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Bookbound Bunny 2: Chapter 42
🕑 Added 2025-08-26 06:15:01 +0000 UTCB2 - Chapter 42 - Brassbound Competition
With everyone having found a group, Alice began leading the students to their next destination. They breezed through a few rooms with the monsters not even lasting a few seconds as Alice moved with supernatural speed, weaving between the enemies and leaving only a pile of bonedust in her wake.
"Right, this is the spot," Alice said, stopping outside a large set of double doors. "Before we enter, do not approach any suits of armor without my permission. One year, a joker ran past and activated almost all of them, which meant I had to clean up the mess before it got out of hand. Not only was he denied his dungeon pass for months, almost getting expelled, but he ruined everyone else's fun that day and became quite the social pariah."
The students were murmuring their agreements, some bobbing their heads in agreement.
Lily, however, raised her hand. "What about my Familiar?"
"Yeah! What if her book steals all of the Brassbound?" a boy asked, causing a few others to respond to his claim.
Alice stomped her foot, the reverberating echo seizing control of the situation.
"It shouldn't be a problem," she said confidently. "Your Familiar only drew the skeletons if it was within their activation range, which was the entire room. Brassbound only have an activation range of a few feet, so as long as you aren't throwing the book at them, we should be peachy."
[I agree with her theory and trust her dungeon knowledge. In the worst case, I could also fly out of the room, which should revert them as well.]
"Okay…" Lily replied hesitantly to both of them.
Alice nodded and kicked the set of double doors, swinging them wide open and crashing against their hinges. The room revealed beyond them was gargantuan, likely equal in size to the auditorium that held the entire school in attendance at a minimum.
It was arranged in a sort of grand ballroom, with rows upon rows of suits of armor lining the walls and facing toward the center of the room. The center was entirely empty except for a slightly raised platform, where presumably the dancing festivities would commence.
"Aww, I was hoping for the throne room layout so I'd get a fancy chair to sit in," Alice grumbled before strolling inside.
She gestured for the students to follow, and they all entered cautiously. Lily noted that when she and Arakil entered, some students even deliberately held their breath while staring at the inanimate suits of armor, as if expecting them to spring to life. Thankfully, they did not.
"Okay. I'll be in the center so I can watch all of you. I'd suggest your designated defender be the only one to approach, so you don't accidentally activate more than one. If you do, don't panic, they are slow, and I'll step in if I need to.
"Once you've lured your Brassbound away from the wall, you can engage it. Remember, I want the defender to only defend while the other two try to attack it from behind. Once you've defeated your first one, swap the role to someone else and repeat."
"Does the group that kills the most get a prize?" Arthur asked.
"What, do you want a kiss on the cheek or something?" Alice asked with a devilish smirk.
Arthur sputtered and vehemently shook his head.
"Sorry, only teasing," Alice said with a wink. "Sure, how about I give the winning group a bag of soup bombs? Is that enough competition to get your blood boiling?"
"Heck yeah!" Hana shouted, and a few other students also got pumped up at the sudden competition.
Alice stomped her foot. "But! If I catch any of you intentionally luring more than one at a time, you're disqualified. Once I'll treat it as an accident, twice is intentional, so don't abuse my generosity."
The students rapidly agreed.
"Well, I think this will be super easy for us," Lotte chuckled. "I think we might have gotten a free win."
"While I don't normally like to boast, I think you're right," Thomas promptly agreed.
"Has Arthur infected both of you?" Lily asked in surprise.
The pair chuckled and shook their heads.
"I just can't see some copper suit surviving my acid spells at all," Lotte said.
"And while my lightning magic is still in its infancy, it should be extremely effective against these enemies," Thomas replied.
[Lightning against metal, especially copper, defenses will be highly conductive. I can see Thomas making short work of these enemies. Not to mention the accumulation of stardust from your Starburst. Most threats can't stand up to such a rapidly stacking conditional ailment.]
Lily nodded, agreeing with all three of them.
"It's too bad we can't pull more than one, though," Lotte lamented. "With Lily's impervious defense, we could probably take on the whole room."
Thomas waved his hand in rejection. "I'd rather not risk it. Both for Lily's safety and to avoid Alice's judgment. I feel like she's just itching to use some of her authority."
"True. I guess I'm just antsy to get a few extra monster kills under my belt. The quicker I can shore up my constitution, the better I'll feel in the long run."
