CHAPTER 9: DEVISING A NEW STRATEGY
CHAPTER 9: DEVISING A NEW STRATEGY
One day had passed since our treasure-hunt-picnic-turned-massacre. I logged back into UW first thing in the morning, before class started. There was just something on my mind...
The night before, I had logged out immediately after we died and disbanded the party. Thoughts of strategy filled my head as I ate dinner, bathed, and got ready for bed. Something that I wanted to test came to mind, so I set an alarm for early morning.
Keep in mind that after 10 PM, logins are disabled until 6 AM. The rule might as well have been made to specifically hurt me, since I’m the kind of guy who wants to test things out as soon as I think of them. But it is healthy to get up early in the morning, right? So maybe it was for the best. If I were free to test stuff whenever I wanted, I’m sure I’d have stayed up all night and missed out on sleep, fell asleep in class the next day, and then ultimately my test scores would suffer, resulting in less MEP and a bad time all around. Yup, I can totally picture that very situation. If the devs wanted to try to prevent that, I could deal.
Anyway, I walked to the warp room and traveled to an area near Almishr’s Burial Ground. Then, I entered the cave that ended yesterday’s search, finding a very familiar face within.
“Huh! Morning, Maeda.”
“Oh, Takashiro? Good morning to you too.”
“What brings you here this early?”
“Our original reason for coming here was because of what I said, right? I felt bad for making you all work so hard for me, so I came to search for information that could help in the expedition.”
“Hmm... But then, I’m the one who wanted the level restriction, so it’s actually more my fault.”
“I suppose you have a point...” So she said, but her frown didn’t ease up. I wasn’t sure if she was earnest to a fault or just honorable, but either way, she was really a nice person.
Still, she was worrying about it too much. What’s a little massacre or two between friends? It’s all a game, so it’s just part of the fun.
“Um...” I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what, exactly.
“Yes? What’s the matter?”
“Oh, just, uh... hmm. Hey, I think I’m just gonna go die real quick. Do you wanna join me?”
“What?!”
“Then we’ll have no hard feelings.”
“Uh—well, I don’t especially mind, I suppose. But did you come here just to die on purpose?”
“That’ll be the end result, but the main idea is to check out some stuff.”
“Hmm... All right, then. Let’s go.”
With that, we partied up and fell into the pitfall from before.
I put the key into the hole once more. “I think it’s pretty neat that death can be taken so lightly in games.”
“Lightly...?”
“It’s not like you’re really dying; you just lose a bit of EXP. Failures like this in real life aren’t resolved that simply. I died yesterday, but it was a heck of a lot of fun. It was because I didn’t expect it that I enjoyed it. So much so, in fact, that I came here to die again.”
“Is dying your hobby, or something?”
“Not exactly. But if I have to die, I can still have fun every time. I expect to learn what I came for, so I’m excited to die. Uh, I’m not really sure what I’m getting at here, but... I’m having fun gaming with you, Maeda, so let’s not take it too seriously.”
“...Thank you. Maybe I do take things too seriously sometimes. I’m just rather afraid of failure.”
“Then I say the solution is to fail as much as you can in UW, so you can get used to it. Even if you don’t fail, you’re sure to be surrounded by failures with me and Akira around.”
“Haha! Trouble does seem to always be two steps behind you two, but I really have been enjoying things.”
“See, you’re already getting used to failure!”
We continued through the door and stood roughly where the upperclassmen died the day before. There were mummies in the walls here as well.
“What are you going to do?”
“Well, these are the guys that attacked us yesterday, yeah?” I started whacking the wall of mummies, but they didn’t react. Their names and status windows weren’t visible, either. They were essentially just part of the scenery.
“Yes, I believe they were called Crimson Mummies.”
“Right. As they are now, they’re harmless; however, something caused them to react and charge us.”
“It all happened so fast! I was so surprised that I thought I might have a real-life heart attack.”
“Now, the question is what caused them to swarm us? Once we know their wake conditions, we might be able to avoid awakening them. If my idea works out, then they should start moving.”
“And when they do, we die.”
“Yep. Are you sure you don’t want to book it out of here?”
“No, I’m staying with you. Otherwise, we can’t be even.” She really did have a strong sense of honor.
“All right. Here goes nothing.”
Maeda nodded, and I cast a large-range Enfeebling Circle. My MP fell to 0, but the wall mummies didn’t react. Next, I activated Turnover. My HP became 1, while my MP bar filled completely.
Then—
Groooooooooan...
The army of Crimson Mummies awakened! Needless to say, they made short work of us. But yes! I was right!
I chose to respawn, and the two of us returned to our set point within the school where you always respawned when you died.
There, we began strategizing.
“Whew... Even if we knew what to expect, they’re still terrifying.”
“We died, as I predicted.”
“What did you learn from it?”
“I’ve figured out what causes them to move: they have health-based aggro.”
Hostile monsters will attack players unprovoked based on their type of aggro. The basic types are as follows: Line-of-sight-based aggro is the simplest; when a monster sees you, it attacks. Sound-based aggro triggers when a monster hears footsteps. Finally, health-based aggro; the one currently in question, prompts monsters to attack low-health players. The subjects of our investigation were most likely all hostile monsters with health-based aggro settings. My HP drops to 1 when I use my ultimate, so they reacted to that. In short—
“Health-based aggro? Then every time you use Dead End...”
“Yep, it turns into a Crimson Mummy handshake party. And that equals massacre.”
“Then we can’t use Dead End, can we?”
