Live Dungeon!

After the interview, the team dropped the sleepy Diniel off at the Clan House and then headed to Dorren Workshop. Once there, however, they could not get inside due to the workshop being so crowded that customers were spilling out.

“Ooh! Looks like our publicity stunt worked out!”

“Right!”

Hannah and Daryl, whose height difference was great enough for them to pass as daughter and father, gave each other a high-five.

[I didn’t know that a WORKSHOP could be bustling like this too…] Tsutomu thought to himself, his mouth agape with surprise.

Their layer boss battle, as shown on Monitor #2, had indeed achieved quite high viewership, and the news had mentioned the workshop’s name and location, so it was reasonable to think that the team’s efforts were effective. However, Tsutomu still found it surprising how much influence the God Pedestals and the news had on the market.

Dorren Workshop had always been operating solely on their own merits, having never sponsored a Clan before Absolute Helix. Dorren and his apprentices were certainly skilled artisans, but the reality was that a no-name workshop was bound to lose to ones that got the publicity from sponsoring a major Clan.

In fact, the most popular workshops in town were the ones that were sponsoring Ealdred Crow, Scarlet Devil Squad, and Golden Tune. The workshops that worked precious metals and crafted high-end equipment for the nobility, and the Labyrinth Conquerers’ suppliers, also enjoyed a fairly solid degree of popularity.

As a craftsman, Dorren’s skill was among the best within Dungeon City, but without , his workshop’s business could not hope to measure up with the places that were regularly publicized by Clans on the single-digit Monitors. Even if the place were to have a following among a small portion of Explorers, the great majority of them — who got their information through the Monitors — would never know. As such, despite enjoying a decently reliable stream of business previously, Dorren Workshop had not been so much of a popular place in the big picture.

Thanks to the recent publicity through Absolute Helix, however, they became a hot topic — and was now quite unexpectedly overloaded with business. If they kept up the good work, they were sure to maintain that popularity going forward.

“Let’s come again later.”

“Here’s hoping my greatsword will hold up,” Amira said, looking doubtful while staring at the crowd.

“Eh, it’ll be fine — he’s not the kind of guy to cut corners just because he’s busy.”

Told as such by Tsutomu, Amira turned to look elsewhere, seeming to have lost interest.

When the team returned to the Clan House, they walked in on Diniel making tea while humming some random tune. She also had some cookies and chocolate ready on a tray. Obviously, she was planning to bring them up to her room, then snack on them while lazing around and reading some books.

“……”

Since her facial expression did not change much, her emotions were hard to read — But Tsutomu could tell from the look in her eyes that she was somewhat bummed out.

“…The evaluation meeting is still two hours away.”

“Aww, love you, my boy,” Diniel said jokingly, took her tray, and went up to the second floor.

Tsutomu, feeling that he was getting looks from behind him, turned around — and sure enough, his three clanmates were staring at him. Among them, Hannah looked particularly itching to say something.

“Well, you heard me. Two hours from now. Be ready.”

“Got it, Teach!” Hannah, thinking she had nothing that needed pointing out, replied happily and then walked into the living room.

Tsutomu, not wanting to come off as too harsh, spent the time double-checking the reference materials and thinking about what to say.

Two hours later, he went to get Diniel at her room, and saw that she was lying on her bed reading a book.

“Time for the meeting, Diniel. I’ll be waiting downstairs.”

“Aww, time flies by so fast…”

By the time she went down to the living room, everyone else was already there sitting on the sofas. Diniel sat down next to Hannah, and Tsutomu put some newspaper clips down on the table.

“Here are the materials we’ll be mainly referencing. I got some useful articles from the Dungeon Maniacs here, too. I’ve already sorted through them, so give them a good look.”

Tsutomu proceeded to pass the assorted articles to his Clan members, with each person getting just about the same number of articles. Although Hannah had received the most prominent media coverage, it was not as if Daryl and Amira had been completely ignored, either. Tsutomu had divided the reference materials into two stacks for each of the members, one containing positive feedback and the other being critical.

“First of all, good job yesterday, everyone. We made it through layer seventy in one go, and we got some good publicity out of it, so I’d say the results were great. Everyone has shown a great deal of improvement too.”

“Right!”

“Regardless of the results, though, I did find a few things that need to be considered in the process, so keep that in mind and listen — First up, Diniel.”

“Mm-hm.”

When called, Diniel took her eyes off her papers and looked at Tsutomu. Most of the articles she had been shown were positive; there had been almost no critical articles in the first place, and of those that did criticize her, most had been left out of her stack because of their inaccurate information.

“You did great as always. The > was a godsend, obviously, and during the final phase, the way you created footholds and slowed the Mount Golem’s movements was awesome. If not for your quick thinking, I doubt we would have made it through.”

