Live Dungeon!

Frontline groups representing Major Clans often competed with one another to more quickly update their layer progress, while collaborative explorations were quite rare. As such, Absolute Helix and Golden Tune’s joint operation became a hot topic among the Dungeon Maniacs, and the newspaper publishers were quick to start writing their articles.

“Hmm…”

Lorena of Silver Beast had just finished reading an article stating that Tsutomu had re-taught Eunice the ways of a Healer, pointing out her shortcomings and showing her the moves. Lorena’s white rabbit ears twitched — not because of the act of teaching itself, but because the article included a photograph of Eunice throwing a Magic Stone at Tsutomu.

Stephanie, the Healer of Ealdred Crow’s main party, also saw one such article, and proceeded to snap one of her conductor baton-like staves in half. Afterward, she kept on mumbling something to herself while exploring the Dungeon, making her party members quite concerned.

Sometime after the news made the rounds, Silver Beast came across Absolute Helix while the latter group was training on layer sixty-eight. Lorena happily greeted Tsutomu, thinking he would have something new to teach her, but the latter only laughed awkwardly and waved his hands as if to say no.

“Uh, I don’t really have anything I can teach you, Lorena.”

“Huh!? But why!?”

“Your progress is ahead of mine now. And besides, you’re supposed to surpass me, right?”

“Ngh… I don’t remember saying that!”

“I’m sure you do; it’s written all over your reaction. Your strategies are quite unique, so my teachings won’t do you any good anyway.”

“Gah–!!”

Seeing Lorena — a woman one year older than him — feign crying, Tsutomu put on a weary face as he turned to the other Silver Beast members. Misil, still sporting his untrimmed beard, simply shook his head.

“Oh, you know, she’s just jealous of Eunice. Just let her vent a bit.”

“Jealous of… HER? Why? She’s the weakest Healer I’ve taught so far…”

“Because of the situation she got to be in… And her youthfulness, maybe?”

“Shut up, you old man!” Lorena stopped fake-crying and shouted at Misil, causing the latter to slump his shoulders.

Misil, despite being over thirty years old, was still single. He was at the right age to start thinking about settling down, but he had yet to bring up that topic to anyone. Tsutomu, seeing Misil turn gloomy, tried to sound cheerful while bringing up a different topic,

“By the way, do you think your team can defeat the Mount Golem yet?”

“Oh, we’re getting there. Give it a few more runs, get a bit luckier, and we might just squeeze out a win.”

“Oh, that’s great. Good luck!”

“The merchants have been trying to get deals with us early, too… Man, the pressure is real.”

“Right. At least you’re not having it as rough as Ealdred Crow though, I’m sure.”

“I guess. But I wouldn’t have minded if those merchants were cute girls, you know. It’s always the dudes…”

The two, seemingly of the same sentiment, proceeded to nod to each other. Misil was in fact suffering from the market pressure he was complaining about, and Tsutomu had also had similar experiences with crafting-focused players back in the game. Although by no means as bad as actually serious, real money-making businesses in this world, Tsutomu still understood Misil’s feelings to at least some degree.

After the conversation, Tsutomu’s team and Silver Beast spent some time exploring together, observing each other’s strategies. Tsutomu himself had already watched the Silver Beast team many times through the Monitors, however, so he did not learn anything particularly new.

In terms of numerical levels, they were not all that strong, with Misil being quite a bit ahead of everybody else. Misil was also the only one among them to be somewhat famous, due to his high level and his Job, the rarely seen Adventurer.

Still, thanks to the team’s absurdly good coordination, the spectators were already starting to remember every other member as well. They were practically the opposite of Ealdred Crow, the main party of which consisted of level-70 members who had worked hard to be there, but their performance was not at all inferior. From Tsutomu’s point of view, their party was quite interesting.

“All right, we’ll be on our way now. Good luck on beating layer seventy.”

“Thanks. Good luck to you guys, too.”

After going their separate ways, the Absolute Helix team resumed their leveling routine. They eventually reached layer sixty-nine, in which they hunted new monsters while also mining for rare stones to sell.

“Sir Tsutomu! Sir Tsutomu!” Daryl suddenly called out, sounding quite happy.

“Hmm?”

Tsutomu turned around and saw that Daryl was a little far away, excitedly wagging his tail and raising his pickaxe into the air.

“Gold! Look! I found gold!”

Sure enough, there was something golden sticking out of the surface that Daryl had been digging.

“What!? For real!?”

“Ooh! That’s awesome!”

Amira’s red eyes lit up as she ran to Daryl, while Hannah flew over to help with the digging as well.

“Ah, everyone, wait–“

Tsutomu, remembering something, tried to stop them, but the golden something was already moving.

It was none other than a Golden Bomb, a rare monster found hidden in rock floors and walls of the Volcano layers. A little known fact was that they would attempt to self-destruct when their strength was reduced under a certain threshold.

The Golden Bomb, startled by Amira’s heavy-handed digging, promptly prepared to self-destruct. Daryl, Amira, and Hannah looked at the monster with wonder as it glowed brighter…

…And then it exploded. The three, being close to it, took the full brunt of the explosion. Amira and Hannah died instantly. Daryl blocked with his arms, avoiding death, but still was severely injured and got blown quite far away.

Tsutomu and Diniel were a little further away, so they did not suffer major injuries, but were still knocked back as well. Rocks and pebbles that were blown apart by the explosion also hit them, causing some bruises.

“Gah, what a blast… <<High Heal>>.”

Wincing from the pain, Tsutomu healed himself and then Diniel, who had already recovered her stance and was aiming her bow at the explosion’s center. Another <<High Heal>> was then cast to get Daryl, whose armor had been damaged with burns, back up on his feet.