“Right.”
“That means it’s impossible! Dead End is our trump card.”
“Oh, no no no. Now that we know that, we can advance further.” We’ve confirmed that I absolutely can’t use Dead End in that area. That’s a mandatory condition.
“Is grinding levels the only way, then?”
“If that were the issue, we might as well just wait for MEP from tests.” Our upperclassmen were massacred at a whopping level 60. At levels 25 to 30, it would take forever and a half for us to get anywhere near that, especially as the EXP requirement increased with each level.
“Should we give up, then?”
“No, not yet. First, we have to exhaust all possible possibilities.”
“What possibilities are there?”
“You got Draconic magic from Shadow Dragon Diablo, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes. Diabolic Howl?”
It almost slipped my mind, but we looted that magic from him during the final boss battle of the competitive event. As the scholar’s unique magic, the only way to get Draconic magic is as a drop from dragon bosses. It’s not that great when you consider how hard it is to acquire, so people pretty much consider it trash. We were lucky to get the drop in one try. Of course, we gave it to Maeda, since she was the only one who could learn it.
“Yeah, that one. It cuts the target’s HP by half if I recall?” It could very well be the perfect spell for us.
“I believe so. But it only works on enemies at levels lower than the user, I believe? It certainly won’t work on those monsters...”
“Of course not. If it were that easy, everyone would be using scholar.”
“Agreed. It aIso costs 150 MP.” Maeda’s MP, meanwhile, was 200. Ouch.
With that great of a cost, it was hard to imagine the spell ever being worth it. Combined with the level requirement on its effect, it was hardly useful enough to warrant that cost.
Still, a picture’s worth a thousand words. I was ready to see it for myself.
“Would you mind showing me how it looks when the spell is successful?”
“Sure, I don’t mind at all.”
Thus, we walked back to the warp room and teleported to the first floor of Trinisty Island. During the month when Akira wasn’t here, my good friends, the Island Bunnies, kept me company and helped me test things out. We were off to request their services once more.
After warping, we exited the city and found a few frolicking Island Bunnies. The game called them bunnies, but they seemed more like kangaroos to me. Their vacant expressions made them seem so innocent... But they weren’t that cute, so I never felt bad using them for experiments. They were my good buddies, always there when you needed them.
“All right. One Diabolic Howl, if you please.”
“All right.” Maeda nodded and began to cast the spell.
While she did, her body was surrounded by mana particles that moved along with her. Every magic spell has a cast time; if the player moves during the cast, it’s immediately canceled. Thus, you’re essentially stuck in place while you cast.
“Diabolic Howl!”
A mass of energy in the shape of a dragon’s face materialized as she finished casting. The dragon howled and chomped on the poor Island Bunny. Ooh, that’s a really cool visual effect. Very flashy.
As a result—
Kotomi cast Diabolic Howl!
But Island Bunny resisted the effect!
Oh... It didn’t even work on the weakest enemy.
“How utterly useless.”
“Well, it only failed once. I’d like to see just how luck-based it is, so would you mind casting it a few more times?”
“Certainly. How many is a few?”
“Hmm. I think a hundred should suffice.”
“What?! That many times?!”
“Aw, c’mon. Without a large enough data set, the probability measurement could be skewed by luck. Honestly, a hundred is the absolute minimum that I’d accept.”
“I understand your point, I suppose... Did you really do this all the time until Aoyagi joined?”
“Yep! Data gathering is buckets of fun, right?”
“I-I suppose everyone has their own idea of fun.”
“Woo! 99 to go!”
Our hundred-ball batting practice began—
—and eventually ended.
“Phew... It’s finally over.”
“Good job. That’s 13 hits out of a hundred.”
That was an abysmal hit rate. If it only costed 5 or 10 MP, I could see it being used as a time-filler, at least. But 150? I couldn’t imagine this seeing any practical use.
“It’s honestly useless, isn’t it?” Maeda asked, performing the recovery pose to regain MP.
The pose is simple; plant your feet, put your hands together, and close your eyes. Then, you’re enveloped in a light-green glow as your HP and MP refill. It can be done both in and out of battle, but the effect is much greater out of battle.
“For now, that’s the only conclusion. But there’s something else I want to try.”
“What else can we possibly do?”
“Let’s see what happens if we use it alongside Joint Magic.” Joint Magic was our reward for winning the competitive mission. The talent allowed us to combine our magic when attacking.
“Joint Magic... I haven’t tried using it yet.”
“Symbologist’s circle magic can’t be resisted. If we combine it with Diabolic Howl, maybe we can increase your success rate?”
“That may be possible. Let’s try it!”
“All right. Here we go.”
I extended my hand toward Maeda. To use Joint Magic, players must join hands and activate Joint Magic as a skill. That’s how the game knows whose magic is to be joined. From there, the next spell each player casts will be combined and unleashed at once.
“Ah... R-Right. We have to hold hands for it.” She seemed hesitant. “J-Just a moment.”
Maeda removed a handkerchief and scrubbed at her hands vigorously. Handkerchiefs were in-game items too.
“We’re in a game. It’s not like your hands are dirty.”
“I-It’s just a personal thing... Here.” She modestly took my hand. Hers was soft and silky-smooth. I’m still amazed by this level of realism. The technology behind this must be some kind of incredible, mysterious voodoo.
“Let’s do it!”
“Ready when you are.”
“Joint Magic!”
