“At that pace, it’ll take over a week for it to reach the city, huh?”

Since the discovery of the Sea Emperor Turtle, the port town of Reblos had grown increasingly restless. The fact that it was a Sea Emperor Turtle hadn’t been made public yet, but rumors about the island-like shadow offshore were already spreading throughout the town.

“Kanto and his team are heading out for an investigation today, right?”

“Yeah, seems like it. Since the truth isn’t public yet, it looks like fishing hasn’t been banned either.”

The next day, we came down to the port to check on things. From here, the turtle’s shadow wasn’t visible. It seemed we needed to climb to a higher vantage point.

“The Earth Dragon was tough, but don’t you think this thing is even worse?”

“Yeah, I felt that its presence was stronger than the Earth Dragon’s.”

“I get the feeling that even if we cut off its head, it would still keep moving.”

“Haha, it does seem like the kind of thing that would just grow another head and keep going.”

I laughed it off as a joke, but this was another world. A monster like that wouldn’t be surprising. …Wait, now that I’m thinking about it seriously, I’m starting to feel like it really could regenerate its head.

“Maybe we should just assume it will.”

“Yeah… It’s always good to plan for the worst. Probably.”

“What kind of attacks would even work on that shell?”

Rio lifted her head, staring out at the sea as she pondered.

“Physical attacks probably won’t work, so magic is the way to go… but even then, we should aim for places other than the shell if possible.”

“Yeah. But if we find something that works on the shell, we won’t have to wait for it to come ashore and expose its head.”

“Oh, good point. …Wait, hold on. That means we can actually test it out.”

I recalled what the guild master had said yesterday. Something about how, despite being attacked with full force, it had continued moving without changing its course.

“If that’s the case, it probably won’t even notice if we hit it.”

“Haha, so we can take as many test shots as we want.”

“And besides—”

“Yeah?”

I remembered a game I once played. It had all sorts of different skills.

“There might be some kind of skill that ignores defense.”

“Ohh.”

Some games even had skills or weapons that dealt more damage the higher the target’s defense was. We didn’t have time to go searching for a weapon like that, but testing skills was definitely an option.

“Then maybe there’s a magic version too?”

“Yeah, possibly. Some spells in those games were basically physical attacks but classified as magic.”

Thinking back on it, I recalled plenty of games that had spells like that. If this world worked the same way, there was no harm in trying everything.

“Heh. There’s a lot of variety, huh? Since magic in this world is pretty diverse too, let’s experiment as much as we can.”

And so, we set out once again toward the Sea Emperor Turtle.

We overtook the ship carrying Kanto’s team, the second investigation unit, and landed on the turtle’s back. We chose a relatively flat area far from the city, ensuring that any counterattacks wouldn’t affect the town.

“Alright then.”

I strapped my gauntlets onto both arms and cracked my knuckles.

“I’m ready.”

Rio tapped the ground lightly with the tip of her staff.

“First, let’s clear away all the unnecessary stuff on its shell.”

“Leave it to me.”

Rio raised her staff and unleashed a large-scale spell. It was Fire Sandstorm—flames burned away everything in their path while sand particles scraped the surface. Once the storm settled, the rough, characteristic texture of the shell was revealed.

“Hmm… Just as expected, no damage.”

“I didn’t put that much magic into it.”

“If that had worked, this would’ve been easy.”

“Haha, no way an opponent like this would go down that easily.”

“Alright, let’s start with physical attacks.”

“Good luck~”

With Rio’s encouragement, I stepped forward, bracing myself. I poured magic into my left gauntlet—the Crimson Dragon Gauntlet, imbued with fire and earth attributes. Then, gathering power, I thrust my fist straight down.

A thunderous explosion echoed, sending dust and debris flying.

Once the dust settled, I saw that the impact had created cracks about five meters wide in the shell.

“Only cracks, huh?”

I tried prying at the cracked section, but it had only damaged the surface layer. The lower layers seemed completely unaffected.

“That broken layer was already pretty thick, but considering the turtle’s size, that’s probably just its outermost skin.”

“Maybe it’s thinking, ‘Thanks for exfoliating my shell, much appreciated.’”

“Alright, my turn.”

“Go for it.”

Rio stepped up and cast her spell on the same spot. First, she blasted it with an extreme heat spell. As I reinforced my defenses with a barrier, the temperature suddenly dropped—she had switched to an ice spell. This rapid temperature shift might just work.

She then followed up by bringing the temperature back to normal with another fire spell.

“…Hmm.”

“Doesn’t seem very effective, huh?”

The cracked shell at the surface was crumbling away, but the layers underneath remained unscathed. A quick appraisal showed that the turtle’s HP hadn’t even gone down.

“Well, let’s just keep testing things out.”

“Yeah. We still have time. …Nir, you can go all out too.”

“Wafu!!”

At my words, Nir expanded back to his full size and gleefully pounced on the turtle’s shell.

“…Just try not to be too obvious about it.”

I wasn’t sure if he heard me, though.