The next morning…
“Tsutomu! Let’s go to the Dungeon after breakfast!”
“Sorry, I have other plans today. Besides, you’re not even done unpacking yet, right?”
“Oof…”
Tsutomu looked away from the grumpy Amy, let out a little yawn, and then started reading the newspapers from the three biggest publications. Hannah, sitting on the next sofa over, chuckled at Amy’s subsequent grumblings.
First, he looked at the headline, which was an article about Melchor’s ongoing solo challenge on layer eighty. Melchor had been down there since yesterday evening and was still fighting to this very moment, hogging Monitor #1 to himself all the while, making the market around the Monitors quite lively all day long.
Another article that caught Tsutomu’s attention was one about a Healer of Golden Tune supposedly using a never-before-seen skill. Included with the article was an illustration of a fox-tailed girl — a Vulpeer — performing an action reminiscent of kneading a mud ball with both hands.
[That must be Eunice. Maybe I’ll have a look if I have some free time later today.]
All the article really said was that the action looked cute, so Tsutomu would have to take a look at the Monitors himself to figure out what it was actually about. After he was done with the newspaper, he handed it to Amira, who looked somewhat grumpy perhaps due to still being sleepy, and then looked at the dishes that were being carried to the dining table.
Including Ollie and her apprentice, a total of twelve people needed to be fed each meal. It was quite labor-intensive for just the two of them to prepare everything. Even if they were to have the ingredients ready the day before, the workload was such that they had to get up and cook everything early in the morning.
“For the third time, you weren’t supposed to heat this soup!”
“Eep! I’m so sorry, ma’am!”
As the apprentice was Ollie’s relative, Ollie’s tone towards her was stricter than usual. Scolded for accidentally heating up a soup that was supposed to be served cold, the apprentice lowered her head as she continued to rush to get the other pots and dishes to the table.
Shortly after, once all of the food prepared by the apprentice was served, everyone started eating. Tsutomu grabbed a piece of bread from the quickly dwindling pile and dipped it into the warm soup. Amy, having the sensitive tongue of a cat, blew on her soup to cool it down.
“That was great!”
After finishing breakfast, Tsutomu took his dishes and placed them in the kitchen sink. Then, right when he was done, the doorbell rang as if on cue.
“So early,” Tsutomu said, and as Ollie was about to go get the guest, Tsutomu stopped her and went to the door himself.
Looking through the peephole, he saw the Conykin Lorena, gasping for breath.
“Good morning. You’re here quite a bit earlier than expected.”
“Well, you know, I figured we could have breakfast together, and stuff.”
“I already ate.”
“What!? That was fast! Well, whatever. Let’s go!”
Lorena, with her white-furred rabbit ears standing straight up in surprise, took Tsutomu’s hand and pulled him outside. Tsutomu, while irritated by her pushiness, reluctantly followed along.
In no time at all, they arrived at the Clan House of Silver Beast, where Lorena immediately led him inside. The building’s interior had become cleaner than when he last visited, and it was apparent that the number of residents had increased. The children in the hallway bowed politely when they saw Lorena and Tsutomu.
There were also many people wearing either butler suits or aprons, cleaning and tending to the residents’ needs. Silver Beast, currently being the second-furthest progressing Clan, seemed to have greatly benefited from the trading of Ice Magic Stones, with their financial situation much more stable than before.
“Making some good Gold these days, I see.”
“We sure are! When we got to layer seventy, the money and people just kept rolling in. Misil is… kinda struggling to keep up with everything, though.”
“You can say that again,” a tired voice spoke up from behind the two.
Tsutomu turned around to see Misil, who had cleanly shaved off his scruffy facial hair. The major change in Misil’s aura came off as somewhat of a surprise to Tsutomu.
“Hey. Long time no see, eh, Tsutomu?”
“Long time, yes.”
“Sorry we couldn’t get in touch more often. Things got real busy after we got to layer seventy. Well, anyway, we shouldn’t be standing around — let’s go to the guest room.”
Misil’s sloppy appearance from before had been largely cleaned up. These days, he was involved with various groups over the trading of Ice Magic Stones, and the orphanage had been expanded even further and started accepting more children than before. Perhaps due to the profits involved in the trading and the recent expansions, Misil’s expressions were quite visibly tenser.
Tsutomu was led to a beautiful guest room, wherein he proceeded to sit on a fluffy sofa. Shortly after, one of the employees appeared to serve them tea — the same high-end kind that he had seen in the Guild’s reception office.
