“Ayy! Let’s hop into the bath! C’mon!”
“Wha–!?”
“Huh, you’re actually kinda heavy, Hannie,” Amy said and proceeded to chuckle while looking over Hannah’s shoulder.
“You left me up without warning, and THAT’s the first thing you have to comment on!?”
Hannah flapped her wings furiously, her face beet-red with frustration.
“Korinna, c’mon! Amira and Leleia, too!”
“Oh, bug off! You go in by yourself!” Amira responded irritably to Amy’s light-hearted remark.
Korinna and Leleia, on the other hand, remained silent. Disappointed, Amy carried only Hannah into the bathroom. Tsutomu, ignoring Hannah’s screams as they went past him, approached the dejected Korinna and struck up a conversation,
“So, did something happen during the fight?”
“…I messed up.”
Korinna clutched the Talisman hanging from her neck and cast her eyes down, her religious attire giving her the appearance of a repentant nun.
Ollie, who had been watching the Monitors with Pico earlier, walked over and quietly handed Tsutomu a stack of documents detailing the second team’s Winter General battle. In the beginning, she seemed to have been too busy managing the Clan House, but now she had enough time to go and watch the Monitors as well.
“I do appreciate this, Miss Ollie, but are you sure you want to keep doing this?”
“Now that my apprentice has become able to handle the household chores by herself,” Ollie smiled as she looked at the girl in question, who was currently busy cooking up a meal, “I have quite a lot of free time on my hands, you see.”
“…Huh.”
With a slightly puzzled expression on his face, Tsutomu accepted the stack of documents.
Having looked into Ollie’s background before, Tsutomu had a rough idea of why he had applied to work for the Clan. What he had not expected, however, was the sheer degree of her competency, which was why he had decided to let her manage the Clan House regardless of her end goal. That seemed to have led to yet another unexpected development — these days, she seemed to have become more deeply involved with some of the Clan’s members themselves.
[What to do, what to do…]
It had been almost half a year since the Devourer Dragon attack, which meant the next Stampede was coming soon. Tsutomu had planned to take that opportunity to put in a good word for Ollie with the nobility, but now he felt that it might be a good idea to confirm her intentions once more.
While Tsutomu contemplated that issue, Ollie swept back her brown hair and proceeded to explain,
“To start from the end, their Winter General battle was over when the party was annihilated during the second phase. Their formation broke apart as a result of Hannah’s death, and while she was revived, Korinna ended up being killed instead — followed by Hannah again, then Leleia, Amira, and finally, Daryl.”
“Considering the order, their aggro management must have gone awry.”
“…Yes,” Korinna replied with a somber look.
Indeed, the primary reason for the team’s loss against the Winter General was the death of the Healer.
Korinna had done perfectly fine when it came to support and healing, efficiently providing protection from the cold using the <<Adventuring Deity’s Protection>>, consistently buffed Daryl with the <<Blessing of Protection>>, and Hannah with the <<Blessing of Swiftness>>. Through diligent practice, she had also been able to more efficiently recover mental energy recovery with the <<Blessing of the Sacred>>, a skill that she initially had difficulties fitting into her patterns.
Furthermore, her ability to predict Hannah’s death had enabled her to swiftly revive her fallen comrades. This time, instead of the usual <<Blessing of Resurrection>>, Korinna had used the more advanced version of it, <<Benediction of Resurrection>>.
Unlike other revival skills, it restored not only the body, but also mental energy and even equipment. Although it had a longer activation time, it was highly convenient as it allowed for an immediate return to the front lines.
However, Korinna was still inexperienced in managing a battle’s overall aggro values, making her performance falter against monsters she was not used to fighting. Naturally, unlike Tsutomu with his extensive knowledge from Live Dungeon, she did not possess a full understanding of the Winter General’s attacks and the ways to best manage the Tanks’ aggro values. Consequently, she had to rely on her instincts to manage things, and her estimates had been off.
Due to her thorough support and healing for Daryl, Korinna ended up drawing too much aggro, drawing the attention of the Winter General. While Korinna was adept at close combat and could outmaneuver Tsutomu in such a situation, the Winter General presented an entirely unfavorable matchup. As such, she ended up being killed by the monster.
From then on, the team lacked support and healing, forcing them to rely on candy Potions for the remainder of the fight. With Korinna’s death, their protection against environmental effects also eventually faded, leading to several instances of their mobility being hampered by the Winter General’s blizzard attack.
Making things even worse was the ongoing discord between Amira and Leleia, which became increasingly apparent as the situation grew dire. When Amira engaged her <<Dragon Form>>, Leleia became unable to focus on the battle as she had flashbacks to how the berserk Amira had used to strike her down. Then, when Amira herself pointed out that Leleia’s performance had suddenly worsened, an argument ensued.
In the midst of the tense atmosphere caused by their quarrel, Daryl persevered by using candy Potions, while Hannah, despite her earlier death, showed remarkable resilience against the Winter General. However, an unexpectedly quick appearance of Winter General’s horse caught Hannah off guard, and she was crushed underfoot, resulting in instant death.
After that, Amira and Leleia found it challenging to exert effective pressure on the horse, leading to a dispersion of aggro within the team. While Daryl bravely faced the Winter General alone, Amira, targeted by the horse that had started to engage everyone else on its own, exhausted herself by sustaining her <<Dragon Form>> for too long.
Leleia, her focus on Amira in <<Dragon Form>>, struggled to perform well and was fatally bitten by the horse. As Amira, immobilized by fatigue, remained helpless, she too was trampled, and finally, Daryl, forced to face both the Winter General and the horse at the same time, had no chance and succumbed, ending the fight in the team’s annihilation.
As Tsutomu listened to Ollie’s summary of the battle, he pondered, crossing his arms.
