After the break, the team continued exploring layer seventy-one and engaging in more combat. Since Amira had been given permission to use her <<Dragon Form>> in the afternoon, she spent most of the time barely in control of her consciousness while fighting.
Though Amira now had some degree of control over her <<Dragon Form>>, she still could neither listen to instructions nor disengage the transformation by herself. Carrying out the actions she thought she wanted to do was the most she could currently manage.
As such, Tsutomu was having a much harder time preventing Amira from generating more aggro than him. Fortunately, though, Amira had a tendency to take more hits while transformed, so Tsutomu had a reason to cast <<Heal>> more often and generate aggro from that as a result. All in all, there was not much of a problem on his part — though Hannah did have more difficulty keeping the aggro on herself.
“Teach… This! Is! So! Tedious!”
“Aren’t you supposed to be the best evasion-based Tank?”
“…Aww, guess I can try a bit harder, eh?”
Hearing just a few of Tsutomu’s carefully chosen words, Hannah’s expression instantly turned bright, and she proceeded to keep on trudging through the snow. Amira was visibly baffled by that reaction, while Leleia closed her eyes and pretended not to see anything, as if she had no intention to comment on it.
Over the subsequent battles, Hannah and Leleia’s teamwork was starting to take a decent shape.
“Firing now!”
“Got it!”
Hannah pretended that Leleia’s voice was like the sounds of Diniel’s signal arrows, and each time she heard a command, she stopped attacking the monsters and focused on evasion.
“<<Salamander Breath>>.”
The Salamander responded to Leleia’s chant, jumping off her shoulder and launching a laser beam-like breath attack from its mouth. It pierced right through one of the Snow Wolves, burning its body and splitting it open, tearing off its innards and causing them to plop down onto the ground.
Afterward, the team tried forming contracts with the Gnome and the humanoid Sylph as well, and Leleia mainly performed long-ranged attacks to kill the Snow Field’s monsters. Leleia wanted to show Hannah all of her main long-ranged skills during this trip, so she was quite particular in choosing which attacks she used in which situation.
Since Leleia had been welcomed into the Clan as a combatant with long-ranged attack skills, she had been told by Tsutomu to start out by showcasing that part of her arsenal first. However, while her Spirits and long-ranged attacks were certainly powerful, she also excelled in Spirit-augmented swordfighting.
And even though her compatibility with Spirits was not as high as Tsutomu’s, it still could be considered quite impressive by normal people’s standards. In fact, most normal Spiritualists were not even able to interact with some Spirits by themselves at all.
A Spiritualist normally would have some Spirits that they had low natural compatibility with, and the use of their associated skills may be difficult or outright limited. The Sylph and the Undine tended to be incompatible with men and women, respectively, but Leleia had no particular limitations when it came to the Spirits that she could use.
As such, she could employ Spirits of all four elements in combat, and was able to have them enhance her swordfighting for close-ranged versatility. Her ability to do almost anything at a high level had been quite appreciated by Ealdred Crow, and she had been able to quickly produce results that got her promoted up to that Clan’s secondary party.
Considering that she was an excellent fighter both at close and long ranges, it could be said, due to the current situation, that she was not making the most of her abilities.
“We should be on the right track, yeah?”
“Yes, I think so. Now that I have shown you most of my skills, I would like you to try and get used to responding to them.”
“You got it!”
Thanks to Hannah’s change of mindset, she now was able to pay attention to Leleia’s voice most of the time, so there was no longer a risk of friendly fire. She still had to rely on Leleia’s skill to make certain things work, however, so she still had improvements to make going forward.
Seeing that their teamwork was starting to work out, Leleia placed her hand on her chest and let out a sigh of relief. She had been worried that Tsutomu’s evaluation of her would drop if her first attempt at cooperation did not go well.
Leleia proceeded to reach into the Magic Bag on her waist and take out a Magic Stone, handing it over to the lizard-like Salamander’s mouth as if to feed it.
