Live Dungeon!

After the Mount Golem turned red as a result of its wide-area attack, Xeno continued to struggle, dying several times, but the crowd’s reaction was still positive. It had already been known that this was Xeno’s first time on layer seventy, and the strategies involving dying and reviving repeatedly were generally accepted as viable.

“Is his VIT really that much lower than Daryl’s? Now he’s switching out after taking just one hit.”

“Well, still pretty good for a first-timer, I guess.”

Those watching from the free seats, sipping cold ale, generally had a positive opinion of Xeno and the fact that he was still able to fight. And they were all surprised by how Daryl was still alive, despite him having taken the most hits from the Mount Golem.

“Looks like Daryl is holding up quite well. Maybe the best a Tank has done so far against the Mount Golem, even.”

“Is that so? I’m glad to hear that.”

“Hehe…”

Hearing what Ollie had just said, Pico was surprised for a moment, then she chuckled and proceeded to read through the data she had just received. After that, she summarized a portion of it and started explaining,

“Korinna’s Job is Channeler, but most people right now only consider her a worse version of White Mage — largely because reviving takes much longer compared to the latter. That’s a perception that wasn’t cleared up even after the three-role composition theory became widespread. Looks like Korinna is proving them wrong, though.”

Korinna was able to reduce revival times using her ability to foresee death. According to the data Pico had received, Korinna needed two minutes on average, and progressively less than that as her prediction became more accurate the more she revived familiar individuals.

She would still need five minutes sometimes, however, perhaps due to her prediction success rate being lower when up against monsters she was not familiar with. Regardless of that, her success rate was quite high due to how much she had been watching the Monitors.

In Live Dungeon, players would always be able to see their party members’ HP bars and enemy monsters’ attacks clearly, so a Channeler could time their channeling skills accordingly. Many would even make sure > was active at all times, keeping their MP up while channeling > on multiple targets if the situation allowed.

The > required a great deal of mental energy to use, and unlike >, it would generate aggro on the caster whether or not the target was dead or alive upon activation. Still, in the game, one could interrupt the channeling, so the aggro generation issue was quite preventable there.

The mental energy cost remained an actual issue, however, as it added up quickly if one were to also carry out the usual support and healing roles, thus necessitating the rough prediction of their party members’ deaths to figure out when to use it. As such, Channeler players required more prep work than White Mages, learning the flow of specific battles, monsters’ attacks to watch out for, and the status ratings of their allies in order to calculate damage numbers.

More key differences between Live Dungeon and this world were that, in the game, one could see the exact numbers of damage being dealt, and if there was anything they would like to know, they could easily search for it on the internet. In this world, although one could learn from watching others through Monitors, Channelers had not gotten to be in the spotlight until now due to the previous popularity of sacrificial revive Healers. As such, research was still lacking when it came to how to use their skill set.

Korinna’s death foresight was pretty much essential to Channelers here, and she was good at it due to a combination of her own intuition and learning through observation. As such, she could time the uses of her > only for when her teammates needed it, preserving her energy and Blue Potions.

“…And Korinna having that ability makes it so that she, as a Channeler, is not less desirable than a White Mage. There’s no need to worry about accidentally buffing the enemies, and her support skills are actually more efficient in terms of effect durations and energy consumption.”

While Pico was giving her explanation, the other spectators looked at the screen, wondering how a Channeler — a Job they had rarely, if ever, seen before — was performing so well. There had not been a Channeler shown this prominently on a single-digit Monitor for the past few years, so some of the general audience had not even known of the Job’s existence.

“What’s going on there? That’s way different from what I’d usually see.”

“Is she a Priestess or something?”

Those who did not know what a Channeler was were particularly intrigued by the talisman hanging from Korinna’s neck. It was only a small number of them, however, as those who regularly watched Explorers fighting monsters at least recognized it as a type of weapon.

“Her Job is Channeler — for a Healer type, it’s nowhere as well-known as White Mage, so I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t know.”

“Huh. Never seen it before.”

“And the ‘blessing’ skills she uses can heal?”