We activated the skill simultaneously, prompting special visual effects to surround us. From there, we casted our own spells. Of course, Maeda cast Diabolic Howl. As for me, any of my available circles was fine.
For now, I chose Confounding Circle, which lowers enemy MND. MND is related to magic resistance, so maybe it would increase the effect rate somewhat.
“Diabolic Howl!”
“Confounding Circle!”
We finished casting our spells. Now, what would happen next?
After I specified a radius, the magic circle appeared under the island bunny. A debuff icon appeared next to the bunny’s name. Was it just a normal Confounding Circle now?
But then—the color of the magic circle changed to a red tint. Diabolic Howl’s dragon head then emerged from the circle. With its trademark howl, the dragon chomped into its prey, reducing its HP by about 70%.
“Oho, it worked!”
“Doesn’t that seem like too much damage?”
The Island Bunny hopped toward Maeda for a counterattack, but she smacked it away with her staff. She had been doing that the entire time, but she might as well have been ignoring them. Scholars may have been weak at melee physical attacks, but against the lowest-leveled monsters in the game, even they could win easily.
“We’ll keep that in mind for the next test run. Time for round two of a hundred!”
“Again?! B-But... Oh, fine.” Maeda nodded with a smile, surprisingly. She was finally getting into it.
Thus began our second hundred-spell cycle.
—And that should do it.
“Niiiice!”
“Yes! The difference is incredible!”
With Joint Magic activated, her hit rate improved remarkably, which is to say she never missed—out of a hundred attempts, we hit a hundred times. We should then have a perfect hit rate against any enemy that didn’t outright resist the spell.
On top of that, Diabolic Howl’s HP-halving effect was amplified. Instead of 50%, the enemies lost 70%.
“This is a bombshell of a discovery! Draconic magic just needs Joint Magic to flourish.”
The UW Guidebook only had the most basic info. It only mentioned that Joint Magic is used to power up a combination of X magic and Y magic. That’s why you needed to blaze new trails through experimentation. We did, and we found an amazing combination.
Symbologist and scholar are actually very synergistic. I was super happy that symbologist’s circles have found a new use. After all, I was only using them to drain my MP before.
“How convenient. Do you think this could turn out to be a top-tier combination?”
“I dunno. It might not work on crown-marked enemies. But if it does, scholar and symbologist might just go up a tier or two.”
“Are they rated low because they don’t come through in the important situations?”
“I’d say so.”
Plus, grinding on extra-strong trash mobs was of niche benefit at best. In this game, EXP from monsters is based on the difference between player and monster levels. But there’s a cap to that; your EXP gain maxes out when the enemy is ten levels higher than you.
The enemies inside Almishr’s Burial Ground are dozens of levels higher than us, so if we tried to grind on them, we would only get a level 40 monster’s worth of EXP. It’s pointless to anyone but hobbyists like me. If a class’s use is only meaningful for hobbyists, then that use won’t be considered the class’s tier placement.
“Since we’re trying to deal with extra-strong mobs, this is good for us. This might be our new hope.”
“Good! I agree.”
“I think I’d like to try this on stronger enemies. There’s more I want to test.”
First off, the enemies at Almishr’s Burial Ground were undead. We’d need to know if this magic would even work on undead monsters.
The next question from there was where the aggro from Joint Magic spells would actually go.
“Are we going somewhere else?”
“Yeah. Let’s go to the tenth floor and try it on the undead enemies there.”
We used a warp point to go to the tenth floor, where we could fight level 20-ish undead monsters as we pleased.
Scrappy Skeleton: Level 19
That would suffice. We began using Joint Magic immediately. Our magic combined and struck the sword-and-shield-wielding skeleton, bringing down his HP bar fast and hard. Very, very nice.
The enemy then turned toward us and charged. Maeda was ready to face his advance with her magic, but I stopped her.
“Hold it, Maeda. Don’t attack yet. We should let him hit us without trying to defend or evade.”
“Hmm? All right, then.”
The Scrappy Skeleton turned toward Maeda and brought down his sword. It hit, shaving off some of Maeda’s HP. Immediately after, he turned to me and attacked, striking me for a bit of my HP as well. Immediately after, he turned to Maeda. He ran over, attacked her, and hit. Then, he turned to me again—
Keeping with the pattern, he bounced between us like a ping-pong ball.
“Fascinating... All right, Maeda. Go ahead and finish him off.”
She nodded deeply and began casting magic. “Exheal!”
The skeleton took the brunt of her recovery magic. His HP fell to 0 as he rattled and fell to pieces.
“Hmm... Interesting. I should think about this more in-depth.”
“What about it, exactly?”
“Oh, right. See, it looks like the aggro was split evenly between us.”
“Judging by the monster’s behavior, that seems right.”
Enemy monsters will always try to attack the player with the most aggro. Players lose aggro each time they take damage, thus the skeleton alternated between us. When he hit Maeda, her aggro fell below mine; when he hit me, my aggro fell below hers. The cycle went on and on as his priority shifted each time. That could only mean that we had started with approximately equal aggro before he attacked us.
Of course, we hadn’t generated aggro in any ways other than via Diabolic Howl, so apparently I took half of the aggro because of our combined magic.
But that would mean... There was a slight problem. This wouldn’t work; there must’ve been a missing piece.
In order to confirm one more thing, we descended to the eighth floor. There, we combined our magic versus the crown-marked Iron Gemini. This time, it didn’t work, meaning it really didn’t work against crown-marked enemies. Better keep that in mind...
