Absolute Helix’s first attempt at conquering layer seventy, which was set to commence this afternoon, had been announced three days in advance via the newspapers, so the seatings around the single-digit Monitors were getting quite crowded. And with this, the dungeoneering scene had three Clans challenging layer seventy at once. The Dungeon Maniacs argued at length about who they thought would come out successful before the others, and some of the townspeople were gambling money on the results.
As Absolute Helix went down to layer sixty-nine and started searching for the Black Gate, the audience moved to the seats in front of Monitor #2, predicting that the team’s footage would be shown there.
“So they’re finally giving it a try, huh? They’ve been setting this up for so long.”
“Their average level is pretty low, after all. I still think they should’ve just gone ahead and given it a few attempts early on, though.”
“Heh, do they even need that? I say Tsutomu’s gonna one-shot this just like last time.”
“Nah, no way.”
Each of the Dungeon Maniacs ran their mouths as quickly as their feet ran to change seats, attracting the attention of the people around them and causing quite a lot of spectators to flood toward Monitor #2. Mixed in with the crowd were Eunice, looking as high and mighty as ever, and Alma, holding a perfectly normal staff, among others.
“I’ll have five beef skewers.”
“Coming right up!”
“My man, gimme a mug of ale — Nah, make that three!”
“Yes, of course. That will be a thousand and two hundred Gold.”
The spectators moved in one direction like a flock of birds, buying snacks and drinks from carts and stalls along the way. The young drink vendors watched the direction of the crowd and gathered near Monitor #2, and the food deliverymen’s eyes sparkled as they shouted out to potential customers.
Eventually, the Absolute Helix team found the Black Gate and headed down to layer seventy, and as just about anyone had expected, their footage shifted to being projected on Monitor #2. The spectators, with their snacks and drinks ready, sat down on the chairs and benches set up around the Monitors.
“Now then, think they’ll last long?”
“Absolute Helix, huh… Apparently, they’ve been raising their average level, but do we know how much exactly?”
“Last I heard, they’re around sixty-six, I think.”
“Hmm, that’s still a bit lower than Silver Beast. And they got the Feather Tank with them, too…”
Hannah was the least popular among the members of Absolute Helix, and her holding the nickname of Feather Tank among those deep in the dungeoneering scene meant that her reputation was not at all good. Those among the Dungeon Maniacs had written numerous articles speculating on Absolute Helix’s rates of success on layer seventy, a small minority of them were predicting that Hannah would be the one holding the others back the most.
The Tanks of Ealdred Crow and Silver Beast had employed time-stalling tactics, operating on the assumption that at least some of their members would die to the Mount Golem at some point. Two Tanks with high VIT would take turns pulling the enemy’s aggro, and as soon as one of them died, the Healer would revive them to get the team’s stability back as soon as possible. The two Clans using the same strategy had made it the standard approach to the Mount Golem.
Considering the propagation of that strategy as the standard, people’s expectation for Hannah’s performance — the Hannah who was famous for dying quickly — was not at all high. On average, the Dungeon Maniacs’ articles had predicted Hannah’s rate of effective performance to be as high as forty percent, but most of the general populace possessed no real information aside from the fact that she was called the Feather Tank.
Daryl pulled the aggro of the Golem army that continuously spawned from the Mount Golem, while Hannah took on the boss monsters as its movements were still slow in this phase. Similarly to Garm, Daryl did not wear a helmet, so as to optimize his senses of sight and hearing, allowing him to sense monsters’ attacks from all directions and reliably intercept them with his tower shield.
Even after being blown away by explosive rocks, Daryl stood up again none the worse for wear, rousing up both the Dungeon Maniacs and the general audience with his tenacity. It was actually quite impressive for a team to fare this well during the battle’s first phase.
“Man, Daryl’s as strong as ever. Still one of the town’s best three Tanks, I’d say.”
“Yeah, he’s way tougher than most others. Must be just as good as Bittman by now.”