“Yeah. So this is how Channelers work–“

Regardless, knowing more about the Explorers, the Dungeon, and the monsters was sure to enhance a spectator’s experience, so they turned to the Dungeon Maniacs for information and opinions. Such interactions between spectators and Dungeon Maniacs were particularly prominent in the free seating area.

As the crowd took notice of Korinna’s excellent performance, the Mount Golem suddenly prepared to launch its second wide-area attack. Only Diniel was able to escape out of its range, while the others defended themselves with Scorchstone Robes.

This second shot had no cooldown to follow it, however, so the Mount Golem took its next action immediately, burying countless rocks into its partially molten body surface and releasing them like shotgun pellets. The attack made a direct hit on Xeno, and one of the big rocks flew at Korinna at a distance — and when she was about to dodge it, Melchor pushed her aside, taking the hit in her stead. Due to his low VIT, he immediately turned into a burst of light particles and disappeared.

“Huh?”

“What the–! Melchor’s dead!?”

People shouted out mixed reactions upon seeing, from their perspective, Melchor dying as a result of protecting Korinna. This was the reigning martial arts champion they were looking at — and no one had ever seen him die before. The crowd was both shocked and excited by this development.

“Now that was pretty suspicious. Maybe he died on purpose.”

“Oh? What makes you think so?”

“Korinna could have avoided that hit easily enough. But then again, why would Melchor let himself get killed? …Sorry, please forget it. I don’t really understand either.”

Pico narrowed her eyes and stopped her writing hand, pondering her previous question. Korinna’s progress had been stuck at layer fifty until recently, so her flight control was not all that good. But then again, it did seem like she was about to dodge the rock, and at that distance, she would not have had any problem doing so.

All the other Dungeon Maniacs seemed bewildered, what with them having not seen Melchor’s death coming at all. The people who had seen Melchor at the Martial Arts Tournament were especially screaming out in disbelief.

It was apparent that Korinna had not seen this death coming either, as she used > twice and even cast > to speed them up. Xeno had also died after being knocked into lava, so Daryl had to defend against the Mount Golem’s attack all by himself for over five minutes.

“Things aren’t looking good. Even Garm — oh, Garm is Daryl’s mentor, by the way — had to switch with another Tank during his Mount Golem fight. One Tank probably won’t last for longer than five minutes.”

“Oh no…”

“There’s still a chance for them to win, but that requires Korinna surviving… so it’s not looking very likely. A Channeler doesn’t have access to a defensive skill like White Mage’s >, so she can’t act as a temporary evasion-based Tank like Tsutomu did.”

Hearing all that explanation, Ollie’s face turned pale as she kept watching the Monitor. The Mount Golem’s movements were extremely quick now that it had turned red, and its heat ray attacks made it difficult for the Explorers to drink Potions. Even with Korinna’s consistent healing and support, it was clear that they could fall apart at any moment.

“Looks like Diniel’s already given up.”

“…Yes, she would totally do that.”

“Can’t blame her, I guess — it’s just how she’s always been, as far as I know. At least she’s only doing a less-than-perfect job, not totally abandoning her post.”

Even back in her Golden Tune days, Diniel had already been well-known as having a habit of giving up — but still doing her work — when things got bad. Her performance would always be at least what one would expect from an Attacker, so her comrades had never given her too much flak for her slacking.

And if a team were to be wiped out, each member would lose all but their most valuable items — which, in reverse, meant they would not lose anything of significant value. In Diniel’s case, she would retain her quiver-like Magic Bag that she had filled to the brim with expensive items, so so her being stingy with her arrows in this situation was not a bad thing… at least aside from the high likelihood that her party members would not see her in a positive light.

Daryl, on the other hand, showed an unexpected degree of persistence, pushing himself to the limit while Korinna’s support was concentrated on him. Thanks to that, he was able to stand his ground against the Mount Golem in this dangerous final phase.

“GAAAHHH!!”

