Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon - Vol. 03

by Hirukuma,

  “Found him, did he? Have them keep a set distance and continue watching. Let’s hurry there.”

  Here we go. I’ve done several simulations in my mind, so I think we’ll pull through, but if the situation calls for it, I’ll devote myself to defense.

  The question is what Hulemy, the noncombatant, will do, but she’s heading to the scene along with the buar cart. They’ve taken the hood off the cart, and Shui is riding in it as well, set up to provide ranged attacks.

  She has Suco and Pell from the Band of Gluttons as guards as well, so she decided she would be fine. Either way, we can’t leave her behind, nor can we afford to go back to the settlement.

  “We should get there in about ten minutes,” says Captain Kerioyl from the driver’s seat, his hands gripping the reins. “Prepare yourselves.”

  Everyone nods.

  The Menagerie of Fools and Hulemy are all on the buar cart, which is proceeding at a decent clip, with the Band of Gluttons and Lammis running alongside it.

  I know I should be used to it already, but it still surprises me how strong her legs are to easily push out this much speed with me on her back. Once she can freely control her power without having anything else, she’ll probably gain so much strength nobody could beat her. But for now, she still seems to have trouble controlling it. She’ll just have to practice again and again to get her body used to it.

  “There they are.”

  Behind a boulder in front of us are Red and the Band of Gluttons’s Mikenne and Short. They wave to us. We slow down as we approach, and for now, everyone hides behind the boulder.

  “What’s it looking like?”

  “The King of Souls is up ahead, along with a group of monsters we think are his subordinates. Five corpse fiends, five soul fiends, eight skeleton fiends, and four flame scolls.”

  The simple question garners an appropriate response. His cronies number twenty-two. It’s within the allowable range we decided on beforehand, but it’s still a little much.

  “We can take them, but… We’ll want to take out as many as we can in our opening move.”

  “And we don’t have the vice captain,” comments Shui. “Though a bow would pick off a few before they got close.”

  How can we take them all out at once? We don’t have magic, so our ranged attacks are limited to a bow and the captain’s throwing knives. With the Band of Gluttons’s hands, they can’t handle throwing weapons, and Lammis’s accuracy is too low.

  I could put out the flame scolls’ fires by using the pressure washer to shoot water, but it won’t do anything against the other monsters. Red explained that the monsters are positioned in a ring around the King of Souls, so maybe we should be using those flames instead. In that case, why not change into a kerosene meter, scatter the kerosene, and turn the entire area into a sea of fire?

  Huh, that might actually be a good plan. To be safe, maybe I should use gasoline or diesel, since they have lower flash points. There’s a gas pump right there in my features list, after all.

  “If we can eradicate the small ones, it would be easy… Oh, Boxxo, you think of something?”

  Captain Kerioyl’s eyes widen when he sees me change shape. I don’t mind if someone has high expectations of me, but the issue is whether they’ll quickly understand how to use this.

  At first glance, it’s a square body that looks like a normal vending machine, but it has red, yellow, and green nozzles stuck in it. An adult Japanese person would understand, but the red nozzle gives regular gasoline, the yellow gives high octane, and the green gives diesel.

  Lammis, apparently having her own ideas, sets my form-changed body onto the ground and stares intently at me. Here’s where the problem comes in. How can I get them to understand?

  “This looks like the apparatus that shot water,” says Hulemy. “Can I pull this out?”

  “Welcome.”

  At a glance, Hulemy realizes what it is and pulls out the diesel nozzle. She looks at it in her hand. I’m glad she understood that much, but…

  “Yeah, this looks like the same tool that shot water. Something will come out of the tip when I pull this, right?”

  “Welcome.” Thankfully, she already knows all about the pressure washer.

  “I’ll pull it. Is that all right?”

  Of course. That’s exactly what I want. “Welcome.”

  Hulemy turns the tip away from everyone else and pulls the lever. Clear liquid begins to gush out of the nozzle. There’s normally a safety feature on these so the gas won’t come out unless it’s in a tank, but I had that disabled.