“If he stays on top of his game, maybe he’ll be able to Tank the whole third phase by himself.”
Amira using her <<Dragon Form>> much less than before had helped to boost the synergy between Daryl and her — and in turn, helped Daryl deal with the exploding rocks more effectively. The Dungeon Maniacs took notes as they looked on, with almost none of them paying attention to Hannah’s side of things. The Mount Golem would not be making any big moves during this phase, so just about anyone would be able to deal with it.
“Whoa! That’s awesome!”
Still, since the general audience was easily distracted by flashy moves, Diniel would gather attention whenever she attacked with <<Stream Arrow>>. She was considered one of the best Archers in town, and had already been known as an excellent Attacker back when she was a member of Golden Tune.
“Yup, Diniel’s the ace — gonna be dealing the most damage today. Amira doesn’t really have any elemental attacks, so she won’t be doing much. Everything lining up according to my predictions.”
“Mm-hm, mm-hm. Also, Tsutomu’s support is absolutely perfect as always. Feels so satisfying to watch…”
“Yeah, for real. It’s almost like he’s putting on a stage show,” The Dungeon Maniac lady said to her husband as she looked at Tsutomu’s numerous support skill shots as if she was seeing a meteor shower. The couple was entranced by the beauty of the efficient, perfectly executed aerial support.
Stephanie, who employed similar strategies to Tsutomu, had also been evaluated highly, but she still was occasionally thrown off rhythm, unable to match up with her comrades’ actions.
Tsutomu’s support, on the other hand, was pretty much perfect even when seen on the God Pedestals. His blue energy shots of <<Haste>> landed on Hannah without fail despite her unpredictable directions of movement, and the earthy-yellow shots of <<Protect>> descended from the sky onto the grounded Daryl with pinpoint accuracy.
Dorren, the Dwarf who ran his own workshop, was also watching — in fact, he had even reserved a seat for today, since he wanted to see in full action the heavy armor he had crafted for Daryl. And sitting next to him was the Dwarf girl from the Magic Stone Exchange.
“Oh-ho. Daryl isn’t doing bad at all.”
“Oh yeah, that boy… he’s Garm’s apprentice, right?”
“Looks like you’ve been following this stuff, eh?”
“Well, y’know…”
The girl cracked a self-triumphant grin as she looked at Daryl and Tsutomu do their things on Monitor #2. Thanks to the trading contract that she had recently signed with Absolute Helix, as processed by their manager Ollie, the Exchange had been making a good profit from the reliable supply of Inferno Magic Stones. As such, she was seeing the Clan in quite a positive light.
The battle raged on, with Diniel consistently shaving away at the Mount Golem with her <<Stream Arrow>>, while Daryl and Amira garnered the majority of the attention as they dealt with the endlessly spawning Golem army. Eventually, the Mount Golem started dropping down an abnormally large number of Bomb Golems.
“All right, that’s break time.”
“So far so good. But the real thing is yet to come! Let’s see how they do!”
The audience, having watched countless attempts at defeating the Mount Golem, started moving as if they had received formal training in doing so, hurrying to replenish their supplies of snacks and drinks. The food deliverymen were also busy, running around with boxes of ready-to-eat food in their hands.
“Oh! I almost forgot! We have to show off our sponsor’s logos!”
“Ah! That’s right!”
“This heavy armor they made is amazing! Please do check them out!”
“Dorren Workshop! Dorren Workshop!”
Daryl and Hannah, noticing that a God Eye was approaching them, hurried to quite openly advertise their sponsor, giving the audience a good laugh. The Dungeon Maniacs also chuckled dryly as they jotted down Dorren Workshop’s name to include in their articles. And Dorren, the one being advertised, simply facepalmed due to both first and second-hand embarrassment.
And then the second phase began. From this point on, the number of small enemies would decrease, but in exchange, the Mount Golem’s movements would become faster, making it quite difficult for Tanks to manage. As such, the general audience and some of the Dungeon Maniacs expected Daryl to take on the Mount Golem while Hannah moved over to take out the diminishing Golem army instead.
