The Support Ate it All

The thing looked exactly like the sloths you could see at any zoo.

Only, it was bigger than an ogre.

Even though it was crawling almost flat against the ground, I still had to look up at it.

Its strength matched that size too.

Because it’s a field boss.

Even across the entire B-rank zone, it was a powerhouse competing for first or second place.

Perhaps unaware of that fact, the giant leopard glared at it with eyes full of hostility.

“Grrrrrr......!”

It crouched low, then sprang like a loaded spring and swung its forepaw.

It was a clawing strike that looked like it could rip most opponents apart in one blow.

Unfortunately, the sloth was not “most opponents.”

“......?”

It tilted its head with an air of, Did something scratch me? I’m a little itchy, and only discovered the leopard after it had been clawed about three times.

Then, at the fourth claw strike, it waved its arm as if annoyed.

THWACK!

“Geh!”

The leopard failed to dodge the sudden counterattack and took it head-on.

It was sent flying far away, rolled across the ground, and barely managed to come to its senses before fleeing in a panic.

Even though they were both B-rank, the gap was extreme.

“That’s why it’s a field boss.”

“So strong......!”

Seo Ye-in’s pupils widened slightly.

Meanwhile, the sloth stared blankly into the air for a long while.

Soon, it reached for an old tree nearby and snapped it like it was handling a matchstick.

Then it brought the tree to its mouth and began chewing.

“It must have been hungry.”

“Meals are serious business.”

But no sooner had she said that than the sloth put the old tree down and slowly flopped onto the ground.

“Looks like eating is too much of a bother too.”

“Some days are like that.”

Seo Ye-in nodded as if she deeply sympathized.

I stared at her with half-lidded eyes.

“Doesn’t what it’s doing remind you of someone?”

“Who could it be?”

“The head-tilting is exactly the same too.”

“......I wonder who.”

Seo Ye-in dodged my gaze this way and that, pretending not to know.

After we played eye-tag for a while, the sloth woke from its short nap.

It tossed aside the old tree it had been eating and lumbered onward.

“Let’s follow it.”

“Auto-hunting, season two.”

We had already gained a whopping four items thanks to the armadillo, and this thing was far stronger than that.

The auto-hunting should be much more comfortable too.

CRACK, CRUNCH, CRUNCH!

THUD, THUD.

The trees in the sloth’s path snapped and fell one after another.

On top of that, because it was so huge and heavy, the ground rumbled every time it took a step.

THUUD, THUD!

It was practically announcing to the whole neighborhood that it was here.

There was no way the Great Forest’s monsters would just leave that alone, and the sloth began receiving challenge after challenge.

A boar charged in and body-slammed it. A giant viper bit down on it.

“SQUEEE!”

“HISSSS!”

And the sloth’s reaction was always the same.

“......?”

One beat late—no, three or four beats late—it noticed the enemy, then moved while expressing annoyance with its entire body.

BOOM!

The boar’s skull caved in from the sloth’s knuckle-flick.

As for the giant viper, the sloth grabbed it by the tail, slammed it around a couple of times, then roughly draped it over a nearby old tree.

Seo Ye-in and mirror-image Seo Ye-in watched with eyes full of admiration.

“Overwhelming power......!”

“When the body is strong, the head gets to rest.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong.

Thanks to that, we were also getting items with ease.

[Plunder(B)]

[Empty Crystal(B)]

The sloth possessed such overwhelming force, but its weakness was just as massive.

It ran out of battery very quickly.

Before long, it casually flopped down again and started taking another nap.

I looked at Seo Ye-in again.

“Even lying down anywhere is exactly like someone I know.”

“Who could it possibly be?”

“There’s someone who looks for a Kim Ho pillow every chance she gets.”

“?”

“??”

“???”

The sloth and Fast-Luckless floated question marks over their heads as if they had no idea what I was talking about.

Soon, the sloth woke from another nap and crawled onward.

Coincidentally, the place it was heading toward was somewhere we had already passed.

Or more precisely, somewhere we tried to pass before detouring.

Fragments of stone and wood were scattered messily across the ground.

They were what remained after the golem was destroyed.

There had been the flat armadillo’s corpse there too a little while ago, but perhaps something had carried it off, because it was nowhere to be seen.

Of course, there was no way the sloth knew what had happened here.

It only continued slowly advancing like before.

And because of that—

RUMBLE......

The low hill sitting off to one side slowly rose to its feet.

Its true identity was the mommy golem.

It seemed to have moved because its territory had been invaded.

“.......”

This time, even the sloth seemed to recognize its opponent clearly.

Well, they were similar in size to begin with.

That did not mean it did anything in particular. It only stared at the other party with eyes that seemed to say, What are you?

The mommy golem answered by extending its fist.

The same fist that had turned the armadillo into a pancake in one blow.

GRAB!

But the sloth lightly blocked it, then reached out with both hands and seized the mommy golem by both shoulders.

Then it pulled hard to either side.

CRRRRUNCH!

The body compressed from stone and wood was torn apart in an instant.

Seo Ye-in and mirror-image Seo Ye-in each offered another word of admiration.

“Infinite power......!”

“Sloth tears golems apart.”

The mood suggested they were about to form a sloth fan club any second now.

Since its behavior was similar to theirs, they seemed to feel quite a lot of kinship too.

