The Peculiar Case Of A Novel's Villain (Paused)

Chapter 29 - Trouble

"These things keep on regenerating. It seems that this would be slightly difficult. We better find it's weakness, it must be here somewhere." Ryan commented, searching the creatures' body.

"Unfortunately, you won't be able to find it around their body. There aren't any vital parts you could hit, their weakness is salt." Az explained.

"Ah, I see. So that's why you guys wanted to head towards the cafeteria." Ryan said, finally understanding where this is going.

"There are too many of them!" Allen grunted as he uses his sword to block the attacks from the monsters. "Do you guys have any ideas on how to reach the cafeteria?" he shouted, looking at the two boys who're already meters far away from him.

Before any of them could speak, Allen was attacked from behind and lost his balance.

Ryan's eyes widened as he sees him fall.

Az looked horrified and yelled at him in worry. "Allen!"

As the monster goes forward to attack, Allen instinctively slashed it with a sword—causing the creature to stumble backwards. At that moment, he's quite thankful that he learned a little bit in training. This gave him time to move into an adequate position and strike the monster again.

Az sighed in relief. While Ryan continued to fight the monsters hovering around them.

For a while, Allen noticed something. Each monster has a red orb floating at the bottom. The monsters seem to be moving the this orb in different positions. It's as if they're trying to not let it get hit. He noticed that Ryan and Az aren't really aiming for this weird red orb. So far, they were only aiming at what people see in the upper view. None of them ever thought of looking at the bottom, where they have orbs nearby floating near the ground. For a moment, this gave him some ideas.

'What if salt isn't their only weakness? What if there's also something else' Allen thought.

He looks at the red orb, and gave it a shot. He aimed his sword towards it, but the monster dodged. Because of this action, it finally confirmed his suspicions.

'So that's the core.' he thought.

Allen went on a stance and moved his body to the right, pretending to attack him from that direction. As expected the monster moved it's orb to the left. Allen wasted no time and quickly move his body to the left and slashed the orb. As it broke down into half, the monster melted and it lifelessly laid on the ground.

"The orb..." Allen spoke. He immediately looked at his two companions and shouted. "The red orbs! That's their weakness!"

Az and Ryan looked in confusion.

"What red orb? I don't see one!" Az said.

As Ryan processed what Allen was saying, he searched again the body of the monsters. A moment later, he spotted a red orb under one of the monster's. It seems to be camouflaging with the red floor that they're standing.

Both of them took Allen's advice, they followed the advice and slashed the red orbs. The monsters around them melted to death after their cores were destroyed.

"What? I don't understand. I thought salt is their weakness!" Az said, looking very confused.

"Maybe.... salt isn't their only weakness." Ryan said.

Allen nodded at the blue-haired boy's statement. "Yeah, it seems like it." he says, agreeing with him.

"But how did you find out?" Az asked.

"Luck. Pure dumb luck." Allen replied.

Az crossed his arms and arched a brow. Looking at him with an expression that says, 'really'?