Chick 240
by Cristae240
At that moment—
Groo, no longer in her mascot suit, was sprawled atop the crackling thunderclouds.
It felt like lying on a bubbling massage bed.
By her head, the massive octopus sat primly, fanning her with its tentacles.
It was Demislin, the AAA-rank boss of the Thunder Domain.
- Are you comfortable?
“Yeah…”
Groo rolled over as she answered.
Mephi must really be someone important…
It felt good to be treated as royalty after inheriting the title. However…
The hamster clicked its tongue in disapproval.
“Myu myu myu.” (A useless master who can’t even open the cradle properly.)
“I think I understand everything you’re saying, Bai.”
Probably thanks to the title. Even hamster-speak now translated automatically in her head.
Groo shot him a glare, and the hamster turned away haughtily.
When she entered the boss room, Groo had opened the cradle.
The endless white snowfield stretched all the way to the far end, so vast it barely felt like the Thunder Domain.
It was the first time she’d opened such a huge snowfield.
Also, unlike before, she didn’t have to open a new subspace for the snowfield, which was a great step forward; but the problem was…
‘I have no strength left!’
It was as if all her mana had drained away in an instant.
“Groo, can’t move at all…”
The lord sprawled on the cloud and muttered weakly.
Mephisto stroked Groo’s head with his wing, gently urging her to rest, while Luksipeur nuzzled her cheek in worried comfort.
Only Bailach looked on in exasperation.
“Myut myut! Myu myu myut myut!” (Lying there like that, your mana will just keep leaking out! You have to gain control of the space!)
“But…”
With mana leaking, her head felt heavy, vision dim, and she had no idea what to do.
Unable to modulate her output, she couldn’t even shrink or close the snowfield at will.
The snowfield seemed to have a mind of its own, sucking up all of Groo’s mana and using it recklessly.
Uncontrolled power brought not just exhaustion, but a strange sense of dread.
‘This is hard…’
So this is what Dad lives with every day.
The moment Groo thought of Joorim—
—“I’ll become ketchup~ I’ll dance around~ I’m a fancy tomato~”
Right on cue, her phone rang.
“It’s Dad.”
Groo sat up with a start, checking her watch.
Wait, why was Dad calling at this hour? He knew she was filming today. Was he checking how it went?
Groo hesitated, and when she didn’t answer, a message came in.
[On Joorim: On Groo, where are you?]
Her heart lurched.
The tone, the energy in that message—there was no doubt.
Her dad knew she was in a dungeon.
[Groo: I’m in the bathroom!]
[On Joorim: You didn’t go to a dungeon alone, did you?]
Just as she’d suspected!
“How did he know?” she thought in a panic, then remembered how excited she’d been when Blue Lagoon’s guildmaster said he’d post about it online.
‘Groo, you idiot!’
She’d only thought about the good, never once considering it might get back to Dad.
[Groo: No! I came to Wooju’s set!]
[Groo: I’m in the bathroom right now!]
Groo hurriedly sent the messages, then forced her heavy body to move.
“Mephi, Bai, Feru. We have to finish this dungeon in ten minutes.”
She held up her watch for them to see.
“Dad knows we’re in the dungeon.”
At her words, the three’s faces twisted in shock and panic.
“Pii—!”
“Myumyu myumyu!”
“Kyuuuuk!”
Chaos broke out. Mephisto circled madly in the air, Bailach jumped and jabbed with a finger, and Luksipeur began to whimper and wail.
Only Demislin, the boss, sat calmly, not understanding a thing.
“It’s fine. We still have about ten minutes.”
She’d said she was in the bathroom—surely Dad would give her that long.
Time limit: ten minutes.
Whatever happened, Dad was more terrifying than any dungeon boss.
“First, we need to destroy the dungeon and get out. No one can know we were here. Mephi, fly and break the core.”
“Pip!”
Mephisto shot skyward. Once the core was broken, the dungeon’s form would collapse.