“Thanks,” Diniel replied to Tsutomu, making no big deal out of the latter’s highly vivid recap of her great contributions.

“I did notice you holding back a fair bit during the first phase, but you did go all out when everyone needed you most, so I won’t complain. That’s what they call being good at slacking off, I guess. Keep up the good work, Diniel.”

“…Cool,” she replied, closing her eyes and sitting still like a meditating monk sculpture.

She was somewhat surprised to hear Tsutomu give the same feedbacks she had been given during her time with Golden Tune. Many of the members there would immediately snap at her whenever they caught her slacking off, treating that behavior of hers as a bad thing.

Diniel did not consider that to be the case, however. To her, it was more foolish to try hard on useless endeavors, and that the effort should be dedicated to other things instead. The only people who let her do her thing and saw value in that mindset were her parents, Amy, and Tsutomu.

Tsutomu wrote Diniel’s name on a blank memo sheet, drew a flower-shaped symbol around it, and then wrote Amira’s name down.

“Next up, Amira.”

“What? Me?”

Amira opened her eyes wide, seemingly startled. She turned to face Tsutomu and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. Tsutomu tapped the memo sheet with the butt of his pen and asked,

“Did you read the articles?”

“Ah, well… They said something about my >, I guess?”

“Right. Some people have already noticed that your > was starting to change. Which is quite impressive of them, honestly.”

After giving some praise to the Dungeon Maniacs and journalists’ observational skills, Tsutomu went on to cover the rest of the articles. Amira had not done much of anything eye-catching, so she was not focused on in that many articles, but the ones that did feature her generally praised her performance against the Golem army. Some even pointed out that she was acting more in sync with her allies than before.

Amira was powerful, but oftentimes her actions leaned more on the self-centered side; in fact, she had been so bad that her old Clan had been unable to put up with her, resulting in its disbandment. That incident had been reported in the newspapers, and this time, many articles had pointed out that she was changing for the better.

Tsutomu briefly mentioned the contents of those articles and then moved on to the main topic.

“This time was your best performance so far, Amira. You listened to directions, and worked well together with Daryl, too.”

“Really?”

“Well, it doesn’t seem like you’d understand this yet, but… If not for you being there, we never would have won. You fought really well against the Golem army despite your general disadvantage, and you did deal good damage during the final phase. You’ve become a bit more tactical after using your > less too.”

“……”

Amira, having expected without a doubt to be criticized for failing to carry out her role properly, was genuinely surprised by what she was hearing. And she could tell that Tsutomu meant every word he was saying, not at all sarcastic like he usually would be. She cast her eyes down, at a loss for words.

“But you’re still relying too much on your >, and sometimes you would push yourself too hard to try and deal with things by yourself. You should rely on Daryl and Diniel more. Going by what I saw, whenever you bit off more than you could chew, you would start transforming more often. You’re strong even when you’re not in >, Amira, so you shouldn’t feel the need to use it so much.”

“……”

“Going forward… Well, you should try to stop doing things you can’t handle by yourself, and also achieve better control of your transformation. Work on things bit by bit, and you’ll eventually get there — so remember to keep up your training.”

“……”

“Hmm? Is something the matter? Do you have any questions–“

“AAAHHH–!! I DON’T!!”

Amira shouted out to even her frustration, stood from her seat, and bolted up to the second floor. Tsutomu, stunned by the spontaneity of her action, watched her go before looking around at the others as if to ask them what to do. Daryl and Hannah were holding their laughter, having gotten a good look at how red Amira’s face had been.

“Gah… what was that about? Sorry, Miss Ollie — could you check up on her?”

“Yes, of course.”

Ollie, seeing that Tsutomu was disturbed but not particularly concerned, quietly followed Amira up the stairs.

Tsutomu, getting back on track, called Daryl’s name next. The latter took his face off the article he was reading and looked Tsutomu in the eye.

“It’s been written in the articles as well, but I should repeat that the biggest blunder on your part was you not returning to the fight after being grabbed and thrown. I know you already know that, though, so there’s no need to dwell on that any further, yes?”

“…Yes.”

“All right. Now let’s see the first and second phases. You performed quite well during these times, I must say. Amira also… oh, right, not here. Well, your coordination with her has certainly improved. You’re slowly but surely opening up to each other when it comes to work, which is good.”

“Yes. I don’t think there was any problem when it comes to her skill rotation. I feel like I was able to think up strategies without much difficulty, too… But I still need to work on situational awareness.”

“…Right. Looks like you know what to do — no need for me to tell you.”

The look in Daryl’s eyes was different — like he was more reliable than before. Tsutomu wanted to thank Amira for giving Daryl some much-needed encouragement yesterday, but she had run off and was not back downstairs yet. Tsutomu narrowed his eyes, wondering what she was doing now.

