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Translator: Barnnn
Editor: Silavin
The morning of the next day, Hannah and Amira took their signed Clan registration forms and submitted them to the Guild. Although it was quite early, the Guild was open twenty-four hours a day, so they could carry out their businesses whenever they wanted. The Monitors were always on as well, so the residents in their vicinity had to find ways to deal with the constant noise.
“We might’ve already done this, but… it’s nice to join y’all!”
“I won’t cause any trouble, I swear.”
“Welcome aboard.”
“Welcome again, both of you!”
“Mm-hm.”
Once the two were done with their procedures, Tsutomu, Daryl, and Hannah welcomed them once again, and all of them proceeded to register their party. Lining up to use the Magic Circles, the queue was noticeably shorter than it would at late hours.
During the past week of exploring together, the farthest down the party has reached was layer fifty-five, the end of the Valley. The plan was to tackle the Canyon layers starting from the fifty-sixth layer today. Multi-wave battles would only happen more frequently from here on out, so combat situations were sure to be more hectic than before.
“Is everyone ready?”
“Bring it on!”
“Yeah.”
“Yes, I am!”
“Mm-hm.”
After confirming with everyone, Tsutomu led them to a free Magic Circle and commanded a teleportation to the bland, rocky Canyon in layer fifty-six.
Tsutomu was in no hurry since for him, this was a revisit to a fairly underleveled area. He took his time refilling the team’s Potion loadout, giving out five vials of Blue Potion to each member, for a total of twenty-five. Everyone had been using Blue Potions exclusively as of late, so there was no need to refill their Green Potion stocks.
[It sure is tedious, refilling everyone’s share one at one time…]
Despite his complaining, Tsutomu stuck to filling the vials with a funnel, and then passed the vials to the others while they did some warm-up exercises. Diniel proceeded to scout the area, using cheap arrows to activate her <<Eagle Eye>>.
Tsutomu, after hearing Diniel’s report, decided on the direction the team would go in and cast <<Fly>> for everyone. Diniel, Hannah, and even Daryl’s <<Fly>> control benefited from the Carrier Birds grabbing them away. And while Amira had the worst control of the bunch, she seemed to have no problem getting around.
Not long after they started flying through the Canyon’s rock formations, a flock of Wyverns approached the party. Tsutomu cast support skills for everyone, while Diniel rummaged through the Magic Bag on her back for some arrows.
“<<Power Arrow>>.”
Diniel’s first shot at the Wyverns was with an arrow embedded with a rare Lightning Magic Stone, hitting one of the monsters with the trajectory of a lightning strike. Its wings paralyzed, the Wyvern plummeted to the ground, unable to move.
“Whoa…”
Even Diniel was surprised by how powerful the lightning arrow was, knowing that it had cost much more than one would expect a single arrow to. Hannah pointed to her left, and once Daryl confirmed that there were also Wyverns there, both of them flew toward that direction.
“<<Combat Cry>>.”
“<<Combat Cry>>!”
Hannah tried to pull the aggro of the three Wyverns to the left, while Daryl took the four to the right. Hannah was not that great at controlling her <<Combat Cry>> yet, so she ended up overshooting, causing one Wyvern from the right side to go to her instead.
“<<Shield Throw>>.”
Daryl promptly struck the extra Wyvern heading toward Hannah with his tower shield, managing to pull its aggro back to him with his long-ranged provoking skill.
Once his tower shield flew back to him like a boomerang, Daryl caught it with both hands. He then repositioned himself, while also holding his tower shield up to block the Wyverns’ spike attacks.
“<<Shield Bash>>.”
The first Wyvern to reach Daryl tried to bite him with its fine, shark-like teeth. Daryl countered it head-on with his shield, knocking the monster away. The Wyvern let out a menacing roar as it was flung back.
“<<One-Two Straight>>!”
Hannah, under attack from three Wyverns, used attacking skills to maintain their aggro on her. Her mobility enabled her to easily dodge the enemies’ spike attacks, which in turn gave her more opportunities to land blows.
The evasion-based approach for Tanks ran a high risk of fatal damage upon taking hits, but in return, it dramatically increased the potential damage one could deal while acting as a Tank.
