Chapter 172: A Visit from Old Friends

"Coooooomin' through!!"

"Oh, she's here."

Early in the morning, Tsutomu recognized the cheerful voice coming from the front door, so he told Ollie to welcome them in. Today was a day off, so all Clan members except Xeno were present in the Clan House. Tsutomu figured this would be a good chance to introduce them, so he had everyone gather in the living room.

The two new arrivals were then guided to the living room by Ollie. Amy, the white-haired Aelurkin with a large Magic Bag slung over her shoulder, cracked an ear-to-ear smile as soon as she saw Tsutomu.

"AMY'S IN THE HOUSE, BABY!!"

"Welcome. Put your luggage upstairs for now, then I'll introduce you to everyone."

"Gotcha!"

Amy was so full of energy that she seemed ready to explode at any moment as she went up with Ollie to the second floor.

"Yah-ho, Dini!"

"Ahoy."

On the way, Amy met Diniel — who looked as unmotivated as ever — and gave her a high-five.

After seeing Amy off, Tsutomu turned to the other visitor — a woman with distinctive white-furred rabbit ears — and gave her a look of suspicion.

"W-what's that look for!? Am I not welcome here or something!?"

"Ah, no, I was just expecting Garm and not... you know, you. What brings you here, Lorena?"

"I happened to bump into Amy while taking a walk in town, so I just kind of tagged along."

That was the Conykin Lorena, a member of Silver Beast; she was considered one of the three best Healers in town.

Blushing a little, she put her hands behind her head. Then her expression quickly changed as she rushed up to Tsutomu.

"And, well, I did say you could visit us whenever you wanted — but you never showed up! So I figured I'd come over here instead!"

"Ah. I thought you said that just to be polite."

"That wasn't it at all! Look, just give me at least some idea when your free days are! I'll drop by to hang out, whether you like it or not!"

Tsutomu took a few steps back as her long rabbit ears were about to poke his face, then looked up for a brief moment as he thought about his schedule.

"I guess there's... tomorrow, and the same day next week."

"Well, I'm coming again tomorrow, then! See you!!"

With a wink and a flick of one of her rabbit ears, Lorena turned on her heel and walked out of the Clan House. Tsutomu grumbled to himself, wondering why that had to happen in the first place. Shortly after, Amy returned to the living room now that she had left her luggage in her room. When Tsutomu walked up to her, everyone turned their attention to her as if she was a transfer student.

"All right. Let's get on with the introductions, then."

"Here comes Amy, over the big screens to youuuuuu!!"

Korinna and Hannah, well aware of Amy's reputation as a local idol of sorts, were quick to give her a round of applause, while the others were deadpan. Ollie's apprentice seemed to have heard of Amy, too, as she seemed excited, like she got to meet a celebrity.

"Amy's a Dualblader, so she'll be joining us as an Attacker. Garm is supposed to be here later today, too, so I'm thinking we should go to the Dungeon after that to familiarize ourselves again. Be on standby until then, Amy."

"Aye-aye! C'mon, Dini, we gotta decorate my room together!"

"Uh..."

As she had not unpacked yet, Amy demanded help from Diniel before bolting upstairs by herself. Diniel, although narrowing her eyes with reluctance at first, happily followed her.

"Ohh... THE Amy, in the flesh! It feels like I'm dreaming!"

"Yeah... Is this real life, or is this just fantasy!? I might even get to be on the same team as her..."

Korinna and Hannah, having seen Amy quite often on the Monitors, were deeply moved by her arrival. Leleia and Amira barely had any reaction, perhaps due to them not being so familiar with her, while Daryl seemed somewhat frightened due to having been treated coldly by her on several occasions.

"Ah, Leleia. Please make me a <<Contract>> for today."

"All right. <<Contract — Undine>>."

These days, Tsutomu had been contracting with the Undine, who increased his mental energy rating by one letter grade, and had been experimenting with how to act under such contracts. Still, he had to have Leleia on his team whenever he wanted to do this, since the contract would be canceled if he were to enter the Dungeon without her.

The Undine, in the form of a Slime-like blob, landed on Tsutomu's hand and was then put into a pocket in Tsutomu's robe. It had taken so much of a liking to that particular pocket that it slipped in without question these days, seeming to consider it a home base of sorts.

Tsutomu had also gotten to try contracting with the fairy-like Sylph and the red lizard-like Salamander, though not so frequently since Leleia would more often use them herself. On the other hand, he had never tried Gnome before, as contracting with it raised VIT, a status Tsutomu did not necessarily need. Leleia had once said that the Gnome was sad to be left out, but there was not really anything he could do about it.

[Let's see... who should Amy team up with?]

The safe choice would be her old friend Diniel, maximizing their synergy as fellow Attackers, but there were many other combinations worth considering. Tsutomu would like to see how well she worked with Amira and Leleia in particular.

As for the Tanks, he was sure she would go well with Hannah, while her compatibility with the others was still uncertain to him. She had almost always been at odds with Garm, and would sometimes give his apprentice Daryl the cold treatment. It was completely unknown if she would vibe with Xeno at all, though Tsutomu thought that to be unlikely.

As for Korinna in particular, Amy had already gotten to team up with Channelers while working for the Guild, so there was no doubt they would work well together — though to be sure, they would have to try first.

