Chapter 70: Trash Party

"Hello, everyone. We'll be in your care today."

"...Hello," the three Explorers gave an utterly unenthusiastic reply.

These people were among the lowest-evaluated members of Ealdred Crow. Lacking in both ability and motivation, they were on the list of those who would be suggested to leave the Clan, come the next evaluation.

No matter how good Ealdred Crow's informants were, they still would end up recruiting untalented individuals from time to time. These members, failing to keep up with the rest of the Clan soon after they had joined up, and ignoring the office staffs' efforts to persuade them, have become apathetic to their situation and neglected their efforts.

Only this current request was what kept them in the Clan, but soon enough, they would be asked again to leave. Their faces were painted with emotions of resignation. Stephanie, confused at the sight of them, turned to ask Tsutomu,

"Mister Tsutomu? These people are...?"

"The party members appointed for us by Rook, yes. Today's afternoon training will involve teaming up with them and start exploring from layer twenty-one, aiming for layer twenty-nine. It sure would be nice if we were able to vanquish the Layer Boss in a single run, wouldn't it?"

"That is quite..."

...Impossible from the outset, was what Stephanie would have said, had she not swallowed her words back down first. She could already tell from a distance just how unmotivated they were — one among them was a Dualblader, a Job so versatile that it was considered a blessing from God, yet this individual was deprived of any enthusiasm, sitting down cross-legged on the ground. The other two were a Paladin and a Dark Knight, both of whom had made excuses with their unfortunate Job type, and had never exerted any effort in their work.

They lacked motivation. The one thing that was practically accounted for in everything. The office workers were the ones in charge of the Explorers' performance quota; if one at least showed some motivation, even if they failed to fulfill their quotas, the workers may have permitted a discussion for some reduction or alteration. The informants were kind enough to provide information to those who took the initiative to ask, too, and all the others in the myriad support roles were always there to help.

Yet, they neglected to work hard, instead simply basking in the sense of security and accomplishment that came with joining the major clan called Ealdred Crow. They had not realized that this was no finish line, but merely the beginning of everything; the longer they slacked off, the gap between them and their peers grew wider and wider. Once they had realized the difference, they had become so shocked that they gave up even trying.

All three members were still under level thirty — not even at the cap of forty permitted to those who had reached the Swamp, and they had only skimmed over the materials on the three-role composition that Ealdred Crow had given them. With three of such excess baggage in tow, it would be quite impossible for even a major Clan's Leader to claim victory over a Layer Boss.

"Well, let's go get our party registered, then. Stephanie, you'll be the leader, and also the Healer — act as you see fit. Can you take over from this moment on?"

"...Yes," Stephanie agreed to Tsutomu's orders, refraining from verbally questioning whether it would be a good idea to train with such low-quality personnel. She held blind respect for him, and knew that he would never propose such a project without thinking things through.

Stephanie had first known of Tsutomu from one of Solit Company's newspapers, and afterwards an informant had recommended him to her via some detailed notes that summarized his Monitor footage, which had greatly piqued her interest. Once she had gotten to take a look herself, she had been surprised by how Tsutomu acted when partied up with Garm and Camille. Long-ranged healing. A defender that never died. But what had surprised her most was how a White Mage was the one who stood out.

At the time, While Mages were expected to only cast support skills at the start of a fight and then hide themselves for the rest of the time. But Tsutomu was different — at first, Stephanie had scoffed at this prominence, thinking he had been abusing his reputation at the 'Lucky Boy' to do whatever he pleased, but once she had gotten to watch a broadcast, she had immediately realized how incorrect that was.

Even when looked at from the outside perspective, the party members, Garm and Camille, were full of energy — they were having fun. The sight had prompted Stephanie to wonder if that was how a party would look if the members were left to their own devices.

From that point on, Stephanie would go from time to time to look at the Monitors on which Tsutomu was shown, eventually witnessing the battle against the Fire Dragon and getting quite fascinated by Tsutomu's strategies. She wanted to be like that, too — to support the party, survive to the end, and share the joy of Dungeon exploration with everyone else. She had begun to feel a strong desire for a change in the mundane status quo. And then, once the second Fire Dragon battle rolled around, Stephanie had been completely captivated by Tsutomu.

[I'm sure he has something in mind. Something beyond my imagination.]

While making a blind affirmation for Tsutomu in her mind, she registered the party at the reception desk and entered the Magic Circle to transfer to the twenty-first layer.

And so began the exploration of the Dungeon's Swamp... which went just as bad as Stephanie had predicted. The Dualblader attacked without deliberation, and the two Tanks did not even know how to activate <<Combat Cry>>.

