“<<Combat Cry>>.”
Xeno swiped his buckler-holding arm as he unleashed an aggro-pulling aura. The skill normally would cause one to unleash a red aura, but for some reason, Xeno’s was a shining silver.
Moreover, it clearly was generating much more aggro compared to Daryl’s red, focused blast of <<Combat Cry>>. Xeno’s level was 70, so Daryl wondered if the difference in status ratings was what made the difference. And so, while Diniel scouted the area for enemies, Daryl took the time to ask Xeno, who proceeded to run his fingers through his silver hair before replying,
“What your <<Combar Cry>> lacks is… beauty.”
“…Excuse me?”
“As far as I can see, you have been imitating how Garm the Mad Dog does it. You’re nowhere nearly as polished as he is, though, like a little puppy trying to swing around a spear.”
“Uh-huh…”
“You need to emphasize its beauty… Like this. <<Combat Cry>>!” Xeno shouted out the name of the skills and thrust his buckler out, and unleashed a silver aura.
Daryl had to admit that it did look nicer than his own. Xeno lowered his buckler and gracefully turned to Daryl to say,
“Monsters can be entranced by beauty, too – In fact, it is what gets them to direct their attention to my aura. That’s what makes the difference between you and me.”
“I-I see…”
“Don’t worry — your aura is by no means ugly. Every person has their own unique form, thus they possess beauty in their own unique way. All you need to do is practice. Now, give it a try.”
“Y-yes. <<Combat Cry>>!”
Daryl tried unleashing it the way Xeno did, but upon seeing that, the latter folded his arms and shook his head.
“NON! That’s not right at all! More emphasis on its beauty! Make all the monsters turn to you — like this! <<COMBAT CRY>>!! There, try doing that!”
“<<C-Cmbat Cry>>!”
“Put more power into your voice! <<Combar Cry>>!”
“<<COMBAT CRY>>!!” Daryl shouted out loudly, perhaps to distract himself from the embarrassment.
Xeno, seeing the results, nodded in approval.
“Hmm, much better — but still far from perfect. Keep up your training, and you’ll get there one of these days.”
“O-okay…”
“Hohoho. So full of energy.”
Melchor smiled as he watched the two of them, and Daryl, feeling embarrassed upon noticing that, turned a little red. A little while later, Diniel finished her scouting routine, so the team resumed their exploration.
The rest of the day’s exploration went without particular incident.
After returning to the Clan House, Daryl spent a moment in the living room thinking back on what he had been told, then stood up from the sofa and walked over to a mirror…
“Let’s see here…?”
…Then he tried to imitate the various poses that Xeno had struck whenever he unleashed <<Combar Cry>>. Tsutomu, watching from the living room sofa, had a lot of mixed feelings about how that looked, as apparent from the expression on his face.
[This is pretty cool, actually…] Daryl thought to himself as he saw what the poses actually looked like in the mirror.
Being a young boy, it was not so surprising that he would find amusement in this sort of thing. He continued to have fun imitating Xeno for a while.
The following day, the mission team went with Melchor again to progress down the Dungeon’s layers. Daryl led the team and started their exploration, with the plan being to reach layer fifty within the day.
“<<Blessing of Swiftness>>.”
Since battles with normal monsters ended quite quickly, the team’s Channeler, Korinna, was simply using her multi-target skill to boost everyone’s AGI. Because of this, Daryl could not really judge her actual strength just yet.
One thing that immediately set her apart from Tsutomu, though, was did not cast <<Medic>>. While Channelers did possess skills to heal status effects, Korinna had not used them even once. So from Daryl’s perspective, Tsutomu was currently the better one to have as support.
Another thing Daryl was interested in seeing was the extent of the power of Melchor’s Magic Fist style. As observed during battle, using even a normal Magic Stone packed quite a punch despite its user being low-leveled, and elemental Magic Stones were sure to enable a higher power output.
