Tsutomu’s party was now up against a pack of Snow Wolves that had appeared like an avalanche from the mountaintops. Two women among them were dashing fearlessly through the snow heaping at their feet.
“<<Dual Wave Slash>>!”
Commanded by Amy’s high-pitched voice, sharp sonic booms flew from her two swords. One of them cleanly sliced into the wide-open mouth of a Snow Wolf that was leaping towards Hannah, tearing its whole body apart. Hannah then repeatedly punched that same Snow Wolf until it disintegrated into light particles, then quickly shifted her focus to the next enemy.
“I’ve got your back!”
“All right!”
As Hannah fought on the ground, Amy moved around to cover her blind spots while also killing one Snow Wolf after another. Then, after she spent a brief moment sending a signal via eye contact, Hannah nodded and threw a hook punch at the nearest Snow Wolf.
“Damn, their synergy is pretty amazing,” Tsutomu thought to himself as he waved his staff to cast <<Haste>> for the pair.
Hannah had grown much stronger over the past two months — that was without a doubt — but her teamwork with Amy was far too good for someone she had just started working with.
The cause of this was likely Amy, whose agility, ears, and excellent eyesight allowed her to survey the entire combat area with ease. Her wide, well-trained range of awareness also allowed her to grasp where the God Eye was looking at any given moment.
“Woohoo!”
With a swing of her swords, she flicked away the Snow Wolf that Hannah had just sent flying. Her movements now were even quicker and more efficient compared to the previous time she was on a team with Tsutomu.
After the disbandment of Tsutomu’s old party, Amy’s work at the Guild included appraising items and exploring the Dungeon, the latter of which she had opted into of her own accord, so as to not fall behind in combat training while she was not in a party with Tsutomu.
In addition to training, she had been reminding herself of the ways of Explorers, preparing for the day she would join Absolute Helix without slacking off as she usually would.
Furthermore, she was not at all slow to respond to Tsutomu’s support. Drawing from her experience working in teams with fellow Guild staff members who were White Mages and Channelers in parties, Amy was constantly adapting to the flow of Tsutomu’s directions.
By keeping in mind how long her buff effects lasted, she was able to match up with Tsutomu’s casts whenever they were about to run out, enabling Tsutomu to concentrate better on other tasks. Since Tsutomu had many other things he needed to do — including but not limited to supporting and healing other members, attacking the monsters, and casting <<Barrier>> — he was truly grateful for Amy’s consideration.
“Hannie! Let’s see who can kill more of them!” Amy said as she held up her swords and charged at the pack of Snow Wolves
“I’ll win for sure!” Hannah shouted and followed right behind her.
From what Tsutomu was seeing, it was clear that the God Eye was more active than usual as it flew around Amy. He continued to observe Amy’s movements, which were quite different from the last time they were in a party together, while carrying out his support role.
On the other side of the team, Garm and Leleia were very quiet. Both of them were the type to not say anything unnecessary during battle, so Tsutomu could hear nothing from them except their skills’ names.
“<<Salamander Breath>>.”
Despite that, their performance was not bad at all. Leleia’s control over her long-ranged skills had improved thanks to the time spent teaming up with Hannah, so she was not making any mistakes that would cause friendly fire on Garm. Moreover, Garm had experience working with various types of Attackers at the Guild, so he could cooperate with a Spiritualist like Leleia to a decent extent.
“<<Contract — Sylph>>.”
Leleia summoned Sylph to increase her AGI by half a letter grade. Then she swiped her rapier at a blinding speed at a Snow Wolf, distracting it with her graceful moves — then gouging both its eyes and then piercing its throat. Sylph, then perching on Leleia’s shoulder, pointed ahead, and a whirl of wind appeared around her rapier, tearing the Snow Wolf’s throat from the inside out.
If one had good compatibility with the Spirits, the Spirits would provide not only supporting magic but also attribute enchantments and blessings of protection. In Leleia’s case, she could receive enchantments and blessings from all four Spirit types, as well as support from a wide variety of magic. With practically no difference in performance at both short and long ranges, Leleia could be considered an all-purpose Attacker.
“<<Combat Cry>>.”
Garm, thanks to Tsutomu’s teachings as a foundation, was the first person here to understand and execute the concept of being a Tank. Having been adding to that with his own creative ideas, his fighting style was more polished than ever before. Lately, he had been incorporating some evasion-based Tank tactics that he had observed from other Explorers.
Moreover, he had been training much more intensely, perhaps influenced by how Daryl had pushed his limit during the recent Mount Golem battle — which Tsutomu did not get to see, but Garm did. He has always been diligent in his training, so Tsutomu noticed that he had improved even more compared to before, similarly to Amy.
Tsutomu had also improved in various ways over the past two months, thanks to having gotten to try out so many new things. There were two things that had especially broadened his horizons: learning to carry out his role while he was unable to <<Fly>>, and doubling as a Tank whenever the situation called for it. He had also become better at casting <<Barrier>> on himself and managing aggro on the Snow Field layers.
In addition, thanks to Leleia, he had gotten to form a contract with the Undine, the Spirit of water. The contract gave Tsutomu a one-rank boost to his mental energy stat, making it even easier for him to provide support and healing. As a result of being invited to this world by God, Tsutomu had a particularly strong affinity with Spirits, so he was able to make the most of his partnership with Undine.
Among the creature’s many capabilities, Tsutomu’s favorite was the defense it provided. When facing dangerous attacks, the Undine would automatically emerge from his pocket and release a mass of a soft, sticky substance to mitigate the impact, allowing him to perform evasion-based Tank maneuvers quite effectively.