For Hannah, she could also use her bright blue wings to gain momentary acceleration and fine-tune her deceleration. Although she was of the Birdkin variant that could not fly on her own, she could do so perfectly fine with the <<Fly>> skill in effect. And now, she was using her rhythmic maneuvers to gain dominance over the Wyverns.
In Tsutomu’s perspective, however, the erraticness of Hannah’s movements meant she was difficult for him to properly cast support skills for. He had been keeping an eye on Hannah’s every move, and had managed to keep up his support so far, but it was apparent that he was struggling quite a bit.
Meanwhile, Amira was flying decently enough as she used her greatsword to attack the Wyverns that Daryl was distracting. She was not so used to fighting in a team yet, so her swings were often quite unrefined and would come close to accidentally hitting her allies.
Daryl’s toughness meant he would not die from a few hits from Amira, fortunately. That was why, during combat, Tsutomu had planned for Amira to attack monsters distracted by Daryl, and Diniel to attack monsters distracted by Hannah.
As Amira’s greatsword came swinging at him from the side, Daryl promptly held up his tower shield to block it. He was always able to deal with this because of his wide field of awareness enabling him to catch Amira’s every movement.
“Oh, shi– I mean, sorry!” Amira immediately apologized.
“I-it’s all right.”
On Diniel and Hannah’s side, countless arrows were buffeting the Wyverns, spooking Hannah quite a bit with how mercilessly they were raining down.
Long-ranged attacking Jobs such as Black Mage and Archer had to pay attention not to accidentally land their shots on their allies. In this world, being in the same party did not disable friendly fire, and magic and arrows shot at allies had the exact same effect as they would on monsters.
As such, a party would need a great degree of trust and detailed teamwork for them to work well with a long-ranged Attacker in their ranks. Many teams opted to ignore that fact, knowing that death was a slap on the wrist in this Dungeon. Tsutomu, however, was thorough in preventing that from happening under his watch, since he absolutely hated the idea of having to heal an ally’s injuries resulting from another ally’s attacks.
Knowing that Amira’s wide singing arcs were never on purpose, Tsutomu was also working to fix her fighting style as well. And in Diniel’s case, there was pretty much no need to worry about friendly fire — despite Hannah’s defenses being so fragile that taking even a single arrow would be fatal — as apparent from how perfect Diniel’s accuracy was as she killed her targeted Wyverns.
“Eep!”
At one point, Hannah was startled by a crimson arrow that streaked past right in front of her eyes, but throughout the battle, no friendly fire actually occurred.
Diniel was one of the best Archers in the known Explorer scene, so she was not one to miss her mark — but one point worth considering was how strong the arrows were. Hannah, having had some experience of taking friendly fire back during her Attacker days and would naturally be scared of an arrow so powerful that it could kill her.
“<<Haste>>.”
As for Tsutomu, he was having a hard time keeping up his support for the whole party. It was especially difficult for him to land his skills on Hannah and Amira, the former due to her high-speed movements, and the latter for her reckless and unpredictable fighting style. He had no problem with Daryl and Diniel thanks to their well-adjusted tactics, but the extra effort needed for Amira and Hannah was quite taxing.
While Tsutomu was busy doing his thing, multiple Orcs and Kungfu-garoos appeared and went after him. Noticing the new arrivals, Tsutomu immediately shouted out some new instructions,
“Daryl, take on the Kangaroos! Hannah, the Orcs! Diniel and Amira, kill the remaining Wyverns!”
“Aye-yup,” Diniel, the person nearest to Tsutomu, promptly replied.
Hannah, a little farther away, rushed to pull the Orcs’ aggro as soon as she noticed Tsutomu’s voice and gestures. Daryl raised one hand to signal his acknowledgment. Amira only briefly glanced in Tsutomu’s direction and proceeded to continue fighting the Wyverns, seeming to have heard the instructions.
Overall, the party was still not well-coordinated, their synergy was somewhat wonky. Knowing that this aspect would only get better as they engaged in actual combat with the monsters, Tsutomu held up his staff and continued casting his support skills.
――▽▽――
Three hours into their exploration of the Canyons, Amira and Hannah were flat on the ground, exhausted, and Daryl was still standing but with his hands on his knees, gasping for air. Tsutomu swiped off the waterfall of sweat off his cheeks and took the now-empty canteen away from his mouth, the Ice Magic Stone inside it clanking as it was thrown around.