Melchor’s mastery of the martial arts was also incredible – Daryl could not see any openings in his every movement, and he could even land counter attacks with his bare hands. Even as a Tank, Daryl saw that he could reference those moves for his own improvement.
As for Xeno, Daryl still did not know all that much about him. From what he could tell, though, the man did have the skill to back up his big talk. Xeno was a level 70 Paladin, and he seemed to have quite a clear understanding of the Tank role, so Daryl figured they would get along just fine going forward.
And as it turned out, the trick to his skill was the confidence that beauty could entrance monsters. The confidence manifested into skill’s effects, boosting the amount of aggro generated – which, in technical terms, meant a higher consumption rate of mental energy. Even taking that into account, though, the performance of Xeno’s <<Combat Cry>> was still superior to Daryl’s.
[I’ll have to try different things until I get it right,] Daryl thought to himself as he led the team toward the Black Gate in their usual three-row formation.
Along the way, the Menore, a gigantic slug-like monster, crawled out of the sand. It was quite a rare monster, but Daryl kept his cool and opened the fight with his skill.
“<<Combat Cry>>!!”
“…Oh-ho?” Xeno raised his voice in admiration upon seeing Daryl strike a pose with his tower shield while unleashing <<Combat Cry>>.
Korinna behind them, her hands clasped together as she channeled the <<Blessing of Swiftness>>, also had her eyes wide open.
Daryl’s <<Combat Cry>> was a focused, spear-like blast like before, but sharper — and it was blue instead of the usual red. Due to not being used to this new form of the skill, though, he ended up spending too much mental energy. He had a bitter look on his face as he realized that the move had tired him off more than expected.
The Menore slammed its gigantic body at Daryl, who proceeded to change his position so that the others behind him would not be attacked, then unleashed another <<Combat Cry>> as practice. It was also blue this time, albeit much darker – perhaps even closer to black.
“You know, I don’t like going against large monsters all that much,” Melchor said as he dashed across the sandy beach, unaffected by the terrain’s poor footing
Making it into point-blank range in no time at all, he proceeded to land a punch on the Menore’s soft body. The monster’s body promptly flew off the ground.
Helpless in mid-air, the Menore then was hit with a rapid succession of Diniel’s arrows. All of the arrows had been infused with Inferno Magic Stones, so they were highly effective on the Menore’s almost-entirely liquid body.
Diniel proceeded to shoot out the monster’s eyes with some well-placed arrows, and Melchor unleashed a rapid series of punches to finish it off.
“Hmph, still not as beautiful as mine,” Xeno said as he handed Daryl the Magic Stone he had collected. “But at least it’s quite a lot stronger now. Keep up the good work.”
“T-thank you,” Daryl replied as he accepted the Magic Stone.
After that, their exploration went especially smoothly, with the team reaching layer forty-nine and even finding the Black Gate that led to layer fifty by the evening. Korinna looked like she was about to cry due to how quickly they found this particular Black Gate. Before going through it, Daryl gathered everyone together and laid out the plans for the Shell Crab fight.
“The plan is to set up a trap and lure the Shell Crab into it. It does require some decent aggro control, though… So Sir Melchor, could you sit the beginning of this fight out?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll leave it to you.”
“Thank you, sir. So here’s how it will go: I’ll pull the Shell Crab’s aggro first, with Sir Xeno waiting in reserve. And of course, Miss Diniel and Miss Korinna are the Attacker and Healer, respectively. After dealing some damage with the three of us, I’ll switch with Sir Xeno so I can set up the trap. Once the trap starts working, we’ll go in for an all-out attack to finish it off.”
“Cool, cool.”
“Very well.”
“I-I can do it!”
As Daryl looked around the group, the three others voiced their agreement. Daryl was the best choice to set the trap because he had memorized all the reading materials that Tsutomu had prepared. He also knew the monster’s digging locations from looking at photographs and diagrams, and also watching other groups’ battles on the Monitors.