Next, Groo turned Bailach human.
“Bailach, you’ve been with me the whole time. Got it?”
“I got it. But even if we shatter the core, Demislin will remain. We have to deal with Demislin.”
“Oh…”
If only the core was destroyed, this huge octopus would pop out into the world outside.
She imagined a giant octopus (visible only to her) suddenly appearing at the zombie film set—and went momentarily dizzy.
Absolutely not.
“We’ll put it… in the bag.”
Groo, feeling faint, opened her bag.
The octopus struggled to squeeze its legs in, but there was no way for something so big to fit in her tiny hip pack.
Bailach couldn’t stand it any longer.
“It’s a snowfield! Make it smaller!”
“Ah, right!”
Groo grabbed the octopus’s leg and squeezed her eyes shut. She was panting, on the edge of collapse.
But she had to do it, like she had done when creating Bailach.
[Skill ‘Mold and Shape’ activated.]
Make it smaller… smaller…
The urgency of her father on the way drove Groo to summon every last shred of her strength.
She poured all her concentration into activating the skill.
Her mind went blank, but she had to picture what she wanted to make.
‘Octopus! Small!’
Before Dad gets here!
At that moment, Demislin’s body warped and shrank.
The Thunder Domain temple crumbled—Mephisto had broken the core.
At the same time, Groo’s mana ran dry, and the snowfield vanished completely.
She dropped to the ground, holding what remained of Demislin—
A perfectly round takoyaki!
“Success—!”
But before she could finish, she collapsed to the side.
Bailach picked her up.
Outside the gate was a cordoned-off clearing.
“Bathroom…”
“All right.”
Bailach hoisted Groo and headed for the restroom, Mephisto and Luksipeur following.
At that moment, a commotion rose—Joorim had arrived at the set.
A head taller than everyone else, Joorim searched for Groo, striding around the area.
‘My mana… it’s coming back.’
Thanks to the skill ‘The Happiness of Being Together,’ whenever Groo was near her primary caregiver, she instantly recovered to her peak condition.
Groo tapped Bailach’s shoulder and got down.
Bailach was startled to see her suddenly back to normal.
Of course—it was shocking for a child who’d been limp with mana exhaustion to look perfectly fine in an instant.
But Groo shushed him with a finger and, grabbing his hand, tugged him to Joorim.
“Dad!”
Having listened to Groo’s explanation, Joorim folded her arms.
Next to her, Wooju stood with the manager, shifting nervously under Joorim’s gaze.
Facing them were Groo, Mephisto, Luksipeur, and Bailach—lined up like miscreants, heads bowed.
With celebrities standing in such an odd formation, eyes from all around converged on them.
Camera shutters clicked, but Joorim ignored it and asked,
“So, you went to the bathroom? With this one?”
She gestured to Bailach.
Wooju added supportively,
“Yes, Groo went to the bathroom.”
Groo answered boldly,
“Yeah! Bai says he can’t go to the bathroom without me!”
What?! Bailach tried to protest, but Mephisto kicked him and covered his mouth.
Joorim shifted her gaze to Mephisto, who was perched on Bailach’s head.
The white fledgling tensed.
Mephisto’s cheeks bulged with something held in his beak.
Joorim tapped her own cheek.
“What’s that in your mouth?”
“…B-weet!”
Mephisto reflexively half-opened his beak, about to deny it, then clamped it shut again.
What Mephisto held was Demislin, transformed into takoyaki by Groo.
In a mad rush to avoid being caught by Joorim, he’d hidden it in his mouth, thinking of nothing else.
But now, being asked directly—had Joorim picked up on something?
If Joorim found out they’d gone to the dungeon, there was no question—’Zombie Hunter’ would be banned again.
The last time Groo had gone without ‘Zombie Hunter’ was an absolute nightmare.
Groo and Bailach looked at Mephisto with desperate, pleading faces.
“…”
It was the moment for Mephisto to make the ultimate sacrifice.