Epic Of Caterpillar

Chapter 123 - Ice Cold Caves

[Day 113]

In the morning, we were greeted by a change in our surroundings, it seems that we were sent to a different floor overnight. However, it seems that no one stayed on the latest floor.

Whatever is this mysterious power that automatically moves us somewhere else, itʼs very well thought, as it didnʼt leave anyone behind.

When I went outside of the tents, I found several piles of different kinds of monsters, which were killed when they tried to ambush on our sleep by my flesh and slime minions.

We found ourselves on a new floor named [Ice Cold Caves]. Instead of the damp and foggy atmosphere, there was a subtle mist of very cold air everywhere, alongside this, the floor was covered by a thin cape of ice.

The monsters found here, according to the guide book are the Fuzzy Ice Crawlers, Snow Apes, Lesser Ice Fairies, Ice Cold Crabs, Ice and Fire Golems, Giant Tundra Tarantulas, etc.

The three bosses on this floor rotate between the Ice-Cold Tyrant Ape, a giant ape covered on white fur and ice scales, that blows everything with his powerful punches and ice weapons.

The Three-Headed Ice Basilisk, a massive serpent with three heads, covered on ice scales, each head can conjure a different type of magic, and possess deadly freezing poison, alongside a freezing glare.

Lastly, the High Ice Fairy Empress Lazuli, the strongest of the three bosses, is seen as the mother of every Ice Fairy encountered here, her strength is superb, and can manipulate and control ice with ease, she resembles a beautiful woman with pale blue skin, and azure hair alongside giant wings made of ice and a beautiful semi-transparent dress. She also attacks with a refined rapier which can easily pierce adamantine.

The only ones affected by the low temperatures on this floor were the three humans, so I gave each one a set of winter clothes that come with ice resistance enchantments.

I settled a bonfire in the middle of the corridor, quickly melting the thin ice cape over the ground. We ended up eating every monster killed overnight, which contained most of the monsters on this floor. It seems that the corpses will disappear after five hours if they arenʼt saved anywhere, so the pile should be even bigger if some corpses didnʼt disappear already.

The meat of the monsters on this floor is… Quite dull. After eating so many delicious monsters, these beastʼs meat seems rather underwhelming… Well, the Lesser Ice Fairies resemble Yuki-onnaʼs meat, but its nothing like the real deal.

[You learned the following Skills]

[Ice Crab Carapace Creation]

[Ancient Ice Fairy Bloodline]

Oh… It seems that these monsters are strong enough to get a few skills from them.

My children were quite excited about a new dungeon and seemed to be enjoying themselves, so it was all going as I planned. They will know the dangers of a dungeon while gaining some levels and developing their strength.

I really want them to get strong as fast as possible, but rushing things may end up affecting their personalities somehow, so I made them take it easy, while still rushing it to a certain extent.

After three hours, more than one hundred monsters were slain by my children. Valentia and Aarae have leveled quite a lot and Valentia was devouring a giant Ice Ape by herself, using her giant jaw to munch on the monster whole body, eating the entire body in three bites. Her appetite far surpasses Amiphossia and is almost as comparable to Nesiphae.

Sometimes Valentia would leave her prey alive and devour them while they struggle, saying that living prey tastes more delicious, as they twist their bodies inside of her mouth.

Well… She is rather sadistic in that regard… But it seems to be a part of her personality, and it doesnʼt affect us. She is nice with her brothers and very protective of Aarae, so thereʼs nothing to worry about. For the most part, Valentia is just following her instincts, and as a demi-human of the Mershark race, I think that itʼs something they should embrace.

My wives were getting quite bored, so even when the monsters were far weaker than them, they also joined on the hunt. Thankfully, there were tons of spawn zones on this place, so everyone was able to kill and hunt to their heartʼs content.

Our big group ended up separating itself so we could all hunt more efficiently. Gaby went with Valentia and Aarae, Nesiphae went with Amiphossia and Evan, Zehe went with Ryo, Wagyu with Kekensha, Mady with Adelle, Charlotte with Lilith, and Rimuru with Brontes and me.

