After defeating the boss, Sally grabbed Maple as both of them started to fall to the ground and adjusted her posture before creating a foothold in the air so that they could safely land on the ground below.

  “Watch your step.”


  “Thanks, Sally!”


  “We did it! But…… It’s a little strange, don’t you think?”


  “Huh? ……Ah! The boss is still here!?”


  Defeated monsters would normally turn into light and disappear, but the cube simply stopped moving and fell to the ground below, and was currently buried in a pile of various materials.

  “There seem to be many places we can investigate, so let’s take a look. Coming back here sounds like a lot of trouble…… Assuming we can actually come back here in the first place.”


  “You’re right.”


  Most places that are not part of the normal fields had special conditions for entering them. It was also common for those special conditions to be impossible to reproduce once they had served their purpose, making it also impossible to return to such places, so they had to make sure to investigate this area to their hearts’ content before leaving.

  After leaving the cube behind, they started to look around for something they could bring back with them among the large piles of junk scattered all over the place.

  “Have you found anything, Maple?”


  “Nothing! It doesn’t look like there’s anything useful here!”


  “All this junk must be here just to set up an atmosphere…… It would take us an entire lifetime to leave no stone unturned here……”


  They did another quick search, but in the end, there didn’t seem to be any items they could take into their inventories. However, that fact meant that it would be safe to once again focus on the boss’ remains.

  “Has it really stopped moving……?”


  “I don’t think it’s going to move again, and look, there’s a magic circle near the spot where we first appeared in this room.”


  “You’re right. So, there’s nothing to worry about.”


  The boss’ remains hadn’t returned to the shape of a cube, but instead lay among the rubble split in half.

  “Try taking that thing out. There might be some kind of reaction.”


  “Yeah! It’s just like before, huh?”


  Maple took out the “Lost Legacy” from out of her inventory. The black, palm-sized cube looked like a miniature version of the boss.

  “Let’s try taking it closer…… Waah!?”


  As Maple brought the item closer to the boss, a number of blue stripes appeared on the surface of the ”Lost Legacy” before beginning to rumble heavily on Maple’s hands, causing her to drop it. As Maple reached out to try to pick it up, the giant cube that had been the boss started to make noise in response.

  “Maple!”


  Sensing an imminent danger, Sally grabbed Maple and had her lie on the ground. The “Lost Legacy” rolled between the two halves of the boss’ remains, which in turn started to move towards each other.

  “Thank you, I was about to get crushed in between.”


  “We should be careful around these things.”


  “Yeah!”


  Since they had seen the boss’ remains moving, they could no longer deny the possibility that they could be thrown into another battle. In fact, they had even defeated dungeons with those kinds of bosses in the past.

  However, their fear didn’t seem to have been too necessary, since the rejoined cube halves then started to shrink while emitting a strong light, eventually becoming the size of the “Lost Legacy” they had swallowed.

  “It absorbed the ‘Lost Legacy’.…… Or perhaps the ‘Lost Legacy’ had absorbed it instead?”


  “It feels as if they had fused together.”


  “That might be closer to what actually happened.”


  After the intense light had subsided, Maple picked it up to see what happened.

  She could see that, although the item’s name didn’t change, a single skill had been added to it, and it had changed its type from a regular item into an accessory.

  “Looks like we can equip this!”


  “Ooh, nice. There are only a few accessory slots in this game, but still…… What’s it like?”


  Maple opened the description window and read it out loud while also slightly slanting it towards Sally so that she could read it as well.

  [Ancient Weapon]

  Whenever the owner attacks or is attacked, energy gradually builds up into this item over time.

  You can expend energy stored into this item to change its form and treat it as a weapon.

  If this item does not build energy up for a certain period of time, the energy stored within will start to gradually decrease over time.

  “It’s just like what the boss used to do, right? And using its skill doesn’t need MP, only energy.”


  “Should I try it on?”


  “Yeah. It’ll be easier to understand its effects if you use it.”


  Maple took off one of her rings and replaced it with the new “Lost Legacy”. Then, a suspicious black cube with blue stripes appeared floating near Maple.

  “Try to attack and see what happens.”


  “‘Deploy Barrels’! ‘Commence Attack’!”


  Maple shot a barrage of bullets at nothing in particular, but the cube’s energy gauge didn’t move at all.

  “Huh?”


  “Looks like you can’t just attack the air. How about when you get attacked?”


  “Let’s try with a bomb!”


  Without any hesitation, Maple laid a few bombs at her feet and set them off. After a brief moment, a huge explosion took place, and Maple was caught in the blast.

  Of course, the only reason she did this was because she knew that she wouldn’t take any damage from it, but the whole thing caused even Sally to flinch for a moment.

  “Sally! It’s filled up quite a bit! But now it’s going down on its own already!”


  “I think it’s intended to be used mainly during battle. Building up energy through your own attacks seems to be the way to go with this. But you don’t have many options to accomplish that besides setting up a few bombs in advance……”


  While it was true that the gauge would build up through received attacks as well, that didn’t seem to be the main way to do that.

  Maple used up the energy stored in the cube and immediately activated its skill.

  “Ancient Weapon!”


  The cube that was floating right next to Maple grew to a size of about 2 cubic meters, before splitting in half, then a single gatling gun emerged from it.

  “.……It’s not shooting?”


  “Maybe it works automatically? You’ll need a target.”


  “I see. But I’m glad to be getting even more new guns!”


  “That’s not what I’d expect a Great Shield user to say, but still……”


  In the first place, what was a Great Shield user doing with such an inconceivable amount of guns? She wasn’t a gunslinger, and yet she had too much DPS for a Great Shield user.

  “Well, the important thing is that we managed to get this skill without getting hurt.”


  Realizing that it made no sense to question Maple’s ample weaponry, Sally decided to simply be happy about her friend getting stronger. Every skill and piece of equipment they obtained could serve as a catalyst for turning an adverse situation upside down.

  “I should be even more useful to you with this!”


  “I’m glad for you. I’m counting on you!”


  “Ehehe, yeah, leave it to me~”


  After obtaining a new power, the two of them left the boss room.