After noting down Daryl’s presented issue, Tsutomu wrote Hannah’s name on the sheet as well.

“Now then, last but not least, Hannah.”

“Aye-yup!”

Taken aback by how perfectly ready Hannah was to be showered with praises, Tsutomu said to her,

“Let me just make this clear first — You’re the one who has the most things to consider, Hannah.”

“…?”

Hannah, expecting praise, tilted her head as if she was confused by what she had heard. Tsutomu heaved a sigh and pointed at her stack of articles.

“Your contributions were great and vital, especially during the final phase — That much is true. You managed to hold the line by yourself when Daryl was out of commission.”

“Y-yes…?”

“But right before then, you ignored an important instruction — and you know how much of a disaster that ended up being. Diniel had already stopped by then, and I even tried calling you with the megaphone. But you still charged at the Mount Golem as it was doing an unknown attack, which ended with you being killed by it.”

“…B-but, you know…” Hannah uttered a few words in an attempt to say something back, having not expected to have her faults pointed out.

Tsutomu, seeing her like that, held up a photograph of her and continued to say,

“This is how you looked before you died. Thinking about the situation at the time now, you probably did not want to let your > be reset.”

“Oof…”

Tsutomu softened his tone upon seeing Hannah’s predictable reaction, but he still kept his stern gaze up.

“You did build up a high combo count, making the > quite powerful, so I understand why you would not want it cut off. Building it all up again was going to be a hassle, after all. But your dying would also result in it being reset, and reviving you is another difficult, time-consuming task in itself. Your low defense means you’d die to a direct hit or two, so you must always be very careful.”

“……”

Hannah grew gloomy, feeling her ego deflate with each following sentence — and even her hair seemed to somehow be deflating with it, too. She had not expected to have her faults pointed out so much.

“Next time, stay back and observe the layer boss when it’s performing an attack that you have never seen before. Daryl can afford to take more risks because of his high VIT, but you can’t do that, Hannah.”

“That’s… true.”

“Another thing that you need to work on would be stamina management, I guess. Your moves were still not as efficient as they could be, and sometimes you would put too much energy into the wrong moves. You need to fix that somehow.”

“Got it, Teach…”

Seeing Hannah deflate like a balloon, Tsutomu felt sorry for her, but he had no other choice. He knew that if he had not said anything just now, she would end up making a huge mistake in the future.

“None of that cancels out your contributions, of course, so be proud of what you did right. Besides, you’ve helped make the evasion-based Tank style more popular, which is great in itself. Just understand that you doing great, doesn’t mean there’s nothing to fix.”

“…Yes, I understand.”

Hannah settled down, looking Tsutomu in the eye and nodding to him. Tsutomu sighed, relieved to see no sign of being grumpy from Hannah, before placing his hand on her head.

“Again, you have faults that need fixing — just work on them from now on. Besides that, you did a really good job. Keep it up.”

“…Yeah!” Hannah replied happily as Tsutomu patted her on the head.

Diniel looked at Hannah, seemingly impressed by how straightforward the latter was.

After a moment, Tsutomu took his hand off Hannah’s head and wrote his name on the sheet.

“And then there’s me… The news articles didn’t have any critical feedback. I didn’t notice any problem in my support and healing, either, I think.”

Tsutomu thought about the strategies he had used while laying out his newspaper clips on the table. His support and healing had been as effective as usual, and he had had no issues helping the Tanks whenever they were starting to slip.

“Still, yesterday was the first time any of us had died to a layer boss, so I wasn’t at all used to getting the team’s stability back up. And then there was when I gave out orders when they were unnecessary, I guess? Since I was supposed to let Daryl take over a part of it and all.”

For > in general, Tsutomu had not gotten to cast it very often in the first place, so his handling of the spell was somewhat rough. And when it came to managing the team, his instructions would sometimes overlap with the ones Daryl gave out; he should have left a bigger chunk of his work to the latter.

“Hmm… Is there anything else?”

“Your flight control is pretty good, but your overall movements are still inefficient. You might wanna learn from Hannah, seeing that she’s the best flyer out of all of us.”

“Ah, I see.” Tsutomu put a hand on his chin and thought about what Diniel had said, then he decided to just ask straight up, “So Hannah, how about it? Can you teach me?”

“Huh? Ah, yes. I sure can,” Hannah, seemingly startled, answered and nodded.

Then, Amira walked down from the second floor, looking quite grumpy.

“Welcome back.”

“Shaddup, idiot…”

“I should be the one calling you that. You can’t just bail out of a meeting like that, you know. Come on, let’s talk.”

“…Dammit.”

And so, with Amira sitting down together with the rest, the team continued to discuss points that potentially needed addressing during the Mount Golem battle.