Tsutomu’s team put on their cold weather gear and headed to the Guild, and after registering their party, teleported down to layer seventy-one. Amira said she would like to get moving immediately, so Tsutomu had her scout ahead for enemies, while he prepared some Potion vials for Leleia.
“Do you need more Blue Potions?”
“No, thank you; I believe this will be enough.”
Leleia accepted the vials, put them in her jacket’s pockets, and proceeded to cast her skill.
“<<Contract — Salamander>>.”
As her voice echoed, a burst of flame appeared and whirled on the ground, and a small lizard-like creature appeared from its center. It let out a high-pitched cry and jumped onto Leleia’s shoulder.
Spiritualists had the ability to form contracts between people and the four Great Spirits — Salamander, Undine, Sylph, and Gnome — and borrow their strengths for various effects. One person was limited to one to one elemental attribute’s contract at a time, but one Spirit’s contract could be shared among multiple people.
Those linked to a contract would receive a half-rank status boost, the status of which was determined by the Spirit’s properties. Considering how much mental energy the process consumed, however, it was not so efficient to have more than two people linking up. If one wanted to boost the abilities of a large group, it was far more ideal to have someone with a Buffer Job, such as Enchanter, do their thing instead.
The Salamander on Leleia’s shoulder seemed particularly interested in Tsutomu. Tsutomu himself, noticing that, tilted his head in curiosity, which seemed to prompt the lizard-like creature to open its mouth wide and bob its head repeatedly.
“Uh, what? Is something wrong?”
“Looks like it’s… dancing, Teach.”
Tsutomu and Hannah — and even Leleia — were surprised to see the Salamander suddenly get excited.
“This is a first for me, too. It seems that the Salamander has taken a liking to you, Tsutomu.”
Realizing that, Leleia formed a contract between Tsutomu and the Salamander as a test. The Salamander promptly slipped under Tsutomu’s jacket, and stuck only its face out from the jacket’s collar. Leleia, seeing that the creature was looking relaxed as if it was bathing in heated water, put her hand on her chin and started pondering.
“You don’t possess any unique skills, do you, Tsutomu?”
“Yes, I don’t think I have one…”
“Those with unique skills tend to have extremely high compatibility with the Spirits, you see. Those without one can have high compatibility as well, of course, but such cases are rare… and never before have I seen the Salamander be this excited to meet someone.”
Tsutomu poked one finger near the Salamander’s mouth, and the creature proceeded to stick out its long tongue and lick it. Leleia looked on, surprised even further.
[Is it because of the thing about God choosing me?] Tsutomu pondered things over and pulled his finger away from the Salamander’s mouth.
Since ‘skills’ were usable only after creating a Status Card through God’s Dungeon, it was said that Spirits were God’s creation as well. Thinking of himself as God’s guest, he figured he should not act so irreverent so quickly.
“From what I see, Tsutomu, it would be quite beneficial for you to be contracted to a Spirit. Those with high compatibility actually receive a full rank of status boost instead of half, which makes for a considerable degree of advantage.”
“Huh…”
One could get a boost of STR from the Salamander, MND from the Undine, AGI from the Sylph, and VIT from the Gnome. Being an increase of one full rank meant it was quite practical for how much mental energy the Contract consumed, too.
After some discussion with Leleia, it was decided that a contract for a MND boost would be formed with the Undine, the assistance of which would be requested upon depending on the situation.
The Undine normally had a humanoid form, but in the presence of those with low compatibility, it would turn into a round slime-like blob and refuse to lend its strength. When Tsutomu tried forming a contract with it, a whirl of water appeared before him, and the Undine appeared in its beautiful, life-sized humanoid form.
“It’s… huge. Is this normal?”
“…No. The largest I have ever seen as well, in fact.”
The trembling in Leleia’s green eyes suggested that she was losing composure once again, surprised by the Undine’s size. The humanoid creature reached out its hand and touched Tsutomu’s cheek, prompting the latter to take a step back.
“Whoa, cold–!”
The Spirits, despite being incapable of speech, had a competent understanding of human language and expressions. And this one, with its semi-transparent liquid face displaying its emotions, seemed somewhat upset by the reaction it had gotten.
“Um, can you make yourself smaller?”
