“NWAAAHHH!!” Amira shouted with a voice that was the most unwomanly it could get, as she tripped and plunged right at Tsutomu. The latter stepped aside, causing her to fall onto the ground of the first layer’s Grasslands.
Before, Amira would collapse and faint on the spot upon the deactivation of her <<Dragon Form>>. Now that she had better control over the transformation, however, she could regain consciousness… But that technically involved waking up while in motion, so it still ended up with her tripping and falling.
She proceeded to roll a couple dozen times before coming to a stop.
“GAH!! Damn it! That didn’t do shit at all!” Amira roared up at the sky to vent her frustration, and had her scratches healed off by Tsutomu.
“Don’t sweat it. You know you’re improving, and that’s good.”
Having used <<Dragon Form>> repeatedly today, Amira’s face was turning a little red, and she was starting to sweat more and more.
“Next! C’mon!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Amira wiped the streaming sweat off her forehead with her arm and proceeded to activate her <<Dragon Form>> again… Then she had to be forced out of it with Tsutomu’s <<Medic>>, after which, she tripped on her own legs and fell again.
The training went on for two more hours, and while she managed to keep herself from falling, she still could not keep her posture right upon regaining consciousness.
[Looking good] Tsutomu thought to himself, considering how Amira had kept at it all the while, falling and getting up again.
It was getting late now, however, so he called off the training for the day. He proceeded to throw Amira a cold towel, to counteract her rising body temperature and profuse sweating resulting from the repeated use of <<Dragon Form>>.
“Good job today. Let’s take a little break then head back.”
“…Yeah.”
“Seeing how well it’s going, you might be able to use it in a real fight tomorrow, don’t you think?”
“I guess.”
Amira nodded with some satisfaction. Her neck wrapped in the magic tool-chilled towel. Although she would still lose her posture, she would no longer outright fall upon the deactivation of <<Dragon Form>>. This meant she could probably use it in battle when she needed a power boost, then have Tsutomu cancel it when aggro generation needed to be limited.
Tsutomu was actually somewhat impressed by today’s progress, having not expected things to go this well. He proceeded to sit down and take out a roll of Dungeon-related newspaper to read.
Clans that had gotten past layer sixty so far were Scarlet Devil Squad, Ealdred Crow, and Silver Beast. According to the newspapers, it seemed that Golden Tune had a good chance at achieving that progress, too.
White Strike Wings, a major mid-tier Clan known for having an Attacker White Mage, had been going through notable mergers and alliances lately, so it would not be so strange if they were to defeat their first Fire Dragon soon.
Since mid-tier Clans had to make profits without relying on sponsors, they were mostly composed of those who had financially survived with various ingenious ideas and methods. Many of them had even been founded as gatherings of high-levelled Explorers with unpopular Jobs, who had been tired of previously-widespread Job disparity in the Explorer scene. This resulted in individual clans having limited Job variety.
Still, with the three-role composition becoming more widespread, the mid-tier Clans had started to merge or form alliances, increasing their Job variety by forming parties that incorporated role theories. Their degrees of perfection were lower than the major Clans’, but some among them were sure to defeat the Fire Dragon eventually.
Scarlet Devil Squad and Ealdred Crow were still stuck fighting the Mount Golem. The latter group had decided to ignore the monster for now, opting to explore the Volcano layers more and gather a variety of materials.
[They’re probably trying to craft the right gear for the task.]
Ealdred Crow had their own workshop in their Clan House, in which they employed their own regular artisans. They were likely looking into crafting anti-magma equipment with the materials they were gathering. Besides, they had not discovered all possible materials yet, and only a handful of treasure chests had dropped for them so far. Moving away from the layer boss to focus on prep work was a perfectly viable decision.
Scarlet Devil Squad had been repeatedly challenging the Mount Golem, but they were nowhere close to even finding a winning formula. Silver Beast, on the other hand, had recently defeated the Bolseyer and was proceeding smoothly down the following layers.
[If everything goes well, Ealdred Crow will probably be the first to finish, though.]
Ealdred Crow will probably be able to get past the Mount Golem if they could find a way to deal with its wide-ranged magma attack. As soon as they found out that the monster had high physical defence, they had switched their main party’s Attackers to mage-types, and it seemed from the past month that they had no problem cooperating with one another.
It would be best that Ealdred Crow’s progress overtook Scarlet Devil Squad’s, since it would result in the role division of Tanks, Attackers, and Healers becoming even more widely used. In turn, White Mages would become more relevant in the scene, which would fulfill one of Tsutomu’s other goals — to improve the position of his Job.