Because the monsters were easily defeated with anything, we threw at them, it felt more like a double date with the cute Rimuru and Brontes. Rimuru jumped around graciously throwing powerful rays of rainbow-colored magic, completely blasting any monster we came across. Her gracious movements made her resemble a beautiful water fairy.

Brontes on the other hand used her herculean strength and a silver club to fight several monsters head-on, she raised her muscular brown colored arms as she made any monster explode with a hit from her club, thanks to her supernatural strength. Her beauty was increased as she bathed her sexy and muscular body on blood and sweat.

I also joined the fight and we killed more than three hundred monsters of all kinds, thanks to the several spawn points, it served as an endless supply of EXP, Items, and Food. Too bad the exp was underwhelming due to the monsterʼs low levels.

[You gained 1183550 EXP] [Rimuru and Brontes gained tons of EXP]

[LEVEL 015/250 EXP 5737251/13000000]

After four hours passed, we gathered once again were our tent was, which was being guarded by my flesh and slime minions alongside some Undead Soldiers that I summoned beforehand.

It seems that the hunt went quite well, as everyone came with a big pile of monsters, although Valentiaʼs group had to miss the majority of it because she ate them.

The boss room had already been detected by Zeheʼs group thanks to her own methods of investigations named Shadow Bats, which are similar to my flesh and slime minions, being able to easily gather information, which they can send to Zeheʼs mind thanks to [Mind Connection].

Knowing the route to the boss room, we relaxed for a bit as we held a small feast for lunch, preparing all the monsters we hunted before they disappear. When the monsters are butchered and cooked, they wonʼt disappear, but their pelts and bones may disappear anyway, so we needed to save them on our Item Boxes.

I am not a picky eater so even when the monsters on this floor were underwhelming in flavor, I still ate hundreds of plates. Seriously, Rimuru has improved her cooking skills tremendously, she has settled herself as the cook of the group and its happy to be.

[You learned the following Skills]

[Storm of Ice Spikes]

[Consecutive Ice Attacks]

When we finished our meal, we quickly approached the boss room. Although it seemed empty at first glance, a strong presence could be felt hiding beneath the ice.

Suddenly, the ice began to shake as a humanoid figure appeared from it. It had the appearance of a beautiful adult woman, with a graceful demeanor and an alluring figure.

Its skin was pale blue and over its head, it held a small crown made of ice, while wearing a long semi-transparent dress. Its eyes were completely blue, without pupils and its hair was azure-colored. Her wings seemed to be made completely out of ice and were able to reflect any type of light.

Well, we are on our lucky day, as this is the strongest boss on the floor, the High Ice Fairy Empress Lazuli. His beauty had no equals, and if she was not a spawned boss, I would have most likely taken her as a wife… Sadly, this canʼt be the case.

It seems that she is very intelligent as Lazuli stood still while raising her ice rapier, awaiting a challenger.

After some talk, we decided to leave the boss to my four children, who quickly gathered together once again. Their teamwork has evolved quite a lot and their tremendous power can be compared to a veteran adventurer party by now, perhaps even better.

Although Lazuli was very strong and incredibly fast, the masterful teamwork of my children managed to defeat the boss in half an hour.

This boss had a myriad of moves at her disposal, which she used in conjunction with gracefully. As she flew through the room, she conjured several ice spikes and crystal storms, alongside physically attacking with her ice rapier, that is considered a [Unique++] weapon, and can be a potential drop of hers.

Valentia who was buffed beforehand by Aarae and Amiphossia, worked as the main tank, intercepting the bossʼs powerful strokes and most of the ice spikes, using her bare hands as weapons.

Meanwhile, Ryo worked as a secondary tank while also providing plenty of damage himself, alongside attacking with his powerful blows and different weapon techniques, he also was able to attack from a distance using the Shadow Magic that Zehe had previously taught to him against his will, and now was proven to be very useful.

On the other hand, Aarae was mainly the ranged attacker of the group, while also providing support with water shields and minor enhancements. His Hammerhead Shark Guardian worked as a third tank whenever the first two needed were too overwhelmed. And even when it was destroyed, it was able to regenerate endlessly as long as Aarae gave it enough magic.