Naturally, all that resulted in the monsters' aggro piling up on Stephanie once she cast a few of her skills, forcing her to use <<Air Blades>> to pick them off while keeping up the support. After the battle, Stephanie glared especially indignantly at the two Tanks.

Tsutomu eventually got around to re-explaining the three-role composition to the three members, but at this point, Stephanie could no longer calm her inner emotions down. On the day of the press conference, Tsutomu had given all of the present Clans' members his documents, and had told them to read through the contents. Stephanie gripped her thin staff tightly, frustrated by how the three had failed to do even something so simple.

The Dungeon exploration continued on, with Stephanie still frequently targeted by monsters. Her being level 70, she could withstand the attacks of the Swamp monsters to some extent, but she was too distracted by all the chaos to concentrate properly.

Despite having no time to spare for casting support skills, Stephanie managed to keep her train of thoughts from derailing entirely, providing support and healing without much account for timing. But then, when one of the Tanks suddenly died, the battle's situation worsened further.

"<<Raise>>."

Stephanie's spell revived the Tank, but also caused all of the monsters' aggro to pile up on her. Seeing how slow the Tank was at re-equipping, Stephanie was about to lash out at her team right then and there, pointing her staff forward.

The exploration continued, with the Tank dying several times, and the Attacker once. Stephanie brought the three back to life and dealt with the monsters that attacked her, with Tsutomu frequently supplying her with Blue Potions to restore her mental strength.

"<<Heal>>."

Getting her arm lightly bruised by a Frogger's attack, Stephanie healed her arm before resuming support to the others... but then one of the Tanks died again. Stephanie was the one under attack from the monsters, yet the other Tank was too frightened to do anything, and the Attacker acted without regard for the team's formation.

Of the six hours spent exploring the Dungeon's Swamp, the team was only able to advance down one layer, and had to return to the Guild by Tsutomu's order.

After the whole ordeal, and once Stephanie saw the three others off back to the Clan House, she lethargically turned back to look at Tsutomu.

"Thank you for your hard work, Stephanie," he said to her.

"...It was hard, yes."

"And we'll be doing the same thing tomorrow, so please hang in there. Oh, and don't forget to train your skill direction whenever you have free time."

With Tsutomu saying all that so nonchalantly, Stephanie was utterly horrified, as if she had been plunged down to the bottom of a ravine.

This afternoon's six hours had been Stephanie's worst exploration experience; it was as if she had just partied up with some Goblins. The difference between those members and the Clan's main party was so great that even the relatively mild-mannered Stephanie could not help but occasionally click her tongue.

Stephanie's mind was swirling with doubt, whether doing this would mean anything, and whether it would be better to explore with the rest of the main party and deepen their cooperation, instead of forming a ragtag party with these low-level Explorers.

"Y-yes, I understand. We'll meet again tomorrow at nine, in the Guild, yes?"

"Yes. Be seeing you then."

Tsutomu, relieved by Stephanie's somewhat unexpected reply, proceeded to give her some words of thanks before leaving the Guild. Stephanie saw him off with a smiling face, but after he was out of the Guild, her expression turned gloomy.

――▽▽――

A week passed from then with Stephanie's training program seeing no significant changes. Believing in Tsutomu, she tried her best to wade her way through it all.

The mornings consisted mainly of the training of support skill timing and directing. This section was what could be considered a blessing for Stephanie — a good opportunity to listen to Tsutomu's stories and knowledge, and he would always give precise instructions and examples on how to visualize the maneuvers. She could feel that she was getting better at both the timing and direction, and that her skills were improving in general.

What she had issues with was the afternoon activities, the exploration of the Swamp with Ealdred Crow's worst Explorers.

Over the past week, the three Explorers had hardly improved at all. A natural outcome, what with them being utterly unmotivated — they would not act unless instructed, and even then, they would often fail to follow their instructions through. The Attacker, a Dualblader, was excessively prideful, often ignoring orders. The Paladin and Dark Knight, the former a man and the latter a woman, were always too frightened to act unless ordered to.

Stephanie, with Tsutomu watching over her, had tried desperately to keep calm and order her party while also supporting them. However, with the Attacker not following instructions and the Tanks being so weak-willed, the Healer often ended up being the one targeted by the monsters, forcing her to deal with the monsters herself.

Before this, Stephanie had been able to provide support without such dangers thanks to Bittman and Rook; such was the environment she had been practicing in up to now. As such, she was not at all used to providing support while being targeted by monsters, and now she had not even the time to create a rhythm with her limbs. Because of all that, she naturally could do little in the way of support now.