[This place has changed quite a bit,] Tsutomu thought to himself while sipping some of the tea.
Misil and Lorena, sitting across from him, leaned back on their sofa and relaxed themselves.
“Now, I do have a reason for you to come all the way here today. Take a look at this,” Misil said as he opened up a small Magic Bag and took out a stack of documents, presenting it to Tsutomu.
After a look at it, it turned out to be a summary of various information on the Winter General, the latest layer boss.
“…Are you proposing an information exchange?”
“Nah, we’ve gotten enough already. I don’t know if it’ll make any difference, but I’d like you to take it — should be at least a bit useful.”
The information had been written based on Silver Beast’s members’ experience of challenging the layer boss dozens of times. Some of the information was in-depth enough that one would not be able to identify from watching through the Monitors alone, which indeed should come in handy.
“I see… I’ll gladly take it, then. Are you still having a tough time down there?”
“Tough is an understatement. I don’t even feel like we can beat it at all.”
With how quickly they had cleared the sixtieth and seventieth layers, they had been making good progress and seemed to have the momentum to make quick work of layer eighty as well. But then, as if to put a stop to that, the Winter General stood in their way.
The quick draw slash, which it would always open the fight with, would almost always kill two of its challengers. And then, under the pressure of the monster’s murderous intent, they would lose their ability to make rational choices and be killed off one by one. Such was the typical result of Silver Beast and Ealdred Crow’s first few attempts at beating the layer boss.
After that period, Silver Beast had been trying various things to have a better chance at winning, but so far, the most they could manage before their teams were wiped out was to reach the fight’s halfway point. Ealdred Crow had also been trying to come up with various methods using their abundant supplies and human resources, but they could not produce any better results than what Silver Beast had.
The momentum of the two Clans that had been going on since breaking through layer sixty suddenly stopped, and now they were stuck. Still, those who reached layer eighty would have their level caps increased to ninety, so now Ealdred Crow was investing a significant amount of funds into assisting the leveling of their Explorers.
On the other hand, Silver Beast was using the Gold obtained from Ice Magic Stone trading to take in more orphans and construct educational facilities for the children. Silver Beast’s human resources were inferior compared to Ealdred Crow, and as the Clan’s purpose was orphan relief, they did not put all that much importance on leveling themselves up. Such was one of the largest differences between them and Ealdred Crow.
“Besides, we got carried away and spread ourselves too thin — now we’re too busy taking care of the kids to be fighting all the time. So I’ll entrust the info we’ve gained so far to you, Tsutomu.”
“I see… Well, that’s too bad — You seem to be on the right track to beating it, as far as I can see.”
“Well, I mean, we’re still going to explore the Dungeon, you know. Gotta make sure we earn the Gold for the kids. But we figured we’re not gonna beat Ealdred Crow on that front — our goals are just different,” Misil said and looked down, deep in thought.
“Ah, by the way, Tsutomu!” Lorena spoke up and leaned forward, seeming to have remembered something. “You have to hear this!”
Then she moved over to Tsutomu’s side and started talking,
“The other day, I happened to meet Stephanie while we were on layer seventy-nine! And it looked like she was actually watching us fight! Well, after that, she came and talked to us — and you’re not going to believe what she said!”
“O-oh? What did she say?” Tsutomu asked back while slightly recoiling from Lorena’s overt loudness.
Realizing that, Lorena placed her hands over her mouth and took a more refined tone.
“‘Your time management is quite lacking, ‘that’s what!” She said, imitating Stephanie’s voice. “I mean, seriously!?”
“Ah…”
As Lorena leaned in closer with the expectation of an agreeing opinion, her expression kept changing, causing Tsutomu to have to hold back his laughter.
“After that, she just kept complaining on and on — like, I should have controlled my skills like this, I should have been using long-ranged skills, yada yada yada! And that was the first time we ever met! So annoying! So noisy!”
“You’re pretty noisy too, you know…”
“Shut up, Misil! I’m talking to a fellow Healer here!”
Misil turned to give Tsutomu a sympathetic look and shook his head in response to Lorena’s aggressive tone.
“Also! She even had the audacity to follow us around after that! And she’d run her mouth after each fight! It was getting annoying, so I tried to ignore her, but then she dropped a bomb that REALLY ticked me off — you’re not going to believe what she said!”
“What did she say?”
