more importantly than that, I set my Gift to Float, lightened my weight as much as possible, then jumped as high as I could. Jumped above the charging Dragon Fish.

******

… That was very dangerous.

It wasn’t a big deal because we just grazed each other though.

With my currently reduced weight, I didn’t take much damage from the impact. It was simply a slight graze of my foot with its upper jaw. It felt like my foot had essentially slipped through fluff.

And honestly, I might have even been able to handle it if I went into its mouth and the Dragon Fish actually tried to swallow me whole.

But the problem was that it could bite me.

If I was caught in-between its sharp fangs, and crushed by the power of its jaws, I would surely die in an instant.

There is just too much disparity in our sizes. Its head alone is thicker than my entire body.

No matter what I tried, there was just no way I would be able to escape once I was bitten.

But well, this barely avoided crisis also created an opportunity.

Because I jumped upwards just as the Dragon Fish was charging me, I ended up landing on its smooth body and started sliding downwards.

… It’s really way too slippery, huh? This body is incredibly slimy, after all.

But still, my preparations were now complete. And the Gift had the exact effect that I expected.

I set One Point while I slid down, and then used this extremely niche Gift that could create or remove moles from one’s body.

One might laugh when thinking that this is all that this Gift can do, but if you change your way of thinking about it, you might realize that there is more to it.

Adding a mole or extinguishing it… That’s essentially altering the skin.

So, with this Gift, a mole appeared on the Dragon Fish’s slimy skin. A palm-sized black dot appeared near the left side of its head.

A mole that was not covered in a transparent slimy membrane. A weak spot that could no longer parry my attacks.

With this, I was able to stab the Dragon Fish with my harpoon before it started moving again.

******

Once again, the Dragon Fish roared.

But this time, it wasn’t out of anger due to some pebbles, but because my harpoon penetrated through its skin that was meant to be absolutely impenetrable, then pierced through its scales, and penetrated deep into its flash.

Anger, confusion, impatience. I could feel an instinctive awe at this roar that made those emotions reach me.

But I did not stop moving.

The Dragon Fish started thrashing about due to the sudden pain, but with Anomalous Ogre, I was able to pull the rope tied to the harpoon and restrain it-

I gasped.

As I stabbed the Dragon Fish close to its head, the head area could now be restrained.

… But the tail was still free.

Said tail was still submerged in the lake until a moment ago, but it now started moving up and down, left and right. Twisting itself, curling in all sorts of ways… And it hit me directly, regardless of it being aimed at me or not.

I was able to withstand the blow due to Anomalous Ogre, but it still hurt a lot… If I didn’t have this Gift active, I would have probably been killed by this single blow.

Let’s settle this quickly. So as to stop the Dragon Fish from suffering much longer.

The rope wrapped around my arm functioned as the Dragon Fish’s reins.

Once its rampage had calmed down a bit, I pulled the rope and forcefully dragged it towards the forest. Pulling it completely out of the water, tail included.

It tried to rampage a few more times as I pulled it, but I was more careful this time and dodged the blows while continuing to pull it with the ropes.

Then, I moved in a circle pattern throughout the forest, dragging its head with me all the way until I came back to the lake.

So, right now, with the entire body on land, and with me dragging it for a while, the Dragon Fish’s body had formed a distorted ring that went from its head to its tail.

… Truly, Florentine’s Anomalous Ogre is way too amazing.

Mine is just a weakened copy of hers, after all. The original Gift should be able to do much more than this.

She says that her Gift simply makes her strong, but I’ve now realized that this means she is strong no matter what she is being compared against.

If Florentine was here, she would be able to kill this Dragon Fish with her bare hands.

But well, a mere hunter like me can’t handle Demon Beasts like this one without using careful plans and multiple tools.

So, now that the Dragon Fish was decently restrained, I picked up the other two harpoons I had prepared and stabbed them in two places. At the tail and at the body. Fixing the Dragon Fish in place.

They might come loose if the Dragon Fish rampages a bit too much, but this should be enough to restrain it for a short while.

So, let’s finish this.

I didn’t expect to use it this soon, but this was the right time to make use of it.

Using the rope on my right arm to keep the Dragon Fish’s head in place, I approached it and pulled out a white knife.

It was the knife made from the fang of the Obsidian Wolf that I had just received.

The Dragon Fish was glaring at me while it was still pinned to the ground, but I continued moving forward, aiming my blade at the spot just above the area between its eyes. At what would be the forehead in a human’s head.

Now that I could look at it from up close, I realized that this area was not slimy.

Perhaps the Dragon Fish wasn’t avoiding my stones to protect its mouth, but to protect its head instead.

… Well, I don’t know if a stone would be able to pierce its scales though.

Either way, in one swift motion, I canceled Anomalous Ogre, set Shadow Hunter Warrior, and thrusted the knife into the Dragon Fish’s head.

This hunt was now finished.

******

The Dragon Fish jumped up just once, but then laid itself down helplessly.

The slimy luster disappeared, and its body quickly became purely white.

Now that I could be sure that this Demon Beast was dead, I touched the area around its eyelids.

It was a hard, cold Demon Beast now. But it was alive until just a moment ago.

I thank you for your life.