Seeing Hannah’s first attempt at being an evasion-based Tank go well, Tsutomu had Daryl stand aside and let Hannah try Tanking by herself. The team managed to get through most of the following encounters with only Diniel and Hannah as the active combatants.
Aside from Hannah’s occasional failures to activate her <<Combat Cry>> skill, which was perhaps due to her not always taking its mental energy consumption into account, things were going smoothly. Since she had been able to pull all monsters’ aggro without taking even a single hit, one could consider her performance almost perfect.
The Beach biome had only a few monsters capable of long-ranged attacks, so all Hannah needed was the <<Fly>> spell’s buff to keep her mostly out of harm’s way. The monsters’ aggro on her would temporarily shift away if she flew too high or too far, so the more effective way to maintain that was to position herself where she was barely within range.
Still, Boxers had only a single aggro-generating skill, which was Combat Cry. If Attackers were to attack too aggressively, she ran the risk of not generating aggro quickly enough to keep the monsters’ attention on her.
Working as an Attacker, on the other hand, Hannah had the tools to dish out one of the highest amounts of damage among all Jobs. As such, she could generate higher aggro than Diniel with a combination of <<Combat Cry>> and her damage output.
Tsutomu himself had tried testing how flying away would affect aggro levels, but results so far had been ambiguous at best. Some monsters would keep on pursuing their targets, while others would give up and direct their aggro elsewhere. The latter case would come up less and less the deeper down the team went, since more monsters would have access to long-ranged attacks from the fiftieth layer down. Still, since none of that had been in the game, there were yet so many unknown factors to investigate.
After a series of battles, Hannah went back to the rest of the party totally unscathed, her wings flapping with excitement. Seeing that Daryl was waiting to welcome her back with both hands up, she high-fived him.
“Hannah! That was amazing! You’re untouchable!”
“Yeah! I’m off to a great start!”
Hannah held Daryl’s hands and spun him around as if they were dancing. Amira looked at them, bored out of her mind, and Diniel had her usual sleepy eyes. Hannah’s excitement calmed down after a while, and she went over to meet Tsutomu.
“Sir Tsutomu! No, I mean — Teach! This fighting style is so awesome! Now I feel like I’ll finally be able to Tank well!”
Hannah bounced happily and grabbed Tsutomu’s hand as well.
“Right. Glad to hear that it’s working out for you,” Tsutomu answered, while averting his eyes, so as to avoid staring at Hannah’s barely concealed chest. Then, upon remembering the pain he had gone through when his old game Clan had collapsed due to a group of toxic gamers, he cast away his doubts, looked at Hannah, and proceeded to say, “But do keep in mind that it’s been going well partly because there aren’t many monsters with long-ranged attacks. So the next thing you’ll have to figure out is how you deal with those.”
“Got it, Teach!”
“…Okay, as long as you understand.”
Whether he was called ‘Teach’ or simply by name, Tsutomu did not feel all that different, so he decided to not ask her to stop that for now. Instead, he turned around and spoke to Amira,
“All right, Amira, you’re the last one. Take over as Attacker, please.”
“Finally! Almost thought I wasn’t gonna get any action…”
Amira moved her head around, making a few cracking sounds that seemed bad for her neck, and then reached for the greatsword on her back. Thanks to Tsutomu’s reassurance earlier, Amira seemed to have regained her usual enthusiasm, and was starting to speak casually again.
“Hannah, your role is Tank, just like before. Diniel, take a break.”
“Finally.”
Diniel, looking subtly happy, put her bow on her back and went to where Daryl was. Amira, Hannah, and Tsutomu proceeded to walk along the Beach. They soon came across some monsters, and promptly got ready to do battle.
“<<Combat Cry>>.”
Hannah pulled the aggro of all monsters, and then joined in the fray with her attacking skills. Seeing Hannah start things off, Amira rested her greatsword on her shoulder and ran ahead as well.
At this time, Amira was almost as tall as Camille, and similarly wore red leather armor and wielded an oversized greatsword. Camille had also mentioned that their personalities were quite similar.
“ORAH!!”