Tsutomu, watching from the side, curiously asked,
“Oh? You have to feed them Magic Stones?”
“No, it is not necessary, but it helps in building a relationship of trust with them, so they may lend us more of their power.”
“Huh…”
Tsutomu crossed his arms and observed the Salamander as it gnawed on the Fire Magic Stone, fascinated by yet another aspect of this world that had not been in the game. He was not necessarily enjoying it, however, despite the sight being adorable. Spirits could not exactly be considered humans’ pets, and he could not help but think of the cost of the consumed Magic Stones.
Summoners were required to expend Magic Stones to use their skills, but Spiritualists had no such requirement. Still, feeding Magic Stones to a Spirit with bad compatibility would undoubtedly increase the level of power they were willing to lend.
There also existed equipment and items that temporarily increased one’s compatibility with Spirits, mainly obtained as loot from rare treasure chests. Since they were consumable and fairly expensive, however, it was more advantageous to have good compatibility with Spirits from the start.
“Mind if I try feeding it, too?”
“Do feel free.”
“Ooh, thanks!”
Receiving a piece of crushed Fire Magic Stone, Hannah held it in her fingers and brought it close to the Salamander’s mouth. The Spirit promptly gobbled it up, prompting her to giggle happily.
Tsutomu, seeing that, took out a leftover Medium Water Magic Stone from his Magic Bag. The Slime-shaped Undine came crawling out of his pocket, jumped to his wrist, and clung to it.
[Ah, it’s not cold anymore.]
It seemed that the Undine, after getting Tsutomu’s reaction from earlier, had adjusted its body temperature to the level appropriate for human skin. While Tsutomu looked on, impressed by how considerate the liquid-bodied Spirit turned out to be, the Undine stretched out its spherical body and started poking at the Water Magic Stone.
“Go ahead and eat it.”
With that, the Undine started wrapping around the Magic Stone as if to swallow it whole. Tsutomu watched with interest as the Water Magic Stone melted away, and once he was sure that it was all gone, he put the Undine back into his pocket.
――▽▽――
“You know, maybe you should’ve been roasted at least once back there,”
After the Dungeon exploration run, the four returned to the Clan House. They proceeded to discuss today’s achievements with the other team that had returned before them, and Diniel quite promptly threw out a scathing comment at Hannah’s part in particular.
“You’re the kind that won’t learn unless you get hurt. You’d have gotten things down quicker if you had died to the fire beams a few times.”
“N-no way, that’s not true… right?”
Hannah turned to Tsutomu, as if to ask for his help. For a moment, it seemed that Leleia’s brows twitched in annoyance.
“Not sounding very confident there, bird girl,” Tsutomu impulsively quipped and turned the other way. “Well, she and Leleia will be working together a lot more going forward. Hannah will have to focus on improving her awareness, so that she could pay attention and respond to Attackers’ actions. Anyway, there’s one thing I’d like to… ask.”
Tsutomu looked at Daryl, who was posing like a Power Ranger in the corner of his eye, and turned to Diniel for an explanation. And explain she did, with her eyes as unreadable as ever,
“He picked that up from Xeno.”
“How the hell…?”
Tsutomu chuckled awkwardly while looking at Daryl mumbling something to himself while striking more poses. Feeling that the boy was clearly under a bad influence, he proceeded to ask Diniel,
“What about you?”
“Perfectly fine.”
“Uh… okay. Hey, Daryl, one second.”
Tsutomu gave up on getting a comment out of Diniel, calling Daryl instead. He promptly walked over to Tsutomu… without changing his pose.
“What is it, Sir Tsutomu?”
“Do you even have to ask? What in the world are you doing?”
“Ah, I just thought I’d try acting a little like Sir Xeno, you see.”
“…Well, I won’t pester you about it, but remember to control yourself, all right?” Tsutomu replied, feeling awkward due to Daryl’s comically serious answer. Then he proceeded to get to the actually important point, “Anyway, how’s the mission been so far?”