The Undine sadly nodded and shrank down to the size of the Salamander before it. Now it was in its Slime-like form, fitting snugly in the palm of Tsutomu’s hand.
“…You think it’ll let me put it in my pocket?”
“Perhaps…?”
Leleia seemed unsure as to what she should say, seeing that she was facing several unexpected occurrences at once. Tsutomu eventually managed to get the Slime off his finger and tuck it into this pocket, then clapped his hands to regain his composure and call everyone’s attention back to the job at hand.
“We’ll start walking as soon as Amira comes back. Our practice target today will be Snow Wolves, all right?”
“Yeah!” Hannah answered as she tried fiddling with the Salamander with her fingertips.
“Ah. Yes, of course,” Leleia also replied, albeit still quite stunned by everything.
Shortly after, Amira came back from her scouting trip, and the team proceeded to start exploring layer seventy-one.
――▽▽――
“<<Haste>>, <<Air Blades>>.”
Tsutomu provided Hannah with support skills while also attacking the Snow Wolves. For today, he took on both the roles of Healer and Tank, and was levitating with the effect of the <<Fly>> spell to stay barely out of the Snow Wolves’ range of attack and aggression.
The deeper into the Dungeon, the less effective <<Fly>> would be, as one would encounter more monsters equipped with long-ranged attacks. The Snow Wolves had the ability to shoot out freezing air blasts, while Snow Slimes and Snow Golems could throw stones and ice blocks.
Tsutomu was able to nullify those long-ranged attacks by surrounding himself with <<Barrier>>, and carefully calculated the level of aggro he needed in order to keep the enemies’ attention on him. He must also make sure to keep up his support spells for Hannah as she ran around, however, as the ability boosts were essential for her to properly function as an evasion-based Tank.
Moreover, since he was required to attack in order to generate aggro, he had to approach things differently from the usual routine of healing and support. While doubling as a Tank, one needed to put a special emphasis on pulling the monsters’ aggro, adding another layer of complexity to the already difficult aggro management.
A Tank’s greatest fear was the loss of monsters’ aggro on them. As such, Tsutomu tried to use support and attack skills more aggressively to generate more aggro, while using <<Barrier>> to protect himself. He could not possibly do it as effectively as Hannah, whose Job had high firepower and skills specifically for aggro generation, but as a secondary Tank, he was doing well enough to keep the monsters’ attention on him.
“Ugh, what a pain in the ass…”
Amira had only ever worked well with Daryl before, so she was having difficulties with Tsutomu. After all, Daryl’s relatively immobile approach meant the monsters were gathered in one place, making it easy for Amira to attack. Tsutomu as a Tank, however, already had his hands too full to worry about Amira’s preferences.
The Snow Wolves’ formation was all over the place due to Tsutomu, making it necessary for Amira to chase them down and kill them one by one. Up until now, Daryl would keep them all around him, so she would not have to move around so much, but she has had to move around quite a bit today. The aggro pulling was not perfect, either, so sometimes the monsters would attack Amira instead, adding to the difficulty.
Hannah and Leleia, on the other hand, did not seem to have much of a problem. Leleia had formed a contract with the Salamander and was attacking with fire-elemental projectiles, and she was especially careful not to accidentally hit Hannah as the latter ran around all over the place.
Still, Hannah had previously been relying purely on Diniel’s marksmanship, and not actually paying attention to Attackers’ movements at all, so from Leleia’s perspective, her combat maneuvers were extremely dangerous. It would be perfectly fine if it was because she trusted in the Attackers, but as of now, she simply had no awareness of her allies’ attacks.
After the fight, Leleia walked up to Hannah and asked her to pay more attention to the Attackers’ actions. Hannah did not quite get where Leleia was coming from, but she nodded in agreement anyway.
“Sorry about that, Amira. I’d like us to experiment with various strategies in the morning first. You can use your <<Dragon From>> in the afternoon.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Amira nodded. She looked more tired than usual, perhaps because she had been moving around more than usual. Tsutomu, seeing that, cracked a smile to distract the conversation from stepping into that issue.
“I mean, I could tell that you’re having it harder than when you were with Daryl, you know? I’m VERY not used to keeping all those monsters in line… And I even lost their aggro on me at least twice.”