Daryl took out a poisoned Potion Fish from his Magic Bag to confirm that it was ready, then proceeded to open the door to the fiftieth layer.
“<<Warrior Howl>>!”
And once the Shell Crab emerged from the sand, Daryl took it on by himself, which got him the attention of the God Eye and center spot on the Monitor. Korinna occasionally glanced at the God Eye as she supported Daryl.
Diniel watched Daryl’s movements and took shots at the Shell Crab’s defenses while also shooting arrows in other directions to find its digging locations in advance and decide on the best place to set up the trap. Melchor and Xeno sat on a sand dune some distance away to watch the battle unfold. From an outsider’s perspective, it looked like they were getting quite a good conversation going.
“<<Blessing of the Sacred>>. <<Blessing of Protection>>”
Korinna looked away from the God Eye and used more of her skills to focus support on Daryl. Channelers’ blessing-type skills required some time to charge up before their effects activated, however, so she had to cast those skills a few moments in advance.
“<<Verses of Prayer>>”
Still, she also had a skill that shortened the time required for the blessing-type skills to take effect. With the <<Verses of Prayer>>, it was possible for one to activate the effects of blessing-type skills almost immediately. It did come with a significant cost of mental energy, however, so she made sure to set up a <<Blessing of the Sacred>>, a skill that recovered one’s own mental energy, to go with it.
The basic Channeler routine was to always have <<Blessing of the Sacred>> active and use other channeling skills such as blessings or prayers for support and recovery. Unlike White Mage, this Job’s skills usually could not be activated immediately, so one was required to anticipate the course of the battle fairly far ahead and micromanage their time.
Its advantages over White Mage, however, were the stronger effect of support and recovery skills, and the fact that they could use a higher-leveled revival skill. Moreover, their skills had no effect on monsters, which gave them a significant tactical advantage in this world in particular.
Daryl, receiving buffs and healing from Korinna’s blessing skills, was able to hold the line by himself. He had fought the Shell Crab dozens of times while training with Garm, so his performance today was pretty much perfect.
[Actually, this is a bit harder than usual…]
Without Tsutomu’s regular castings of <<Medic>>, Daryl was gradually getting tired out. Of course, Korinna had been using the Channeler counterpart of that skill, the <<Ray of Solace>>, but it was not quite the same since she could not use it as often as Tsutomu did.
Still, looking at how good Diniel’s attacks were going, he figured he would be able to hold out until Xeno switched in. Daryl, his breathing starting to get rough, proceeded to deflect a strike from the Shell Crab’s giant pincers. Fortunately, he did have experience in fighting without getting <<Medic>> casts back when he teamed up with the Guild staff members. Compared to that, the battle he was in now was not so difficult after all.
After some point, when the Shell Crab started spitting out bubbles, Daryl called out to Xeno in the middle of the latter’s conversation with Melchor.
“Sir Xeno! Time to switch!”
Xeno cut off his chatter and bowed to Melchor, then raised his index finger up in the air.
“<<COMBAAATTT… CRY>>!!”
Then he pointed it at the Shell Crab as if calling its name, and a silver blast of <<Combat Cry>>, packed with mental energy, flew straight at it like an arrow. As the Shell Crab turned around to face him, Xeno cracked a grin, showing his well-aligned white teeth.
“Bring it on. I’ll play with you,” he said, looking excited as he drew his short sword in an exaggerated fashion.
The Shell Crab, completely provoked, started moving its eight legs and sped towards Xeno.
Daryl, seeing that, asked Korinna to cast <<Ray of Solace>> more frequently, and then he went over to Diniel.
“Plam trees over there, boulder over there,” she said to him.
“All right. Thank you.”
“Come back soon, boy.”
“…Yes, of course,” Daryl said, sounding awkward due to the fact that Diniel was completely focused on the dog ears on top of his head.
He then proceeded to run off, referencing the locations she had pointed out.
