It had been two weeks since Hannah’s empty victory, and one month since Absolute Helix had commenced operations with five members.
Over the past month, Tsutomu and the team had gone to the Wasteland, Beach, Valley, and Canyon layers to battle monsters and improve their coordination and cooperation. The synergies among the two core combat pairs — Hannah and Diniel, and Daryl and Amira — had been improving especially over the past two weeks.
Today, they were at the Canyons, with their primary practice targets being Wyverns.
“Hannah, you don’t need to be so careful where you move. I’m not going to hit you or anything.”
“Uh, I’m scared of scary things, okay?”
“I’ve never had a friendly fire while I was with Golden Tune, you know. You can trust me.”
“…If you say so. Well, here I go…”
“Actually, since you’re so fast, I might want to hit you a few times,” Diniel said with a straight face.
“You’re do it on purpose aren’t you!?” Hannah shouted back, getting goosebumps from the outrageous-sounding statement.
“Just kidding.”
“If you’re gonna tell jokes, you gotta be more obvious about it! I can’t even tell from your expression if you’re actually joking or not!”
Overall, these two had gotten so much closer, enough for them to joke around like this.
“……”
“……”
Daryl and Amira, on the other hand, still had a long way to go. Amira would frequently try to get everything done by herself; a habit stuck from her time with her previous Clan. Furthermore, she has always been a girl of few words while in combat. Daryl had not been communicating much with her either. Perhaps because he had not worked up the courage to talk to her.
Still, Amira did rid herself of her uncooperative tendencies. So, her greatsword swings also no longer accidentally went in Daryl’s direction… So long as she was not in her <<Dragon Form>>. She considered every member of the party as ‘strong and worthy’ now, and although she did not say so out loud, it showed in the way she worked with Daryl, paying attention to his positioning.
As it had turned out, Daryl happened to possess the right mindset and capabilities to work with Amira even without verbal communication. As such, their combination has been effective, without any glaring issues to speak of — not perfect, but more than good enough.
Observing that their results were neither bad nor good, Tsutomu was having a hard time deciding whether or not to make a comment. He was worried that he would be written off as nosy, what with there being no issues at present, and there being plenty of time to fix things since the team had just gotten started.
And then there was a new factor to consider today: a slight change to Amira’s <<Dragon Form>>.
“<<Medic>>.”
As usual, after all monsters in the vicinity were wiped out, Tsutomu had to manually disengage Amira’s <<Dragon Form>> to release her from her berserk state. Then it was time to call for Daryl’s assistance…
“Gah–! Ow.”
“Oh?”
…But this time, Amira simply tripped and fell while retaining her consciousness just fine, as opposed to how she would always faint upon being hit with <<Medic>> before.
“Uh, are you all right, Amira? You’re not transformed anymore, are you?”
“…You could just cast <<Medic>> again if you’re not sure.”
“Fair enough.”
Tsutomu stepped back and cast a <<Medic>> quickshot at Amira — which had no effect, since her <<Dragon Form>> had in fact already been disengaged — and then <<Heal>> for her scratched cheek. Tsutomu then approached Amira as the latter took a few deep breaths.
“So… are you in control of the form now?”
“Nope, still blacked out. Maybe it’s just that I can ‘awaken’ from it now, if you know what I mean.”
“I see. At least it’s an improvement. Guess that means the practice is paying off?” Tsutomu said and smiled.
Amira had been keeping up her after-Dungeon <<Dragon Form>> practice over the past two weeks, and Tsutomu still accompanied her. Feeling awkward and unsure what to say back to the praise she had just gotten, she simply cast her eyes down. Tsutomu paid it no heed and proceeded to rest one end of his staff on the ground.
“Looks like the info I read was right, that the <<Dragon Form>> needs to be used in actual combat. Keep at it and you should be able to control your transformation eventually — and that would be really awesome.”
“Yeah!”
Amira’s <<Dragon Form>> had awakened three years ago, on the day of her father’s death, and now it was starting to show some change. Happy about that change, Amira could not hold back her emotions — and cracked a menacing grin for the first time in quite a while. Tsutomu turned to her and smiled… non-menacingly.
“…What?”
Noticing Tsutomu’s inoffensive gaze, Amira turned to glare at him, irritated.
“Nothing.”
“…Tch.”
Feeling the indifference in Tsutomu’s tone, Amira clicked her tongue and looked away, more irritated than before.
“Oh, did something happen to her?” Hannah suddenly popped up and asked.
“Mm-hm. Looks like she no longer faints after her <<Dragon Form>> is disengaged.”
“Ooh! Congrats!”
“…Thank you,” Amira replied and bowed her head.
Diniel proceeded to congratulate her as well, albeit with just one indifferent word. Daryl worked up the courage to approach her and her menacing aura.
“C-congratulations, Amira!”
Amira turned to Daryl, causing the latter to freeze over like a toad being stared down by a giant snake.
“…Yeah. Thanks” she proceeded to reply, taking a load off the latter’s shoulders.
“All right, let’s get going. More Wyverns are on their way,” Tsutomu warned.
“Ah, yes!”
All four fighters scattered to their positions and prepared for the next battle. As soon as Tsutomu was done casting his support effects, Daryl and Hannah pulled the Wyverns’ aggro, and Diniel launched a preemptive attack.
