“Xeno, time to switch with Garm,” Tsutomu commanded.
“Understood! <<COMBAT CRY>>!!” Xeno shouted out as if to boost his own morale, and unleashed his silver aura.
And just as Xeno noticed the Winter General set its sights on him, the blade on its left hand had already opened a cut on his arm, prompting him to contort his boisterous grin.
“<<Air Blade>>. <<Heal>>.”
Tsutomu tracked both the Winter General and Xeno’s movements with an unblinking stare, executing precise interventions with <<Air Blade>> attacks and healing.
“I’ll cover you!”
“That is… reassuring…!”
Among the Attackers, Amy, the nimble Dualblader, positioned herself close to Xeno, ensuring he would not be subjected to intense attacks alone. Behind them, Diniel expertly released arrows like threading needles, offering backup.
“<<Taunt Swing>>!”
Xeno countered with a swing of his shield to further draw the Winter General’s aggro, ensuring that others would not become the focus of its attacks. While Amy and Diniel would be willing to clash with the Winter General head-on when necessary, the battle had only just begun. With regular support and healing from behind, Xeno continued to take the Winter General’s blades, his blood staining the snow.
Xeno’s VIT was relatively high, however, so he would not suffer severe injuries — except for critical strikes. Unlike Garm, whom Tsutomu needed to maintain under a certain level of vitality so as to not break his focus, Tsutomu ensured that Xeno was consistently at full health, casting a healing spell the very moment an injury was incurred, swiftly alleviating pain.
This fight against the Winter General, unlike the Mount Golem battle, featured no cannon fodder foes, and the only wide-area attack to watch for was the frozen air blast, which could be easily managed with the proper countermeasures. As such, the encounter would predominantly be one-on-one — and a true test of a team’s Tanks and Healers’ prowess.
“Hahaha… Now this is a bit of a pickle.”
Xeno’s shield, struck by the Winter General’s blade several times, shattered into fragments in no time, and the short sword he wielded was also broken. Now with neither weapon nor shield, Xeno let out a dry laugh and used his arm — the defensive strength of which depended solely upon his VIT — to parry the Winter General’s blades.
“Ngh…!”
Taking on an onslaught so fierce that he could not even crack a joke, Xeno made do with protecting only his vital points. Though his movements were far less graceful compared to Garm earlier, he refused to succumb to his low pain tolerance, so as to not make a humiliating display as he had during the previous boss battle.
Following the battle against the Mount Golem, Xeno had undergone specialized training in the Dungeons at Pico’s suggestion, experiencing various forms of pain. Particularly, the “baptism” routine in the notorious Swamp layers, infamous for being lethal to Explorers, had undoubtedly bolstered Xeno’s pain tolerance. While he still lagged behind Garm and Daryl in terms of pain tolerance, the difference was merely due to their extraordinary physical thresholds.
As such, he would not succumb to debilitating, consciousness-numbing pain like the last time. Additionally, unlike during training, he had allies behind him now. Thanks to the Healer, Tsutomu, providing healing as soon as he was hit, pain was nothing to worry about. And with the team’s other Tank, Garm, ready to take over whenever necessary, Xeno felt quite reassured.
Furthermore, Diniel’s arrows, potent enough to gouge their way through the solid snow, promised strong offensive support, and Amy’s interruption arts and God Eye manipulation proved quite invaluable. Her skillful work not only lightened his burden, but also granted him a fair share of time in the God Eye’s focus.
Surely, his fans and Pico were watching through the Monitors, the images of which reflected what the God Eye saw. The images of their faces vividly formed in Xeno’s mind. It was thanks to them that he was motivated to stay standing up against the formidable Winter General.
“I’VE GOT YOU!!!”
As the Winter General staggered from Diniel’s fire arrow striking its knee, Xeno bellowed with fervor and hit it with a dropkick.
The monster fell on its backside, and Amy took this chance to lunge at it, only to be blasted away by the frozen wind pressure from the sword in its right hand. She landed headfirst into a mound of snow.