[And then all I’ll need is to get down to the hundredth layer. Sure would be nice if that happens within a year, though…]
Tsutomu thought over random things as he scanned over the news, then suddenly he noticed Amira behind him, taking a peek at the papers. He turned around and saw that she was narrowing her eyes for some unknown reason.
“Hmm…”
“You wanna read?”
“Nah. Just looking ’cause that’s someone I know.”
“An acquaintance? Which one?”
“Here.”
Amira pointed to a picture showing an Ealdred Crow party. Apparently, the Spiritualist among them was someone she knew.
“A friend?”
“Old Clan member.”
“…Oh, I see.” Tsutomu lowered his voice, feeling awkward.
Amira did not seem to mind t, and only looked away, before standing up.
“Let’s go. I’m tired. And sleepy,” she rushed Tsutomu and yawned, then held out her arm to help him stand.
“Uh, sure,” Tsutomu grabbed Amira’s arm and stood up.
They proceeded to immediately leave the Dungeon and head back to the Clan House.
――▽▽――
“Diniel, your salary slip.”
“No need,” Diniel replied, lazing around in her pajamas.
“It’s right here.”
Ignoring Diniel’s indifference, Tsutomu put the slip down on the desk and immediately left her room. Yawning once, he then proceeded to leave the Clan House and headed for the market.
The time was around nine o’clock, and the market was booming with activity. Monitor viewership would peak during this period, so most major Clans would also be down in the Dungeons, in part to please their sponsors. After all, periods of high viewership meant perfect opportunities to promote the sponsors’ goods and services.
Major Clans would explore the Dungeon while equipping their members with as many sponsor-provided tools, weapons, and armor as they could. Those items would effectively be advertised to other Explorers, and the Major Clan would then receive a portion of the revenue thusly generated.
Such promotions were not without their techniques — being aware of God Eyes’ positions while in combat, making sure shops’ logos on the gear were as visible in the broadcast, et cetera. It was important to use the tools right, too, so as to show the audience how effective they were.
Tsutomu’s Clan had also received a large number of sponsorship offers. He wanted to try taking at least one or two, but had refused every single one so far because, if he were to be honest, they would distract him from his Dungeon progression goals.
If anything, it seemed foolish to limit their equipment options to ones provided by sponsors. Tsutomu had no intention of living the rest of his life in this world, and he was quite far from having financial issues. He did think it would be fine to earn some pocket change by slapping logos on here and there, but his savings from the newspapers and nobility were still going strong.
Then again, in terms of the Clan’s inner workings, they would technically be deep in the red if not for the personal funding from Tsutomu — due to Diniel’s liberal purchasing of arrows, and the heavy investment that went into Daryl’s gear. Ollie, being in charge of the Clan’s management, had also expressed her worries toward this particular issue.
[I really am not used to this kinda stuff, though…]
Live Dungeon had no in-game systems to do such things, so the concept of sponsorships was quite foreign to Tsutomu. He intended to dabble in it if he ends up having monetary issues, of course, but he did not need any sponsors with how things were going right now.
Still, money was not the only thing to be gained from signing sponsorship contracts with retailers. Improving stores’ sales through advertising could open up more investments opportunities, which would likely be incomparably more effective than Tsutomu’s current investments as a client.
Additionally, he would have an easier time producing certain products with newly-discovered materials, and also access to certain goods limited to such partnerships. All in all, sponsorship contracts were sure to prove helpful in exploring the Dungeon going forward.
[Maybe I’ll ask Amy about it later.]
Amy was in fact one of the pioneers when it came to promoting retailers and goods while exploring God’s Dungeon. She was likely to answer almost everything he wanted to know as long as he asks.
After looking at the one-digit Monitors, most of which showed Ealdred Crow’s groups doing pretty much causal promotional campaigns, Tsutomu turned to Monitor #1. It showed Scarlet Devil Squad in the middle of their Mount Golem attempt, still using their composition of four Attackers and one Healer.
The mood among them was obviously not good. It was so bad that Tsutomu could not help but cringe and chuckle dryly. Weiss possessed a unique skill, and the Black Staff Alma wielded was powerful enough for it to be like a unique skill to her — but despite that, they were performing worse in battle than Ealdred Crow, even though the latter had no one with unique skills among their ranks.
[Man… will they be all right?]
Feeling sympathetic for Weiss, seeing that he was clenching his teeth and clearly on edge, Tsutomu proceeded to walk around and check out the other Monitors.
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