Their expectation was subverted, however, when Hannah proceeded to keep on pulling the Mount Golem’s aggro. The spectators were quite puzzled by what they were seeing.
“Huh? They’re having the Feather Tank keep fighting?”
“Daryl’s gotta save his energy for later, I guess.”
“Ah, that makes sense.”
The crowd buzzed about the unexpected direction of the team’s strategy involving Hannah, and the Dungeon Maniacs were even louder in exchanging their opinions.
“Look at that! Hannah’s still going! See, my prediction was right — you guys never believed me!”
“Dude, chill. They’re just letting Daryl rest. She’ll be called back any second now.”
“Man, listen — Hannah’s not just the same old Tank anymore, you know. She’s an evasion-based Tank, so her low VIT doesn’t matter at all!”
“…Evasion-based, huh? Sounds like she’s gonna get killed real fast.”
Some Explorers had already tried copying Hannah’s evasion-based Tank style, but results so far had been mixed. Even Ealdred Crow’s experiments had yet to be particularly successful; knowing that, the Dungeon Maniacs were quite skeptical as they watched Hannah fly all over the place.
During the Fire Dragon battle, Hannah had been grazed by the monster’s fire breaths quite a few times, with her being thrown off rhythm and suffering light burns as a result. As such, Hannah’s evaluation among the Dungeon Maniacs was not high, yet.
“Nah, she’ll be fine — See, I’ve watched Absolute Helix in action a whole lot, and Hannah’s been doing great, with her speed and all. She’ll do great against the Mount Golem, I’d say.”
“Hmm, you sure are defending her a lot…”
“Also, she looks so damn FINE, man.”
“…I knew it,” the Dungeon Maniac man grumbled, staring blankly at his long-time friend.
Hannah’s armor did not cover all that much of her large bust, and since being an evasion-based Tank meant she had to constantly move all over the place, she was subject to a great deal of ‘totally respectful’ staring; the men were especially thankful for this.
The battle continued to rage on with Hannah alone pulling the Mount Golem’s aggro, and to the audience’s surprise, she showed not even a single sign of having difficulties. Having received a boost of movement speed from <<Haste>>, she was moving around however she pleased, avoiding every single one of the Mount Golem’s attacks.
Hannah was sure to die if even a single attack landed on her, but it did not look like she was about to take a hit anytime soon.
“<<Count Buster>>!”
Moreover, unlike the usual Tank combatants, she was able to strike back. Those among the audience who had not expected much from Hannah before, now that they saw that Hannah was keeping herself alive just fine, were starting to doubt their preconceptions.
“Huh? Is it just me, or is she actually good?”
“She is good, yeah. Why’d people keep saying that she’d die quickly?”
With Hannah distracting the Mount Golem by herself and attacking it at the same time, the audience’s anticipation rose more and more as they kept watching her. The Dungeon Maniacs’ reactions were divided: those who had made correct predictions were grinning ear to ear, while those who had guessed wrong were somewhat grumpy.
“He’s landing all of his support skills — how does he keep doing it?”
“It’s the placement thing, I think — placing them down on her predicted movement paths. Hannah probably doesn’t even notice them.”
The next subject to start attracting the audience’s attention was Tsutomu, with him buffing Hannah with <<Haste>> without fail as the latter swiftly moved around the Mount Golem. Although he was giving special priority to maintaining Hannah’s <<Haste>>, he was not neglecting any of the other buffing effects, either. Seeing such expertise, the Dungeon Maniacs and a small part of the audience cheered for him, and among them, Eunice stared intently at the screen and took notes.
Hannah kept on pulling the Mount Golem’s aggro without fail, and when the monster started whipping out its heat ray attacks, she did not die to them either. The audience, having gotten their expectations subverted, gave her a round of applause. They were also surprised by Tsutomu yet again — for when he got hit by the heat blasts, he shrugged them off as if nothing had happened.
“Huh? He wasn’t hurt at all!?”