“Nyah–!! How annoying!” With an exasperated cry, Amy quickly resurfaced, shaking her head furiously.
Seeing that her friend was safe, Diniel took out a blue candy from her slender magic bag and popped it into his mouth.
In the eightieth layer, liquid Potions often froze, rendering them undrinkable. And even worse, the Winter General had been observed interfering with Explorers attempting to consume Potions using blasts of frozen air and other interruption arts.
As a countermeasure, the Forest Apothecary had invented candy-type Potions. Though the effectiveness diminished somewhat, with this, there was no issue in enduring the Winter General’s cold blast attack.
As such, for this fight, most of the Potions held by the Infinite Helix Party were of the candy type. Another advantage they provided was that they could be consumed while casting skills, making them quite useful for Black Mages and White Mages.
Still, unlike liquid Potions, they lacked immediate efficacy, making them inconvenient in situations requiring urgency. That was apparently why the Forest Apothecary was making candies only for the mental energy-restoring Blue Potions.
“Diniel,” Tsutomu said, “Think you can destroy its right-side swords?”
“I’m trying, but it is too good at dodging. I’ll go for its legs first,” Diniel grumbled wearily, her breath condensing out through the gaps in her scarf as she eyed the Winter General like a hawk. To her extreme annoyance, the only significant damage dealt to the monster so far was from Xeno’s dropkick a few moments ago.
The Winter General’s swords exhibited distinct capabilities between the ones of its left and right sides: left for close combat, right for ranged attacks. Moreover, it was known that the right-side swords could be destroyed, and that the cold blast attacks could be partially nullified. This information had been conveyed to her beforehand, so she had also been attempting to target the weapon — with not much apparent success so far.
“Got it. I’m counting on you.”
After casting <<Medic>> on Amy, whose head had been buried in a mound of snow, Tsutomu immediately redirected his attention to Xeno. To Xeno’s side, Garm was standing on blood-soaked snow while replacing his equipment and chewing on a Blue Potion candy.
“Garm, are you doing all right?” Tsutomu asked while keeping only his eyes on Xeno and the Winter General.
“No problem. I’m done changing my gear now — ready to switch in whenever.”
“Wait a bit more. We need to get Xeno accustomed to the Winter General’s moves.”
Garm responded with an expressionless nod. He felt that the Attackers — Diniel and Amy — were doing well enough, so he agreed to stay on standby and observe the Winter General.
▽▽
[…He is actually pretty persistent.]
Garm, rolling around a blue candy in his mouth, watched on with unease as Xeno fought against the Winter General. Ever since the first team’s lineup had been decided, Garm had spent a fair amount of time with Xeno, but he had not anticipated that Xeno would hold out against the Winter General this well.
From Garm’s perspective, what Xeno lacked was inherent talent. Even judging from regular training results, it was likely that Daryl — with his ability to break his physical limits — was superior. Xeno was not specialized like Hannah, either. It had appeared that Tsutomu was quite aware of this as well, so Garm had always assumed that Xeno had been selected for his standout skill, <<Ember Aura>> — a skill that granted resistance to the Dungeon’s environmental effects, which was highly useful for layers with extreme temperature differences such as the Volcano and the Snow Field.
And in terms of the Attackers, Amy possessed commendable abilities, her personality aside. All in all, Garm had no complaints about Tsutomu’s choices for the team.
But then, during their training sessions on the Snow Field layers, and even more so during mock battles with other Clans’ members, Xeno’s lack of prowess had become evident. Additionally, Garm had seen Xeno’s performance against the Mount Golem through the Monitor, so he had anticipated himself being the one spending more time drawing the attention of the Winter General.
As it turned out, however, Xeno had already managed to engage the Winter General for roughly the same amount of time as Garm. Of course, Xeno had Amy’s help, so the comparison was not quite fair, but in Garm’s opinion, his performance still was quite astonishing.