Then, we heard an unexpected chime. A message was displayed in the Log window:
—It’s almost time for morning assembly. Students, please return to the school immediately.
“Oh, time for class. Let’s go back, I guess.”
“Right, let’s do so. We can continue after school.”
For now, our investigation would have to end. Despite having to cut things short, it was a productive session. Productive enough to make me think we might just stand a chance.
◆◇◆
After classes ended, I decided to return to the guild market. Akira, Maeda, and Yano came along. Draco too, of course, who had been sleeping happily in the hood of my robe throughout our entire morning test runs. He did a lot of sleeping as a growing baby, but right now he was flapping his little wings excitedly nearby.
“So, Ren, what are we looking for?”
“I’m looking for a staff with high poise. Plus a shield, if I can find one. Yano, what shield do you have right now?”
“Oh? Here ya go.” Yano opened her item window and showed me.
Dueling Shield
Type: Shield
Level: 27
Poise: 144
Effects: None
A solid shield for her level, but one without any special effects.
“If I can find a shield with higher poise than that, then I’ll buy it. Staves are my top priority, though.”
“What staff are you using, Takashiro?”
“I’m using this.”
Iron Staff
Type: Staff
Level: 21
Might: 17
AP gain: 10
Poise: 55
Guardbreak: 20
Effects: INT +8, MND +4, Max MP +12
Compared to a shield, its poise was laughable. I would need much more than this. If I couldn’t do significantly better, it’d be nearly impossible to make it through Almishr’s Burial Ground. Unfortunately, it was the best recipe I could craft. The only way to get a better one was to buy one, and that was what led me to the guild market. Plus, rare drops from monsters often couldn’t be crafted.
“Hmm. Not sure if I follow, but whatever floats your boat.”
“So all you need is high poise, right?”
“Yeah, so long as the gear isn’t too expensive.”
“There are so many shops here. Let’s run around and have a look!”
We started with a reasonable looking shop.
“Hello and welcome!” A large third-year, probably in judo or some other athletics club, was the shopkeeper. He looked at me with intense curiosity. “Ooh, a first-year with a dragon? You must be this year’s first MVP!”
Having Draco with me made me too easy to spot.
“Yes, sir. I guess I am.”
“A symbologist, even. You don’t see that every day. Magic knights, paladins, and wizards are usually the ones to take the spotlight. You’re an interesting fellow.”
Oh boy, here comes the recruitment speech.
But then he subverted my expectations.
“So, are you here for anything specific? Or did you want to look at our inventory list?” Instead, he returned straight to the shop conversation. It took me by surprise, and I could only stare and blink for a moment. “Hmm? What’s up?”
“Oh, uh... People usually invite me to their guilds, because of the dragon and all. I was just surprised that you didn’t.”
“Did you want an invite?”
“No, that’s not quite it.”
“Our guild is only for martial artists who love hand-to-hand combat. Sorry, you’re just not in our target demographic.”
“Oh, I gotcha. I didn’t know there were guilds like yours.”
“Do you make martial artist-only parties too?” Akira asked.
“That we do. It’s tough without a healer, but it’s our hobby, so we find ways around it. It’s all about having fun while you win.”
That sounded like a nice mentality. Everyone should be able to find their own passion and fun. It was a game, after all. And I was playing with my own bizarre style too.
“So, what’ll it be? Would you like to browse our wares?”
“Oh, I’d just like to see your staves and shields, please. Specifically ones with high poise and low enough level requirements for us to use them.”
“Poise, huh? Just a second. We’ve got these two, but they’re both rare drops.”
Fanatic’s Staff (O)
Type: Staff
Level: 25
Might: 3
AP gain: 7
Poise: 256
Guardbreak: 6
Effects: INT -60, MND -60, Max MP -50
Fanatic’s Shield (O)
Type: Shield
Level: 25
Poise: 320
Effects: INT -60, MND -60, Max MP -50
Oho, bingo! I was hoping for something just like this. They came with a bunch of insane stat penalties, but that hardly mattered to me.
“How much for this?!”
“The shield is 1.5 million Mira.”
“That’s really expensive!” That was way out of my price range! No-go there.
“The staff is ten thousand Mira.”
“That’s really cheap!” Now that was my kinda price! I gotta buy it! Buy, buy, buy, buy!
“That is quite a difference in price...” Yano seemed unsatisfied with the price of the shield.
“I’m pretty sure these are the market average prices.”
“I guess it does make sense, if you consider the practicality of the two.”
“What do you mean?” Maeda asked me.
“Most staff-wielding classes aren’t trying to get hit by enemies. They’re like mages; if a staff has high guard and reduces your magic stats, doesn’t that seem like a ridiculously useless trade-off?”
“Oh... I suppose it does.”
“On the other hand, a tank is happy to have as much poise as possible. It kinda sucks to lose MP, but INT and MND are no big deal. The staff is confusing and niche at best, but the shield is perfect for most tanks, so naturally it would be in high demand.”
“Right, so demand has an effect on price. In my offline games, items in the same set are usually the same price. But online games are affected by the market forces of supply and demand... I guess that’s obvious, since they’re transactions between real people.” Maeda nodded, clearly impressed. It was her first online game; this kind of price difference must’ve been a new concept for her.
“That sounds about right.”
But this was just what I needed. This bafflingly useless staff, seen as vendor trash by everyone else, would become my secret weapon.
“I’ll take the staff, then!”
“All right! Thank you, sir.”
When we left the store, I made a declaration to the party: “We might be able to do this! Let’s challenge Almishr’s Burial Ground one more time!”