Tsutomu, while waiting for Garm to arrive at the Clan House, continued laying out various party structures that he had thought of in advance.

―▽▽―

The Clan House's doorbell rang in the afternoon. Ollie went out to welcome the arrivals and brought them to the living room.

One of them was the indigo blue-haired Cynokin Garm, who was to join Absolute Helix today. The other, standing behind him, was Weiss, leader of the Scarlet Devil Squad... who was here for reasons unknown.

Weiss — the man famous for clearing Dungeons by himself in the time before the emergence of God's Dungeon. The strange aura about him caused Korinna, Hannah, and Daryl's hearts to skip a beat. Tsutomu, struck with a dash of déjà vu, ended up letting out a dry chuckle.

"We weren't expecting so many guests today."

"Sorry. He insisted that he wanted to come with me, so I let him. Apparently, he needs to talk to you, Tsutomu."

"......"

Weiss, now standing beside Garm, bowed to everyone. When Tsutomu asked what was the matter, Weiss looked back with his usual sharp eyes.

"...Alma said she wanted to apologize to you in person. Do you have some time to spare?"

"Hmm... How about tomorrow evening? If that's not a good time, we could find another time next week, too."

"...That is a good time. I'll come to pick you up. Thank you," Weiss said and bowed again, then immediately left the Clan House.

Hannah and Korinna, having been stunned by Weiss' sudden appearance, let out a sigh of relief.

"Holy moly, he's so scary..."

"You can say that again. Now that I got to see the real deal, though... man, he's so cool..."

While the two whispered to each other, Tsutomu told Garm to leave his luggage on the second floor. Then, after having him introduce himself to everyone, they proceeded to have lunch, with Xeno also joining them.

One after another, plates of food were placed on the table — which was now surrounded by enough chairs to accommodate everyone. The seats were gradually filled; including Ollie and her apprentice, a total of ten people surrounded the table.

"All right, let's eat."

"Yup!" Amy said in response to Tsutomu next to her. Everyone else then nodded in unison, picked up their forks, and proceeded to work away at their respective plates.

Garm and Daryl started with a large portion of spaghetti, while Amy had herself a fish dish. Diniel and Hannah went for the lighter appetizers.

"This is great!!"

The food was tailored to each individual member's tastes — seafood dishes for Amy, and desserts for the sweet-toothed Garm. Tsutomu was surprised by Ollie's work, wondering since when had she looked into this. Amy then turned to him,

"This is exactly the kinda stuff I like! You didn't prepare these yourself, did you?"

"No, I didn't..."

"Yes, Miss Amy. Mister Tsutomu has informed me of your preferences, enabling me to prepare the food accordingly."

"I knew it! Thanks a bunch, Tsutomu! And this tastes super good, Miss Ollie!"

Amy proceeded to resume eating her seared fish. Tsutomu looked at Ollie, who then only smiled back at him, prompting him to go with the flow. He then put down his fork and took a sip of water.

From then, chatters centered around Amy and Garm started, and lasted longer than even the meal itself. Hannah, Korinna, and Xeno were especially talkative, making it a conversation dominated by those five.

By the time most of the food was finished, Garm ate a cream puff and got some cream stuck on his nose, which Tsutomu pointed out to him.

"Oh. Thanks," he replied.

Amy, rubbing her belly with satisfaction, turned to Tsutomu.

"Hey, we're going to the Dungeon after this, right? I wanna go with you!"

"Good timing. I was thinking I'd like to bring you and Garm along, for old times' sake."

"Yay!"

Tsutomu had seen Garm and Amy teaming up with each other as part of Guild work on several occasions. Still, it had been a long time since he last went exploring with them, so he would like to take this chance to re-coordinate their moves.

"As for the rest of my team..."

"Aye-aye! I want Dini!"

"Definitely not her."

"Huh!? Why!?"

"Because she's too strong — and you already know each other. We should bring people you're not familiar with, for you to know one another better. Oh, by the way, Daryl's also out for a similar reason."

"Huh!?"

Daryl, having been too busy recently to visit Garm, expected to get to party up with him, but then Tsutomu's statement just went and rained over his parade. Hannah gave him a pat on the shoulder.

Garm looked at Hannah, then turned back to Tsutomu.

"You know, Tsutomu, it would be interesting to party up with the evasion-based Tank."

"Is that so? We'll go with Hannah, then."

"O-okay, Teach. Sorry, Daryl," Hannah said awkwardly, having attempted to cheer Daryl up just moments ago.

"Oh, it's all right," he replied.

Contrary to his words, however, his tail was lowered even more, indicating that his mood was even more deflated than before.

"And the second Attacker... Hmm, Leleia should be good. I happen to want to test out some things, too."

"Understood."

Leleia nodded. Her general performance and Tsutomu's compatibility with her Spirit Contracts had seen great improvement over the past two months, making the two quite an effective combination.

And so, with the addition of Garm and Amy, they would be exploring the Snow Field layers today.

"Looks like we're all set. The rest of you, feel free to spend the rest of the day however you like."

"Yes, sir..."

"C'mon, no need to be so down," Tsutomu said.

"Pathetic," Garm added.

"Did you really need to be that harsh!?"

Cornered by Tsutomu and Garm, Daryl lashed back in reflex, but then Garm persuaded him to stand down easily enough. With tears in his eyes, Daryl proceeded to help out with cleaning the dishes.