After that, Maple wandered around the town for a while, but ended up returning to the guild without buying anything else that was new.
Yui and Mai immediately reacted when Maple opened the door and entered.
“Ah! Maple!”
Yui came running towards Maple.
“What? Did something happen?”
“There’s this quest with a monster that we can’t beat…could you help us?”
“Please!”
They said in unison and lowered their heads.
“Yeah, sure! I don’t have anything else to do anyway.”
“Thank you! Chrome and Kanade left together, and we didn’t know what to do…”
Aside from them, Izu was the only other person left in the guild.
And it wasn’t easy for Izu to kill monsters, which made her an unreliable helper.
“Alright, let’s go then. Will you show me the way?”
“Yes!”
“Yes!”
They got up on Syrup’s back and moved through the field for 10 minutes.
Then they arrived at their destination.
“Um, it’s a monster that comes out here and uh, it seems that physical attacks don’t work on it…please help us!”
“Hm…maybe Hydra would work?”
“I think it will.”
Maple heard what information they had about the monster before bringing Syrup down to the ground and activating ‘Dedicated Affection.’ Then she drank a potion and went into a fighting stance.
“The monster is…oh, there it is!”
What Maple was looking at was a shredded robe and a rusted and battered long sword that floated in the air.
It looked very much like a ghost, and so it was not surprising that physical attacks would not work on it.
“Alright, Hy-…huh? It disappeared.”
“Oh, that monster can disappear… We’re sorry, we didn’t know.”
Yui and Mai had quickly given up after just two tries, and so they didn’t have a good grasp on the monster’s actions.
Maple, Yui, and Mai were not the types to actively gather information, and so they barely knew anything other than the fact that physical attacks didn’t work.
“It’s close!?”
The monster had become invisible as it approached her. Maple had not been able to react in time, and the sword hit her as it swung down.
There was a loud bang and the ground that had been shining returned to normal through ‘Dedicated Affection.’
“Huh? Hey, uh, ‘Cover’!”
The monster’s next attack was just about to hit Yui, but she was somehow able to stop it by using ‘Cover,’ which she had not used for a while.
The monster moved back and then disappeared once again.
“Dedicated Affection! Huh? It won’t activate? …Oh, it’s been sealed!”
While Maple had bought the charm to resist being sealed while out in town with Sally, she had chosen three skills that raised her defenses.
She had not included ‘Dedicated Affection’ in there.
“Um…I know, ‘Hair Growth’!”
Maple turned into a hairball. Yui and Mai quickly understood what she was doing, and they took off their weapons and dove inside of her.
Maple’s head popped out of the front and she turned to talk to Yui and Mai.
“Alright, can I leave the rest to you two?”
“Yes!”
“Yes!”
The two moved busily inside of the hairball until they were underneath Maple, who was now on her side. Then they stretched their bodies out and picked Maple up.
Only their faces stuck out of the hairball.
“Mai, it’s on the left!”
“Yes!”
Yui and Mai directed the part where Maple’s head was sticking out towards the left.
The monster slashed towards Yui once again.
“Yes!”
Yui and Mai put the hairball down and dove inside once again.
By doing this, the monster who had targeted Yui ended up only cutting the wool over Maple’s head.
“‘Hydra’!”
Maple’s hand thrust out of the hairball and a torrent of poison shot out at the monster from the short sword that she was holding.
It caught the monster who was close to them and carved away all of its HP bar.
Even if the instant kill effect didn’t trigger, it had still been an opponent that they could beat.
“Phew…we did it! Uh, how many do we have to kill?”
“10 of them, please.”
“Alright! Well, let’s continue like this then.”
Maple decided, and so Yui and Mai picked Maple up again and made sure that she was supported properly, and then started walking forward.
And then they stepped into the puddle of poison in front of them and died.
“Wah!? Huh, what happened!?”
Maple splashed loudly onto the ground.
She asked Yui and Mai, but there was no answer.
“Hm? Ah…”
There was a sea of purple on the ground.
After her belated realization of what had happened, she hurriedly activated ‘Savagery’ and ran back to pick them up.
At the same time, Chrome and Kanade were out hunting monsters with Marx and Drag.
“Ah, you really are a great shield-bearer.”
Drag was the main firepower, while Chrome, Kanade, and Marx acted as support while they hunted.
“Really? Maple is better with a shield…”
“That’s not a shield…not a shield.”
Marx mumbled to himself.
In Marx’s opinion, Chrome was the best with a great shield.
“Does Maple…have that placement among us as well?”
“I’m not sure? Well, Maple isn’t always as insane as she is during events. She’s a shield-bearer, but she leaves a lot of openings. Well, maybe that’s because she doesn’t need to protect.”
Maple could block swords, spears, arrows, and magic with her body.
She had pursued defense ability more than anyone, which resulted in her needing to defend herself less than anyone.
“Pain wants to beat Maple, but I’ve given up. Though, I don’t think it’s impossible.”
“Shouldn’t we start moving…? There are no more monsters…”
As Marx said, they had hunted all of the monsters in the area. And so the four of them decided to move.
And just as they started to move to the next point.
They saw monster Maple running in the corner of their vision at an incredible speed.
“And you said she wasn’t usually like that…”
“I guess I was wrong…sorry.”
The four of them stood there for a while as if time had stopped.