“Whew…”
The Vulpeer Eunice, a Healer of Golden Tune, let out a subtle sigh and tapped the ground with her fluffy yellow-furred tail. Standing next to her was another Healer, Milway, a recent addition to the Clan — she was a silver-furred Vulpeer, who was using her tail to sweep the snow around.
[This still isn’t good enough. Far from it.]
In terms of general competency as a Healer, Eunice was obviously inferior to Stephanie. She did not have a style unique to herself like Lorena did, either. Still, she had taken the shortest time of all of them to learn how to cast skills of the special types such as placements and quickshots. Moreover, she was the one who operated most similarly to Tsutomu, in that she was able to double as an evasion-based Tank.
“<<Haste>>.”
Right now, she was training to do exactly that. She was not yet so good at it, so it still was better for the team to fully rely on the regular Tanks instead. That did not discourage Eunice from her regular evasion-based Tank training in her spare time, however.
[Still not enough to be better than him.]
All that she was doing was for the sake of getting back at Tsutomu — to wipe that smug off his face. As the first step, she had invented the portable sphere type <<Haste>> and practiced it until she was able to use it in actual combat. Thanks to this, Leon no longer had to run back to the Healers every single time his <<Haste>> buff ran out, so the portable sphere <<Haste>> had been pretty well-received.
However, this alone was far from enough to make Tsutomu gasp in surprise. For that reason, Eunice had recently been focusing on developing her quickshot type skills, testing to see if there was anything she could do differently from Tsutomu.
Eunice and Milway followed Leon, and as Eunice thought about various things to herself, Milway looked with interest at the White Staff that Eunice was holding.
“so, Eunice, your equipment… it’s the same as Tsutomu’s, right?”
“Huh? Yeah, it is.”
“Are you a fan of him, by any chance?” Milway asked, her eyes containing suggestive implications.
“What?” Eunice promptly answered with a full rejection. “Of course not! I’d rather die than be a fan of him!”
“Huh… But haven’t you always been watching him on the Pedestals whenever you get days off?”
“I normally wouldn’t — because he’s got as much personality as a Skeleton — BUT he’s a good Healer, so I’ve got to watch him in action.”
In her pursuit of greater skill, she had started with getting all the same equipment as Tsutomu, even going through the trouble of fitting everything to her size. It cost a fair bit of money to custom-order everything to her specifications, but Eunice did not mind that.
She still disliked Tsutomu even after everything — his first visit to Golden Tune, the Stampede, and the time he gave her additional guidance in the Volcano layers — but she did recognize his capabilities as a Healer. That was part of why she had copied his equipment loadout. Other reasons included the fact that it was in fact the optimal choice, and that she wanted to beat Tsutomu while using all the same tools as he did.
Although she had been practicing and fighting a whole lot, she still did not feel like she was getting any better. Nevertheless, she kept at it — also because she was annoyed by how Tsutomu had recently explored the Dungeon with another one of his students, the Healer of Silver Beast.
[I’ll surpass you! Just you watch!]
And so, to get back at Tsutomu, Eunice spent yet another day exploring the Dungeon as a Healer.
―▽▽―
“Hwah…”
While Eunice was busy with her ambition to surpass Tsutomu, the young man in question was yawning as he entered the Snow Field layer. Amy, standing next to him, turned to check what was up.
“That’s pretty rare — you don’t usually yawn while in the Dungeon, Tsutomu.”
“Really?”
“Really!?”
“If you say so.”
“See, you’re not even paying attention! What were you even doing, staying up late last night?”
“I’ve been practicing some new skills, you see. Don’t worry, I won’t be a liability.”
He had been trying to recreate the portable sphere <<Haste>>, drinking Blue Potions to keep going through the night, and ended up not getting even a wink of sleep last night. In the end, he drank some more Potions like energy drinks to keep himself awake.
“Hah! Didn’t get enough sleep, eh?” Xeno said, his voice ringing in everyone’s ears and his smile exposing his shining white teeth. “Then leave all of today’s heavy lifting to me — I’ve got this!”
“Nah! I can fight way better than you do!”
“Now, Amy, aren’t you a recent addition to our party? Just take it easy.”
“Whoa–! Hey, get away from me! You’re way too reflective!”
Amy narrowed her eyes, dazzled by Xeno’s shining silver armor.
