The meeting for countermeasures against the Rotten Swordsman and the Shell Crab passed without incident. That night, Amira never returned to the Clan House, showing up in the next morning instead. According to her, she had gone hard partying, had gotten too much to drink, and slept through the whole night at the bar. Tsutomu, hearing that, promptly facepalmed. He then looked at Amira, and saw that she was already fully equipped.
“So… we had a strategy meeting after you went out yesterday. Would you like to get a rundown of it? It’ll take a while, though.”
“What? Nah, don’t need it. It’s just the Rotten Swordsman and Shell Crab, right? I’m already used to them.”
“If you say so.”
Although she had claimed to have fallen asleep at the bar, Amira looked surprisingly sober — quite perfectly healthy and clear-headed, even.
[She looks just like Camille, but I guess she can hold her booze much better…]
Upon another look, Amira was perfectly clean, and did not reek of any alcoholic drinks. Tsutomu had already known how sloppy Amira was after a week of them living in the house, so he was somewhat suspicious. Still, he did not press the matter, and proceeded to head to the Guild together with everyone.
“Coming up first is the Attacker match against Hannah. The plan is to evaluate who is faster at killing their targets. Any objections?”
“See who’s faster at killering… Nope. I’m cool with that.”
“All right. You’ll be going first, Amira — is that okay?”
“Sure thing,” Amira answered with a grin and some good-humored laughs, seeming full of confidence. She was obviously underestimating Hannah, but from her point of view, that was understandable. Hannah’s reputation as the quick-to-die ‘Feather Tank‘ was still fresh in people’s minds, so it was natural for Amira to still have the impression that she was weak.
As for Hannah herself, although she looked grumpy and was staying silent, she was apparently raring to go. Before switching over to the Tank role out of pure admiration, she had been a capable Attacker, good enough to keep up with the harsh workflow of Ealdred Crow’s second-best party. That was a well-known fact among the best Attackers in town — those who had been exploring God’s Dungeon since the first days of its emergence, and were now level 70.
If Hannah had not changed to working as a Tank, she would have been a strong contender for Ealdred Crow’s main party. Due to recent trends, she may be ridiculed as the Feather Tank now, but there was no denying how excellent of an Attacker she was.
“Let’s get started, then. We’ll register for a team of four, and… Diniel, you’re free to do whatever you want until it’s your turn.”
“All right, I’ll go hang out with Amy. Come get me when it’s time,” Diniel said and raised her hand, having been told of this beforehand. She proceeded to walk away, into the Appraisal Office where Amy was. Mere moments later, Amy’s high-pitched shouting voice could be heard coming from the room, calling Diniel’s name.
The Rotten Swordsman’s spawn behavior was one of the main reasons for leaving Diniel out of the party for the first two rounds, but at the end of the day, it was to prevent foul play. Moreover, while their activities in the Dungeon may be shown on the Monitors, Monitors numbered higher than #50 only showed a random selection of in-combat Explorers. Tsutomu, taking into account that the battle may not be shown on a Monitor, had Hannah and Daryl come along to watch Amira’s round as well.
Once the party of four was registered, Tsutomu went over the competition rules to everyone one more time.
“I’ll be using this watch to time how long it takes for each of you to kill one Rotten Swordsman, and then compare the times to decide the victor. We’ll teleport to layer forty right when the long hand hits a new minute, after which the time will start being counted. Any questions?”
“Nah.”
“I don’t have one, no.”
“All right. Keep in mind that there will be three Rotten Swordsmen for each encounter, so once Amira has taken one out and her final time has been recorded, Hannah and Daryl will join in to clear out the rest.”
“Got it.”
Rotten Swordman, Layer Boss of the Wasteland, was a monster that spawned differently depending on the number of members of the party facing it. Against parties of one or two, only one Swordsman would spawn. For three or four, three of them would appear. And a party of five would have to face a total of six enemies.
As for the spawning order, only one of them would appear at first. In a party of one and two, once that one enemy was defeated, the Black Gate would appear, enabling the Explorers to complete the fortieth layer. For teams of three or four, two more would appear after that, and for a team of five, three more would spawn after those two were done away with.