“The hell is with that robe!? That’s way too damn good!”
The Scorchstone Robe, which had dropped from the Bolseyer, amazed the Dungeon Maniacs with its performance. Even the equipment developed by Ealdred Crow and Silver Beast could not fully nullify the heat attacks. Healers wearing those protective equipment had suffered severe burn injuries upon being hit by the heat rays, so it was quite surprising that Tsutomu emerged completely unharmed.
After that, Hannah kept on facing the Mount Golem by herself for a while longer, and she too stayed unharmed up until when she was ordered to switch with Daryl. Many spectators gave a round of applause to Hannah’s wonderful performance, and even the previously skeptical Dungeon Maniacs clapped their hands, admitting that they had predicted incorrectly.
Daryl, switching in, also did perfectly well against the Mount Golem, avoiding being grabbed and trampled the whole time. Having watched earlier Mount Golem battles on various occasions, he had already memorized all of the Mount Golem’s moves. Although he occasionally got swatted by the Golem’s arms, not once did he get hit by attacks that were fatal.
The Dungeon Maniacs, processing all that they had seen so far, increased Hannah and Daryl’s ratings in their minds. Eventually, the Mount Golem got ready to unleash its wide-area heat wave attack. Daryl and Tsutomu covered themselves with the Scorchstone Robe, while the three others quickly moved out of the blast area.
“From what we’ve seen, his robe should protect them from the wide-area attack, too.”
“I never expected it to be THIS helpful… It’s a drop from the Bolseyer, if I remember correctly? Yeah, that’s it — we’re gonna go hunt the Bolseyer tomorrow! Gotta write an article on this, too…”
As some of the Dungeon Maniacs started writing articles about the Bolseyer on the spot, Absolute Helix emerged from the heat wave attack unscathed. Seeing the Clan do this well on their first try ever, the crowd started thinking that they might go ahead and win this thing today.
“Wait, is Tsutomu actually gonna one-shot this again?”
“…I can totally see that happening. Really, who is he? He’s way too good at this — Does he actually have a unique skill or something?”
One of the Dungeon Maniacs looked at Tsutomu as if he was a person completely different from who they had known. The crowd, on the other hand, was boiling with anticipation of another one-shot victory. With that, the actual difficult fight against the Mount Golem began — and next time, its wide-ranged attack would not stun it anymore.
Hannah started using <<Feather Dance>>, a skill Silver Beast had also used quite liberally, to obstruct the Mount Golem’s eyesight. Then she whipped out skill after skill, taking as much advantage of this opening as she could.
“What’s up with her!? That’s actually pretty awesome!”
“Hell yeah, dude! I think her fighting style is called… evasion-based Tank, right? And she hasn’t even taken a single hit yet!”
The audience cheered for Hannah even more, hyped up by the fact that she had yet to mess anything up despite fighting the Mount Golem for hours now. And then, just when the crowd thought it would be smooth sailing right from here to the end, something unexpected happened.
Mount Golem jumped up with its arms and legs spread out wide and crashed face-down, absorbing the rocks that stuck to its body, and then spitting those rocks out. Both the general audience and the Dungeon Maniacs, having never seen the monster use this attack before, were taken aback. And then the crowd screamed upon noticing that Hannah had been killed.
“Nah, Daryl is still going strong. They can still win this.”
“Yeah, Daryl’s gonna be just fine.”
The Dungeon Maniacs, however, still kept calm. Judging from what they had seen so far today, Daryl was sure to be able to take on the Mount Golem just fine, pulling enough aggro to keep it away from his comrades. In the meantime, Tsutomu would be able to revive Hannah and get the team going again.
But then, contrary to expectations, Tsutomu revived Hannah immediately. By this time, Daryl still had not pulled enough aggro. The audience could see quite clearly that the Mount Golem was aiming at Tsutomu now.
“Huh? He’s casting <<Raise>> right now? Why? Is he panicking or something?”
“Whoa, whoa! The hell’s he doing!?”
