LIVE DUNGEON!

Chapter 63, Signs of Improvement

Afterward, Tsutomu ate dinner with Amira and Camille while discussing with them mainly about topics relating to the Dungeon. Seeing how Camille’s expressions were the brightest she’d had all day while everyone was trading their knowledge about the Dungeon, Tsutomu could not help but pull a wry smile while he tidied up the table.

Amira, Camille’s daughter, had told Tsutomu that she had recently reached the forty-first layer and was already looking for ways to deal with the Shell Crab. Her initial idea seemed to be the same as Camille’s: raise five Attackers’ levels up to the point where they could take on the Shell Crab, then bring along a Healer for the real fight.

Tsutomu had almost brought up the information regarding the Shell Crab’s nest, but then remembered that the newspaper publishers had already been informed of it, with there being plans to publicize it in a few days from now. With the article scheduled to be published soon, Tsutomu had simply suggested that Amira checked out the two newspaper companies’ publications.

As a replacement, Tsutomu decided to tell Amira about a place to efficiently gain levels instead.

“By the way, have you had the chance to conquer the Team Graveyard on layer thirty-nine yet?”

“Team Graveyard? Oh, that shitty place... It’s only good for White Mages, right?”

“Not quite — the Demi-Lich’s experience yield is quite high, you see, so I’d recommend leveling up there if your team can conquer the overall area.”

“Huh...”

“Only White Mages are able to neutralize the Skeleton minions in the starting stages, but they’ll stop reconstructing themselves once the Demi-Lich comes out to fight. The experience yield you can expect from there is higher than at the Beaches, even.”

“What!? Really!?”

“Yes. Still, it’ll also take some effort for White Mages to adjust to the right strategies... oh, look at the time!”

In the middle of the conversation, Tsutomu hurriedly left his seat upon catching a glimpse of the clock on the wall, realizing that it was already past nine o’clock. While thinking to himself how he had gotten too absorbed in the discussions, Tsutomu called out to Camille,

“Sorry for staying so late. I ought to get going now.”

“Sure thing. Come visit us again whenever you feel like it.”

“What? You’re not staying over for the night? If you’d like, I’ll go with– ow!”

Amira, getting a ladle thrown at her head, fell to the ground and writhed in pain. Tsutomu faked a chuckle to dodge out of the scene and excuse himself, leaving Camille’s house and returning to the inn to get some sleep.

The next day, as usual, Tsutomu went to cash in the Magic Stones and replenish his Potion stock. He only remembered Amy after he was done with everything, and was glad that it was not her who was in charge of the Guild’s Magic Stone conversion service.

Amy’s appraisal work was for the Dungeon’s items, so he would need to find some treasure chests first before having a reason to visit her. Unluckily for Tsutomu, he had never come across a single treasure chest before. An average Explorer usually would find at least one by the time they reached the fortieth layer, but sadly, that was not the case for Tsutomu.

[I do wonder when we’ll actually meet again...]

Tsutomu, while preparing for tomorrow’s visit to the Golden Tune, thought to himself how nice it would be if he were to find a treasure chest soon, not even stopping to consider that they could just meet up during the holidays. He then spent the rest of his free time in front of the Monitors, observing other Explorers fight through the Dungeon.

The next morning, Tsutomu headed to the Golden Tune Clan House, feeling somewhat more fired up than usual. He was at the entrance a little past eight o’clock, intending to look over some documents like usual, but then he noticed Eunice standing in his way with her yellow tail wagging unhappily.

Wondering if Eunice was waiting for someone, Tsutomu paused a moment upon seeing her and turned to go around to the back door, not wanting to be involved with her business... But then Eunice came running after him.

“Where do you think you’re going!?”

“...Oh. Good morning.”

Tsutomu, thinking to herself how energetic Eunice was this early in the morning, responded to her as she caught up to him. Eunice was as grumpy as ever, but he also noticed her fiddling around, seeming somewhat embarrassed.

Then, as if she finally made up her mind, Eunice looked up at Tsutomu and bowed her head.

“...I’m sorry.”

“Huh?”

“Like I said...! I’m sorry. Now I understand that your skills are not the only thing you’re good for. I was wrong.”

“Huh...”

Still not getting why he was so suddenly being apologized to, Tsutomu gave a non-committal reply, prompting Eunice to raise her head and give him a serious look.

“So I’d like you to teach me what I should be doing. At any rate, you told me before that I had to start by prioritizing the Tank, so that’s what I’m doing now.”

“...Oh, right. It’s been three days already.”

Tsutomu, guessing from what he could see from Eunice that she had failed, pondered things over for a moment before looking at her again. It was a mystery to him where all of her audacity had gone, but at least she seemed to be behaving herself much better now.

“Let’s go for some test runs in battles, then — show me what you’re capable of now. I’ll decide on my instructions accordingly.”

“...Yes, I understand.”

“All right, then. We’ll meet up at nine o’clock as usual.”

With that, Tsutomu slipped past Eunice and went into the Clan House. Eunice, ticked off by Tsutomu’s curt attitude, looked as if she had something stuck in between her teeth before following him inside.

――▽▽――

“<<Area Heal>>.”

The group of four had immediately headed to the Team Graveyard on the thirty-ninth layer. With Tsutomu observing them, the three combatants proceeded to engage in combat. While the bones started congregating, Eunice set up a healing perimeter.

“<<Protect>>.”

“<<Combat Cry>>.”

Eunice then cast a buff for Barbara, followed by Diniel nocking an arrow and Barbara activating her aggro-generating skill. All of the Skeletons turned their attention to the latter.

