Chapter 63 - Signs of Improvement (2/2)

“<<Combat Cry>>.”

Eunice then cast a buff for Barbara, followed by Diniel nocking an arrow and Barbara activating her aggro-generating skill. All of the Skeletons turned their attention to the latter.

This time, Eunice did not cast <<Haste>> for Diniel, focusing exclusively on supporting Barbara. The standard duration of <

> was ninety seconds, and with only one target to keep an eye on, Eunice was able to maintain the effect without any issue. In the two days of Tsutomu’s absence, she had focused on Barbara during their training as well.

Barbara, being the Tank, was one to take on all of the Skeletons’ attacks, withstanding them with her high VIT. In this way, the damage of the entire party could be reduced, and the Healer, Eunice, could concentrate on healing only one target.

Additionally, the Attacker, Diniel, was not exposed to the monsters’ attacks, enabling her to maximize her attack output without as much need to defend herself. The difference was quite significant between trying to fire arrows while having to avoid monsters’ attacks and being free to attack without being targeted. The latter case gave the Attacker more mental space to process the situation as well.

Diniel’s arrows were piercing through more and more Skeletons. The battle situation was so stable that she was almost bored to tears.

After some time, half of the Skeletons were destroyed by Diniel. The monsters promptly put themselves back together, resetting their aggro values. Eunice waited to confirm that all of them had fully reconstructed, then…

“Barbara! <<Combat Cry>>, please!” She instructed the Tank in combat to use the skill at the right timing.

“<<Combat Cry>>,” Barbara did as told, gathering all of the Skeletons’ aggro onto herself once more.

Tsutomu saw that there were still some things that needed improvement, such as the number of seconds wasted on <

> and the timings of <<Heal>>, but he considered that they had already gotten the basics down.

[Looking good.]

And even though their form was rudimentary still, it was infinitely a more comfortable scene to watch compared to last time. Another major factor was that the three had been diligently training for the past two days, so they had gotten to know one another’s moves well.

Tsutomu let them keep fighting for another thirty minutes, and then, seeing that there were no particular issues, he called off the battle and had the three gather around.

“Very good — a significant improvement. And you seem to be able to handle the Skeletons without any issue now, Barbara.”

“R-really? Then are we up against the Orcs next!?”

“No, we’ll just add the Skeleton Archers to the mix for now. The Orcs will be after that.”

“Got it!”

With Barbara nodding in satisfaction, Tsutomu proceeded to turn to Eunice to see that she was tensing up, seeming quite nervous. Although distracted by how her fox tail was moving suspiciously, Tsutomu started pointing out what he had observed of her performance,

“You’re getting the basics down, Eunice. I can see that you’ve been training these past two days, what with your movements being so much better.”

“…Of course I have been.”

As she listened, Eunice had quite a stern expression on her face, but the way her tail was wagging suggested that she was relatively happy. Even Diniel’s eyes were following along as the tail swayed from side to side.

[This girl…]

Tsutomu was reminded of Eunice’s expression of indifference when he had praised her a little some time earlier. At the time, he had thought it was a misunderstanding, but…

“Still, you’re wasting too many seconds on <

>. Sometimes you even renewed the effect while the old effect still has as much as forty seconds left. Please try to lower it to thirty at most.”

“I know.”

Eunice’s expression was the same as before; what was different was her tail, now dangling down in low spirits. Diniel’s eyes still followed the tail, this time looking downward.

[Could she be the type to get better the more she gets praised…?]

Having initially been certain that Eunice was just a grumpy fox, Tsutomu was quite surprised, and now felt the need to re-evaluate his attitude toward her going forward.

After that, the three let the Skeleton Archers spawn and tried fighting them, but Barbara was not used to dealing with arrows, so she was hit by consecutive critical attacks and collapsed. Eunice was too focused on supporting to manage the aggro on her, and ended up taking a few arrows to her unprotected head, then being rushed down by the Skeletons and quickly dying.

With this being his first time seeing a party member die so inadvertently, Tsutomu felt somewhat bitter… but he was also excited to cast <<Raise>> for Eunice. A radiant pillar gushed out from the White Staff into the sky, and along with it, light particles gathered onto the ground.

Following that, Eunice came back to life, lying on her back in the default crude flaxen clothes. Tsutomu, while impressed by the magic, noticed that all of the monsters’ aggro was now on him. There was no need for him to defend himself, however, since Diniel made quick work of them.

“…That’s the first time I’ve been revived.”

Eunice shook her head to clear her drowsiness, then scrambled to collect her removed padded clothes and light armor, and slapped on just the armor on top of her crude clothes before rushing back into the battle.

[Must be hard, being a girl and all,] Tsutomu thought to himself upon seeing Eunice scramble to re-equip herself.

Perhaps it was either because of the lack of padded clothes, or her not equipping the pieces properly, but the light armor just did not look right on her now. She could not afford to stop and swap out the crude clothes for her proper padded ones, however, so she just had to deal with it.

In fact, back when God’s Dungeon had first appeared, female Explorers changing clothes post-revival was quite a serious problem. There was not enough time for one to prepare a changing tent, and one’s clothes — be it fur, linen, or nylon — would be unequipped as well. It was already an issue for men, but for women it was several times worse; add the broadcasting God Eyes to the mix, and it was a disaster for the revived to re-equip themselves.

The particular problem had prompted female Explorers to carry out a series of experiments. As a result, it had been discovered that all clothes and equipment originating in the Dungeon, as well as other items that were deemed highly defensive such as leather, metal pieces, and thick fabric and animal fur, would be removed.

Objects with no defensive properties such as thin fabric and cotton, on the other hand, would stay on. As such, the culture of wearing underwear had grown rapidly in Dungeon City, fueled by the overwhelming demand from women, leading to the production of elaborate items without defensive properties.

“Ahem,” Tsutomu coughed to clear his throat, pulling his senses together and breaking his stare away from Eunice, and continued to watch over the three fight against the Skeletons and Skeleton Archers.