Daryl looked up and spent a moment thinking.
“Hmm… We made it to layer forty-five today, so I would say it’s been smooth so far. Oh, and Sir Melchor really is something else! Like, he hits VERY hard!”
“I see. How were Xeno and Korinna?”
“Sir Xeno is a powerful Tank, I think. No glaring flaws as far as I could see. Sir Melchor seems to have taken a liking to him, too.”
Hearing a very unexpected answer, Tsutomu looked both surprised and worried.
“Interesting… What about Korinna?” He proceeded to ask, and Daryl cast his eyes down, seeming uneasy.
“Miss Korinna is… well, honestly, I don’t feel like I can do anything in either way yet. I’m too used to your style of support, so she just feels… different, not to mention that I don’t quite understand how her Job works yet.”
“Right. Well, if anything comes up that you’d consider a problem, just let me know.”
“Understood!” Daryl cheerfully replied.
While moving on to talk with someone else, Tsutomu wondered if he should spectate them through the Monitors next time, now that he was not quite sure if things were all right on that front.
Currently in the Clan House, the usual five, plus Korinna and Leleia, were in the living room.
Xeno was not here, however. Being a married man, he naturally wanted to spend the evenings at home, so he had not fully moved into the Clan House. He did leave some luggage in one of the spare rooms, though, just in case he got kicked out of the house as a result of arguments.
Looking around the living room, it seemed that Amira was having a good time laughing at Daryl’s attempts at striking poses, and Diniel was explaining to Leleia quite thoroughly how bird-brained Hannah was. Even Hannah herself, listening in on that, was not sure how she wanted to react.
In the midst of all this, only Korinna, the Channeler, was sitting uncomfortably. Tsutomu sat on the other side of the table, prompting her to get fidgety and clutch the hems of her frilly dress.
“How did the first team-up go for you?”
“Ah, well, everyone’s been a great help. They’re all so strong…”
“Much easier than when you solo queue’d– I mean, when you relied on the Guild’s matchmaking, right?”
“That’s… actually, yes.”
Korinna nodded awkwardly as she stroked her long cream-colored hair. Back when Tsutomu had decided to recruit Korinna, he had seen her on one of the Monitors as a Healer in a party arranged by the Guild. Surely there was a world of difference between that and long-term groups like her former Clan or the current team.
Before the joining of the new recruits, Xeno had been the only potential troublemaker, but asking even Korinna about him now, there seemed to be no problem so far.
Afterward, everyone was getting ready to have dinner when a certain thought ran across Tsutomu’s mind.
[Now that I think about it, it’s mostly girls here, huh…]
Including the upcoming Garm and Amy, the Clan’s lineup consisted of four men and six women — which was not that much higher, but if Ollie and her apprentice were to be included, then the difference would be quite noticeable. Moreover, all of the Attackers were women.
Seeing that Ollie and her apprentice were starting to bring food to the table, everyone took their seats, and began eating right when everything was set up.
As usual, Amira and Daryl competed to see who could finish their mountain of food first. Diniel, Leleia, and Korinna simply ate in silence. Hannah, pretty much the whole group’s entertainer, started chatting about whatever topics that came up in her mind.
[Well, everyone’s strong, so I guess that’s fine.]
He still felt awkward to be surrounded by mostly women, however, so he wished Garm would come to join up soon. Hannah, noticing the face he was making, asked him,
“Hmm? Something wrong, Teach?”
“No, I was just thinking how the Clan has way more girls and guys, that’s all.”
“Ooh, way to go! Keep buildin’ that harem, Teach!” Hannah cracked a joke and struck a sarcastic sexy pose.
“Hell no,” Tsutomu said with a dry chuckle. “I just want strong fighters — anyone can join if they’re strong and can do their job.”
“Boo~~”
Seemingly peeved, Hannah turned away, her cheeks puffing out.
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