Chapter 73: Trial and Error

After the battle with the Queen Spider, the party returned to the Guild, at which Stephanie tried to talk to everyone else. But then the Attacker left immediately, saying he had something else to do. Tsutomu, after making eye contact with Stephanie, followed the Attacker out of the Guild.

The two Tanks said they were free, so Stephanie had them gather up at the Guild's Dining Hall and began an evaluative meeting about the battle they had just walked out of.

"The opening phase will be the same as before — I'll use <<Air Blades>> to intercept its surprise attack, then one of you will use <<Combat Cry>>. And also..."

"Looks like we still have much to work on... don't we?" Rigas said, his tone somber.

"......" Dorssia stayed silent, casting her eyes down.

For a moment, Stephanie was at a loss for words, but then managed to raise her voice to cheer them up,

"Please don't blame yourselves — today was the first Queen Spider encounter for both of you, and we still have three days left... Tomorrow we'll train, and then challenge the Boss again in the two remaining days."

"More training...?"

"To get you to avoid taking hits in your vital areas, yes."

So long as they didn't take critical hits, the two Tanks could withstand the enemy's attacks well enough with the buffing effect of <<Protect>>. Stephanie thought they were getting hit too much in their heads and faces, however, so she figured that they should work to fix that one point first.

"For starters, get used to dealing with those long legs. Shields are useless against the Spider's silk attacks, but should do their job against its leg strikes just fine."

"Understood."

Taking Stephanie's advice to avoid attacks to heart, the two Tanks had hardly used their shields during battle. Having noticed this behavior, Stephanie pointed it out and presented to them various other ideas.

"First off, Rigas... the Queen Spider's defenses are relatively squishy, so I reckon you could do some damage as well. If I remember correctly, the Dark Knight Job has a skill called... <<Enchant Blood>>, was it? Augment your sword with it, and each attack you land will also heal your wounds, so please use it and try getting some hits in."

"Yes! I understand!"

"And Dorssia, your movements were quite stiff. You might want to try relaxing your shoulders some more."

"I'm sorry. To be honest, I was... pretty... turned on."

[...Please don't talk about THAT again. Please.]

Stephanie pretended to not mind Dorssia's slightly stammering explanation, especially the last part. After a few more topics of discussion, it was late into the evening, so the three decided to split up for the day.

[As for me... what should I work on?]

Instead of going back to the Clan House with the two Tanks, Stephanie stayed in the Dining Hall; she looked down at the documents on her table and let out a sigh.

Thinking back, when Stephanie had been in the secondary parties, she was under the direction of the informants and the parties' respective Leaders, and in the Clan's main party, she would be under Rook's direct command. She was not at all used to being a party's Leader and deciding on its strategies, so the experience so far had left her quite mentally fatigued.

And up until now, she had been able to make do by improving her skills and directing the Tanks to do their jobs, just enough to get the team through the Swamps.

For the Swamps' Layer Boss, however, that approach clearly was no longer viable. Something had to be done better, but Stephanie had never been sure whether or not she had been doing things right. Not much of her advice to the two Tanks had been concrete, and she did not know what about herself she needed to improve, either.

[I'll ask Mister Tsutomu tomorrow. He's sure to know what to do.]

Stephanie, concluding her planning, rubbed the corners of her eyes tiredly before returning to the Clan House.

The next morning, Stephanie woke up in her room at the Clan Dormitory, washed her face, and used the hair curler magic tool to set her hair. After about fifteen minutes, her hairstyle was back into its quirky spiral curls.

Stephanie then put on her spare yellow dress, checked her entire body, and then left the Dormitory, all the while fiddling with her spiral curls with her fingertips.

"<<Heal>>, <<Protect>>."

While walking down the corridor, Stephanie activated her two skills and kept them levitating over her shoulders as she headed for the Dining Hall. She was now able to do this training while going on her daily routines, and her shooting speed and control had gotten much better, too. Although she had not mastered the placement and quickshot-type skills yet, her overall control was better than that of Eunice's, the Healer of Golden Tune.

At the buffet-style Dining Hall, Stephanie took a variety of fruits and sweets, and then sat down while spinning around a <<Heal>> sphere under her chair. Although her control was not yet perfect, she could now maintain it to some extent even if she were to look away.

Fully awake now that she has had some sour fruits, Stephanie looked up at the ceiling, thinking about various things to herself. From an outside perspective, the scene would look like an elegant lady being overly dramatic, but she was in fact planning her Dungeon explorations.