All the while, Tsutomu would watch from a slight distance and offered almost no input, a complete change from how he would act in the mornings. He hadn't spoken to the three others since the first time he had re-taught them the three-role composition, and most of his interactions with Stephanie during these times were only him supplying Stephanie with Blue Potions whenever she was about to run on empty.

Stephanie had gone to hell and back in an attempt to gain some recognition from Tsutomu, her most respected instructor, but all she had achieved was embarrassing herself in front of him with her inability to keep up the directing of her support skills. That one particular thing had caused her a great deal of stress.

Still, this was mostly due to her party members, not errors on her part. She had been doing her very best — such was what she had thought, and continued to think more strongly as the days had gone by, and together with it was the accumulation of her rage toward the party members.

Today was the first time that Tsutomu, who had not moved a muscle until now, approached Stephanie for something other than resupplying her with Blue Potions. Her eyes sparkled, knowing that he was about to say something.

"Excuse me, Stepha-"

"Yes! What is it!?"

Stephanie promptly replied like a starving dog presented with fresh food, startling Tsutomu; regardless, the latter faintly smiled and began talking... about something not quite what Stephanie had been wanting to hear.

"I've been noticing that you haven't been using <<Raise>> as frequently. I did tell you to act as you saw fit, but please don't abandon your expected role as a Healer."

"Huh...?"

"Because if you do, you won't be any different from an Attacker, so I suppose the instruction needs some rephrasing — act as you see fit, as a Healer," Tsutomu said before simply turning away, resuming his distant post of watching over the party.

Stephanie saw him off, dumbfounded... and brought to her limit of stress tolerance.

All of the week spent, and all the party achieved was to reach the twenty-second layer. After today's exploration concluded and the party members went their separate ways, Stephanie stopped Tsutomu as he was about to leave.

"Mister Tsutomu."

"Yes, what is it?"

"Could it be that... you are an impostor?"

"Huh? No, I'm as Tsutomu as Tsutomu gets."

"......"

Stephanie gripped tightly the edge of her curly hair, asserting how much she did not want to hear what she had just heard. As Tsutomu watched on in silence, Stephanie proceeded to mutter to him,

"...So tell me, what were you thinking?"

"Come again?"

"What were you thinking!? What is the point of this training exercise!? I don't understand! What could it possibly achieve!?"

Stephanie suddenly ruffled her hair and screamed, as if she was losing her sanity. Her and Tsutomu being near the Guild's entrance, the other people in the vicinity promptly backed away and started whispering among themselves.

"Is this really YOUR training, Mister Tsutomu!? The REAL you, and not some impostor!?"

"I am the real me, yes. Also, I'd really appreciated it if you spoke a little more quietly."

"Your training program for the mornings was great! But the afternoons — something's clearly not right! What could it possibly achieve!? With that trash party!? I wasn't even training my support skills at all!!"

"You think? Now, there are times when a Healer needs to provide support even in such situations. That's what this part of your training is for."

"...Even for the Ealdred Crow's main party?"

"Hmm, I don't think they would find themselves in such situations very often, but it's still a yes."

"Of course they wouldn't! They're nowhere nearly as incompetent at those trash! It's not even a comparison!!"

As Stephanie kept running her mouth, Tsutomu stood by calmly.

"Things are sure to get more difficult from here on out — layer sixty-five, layer seventy, whatever. Parties are especially prone to breaking formation of layers they've never been to before — you should know that already."

"That's..."

"Oh, and also, I suppose I should apologize — I was expecting you to complain about that party after a day or two, but it seemed like you were taking them so well, so I... might have forgotten to turn things down before it got out of hand. I'm sorry that I didn't notice how much you were on edge before."

Tsutomu had already known full well that the appointed party was awful, after all, but contrary to his expectations, Stephanie had been surprisingly patient, not giving up on using support skills until five days in. Tsutomu had thought then that things might be alright like this, and as such had not said anything.

Stephanie kept on shouting at Tsutomu as he bowed down, and then once she calmed down and realized what she had been doing, she lowered her head as well.

"I-I see... I can understand that, now that we're on the same page! Apologies for my sudden rudeness!"

"Thank you, and again, I'm sorry. Might I assume that you are on board with this training program now?"

With Tsutomu's face in a perpetual smile, Stephanie could not bring herself to say anything back. In truth, she wanted not to be a Healer for this kind of party ever again, and she was already hearing her inner devil whispering to her to abandon her training. Moreover, it was quite likely that the main party was now using a replacement Healer, who must have been showing off their abilities during her absence. All in all, immediately returning to the main party seemed the more tempting option.

"Y-yes. I- I am."

But Stephanie managed to shake off her inner devil's whispers, and replied to Tsutomu, albeit on the verge of tears. Satisfied with her reply, Tsutomu took her out for a delicious dinner.