What one could not achieve in training, they would not achieve in an actual fight either — that was what Tsutomu had once said to Amt, and Garm had secretly believed that. However, it seemed that those words did not hold true for Xeno. His performance in the current situation was significantly better than in practice.
“<<Combat Cry>>!”
From the perspective of the God Eye, Xeno’s <<Combat Cry>> appeared significantly weaker compared to Garm’s — so much so that if Daryl were to unleash a similarly weak, Garm would certainly feel a strong urge to intervene. That aside, though, it was clear that Xeno’s movements had improved thanks to the presence of the God Eye.
“HAHAHA! I’m starting to get the hang of this! Come on, come on! <<Taunt Swing>>!”
“You’re noisy.”
“Don’t get carried away — that’s how you get yourself killed!”
“Hahaha… <<Heal>>.”
“Thanks for the healing, my man!”
The more Xeno talked, the more the team’s morale seemed to improve. In the current circumstances, the battle against the Winter General was technically not going particularly well. Though everyone had watched the battle from the Monitors, this was their first time facing this enemy — Xeno took far too many risks than a Tank should, and the Attackers were not dealing as much damage as they wanted. In a way, they were all beginners trying to figure things out together — and as such, their morale would likely be lower when the result-oriented Garm inevitably switched in again as the main Tank.
[…I just have to do my job.]
As Garm cut off such thoughts and continued to observe the Winter General and the team’s actions, Tsutomu issued an order for the Tanks to switch soon. Garm quickly re-checked his equipment and performed some preparatory stretches to loosen his muscles.
“I’m counting on you!”
“Mm-hm.”
And so, Xeno, smiling despite being covered in blood, stepped back to switch with Garm, who proceeded to blast out a <<Combat Cry>> to generate aggro and wait for Tsutomu’s <<Protect>> while positioning himself in front of the Winter General.
“Thanks for the support! Bring it on!!”
Garm’s sudden change in tone prompted everyone except Diniel to blink in disbelief.
As the fight went on, Tsutomu observed Garm’s performance, eventually narrowing his eyes as he noticed that something was off.
“Xeno, could you…” Tsutomu turned to Xeno behind him, and saw that the latter was still struggling to catch his breath. “…Uh, guess not. Diniel! Amy! Sorry, but could you switch with Garm for a bit!?”
Tsutomu closely monitored not only the Winter General’s movements but also his allies’. He recognized that Garm’s focus on the battle was somehow not optimal, which was why he had wanted him to switch out. Hearing Tsutomu’s instructions, Amy complied with a smile, while Diniel, despite her apparent annoyance, launched intense attacks on the Winter General to accumulate aggro.
“Garm. Come here for a sec.”
“…All right.”
Amy shot Garm a smug grin, prompting the latter to give her a discontented look as he turned and jogged toward Tsutomu. Both Amy and Diniel were some of the best among Absolute Helix when it came to anti-personnel combat, so they were sure to be able to hold their own against the Winter General at least for a while. Their compatibility with each other was also outstanding, making it unlikely for them to be done in quickly.
Tsutomu looked at Garm as the latter approached while looking slightly flustered, and his gaze wandered as if searching for words. Garm, noticing that, hastily wagged his tail and held out his hand, as if telling him to stop.
“…I know what you’re thinking. Sorry about that. But don’t worry — I know what I’m doing.”
“Oh, okay… Well, let me just say that you don’t have to ham it up like Xeno or anything. Just do things as you usually do — that’ll make things easier for me, too.”
As Tsutomu was still surprised by the way Garm had just thanked him, he nodded awkwardly just as Garm did. Then, after their brief exchange, Garm was put back on the task of pulling the boss monster’s aggro.
“Man, me and Dini could’ve done that all day~~! Bring it on!!”
“Sure, go get yourself killed, and we’ll see if you can still say that.”
While Amy teased him, Garm successfully managed to draw the Winter General’s aggro back to him.
<hr/>