After breakfast, Stephanie headed to the Guild while thinking about various things on the way. As usual, she went to the training grounds, at which Tsutomu had already arrived and was doing his preparatory exercises.

They greeted each other, and immediately proceeded with the timing training. While Tsutomu kept on stretching, Stephanie would shoot him a support skill, aiming for it to land within the frame of ten seconds before the prior skill's buffing effect expired.

Before this training program, Stephanie used to keep the time by using her hands and feet to keep a rhythm, but now she did it with her mind and by instinct. Being able to do that was necessary, since in her training party, in addition to support and healing skills, she also needed to issue orders and even fight by herself. There was obviously not enough leeway for her to stand around and count.

"<<Protect>>."

Counting the seconds in her mind, Stephanie shot out <<Protect>> ten seconds before the effect expired. As soon as it connected, Tsutomu spoke up,

"One second early."

"Understood."

Getting an exact evaluation from Tsutomu, Stephanie nodded and proceeded to time her next <<Haste>>. After about an hour of such straightforward, motionless training, they took a short break before moving on to skill control training.

Thanks to this training program, Stephanie's skill control had become much more accurate; now, she could consistently land shots on moving low-to-average AGI targets like Tsutomu. Tsutomu, on the other hand, had been able to get in some good training as well, what with him analyzing Stephanie's skill control behaviors.

Still, it was another matter to get used to high-AGI Attackers and real combat situations in a party, so sometimes a high-ranking Ealdred Crow Attacker would be brought in, requested to help with the practice by dodging the support skill shots. So far, Stephanie has had less of a difficulty landing shots on them than Tsutomu, however.

"Whew. That ought to be enough," Tsutomu said, having gotten somewhat sweaty from all the dodging.

Immediately, Stephanie lowered the tip of her staff and relaxed her mind. Although she had indeed gotten used to it, controlling and maintaining two support skills at once was still tricky; her shoulders slumped down, exhausted.

From an outside perspective, Stephanie would come off as having an easy time since only Tsutomu was moving in this training, but it was quite nerve-wracking to control and land the support skills before the old effects expired. As such, this training was much more difficult on Stephanie's part.

"Good work today. Shall we head out for lunch?"

"Yes!"

After the training, on the other hand, was quite rewarding for Stephanie — they would have lunch at a fairly nice restaurant. This was one thing she looked forward to every day.

Side by side, Stephanie and Tsutomu strolled down the city, heading for the usual place. The waiter had well-memorized their faces by now, so they were promptly guided to a seat; as usual, they immediately opened their menus and pointed what they wanted to the waiter.

As Tsutomu took a sip of his chilled fruit juice, Stephanie took the opportunity to speak up,

"Mister Tsutomu, I would like to ask something about yesterday's battle against the Queen Spider."

"Hmm? Yes, what is it?"

"I'd like to know if there is anything I can do to improve my movements, please."

"...Hmm," Tsutomu muttered and crossed his arms, unsure of what to answer; over the soon to be three-week period of training, this was the first technical question Stephanie had asked him.

After a few seconds of pondering things over, he looked up and said,

"...Well, you've been making some great progress so far, so please figure things out on your own from now on. I'm sure you'll pull through, Stephanie."

"I-If you say so..."

Stephanie cast her eyes down in disappointment, having expected some good advice. Tsutomu, seeing Stephanie like that, looked a little bitter before diverting the conversation to other topics. Stephanie smiled awkwardly at his attempt to change the mood, but proceeded to chat with him regardless.

After enjoying their appetizers, soup, main dish, and dessert, Tsutomu paid the bill and headed to the Guild with Stephanie.

The three party members were gathered at the Guild at the usual time. After greeting them, Stephanie went to register the party at the reception counter, then immediately led them along, teleporting to layer twenty-nine.

As a warm-up, the team hunted monsters on the twenty-ninth layer while searching for the Black Gate. Stephanie had the two Tanks practice what she had told them yesterday, with both of them blocking attacks with their shields, and Rigas using <<Enchant Blood>>. Stephanie's focus for Dorssia was on making her movements smoother, but the former figured to keep expectations low upon seeing Dorssia grinning at the sight of a Poison Spider.

After a series of battles, the team had gotten warmed-up well enough, so Stephanie led them down to the thirtieth layer. The Boss battle began, with the opening surprise attack being intercepted by <<Air Blades>>.