“‘Perhaps you will never learn,’ that’s what!! Seriously!? She’s really haughty for someone who’s just a little bit good at controlling her skills!”
“Okay, look, your ears are hitting me.”
“Hyah!?”
As Lorena leaned further forward, her long rabbit ears started hitting Tutomu’s face. Tsutomu pushed her head away, but then she let out a strange, startled noise.
“D-don’t touch the base of my ears! That’s my sensitive spot.”
“Sorry. So what happened in the end?”
“I talked back a bit, then she cried and ran off.”
“Uh, ACTUALLY,” Misil interjected to clarify, “It escalated into a fistfight and I had to step in to stop you. Then Rook apologized to the rest of us and things ended without incident.”
“Oh, right, that might’ve been what happened,” Lorena said and turned the other way as if to avoid the topic.
Tsutomu could only let out an exasperated chuckle.
“What the hell… how did that not get on the news?”
“Seriously, man. I was REALLY on edge then — picking a fight with Ealdred Crow is sure to bring trouble.”
“I mean, she was getting all smug about how ‘weak’ your first student was! Insulting me is one thing, but she just had to bring YOUR name into the whole thing as well!! I just couldn’t resist decking her in the face!”
“I don’t think you should have done that…”
“Rook did settle the matter with everyone involved, so there shouldn’t be any trouble now. He even got her and Stephanie to shake hands and at least PRETEND to make up, you know.”
“For the record, I still hate her guts!!”
Lorena crossed her arms and turned around, and Tsutomu could do nothing but crack a dry smile.
After that, the three continued to talk about the Winter General and the orphanage’s recent expansion, and then Misil took Tsutomu to where the children were playing.
“Ah! It’s Tsutomu!”
“Is it really him?”
“I think so.”
“It’s the real deal! Let’s get a handshake!”
“Yay!”
Tsutomu, bewildered by all the children swarming him, turned to Misil, who proceeded to give him a funny grin and a thumbs-up.
“You’ve got a fan club now, man.”
“…I’d rather not have one, you know.”
Tsutomu grumbled in his mind, wondering if Misil had done this to him on purpose, but as he did not have any ill will towards the children, he agreed to shake hands with all of them, then he stayed and talked a little before excusing himself.
―▽▽―
After that, the group decided to explore the Dungeon together, with the team consisting of Lorena, Misil, and two Tanks — the red and blue-feathered Birdkins, who seemed to be practicing an evasion-based fighting style based on Hannah’s example.
“Do you really need two Healers?”
“Why not? Come on, let’s go!”
“…Hmm, actually, I can be an Attacker for a while. You do the Healer thing yourself, Lorena.”
“All right! Let’s take turns, then! I want to see you as a Healer as well, you know!”
With Lorena pushing his back toward the counter, Tsutomu formed a party with the Silver Beast team, and they set out to explore the Dungeon’s seventy-first floor.
At first, Tsutomu would act as a Sub-Attacker to support Misil, while Lorena would be the Healer. Since White Mages had some damage-dealing capabilities, Tsutomu had been trying out that role alongside the Tank role that he would take on occasionally, as he had figured it would be good to gain some experience as an Attacker while he could.
As such, Tsutomu put away his White Staff, switching to a Red Staff that raised his STR by half a letter rating, then he and the team stepped on the Magic Circle and sent themselves down to the Snow Field layers. Lorena started searching for enemies, and before long, she found some Snow Wolves.
“Well then, let’s get started. <<Haste>>.”
Lorena’s style was quite different from Tsutomu’s, especially due to the fact that she did not cast long-ranged skills. She primarily performed healing and support by casting skills directly on her allies, so her role involved running around the battlefield by herself. At first, this was a compromise due to her inability to use long-ranged skills effectively, but now it has become her trademark style.
The others who did use long-ranged healing skills currently had to set up an <<Area Heal>> under their feet to boost their healing power to an acceptable level. This would eventually become unnecessary as their status ratings improved further, but as they were still in the range of level 70, using <<Area Heal>> was still the more effective option.
With a direct casting of <<Heal>>, however, there was no need to use <<Area Heal>>. Additionally, the effectiveness of support skills was also higher when cast by directly touching the targets, so it enabled Lorena to reduce mental energy consumption and aggro generation.
Still, it was inefficient for a Healer to run around to all her comrades, not to mention the heavy burden on herself. While a <<Medic>> cast could restore her physical condition, relying on it too much would affect her mental state, throwing off her energy and aggro management.