“Good job, y’all.”
Diniel, the one with the most energy left among the group, picked up a Magic Stone and threw it to Tsutomu.
With the Magic Stone landing near his feet, Tsutomu picked it up and stored it in his Magic Bag.
“Thanks, Diniel. Now, everyone, we’ll go have lunch after collecting the Magic Stones. Let’s get to it!”
“Gimme a break…” Hannah whined.
Daryl immediately straightened his posture and started collecting the Magic Stones, but Hannah and Amira seemed to be unable to stand yet. Hannah was still not fully accustomed to her evasion-based Tank role, and Amira seemed to be exhausted from the multi-wave battles against unfamiliar monsters.
“C’mon, hustle those muscles, Amira. Is that all you got?”
“D-damn it…” Amira grumbled back at Tsutomu’s taunt, then brushed off the dust mixed with her sweat on her legs before standing up. As Amira started collecting the Magic Stones, she also taunted Hannah a little, prompting the latter to stand up as well.
“So… hungry… need… break…”
“Hang in there! We’ll be eating out, and I’ll even order dessert for you if you pick up a lot!”
“Oh hell yeah…”
Hannah, still tired and a little dazed, proceeded to collect the Magic Stones. Daryl, upon hearing Tsutomu’s last sentence, started working noticeably faster.
[Man, Garm wouldn’t be so happy to see this,] Tsutomu thought to himself upon seeing Daryl act so driven by his appetite, working harder for the free dessert. Meanwhile, Tsutomu himself put the Magic Stones into his Magic Bag as they were carried to him.
Once the team was done collecting their loot, Diniel guided everyone back to the Black Gate they came from, through which they returned to the Guild.
They proceeded to leave the Guild without stopping by the reception desk, and went to a restaurant for a late lunch. Daryl, Hannah, and Amira devoured their plates of super-hearty food, while Diniel looked at them funny as she took her time with her seafood gratin. Tsutomu had a light meal and a cup of granita, a shaved-ice-like dessert.
Seeing the three enjoying the meal and ordering more stuff, Tsutomu gave Daryl the go-ahead to order his free dessert, with him being the one who had collected the most Magic Stones. The menu Daryl chose was the vanilla ice cream, which came in a perfectly rounded shape.
“C’mon, just one bite…”
“No.”
“Tch…”
Daryl usually was weak-willed, but when it came to food, he was completely different — as apparent from how he so immediately, so flatly rejected Hannah’s request. Upon scooping up the ice cream and putting it in his mouth, his cheeks relaxed, looking quite happy.
Dungeon City, with its easy access to great varieties of Magic Stones and magic tools thanks to God’s Dungeon, was a gathering place for skilled creators. Those among them included cooks and chefs, making Dungeon City the place where one could find the most advanced cuisine.
Since Magic Stones and magic tools were available for the cheapest prices in Dungeon City, new technology and products were also produced here, then quickly delivered to the Royal Capital, after which, they would be spread across the land. This world’s ice cream had also been invented here, made by using a magic tool that ran on Ice Magic Stones.
“When are we gonna do the Magic Stone collecting again? Tonight, maybe?”
“Miss Ollie will be cooking dinner, so no, we won’t be doing that.”
“…I’ll win tomorrow, for sure!”
“If you want to eat the sweets that much, you could just order it yourself…”
“…But that wouldn’t count as a win!”
Tsutomu was quite taken aback by the look in Hannah’s eyes, with her being so determined about this specific thing.
After paying off the bill and receiving the receipt, the team returned to the Guild. Once everyone had rested up enough, they teleported to the Canyons once again.
Hannah’s state is worrisome. Protect, that just raises VIT by one level, isn’t suited for her. She’ll still die in one hit. There is no way to completely avoid damage while fighting, some things can’t be avoided even if you make no mistakes… And of course you’ll make mistakes once you start pushing yourself to the limits of your ability.
Given Tsutomo’s hatred of deaths in the dungeon, he only really has one option as they climb up further: master barrier to the point of being able to recreate the game’s equip type buff form. A barrier is inefficient on a normal tank, but it’s just the necessary insurance on an evasion tank that isn’t supposed to get hit in the first place, making it finally cost effective for regular use.