Chapter 87: The Mithril BasiliskAs the giant monster adjusted its body inside the cave, Melina and I stood perplexed at the sight with our mouths wide open.

    If a monster were immune to magic, then I would have to rely on physical strength. However, the basilisk’s body was fully covered in mithril, so even if I used all of my strength, I doubted I would do any significant damage.

    It was even worse for the princess, as she pretty much relied only on magic to fight. She wasn’t weak by any means, but she also wasn’t strong enough to do anything in this scenario.

    Taking a few steps back with care, the princess opened her void pocket, pulled out a hunting knife with a dark green-colored blade, and then handed it to me without taking her eyes off the monster.

    "What’s this?" I whispered, trying not to get the monster’s attention.

    "It’s an adamantite knife. I can’t think of anything else that can hurt it..." she explained.

    While mithril was a metal that nullified magic, adamantite was a metal that could conduct it. Still, they were both just as sturdy, so even with an adamantite knife, I doubted I could go through its defenses.

    Melina and I walked backward a few more steps toward the tunnel, thinking that it would be a good idea to back off and think of a new strategy, but the monster turned its face and stared at us for a few seconds, followed by a sudden tail movement that shook the entire cave.

    "If the place comes down, we are gonna be in a lot of trouble..." I muttered, realizing that we had no way of excavating our way out. Since the entire cave was filled with mithril veins, we wouldn’t be able to use magic to save ourselves.

    Right as I spoke, the basilisk pulled out its tongue, and a lash of venom flew toward us, making us both split up and quickly avoid it.

    The small acid pond covered the exit to the tunnel as if somehow it knew that was our only way out.

    ’This is gonna suck...’ I thought, staring at the towering armored lizard.

    Seeing that Melina was running to the other side of the room to grab its attention, I quickly ran and tried slicing the part of its leg that didn’t have mithril covering it. Nevertheless, it barely grazed the monster’s skin. Sear?h the N?vel(F)ire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    The basilisk attacked Melina with its mouth open, but she was quick enough to avoid it while moving nonstop without magic, which surprised me.

    ’It seems like her physical capabilities are getting much better...’ I thought. I was worried that the princess relied on magic for too many things.

    However, she was proving me wrong by skillfully avoiding the basilisk attack while still holding its attention away from me as I searched for a weak spot.

    After the monster waved its tail forcefully one more time, I ran toward it and slid under its body, using the knife to slice its belly, which was not covered by the mithril plates, and a gush of blood came out.

    "It’s working!" I exclaimed to Melina, who kept moving to avoid the basilisk attacks.

    But the injury made the monster even more violent, and turned to look at me as venom dripped from its mouth.

    Avoiding his poisonous bite, I ran to the side and used a small amount of air magic to throw the knife toward Melina’s side.

    Thanks to the basilisk absorbing most of the mithril in the room, we were able to use magic for small tasks like that.

    Picking up the knife from the ground, the princess avoided the monster’s tail and sliced the bottom side of it. Even though it was covered in a thin layer of mithril, she was able to break through.

    Our strategy of looking for the weak spots was working, but it was taking too long for the monster to go down.

    At one moment, the monster lunged at me with its mouth open, and I thought of something. If adamantite could conduct magic, then I could infuse some of it into the knife.

    This wouldn’t have worked if I tried attacking any part of the monster’s body that was covered with mithril, but his wide open mouth made me think of another weak spot. His insides.

    Of course, I wasn’t going to let it swallow me. Considering the basilisk would probably chew and kill me, and even if I managed to get to its stomach in one piece, the venom and acids inside would surely end me.

    As the basilisk got closer, I jumped high in the air as Yoru simultaneously jumped out of my shadow, clawing the monster in the belly right next to its previous wound.

    After catching the knife, I infused all of the fire magic that I could muster in the magic-nullifying environment and turned it into a time bomb, then threw it like a dagger with all my strength into the basilisk’s mouth.

    After feeling the object going down its throat, the monster stopped attacking momentarily as smoke started to come out of its mouth while contorting strangely.

    ’Oh no...’ I thought.

    "Melina, get away!" I exclaimed, realizing that the monster was about to explode.

    But just as I warned the princess, the basilisk’s belly burst open with an explosion that shook the cave violently for a moment. However, even though the blast should have been enough to cover in flames the entire room, as soon as it made contact with the mithril surrounding the monster, it ceased.

    The eruption pushed back the princess and me, but thankfully, we didn’t have any grave injuries other than a few bruises.

    With the monster lying dead as smoke came out of its torn-out belly, we thought taking the corpse to the adventurers’ guild would be helpful. Not only so they could butcher it with their special tools but to believe us when we tell them about it.

    However, we had a few obstacles that prevented us from taking the monster.

    First, we couldn’t cast a void pocket large enough to hold the entire monster. Not because we didn’t have enough MP to do it but because the mithril in the environment didn’t allow us to.

    The second problem was that even if we managed to cast a sizeable void pocket, all of the mithril in the monster’s body bounced off the spell.

    ’Right, I should have expected this. The void pocket is also magic, so it repels it...’ I thought.

    Looking at the giant monster again, we decided to take a piece of its mithril armor as proof that we killed it. The guild could send people later to confirm it anyway, so it shouldn’t have been a big deal.

    Melina mentioned that finding a mithril cave would be huge news, as it was a highly sought mineral in the world, then got excited at the prospect of getting a promotion in the guild.

    Honestly, it was a pretty hard task. I was sure they didn’t expect the mithril basilisk to be deep inside, but neither did I. The fact that we were both walking after fighting that thing was quite lucky, considering the environment where we encountered it.

    With a large slab of mithril that we separated from the basilisk’s back, we left the cave only to find out that it was already nighttime, prompting us to make a small room with earth magic, as usual, and spend the night before going to the guild the next day.

    From our spot, the city of Glorya would have been the closest, but since we took the request at Speranza, we decided to teleport there instead, costing us a bit more MP, although that wasn’t much of a problem.

    However, as soon as we appeared in Speranza, I noticed that the mithril slab had not teleported with us.

    I planted my palm on my face with frustration.

    ’How did I not anticipate this...?’ I thought, remembering that mithril nullified all types of magic, making me believe that the metal was more inconvenient than I thought.

    Drinking an MP(+) potion, we both returned and picked up the slab of mithril, then took flight towards the city with annoyance.

    Thankfully, the metal didn’t nullify the magic from my poncho, or I would have given up on it, although it did make my wind magic a little flunky, so I couldn’t maneuver properly.

    It took us two days to reach Speranza, which wasn’t terrible, but considering we could have been there in two seconds, it didn’t make us feel that satisfied.

    At least I managed to spend those days with the princess, or I would have died of boredom.

    Once we finally made it to the guild, we turned in our request along with the slab of mithril, explaining that, unfortunately, we couldn’t bring the monster with us. However, the clerk didn’t hear any of our explanations after we started talking about the mithril basilisk.

    She simply stood in awe, not fully believing that the two of us had defeated it, as she said that the last time a mithril monster appeared, it required a team of forty people to kill it.

    Of course, we had proof, and we gave the exact location of the mine and told the clerk that the monster’s body was still there in the last room.

    Even then, she said that if the princess herself was saying that a mithril mine was discovered, they would benefit more from reporting it immediately and sending workers along with the people from the guild to verify that the monster was dead.