I should probably avoid stealing any for my Mana Core, then. Lotte needs it more than me right now.
"Even one at a time, I think we can do it," Lily replied confidently.
The group smiled together in their shared confidence, moments before Alice announced they were to spread out and get ready to start. She also noted that when she called for everyone to stop, they had better stop immediately after defeating their final target—or else.
Lily gazed at the set of armored statues before her. Assuming that they were all monsters, the sheer amount of Brassbound on display would easily leave ten or more for each group if they managed to take them all out.
"On your marks. Get ready. Go!" Alice shouted.
Lily's cloak swirled to life, surrounding her as she ran forward. Arakil stayed behind, not wanting to accidentally trigger any additional Brassbound while also being ready to flee the room if the worst came to fruition.
As Lily came face to face with the suit of armor, its joints creaked to life and its eyeless helmet stared directly at her. It began lurching forward, its arms raised as if it wanted to pummel her into the ground.
"Whoa, those are freaky!" Lotte commented.
Lily had to agree, the way it suddenly went from inanimate object to "monster" was so sudden she didn't expect it. She quickly retreated, with the monster slowly pursuing.
When it was safely removed from the pack, she turned around and stood her ground. Her cloak billowed outwards, creating a more frontal defense as Lily was cautious of needing more protection from a likely heavy physical blow.
Thomas and Lotte flanked around it, with the creature not even paying them any attention. It's permanently clenched fist struck against Lily's cloak, causing it to recoil slightly under the weight. Lotte's serpent spell went flying out and consumed the entire head of the monster in seconds.
"Ha! I knew it would be easy," she cheered.
But the monster raised its fist again and pummeled at Lily's Nebula Veil.
"I don't think they need a head to survive," she warned the other two.
"Ah, dammit!" Lotte cursed.
But Thomas had finished his extended chant and rushed forward with his hand crackling in magical lightning. He touched the back of the suit of armor and unleashed the spell, causing a surge of electrifying energy to discharge throughout the suit of armor.
The suit of armor convulsed rapidly before it began collapsing to the floor in chunks of separated pieces. Each piece rapidly blackened and turned into disintegrating flecks moments after hitting the ground.
"Damn, was your lightning always this strong?" Lotte asked.
"N-no," Thomas replied, clearly a little surprised himself. "But my book mentioned metal enemies being weak to lightning. I didn't expect it to be that good."
"Well, that works for us. Since you killed it, you're going to draw out the next one!" Lotte replied.
"Sure, sure," Thomas replied, jogging toward the pack of inanimate suits of armor.
"Let me kill this one, then you get the next one?" Lotte asked.
"Sure, just don't go for the head this time," Lily teased.
"It's so dumb! The head is supposed to be the weakness!"
Thomas came back with company as another Brassbound was after him. He was using the wind shield again, although it looked like it could only survive two or three blows before he'd be forced to dodge or retreat and recast it.
Lily and Lotte both went to its rear, and she noticed that the armor covering its back was far thinner than the front. She didn't get to examine it for too long, though, as Lotte unleashed a flurry of serpentlike spells toward the suit of armor. There were four in total, each going for the joint on its limbs, and when they struck, they melted through the armor like a knife through hot butter, with a caustic sizzle permeating the air.
The armor's limbs fell off, causing the body of the creature to crumble and fall as well. The limbs began to dissolve into black flecks, but the main body remained.
"Huh, that's interesting…" Lotte said with a fiendish and toothy grin. "Guess pulling it apart isn't good enough, you've got to go for the chest!"
And upon that, she cast one final spell that snaked in through one of the holes from the missing arm and then promptly exploded from within the armor. What was left of the limbless body rapidly crumbled into a pool of sizzling green goo and black flecks.
"Your turn to grab one!" Thomas shouted back.
"Ah, dammit, there's my fun ruined," Lotte groaned before running off.
"Can I just say that I'm really glad she's banned from participating in duels?" Thomas said after she was out of earshot, pointing at the awful remains of the monster.
"It's probably for the best," Lily agreed.
Lotte came running back to their position, although the Brassbound that was chasing her was quite odd. This was due to it missing both its arms, and instead, it was trying to ineffectually attack her with its shoulders. With how slow and cumbersome its movement was, Lotte didn't even need to bring up a defensive spell and could just waltz out of the way.