Moreover, each time one of them was defeated, they would study the opposing party’s equipment and habits, and the encounter’s subsequent spawn waves would come with equipment and special properties that counteracted the Explorers. As such, a single one of them could be considered not so strong for a Layer Boss, but it would be a challenge for larger teams. Since the third wave against parties of five was widely considered to be quite difficult, the generally safe option was to downsize the team to four.
Once Tsutomu was done with his explanations, the team lined up behind the long Magic Circle queue. Since the major Clans had also resumed their God’s Dungeon exploration routines by now, the Guild was quite densely packed. Adding to them were the mid-tier Clans that had adopted the three-role team compositions, merged together, or formed partnerships; this meant more non-major Explorers were gaining in prominence as of late as well.
Thanks to the three-role composition’s gradual popularization, many novice Explorers, who had previously given up after failing to work as Attackers, were coming to the Guild again. More and more completely new Explorers were beginning to show up, too.
Tsutomu’s team passed by a party that had just gotten together for the first time through the Guild’s assistance — a party of five, their equipment mismatched with one another’s, awkwardly bowing to greet their new potential friends. Tsutomu smiled a little at the scene, and Amira next to him turned to look, curious what he was smiling at. Then she narrowed her eyes, looking bored.
“Looks like you’re not in a very good mood, hmm?”
Amira turned away in annoyance, then looked at the newcomers’ party once again before groaning up her nose.
“Hah, being friendly won’t help them win the Dungeon, you know. They gotta get stronger… much stronger, or they’ll just keep dying again and again.”
“Really? If we’re talking about strength, you’re actually stronger than me, Amira.”
“…See, a lot of people have endorsed your skill — the ancient Dragon, all the bigwigs in the center of town. You’re a White Mage, sure, but you’re strong… in a different way from me.”
Amira’s expression turned sour, though she apparently had already accepted Tsutomu’s leadership as well. She proceeded to take a glance behind her, at Daryl and Hannah as they were having a friendly chat between themselves.
“Can’t say the same for the others, though. And I’m not about to let myself stay below them.”
“…Okay. Then you’ll have to give it your best, first with getting the best kill time.”
“No need to tell me twice.”
Right now, Amira was overly conscious of her standing, and was borderline treating everyone and everything as her enemies. Tsutomu did see some danger that might result from Amira’s current attitude, but he refrained from pressing on the matter, out of consideration for her previous Clan’s still-recent breakup. Then, after a few more moments of waiting, the team was the next in line to use the Magic Circles.
“Now then, we’ll be teleporting when the long hand strikes twelve. About… twenty seconds to go. Get ready, Amira.”
“Yeah.”
Amira reached for the steel greatsword on her back. She had been keeping it well-maintained daily, so its blade was almost devoid of nicks and dents. Her red leather armor had no easily noticeable stains and flaws, either.
“Teleport to the fortieth layer,” Tsutomu commanded, gripping the pocket watch in his hand as the team was transported to the specified destination.
――▽▽――
Layer forty of the Dungeon was dimly lit and shaped like an area, the center of which was a Rotten Swordsman, standing still as if waiting for its opponents. Immediately upon the team’s arrival, Tsutomu cast <<Haste>> and <<Protect>> for Amira. Surprised by the momentary shift in her bodily senses, Amira then rushed straight at her target.
The Rotten Swordsman was a humanoid monster, standing over two meters tall with its dry, thinned-out, non-bleeding, mummy-like body. Instead of mummies’ usual linen, however, it was equipped with a shabby set of armor. And in contrast to its weak-looking body, it possessed tremendous power, too strong for the average Explorer to exchange blows with it head-on.
Amira charged straight at the monster, taking a low stance to prepare a swing.
“Ora!”
And once she swung, the Rotten Swordsman took a step back to avoid Amira’s greatsword. This particular Rotten Swordsman, being the first spawn, had a fixed equipment loadout: a short sword and a buckler. The second and third ones would later spawn with different equipment.
The Rotten Swordsman readied its short sword and stepped toward Amira. Its movements were reminiscent of a full-fledged knight, giving off the impression that it had been one in life.
“<<Power…”
Amira, unfazed by the Rotten Swordsman’s approach, held her greatsword to the side and waited. Then, once the monster’s short sword came at her, she swung to intercept it.