Last but not least, the backbone of the entire party was Amiphossia, who provided plenty of support, especially with her superb healing magic alongside her useful phantasmal magic. She also debuffed the boss with her corrosion poison magic and was overall the reason everyone was able to fight as freely without worrying about their health.

After defeating the boss, the party gained plenty of levels and Valentia immediately jumped over the Fairy Empress corpse, beginning to devour the beautiful fairy as if it were a piece of meat, and well, it was…

They obtained one of the rarest drops, being Lazuliʼs rapier, named [Malevolent Ice Crystal Rapier; Zamerzat]. It seemed to be made entirely of thin ice, but it was, in reality, a very rare material named Ice Diammonium, a mineral only found on the deeps of the Snowy Mountain Walls that surround this Realm. The rapier was masterfully decorated with rose thorns made of ice and small paintings resembling ice flowers.

Amiphossia was the only sword fighter in the group so the sword was given to her. Although she already that I forged for her, I didnʼt mind her having another sword she could use.

However, she rushed to me and asked me to fuse the rapier with her shortsword using my skill [Armor Combination] … I have never tried using it on weapons, so I was unsure if it could work.

In the end, it didnʼt work, the fusion was canceled as both items are not considered [Armor] or [Protection]. However, I came with another idea.

With horror, Amiphossia saw how I devoured both weapons without any remorse. Before she could yell at me on why did I do such a cruel thing, I ate around one hundred Magic Cores and generated a new weapon using [Organic Equipment Materialization and Creation].

”Mom! H-How could you just eat it?!”

The new weapon combined both weaponʼs characteristics and abilities, and it even increased its rank to [Unique+++]. I also added some more abilities on my own using other accessories Iʼve devoured beforehand.

The new weapon was named [Malicious Freezing Venomous Basilisk Rapier; Ledyanoy Yad] and held tremendous new powers.

Amiphossia slowly changed her angry and almost crying face to one of amusement and admiration.

”Aaah! Mommy! That was incredible! How did you do that?”

”Haha! Your mother has plenty of talents, Amiphossia. However, how I did it, shall remain a secret for now…”

”Ooh? Well, itʼs fine… Now, give me that!”

Amiphossia loved her new combined weapon, and after some time, my wives and children also wanted me to fuse some of their equipment.

After spending some minutes fusing accessories and equipment, we had our turn to kill the boss with my wives and servants, as it quickly respawned some minutes later.

Due to its quick respawning, we killed plenty of them and had Ice Fairy Empress meat for months. We obtained several drops from her but the rapier was never obtained ever again. There must be a hidden condition that we werenʼt able to accomplish as we killed her too fast.

[You gained 1482000 EXP] [The rest of your family/servants gained tons of EXP]

[LEVEL 015/250 EXP 7219251/13000000]

The EXP was fine enough for having killed more than twenty Ice Fairy Empress, however, due to the rareness of this boss, I felt the necessity to keep farming her materials and meat.

After having a giant dinner featuring plenty of preparations using this floor boss meat, I decided to keep killing it overnight.

[You learned the following Skills]

[Ice Spikes Catastrophe]

[Winter Punishment]

[Cruel Freezing Stroke]

After spending four hours, I managed to kill the boss fifty times by myself. I manage to do it without any effort while crafting new accessories, I left a trap that automatically killed the boss in one blow using a spell named [Blasting Inferno], that I made using my [Metis Grand Magic Knowledge Library].

[You gained 3536800 EXP]

[LEVEL 015/250 EXP 10756051/13000000]

Alongside the EXP, the boss dropped several bags full of gold as prices, alongside some Ice Accessories and Ice Spirit Stones.

Although I would have loved to keep grinding on this boss, it was already very late and I didnʼt want the dungeon to leave me behind when it moves my group to the next floor, as I was quite far from them.

I saved thirty corpses on my Item Box and ate twenty by myself, using my slime transformation method, and then went to bed.

[You learned the following Skills]

[Ice Empress Everlasting Winter Dance]

[Ice Empress Silver Barrier]

[World-Rejecting Ice Crystals]

[Coldblooded]

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