"Why doesn't it have arms?" Thomas asked.
"Well, I wasn't going to let it punch me. I've only got a stupid mud wall for defense," Lotte snapped back.
Thomas sighed. "You melted off its arms… Didn't you?"
Lotte gave a cheeky grin.
"So much for only defending…" Thomas said, shaking his head. "Well, it's your turn to destroy it, Lily."
Lily gave a thumbs up and positioned herself behind it. She quickly cast her Starburst, and out flew four stars directly towards the armless armor's back.
The stars crashed into it, each scattering their stardust over its surface and blowing out large chunks of its armor. By the time the fourth and final star hit, there were only a few fragments of the armor left behind.
"Sheesh, and yet I'm the one who's banned from duels. I think our little bunny here is far more dangerous."
"I… might agree?" Thomas replied hesitantly, clearly a bit shocked by the result.
"I got a lot of stars!" Lily replied defensively before scurrying off to fetch the next Brassbound.
This went on for a few cycles before eventually Alice called out for everyone to stop. The fun had ended.
"Well, I think we have a clear winner," she said to the students.
"It was our team, I bet," Arthur said proudly.
"I'm afraid not," Alice said, pointing towards the section that was missing a lot of its Brassbound. You could visibly see a gaping chunk in their lineup.
"Which team was that?" Hana asked.
Alice pointed straight at Lily and her group.
"Honestly speaking, if they weren't listening to my rules, they could have attacked them from the front and defeated them just as fast. Who knew Brassbound were so weak to acid, lightning, and stars?"
"Lightning, too?" Arthur groaned. "Dammit, Thomas, you should have stuck with me! I thought we were friends?"
"Um… Sorry, but I had to stick to Team Maranix?" he replied with a friendly shrug.
"And with that, I think we should start heading out. I've let you kids have far too much fun," Alice replied. "But you all did very well, and I think we can start expediting your dungeon lessons. Less time in the classroom and more time down here."
The students were pleased about that, with some visible cheers and jeers.
"Maybe we can have the dungeon test in two weeks, that should be a lot of fun. I can't wait to see how much you all will improve by then!"
Comments
Zorgdub
> Lightning against metal, especially copper, defenses will be highly conductive. I can see Thomas making short work of these enemies. Being conductive means electricity easily go through. That makes the defenses pointless if it's protecting something else. But a lower resistance means less electricity is converted to heat, and just goes through. That's why metal is harder to damage with electricity. Copper is used for wires specifically because it can take a LOT of electricity without being damaged. If the monsters are only copper, hitting them with lightning is going to be a lot like hitting a lighning rod. The damage will be done to the ground under them, for the most part. But if there's a squishy core somewhere in there there ... zap! Then again, this is magic. This would be far from the first setting where metal-aspected creatures are weak to lightning instead of being more resilient. Lightning mana destroying metal mana and such.
Kasamuri
Thanks for the chapter!
mbncd
Thank you for the chapter!
CherMi
Maybe I'm weird, but this sounds kinda sketchy, like she's talking about drugs for kids. "And with that, I think we should start heading out. I've let you kids have far too much fun," Alice replied.
Summer Coff
Hopefully Lotte is feeling a little better now.
Marcus
" ... like a knife through hot butter, with a caustic sizzle permeating the air." would hot butter not be melted? It should be a hot knife through butter I think.
Michael Zinkstein
Thanks for the chapter
CataFlan
TFTC!
kjrubberducky
I think that the mana in the lightning disrupts the mana in the armor, and metal's conductivity vs electricity increases the efficiency of the disruption. So it's less that the lightning is destroying the armor itself, but rather the magic animating it. Just guessing, tho.
Engineer4God
Tank oo fur da chap!
FuriousDee
I wonder what the lighting actually did given those were just suits of armour with no vital points
MxMokele
If there's a time skip it won't be for bit yet, we still haven't seen the electives and such
Napalm078
You ever hear of an Aurora Australis?
Napalm078
"weaving between the enemies and leaving only a pile of bonedust in her wake." *a pile of bone dust "It's permanently clenched fist struck against Lily's cloak" *Its permanently clenched Ooh, an upcoming timeskip?
Daniel Mountain
Free soup bombs! Though yeah, Team Lily had a pretty solid advantage.
Wensber
Thanks for the chapter!
Snake With An Aurora Borealis
Tftc!
Shai182
TFTC!