After some preparation, we embarked
One day had passed since our treasure-hunt-picnic-turned-massacre. I logged back into UW first thing in the morning, before class started. There was just something on my mind...
The night before, I had logged out immediately after we died and disbanded the party. Thoughts of strategy filled my head as I ate dinner, bathed, and got ready for bed. Something that I wanted to test came to mind, so I set an alarm for early morning.
Keep in mind that after 10 PM, logins are disabled until 6 AM. The rule might as well have been made to specifically hurt me, since I’m the kind of guy who wants to test things out as soon as I think of them. But it is healthy to get up early in the morning, right? So maybe it was for the best. If I were free to test stuff whenever I wanted, I’m sure I’d have stayed up all night and missed out on sleep, fell asleep in class the next day, and then ultimately my test scores would suffer, resulting in less MEP and a bad time all around. Yup, I can totally picture that very situation. If the devs wanted to try to prevent that, I could deal.
Anyway, I walked to the warp room and traveled to an area near Almishr’s Burial Ground. Then, I entered the cave that ended yesterday’s search, finding a very familiar face within.
“Huh! Morning, Maeda.”
“Oh, Takashiro? Good morning to you too.”
“What brings you here this early?”
“Our original reason for coming here was because of what I said, right? I felt bad for making you all work so hard for me, so I came to search for information that could help in the expedition.”
“Hmm... But then, I’m the one who wanted the level restriction, so it’s actually more my fault.”
“I suppose you have a point...” So she said, but her frown didn’t ease up. I wasn’t sure if she was earnest to a fault or just honorable, but either way, she was really a nice person.
Still, she was worrying about it too much. What’s a little massacre or two between friends? It’s all a game, so it’s just part of the fun.
“Um...” I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what, exactly.
“Yes? What’s the matter?”
“Oh, just, uh... hmm. Hey, I think I’m just gonna go die real quick. Do you wanna join me?”
“What?!”
“Then we’ll have no hard feelings.”
“Uh—well, I don’t especially mind, I suppose. But did you come here just to die on purpose?”
“That’ll be the end result, but the main idea is to check out some stuff.”
“Hmm... All right, then. Let’s go.”
With that, we partied up and fell into the pitfall from before.
I put the key into the hole once more. “I think it’s pretty neat that death can be taken so lightly in games.”
“Lightly...?”
“It’s not like you’re really dying; you just lose a bit of EXP. Failures like this in real life aren’t resolved that simply. I died yesterday, but it was a heck of a lot of fun. It was because I didn’t expect it that I enjoyed it. So much so, in fact, that I came here to die again.”
“Is dying your hobby, or something?”
“Not exactly. But if I have to die, I can still have fun every time. I expect to learn what I came for, so I’m excited to die. Uh, I’m not really sure what I’m getting at here, but... I’m having fun gaming with you, Maeda, so let’s not take it too seriously.”
“...Thank you. Maybe I do take things too seriously sometimes. I’m just rather afraid of failure.”
“Then I say the solution is to fail as much as you can in UW, so you can get used to it. Even if you don’t fail, you’re sure to be surrounded by failures with me and Akira around.”
“Haha! Trouble does seem to always be two steps behind you two, but I really have been enjoying things.”
“See, you’re already getting used to failure!”
We continued through the door and stood roughly where the upperclassmen died the day before. There were mummies in the walls here as well.
“What are you going to do?”
“Well, these are the guys that attacked us yesterday, yeah?” I started whacking the wall of mummies, but they didn’t react. Their names and status windows weren’t visible, either. They were essentially just part of the scenery.
“Yes, I believe they were called Crimson Mummies.”
“Right. As they are now, they’re harmless; however, something caused them to react and charge us.”
“It all happened so fast! I was so surprised that I thought I might have a real-life heart attack.”
“Now, the question is what caused them to swarm us? Once we know their wake conditions, we might be able to avoid awakening them. If my idea works out, then they should start moving.”
“And when they do, we die.”
“Yep. Are you sure you don’t want to book it out of here?”
“No, I’m staying with you. Otherwise, we can’t be even.” She really did have a strong sense of honor.
“All right. Here goes nothing.”
Maeda nodded, and I cast a large-range Enfeebling Circle. My MP fell to 0, but the wall mummies didn’t react. Next, I activated Turnover. My HP became 1, while my MP bar filled completely.
Then—
Groooooooooan...
The army of Crimson Mummies awakened! Needless to say, they made short work of us. But yes! I was right!
I chose to respawn, and the two of us returned to our set point within the school where you always respawned when you died.
There, we began strategizing.
“Whew... Even if we knew what to expect, they’re still terrifying.”
“We died, as I predicted.”
“What did you learn from it?”
“I’ve figured out what causes them to move: they have health-based aggro.”
Hostile monsters will attack players unprovoked based on their type of aggro. The basic types are as follows: Line-of-sight-based aggro is the simplest; when a monster sees you, it attacks. Sound-based aggro triggers when a monster hears footsteps. Finally, health-based aggro; the one currently in question, prompts monsters to attack low-health players. The subjects of our investigation were most likely all hostile monsters with health-based aggro settings. My HP drops to 1 when I use my ultimate, so they reacted to that. In short—
“Health-based aggro? Then every time you use Dead End...”
“Yep, it turns into a Crimson Mummy handshake party. And that equals massacre.”
“Then we can’t use Dead End, can we?”
“Right.”
“That means it’s impossible! Dead End is our trump card.”
