Chapter 68: Premature Ambition

At Rook's signal, Stephanie cast <<Protect>> for the team's Tanks, namely Bittman and the Golem, then put her left hand behind her back and began counting the time. Rook, before jumping off his Golem's shoulder, instructed it to charge at the Rock Beetles.

"<<Haste>>."

Stephanie then waved her staff like a conductor stick to make it shoot <<Haste>> to the Golem. This time, she tapped her left foot on the ground, using the rhythm to count the time by the seconds.

Bittman used <<Combat Cry>> to generate aggro from all enemies, making himself their sole target, and in the meantime, Sova readied his long sword and cut his way into the fray. One after another, his blade plunged through the Rock Beetles' rugged heads.

Although Bittman's equipment loadout included a bulkier-than-average shield and sword, his movements were refined and steady. With nimble dodges, he avoided the Rock Beetles' attacks while also parrying their pincers with his sword.

His fighting style, as showcased here, was quite similar to Garm's before the latter had switched over to the tower shield. But unlike Garm, whose style had been self-taught through his days exploring God's Dungeon, Bittman's methods were based on his decade-long experience of serving as a soldier.

Other Dungeons had existed for centuries before God's Dungeon had appeared, and the monsters that gushed forth from within them were a threat to humanity. Armies were formed as a measure to counter them on such frequent occasions, and Bittman used to be one such participant.

He had started out as a common grunt, trained himself through many Dungeon raids, and taken up the tasks of hunting monsters to stabilize their threat levels. After surviving the job for ten years, Bittman had retired from soldiering at the request of his pregnant wife. From then on, he had opted to explore God's Dungeon, wherein his life was no longer at stake.

With all the experience and knowledge he had gained from fighting the monsters of the other Dungeons, he operated as a stable, ideal role model of a soldier in here — namely, one that basically did not let himself bear injuries. And at the same time, he also possessed the base strength to attack monsters on his own, having always needed to be able to do so.

In contrast to Garm, the former berserk Knight who slaughtered one monster after another without any regard for the danger to his life, this was a Knight who defended himself while inflicting pain to his enemies. Such was how Bittman worked.

He had no trouble against the Rock Beetles, what with him having already seen them in one of the other Dungeons, and was now holding the line against several of them while keeping himself a comfortable distance away. And with an extra shield at his side in the form of the Eidolon Golem, the line was nowhere near collapsing.

Meanwhile, Sova started striking the Rock Beetles with his long sword, throwing them off-posture and then stabbing their exposed faces. One after another, the Rock Beetles dropped dead and dispersed into white light particles.

"<<Haste>>," Stephanie reapplied the speed buff effect for the Golem, staying calm all the while.

Then, after about ten more seconds, she quickly waved her staff to cast two <<Protect>> shots, one for Bittman and one for the Golem. This time, too, she kept a perfect count of the effects' durations.

Eventually, the battle ended, without any particular incident. The earthen Golem Eidolon had taken a few hits, but each time Stephanie would cast <<Heal>> by tapping it with the tip of her staff, restoring its body back to being good as new.

The party went on to face more Rock Beetles, then some small dinosaur-like monsters called Guiltor, and also lava-coated Golems, all of which they got past without issue.

It was thanks in good part to Bittman's Tanking consistency and Sova's precision in defeating the monsters. Stephanie had never let her allies' <<Protect>> effects expire, and each time Bittman had been hit, she would always quickly set down an <<Area Heal>> then shot a <<Heal>> to him.

Rook did his part, too, keeping an eye on all of the party and assisting as needed. When the Tank looked to be having a hard time, he would send over his Golem, and if the Attacker needed some extra firepower, he would summon some more Eidolons to provide support. All in all, Ealdred Crow's party was so well-rounded that it could be considered almost perfect.

[These guys... do they even need my help at this point?]

Although Tsutomu could see areas for improvement from looking closely at everyone, those were just small nitpicks. It was especially difficult for him to find the Tank and Attacker's flaws to point out. Bittman was as good as anyone would expect, but even Sova, for all the whining he had done at the press conference — and despite how grumpy he still looked now, was moving perfectly in line with the Tank.