“Based on all that, maybe they should have relied more on Daryl for aggro management. A Tank can naturally sense the general intensity of monsters’ aggro better than others, so…”
“…Yes.”
“Well, the actual review with the whole Clan isn’t until tonight, so we’ll talk with everyone then. As for our future plans, we’ll think about them tomorrow — but for now, I do think this team should give it at least one more try.”
Although they had unfortunately failed this time, the selection of party members had not been all that bad. The Winter General emitted a chilling aura when approached, which made Amy’s hit-and-run damage-dealing strategy a bad fit for it. Amira’s greatsword attacks, on the other hand, were technically more effective against the Winter General due to each individual hit dealing heavy damage. Leleia, with her Salamander-assisted abilities and versatility in both ranged and melee combat, was also a good fit — at least on paper.
Hannah, an evasion-based Tank, complemented Korinna exceptionally well, and Daryl was a Tank on par with Garm. Setting aside concerns regarding the friction between Amira and Leleia, the party had a promising chance of winning.
“My Clan House! I have returned!”
As Tsutomu sorted out his thoughts, a familiar, energetic voice resonated through the Clan House. Turning in that direction with a displeased expression, Tsutomu saw Xeno, who had barged into the living room as if he were a martial artist coming over to challenge a rival dojo.
“Hello there! Sorry to have kept you waiting!”
“It’s all right. You weren’t supposed to have to be here today, so… thanks for coming.”
“Hahaha! No problem at all! I convinced my wife to let me!”
With one hand on his hip and a confident demeanor, Xeno playfully slapped Tsutomu’s back as he walked past the latter. Upon spotting the dejected Daryl in the living room, Xeno exaggeratedly feigned surprise before offering words of encouragement.
[Well, things did work out unexpectedly well for my team, what with Xeno and Amy pulling through despite their lower technical effectiveness against that particular monster… so I guess I can’t exactly tell Korinna what she should do.]
Tsutomu proceeded to head upstairs and towards the bathroom, and found that Garm had already gone in. Feeling slightly shocked and disappointed, Tsutomu returned to his room and sat at his desk to continue sorting out his plans.
As a person, Xeno was quite intriguing — and he had some influence on the community, though not on Amy’s level. In terms of combat prowess, on the other hand, Tsutomu had not been thorough with his evaluation, especially after what he had seen in the Mount Golem battle. As such, Tsutomu’s expectations for Xeno had been limited to keeping Diniel alive with <<Ember Aura>> and serving as a damage sponge when absolutely needed.
Furthermore, Amy’s hit-and-run fighting style, focusing on dealing consistent damage via bleeding wounds, was technically not so effective against the Winter General. Her dance-like combo attacks with <<Dual Wave Slash>> were impressive, but their impact was often lessened by the wide-area blizzard attacks around the Winter General. Although Amy had excellent skills in anti-personnel combat, it was clear that she was at a disadvantage against this particular opponent.
Therefore, Tsutomu had only seen Xeno as a meat shield to buy time during the times Garm had to take breaks, and Amy as a motivator for Diniel, primarily used to stall when necessary.
In the actual fight, however, both of them had performed remarkably. Xeno had never died once and had fulfilled his Tank role just about as well as Garm. His resilience during the crucial moments, especially when Garm was severely injured, exceeded Tsutomu’s expectations by far.
Having observed Xeno’s movements during the regular practice sessions, it was clear to him that Xeno’s skills were inferior to Garm and Daryl’s. Their fighting styles differed, so they could not be directly compared, but Tsutomu had expected less from Xeno than from an evasion-based Tank like Hannah.
[How is he able to endure that much pain?]
Tsutomu had known beforehand that Xeno’s movements would slow down whenever he was injured — and that even if he was cornered, he would not be able to push himself past his limits — so Tsutomu had tried to keep him at full health whenever possible.
However, due to aggro management concerns, Tsutomu could not constantly heal Xeno. Therefore, around the mid-battle, Tsutomu had planned to temporarily give up on Xeno, letting Garm draw aggro and then bringing him back later with <<Raise>>.
Yet, even though Tsutomu’s calculations suggested that Xeno should have already died, his movements never faltered. He was not moving as effectively as if he had broken his limits, but he was still alive. Tsutomu found that genuinely puzzling.
As time passed, aggro values naturally decreased, allowing Tsutomu to heal Xeno from time to time. Tsutomu had also let Amy and Diniel take on the Winter General at times, but even so, it would have been quite challenging for the team to defeat the Winter General without Xeno’s contributions.
Furthermore, Amy’s coordination with Diniel had been excellent. Despite the latter’s arrows flying repeatedly from behind her, she had fearlessly leaped at the Winter General without worrying about being shot. Her precise attacks on the weakened areas where the arrows had struck, combined with Diniel’s efforts, had effectively kept the Winter General under control.
They had also consistently applied pressure to the horse, preventing it from acting separately from the General. Amy had even managed to steal the right-handed swords, neutralizing the Winter General’s wide-area attacks — quite possibly the highlight of the fight.
[I did plan for Diniel and Garm to destroy the swords eventually, but THAT… I did not expect. Now I get why Diniel would imply that she had a habit of stealing things.]
Looking back, Amy’s stealing of the swords was truly a show — most likely no one had expected her to succeed on the first try, and not only that, take both of the swords instead of just one. Tsutomu could vividly imagine seeing the newspapers calling Amy a Phantom Thief on the first page tomorrow morning.
[…Oh, right. Stealing… did she actually steal anything from me?]
Recalling what Diniel had said during the battle, Tsutomu checked his personal belongings for anything unusual. He did not have that many personal items in the first place, however, so he should have noticed if something had gone missing. Nevertheless, there was nothing particularly wrong about the placement of things in his room, leaving Tsutomu puzzled.