“Gimme <<Haste>>!”
“All right.”
Still, the Silver Beast team’s coordination was quite smooth. They looked out for one another and combined their efforts seamlessly. Lorena, as a Conykin, had innately high movement speed, and her team’s coordination allowed her to minimize the need to run around.
“<<Heal>>, please.”
“Do you REALLY need it?”
“Aww, c’mon!”
“Okay, fine…”
Moreover, there was a uniquely positive atmosphere among the team’s members — they absolutely trusted one another, allowing them to draw out their full potential.
Tsutomu, back in his Live Dungeon days, once doubted if positivity alone could make such a big difference, so he had conducted an in-game experiment and confirmed that it indeed helped to boost players’ performance. In the real world, where one another’s faces could be seen, the effect was likely to be even higher.
Unlike Ealdred Crow, which had a system that encouraged competition with frequent replacement of party members, Silver Beast had a longstanding relationship among themselves — which was their strength as a smaller-scale Clan.
[Doesn’t look like they even need me at all.]
Tsutomu felt quite awkward, as if he had accidentally joined a team of acquaintances that just happened to have a slot open, but for now, he continued working as a Sub-Attacker so as to not disrupt the team’s flow.
“And there you go, Tsutomu! AGI boosted!”
“Thanks.”
However, he still felt that he was unnecessarily occupying Lorena’s attention. If another one of Silver Beast’s Attackers were to replace Tsutomu, Lorena most likely would be able to perform even better.
Then again, as tight-knit as this team was, it was without its weakness — particularly because they were not suitable for larger-scale battles. The fact that they could draw out their full power only while working among acquaintances meant they would not fit well in things like raid battles, where unspecified numbers of people gather to form a larger group.
For the time being, raid battles had not been confirmed to occur in God’s Dungeon. There were occurrences such as Stampedes that were similar enough, however, so it was necessary for all Explorers to train skills besides coordination as well.
[It does look like things ARE working great for them, though.]
Silver Beast’s style could be used by Silver Beast alone, making them quite a unique Clan. Perhaps Tsutomu could reproduce their tactics to some extent, but his results were sure to be inferior. A Healer’s style being unable to be imitated by anyone else was an especially significant advantage.
Furthermore, Lorena had also started casting <<Barrier>> on herself and her comrades, following Tsutomu’s example during the latter’s Mount Golem battle. Tsutomu, knowing full well how difficult it was to actually find the time to cast <<Barrier>>, understood that Lorena had made a significant effort to make it work.
From what he had seen on the Monitor, Tsutomu had some understanding of the upsides of a ‘running Healer,’ and now that he got to see her in action, his understanding was enhanced further. Still, adding long-ranged and placement skills to the mix would make it even more effective, and Stephanie was right in that Lorena’s time management was lacking. There were still many areas for improvement, but Tsutomu was sure that Lorena was still one of the Healers he ought to pay attention to.
“It’s about time we switched, Tsutomu! You be the Healer!”
“Got it.”
Tsutomu, having been feeling guilty for being a burden to Lorena, showed a relieved smile upon hearing that he would finally be taking over as the Healer. He switched back to his White Staff, which boosted his MND status by one whole letter rating, then entered the battle against the Snow Smiles and Snow Golems.
The two Birdkinds figured they had to adopt a different approach now that they were working with another Healer. However, before they could switch things up to accommodate Tsutomu, the latter was already getting to work, casting placement-type <<Haste>> for them.
Normally, a party of acquaintances would have some signals and communication cues specific among themselves, but Tsutomu, as a long-time player of Live Dungeon, had extensive experience in working with impromptu teams. As a result, he had greatly honed his ability to improvise and accommodate new teams.
“<<Area Heal>>.”
Setting up a healing circle on the ground, he stood on it and did not move away from the spot. As he monitored the movements of the four others and the monsters, he used all types of his skills — shot, quickshot, and placements — in order to provide his allies with support and healing.
Due to the Snow Field layers’ snow storms interfering with his long-ranged skill casts, he had honed his shot control even more, and now he was able to better predict his allies’ positions and even land his skills on them while they were out of sight. Lonera’s face twitched as she watched all the skill shots fly around and land on her comrades, one after another.
The <<Heal>> casts, their power boosted by <<Area Heal>>, quickly patched up the evasion-based Tanks that had taken hits, and consistent use of <<Medic>> helped them replenish their stamina.