Amira’s approach to combat, however, was completely different. If Camille was described as a refined Greatsword Fighter, Amira was the very opposite, moving like a raging Berserker instead.
She swung her greatsword with all her strength, and as if it was a blunt instrument, as if to have the lump of steel eat into the flesh of her enemies. With just a single attack, she blew away three Salty Lobsters into different directions, and the resulting gust of wind blew up a cloud of dust and sand.
“DIE! DIE!!”
Amira, holding her greatsword out in front of her, proceeded to pounce on one of the Salty Lobsters and swing down on it as if to crush its shell to dust. With a loud crack, the Salty Lobster died and faded away.
All in all, Amira’s fighting style came off as an exaggerated flaunting of raw power. It seemed extremely dangerous, but she did have the ability to mow down all the monsters in her way. Unrefined as she was now, she was indeed powerful, and possessed a great degree of potential.
Hannah, on the other hand, was now having trouble getting close to monsters due to Amira’s unpredictable swinging. Along the way, the enemies’ aggro ended up shifting over to Amira instead, but each time, she would destroy all of them effortlessly. The battle ended with Hannah unable to fix the flow, and she went back to the party, discouraged.
“Hannah, remember — in battles against multiple enemies, use fewer attack skills and more <<Combat Cry>> if you’re starting to generate less aggro than your Attackers.”
“Got it!”
“But against a single target… you should attack more instead, I think. Your STR is high, so that should generate aggro more effectively. But watch out for counter-attacks when you attack them directly–“
“…You’re starting to sound a bit too excited, Teach.”
“Ah… right. Let’s save the rest for later, then.”
Tsutomu’s attempt to offer encouragement and advice to Hannah only served to make her hold her head as if she was overloaded with information.
“Hey, got you a Magic Stone,” Amira called Tsutomu from behind.
Tsutomu, thinking that Amira had collected the Magic Stones for him, turned around to see a Colorless Magic Stone flying straight at his face. Startled, he closed his eyes and covered his face with his arms.
Then came the sound of something bursting apart… but nothing actually hit him. Tsutomu opened his eyes and nervously looked ahead, and saw that the Magic Stone had been destroyed, its remaining light particles drifting in the wind. And in front of him was Amira, grinning with amusement and tossing around a Colorless Magic Stone in one hand. To her side was Diniel, ready to shoot with her bow.
Amira proceeded to throw the Magic Stone toward Tsutomu again, this time at an upward curve, and Diniel promptly shot it down. It happened so quickly that Tsutomu could not really see what actually went on, but he did know that he was safe.
“Ah, sorry. I must’ve thrown it too hard.”
“…Yes, try not to give me a heart attack, please.”
It was apparent that Amira meant no real harm, and was only in a post-battle high mental state. She proceeded to throw another Magic Stone, this time with a submarine pitch. Tsutomu caught it and put it away in his Magic Bag. The team then progressed onward, with Diniel searching for monsters, and Amira and Hannah as the only active combatants.
Things started out decent enough, but the mood of everyone in the party gradually worsened. It went without saying that the cause of this was Amira.
She went around rampaging on her own, killing all monsters in her way without paying any attention to her teammates. The way she so easily swung her weapon made it look light, but that did not change the fact that it was a heavy steel greatsword. Of the people present, only Daryl would have a chance at surviving a direct hit.
Hannah had known beforehand, from what she had seen on the Monitors, that Amira would not think twice about cutting her allies in half along with her enemies. As such, out of fear of the wildly swinging lump of steel, Hannah dared not to get close to the monsters.
Fortunately, Hannah could still work somewhat as a Tank, by using <<Combat Cry>> more frequently and from a safe distance in the sky. That was the very basic of basics as far as Tank moves went, however. Hannah was quite displeased that she could not do anything but the bare minimum of her role, though she did not yet let her emotions show on her face.
Moreover, it was apparent that Amira was acting the way she was on purpose. From an onlooker’s point of view, it would look like she was doing this to pester Hannah, but her actual intention was different — it was out of spite toward Diniel, who had generated less aggro than Hannah during the previous encounters.
