Chapter 60 - Nightmares in the Team Graveyard (2/2)
And then, five seconds before Diniel’s <<Haste>> expired, Tsutomu waved his White Staff, and the <<Haste>> effect was immediately applied to her once again. She had been hit by a blindingly fast <<Haste>> shot, shaped like a rifle bullet squeezed but in the size of an index finger.
[That’s the secret alternative I have. Hope she doesn’t take it personally…]
Tsutomu, having not expected Diniel to be able to dodge both the shot and placement varieties of <<Haste>>, smiled to show his admiration for her achievement. Then, seeing how baffled Diniel looked, he shook his head to imply to her that she should give it up.
[…Now they’re just messing around.]
Eunice, having watched the whole scene, stared coldly at both Diniel and Tsutomu — the former for being a slacker who never put much effort into her movements until now, and the latter for practically putting on yet another show of his superiority.
――▽▽――
After an hour or so, Skeleton Archers started spawning, so the party headed back to the Guild to get some rest before resuming their training in the Team Graveyard of the thirty-ninth layer. Barbara still had her hands full with ordinary Skeletons, so the other variations of them would have to wait.
“Say, what was that thing you just did?”
“I call it a quickshot skill. Now, I’d really appreciate it if you explained what your problem is…”
“Quickshot, huh…”
Diniel ignored Tsutomu’s inquiry and only stared at him; eventually the latter lost his patience and agreed to demonstrate his quickshot for her to see properly. He had not practiced it much since opportunities to actually use them were few and far between, but he had indeed trained enough to be wieldy with it, as apparent from his significantly improved accuracy.
Tsutomu’s demonstration involved generating an earthy-yellow <
> bullet and shooting it at Barbara in front of him. Diniel, seeming to have been quite interested in this particular skill form, opened her usually sleepy eyes wide.
“What!? Monsters!?” Barbara, alarmed by the gesture, immediately put on her helmet and looked behind her.
“Oh, apologies. False alarm,” Tsutomu quickly told her otherwise, clasping his hands together as a gesture of apology, prompting her to remove her helmet once again.
“Okay…”
Barbara was relieved to be told that; she did not like wearing helmets since they pressed down on her bear ears, so she only wore one during battle.
Tsutomu, after a little chat with Diniel, called out to Eunice before the party reached the Team Graveyard.
“Eunice, I’d like to remind you that this is a training session in real combat — is there anything you would like to ask?”
“…Not at the moment, no.”
“All right. If there’s anything you want to know, feel free to ask me whenever you want.”
“Hmph. All I have to do is learn the moves you use. I can do it by myself just fine.”
Eunice turned away and walked quickly past Tsutomu. She proceeded to exchange a few words with Barbara and Diniel, then kept herself silent for the rest of the time.
When the party arrived at the Team Graveyard and entered it, the bones piled up on the ground began to rattle and form into human shapes. Tsutomu stretched his back and yawned, while the three others prepared for combat.
“<<Combat Cry>>,” Barbara used her skill to draw the aggro of the Skeletons as soon as the maximum ten spawned.
Diniel lightly snapped her bowstring, and Eunice pointed her staff at Barbara.
“<
>.” First, she shot the skill’s earthy-yellow ball of energy at Barbara’s back, then cast <<Haste>> on Diniel.
This time Diniel worked with the team without a fuss, perhaps because Tsutomu had reminded her beforehand not to dodge <<Haste>>.
“<<Area Heal>>.” Eunice proceeded to set up a healing perimeter large enough for two people and stepped inside; the fox ears on her head were standing upright. Her large tail was also standing on end, as if she was bracing herself.
[One, two…]
Since she had applied <
> and <<Haste>> of the same duration at almost the same time, Eunice counted the time uniformly as she observed the course of the battle. Since none of the Skeletons wielded projectile-worthy weapons this time, there was no need to watch out for ranged attacks, and Barbara was well-focused on the timing at which she used <<Combat Cry>>. As such, the only time the Skeletons’ aggro went to another target was only at each time they were newly reconstructed.
Diniel ran at a steady pace and fired at the Skeletons, hitting two of them in the shoulder and ankle respectively, causing them to flinch from the impact. Barbara tanked the Skeletons’ attacks while considering to use <<Combat Cry>> when enough of her mental energy was restored.
[…Forty. Almost time.]
Eunice’s <
> and <<Haste>> had a fixed duration of one minute. Eunice aimed her staff at Barbara first, thinking to shoot the buffing spells to her with time to spare.
“<
>.”
An earthy-yellow energy sphere flew off from the tip of her staff, heading in a straight line toward Barbara’s back. However, since Barbara was also constantly changing her position to avoid being surrounded by monsters, she needed to correct the shot’s trajectory on the way.
Just as the <
> was about to land, Barbara moved to the right to avoid a thrust from a Skeleton’s sharpened arm bone. Eunice hurried to change the course of the shot.
But the course correction ended up being too late; the shot hit the Skeleton’s outstretched arm bone instead, giving the monster a boost to its VIT. Eunice, annoyed that she had misfired on the Skeleton, shot another <
>, this time managing to hit Barbara just before the previous buff on her expired.
