Chapter 30 - The Information Collector’s Eyes (1/2)
Translator: invichan
Editor: Silavin
First of all, it was a major clan with an overwhelming number of members which noticed the disaster caused by the three-person party, an information collecting clan called Aldlet Crow.
Unlike any other clans, Aldlet Crow had also recruited many people other than adventurers. They have clerks who manage and stock their equipment, plus writing financial reports of their profit and loss. They also have information collectors who will gather information by checking the monitors. Besides, they’ll also gather some useful information about items’ prices from the town. This was the only clan which offered many kinds of services, ranging from special equipment shops to prostitution.
But recently, they only collected gold and didn’t challenge the fire dragon, resulting in a decline of their popularity from the public. A few years ago, they became known as the first clan to break through Shell Crab. But after that, they didn’t make any particularly outstanding result and were now being ridiculed as a clan with its number of members as their sole saving grace.
However, this Aldlet Crow clan was actually sharpening their nails in secret by recruiting a great number of adventurers from every kind of races and jobs while incorporating useful information and tactics practiced by middle clans. Thus, Tsutomu’s Flying Heal and battle tactics were one of the useful pieces of information they could get.
After entering the swamp terrain beyond the 20th floor, Tsutomu and friends’ three-person party would sometimes appear on the mid-sized monitors. At first, it was only focused on Garm and Amy. ‘Boisterous Dance’ Amy and ‘Mad Dog’ Garm had become the guild’s members, but they were still in active service. The information collector man wrote down in detail about how the two of them wielded their swords, used their skills, and much more.
But then, after he witnessed Tsutomu’s Flying Heal, the man began to pay more attention to Tsutomu. A middle clan called Wings of the White Fencers has two white mages specialized in recovery and attacking in their party. The man recalled that the clan had used Flying Heal for a while to explore the potential of white mages.
Later, Flying Heal was deemed as impractical and discarded. Nevertheless, Tsutomu’s Flying Heal was a big deal in the collector’s eyes. Amy’s upper arm, which was attacked by the queen spider’s fangs, was recovered as soon as Flying Heal was applied.
The information collector man noticed the usefulness of Flying Heal and began to keep his eyes on Tsutomu. Soon after, he tried to have a white mage adventurer under the tenth army in Aldlet Crow attempt to use Flying Heal.
Contrary to what he expected, it worked fine until they had to fly. The amount of the recovery ability was so small that it was simply impractical. In order to find the reason why, the collector waited until Tsutomu passed through a few floors of the dungeon and paid more attention to Tsutomu’s movements and the tools he used.
The white cane Tsutomu used didn’t have the same efficiency like the black cane he obtained from the Red Demon Clan. It was a bit expensive, but anyone would be able to afford it. The Flying Heal’s ability wasn’t due to the tool. After that, the man focused more on Tsutomu’s movements, but he still couldn’t figure out the reason. Not to mention, Tsutomu had a change of party when he practiced Flying Heal, making the man who couldn’t make much progress in his investigation to droop his head low.
He can’t get the tenth army’s white mage to cast the same Flying Heal like Tsutomu’s, but he was at least able to get them to learn about support skills like Protect and Haste. Since they haven’t practiced much, the accuracy when they applied the skill was not as good as Tsutomu, and the effective time was shorter than the ones he casted. But then again, he felt relieved that the information he reported about some other skills, which were much more useful than Heal was not wasted.
Still, the recovery ability of Heal and High Heal didn’t improve at all even when they had practiced repeatedly. Even when the maximum amount of mana had been used, the recovery ability was only effective like some medicinal herbs in the meadow. Moreover, if the white mage did that, they’ll soon attract monsters and get killed right there.
[It seems that he’s using some kind of unique skills… If that’s the case, I should get more information from other adventurers. What exactly was different between our mage’s skills and his?]
The information collector man began to rack his brain and continued to observe the party after Amy left and Camille joined. And then, Garm mostly took charge of attacking monsters by using skills such as Combat Cry to gain aggro. He also began to pay attention to how Camille used the strategy of attacking freely.
[…I see. So Garm who has high vitality was the one who parried the monsters’ attack while being constantly strengthened by Flying Protect. In the meantime, the guild leader had exterminated all the monsters at once.]
From what the onlookers saw on the monitor, Garm didn’t seem to mind taking on a lot of monsters, making his popularity rise rapidly. Moreover, the scene when Camille used her big sword to cut the monster down made the crowd’s cheers grow louder. On the other hand, the man was observing that screen with a frozen heart.