One of the Wyverns immediately died to Diniel’s arrow. Hannah flew around and distracted three Wyverns at once. While keeping an eye on Hannah’s movements, Diniel proceeded to nock another arrow. Her bow made a tight bending sound as she pulled back its bowstring.
“<<Double Arrow>>.”
Diniel commanded the skill and let the bowstring loose, sending the arrow streaking toward one of the Wyverns. The swift arrow split in two and pierced through the monster’s wing webbing.
“<<Hammer Buster>>!”
Activating a skill that dealt extra damage to airborne targets, Hannah drop-kicked the Wyvern as it flinched from being struck by arrows, knocking it down to the ground. The monster’s neck broke as it landed, and its body turned into light particles and disappeared.
Daryl stood on solid ground while holding back several Wyverns. To his side, Amira flew in the air and cut down those Wyverns with her greatsword.
Since they paid attention to each other now, it was highly unlikely that Amira’s swings would hit Daryl. Moreover, Amira’s hits were already powerful enough even without her <<Dragon Form>> boost, and since she was about to hit level fifty soon, the team could expect more major contributions from her down the line.
“<<Haste>>. <<Medic>>.”
As for Tsutomu, he had become accustomed to Hannah’s movement patterns in the past two weeks, and was now able to perform his role without much difficulty, with plenty of breathing room while managing his mental energy, providing support, and healing.
Tsutomu’s current level was fifty-four, and his MND rating was B-. For this rating, Tsutomu’s patterns of support and healing were considered difficult to pull off. What he did to counteract that was adjust the amount of energy he used for his skills depending on the situation, enabling his strategies to stay flexible despite his MND being more than two tiers lower than Eunice and Stephanie’s.
The amount of energy spent on skills not being fixed naturally meant that time management was the more difficult part instead — but it was quite simple for Tsutomu thanks to his perfect ‘biological clock’. His ability to adjust energy levels while managing his other tasks enabled him to effectively economize his mental stamina. It was likely that his energy would never run out unless there was a need to use high-consumption skills such as <<Raise>>.
[Getting easier now…]
At first, Tsutomu had been unable to keep up mentally with running a five-member party, especially because he had to place <<Haste>> pick-ups in the path of Hannah’s tricky manoeuvres. Now that he was used to Hannah’s patterns, however, that was no longer an issue.
After the battle ended with all Wyverns defeated without issue, Tsutomu was about to take a breather when Daryl started making some noise in the distance. Looking that way, he saw a large copper-colored box sitting on the ground.
“Oh, a treasure chest.”
Despite the number of monsters he had hunted, Tsutomu had never gotten one to drop before. He had seen one drop for someone else during his time training Stephanie, but this was the very first time it happened for a long-term party he was in. He broke into a sigh of relief, after wondering for so long whether he would ever see a single box during his whole time in this world.
Compared to Live Dungeon, the drop rate of treasure chests in this world was clearly lower, which greatly increased the rarity and value of the items retrieved from the Dungeon. Tsutomu did not appreciate this nerf one bit.
“Sir Tsutomu, look! A treasure chest! On layer fifty-nine, no less!”
“Now this is a rare find!”
Chest drops were, statistically speaking, not so rare in the first twenty or so layers, from the Grasslands to the Forest. The deeper down one went, however, the rarer the boxes got. This naturally meant this one on layer fifty-nine was a truly rare find. Daryl and Hannah were especially ecstatic, with both of them having their hands on the copper box already — and they were practically hugging it.
“It sure is. Who’s going to open it?”
“……”
Tsutomu’s question caused Daryl and Hannah to fall completely silent. The Explorer standard procedure was that either the party leader or a member whose body build was closest to the standard would be the one to open it. As such, Hannah had gotten to open just a few before, while Daryl never had the chance.
Although Diniel was slightly taller than the average woman, her build was close enough to the standard, so she had been permitted to open quite a few in the past. As for Amira, she had gotten to open every single one she had found previously, since she was the leader of her previous Clan.
Tsutomu considered going ahead and opening it himself, but upon seeing how absolutely excited Daryl was, he chuckled and decided to let the latter do it instead.
“Daryl, you can do the honours if you’d like.”
“Me!? Are you sure!?”
Hearing Tsutomu’s suggestion, Daryl’s eyes sparkled.
“Really? Really sure?”
“Sure. We’re not in financial trouble or anything.”
Tsutomu held out his hand toward the treasure chest, and Daryl swallowed the lump in his throat. Daryl proceeded to pull apart the chest’s buckle with his trembling hands, and then he swung the lid open. A faint light leaked from the crack in the process.
“Huh…”
Daryl picked up the brown cloth bag that was in the treasure chest. It looked similar to the bag that Tsutomu carried. The chest, emptied of its contents, turned into light particles and faded away.
“Looks like a Magic Bag to me.”
“Well, yeah…”
Magic Bag was the most middling item type to be obtained from treasure chests. They would often be found in treasure chests in the Grasslands and Forest biomes and were easy to sell off due to their relatively low market value.
Daryl looked half happy, half sad to have pulled such an item from the treasure chest.
“M-maybe we’ll find some secret function once it’s appraised! Like a Magic Bag that duplicates its contents or something!”
“R-right!”
Thanks to Hannah’s encouragement, Daryl managed to pull himself together… and proceeded to hug the Magic Bag as if it was his own child. Amira looked on, wondering if the shock had in fact awakened a new fetish in Daryl.