After a few more battles, the party of five found the Black Gate to the sixty-second layer, which they went through immediately. They then returned to the Guild to take a break.

Once they found themselves a seat in the Guild's Dining Hall, Rook turned to smile to Tsutomu and asked for his comments on the team's performance.

"So? How does my party look so far?"

"...I don't have anything specific to comment on. Everyone is highly skilled," Tsutomu replied to Rook, albeit looking somewhat reluctant to do so.

Being a sufficiently experienced White Mage himself, he actually had a myriad of nitpicks when it came to Stephanie, but having kept in mind that it had been just a month and a half, he considered her performance to be relatively excellent.

"How do you like Stephanie? Relatively to your ability standards, I mean," Rook asked, prompting Stephanie to stiffen up like a criminal under interrogation.

"......" Stephanie held her breath and waited for Tsutomu's response.

With her stare practically forcing him, Tsutomu began to talk after a good deal of hesitation,

"I usually give harsh evaluations to my peers, naturally, but your performance thus far has been good, Stephanie. I never would've expected anyone to be on this level after just six weeks at most."

"...Actually, I've been practicing the long-ranged <<Heal>> since three months ago, on one of our informants' recommendations."

"Huh? That early?"

"What? Oh, yeah, about that... our informants have been observing you on the Monitors pretty early on — like, back when you were on the Monitors around #30. From the data we got, we found out that your <<Heal>> shots' healing power scale differently from the normal type, and we ran a lot of tests from there."

"That sounds pretty awesome, Ealdred Crow having that kind of information network and all..."

"We've got enough informants to keep an eye on most of the Monitors at any given time, you know. Can't let the smallest details slip by — not to mention promising newcomers!"

Rook snorted smugly, then chugged down the fruit juice from his cup immediately as it was served. While Tsutomu was stuck being impressed by the informant network, Stephanie gave him an uneasy look, prompting him to return to the topic at hand.

"Even from three months' worth of practice, your skills are excellent, Stephanie. As far as I could see, at least."

Stephanie had made her operations more cost-efficient by setting an <<Area Heal>> only when she needed to heal someone, and she had a good grasp of the duration of <<Protect>>. Moreover, she had already started to add <<Haste>> to the mix.

She had occasionally shot <<Haste>> for Rook's Golem Eidolon during battle. Although the effect had not been kept constant, the target she had applied it to was a Golem without a will of its own. They would not feel the discomfort of their body adjusting to a new speed level after <<Haste>> expired, let alone feel anything at all. This also meant that Stephanie could practice <<Haste>> without worry, speeding up her progress.

Still, despite being told that, Stephanie smiled only briefly before closing her eyes and shaking her head.

"Thank you very much. But I still have a long way to go..."

"Are you saying that Tsutomu's assessment was wrong, hmm?" Rook asked with a teasing grin, rendering Stephanie at a loss for words.

Tsutomu snappingly turned to look at Rook as if to say that the latter was playing around too much. Stephanie, on the other hand, looked at Tsutomu as if to ask for his help.

"Mister Tsutomu."

"...Um, you won't achieve anything by looking at me like that. Besides, I don't think there's any need for you to be so humble, Stephanie. You're among Ealdred Crow's main party because of your abilities, after all."

"...And I'll be overtaken soon anyway. I may be in the main force now, but next month, I may very well drop to the reserves, or even the second reserves."

Tsutomu looked at Rook, but the latter only shook his head. The Clan's reserve Healers were excellent as well, but at this point in time, Stephanie was considered the best one they had. This decision had been by a combined evaluation of the informants, office staff, and also other Clan members, so it was as legitimate as it could be.

Such was how Stephanie had been promoted to a member of the main force. Half of her was happy about it, while her other half was worried — worried that she would be demoted the following month. In a way, she was not yet prepared for the change from being the pursuer to the pursued.

As such, Stephanie had taken her evaluation seriously, and insisted on being humble. This humble attitude of hers had not been taken well by the reserve Healers, however. And if she were to take it too far, all it would achieve was cause friction in their dynamics.

To prevent that, Rook had asked Tsutomu to praise Stephanie, what with her holding him in such high regards, in an attempt to help her build up confidence.