[With that amount of monsters, no matter how strong Garm is, he’ll die if he doesn’t have time to drink potion. But he’s being backed up relentlessly by Tsutomu’s Heal and Protect… The monsters will focus their attacks on someone with high vitality, so it might be difficult for that one person if Flying Heal wasn’t applied on them…]
If one kept attracting monsters to them alone like Garm, they wouldn’t have time to drink the potion. It was obvious that the person who attracted the monsters would immediately die because the mages couldn’t cast the imitated Flying Heal.
[But if there are two people who have high vitality and they take the monsters’ attack one after the other, they’ll lessen each other’s burden. Besides, if the Healer recovered one person at a time in turns, will the potion’s consumption be reduced? This party configuration is worth trying.]
The man promptly gave the idea of the strategies to the party with the white mage who had learnt the supporting flying skills. Then, they tried practicing the strategies until Tsutomu and his teammates finally arrived at the 59th floor, but they didn’t seem to make any remarkable results.
The clan’s party structure seemed to prioritize attacking to earn aggro from monsters. But, the existence of Heal aggro seemed to still be unknown for now.
The monsters would aim at the person who attacked them the most. They were aiming either the strongest one or the weakest one, their common sense was only up to that degree. So, Heal aggro was still unclear. There wasn’t anyone in the party who could roughly measure the amount of aggro and control it, so that Healers and Attackers didn’t gain aggro from the monsters.
For that reason, it was impossible for them to immediately balance the roles of Tank, Healer, and Attacker like Tsutomu’s party.
But there was this skill called Combat Cry which could make knights and fighters earn aggro as the white mage casted supporting flying skill to them. Thanks to the man’s guidance, the Healer and Tank’s ‘soil’ had been nurtured. Since the information collector man had understood about how to use the skills to earn hate, he informed them about these to the party.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t that easy to apply on Attackers. After all, the Attackers kept on attacking as they pleased like always. At any rate, they can’t change their habit of attacking the monsters rapidly and killing it, which has been ingrained in their body.
Of course, it was also because the Tank couldn’t just earn aggro without any reason. The Attacker will eventually be targeted and the Tank will be casted aside just like before, leaving only four people to fight.
It was the day Tsutomu challenged the fire dragon that the man coincidentally instructed and suggested these tactics to the clan’s party – though, it did not turn out well.
――▽▽――
The three of them gathered in the guild at eight o’clock in the morning. Garm’s appeared more stiffened than ever since he wore a supplementary heavy armor with magic water stones geared up as a cooling function and attached on his back. In contrast, Camille’s appearance hasn’t changed in particular. Tsutomu carried the magic bag crammed with a lot of spare equipment and potions on his back, then he called out to them.
“Good morning.”
“Morning.”
“…Hey. Morning.”
Tsutomu saw Garm moving his dog ear, probably because he was so nervous that he became restless. But then, he still moved to the vacant reception desk. So, Tsutomu thought he should be okay. Garm updated his status card with the receptionist man while wearing his empty and frightening look as usual. Then, he went back to the party of three people.
“Ah, we’ll confront the fire dragon today. Please watch us if you have time.”
“Oh, is that so? Don’t piss yourself later, alright?”
“Tell me how it went later, Garm.”
“Kuhaha! Ain’t that nice? You sure have the guts! Well, best of luck to you. Don’t wear pricey equipment.”
Tsutomu bowed his head to the Uncle Skinhead receptionist who gave him such advice. Then, he headed towards the magic circle.
“I’m nervous. But I don’t want to die unless I’ve cleared a round, so let’s move comfortably.”
“Yeah…”
Tsutomu slapped Garm’s back and pointed to Camille.
“Straighten yourself out, please. Take a look at Camille. She is making an expression like she is going on a picnic.”
“I was so excited that I had difficulty falling asleep last night.”
“We can stop here if you won’t be able to exert enough power due to lack of sleep.”
“No… There is no way we can stop here…”
Camille, who fixed the sword she carried on her back, responded to him with a smile. Everything would be over if the Tank collapsed, so Tsutomu tried to ease Garm up by saying these words while feeling concerned about him.
“Let’s move to the 59th floor.”
Upon saying those words, the trio’s body turned into particles as they were transferred to the 59th floor.
The sunshine casted a bright light on the red slope and the light reflected on them, as if to welcome the three. After looking around the area surrounded by rocks, Tsutomu casted Fly to the three of them and left the searching to Camille like usual.