Still, all the hits he was taking, and all the screaming and bleeding, was far too much even by Daryl’s standards. Ollie could not help but close her eyes, unable to keep looking at Daryl forcing his broken, dangling arm to move, and even getting glass shards in his mouth due to drinking from a broken Blue Potion vial.

Normal fans of Daryl were taken aback by this borderline mad display, while those familiar with Garm were deeply moved, as Daryl now was a splitting image of Garm on the front lines.

The crowd went wild for Daryl, who not only managed to survive for over five minutes, but also continued to Tank more right after that. The Dungeon Maniacs were stunned, as they knew that taking on the final-phase Mount Golem alone was practically suicide.

“…I can’t make myself watch this,” Ollie said, her eyes downcast to avoid looking at Daryl being beaten up.

“…It’s not like I want to see this either, you know.”

Xeno tried to pull the monster’s aggro toward him, but was unsuccessful. In fact, the situation saw an improvement after Korinna focused her support on Daryl. Pico did not want to write that part down, but had to for the sake of her article’s completeness.

“Is there any point in reviving Xeno again and again?”

“>!!”

“C’mon, man…”

While Pico’s fists were shaking as the spectators scoffed at Xeno, she kept on writing her article. She and Ollie continued to quite reluctantly look at the Monitor, with the only interaction between them now being Pico’s commentary.

And at the end of the fight, when everyone else was excited to have witnessed the team’s victory, Ollie and Pico were not so pleased. Ollie proceeded to simply receive some reading materials from Pico, bowed to her, and immediately headed back to the Clan House.

―▽▽―

“Good work, people,” Melchor, in his default post-revival clothes, greeted the mission team after they were back in the Guild.

Diniel only narrowed her eyes and gave him a sideways glance.

“Sorry for the trouble I caused, by the way.”

“You’re our client. Don’t worry about it,” Diniel said bluntly, turned away, and walked to the reception counter.

Melchor dropped his shoulders at the cold treatment he got, and Korinna looked up awkwardly from behind him.

“I should be saying sorry, Sir Melchor. You died to save me…”

“No, it was my mistake — I didn’t even have to do that.”

Korinna bowed, but then Melchor bowed even deeper in response. He had in fact died on purpose at that moment to push Daryl to his limit, so Korinna was not the one at fault here. Having been sent back to the Guild after passing his revival time limit down there, he had also explained his action to the people here to prevent any misunderstanding.

“And things were so hectic that I didn’t have a chance to revive you…”

“That’s no problem at all. You still got me to make progress.”

If one were bound to a party contract, their layer progress would update even if they were dead, so Melchor was able to head down to layer seventy — which was all he cared about.

“So, anyway, Daryl. Oh, he’s… sleeping?”

“Yes, sir, he is.”

Daryl, with all his armor removed now, was snoring in his sleep while being carried on Xeno’s shoulder. Looking at him, Melchor nodded in satisfaction, then let out a subtle sigh.

“Ah, how I wish I had an apprentice as passionate as him.”

The Magic Fist, a technique so powerful yet so life-threatening to its user even in training, could be used in God’s Dungeon without fear of long-term consequences. As such, Melchor was looking to pass on his knowledge before he grew too old.

The issue was its extreme difficulty — even the nobility, those who were more well-versed in the arcane arts than most, had given up trying to make it work. After five years of teaching, there was still no one else who could use it properly, with Bruno being able to wield a fraction of its potential power with assistance from their unique physical enhancement abilities.

Melchor was also saddened by the fact that his martial arts teachings were far more popular. All he wanted was to pass on his skills. That desire was growing stronger with each passing day, which was exactly why he liked Daryl’s ambition in the pursuit of greater strength — and why he had helped to push Daryl to his limit by dying on purpose.

In the end, it was worth it, since Daryl was then able to fight harder than ever before. He was glad to see Daryl take another step toward Garm’s prestige, but then was saddened when he remembered that he still had to find more successors.

“All right then, I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

Regardless of any of that, he had the Winter General of layer eighty — a newly-discovered type of humanoid monster in such a long time — to look forward to. Melchor was visibly excited as he walked out of the Guild, determined to at least defeat this powerful monster before he died of old age.