“…Slash>>!”
The oversized sword clashed against the small one, with the skill-boosted greatsword winning, easily shattering the short sword to pieces. The greatsword, maintaining its arc, went for the Rotten Swordsman next.
The Rotten Swordsman, barely managing to reposition its buckler in between it and the greatsword, got blown backward. Its body rolled for some distance across the broken weapon and bone-filled ground.
This monster, taller than Bruno, was quite strong and decently versed in the martial arts. Many Explorers had lost to its raw power alone, making it so good of a test of strength that the nobility’s military force and Security Team sometimes used it for training sessions.
Despite its power, however, Amira possessed the strength to easily blow it away, and at the relatively low level of forty-six, no less. Among those who had started exploring God’s Dungeon about six months ago, she was the only one who could brute-force her way against the Rotten Swordsman like this.
As Amira gave chase, the Rotten Swordsman pulled out one of the short swords stuck in the ground to defend itself. Possessing some level of skill itself, the monster was careful not to clash against its opponent’s greatsword this time.
All Amira needed to do to defeat her target was keep attacking, but this particular fight was a test of speed. As such, she was taking an even more aggressive approach than usual, aiming to end it as early as possible. Once she was close enough, she slashed at the Rotten Swordsman again. A direct hit would be fatal, but the monster saw it through, easily dodging it.
The Rotten Swordsman then quickly closed in on Amira, seeing that she still had not completed her swing, and thus full of openings. It plunged its short sword forward, aiming to stab Amira’s torso.
Amira ignored that as she kept on swinging, spinning her body around… and so the Rotten Swordsman’s landed the stab on her back instead. Amira’s back was mostly uncovered due to the need to leave an opening for when her <<Dragon Form>> wings sprout, so the monster’s short sword easily dug into her flesh, spilling out a stream of blood.
“Ora!!”
But then Amira kept spinning as if she did not feel the pain at all, and when her spin was completed, her greatsword slammed squarely against the Rotten Swordsman. Together with a loud impact, the monster’s armor broke apart, revealing its brown, thin, mummy-like torso.
“<<High Heal>>!”
As Amira started running again despite her bleeding, Tsutomu promptly cast a spell to heal the stab wound on her back. Then, estimating that the support skill effects were close to wearing out, he followed it up with <<Protect>> and <<Haste>>.
In an attempt to finish things quickly, Amira proceeded with the blow-trading approach again, but it was not quite as effective as she had hoped, in part due to her having previously fought this particular monster just once. Amira did have some anti-personnel combat training following the circumstances of her father’s death — he had been stabbed by a remnant of a certain criminal Clan, which resulted in an illness that claimed his life afterward. Despite the monster’s humanoid body, however, things were not playing out according to plan because of its own set of quirks as a monster. That, combined with her not being used to moving her body after an AGI boost from <<Haste>>, caused Amira to not fare so well against the Rotten Swordsman. The speed part was rather egregious, with her frequently moving too fast, resulting in her being distracted and throwing her off-rhythm.
Moreover, she was showing no sign of even activating her unique skill, <<Dragon Form>>. The transformation was sure to provide her a much-needed advantage in this test of speed, but for reasons unknown, she was not using it.
A short while later, Amira finally managed to take the Rotten Swordsman down, but then she clicked her tongue in annoyance, unsatisfied with the final results. Two more Rotten Swordsmen promptly spawned; Daryl pulled their aggro and Tanked their attacks, and Hannah and Amira proceeded to make quick work of one each.
The layer’s Black Gate then appeared with a smashing-like sound, prompting all four to let out some sighs of relief. Tsutomu noted down the time until the first Rotten Swordsman turned into light particles and disappeared. He then showed the note to Amira.
“Six minutes and fifty-two seconds.”
“…Tch. Longer than I thought,” Amira grumbled, sounding somewhat regretful, but her face suggested that she still was not worried. After all, her current opponent was Hannah, infamous among the perpetually low-mid tier Explorers as the Feather Tank. Amira was confident that she would win even with the few mistakes she had made.
“All right, Hannah, you’re next. Tsutomu said.
“Got it!” Hannah replied cheerfully, ready to go after getting the warm-up from the brief fight just now.