The crowd booed at Tsutomu and sighed in disappointment. The Dungeon Maniacs raised their eyebrows at what seemed to be an inconceivable mistake on Tsutomu’s part. Then, to make matters worse, Daryl was almost immediately caught by the Mount Golem.
“Huh!? Whoa whoa whoa–! What’s going on!?”
“Daryl, my boy!!”
“Noooooo! Daryl!”
The spectators screamed as they saw Daryl being flung straight at a wall. The Mount Golem proceeded to charge full speed at Tsutomu, causing the audience to collectively heave a sigh of resignation.
“Damn! Looks like this is it, huh? They were so close, too…”
“Eh, it’s fine, it’s fine. This is their first attempt ever, remember. They’ll get it right next time.”
If Tsutomu were to be killed, the team would lose their sole means of revival. Diniel and Amira might hang on long enough to shave the boss monster down, but not unless they did absolutely everything the right way. Some among the crowd felt like going elsewhere right about now, and the Dungeon Maniacs started putting down their fountain pens in disappointment.
But then Tsutomu persisted on, to everyone’s surprise. Most of the time, Healers would die just as soon as they were targeted by the Mount Golem during the final phase, but Tsutomu was still very much alive.
“…Huh, he’s not getting killed.”
“It’s just a matter of time. Look closely — their aggro management is all over the place.”
Two things were keeping Tsutomu alive: his complete immunity against the enemy’s heat beams thanks to the Scorchstone Robe, and Diniel helping him out by shooting at the Golem’s joints. The crowd stopped, deciding to stay and watch a little longer.
“Man, must be tough to be Hannah in this situation. Looks like she needs some time to pull enough aggro.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly it — she’s only got <<Combat Cry>> to rely on and not much else. Building up the <<Count Buster>> is going to take a while. Tsutomu’s gotta try and stay alive long enough for Hannah to do her thing…”
The Dungeon Maniacs held their breath as they watched Tsutomu. Despite his immunity to heat attacks, he could barely do anything but narrowly avoid the monster’s swinging arms. If not for Diniel’s support, he would, without a doubt, have been hit by now.
Eventually, the Mount Golem’s arm grazed Tsutomu, knocking him away and causing him to crash into a wall. A White Mage with low VIT was sure to die from that; the crowd shouted out, their voice filled with a tragic sense of loss.
But it turned out that Tsutomu was still alive. The audience was shocked to see him pull his arm out of the wall and cast support spells for Hannah, who had managed to pull the boss monster’s aggro by now. And then the market was filled with the loudest cheers the town had ever seen.
“What!? How’d he not die from that!?”
“Well, he’s got <<Barrier>>… Actually, that’s probably not enough. So… yeah. How?”
The Dungeon Maniacs had seen Tsutomu’s <<Barrier>> in action against the Fire Dragon and during several other battles, but they still found it hard to believe that its defensive power was that high. He had in fact cast the <<Barrier>> multiple times, layering them over and over for extra safety; the Dungeon Maniacs were confused by what they were seeing because he had never used this technique publicly until now.
Afterward, Hannah proceeded to hold the Mount Golem’s aggro on her, and Diniel pelted it with <<Stream Arrow>>. The area around the Monitors was so wrapped up in the excitement that the people almost forgot that Daryl had yet to return to the fight.
“<<Stream Arrow>>.”
And with that last attack, the Mount Golem went silent, its body turning pitch black. And with it, a storm of excitement winded up around Monitor #2.
“DAAAAAAMN!! Another one-shot!”
“WHOAAAAAA!!”
“Ahahaha!! I don’t even know what’s going on anymore!”
Cheers erupted for Tsutomu, who had once again claimed victory against a layer boss on his first attempt against it. The Dungeon Maniacs and journalists smiled ear to ear, knowing that they just got so many things to write about for weeks to come. Eunice, watching from near Monitor #2, raised a light round of applause, while Alma simply stared at Tsutomu on the screen.