  “Ack! That smells awful!”

  The Band of Gluttons hold their noses and scowl.

  Hulemy releases the lever, and after putting the nozzle back where it was, she squats and begins investigating the diesel that leaked onto the ground.

  “Boxxo, can I touch this? It’s not poison or anything, right?”

  “Welcome.” A little touch won’t cause a problem. The most it’ll do is make her hand smell.

  “Man, this really stinks. It feels slimy, like oil. I’ll try soaking some paper in it.”

  Hulemy holds the paper damp with diesel away from her, then takes out a cylindrical object the size of her palm from her pocket—it’s a fire-igniting magic item.

  At one time, I’d considered selling hundred-yen lighters to see if they would take off in this world, but then I learned that magic items that accomplished the same thing were common, so I gave up.

  A flame lights on the magic item’s tip, and she brings it close to the paper.

  “Whoa! I thought it was oily, but this stuff really burns!”

  Hulemy quickly lets go and observes as the paper continues to burn on the ground. The grin she’s making, illuminated from underneath by the flaming paper, is somewhat frightening.

  “I get it. You want us to splash them with this super-flammable oil, don’t you?”

  “Welcome.” That’s correct, Hulemy.

  “In that case, I should run at the enemies and spray the oil at them, right?” asks Lammis.

  “Yes, but…,” says Hulemy. “No, wait. There’s a better way to use this oil. Boxxo, can I use a container with water in it?”

  Having thought of something, Hulemy’s lips curl into a smile. I see it and understand. Of course—use them to your heart’s content.

  “Welcome.”

  We finish our work before the King of Souls moves and then get ready for battle.

  “Let’s do things the way we planned. Don’t forget your roles… Let’s go!”

  Everyone jumps out from behind the boulder. Lammis and I lag slightly behind our comrades as we all plunge toward the King of Souls from the front.

  There’s still some distance, but he seems to have noticed our movement. For now, he orders his underlings to attack us.

  When the monsters leave the King and head for us in a single mass, everyone throws the plastic bottles in their hands. Lammis instead pulls out the diesel nozzle, though, and points it at the enemies.

  When the plastic bottles reach the peak of their parabolic arc, I erase just the bottles, letting their contents—the diesel—pour all over the monsters’ heads.

  The flame scolls’ flames ignite the diesel, turning the surroundings into a sea of fire. With the diesel shooting from the nozzle spraying around, too, the flames intensify.

  Their comrades split up to the left and right, trying to avoid the patch of ground suddenly on fire. We, however, calmly plunge right into the flames.

  With my Force Field not letting any fire, heat, or carbon dioxide inside, we dash through the fires in one burst.

  I can’t see anything through the flames, but the same goes for our enemies. Because we stagger our exits, the King of Souls should be seeing our comrades leaping into view among us.

  With our enemy’s attention elsewhere, we dash through the flames and jump out.

  Bingo! About thirty feet until we’re right in front of the enemy. There stands a skeleton in a
jet-black robe with gold embroidery everywhere.

  It seemed about to cast a spell, but when it sees us, it switches targets. The skeleton puts one arm on top of the other and points a newly created staff at us.

  Here comes a spell! My Force Field is up and ready. I’ll block any magic, for sure, no matter what it is.

  From base to tip, its staff was made entirely of skeletal arms with fists closed tightly around one another, but suddenly, the hands all burst open with a flash of light.

  Lightning?! Electric-type attacks have the worst compatibility with a vending machine. With Force Field, I don’t let a single bit of static in, repelling all of it. In that moment, I thought I saw a red light glimmer in the King of Souls’s lifeless eye sockets. Is he confused?

  “You blocked my magic?! That pale-blue light, is it…Force Field?! What impudence!”

  Whoa, the skeleton talked. It’s a surprisingly nice voice, very regal. I guess it would be stupid to complain about how he can talk without any vocal chords. After all, I’m a vending machine, but I have a will.