“…Look, don’t worry about it. I can make things work out with what we have now, no problem.”
“Thanks, that’d be helpful. Now then… let’s be on our way.”
Tsutomu pointed his White Staff up as a gesture of thanks to Amira. The team then continued their exploration, fighting more of the Snow Field’s common monsters — Snow Wolves, Snow Slimes, and Snow Golems — on the way.
It was almost noon by the time the team collected a few dozen Ice Magic Stones, so they decided to take a little break. Tsutomu busted out his magic tool stove and started heating some corn soup, and while he waited, he talked to Amira.
“Good job — we’re getting better at this. And as we agreed to earlier, you can go ahead and add <<Dragon Form>> to the mix in the afternoon.”
“Yeah.”
The more time Tsutomu spent in battle, the more accustomed he got to being an evasion-based Tank, and also to the MND boost from the Undine. Now he was comfortable enough with his role to start casting <<Medic>> for Amira whenever he wanted her to disengage her <<Dragon Form>>.
Amira, having gotten to experience a different type of Tank from what she was used to, realized how easy it had been to work with a more conventional one like Daryl.
It was amazing that a White Mage could carry out the Tank role, but excluding the novelty factor of it, Tsutomu was by no means a reliable one. Obviously enough, he was quite inferior at it compared to someone who mained the role like Daryl. Amira understood that she had to pick up the slack to compensate, but it was still difficult to follow through.
Enemy monsters had always been pulled to one place before, but now they were scattered all over, and sometimes their aggro even shifted to Amira. Tsutomu did get better as he got used to the role over subsequent fights, but it was still necessary for him and the Attackers to match up for things to work out.
Then again, thanks to Amira’s experience from working with various Guild staff members, she was gradually learning how to work together with her allies, and was able to follow Tsutomu’s lead… at least for a little bit.
On the other hand, Leleia and Hannah did not seem to be doing so well on this front. Due to her having left everything to Diniel before, Hannah was having a hard time keeping up with Leleia’s long-ranged attacks.
“……”
“……”
Leleia pondered over how she should attack to make things work, and Hannah said nothing, as if to wait and see what she would say. Tsutomu, sensing the heavy and awkward atmosphere, passed each of the two a mug of corn soup.
“Looks like you haven’t gotten things down yet. Would you like to offer some comments, Leleia?”
“…For starters, I am technically unable to attack as accurately as Diniel does,” explained Leleia, her eyes cast down into the mug in her hands. “I know it is not an easy task, Hannah, but I would like you to pay attention to how I attack, too.”
Hannah flinched, knowing that her effectiveness as an evasion-based Tank was partially a result of Diniel’s exceptional marksmanship. With Diniel out on another mission now, however, things were much more difficult.
Hannah was able to operate on the ground just fine, attacking many monsters and pulling their aggro. What she was unable to keep up with, however, was paying attention to when and where Leleia would attack.
Magic skills, unlike arrows, were difficult to land accurate long-ranged attacks with. Leleia had tried to shout her skill chants and some call-outs to notify Hannah in advance, but nothing seemed to have worked.
“Hannah, maybe you should act the same as when you’re working with <<Stream Arrow>>. Or is that too difficult?”
“…Huh, is that how it works?”
“Mm-hm. You could think of Leleia’s voice as something like the signal arrows. Maybe things won’t be as efficient as before, but hey, they almost always get better the more you try.”
“I see! That makes sense!”
Hannah opened her eyes wide as if enlightened by Tsutomu’s explanation. The way Hannah looked up at him as if he was a god, prompted Tsutomu to let out a dry chuckle before turning back to Leleia.
“So that’s that — Leleia, you can try doing what you just did again. If that doesn’t work out, we can go to Diniel later and ask her for some… opinions.”
“You’re sounding real scary right now, Teach–“
“–By the way, Hannah, do you have anything to comment on my flight control?” Tsutomu promptly asked, ignoring Hannah’s complaint.
Hannah folded her arms and tilted her head, thinking it over for a moment before answering,
“You were going, like, ‘woosh’!”
“Not you, too…”
Tsutomu facepalmed, his head hit with a painfully comical spark of déjà vu.