"As such, I know that I must be more diligent. I'm happy that you have evaluated me favorably, Mister Tsutomu, but I still have so much that needs improvement."

But that attempt ended in failure. Despite receiving Tsutomu's evaluation, Stephanie was not yet confident in her own abilities. Rook heaved a sigh, and next to him, Sova grumbled to himself how difficult of a personality Stephanie was.

Tsutomu, on the other hand, opened wide his normally narrowed eyes.

Considering how Stephanie had self-taught herself over the past three months, there was never a sliver of doubt about her excellence. Even if she were to be left to her own devices from now on, she was sure to improve herself further. As such, Tsutomu had initially intended not to teach her anything.

That changed, however, when he saw how well she knew about her lack of ability and how hard she lamented that fact. Stephanie was excellent, true, but only by the standards of beginners. Tsutomu now had so many things he wanted to teach Stephanie; he raised a cheerful voice to her, who was now stuck looking down,

"I see you're quite ambitious, Stephanie! That's wonderful! Now, all you have to do is practice and practice some more! Please wait a moment — I'll get out my memo here..."

Tsutomu, after being served his bean-tomato soup by a waiter, began searching through his Magic Bag. Seeing how the look in Tsutomu's eyes had changed so suddenly, Stephanie was stuck staring in amazement, while Rook also seemed quite surprised.

"First of all, could you look through all of this real quick?"

"...And this is?"

"It's a list of all monsters currently known to appear in the Volcano biome, and information about the Jobs of your Clan's current main force members. For now, please read all of this. I think it'll prove to be useful."

"A-all of this...? Yes, I understand."

Stephanie, seeing just how much paper was stacked onto the table, found her face twitching instinctively. The documents had not been handwritten by Tsutomu, but rather printed by a newspaper company; it was a compilation of information, written using his knowledge of Live Dungeon. As one would expect, new information past the current layer of progress had been compiled by himself, while older data had been reproduced from other sources by the newspaper company via his request.

Tsutomu proceeded to cast <<Heal>> a few times, generating spheres of energy and spinning them in the air above his head.

"Now, about your <<Heal>>, Stephanie — your direction of them is still largely unrefined, and the shots' speed is too slow. Please practice by spinning them around at this speed."

"Y-yes."

Stephanie stared at how the several <<Heal>> shots were flying above Tsutomu's head, and saw taken aback by how fast they were.

"And your supporter skills... it seems that you haven't gotten the timing down quite yet. Please start with the basics — just <<Protect>> is fine."

"Ah... I'm working on that, yes."

"No, that's not it. You were counting the time with your hands and feet, weren't you?"

"I was. Is that an issue?"

"Your hand-count times were off by a few seconds, and your feet were even worse. It's still fine at this point to re-apply <<Protect>> with twenty seconds to spare, but the issue comes into play when trying to decrease that time while counting like that. You'd best fix that incorrect timing now than suffer for it later."

"...Yes, I understand."

"Fortunately, the time displays on the Monitors are perfectly accurate, so you can look at them while counting the time with your hand and feet. Not that you need to use your hand and feet, by the way — I don't do that myself."

"......"

"To summarize: start working on <<Heal>> and <<Protect>> first. And don't worry — your time-counting will likely take more than a month to fix, but you should get better at it gradually. Also, I'd say that <<Heal>> will take up only a week and then some, so you probably won't get dropped to the reserves come the next evaluation, at least," Tsutomu explained, and all the while he did so, he noted down every detail on a piece of paper.

"Ah, yes."

"Good. Now, here's a detailed summary of the practices you need. Whenever you think you have free time, consider working on these."

Tsutomu handed over the notes that he had just written, and Stephanie accepted it nervously.

"Mm-hm, Ealdred Crow is even more amazing than I expected, I say! I'd never thought everyone was so ambitious — now my bar of expectations are up by a fair bit!"

"C-cool," Rook replied curtly, horrified by how Tsutomu's previously gentle atmosphere had been blown away by an instant and replaced by something quite indescribable.

[...He's just like my mentor.]

Bittman trembled subtly, having been reminded of the person who had whipped his childhood self into fighting shape.