This time, Eunice did not cast <<Haste>> for Diniel, focusing exclusively on supporting Barbara. The standard duration of <<Protect>> was ninety seconds, and with only one target to keep an eye on, Eunice was able to maintain the effect without any issue. In the two days of Tsutomu’s absence, she had focused on Barbara during their training as well.

Barbara, being the Tank, was one to take on all of the Skeletons’ attacks, withstanding them with her high VIT. In this way, the damage of the entire party could be reduced, and the Healer, Eunice, could concentrate on healing only one target.

Additionally, the Attacker, Diniel, was not exposed to the monsters’ attacks, enabling her to maximize her attack output without as much need to defend herself. The difference was quite significant between trying to fire arrows while having to avoid monsters’ attacks and being free to attack without being targeted. The latter case gave the Attacker more mental space to process the situation as well.

Diniel’s arrows were piercing through more and more Skeletons. The battle situation was so stable that she was almost bored to tears.

After some time, half of the Skeletons were destroyed by Diniel. The monsters promptly put themselves back together, resetting their aggro values. Eunice waited to confirm that all of them had fully reconstructed, then...

“Barbara! <<Combat Cry>>, please!” She instructed the Tank in combat to use the skill at the right timing.

“<<Combat Cry>>,” Barbara did as told, gathering all of the Skeletons’ aggro onto herself once more.

Tsutomu saw that there were still some things that needed improvement, such as the number of seconds wasted on <<Protect>> and the timings of <<Heal>>, but he considered that they had already gotten the basics down.

[Looking good.]

And even though their form was rudimentary still, it was infinitely a more comfortable scene to watch compared to last time. Another major factor was that the three had been diligently training for the past two days, so they had gotten to know one another’s moves well.

Tsutomu let them keep fighting for another thirty minutes, and then, seeing that there were no particular issues, he called off the battle and had the three gather around.

“Very good — a significant improvement. And you seem to be able to handle the Skeletons without any issue now, Barbara.”

“R-really? Then are we up against the Orcs next!?”

“No, we’ll just add the Skeleton Archers to the mix for now. The Orcs will be after that.”

“Got it!”

With Barbara nodding in satisfaction, Tsutomu proceeded to turn to Eunice to see that she was tensing up, seeming quite nervous. Although distracted by how her fox tail was moving suspiciously, Tsutomu started pointing out what he had observed of her performance,

“You’re getting the basics down, Eunice. I can see that you’ve been training these past two days, what with your movements being so much better.”

“...Of course I have been.”

As she listened, Eunice had quite a stern expression on her face, but the way her tail was wagging suggested that she was relatively happy. Even Diniel’s eyes were following along as the tail swayed from side to side.

[This girl...]

Tsutomu was reminded of Eunice’s expression of indifference when he had praised her a little some time earlier. At the time, he had thought it was a misunderstanding, but...

“Still, you’re wasting too many seconds on <<Protect>>. Sometimes you even renewed the effect while the old effect still has as much as forty seconds left. Please try to lower it to thirty at most.”

“I know.”

Eunice’s expression was the same as before; what was different was her tail, now dangling down in low spirits. Diniel’s eyes still followed the tail, this time looking downward.

[Could she be the type to get better the more she gets praised...?]

Having initially been certain that Eunice was just a grumpy fox, Tsutomu was quite surprised, and now felt the need to re-evaluate his attitude toward her going forward.

After that, the three let the Skeleton Archers spawn and tried fighting them, but Barbara was not used to dealing with arrows, so she was hit by consecutive critical attacks and collapsed. Eunice was too focused on supporting to manage the aggro on her, and ended up taking a few arrows to her unprotected head, then being rushed down by the Skeletons and quickly dying.

With this being his first time seeing a party member die so inadvertently, Tsutomu felt somewhat bitter... but he was also excited to cast <<Raise>> for Eunice. A radiant pillar gushed out from the White Staff into the sky, and along with it, light particles gathered onto the ground.

Following that, Eunice came back to life, lying on her back in the default crude flaxen clothes. Tsutomu, while impressed by the magic, noticed that all of the monsters’ aggro was now on him. There was no need for him to defend himself, however, since Diniel made quick work of them.

“...That’s the first time I’ve been revived.”

Eunice shook her head to clear her drowsiness, then scrambled to collect her removed padded clothes and light armor, and slapped on just the armor on top of her crude clothes before rushing back into the battle.

[Must be hard, being a girl and all,] Tsutomu thought to himself upon seeing Eunice scramble to re-equip herself.

Perhaps it was either because of the lack of padded clothes, or her not equipping the pieces properly, but the light armor just did not look right on her now. She could not afford to stop and swap out the crude clothes for her proper padded ones, however, so she just had to deal with it.

In fact, back when God’s Dungeon had first appeared, female Explorers changing clothes post-revival was quite a serious problem. There was not enough time for one to prepare a changing tent, and one’s clothes — be it fur, linen, or nylon — would be unequipped as well. It was already an issue for men, but for women it was several times worse; add the broadcasting God Eyes to the mix, and it was a disaster for the revived to re-equip themselves.

The particular problem had prompted female Explorers to carry out a series of experiments. As a result, it had been discovered that all clothes and equipment originating in the Dungeon, as well as other items that were deemed highly defensive such as leather, metal pieces, and thick fabric and animal fur, would be removed.

Objects with no defensive properties such as thin fabric and cotton, on the other hand, would stay on. As such, the culture of wearing underwear had grown rapidly in Dungeon City, fueled by the overwhelming demand from women, leading to the production of elaborate items without defensive properties.

“Ahem,” Tsutomu coughed to clear his throat, pulling his senses together and breaking his stare away from Eunice, and continued to watch over the three fight against the Skeletons and Skeleton Archers.