“Oh, no no no. Now that we know that, we can advance further.” We’ve confirmed that I absolutely can’t use Dead End in that area. That’s a mandatory condition.
“Is grinding levels the only way, then?”
“If that were the issue, we might as well just wait for MEP from tests.” Our upperclassmen were massacred at a whopping level 60. At levels 25 to 30, it would take forever and a half for us to get anywhere near that, especially as the EXP requirement increased with each level.
“Should we give up, then?”
“No, not yet. First, we have to exhaust all possible possibilities.”
“What possibilities are there?”
“You got Draconic magic from Shadow Dragon Diablo, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes. Diabolic Howl?”
It almost slipped my mind, but we looted that magic from him during the final boss battle of the competitive event. As the scholar’s unique magic, the only way to get Draconic magic is as a drop from dragon bosses. It’s not that great when you consider how hard it is to acquire, so people pretty much consider it trash. We were lucky to get the drop in one try. Of course, we gave it to Maeda, since she was the only one who could learn it.
“Yeah, that one. It cuts the target’s HP by half if I recall?” It could very well be the perfect spell for us.
“I believe so. But it only works on enemies at levels lower than the user, I believe? It certainly won’t work on those monsters...”
“Of course not. If it were that easy, everyone would be using scholar.”
“Agreed. It aIso costs 150 MP.” Maeda’s MP, meanwhile, was 200. Ouch.
With that great of a cost, it was hard to imagine the spell ever being worth it. Combined with the level requirement on its effect, it was hardly useful enough to warrant that cost.
Still, a picture’s worth a thousand words. I was ready to see it for myself.
“Would you mind showing me how it looks when the spell is successful?”
“Sure, I don’t mind at all.”
Thus, we walked back to the warp room and teleported to the first floor of Trinisty Island. During the month when Akira wasn’t here, my good friends, the Island Bunnies, kept me company and helped me test things out. We were off to request their services once more.
After warping, we exited the city and found a few frolicking Island Bunnies. The game called them bunnies, but they seemed more like kangaroos to me. Their vacant expressions made them seem so innocent... But they weren’t that cute, so I never felt bad using them for experiments. They were my good buddies, always there when you needed them.
“All right. One Diabolic Howl, if you please.”
“All right.” Maeda nodded and began to cast the spell.
While she did, her body was surrounded by mana particles that moved along with her. Every magic spell has a cast time; if the player moves during the cast, it’s immediately canceled. Thus, you’re essentially stuck in place while you cast.
“Diabolic Howl!”
A mass of energy in the shape of a dragon’s face materialized as she finished casting. The dragon howled and chomped on the poor Island Bunny. Ooh, that’s a really cool visual effect. Very flashy.
As a result—
Kotomi cast Diabolic Howl!
But Island Bunny resisted the effect!
Oh... It didn’t even work on the weakest enemy.
“How utterly useless.”
“Well, it only failed once. I’d like to see just how luck-based it is, so would you mind casting it a few more times?”
“Certainly. How many is a few?”
“Hmm. I think a hundred should suffice.”
“What?! That many times?!”
“Aw, c’mon. Without a large enough data set, the probability measurement could be skewed by luck. Honestly, a hundred is the absolute minimum that I’d accept.”
“I understand your point, I suppose... Did you really do this all the time until Aoyagi joined?”
“Yep! Data gathering is buckets of fun, right?”
“I-I suppose everyone has their own idea of fun.”
“Woo! 99 to go!”
Our hundred-ball batting practice began—
—and eventually ended.
“Phew... It’s finally over.”
“Good job. That’s 13 hits out of a hundred.”
That was an abysmal hit rate. If it only costed 5 or 10 MP, I could see it being used as a time-filler, at least. But 150? I couldn’t imagine this seeing any practical use.
“It’s honestly useless, isn’t it?” Maeda asked, performing the recovery pose to regain MP.
The pose is simple; plant your feet, put your hands together, and close your eyes. Then, you’re enveloped in a light-green glow as your HP and MP refill. It can be done both in and out of battle, but the effect is much greater out of battle.
“For now, that’s the only conclusion. But there’s something else I want to try.”
“What else can we possibly do?”
“Let’s see what happens if we use it alongside Joint Magic.” Joint Magic was our reward for winning the competitive mission. The talent allowed us to combine our magic when attacking.
“Joint Magic... I haven’t tried using it yet.”
“Symbologist’s circle magic can’t be resisted. If we combine it with Diabolic Howl, maybe we can increase your success rate?”
“That may be possible. Let’s try it!”
“All right. Here we go.”
I extended my hand toward Maeda. To use Joint Magic, players must join hands and activate Joint Magic as a skill. That’s how the game knows whose magic is to be joined. From there, the next spell each player casts will be combined and unleashed at once.
“Ah... R-Right. We have to hold hands for it.” She seemed hesitant. “J-Just a moment.”
Maeda removed a handkerchief and scrubbed at her hands vigorously. Handkerchiefs were in-game items too.
“We’re in a game. It’s not like your hands are dirty.”
“I-It’s just a personal thing... Here.” She modestly took my hand. Hers was soft and silky-smooth. I’m still amazed by this level of realism. The technology behind this must be some kind of incredible, mysterious voodoo.
“Let’s do it!”
“Ready when you are.”
“Joint Magic!”
We activated the skill simultaneously, prompting special visual effects to surround us. From there, we casted our own spells. Of course, Maeda cast Diabolic Howl. As for me, any of my available circles was fine.