This meant that Diniel’s <<Haste>> had already expired, however. With the skill’s AGI enhancement having a natural side effect of changing the sensation of the target’s body, the skill wearing off would make one feel as if their body had suddenly become slow.
Diniel, confirming that her <<Haste>> had indeed run out, switched out the magnitude of force she exerted onto her body to the normal level. There had been times in the previous battles where there were intervals between <<Haste>> effects, so she had gotten used to the change in sensation.
“<<Haste>>.”
But then the spell hit her as she was pulling her bowstring. Feeling somewhat irritated because she had yet to adjust her exertion, she narrowed her eyes while re-orienting herself, then loosened her pull on the bowstring.
[Forty-five seconds left for <
>, sixty seconds left for <<Haste>>.]
While Eunice was inwardly sorting out the durations of her support skills by the seconds, Barbara was facing off against ten Skeletons. Diniel, seeing that Diniel was taking quite a lot of hits, nocked her arrows and shot three of the Skeletons, hitting their skulls in quick succession.
Eunice, afraid of accidentally hitting a monster again, shot out a <
> for Barbara thirty seconds in advance this time. The shot had been made to travel somewhat slower to guarantee that it would land on Barbara when she stopped moving; it overrode the effect’s remaining twenty seconds, resetting the clock to a full minute.
With how support skills’ durations worked, the overwritten twenty seconds of the <
> effect was practically wasted. It would not be much of a problem if it happened only once or twice, but added up, it would make a difference of one full cast or more. As such, a basic rule of effectively utilizing support skills was to not waste more than sixty seconds.
Eunice shot a <<Haste>> for Diniel as well, but the latter’s constant movement, even when slowed down, required her to pay a fair bit of attention to direct the shot properly. The slowed shot took some time to connect on Diniel.
By now, Diniel’s previous <<Haste>> had already expired for three seconds. One moment she felt her body grow heavy, and then lighter again the next moment. This affected the speed at which he could draw her bowstring and shoot while running; with an irritated groan, she reached into her quiver-like Magic Bag.
[<<Haste>>, sixty. And Protect…]
“Sorry! I need healing here!” Barbara suddenly called out to Eunice.
She had been taking far more hits now than she had in the previous battle, partially due to Diniel’s attacks being disrupted by her fluctuating sense of speed. Eunice did as Barbara asked, preparing to cast <<Heal>>.
“<<Heal>>,” Eunice shot the spell with her staff pointed at Barbara.
The sphere moved slower the closer it got to Barbara, and once she stopped moving, the shot sped up to land on her back. The issue now was that Barbara’s injured spot was her arm. The healing would still take effect from hitting her back, of course, but landing directly on the injuries would be more effective.
[Haste… thirty? And Protect? Gah, damn it! I forgot!]
Barbara, still aching somewhat on her arm, was about to call for another <<Heal>>, but then she saw how annoyed Eunice was and decided not to say anything.
When the arrows from Diniel’s bow pierced the skulls of the Skeletons, the bones that formed their human models crumbled apart and fell to the ground. Within the next ten seconds, however, they congregated together again to form new human shapes; the reconstructed Skeletons pressed lightly on their head with both hands as if adjusting their replaced skull.
One of the newly-reconstructed Skeletons faced Barbara, while the other headed for Eunice. Although Barbara’s mental energy was not an issue, she had just used <<Combat Cry>> moments ago. Eunice was forced to raise her staff at the Skeleton herself.
“<<Holy>>.”
A strong pillar of light rose up from the ground and purified the skeleton that had come towards Eunice. Tsutomu was going to stand back and watch whatever happened, but he felt the need to set Eunice’s course of action back onto the right track.
“Eunice! We’re in a training session, so don’t try to beat the enemies up by yourself!”
Despite hearing him loud and clear, Eunice ignored Tsutomu’s words as she proceeded to cast <
> and <<Haste>> for her teammates, seeing that both their effects had already expired by now. The battle continued for another twenty minutes with the only spoken words being the names of skills, ending when Barbara reached her limit, at which point Tsutomu intervened and had the party withdraw from the Team Graveyard.
Eunice had not demonstrated her mastery of team fighting concepts at all — she had accidentally hit monsters with support and healing skills, let support skills on her allies run out, did not heal enough to stay in the comfortable range, and had failed to manage the enemies’ aggro on her on the basic level. It was particularly bad towards the end, when there were signs that her shot had taken a half-vapour like form, and by then, she had also given up on trying to count the skills’ durations by the seconds. And as a party, Eunice and Diniel’s respective frustrations had combined to create an uncomfortable atmosphere — it was, in a sense, a perfect score… at creating the worst situation possible.
Eunice’s yellow tail was hanging down, in a contrast to how it usually stood up so energetically, as if she was aware of what she had done wrong this time. Barbara looked dispirited as she laid on the ground, and Diniel looked as sleepy as ever, but also subtly unsatisfied.
“All right, I think we ought to call it a day for now! Good work, everyone!” Tsutomu declared in a cheerful voice, sounding somewhat forced to sound excited.
“Right,” Diniel only gave a curt reply.