  If he recognized my Force Field at a glance, then maybe he really was a superb magician during his lifetime. In that case, we have to crush him with a swift attack before he can put his true abilities on display.

  While his attention is on us, Shui and Captain Kerioyl lob arrows and throwing knives at the King of Souls.

  “How futile.”

  The King of Souls swings his staff a little, and from both his sides appears a wall of bones, made up of tightly packed skeletons. He swings the staff a second time, which causes the skeleton wall to collapse, but the skeletons themselves descend to the ground and rush for our comrades to attack.

  One layer of that wall has thirty skeletons. If they’re up against a total of nearly sixty, we probably can’t hope for any support.

  “You there, the girl. That box on your back… There’s something about it, isn’t there?”

  “I don’t really know!” replies Lammis offhandedly to the question, charging in.

  From here on out, it’ll be one-on-one plus one. This is the first time we’ve gone up against a boss-class enemy by ourselves. Let’s give it everything we’ve got!

  The Power of a Girl and a Machine

  “Stones of ice, pierce!”

  The King of Souls mutters spell-like words, and then pieces of ice with sharpened tips fill our view. I count up to ten of them before giving up.

  “We’re going in!”

  “Welcome.”

  No worries—I’ll block all those little things.

  The ice impacts against the Force Field’s blue wall, but none has gotten through yet.

  [Points decreased by 1. Points decreased by 1. Points decreased by 1—]

  I’m losing points by the second, thanks to this icy onslaught. The endless notifications wash over my mind like a waterfall.

  But I still have a lot of points left, so this level of point draining isn’t a problem at all. I’m still kicking.

  “Hmph. Such a troublesome Blessing. Does it belong to the girl there—? No, this is something coming from the soul residing in the magic item behind you. Fire, in that case… No, you ran through it. Then what about raging, howling winds?”

  First a rain of ice, now a windstorm? A few more steps, and we would have reached him, too.

  The wind crashes down on us from the front, digging a hole in the ground outside the Force Field and blowing gravestones back behind us.

  I mean, I’m blocking the wind, but since the Force Field is increasing our surface area, we’re taking the brunt of its effects now.

  “Fu-ha-ha-ha-ha. It may be an impenetrable barrier, but there are plenty of ways around it. I’ll blow you and that Force Field away— Hmm?”

  The King of Souls, in the middle of a victory celebration, opens his mouth and stares at us.

  Within the gales strong enough to tear the very ground asunder, Lammis continues forward, little by little. The wind pressure is incredible, but Lammis presses on, digging her feet in and leaning forward.

  “What is the meaning of this? Why have you not been blown away? Are you using magic to interfere with my gales?”

  No, it’s simple brute force. She’s physically resisting them.

  “I won’t lose to some wind, some hail— Attack, smash, smash!” As Lammis muscles her way forward, she mutters some disturbing things.

  “If ice, wind, and fire have little effect…how about this? Lands beneath, cry out in lament!”

  Does he really need to say that line for his incantation? I think it’s cool, but it makes me cringe every time I hear it. Yeah, I feel like that extreme escapism that afflicts every boy in their second year of middle school is starting to relapse.

  But now’s not the time to be thinking about stupid stuff. As I feel shaking from underfoot, a fissure begins to run through the ground. Then, with a thundering roar, the land splits in two, and an abyss opens its mouth wide.

  “W-wait a minute!”

  Lammis begins to fall upside down. I can’t leave her to her fate. I form change into a cardboard vending machine. That makes me lose several hundred kilos, which should lighten her load.

  “Th-this is nothing!”

  Lammis kicks off the side of the depths and leaps diagonally upward, then kicks off the opposite side. Seeing her repeat the process, kicking off the wall to advance up, is like a ninja action video game.

  “You were a somewhat formidable opponent. Close, O jaws.”

  The fissured earth begins to close steadily, but before it shuts all the way, Lammis kicks one more time and leaps high into the air.

  “What?!”