For now, I chose Confounding Circle, which lowers enemy MND. MND is related to magic resistance, so maybe it would increase the effect rate somewhat.
“Diabolic Howl!”
“Confounding Circle!”
We finished casting our spells. Now, what would happen next?
After I specified a radius, the magic circle appeared under the island bunny. A debuff icon appeared next to the bunny’s name. Was it just a normal Confounding Circle now?
But then—the color of the magic circle changed to a red tint. Diabolic Howl’s dragon head then emerged from the circle. With its trademark howl, the dragon chomped into its prey, reducing its HP by about 70%.
“Oho, it worked!”
“Doesn’t that seem like too much damage?”
The Island Bunny hopped toward Maeda for a counterattack, but she smacked it away with her staff. She had been doing that the entire time, but she might as well have been ignoring them. Scholars may have been weak at melee physical attacks, but against the lowest-leveled monsters in the game, even they could win easily.
“We’ll keep that in mind for the next test run. Time for round two of a hundred!”
“Again?! B-But... Oh, fine.” Maeda nodded with a smile, surprisingly. She was finally getting into it.
Thus began our second hundred-spell cycle.
—And that should do it.
“Niiiice!”
“Yes! The difference is incredible!”
With Joint Magic activated, her hit rate improved remarkably, which is to say she never missed—out of a hundred attempts, we hit a hundred times. We should then have a perfect hit rate against any enemy that didn’t outright resist the spell.
On top of that, Diabolic Howl’s HP-halving effect was amplified. Instead of 50%, the enemies lost 70%.
“This is a bombshell of a discovery! Draconic magic just needs Joint Magic to flourish.”
The UW Guidebook only had the most basic info. It only mentioned that Joint Magic is used to power up a combination of X magic and Y magic. That’s why you needed to blaze new trails through experimentation. We did, and we found an amazing combination.
Symbologist and scholar are actually very synergistic. I was super happy that symbologist’s circles have found a new use. After all, I was only using them to drain my MP before.
“How convenient. Do you think this could turn out to be a top-tier combination?”
“I dunno. It might not work on crown-marked enemies. But if it does, scholar and symbologist might just go up a tier or two.”
“Are they rated low because they don’t come through in the important situations?”
“I’d say so.”
Plus, grinding on extra-strong trash mobs was of niche benefit at best. In this game, EXP from monsters is based on the difference between player and monster levels. But there’s a cap to that; your EXP gain maxes out when the enemy is ten levels higher than you.
The enemies inside Almishr’s Burial Ground are dozens of levels higher than us, so if we tried to grind on them, we would only get a level 40 monster’s worth of EXP. It’s pointless to anyone but hobbyists like me. If a class’s use is only meaningful for hobbyists, then that use won’t be considered the class’s tier placement.
“Since we’re trying to deal with extra-strong mobs, this is good for us. This might be our new hope.”
“Good! I agree.”
“I think I’d like to try this on stronger enemies. There’s more I want to test.”
First off, the enemies at Almishr’s Burial Ground were undead. We’d need to know if this magic would even work on undead monsters.
The next question from there was where the aggro from Joint Magic spells would actually go.
“Are we going somewhere else?”
“Yeah. Let’s go to the tenth floor and try it on the undead enemies there.”
We used a warp point to go to the tenth floor, where we could fight level 20-ish undead monsters as we pleased.
Scrappy Skeleton: Level 19
That would suffice. We began using Joint Magic immediately. Our magic combined and struck the sword-and-shield-wielding skeleton, bringing down his HP bar fast and hard. Very, very nice.
The enemy then turned toward us and charged. Maeda was ready to face his advance with her magic, but I stopped her.
“Hold it, Maeda. Don’t attack yet. We should let him hit us without trying to defend or evade.”
“Hmm? All right, then.”
The Scrappy Skeleton turned toward Maeda and brought down his sword. It hit, shaving off some of Maeda’s HP. Immediately after, he turned to me and attacked, striking me for a bit of my HP as well. Immediately after, he turned to Maeda. He ran over, attacked her, and hit. Then, he turned to me again—
Keeping with the pattern, he bounced between us like a ping-pong ball.
“Fascinating... All right, Maeda. Go ahead and finish him off.”
She nodded deeply and began casting magic. “Exheal!”
The skeleton took the brunt of her recovery magic. His HP fell to 0 as he rattled and fell to pieces.
“Hmm... Interesting. I should think about this more in-depth.”
“What about it, exactly?”
“Oh, right. See, it looks like the aggro was split evenly between us.”
“Judging by the monster’s behavior, that seems right.”
Enemy monsters will always try to attack the player with the most aggro. Players lose aggro each time they take damage, thus the skeleton alternated between us. When he hit Maeda, her aggro fell below mine; when he hit me, my aggro fell below hers. The cycle went on and on as his priority shifted each time. That could only mean that we had started with approximately equal aggro before he attacked us.
Of course, we hadn’t generated aggro in any ways other than via Diabolic Howl, so apparently I took half of the aggro because of our combined magic.
But that would mean... There was a slight problem. This wouldn’t work; there must’ve been a missing piece.
In order to confirm one more thing, we descended to the eighth floor. There, we combined our magic versus the crown-marked Iron Gemini. This time, it didn’t work, meaning it really didn’t work against crown-marked enemies. Better keep that in mind...
Then, we heard an unexpected chime. A message was displayed in the Log window:
—It’s almost time for morning assembly. Students, please return to the school immediately.