By Amira’s logic, her generating higher aggro — more than Hannah and Diniel — meant she was superior to them. As she swung her sword around, she sometimes shot Diniel a condescending look just to hammer her point down.
Diniel, was able to get the message, only put her hand over her mouth and yawned, showing no interest toward the provocations. Amira, seemingly ticked off by that, put more force into her swings, aggravating Hannah even more as a side effect. Daryl seemed to have noticed the team’s worsening mood as well, as apparent from how he nervously alternated his sight between Diniel and Amira.
And of course, Tsutomu had noticed Amira’s intent almost immediately. Some Live Dungeon! players had a habit of doing it — and it was not limited to those with the Attacker role, but all players with that kind of personality. Tsutomu had also often seen Healers who refused to heal teammates out of personal grievances, and in fact, Tsutomu himself had done the same in his semi-early days. It took no time at all for one to realize what results would follow such uncooperativeness.
Still, he did not intervene. There was nothing wrong with having a sense of rivalry toward other Attackers, at least in and of itself. Although she was causing trouble for the Tank in this case, she had just gotten started with trying to fight in a three-role-composed team. Such was nothing to fuss over.
He felt bad for subjecting Hannah to this situation, but the fact was that she had already gotten enough training for today, since she was already understanding the ways of evasion-based Tanks well enough. All she needed to do was remember what she had learnt and put it to use in future explorations.
“S-Sir Tsutomu! Things are looking scary over there!”
“Yes, it is. I feel sorry for Hannah, but she’ll have to put up with it until the fight is over.”
For the rest of the battle, Hannah could only stay at a safe distance in the sky and repeatedly use <<Combat Cry>>, a clear disgruntled look was showing on her face, while Tsutomu observed them both and kept on casting their support skills. Once the battle ended, Amira and Hannah returned to the rest of the team, the former looking quite refreshed and the latter clearly trying to hold her frustration inside. Tsutomu immediately approached Hannah and spoke to her,
“I think Amira’s like that just because she’s not used to fighting together with a Tank. Sorry about that.”
“W-well, not like that’s bothering me at all, you know?”
“Don’t worry — she’ll do better next time.”
Seeing Hannah’s forced smile, Tsutomu gave her a reassuring pat on her shoulders, and proceeded to approach Amira, who by now had sheathed her greatsword back on her back. Amira turned around to look at Tsutomu, her expression bursting with energy.
“Man! That was awesome, Tsutomu! I’ve never been that fast before!”
“Hmm? Oh, you’re talking about the <<Haste>> buff?”
“Yeah! <<Haste>>! Dunno how you did that, but yours is way better than the ones I used to get! Like, way different!”
“Well, thank you for that… compliment, I guess?”
“Cast me another one of that next time, yeah? You cool? Cool!”
Amira patted Tsutomu on his back… with such force that caused him to stumble a few steps forward, before he could continue the conversation,
“So, Amira, you’re not very used to fighting in a team with Tanks, I assume?”
“Hmm? Yeah. My old team was… well, y’know, four Attackers.”
Amira’s expression instantly turned grumpy, seemingly reminded of her previous team’s breakup, and she proceeded to click her tongue and lightly kick up a cloud of sand.
“Having a rivalry going on with Diniel is fine and all, but you were causing quite a bit of trouble for the Tank. You need to change at least a little bit of your approach to fights.”
“…You’re not gonna say you’re kicking me out, right?”
“As I said before, I’m not about to get rid of you because of a mistake or two. All you need to do is listen and improve as you go.”
“Really!? Cool! I’ll take anything but being kicked out at this point! ‘Cause if I get kicked, the ancient Dragon’s gonna beat me halfway dead!”
Amira, apparently relieved by what Tsutomu had told her, turned bright again and proceeded to pat the latter on the shoulder a few times. Tsutomu heaved a sigh while defending himself with his arms.
“And you, Feather Tank! I really messed up there! Sorry!”
“…I have a name! It’s Hannah!”
Tsutomu, seeing that Amira still had the habit of calling Hannah, ‘Feather Tank’, heaved another deep sigh and warned her, before calling off the exploration for the day. The team proceeded to return to the Guild.
