The three proceeded to explore more of layer seventy-one with some breaks in between battles, and returned to the surface once it was noon. Amira, following Tsutomu’s suggestion of mastering her <<Dragon Form>>, had started using her transformation more during combat. At the current moment, she was able to only barely maintain her consciousness, so the next issue was figuring out how to gain further control from here.
Daryl had also started to pay more attention to Tsutomu’s position, having learned the importance of doing so from his experience working with the Guild staff members. The boy was smart and more than competent enough, so the extra division of his attention did not negatively affect his usual strategies.
“…Yeah, and that’s why I’d appreciate you taking note of my positioning. It’d be a great help if I could be kept out of the line of fire.”
“Understood.”
This was in fact not that big of a deal for Tsutomu specifically, as he would always be mindful of his own positioning regardless, but a Healer’s position being aligned badly with a Tank’s meant that stray long-ranged attacks meant for a Tank could end up hitting them by accident. For today, Tsutomu had Daryl take care of the positioning, while also using <<Fly>> as a failsafe — because he still did not want to actually get hit.
After lunch, Hannah joined the team as they headed back down to layer seventy-one. Her usual clothes were a no-go for the Snow Field layers, so she wore a new set of made-to-order gear instead.
Since Hannah was a Birdkin with wings on her back, her gear, and Amira’s as well, needed a custom function to accommodate. Fortunately, Dorren’s wife ran a workshop specializing in fabric and leather, so the Clan was able to request what they needed — both for Hannah and Amira.
However, Hannah’s old equipment had enchantments that boosted her STR and AGI; changing out of them had caused her combat senses to be a fair bit differently, and normally, she would need some time to adjust.
After her first foray into the Snow Fields, she had learned that she could not rely on her usual loadout, and as such had spent the past two weeks training in her village without wearing any special equipment. Thanks to that, she was already used to having her AGI be one rank lower than usual.
“Ugh, I knew it — it’s a bit harder to move around.”
“Give it a week and tell me how it feels then. The workshop will tweak it for you if you don’t like it.”
“Got it…” Hannah nodded reluctantly.
Her soft fabric coat had been designed to not hurt her wings as a result of ruffling her feathers, but since she had never worn something like this before, she was finding it difficult to move around in, as she felt the need to watch out for her wings all the time.
“Oh, by the way, Hannah. Do you think you can fight just fine without using <<Fly>>?”
“Huh? I probably can. Why?”
“Can you try doing that for a bit?”
“Eh, I guess…”
The body structures of Birdkins with wings on their backs, like Hannah, made them top-heavy, which in turn meant difficulties in efficiently drawing out power and the inability to fly with their wings alone. The most their wings could do was glide, so before God’s Dungeon appeared and the <<Fly>> spell along with it, they had been relegated to miscellaneous use instead.
One of those miscellaneous uses involved flapping them on rhythm to assist with running acceleration and deceleration. Hannah had also used that technique into her early teen years, and could still perform it to an acceptable degree. Airborne battles were her proud field of expertise, however, so she seemed disgruntled at being told not to do it, even if temporarily.
“I’ve heard that the snowfall is quite heavy on layer seventy-five, you see. So just in case, I’d like you to try fighting while completely grounded, too.”
“Ah, I see. I’d be perfectly fine if it was rain, but snow, huh… I don’t know if I can handle that.”
“Oh, you’re alright with rain?”
Tsutomu raised his eyebrows in surprise, having believed that if it rained, Hannah’s wings would be too soaked to be usable.
Hannah slowly unfolded the blue wings on her back as if to show them off.
“Yes — these wings can flap away the water just fine!”
“Huh, that’s cool. What about strong winds, by the way?”
“I CAN fly against them, but I won’t have fun doing it.”
“Fair enough.”
Tsutomu concluded that Hannah still would not be able to fly against a snow storm, and decided to have Hannah try grounded combat for the time being. This was in fact not much of an issue for her, since she had had to fight without flight before coming to Dungeon City anyway.
Tsutomu himself also minimized flying, providing support while on the ground instead. Using <<Fly>> would make his job easier, but he could not rely on it all the time. Although he felt the increase in difficulty, he still was able to maintain all effects perfectly.
The team continued their exploration, dealing with more and more threats from the environment and monsters of the Snow Fields as they went. Then, early in the evening, they returned to the Clan House.
“Welcome back, everyone.”
“W-welcome back.”
Ollie, as well as her apprentice, greeted the four as they walked in with their heavy winter clothing. The apprentice was also a recent addition to the Clan House; Ollie could not possibly run everything by herself going forward, considering the three incoming new members and beyond, so the young woman beside her had been hired to help.
Tsutomu had not been fully on board with hiring this twenty-something young woman, considering her short career so far and how quickly she had been moving from one place of employment to the next. However, she was a relative of Ollie’s, and had asked the lady specifically for an opportunity to work here, so Tsutomu ended up hiring her for a trial period — without any intention to fire her unless she committed a crime, of course.
After taking a bath and changing into loungewear, Tsutomu went to the living room to find a sleepy-eyed Diniel lazing around on the sofa.
“I’m hungry.”
Hannah, also just out of the bath, tapped on Diniel’s ponytail with her fingers but got no response.
Ollie and her apprentice prepared dinner and set the table. Echoing through the kitchen were Ollie’s voice as she quietly instructed her apprentice, and the sounds of a knife against a cutting board as the young woman chopped vegetables.
Tsutomu read some Dungeon newspapers, occasionally glancing at Diniel and Hannah… because Diniel was starting to be annoyed by Hannah’s teasing, as apparent from how she was swatting the latter’s hands away.
