Live Dungeon!

Back at the Guild, Amy appraised the item from the silver treasure chest, and concluded that it was without a doubt a Scorchstone Robe.

“It’s heat-resistant! Nice find!”

“For real. It’ll come in handy when we go down to layer seventy.”

“Lemme borrow it when you’re done!”

“Sure thing.”

After some small talk with Amy, Tsutomu immediately made plans to equip this new robe starting tomorrow. Since removing his usual Blessed White Robe would reduce his mental energy cap, he had to adjust his strategies accordingly.

If possible, he wanted to obtain another equipment piece of the fire-resistant Scorchstone series for his team — Especially for Daryl, whose competency was sure to be boosted even further. Not having it would also be no issue, however, since Daryl’s new custom-ordered armor from Dorren Workshop was quite close to completion now. Then again, having a Scorchstone piece for him would be even better in the short-term, so Tsutomu still planned to keep hunting Bolseyers like they had been doing up to now.

The Clan members were bound to be bored of exploring just the Volcano layers every single day, however. So, in the following weeks, they also followed the Labyrinth Conquerers’ recommendation and went out to the other Dungeons, and sometimes even took sudden vacations and went on sightseeing trips with Ollie.

God’s Dungeon had appeared in this city approximately eight years ago, immediately establishing itself as a landmark that guaranteed livelihood and Magic Stone in endless supply. People quickly gathered here, causing an influx of various cultures new and old. As such, Dungeon City did not have much of an established culture to claim as its own.

And so, if one wanted to truly get into this world’s history, the Royal Capital would be the better place to search. The Royal Library contained a plethora of culturally-significant literature, and the city was filled with historical buildings and sites.

[Maybe I should visit the Royal Capital when I have the chance, too.]

For now, Tsutomu was banking on there being something important on layer one-hundred, but if the Secret Dungeon was in this world as well, he would then have to aim for layer two-hundred — not to mention that there might not even be a way for him to go home at all.

He was horrified at the thought of nothing happening upon conquering the final layer, but he could only believe in his chances and fight his way down. With that in mind, Tsutomu regained his temper as he went around sightseeing in Dungeon City

After leveling up enough over a few more weeks, the team started making preparations for layer seventy. Diniel and Hannah practiced their teamwork with the focus of incorporating <<Stream Arrow>>. Daryl was instructed to observe the Mount Golem through the Monitors, and Amira kept up her training to use her <<Dragon Form>> while under the effect of <<Fly>>.

Until now, they had never skimped on Dungeon exploration time, but from today on, the members were to practice separately. Diniel and Hannah went into the Dungeon like usual. Daryl would be spending some time in the market, and Amira in the Guild’s training area. Tsutomu would be accompanying one of them at a time, depending on the time of day.

In the morning, he went to supervise Amira’s flight training. During the Mount Golem battle, the battlefield would shift, resulting in less and worse foothold, making the use of <<Fly>> a necessity. While in <<Dragon Form>>, Amira could depend on her instincts to avoid death, so the training now was for her to maintain control of <<Fly>> after her transformation was disengaged.

“Nwah–!?”

In a training room reserved just for her, Amira screamed as she crashed onto the Slime Cushion-padded floor — and then bounced on it a few times. She ground her teeth in annoyance and activated her <<Dragon Form>> again, which caused her to start attacking Tsutomu. There was no need to worry, though — she was bare-handed, and Tsutomu, hovering in the air, was quite used to dealing with her due to being the one to disengage her transformations all this time.

“<<Medic>>.”

Casting the spell repeatedly and in many forms, he cornered Amira and successfully dispelled her <<Dragon Form>. Upon regaining consciousness, Amira did her best to fix her bearings.

“Ngh– Ah– AHHHHHH!”

After struggling to keep afloat for a while, Amira fell onto the Slime Cushion, sinking into it. As it turned out, regaining control of her flight right after waking up was quite a daunting task.

“Hang in there.”

“DAMN IT!”

Annoyed at her undeveloped flying skill, and also Tsutomu’s apparent patience, Amira quickly activated her <<Dragon Form>> again. And once again, her transformation was undone with <<Medic>> and she fell onto the cushions. The same thing repeated all morning.

“You’re doing good so far. Now let’s take a break — you’ll be exploring the Dungeon in Daryl’s stead in the afternoon.”

“…Whew.”

“Whoa, scary. Your eyes are just like a dragon’s.”

“Whose fault do you think it is? Man, you’re annoying…”

Amira naturally had reptile-like eyes even when not transformed. Tsutomu’s casual teasing prompted her to groan and look away.

She was upset in part due to her still-low ability to control the state of <<Fly>>, but mostly due to the look on Tsutomu’s face that she would see whenever she was snapped out of her <<Dragon Form>>.

Amira was taking her training seriously and was quite impatient to get it done due to her needing the ability to fly. But then, Tsutomu would occasionally chuckle while she struggled to keep herself airborne after regaining consciousness, presumably due to how comical she looked.

[Damn it! I gotta get this done quickly! I’ll show him!]

Amira, quite visibly angry, followed Tsutomu outside, prompting the latter to watch his own back as they headed to the Dining Hall to meet up with the three others.

“So… Daryl’s switching with Amira, and after lunch, you two keep doing what you’ve been doing.”

“Got it, teach!”