Two of the Tanks unleashed <<Combat Cry>> on the Queen Spider, while Stephanie cast <<Protect>> and assessed the situation.

"Rigas, use <<Enchant Blood>>!"

"<<Enchant Blood>>."

Following Stephanie's instruction, Rigas cast the skill, causing a black, sinister-looking aura to start wrapping around his short sword. This was a skill unique to the Dark Knight Job, and its effect granted the target weapon an aura that would heal its wielder's injuries in proportion to the damage inflicted on the enemy.

In Live Dungeon, Dark Knights had a lower VIT rating than other Tank-type Jobs, but was compensated by having the ability to recover their HP with each attack they landed. As such, Dark Knights could inflict some damage while working as a conventional Tank. Because of these characteristics, instead of holding a shield or a tower shield, some Dark Knights would prefer to wield two-handed weapons such as scythes instead.

Their other unique skills included <<Shadow Eye>>, which increased their critical rate, and <<Dark Armor>>, which reduced incoming damage by twenty percent. These skills consumed the user's HP, however, so players would often die if they did not use them right.

Beginners were especially prone to using too many HP-costing skills and dying as a result, and the Job's specialized equipment was mainly found from Dungeon drops, so the Job was more recommended for intermediate players or above.

Rigas, holding a short sword covered in <<Enchant Blood>>, was still trying to figure out the Queen Spider's leg attacks. He did not get the pattern down, and was now being messed with from all directions.

Dorssia's breathing was a little less erratic than last time, but her movements were still stiff. Her abilities were below average, so as long as she moved like that, she never would be able to take on Queen Spider's attacks. Now, she was blown away by a swing from the side, and then carried up to the webs above; in the end, her body turned into light particles.

The Attacker did not show any particular changes, aside from how he was aiming for the monster's legs from the start. He still would try to go for the abdomen and get himself tied up in Spider silk, but his behavior now was preferable over how he had acted before.

As for Stephanie, she had never figured out what the issues on her part were, so she tried the same approach as last time to see if there was anything she could improve.

In the end, the party fought the Queen Spider eight times before they were dismissed for the day. There were five instances when Stephanie failed to keep up and maintain her support, leaving the party weakened and almost wiped out. For three times when everyone except Stephanie was dead, she had gotten caught by the Queen Spider while trying to cast <<Raise>>, prompting Tsutomu to save the team.

The party's mood was as somber as yesterday, having repeated eight times the depressing results of the Boss fight. Regardless, Stephanie had decided beforehand that today's runs were just training sessions; now that she was starting to figure out ways to achieve victory, she could bring herself to try and encourage the three other party members.

[Our strategies are getting better.]

Stephanie had managed to keep her support up most of the time while issuing orders to the Tanks, and even effectively used her attacking skills on the Queen Spider. Now, she did not feel the excessive burden of keeping up with everything anymore. She had felt that the party would never win against the Queen Spider if she did not do it exactly this way, and this approach had been gradually improving her strategies.

That, combined with the fact that she had been forced to go to extreme lengths in the previous Swamp layers, Stephanie had rarely let her support skills run out by the eighth round against the Queen Spider. Her flow still suffered quite a lot whenever she had to use <<Raise>> after a Tank's death, however, especially since the Queen Spider's aggro would latch on to her for so long after even one cast, during which, she could only at most use support skills.

After all these repetitions, Stephane arrived at one answer.

[It's the main thread.]

She came up with a potential solution: she would always cut the Queen Spider's main thread, and otherwise focus solely on support and healing.

Fortunately, the Attacker had started to focus on the Queen Spider's legs and even managed to cut off some of them. As such, Stephanie decided to concentrate on cutting the main thread herself.

Even Stephanie would sometimes be confused by the Queen Spider's unpredictable movements, many of which because it had incorporated its main thread, so it was safe to assume that the three others would not be able to keep up as well. That was why she figured that it would be best to take away the monster's maneuverability first.

The two Tanks were getting better at dealing with the Spider's leg attacks, too. Rigas had been attacking with his short sword more and more, and Dorssia's movements were getting smoother, perhaps because she had gotten used to dying after being pulled up to the webs above so many times.

There were only two days left in the team's training period. Stephanie sat alone in the Clan House's conference room, planning her moves for tomorrow while hoping that the party could win against the monster with plenty of time left to spare.