After receiving permission from Melchor to challenge the Mount Golem with his current party, Daryl had his responsibility as the leader to come up with their strategies. Two Scorchstone Robes were needed for his most optimal idea, so Daryl consulted with Ollie, who was in charge of the Clan’s management, during one of his days off.
Ollie nodded without looking particularly troubled, as if she had already expected this.
“Mister Tsutomu has mentioned that possibility to me some time ago. As such, the Scorchstone Robes have already been prepared.”
“Oh, already? Thank you very much!”
Tsutomu, having received daily progress reports, had already prepared some of the equipment they may need for layer seventy, which included the extra Scorchstone Robe.
Daryl bowed to Ollie and was about to leave when she called him to stop.
“Also, Mister Dorren has entrusted me with delivering your equipment to you. This way, please.”
Ollie stood up without another word and waved her hand to guide Daryl to the storage room in which various items and equipment were stored. Daryl had not had many chances to go there, so once he was inside, he looked around with curious eyes, his normally folded ears standing up.
Pre-filled vials of Potions were arranged nearly in boxes, and spare equipment sets were placed together in an orderly fashion. The fact that there was barely even a speck of dust on them was proof that Ollie and her apprentice had been thoroughly cleaning them.
“Here it is.”
“Wow…”
Daryl could not contain his voice upon seeing the red set of heavy armor on display, worn by a wooden mannequin. Dorren had made it out of Crimson Sunstones and other materials gathered from the Dungeon, improving its anti-heat properties so that it would not melt in the Volcano layers. It looked so impressive that one might even think it was already on fire.
“Apparently, it is heat-resistant enough to withstand the Mount Golem’s heat rays, and boasts superior efficiency of heat dissipation. As a countermeasure against wide-area attacks, it also comes with a detachable helmet.”
“Wow, this is amazing! Thank you!”
“Since you have access to two Scorchstone Robes, I think it would be best to have Miss Korinna and Mister Xeno wear them.”
“I see… Yes, I’ll do that.”
“As for this armor, you ought to try equipping it once, to see if it has any issues — though I don’t think there will be any.”
When Daryl smiled and nodded in agreement to Ollie’s suggestion, she immediately started removing each piece from the mannequin, went behind Daryl, and put them on him.
“Also, I think Sir Melchor should be put in charge of cleaning up the smaller Golems. From what I’ve seen, he has not been going all out, and seems to have no intention to do so for the duration of this mission, either.”
“…Are you sure, Miss Ollie?”
“I have met him several times at my previous workplace, you see.”
Ollie smiled faintly as Daryl turned around to glance at her.
“Mister Daryl, I’m sure you have already come up with a number of strategies, but I have also compiled a set of reference documents that might prove useful. Would you like to take a look at them?”
“I’d love to, Miss Ollie.”
“All right. I’ll have them ready later, then,” Ollie said, smiling as she equipped Daryl with piece after piece of the heavy armor.
After buckling in the last piece, she tapped his back to tell him that she was done. Then she carried over a thin standing mirror so that Daryl could see what he looked like.
“This is quite… flashy.”
“Oh? I think it suits you quite well, actually.”
“That can’t be…”
Although Daryl was waving his hands at Ollie’s compliment, he was blushing at least a little bit. Still, as Daryl had said, this set of armor was quite flashy, as it was all red — something he had never imagined he would ever wear.
“Are there any issues with it?”
“None that I can think of so far, no. It’s just as comfortable to wear as the previous set.”
“Is that so? I’ll go ahead and request some spares for when you challenge the seventieth layer, then.”
Ollie wrote that down in her notepad, then proceeded to unequip the armor pieces from Daryl. She crouched down behind him and dexterously undid one buckle after another, collecting the pieces and putting them back onto the wooden mannequin.
And as Daryl kept staring at the armor, Ollie called him,
“I could give you the documents right away, if you would spare a few moments and follow me to my room.”
“Ah, yes, of course.”
He followed her, and sure enough, she had compiled quite a bit of information related to the Mount Golem.