This encounter could still be considered a lucky occurrence, since the Golden Bomb kill still counted, awarding the team with a lot of experience points. Tsutomu tapped the still-dazed Daryl on his shoulder to help him regain his bearings, then cast <<Raise>> for Hannah and Amira.

[Now, where’d their stuff go?]

As Tsutomu drank a Blue Potion to recover his mental energy, he saw that Hannah revived first with her combat gear intact. Her brass knuckles and potions had been scattered all over the place by the explosion, with some of them permanently lost due to falling into a nearby lava stream.

Amira, revived with her greatsword still on her back — but her red leather armor replaced by default clothes — quickly hopped back on her feet.

“AAAHHH!? What!? What just happened!?”

“Looks like the thing blew up.”

“What the hell!?”

“That’s totally what happened, yes,” Tsutomu said casually while taking out some replacement gear for the two from his Magic Bag.

Hannah was equipped with new brass knuckles and took a few extra Potion vials. Amira flung off her default flaxen clothing without a hint of shame, standing around in just a set of black underwear while putting on a new set of padding garments and red leather armor.

Daryl, blushing at Amira’s boldness, changed into a spare set of his custom-made heavy armor. Tsutomu had thought about what strategies to adopt if two or more party members were to die during a battle, but this was the first time it had actually happened, so the re-equipping process took quite a bit of time.

[Gotta make sure of how things go next time.]

Reviving an ally would be meaningless if they were to not re-equip themselves quickly enough and die again soon after. Moreover, the Healers’ capabilities were what determined the party’s ability to regain stability post-revival. After the party was done collecting Hannah and Amira’s old gear that had not been damaged too much, they proceeded to resume their leveling routine, with Tsutomu continuing to think about post-revival recovery strategies.

――▽▽――

The same leveling routine was repeated for another three weeks. Just as Tsutomu had planned, everyone’s levels had been rising steadily, with their average level exceeding 65. Now they had enough raw power to stand a good chance against the Mount Golem.

Silver Beast had achieved a victory against the Mount Golem during the three weeks, and now they were exploring layer seventy-two while also being bombarded by deal offers from merchants. That was nothing surprising, however, since people had already been expecting Silver Beast to get past layer seventy sooner or later. And so now the spectators were wondering which Clan would be the third to make that achievement.

Golden Tune seemed to be the most likely contender. Thanks to their combat familiarity, they were performing the best against the Mount Golem. As with Silver Beast, the spectators thought that Golden Tune’s victory was only a matter of time.

Next up was Scarlet Devil Squad. After the ‘begging-on-volcano-floor’ incident, Alma had gone on hiatus for some time, but now she was back into action and the main party started challenging the Mount Golem again. They were still having difficulties, however, what with them not having adopted a proper three-role composition yet, and their Black Staff still being locked away from use. Still, they did have the most number of attempts under their belt, and Weiss’ had been performing better and better each time, so the spectators expected each new run to be ‘the one’.

The one considered the third most likely to win was none other than Absolute Helix. Tsutomu was one of the best three Healers in town, Diniel was THE best Archer, and Daryl had been showered with praises in the news as living up to his reputation as Garm’s student. The three had been highly regarded, especially by the Dungeon Maniacs. Despite this Clan being such a hot topic, they had had to slow down and grind due to everyone but Diniel being relatively low-leveled. As such, they were the slowest of the bunch, yet to make even a single attempt at beating the Mount Golem.

Some among the Dungeon Maniacs had taken notice of Tsutomu due to various points — including his much-celebrated first victory against the Fire Dragon, how his group had been leveling up so much faster than the others, and his ability to accurately guess monsters’ properties and abilities — but currently, most of the masses was more interested in Golden Tune and Scarlet Devil Squad.

Regardless, leveling up was not the only thing Absolute Helix had been doing these past three weeks.

“<<Stream Arrow>>.”

Diniel was now level 74 and had worked her new, hard-to-control skill into one of her regular rotations. Her coordination with Hannah had been greatly refined, enabling her to use <<Stream Arrow>> to deal massive damage against slow-moving enemies.

Hannah, level 69, had learned a new skill called <<Count Buster>>. It was one of the Boxer Job’s main skills and dealt additional damage in proportion to one’s skill combo length. She was by no means perfect at wielding it, but the addition of it had proven to be effective so far.

Daryl, level 65, now had his VIT rating at an A-, one tier higher than before. He had also acquired two new skills, and was in the process of working them into regular use.

And Amira had risen to level 59 and gained two new skills as well. She was still figuring them out, using the Greatsword Fighter from Golden Tune as a point of reference. Up until now, she had been following Camille’s example, meaning <<Power Slash>> was pretty much the only thing she used, but consulting other Attackers seemed to have a good effect on her.

Their routine had also ended up including a Bolseyer to finish the day with. After wrapping things up for today, Tsutomu was taking a short breather when Daryl called out to him,

“Sir Tsutomu! A treasure chest! And it’s silver!”

“Ooh! Finally!”

The team had found a few treasure chests while they were leveling, but had not obtained anything particularly good so far. Now that the Bolseyer had dropped a chest, however, Tsutomu’s eyes beamed with anticipation as he went over to Daryl.

“Ah, so… Can I open it?”

“Yes, please go ahead!”

After getting permission from everyone, Tsutomu went ahead and looted the chest’s content, which turned out to be a dark red, rugged-looking robe. He knew what it was: a Scorchstone Robe, an excellent fire-resistant piece of equipment. It certainly was something he wanted to have for the Mount Golem battle.

In the game, having access to this item would make an attempt against the Mount Golem much easier. Tsutomu stored it in his Magic Bag and immediately left the Dungeon with his team.