  He watches Lammis in shock as she flies up out of the abyss. We’re about thirty feet over his head now. She gave that one everything she had. With the King of Souls right below us, we’re in a perfect position.

  “Um, in any case, kiiiick!”

  After reaching the peak of her jump, she begins a rapid descent, falling with a kick. Still, Lammis has only so much power with her body weight. No matter how strong her Might is, she has to plant herself in place or else her power goes down.

  Adding to her attack power now means increasing her weight. It’s simple. It means I—

  “You think that miserable kick will work?! I’ll shoot you down. Assemble, assemble, assemble, from the abyss you come, O evil from the den of iniquity—”

  Not going to happen. I change into the giant vending machine that’s over ten feet tall, which I’ve turned into before. It adds only a little bit to our speed of descent, but it throws off the King of Souls’s timing. Plus, he’s startled by how I changed shape in midair. He stops his incantation, and we connect with his face.

  “Urgh!”

  Her soles dig in, and even I feel something breaking on the other end.

  “Oh, whoa! Hup!”

  Lammis kicks off the King of Souls’s face and drops to the ground. Her body shudders when she lands, but she manages to pull herself back up before clenching a fist and burying it in the core of our enemy’s body.

  In contrast with her cute cry, an explosion rather than a mere punching noise rattles the air. The King of Souls lurches forward brilliantly and gets blown away. Whoa, I can see an afterimage.

  As he flies parallel to the ground, his body splits into an upper and lower half. His upper half corkscrews into the air, growing smaller until it flies out of sight. The lower half crashes into the ground, sending up a cloud of dust before continuing to roll, but it stops dead with its feet aimed at the sky.

  He may be weak to physical blows, but this is what happens when Lammis really punches something, huh? She certainly is powerful. If she can learn to control her destructive potential, she’ll get even stronger.

  “Whoa, did you two just end this by yourselves?”

  The other members seem to have finished taking down the skeletons. They all gather around us. I go back to my usual vending machine form.

  Mikenne manages to grab the King of Souls’s
skull, which barely remained after he flew far away, and brings it to us. Short drags over the upside-down lower half.

  Over half of him is annihilated, but now we have the rest of the only slightly destroyed parts of the King of Souls in one place.

  “This thing’s still just barely alive, eh?”

  Captain Kerioyl puts a foot on the skull and looks down at it. He must be implying that he’ll crush it the instant he detects any strange movement.

  “To…step on…a great one…such as I…warrants death… A thousand deaths…”

  “You talk pretty big for someone about to kick the bucket. I’ll just crush you, take the coin, and be on my way.”

  “The coin… Fu-ha-ha-ha… You all… Do you think I’m a mere…stratum lo—?”

  “Get away, everyone!”

  Suddenly, the captain shouts, his face changing drastically, as he kicks away the nearby Fools and jumps back.

  The Band of Gluttons raise their first “Vaaaaahhhh!” in a while and flee in every direction.

  I don’t get it, but it’s time to activate Force Field!

  The moment the blue light envelops Lammis, our vision is covered in black.

  [Points decreased by 500.]

  Wh-what?! It’s totally black all around us!

  If my points went down, does that mean we’re under attack?! What’s going on? Did the King of Souls muster the last of his strength to self-destruct?!

  “Boxxo, what’s happening? A-are we okay?!”

  That’s what I’d like to know, Lammis. After hearing her confused voice, I regain a little clarity. Panicking will get us nowhere. I have to calmly judge the situation.

  [Points decreased by 500.]

  The decrease isn’t stopping. Is this blackness one of his spells or something? Based on how the Force Field feels, it seems to be coming down from above.

  After withstanding it for a while, the black torrent fades, and we can finally see light again. The darkness raining from above seems to have stopped. My points have stopped going down, too.

  “No… E-everyone’s…”

  When the darkness fades, we see an enormous crater in the ground. We’re in the center of that crater, and the only ground left is under our feet. The land is warped in an incomprehensible way that you’d never normally be able to imagine.