“Oh, time for class. Let’s go back, I guess.”
“Right, let’s do so. We can continue after school.”
For now, our investigation would have to end. Despite having to cut things short, it was a productive session. Productive enough to make me think we might just stand a chance.
◆◇◆
After classes ended, I decided to return to the guild market. Akira, Maeda, and Yano came along. Draco too, of course, who had been sleeping happily in the hood of my robe throughout our entire morning test runs. He did a lot of sleeping as a growing baby, but right now he was flapping his little wings excitedly nearby.
“So, Ren, what are we looking for?”
“I’m looking for a staff with high poise. Plus a shield, if I can find one. Yano, what shield do you have right now?”
“Oh? Here ya go.” Yano opened her item window and showed me.
Dueling Shield
Type: Shield
Level: 27
Poise: 144
Effects: None
A solid shield for her level, but one without any special effects.
“If I can find a shield with higher poise than that, then I’ll buy it. Staves are my top priority, though.”
“What staff are you using, Takashiro?”
“I’m using this.”
Iron Staff
Type: Staff
Level: 21
Might: 17
AP gain: 10
Poise: 55
Guardbreak: 20
Effects: INT +8, MND +4, Max MP +12
Compared to a shield, its poise was laughable. I would need much more than this. If I couldn’t do significantly better, it’d be nearly impossible to make it through Almishr’s Burial Ground. Unfortunately, it was the best recipe I could craft. The only way to get a better one was to buy one, and that was what led me to the guild market. Plus, rare drops from monsters often couldn’t be crafted.
“Hmm. Not sure if I follow, but whatever floats your boat.”
“So all you need is high poise, right?”
“Yeah, so long as the gear isn’t too expensive.”
“There are so many shops here. Let’s run around and have a look!”
We started with a reasonable looking shop.
“Hello and welcome!” A large third-year, probably in judo or some other athletics club, was the shopkeeper. He looked at me with intense curiosity. “Ooh, a first-year with a dragon? You must be this year’s first MVP!”
Having Draco with me made me too easy to spot.
“Yes, sir. I guess I am.”
“A symbologist, even. You don’t see that every day. Magic knights, paladins, and wizards are usually the ones to take the spotlight. You’re an interesting fellow.”
Oh boy, here comes the recruitment speech.
But then he subverted my expectations.
“So, are you here for anything specific? Or did you want to look at our inventory list?” Instead, he returned straight to the shop conversation. It took me by surprise, and I could only stare and blink for a moment. “Hmm? What’s up?”
“Oh, uh... People usually invite me to their guilds, because of the dragon and all. I was just surprised that you didn’t.”
“Did you want an invite?”
“No, that’s not quite it.”
“Our guild is only for martial artists who love hand-to-hand combat. Sorry, you’re just not in our target demographic.”
“Oh, I gotcha. I didn’t know there were guilds like yours.”
“Do you make martial artist-only parties too?” Akira asked.
“That we do. It’s tough without a healer, but it’s our hobby, so we find ways around it. It’s all about having fun while you win.”
That sounded like a nice mentality. Everyone should be able to find their own passion and fun. It was a game, after all. And I was playing with my own bizarre style too.
“So, what’ll it be? Would you like to browse our wares?”
“Oh, I’d just like to see your staves and shields, please. Specifically ones with high poise and low enough level requirements for us to use them.”
“Poise, huh? Just a second. We’ve got these two, but they’re both rare drops.”
Fanatic’s Staff (O)
Type: Staff
Level: 25
Might: 3
AP gain: 7
Poise: 256
Guardbreak: 6
Effects: INT -60, MND -60, Max MP -50
Fanatic’s Shield (O)
Type: Shield
Level: 25
Poise: 320
Effects: INT -60, MND -60, Max MP -50
Oho, bingo! I was hoping for something just like this. They came with a bunch of insane stat penalties, but that hardly mattered to me.
“How much for this?!”
“The shield is 1.5 million Mira.”
“That’s really expensive!” That was way out of my price range! No-go there.
“The staff is ten thousand Mira.”
“That’s really cheap!” Now that was my kinda price! I gotta buy it! Buy, buy, buy, buy!
“That is quite a difference in price...” Yano seemed unsatisfied with the price of the shield.
“I’m pretty sure these are the market average prices.”
“I guess it does make sense, if you consider the practicality of the two.”
“What do you mean?” Maeda asked me.
“Most staff-wielding classes aren’t trying to get hit by enemies. They’re like mages; if a staff has high guard and reduces your magic stats, doesn’t that seem like a ridiculously useless trade-off?”
“Oh... I suppose it does.”
“On the other hand, a tank is happy to have as much poise as possible. It kinda sucks to lose MP, but INT and MND are no big deal. The staff is confusing and niche at best, but the shield is perfect for most tanks, so naturally it would be in high demand.”
“Right, so demand has an effect on price. In my offline games, items in the same set are usually the same price. But online games are affected by the market forces of supply and demand... I guess that’s obvious, since they’re transactions between real people.” Maeda nodded, clearly impressed. It was her first online game; this kind of price difference must’ve been a new concept for her.
“That sounds about right.”
But this was just what I needed. This bafflingly useless staff, seen as vendor trash by everyone else, would become my secret weapon.
“I’ll take the staff, then!”
“All right! Thank you, sir.”
When we left the store, I made a declaration to the party: “We might be able to do this! Let’s challenge Almishr’s Burial Ground one more time!”
After some preparation, we embarked
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