Still, the Undine could only be used when Leleia was present in the party, and her mental energy was needed for the Undine to perform its actions. As such, if he were to use the Undine’s powers without restraint, Leleia’s energy would quickly run out, so it was not feasible to constantly rely on the Spirits. Nevertheless, provided that he directed its actions appropriately, the Undine was very useful.
“Go!”
With Tsutomu’s commands, the Undine immediately jumped onto the monster and entangled it with its slime, restricting its movements. It could also provide enchantments and cast water-type magic, but Tsutomu could not command it to do so very often, since Leleia’s mental energy was supplying two Spirits at once due to the Spirit contract she had for herself.
Still, his ability to command Spirits like this was out of the ordinary — since it was equivalent to a blessing from God, one usually would have to possess a unique skill to achieve this degree of control. And even then, compared to those with unique skills, Tsutomu’s affinity was abnormally high, so he was pretty much the only person able to gain this much cooperation from the Undine.
The fight continued for a while longer, with Tsutomu managing the situation by casting <<Protect>> for Garm and regularly keeping <<Haste>> up for the three others. In the end, the last Snow Wolf suffocated to death after being engulfed by the Undine, its body turning into light particles and leaving a Magic Stone floating in the Undine’s slime-like body.
“Hey, don’t eat that,” Tsutomu promptly said as he saw the Undine starting to consume the Colorless Magic Stone.
In response, the Undine dropped the Magic Stone onto the ground and hopped onto Tsutomu’s staff before climbing to his right hand.
“I win~~!”
“Ngh… I won’t lose next time!”
“Well, I’m an Attacker — of course I’d win in a test of power! But hey, you’re always welcome to try and beat me!”
Amy spun her swords around to check their condition while comforting an actually frustrated Hannah.
“Leleia. I could hear you calling out the names of your skills, so there’s no need to worry about it so much.”
“I see. I will try to use more skills next time, then. Is there anything else?”
“Let’s see… I haven’t had much experience working with Spiritualists. I’d appreciate it if you’d teach me which skills you can use.”
Garm and Leleia immediately began to review each other’s performance after the battle ended. Leleia nodded with a serious expression, then consulted with Garm about which skills she should use during the next battle.
Tsutomu, not finding a place for himself in the discussion, turned to speak to the Undine on his right hand,
“Mind collecting all of the magic stones for me?”
With that, the Undine dropped itself from Tsutomu’s hand and spread its slime on the ground, pulling the fallen Magic Stones toward its body. After a while, she crawled back toward Tsutomu, having gathered all of the Magic Stones from the snowy ground.
“Good job.”
Tsutomu picked out a small Colorless Magic Stone and gave it to the Undine, prompting it to bounce its spherical body happily. The Undine would generally be pleased with whatever Tsutomu gave it, so lately, he had only been giving it Colorless Magic Stone Scraps.
Initially, Tsutomu had a negative-leaning opinion on using Spirits due to how they had to be fed Magic Stones to keep happy, but then he changed his mind after he realized how useful Undine could be. As such, he was now not so quick to write off Spirits.
While Undine continued to absorb power from the Magic Stones, Tsutomu looked away and collected the gathered magic into his Magic Bag. Leleia’s useful Spirits, on top of her already being an excellent Attacker, made her quite desirable as a member to have in a team.
(…If only there wasn’t beef between her and Amira…)
That was practically the only issue with Leleia — Tsutomu had been observing her and Amira over the past two months and found that there was always some mental distance between the two of them. On the inside, Leleia may seem unconcerned about what had happened between them in the past, but Tsutomu could tell that there was a subtle sense of animosity that most outsiders would not sense.
Tsutomu still resented how Alma had avoided interacting with him after the selling of the Black Staff, so he understood that Leleia could have some unresolved feelings. Amira, on the other hand, was likely oblivious, and while Leleia may respond to that with nonchalance, she probably was feeling a complicated mix of thoughts on the inside.
Moreover, both of them seemed fine on the surface, with Hannah and even Amira herself saying they had no particular issues when asked. Leleia did not seem to plan on directly confronting Amira, at least, with her apparent plan being to outperform her on the job. As such, Tsutomu did not feel like having Amira apologize would be a solution to resolving this situation.
But now that he had been in a team with her for two months and had talked with her a decent bit, Tsutomu was considering directly addressing this issue. He wanted to know how Leleia felt about Amira, and what she wanted to do about it.
“Tsutomu, it’s about time we wrapped up for the day, don’t you think?” Amy said to Tsutomu, interrupting him as he watched Leleia teach Garm about the Salamander’s skills.
“Right… it’s getting late. Let’s go back now.”
“Mm-hm, got it! Everyone, I’ll see you later!”
As the God Eye approached her, Amy gave it a wink, then held hands with Hannah and skipped away. Tsutomu proceeded to notify Garm and Leleia as they were still talking.
“Whew… Nice and warm~~”
“Oh yeah~~”
Upon returning to the Guild through the Black Gate, Amy and Hannah immediately had relaxed looks on their faces due to the warmth of the building. Garm brushed the snow off his boots, and a few moments later, a janitor came over to clean it up. Garm proceeded to casually speak with the janitor, perhaps due to them being acquaintances.
“Ah, Sir Melchor’s fighting it already.”
Looking at Monitor #1, Tsutomu saw Melchor fighting alone against the boss monster of the eightieth layer, the Winter General. The Winter General’s quick draw slash normally would kill at least one of its opponents, but Melchor was able to dodge it and seemed to be putting up a good fight.
“Maybe he’ll win today!”
“We’ll see.”
Tsutomu had heard that it was important to thoroughly prepare items such as Inferno Magic Stones and anti-cold gear, but it seemed that Melchor was not carrying much of anything — perhaps because he could not contain his excitement.
Tsutomu wished him good luck and took the party to disband at the reception desk, and then everyone headed back to the Clan House together.
