Defense specialization and Pain.

Apologies for the delay.

Maple and Pain continued their exploration of the deep jungle.

"Maple..."

"Did you say something?"

"No... nothing."

Pain looked up at the sky.

The deep green leaves obscured the sky, yet they moved without Pain's motion.

In essence, Pain was riding atop Maple, who was in a monstrous state, moving forward.

Maple navigated through the trees with difficulty.

"Maple, left. Right is empty."

Understood."

Maple moved in a way that would prompt immediate attack from other players.

At times, she grasped tree trunks and wrapped around them to cross between trees.

Pain could easily cling to Maple, so any odd movement she made caused no issue.

Their exploration proceeded without incident.

"Monster! I'll defeat it!"

Maple’s words proved true. A monster approached from ahead.

It took the form of a treant, a creature of wood and bark.

Pain recognized it.

This was the same monster that had dealt Pain a slight wound.

“Maple, it will attack with a branch piercing from beneath your feet…”

“Eh? What?”

Before Pain finished speaking, the ground before Maple became a sea of flame.

Though the fire did not spread to the surrounding trees—this was a game—the monster, shaped like wood, did not withstand it lightly.

The treant turned to ash. An item dropped to the ground.

“No… wait. It would be wise to pick it up.”

“Aah, yes.”

Maple’s phantom hand closed around the item. It vanished.

Pain narrowed her eyes and looked up at the sky. The sky, seen through narrowed eyes, remained hidden behind leaves, as always.

Several times during the journey, monsters attacked. Each was either run down or knocked aside by Maple, without pause.

If Pain can be entrusted with the fighting, she can divert her strength elsewhere.

Maple, stop. Something is heard.

Pain noticed it easily, having the leisure to watch the surroundings.

The faint sound reaching Pain’s ears was like the flutter of wings.

Shall we go and see?

Ah

There is no stealth for Maple. She moves, her heart fluttering, toward the sound of wings growing louder. The two of them see it then— a large wasp nest built high in the canopy of the jungle.

A black ribbon-like thing circling around it, flying.

The hum came from the ribbon. The two could sense what it was made of, writhing through the air.

"Indeed. Now, what shall we do?"

"Shall I draw it and hold it?"

"Not so easily... no, wait..."

Pain paused, then stopped thinking.

Maple decided not to use Love That Offers the Body this time. She considered the HP limit, and that her partner was Pain.

"Then, I’m going!"

Maple leapt beneath the wasp nest, into the widened space below. A large wasp, perhaps four meters in size, appeared near the nest.

On its head sat a clean crown.

It radiated the air of a queen bee.

"Stronger than the wasps we fought before?"

As Maple spoke, the queen bee emitted a sound.

The black ribbon, the mass of bees, surged forward as a single arrow, launching their assault on Maple.

The bees, moving at high speed, charged at Maple. Each was deflected without exception.

“Provocation! Come on, then!”

The queen bee issued command after command—directed assaults, encirclements, wide-range attacks from the side—but every bee that struck Maple was repelled, left staggering, waiting for the next order.

“…Holy Rain.”

Pain drew his sword in the shade, muttering. The blade glowed white.

He swung the sword, hurling the gathered light into the air.

It halted five meters above, at the center of the square where Maple stood, and released a downpour of light.

The light pierced the bees obsessed with Maple, dissolving them one by one.

Pain became a machine, releasing his area attacks one after another, as Maple evaded the bees’ assaults with practiced ease.

“I’m… doing what, exactly…”

Pain murmured, glancing briefly at Maple deflecting the bees’ stings with the creature’s body.

A scene not seen in ordinary life unfolded before him.

After roughly twenty minutes, having dispatched nearly all the bees, Pain stepped onto the square where Maple stood.

“Unharmed… expected.”

“Pain-san, the queen bee is descending!”

Pain and Maple looked upward.

As Maple said, the queen bee was descending slowly, inch by inch.

“Cut her down in one strike.”

Pain cleared his mind, raising his sword.

“Alright, here we go.”

Maple shifted her limbs, lifting her head upward.

The queen bee descending into her own death is undeniably brave—or recklessly bold.