Behind them, Hannah was itching to join the conversation, while Amira thought to herself how pathetic Tsutomu was for neglecting sleep despite being the leader as she carried her greatsword on her shoulder. The team’s composition today had Hannah and Xeno as Tanks, Amy and Amira as Attackers, and Tsutomu as the Healer.
“<<Ember Aura>>!!”
Since the team’s Healer today was a White Mage, they did not have access to spells that counteract the Dungeon’s environmental effects unlike when they were with the Channeler Korinna. Normally, they would have to rely on tools to keep warm — but then they had Xeno, who could use the Paladin’s <<Ember Aura>>.
Tsutomu, getting the <<Ember Aura>> cast on him, looked at himself and saw that the aura was so bright that it would be bad for his eyesight.
“…Can’t you make it any less intense?”
“…Well, I suppose Korinna isn’t here with us today. Very well.”
Xeno slumped his shoulders in disappointment, then snapped his fingers to suppress the silver glow of the <<Ember Aura>>. If Diniel were here, she would definitely aim her bow at Xeno for making it shine that brightly in the first place, but fortunately, she was not even looking at them through the Monitors. Xeno proceeded to cast the <<Ember Aura>> with suppressed brightness on everyone, while still keeping the one on himself as intense as usual.
Amy snapped her fingers like Xeno had, causing the latter to raise an eyebrow and laugh… then snap his fingers back at her.
The back-and-forth finger snapping went on, and as it turned into a consistent rhythm, Xeno started singing… then Amy also sang a similar song. Tsutomu was absolutely bewildered, and Hannah tried to snap her fingers as well but never managed to make it sound right.
With the God Eye flying around the former two, Hannah was about to join in when some Snow Wolves appeared and lunged at Xeno, seemingly alerted by his singing voice. Xeno promptly slammed his shield at the face of the nearest Snow Wolf.
“Now, time for the next performance! A dance in the snow! I know you’re good at this, Amy the Chaotic Dancer!”
“All right! Let’s go! <<Dual Wave Slash>>!”
Amy matched her attacking rhythm with Xeno’s defense, and positioned herself behind him to cover his blind spot by using <<Dual Wave Slash>>. Hannah, unable to keep up with the sudden turn of events, could only look around with confusion.
“When the hell this did party turn into a circus troupe?” Amira grumbled as she activated her <<Dragon Form>>.
“Don’t ask me,” Tsutomu said just that as he cast <<Haste>> on her, then provided support for the two others as well.
Hannah, seeming to have regained her attention now, started pulling the Snow Wolves’ aggro.
“Dance, dance, dance! You can do better than that!”
“Woo-hoo! I’m shining like a star!”
While she was not paying attention, Xeno had cranked up the brightness of Amy’s <<Ember Aura>> to match his. The scene was extremely dazzling as the snow reflected all the light, so much so that even the Snow Wolves were distracted.
[Those two sure get along well…]
Tsutomu had expected them not to match due to their similar entertainer-like personalities, but to his surprise, they seemed to go together quite well. The pair proceeded to slay one monster after another while singing a classic song from a well-known troupe in the Royal Capital.
[Maybe they should form a unit…]
Tsutomu imagined ‘big sister’ Amy and ‘big brother’ Xeno waving to the crowd on the other side of the Monitor, which in turn cheered them on as they put on an excessively glitzy aura. Then, once the team was done wiping out the Snow Wolves, the two of them turned to praise each other.
“You’re pretty good.”
“Heh. You’re not bad, either.”
“You. Two. Are. AWESOME!!”
Amira looked on at the three of them celebrating, seeing it as a bunch of children playing around… despite all three of them being older than her.
“They’re totally not taking the Dungeon seriously.”
“Eh, just let them have their fun. We’re familiar enough with this layer, and it’s not like we’re fighting a boss or anything.”
“Tch… What, you’re gonna make me sing as well?”
“Would that be a bad thing? How about you give it a try?”
“WHAT?”
“…Sorry.”
Tsutomu held his hands up in surrender as Amira was about to punch him.
“In all seriousness, it’s true that we shouldn’t mess around too much, but taking everything too seriously isn’t a good thing, either. You’ve been too focused lately, Amira. There’s no need to rush to get stronger — it’ll come to you eventually.”
“Shut up. I need to get as strong as I can. There’s no time to waste.”
“Everything will be fine in the end. Trust me.”
“…Man, you’re annoying.”
Amira narrowed her eyes at Tsutomu, then kicked a mound of snow near her feet and kept walking on her way.
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