Placement-type <<Haste>> was useful for helping fast-moving evasion-based Tanks, so much so that the two Birdkins received their AGI boosts without really even noticing it. And whenever they started to run out of breath, <<Medic>> shots would quickly fly to them. The two Birdkins seemed quite surprised, and even a little bit scared by just how effective the support and healing they were getting was.
Even Lorena, with all her confidence in managing aggro, could not help but admire the fact that Tsutomu was able to do so many things at a time. Normally, if one were to provide so much support and healing, they would be pulling an excessive amount of aggro from the monsters. However, Tsutomu always confirmed that the Tanks had already pulled the monsters’ aggro before adjusting how much mental energy he put into his skills. Doing so affected the duration of his skills, but even then, Tsutomu was able to manage his time without being thrown off-rhythm.
To someone with the ability to easily estimate aggro levels like Lorena, the level of aggro towards Tsutomu was like the surface tension of water in a cup — if it were to overflow, Tsutomu would immediately be attacked by everything, but he was able to keep it just below the dangerous level. Lorena watched on, observing Tsutomu’s performance with bated breath and excitement.
“<<Air Blade>>.”
And now he even started attacking as well, which made Lorena even more impressed that his aggro management was still on point. Even after several battles, Tsutomu did not even get targeted once — it was too consistent to be a coincidence. And unlike Lorena, Tsutomu mostly stayed in one spot as he provided support and healing.
After the end of one of the fights, Lorena approached Tsutomu as he let out a heavy sigh as if to relax his concentration.
“Were you trying to teach me a lesson or something? Like, ‘your movements are sloppy’! ‘Work on your concentration’! Something like that?”
“No, you’re just being paranoid.”
“I DO practice, I’ll have you know! The <<Haste>> placement thing and stuff! Well, I still can’t use it, though!”
Lorena stomped the ground in frustration as Tsutomu did not move even a step away from the <<Area Heal>> circle. While Lorena was able to use shot-type skills to some extent, she was not good at all with quickshot and placement types. As such, while she resented Stephanie’s haughty tone, she had to admit that the statements themselves were true.
No matter how much she had practiced, however, she had not managed to achieve much improvement. Perhaps she was feeling a little bit jealous due to the fact that Stephanie could use them all.
Tsutomu, seeing that Lorena seemed to have lost some confidence, tried saying something to cheer her up,
“But you can cast <<Barrier>> pretty effectively, you know. I always have a hard time doing that — and I couldn’t even do it at all at first.”
“Really? I don’t think it’s anything special, though.”
“It’s harder than it looks, at least in my opinion. You should focus on improving the style you’re most confident with. The most important thing is that you have fun doing it, after all.”
“…You think so?”
“There’s no use worrying about the things you can’t do. Just focus on anything else that you can — Like, say, making the ‘running Healer’ your trademark style, Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“…I would have preferred something more cute-sounding, but…”
Lorena, having listened with a serious expression all the while, turned it into a crumpled smile at the last part. She proceeded to look back at her footprints in the snow and clenched her fists tightly.
“Well, thank you. I’ll call it ‘Mobile Healer,’ and I’ll make it work!”
“Nice. Now, it’s getting late, so we should call it a day after this fight.”
“All right! Let’s go!”
Lorena ran through the snow like a hopping bunny, seeming to have cast away her hesitation. Misil then walked over and gave Tsutomu a light pat on the shoulder.
“Thanks, man. She really was bothered by what Stephanie said to her. You really knew what to say to cool her down.”
“You’re welcome. And, well, she’s kind of my student, you see — if anything happens, feel free to call me for help.”
“Mm-hm… Maybe you should go see Stephanie as well, then.”
“Huh?”
“She’s been… turning weird these days. Like she’s got this scary look in her eyes. And she wasn’t the kind of girl to push people around like that, right?”
“…Right. I understand. We’ll probably meet at some point if I keep exploring layer seventy-nine anyway, so I’ll be sure to check on her when the time comes.”
“That’s for the best. But man, I’m serious about her being scary, you know — I swear she’s gonna haunt me in my dreams…”
Misil shivered as if he felt a chill run down his spine, causing Tsutomu to tilt his head, as he had never seen Stephanie behave anything like that whenever he saw her on the Monitors. He still took Misil’s warning seriously, however.
And so, in the evening, the team called off the exploration and returned to the Guild via the Black Gate.
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