“My fingers sting…”

Diniel rubbed her fingers together. It seemed that, even with extra protection from leather gloves, using <<Stream Arrow>> dozens of times still hurt a fair bit.

“There’s no need to rush, you know?”

“You heard him, Hannah.”

“But I wanna train more! C’mon, hurry and finish your food!”

“Guys…”

Rushed by Hannah to finish her meal, Diniel looked around as if to ask for help… but did not get any. And when she was done, she was dragged away by Hannah into a Magic Circle; Tsutomu saw them off and then went with Daryl to check out the Monitors. Daryl was used to this, since he had already watched broadcasts a few times before, but Tsutomu figured that it would be a good idea to run him through the process again.

Besides, groups like Golden Tune and Scarlet Devil Squad usually challenged the Mount Golem at night, rather than now. Until then, the time was perhaps better spent reading up on the monster instead.

So, when he and Daryl were back at the Clan House, he invited the latter to his room, to discuss things at the studying table.

“What’s this…?”

“Summaries of Mount Golem battles — I’ve commissioned Solit Company to compile them. This is for Ealdred Crow, and this one’s Silver Beast. They’ve got photographs, too — should make things easier to understand.”

Tsutomu handed the documents to Daryl and sat down on his own bed.

“For now, you should look through them. I think the extra knowledge will be helpful.”

“All right.”

“And in the evening, remember to go outside and check out the Pedestals.”

As he had learned recently, what Tsutomu called Monitors, the people of this world called God Pedestals.

“Understood!” Daryl answered and proceeded to start reading the articles, seeming quite tense.

Tsutomu himself had already read through them many times, as he figured that relying on game knowledge alone absolutely would not get his team the win. Still, to be perfectly sure, he proceeded to take another look at them as well.

The Mount Golem was famous for being nigh impervious to physical attacks. Boasting a height of fifteen meters, it was the tallest of the currently known layer boss monsters.

Its figure could be considered humanoid, complete with arms, legs, and a head — but all with rocky surfaces. Its whole body was black like burnt coal, and the spots that seemed to be its eyes were in deep red.

The monster’s constitution was especially noteworthy. Its rock armor put its defensive properties through the roof, and its fire resistance was so high that it could stand the heat of lava. Physical attacks worked on its joints and eyes, but it would still be better to just use elemental attacks. The problem was that, among Absolute Helix, only Diniel could use elemental attacks effectively. As such, incorporating strategies that targeted its joints and eyes was a must.

After reviewing all the material in about an hour, Tsutomu saw that Daryl was still reading, looking quite serious as he flipped through the sheets. Tsutomu left his room, went to the kitchen downstairs to cut up some fruits into bite-sized pieces, and then brought the plate back to his room.

“Here, have some snacks.”

“Yay!”

Tsutomu ate a piece himself, and then tossed one piece to Daryl, who caught it with his mouth, prompting the former to chuckle a little.

“Do you have any questions so far?”

“Well, it’s… scary, knowing that Sir Bittman, despite his high VIT, would die instantly from its attacks. Having Hannah be the center of our strategies might be a better fit in this case.”

“Right.”

“Hannah’s evasion-based approach does put her at high risk against some attacks, though — like the wide-area lava blasts. Maybe we should start things off with Hannah, and if the wide-area attack gets her, I could switch in to deal with it… What do you think, Sir Tsutomu?”

Daryl gave his opinions while looking through the battle summaries, then turned to look at Tsutomu and saw that the latter had been listening closely while sitting on his bed. Tsutomu took a glance at the documents, and then smiled before saying,

“You know, I was thinking I’d leave a good part of our strategies to you. Think you can do it?”

“Huh…?”

“You can’t expect to just follow my instructions forever, you know — especially since Garm will be joining us someday.”

“…I’ll gladly hand my role over to him. I mean, I’m nowhere near as good as Sir Garm, after all. I really need your instructions to work with — ah! We’ve rested long enough, don’t you think? I still have a lot to read through!”

Daryl faked a smile to divert the topic, then began to stare at the papers as if to punch a hole right through them. Normally, Tsutomu would let it go and save the confrontation for later — but not this time, thinking that now was the time for Daryl to gain some self-awareness as a Tank.

“Listen, Daryl. When we’re up against the Mount Golem, I won’t be able to instruct you all the time. I’ll already have my hands almost full managing myself.”

“B-but the way you’ve been doing it has always worked so far! Why do we need to change that now?”

Daryl had a bad habit of getting stuck and waiting for instructions from someone else whenever he was faced with unexpected situations. This was especially apparent during the Fire Dragon battle, when things would have gotten dangerous so many times if not for Tsutomu and Diniel’s help. It had not been much of an issue so far only because he would move almost immediately upon being told what to do.

If not for this shortcoming, however, Daryl would be able to hold up the whole party by himself — Or at least that was what Tsutomu had felt during his Shell Crab competition against Amira.

“I know you can do it, Daryl. After all, you HAVE managed yourself quite well sometimes even without instructions. You don’t have to be successful at first — just start by remembering to think for yourself what to do whenever something unexpected comes up.”

“…Yes.”

“All right, then. You start thinking up some strategies, and we’ll run them by the others for the final confirmations. Don’t worry about it too much.”

“…Understood.”

Daryl nodded, albeit with quite a nervous look on his face. Then at night, the two went to their reserved seats in front of the God Pedestals, to spectate the Mount Golem battles and discuss strategies.