Solit Company’s newspapers contained mostly black-and-white photographs and articles written by their in-house journalists — with the photographs being their de facto main feature. The camera they used was extremely rare and valuable, obtainable only from the Dungeon’s silver treasure chests — and it was good enough to precisely photograph images on the God Pedestal screens.
In the past, whenever a Photographing Machine was retrieved from the Dungeon, House Babenberg would immediately buy it and send it over to the Royal Capital. Solit Company, despite their past influence over the media, never could go against the nobility, and thus had been unable to obtain a Photographing Machine for themselves.
Dungeon-obtained Photographing Machines were so rare that only a single one of them at most turned up over one-year periods. By the time five of them had been sent to the Royal Capital, House Babenberg was finally permitted to keep one — and at that time, Solit Company swooped in and spared no effort in obtaining it for themselves.
A camera that could take colored photos did exist in this world, retrieved from a gold treasure chest — in fact the only gold treasure chest ever seen in the Dungeon so far. It had been delivered to the Royal Capital, and strict control had been put over its use.
Tsutomu had lied that his Black Staff had come out of a gold treasure chest, and House Babenberg had intended to purchase it at first, but that ultimately did not happen — as even purchases of non-combat items like the cameras would incur some degree of dissatisfaction from Explorers. It was not as if House Babenberg needed to have the Black Staff, either, since the Royal Capital was not currently at war.
A total of six Photographing Machines were known to exist in this world, with one of them being in Solit Company’s possession. As a news publisher, it gave them a huge advantage, and was one of the reasons why their newspapers were still selling well.
While the two other prominent publishers were getting bigger and making more money than before, they did not have Photographing Machines for themselves. Instead of photographs, they had to distinguish themselves by creating eye-catching illustrations and featuring articles written by the Dungeon Maniacs.
For Tsutomu personally, those two publishers and their Dungeon Maniacs’ contributions were more helpful. With how many Dungeon Maniacs there were, and all the different viewpoints they could offer, reading their contributions was often more interesting and informative.
Most of them were simply hobbyists and contributing articles in the same way a radio station’s audience sent letters to their favorite programs, but some among them made it their main occupation.
Those who wrote insightful and accurate, or otherwise engaging articles, were sometimes approached by publishers and got hired to write for them as the need arose.
Xeno, the Paladin who would be joining Absolute Helix in a week from now, also earned money by doing this on the side in addition to his Clan activities.
Others in the scene had even gone beyond being Dungeon Maniacs, becoming critics and live commentators. Some of them were so popular that they were now making a living doing it.
[Ah, it’s that guy’s piece…]
Eventually, Tsutomu came across one of Xeno’s articles. His articles had also been seen here and there before now.
Xeno’s writing style had a strong tone, and was stimulating to read. His no-hesitation, I-say-what-I-want attitude was popular among a subset of readers, and had garnered him a decent following.
His speculative pieces often turned out to be wrong, however, and he was among those who initially denied the viability of Hannah’s evasion-based Tank style, though he did retract his opinion after the Clan’s victory on layer seventy. He had even issued a written apology following a period of expected backlash from readers.
Either way, though, Xeno was contributing to the public in one way or another, and the readers bore no ill will at the end of the day — whenever he was right, they were happy both for the result and for him, and whenever he was wrong, they got a little bit of good fun joking at his expense to vent their frustration. Perhaps he in fact understood his followers’ psychology quite well, assuming that he had been writing with a purpose.
[I don’t think he’s the kind of guy to push his own personal agenda, though.]
Having met Xeno in person, the impression Tsutomu got was that he was, simply speaking, highly self-confident. He was not at all the kind of person to lay himself out for the public to beat down. At any rate, during the first meeting, the first thing he had said was how Tsutomu had a good eye for finding people… and what followed was a three-hour speech about why the Clan would quickly rise to the top if he were to be added to their ranks.
Despite the absurdity of that claim, his reasoning turned out to sound quite convincing, so Tsutomu had ended up listening all the way through. That reaction seemed to have incorrectly convinced Xeno that he had already been accepted, which resulted in the man straight-up asking about remuneration and future activities in great detail. Tsutomu refrained from giving a definitive answer, but had already decided to drop him off the list at that time.
Following that meeting, Tsutomu expected to find some better people in the next few days… but then three of the other Tanks turned out to be painfully lacking in ambition. In the end, he decided to let Xeno in, considering the man to be the preferable option over the others.
While Tsutomu flipped through the newspapers, Daryl and Amira came out of the bath. Amira tied her long hair with an elastic band so that it would not get in the way, took a peek into the kitchen, and then sat down on the sofa. Daryl also sat down in his usual spot — which happened to be next to Amira.
Amira proceeded to reach for the newspaper on the table; she had been reading more lately, in order to get information about the Snow Field layers… but she would always knit her brows, perhaps due to her low affinity for processing pure-text media.
Daryl wagged his tail from side to side, looking forward to dinner… like a dog that had been instructed to wait in front of a meal. And then, when Ollie started bringing the food to the table, he happily got up and went to his seat.
[Gah, I almost forgot… Gotta buy a few more chairs, too.]
Among the newcomers, Leleia and the Channeler wanted to move in, and their rooms were already ready. Xeno, on the other hand, was staying at his own place, but had also stated that he would sometimes need to stay over. All that was well and good, but Tsutomu had forgotten to account for the number of seats in the living room; he made a note of it to discuss with Ollie later.
Daryl and Amira were already munching on some appetizers before the meal proper. Tsutomu also snacked on a bowl of salad while thinking to himself about what to do going forward.