Though they themselves were vehemently denying it and pretending not to know.

Maybe because of that, the two Seo Ye-ins exchanged glances.

“......Alliance?”

“Possible.”

“Sloth Rider.”

“Good idea......!”

“Dispatch diplomat.”

“I’ll go.”

Mirror-image Seo Ye-in trudged toward the sloth.

The sloth had already failed to endure that brief interval and was sprawled on its back again, but when Fast-Luckless stretched both arms over her head, it slowly turned its head.

“......?”

“Alliance—”

But before she could even finish speaking, a large arm swung out, and Fast-Luckless, struck by it, flew far away in an arc.

I slowly shook my head.

“I knew that would happen.”

Honestly, we had to consider its perspective too.

While we had been following and watching it and building up internal intimacy, to the sloth, we were people it had never seen before in its life.

It probably didn’t feel much difference between us and all the monsters that had been bothering it so far.

Seo Ye-in probably knew that too, but it seemed she had still held out hope that sloths might understand each other.

A little later, Fast-Luckless was resummoned beside us and spoke in a sullen tone.

“......Diplomat attacked.”

“Alliance failed.”

“The betrayal is great.”

“Classify as enemy.”

Even so, we had no way of defeating it right now.

We were E-rank, and that sloth was field-boss class even among B-ranks.

If we wanted to fight it, we would at least have to match its rank.

For now, continuing to farm is the right call.

After all, the alliance had merely failed. It wasn’t as though a problem had occurred.

For reference, while the mommy golem was not quite field-boss class, it had been a reasonably strong opponent, so the item card it dropped was fairly rare as well.

[Concealment(B)]

▷Hides allies within range.

▷Duration: 1 minute.

▷Cannot be detected by detection below B-rank.

It was a card that had also appeared during last year’s finals.

Back then, we had used it to secretly approach the enemy camp, but it should also be useful for escaping danger.

Since we were currently in the B zone, we would have to flee from whatever we encountered, so nine times out of ten, it would be the latter.

THUUD, THUUD.

After that, the sloth repeated similar behavior.

It crawled forward in a lumbering gait, took a few bites of any tree that happened to be within reach, and when it got sleepy, it flopped down on the spot and slept.

After a while, it got up and started crawling again.

Anything in its way was handled with a single wave of its hand.

By this point, Seo Ye-in’s gaze had become faintly envious.

“Happy sloth life.”

“You could do it too, if you set your mind to it. Go into the forest.”

“Together?”

“I’m not going.”

There were so many things I had to do besides world peace.

Seo Ye-in looked disappointed, but quickly gave up.

“I like now better.”

“Right?”

I smiled and gave her a kiss on the cheek, then turned my head back toward the sloth.

Still, for a happy sloth life, it’s been moving pretty diligently.

Even though it rested now and then, it had kept moving around and fought several battles.

It had probably spent more stamina than it recovered.

Just as I guessed, the sloth’s movements, already slow, were gradually becoming even slower.

It napped more often, and its responses to monsters grew more passive.

THWACK!

A giant deer was struck by its enormous forearm and sent flying.

Until now, the sloth had always followed up with a finishing blow, but this time, it simply held its arm raised and fell into thought.

Then it slowly lowered the arm again. According to Seo Ye-in and mirror-image Seo Ye-in’s translation—

“Even hitting is a bother.”

“Just go......”

As if it had heard those words, the giant deer hurriedly fled.

The sloth paid no attention to it, lay down on the spot, and fell asleep in less than five seconds.

As an expert who had observed Seo-sloth’s many varieties of sleep, I felt a powerful intuition.

“It looks like it’s going to sleep for a long time, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

Now that the person herself had verified it, it was 100%.

Staying nearby would only waste time.

So I decided to return to our original objective.

“Let’s go get the hidden piece.”

And then leave the B-rank zone.

By now, we had built up plenty of crystals and cards. If we somehow ended up unable to fight, we would lose all of them.

So I began guiding Seo Ye-in.

It should be this way.

As I moved while digging through my memory, I felt the surrounding scenery gradually change.

Instead of thick trees, the proportion of plants increased, and large, brilliantly colored flowers dazzled the eyes.

Some were in full bloom, while others were still closed buds.

As we walked and observed our surroundings like that, we suddenly felt a presence and all turned our heads at once.

“Grrrrrr......”

What stood there was the giant leopard.

It had run away after being struck by the sloth quite some time ago, yet somehow it had managed to track us down.

Its stance was somewhat unstable, as if the injury from that time remained.

Still, we’d lose if we fought.

The rank gap still could not be ignored.

This was not the time to conserve items, so I immediately took out [Concealment].

But at that moment—

POOF......

A flower bud nearby burst, scattering a handful of pollen over the leopard just as it was about to leap.

“Grr......?”

The leopard sniffed the air for a moment, and the next instant, its body went stiff before it toppled to the side.

It got poisoned.

It seemed the pollen had some kind of paralytic poison mixed in.

Then vines as thick as ropes appeared, coiled tightly around the beast, and dragged it away.

It would probably slowly digest it and use it as nutrients.

POOF......

Another nearby flower bud burst, scattering pollen over us.

It probably intended to neutralize us the same way and drag us away.

I exchanged a calm glance with Seo Ye-in.

“But what are we?”

“★All-Poison Immunity★.”