“This is so amazing! I didn’t know you’d been doing this much research, Miss Ollie!” Daryl said excitedly as he looked through the neatly organized stack of documents.
“Not at all — this is only because Mister Tsutomu mentioned it to me.”
Ollie humbly nodded. Although she was responsible for the Clan’s finances and household chores, she also did some research about the Dungeon in her spare time, which meant her workload was tremendous despite her having an apprentice’s assistance.
“Thank you very much. I really appreciate it!”
“…Oh, it’s nothing special. Anyone in my line of work can do this much.”
“Huh!? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do it, though…”
Ollie had said what she said to keep some distance between them, but when she was Daryl’s slightly dejected reaction, she hurried to change her wording.
“Mister Daryl, you explore the Dungeon almost every single day, yes? You’re much busier compared to me.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure…”
Feeling the urge to protect Daryl upon seeing the face he was making, Ollie forced herself to look away. She coughed once to clear her throat, then attempted to change the subject.
“I wish you the best of luck, Mister Daryl. Regardless of the outcome, we’ll prepare your favorite food for when you return.”
“…Thank you very much.”
Daryl smiled briefly before leaving Ollie, looking quite serious as his eyes were glued to the documents in his hands on the way back to his room.
――▽▽――
“Oh, that boy…”
Once Ollie finished her work for the day and returned to her assigned room in the Clan House, she accidentally spoke her mind for a brief moment — and the boy she referred to was, of course, Daryl.
Ollie had signed up to work at this Clan House in order to seek connections with the nobility. As such, she had always planned to part ways with Absolute Helix eventually, and she had been trying not to get too attached to the people here.
But after she had seen Daryl’s dejection after the otherwise successful battle on layer seventy, she did all she could to cheer him up — against her own career’s best interests.
[Daryl is quite a lot like HIM…]
The reason she had done that was because she saw Daryl’s depressed state as being quite similar to that of Smith, the eldest son of House Babenberg. Once that thought first crossed her mind, she could not bring herself to ignore it. Despite knowing that they were different people, she had seen no choice but to give him a helping hand.
Before the most recent Stampede, Smith would always be friendly with everyone, even a humble servant like Ollie. She had even carried out fairly lengthy conversations with him on several occasions. Despite his relatively young age, he was the type of charismatic person that would garner support from the people around him.
After the Stampede, however, he had gone quiet, as if his mouth had been sewn firmly shut — a state similar to Daryl’s dejection after the latter’s blunder of layer seventy. With that in mind, Ollie was no longer able to ignore him — and it snowballed from there, with her eventually feeling the need to help Hannah and Amira with their issues as well.
She still wanted to go back to working as a servant for House Babenberg, but now, the part of her that wanted to stay with Absolute Helix was growing more prominent. As Ollie’s desire to support others came with her job, the inexperienced ones such as Daryl, Hannah, and Amira were those who she wanted to work for.
And today, what she had done for Daryl made her uncertainty grow even worse than ever before. This was exactly the reason why she had been strictly stressing to her apprentice not to involve her job with her personal feelings.
There was also, perhaps, her instincts when it came to certain things that made her feel unfit for this line of work. For instance, although Daryl resembled Smith in quite a few aspects, he was not necessarily charismatic, which resulted in him being teased by Amira on occasion. Whenever she saw that happening, she would always feel the urge to protect him. And today, she had almost reached her hand out to give him a pat on the head.
[No, this won’t do at all. I need to calm down.]
Ollie buried her face in her pillow for a few seconds, then sat up and took a deep breath in an attempt to recalibrate her mind. Then, before the Clan members came home, she proceeded to start preparing dinner.
“Eep!”
Including the managers, each cooked meal had to be enough to serve nine people, with the dishes made according to each individual’s preferences. As such, she had to prepare the relevant ingredients well in advance, otherwise the whole meal would not be done in time. By now, Ollie’s apprentice was going crazy as she was stuck constantly chopping up a large number of ingredients.
“Hyah!”
And once she saw that Ollie was working at a crazy speed, perhaps to distract herself from troublesome thoughts, the apprentice screamed even more.
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