Live Dungeon!

Diniel felt quite demotivated to see the glittering light particles near Korinna. Having been out of the shotgun attack’s range, she had seen Melchor defend Korinna, dying to the rocks as a result.

But if he was someone who would die that easily, he likely would not have lasted this long in the first place. He had decades of combat experience in environments where death was permanent, and despite his age, he still held the record for consecutive victories in the national martial arts tournament. It was unthinkable that he would die so easily to the likes of Mount Golem.

Diniel knew from experience that Melchor’s death was deliberate on his part, as back when she was with Golden Tune, she had also died on purpose whenever she wanted to slack off.

“Gah…”

Bored almost to sleep, Diniel proceeded to shoot the Mount Golem with some re-used arrows. Melchor’s reason for deliberately dying did not matter to her — all she cared about was not having to exert too much effort. Although the mysteries of the Dungeon intrigued her, she still had so many other things she was interested in.

Diniel figured that since Melchor had died on purpose, he would not be offended as a client if she were to put in less effort, so she immediately started cutting corners. In the first place, Melchor’s participation was included in her calculation of the team’s chances of victory, so now she felt no need to try and win.

She thought of the Tanks as a lost cause — Xeno was dying so often, and Daryl was sure to reach his limit sooner or later. Perhaps Diniel could pick up some of their slack if she were to try, but she had never even been invested in this fight in the first place. It was a mystery to her why Tsutomu had chosen to have this team composition take on layer seventy rather than focus on getting it over with and receiving their promised reward, and even more so why Melchor had readily agreed to this plan. From her point of view, it was akin to being forced to do a babysitting job.

Still, the team’s new Healer, Korinna, surprised her quite a bit today. She had not expected a Channeler to be able to maintain good performance on their first time on layer seventy, but Korinna had managed to hold her own quite well so far.

Although she could not provide any support to the Attackers, she did provide the Tanks with the required amount of buffs and healing. And somehow, she was even able to revive her allies within just a few minutes, greatly mitigating one of the Channeler Job’s biggest downsides. Diniel, having been in a party with other Channelers in the past, was somewhat impressed by Korinna’s ability to revive quickly.

But that also had its limitations. Xeno and Melchor had died at the same time, forcing Korinna to use the > twice. Melchor could not be counted on since he had died on purpose, and Daryl was going to overexert himself any second now. Korinna had no > or defensive skills of the sort to protect herself which, so if the enemy were to target her, she was sure to be killed — and then it would be all over for the team. As such, Diniel started mixing in cheaper arrows to save on the expensive ice arrows.

Korinna was aware of Diniel’s cutting corners, but as a Healer, she was not quite in the position to voice her opinion. She simply folded her hands together and channeled her skills, providing support and healing for Daryl as he was knocked around by the Mount Golem.

“I’m sorry! Mister Xeno’s revival will take five more minutes this time!” Korinna said, her cream-colored hair fluttering in the wind as the Mount Golem swung its arms.

Daryl had no time to respond, tears welling in his eyes as he kept on tanking the Mount Golem’s hits. And the monster’s movements were still becoming even smoother, perhaps due to it getting more used to its final phase form.

Korinna’s eyes of a reaper — her ability to foresee death — was by no means perfect. Due to her watching other Explorers so much, she could more or less sense situations in which combatants were likely to die. However, there were some things that she could only know for sure while in a real battle, so she sometimes failed to foresee those situations when it was her first time against certain enemies.

For instance, Korinna was shocked quite a bit by Melchor’s sudden death — as a result of him protecting her from a rock that she could have dodged — due to her not having predicted that death happening at all. And she could not shake the feeling that it was a senseless sacrifice, which she honestly had no idea how she should deal with.

By this time, Daryl’s likelihood of dying was getting higher — and even more clearly so after he heard the almost-panic in Korinna’s voice.

Casting revival skills for Xeno and Daryl resulted in Korinna’s mental energy running low, so she decided to let Melchor stay dead for now. As the minutes passed, the situation was steering more and more toward Daryl’s death. As a Channeler, she had no >-type skills like those of White Mages, so she could not be an improvised evasion-based Tank like Tsutomu. If Daryl were to die, she would be targeted next, and was sure to be killed quickly.

“>.”

The word ‘stuck’ came up in Korinna’s mind as she thought about the situation. She proceeded to gulp down a vial of bad-tasting Blue Potion and clasp her hands while looking at Daryl.

Korinna was tempted to give up like Diniel. Daryl seemed so close to death that she did not think he would last another five minutes — and even though she sometimes would fail to predict deaths, the ones she did predict had never been false before. Korinna now believed quite firmly that he would not make it.

No matter how much healing she did, no matter how accurate her foresight was, some situations were just unwinnable. As much as she hated that, it was what she had learned from working with random parties in the past. Sometimes, people had even been angry at her for reviving them. Perhaps things would be different if she could carry out multiple roles like Tsutomu, but that was practically impossible for her right now.

She could not see the result changing no matter how hard she tried — and so a part of her thought it would be faster to be defeated today, and try again later.

“>. >.”

Daryl, however, had not yet given up — unlike the other Tanks Korinna had worked with before, many of whom were quick to give up or even straight up unmotivated and incompetent. From her point of view, Daryl was exactly the kind of Tank she would want to work with.

“Sorry, I need three more minutes! Hang in there!”

Korinna had not given up on her role so far, and seeing that Daryl was of the same mind, she suddenly felt motivated to keep going. And so she did — and even prayed to God, wishing for Daryl not to die.

The fact still stood, however, that Korinna was seeing the blade of the Grim Reaper’s scythe around Daryl’s neck.

――▽▽――

Many types of Cynokin existed in this world, but ones with folded ears were quite a rare sight. They had a tendency of becoming beautiful in adulthood, and often would garner admirers at an early age.

Daryl hated these ears of his, however, as they interfered with his sense of hearing, and had been a hidden source of bad smell for some time due to accumulated earwax. In his childhood, he had once even contemplated cutting them off.

Now that he was focused, though, his sense of hearing improved — which let him hear Korinna’s voice from a longer distance, and the sounds of his teammates’ movements. He could currently only hear two other people moving, so he knew that Melchor and Xeno were dead. And from the sounds of Diniel’s arrows hitting the Mount Golem, he could tell that Diniel had switched from using ice arrows to normal ones.

Melchor’s death and the time it would take to revive Xeno had eaten into Daryl’s mental endurance. And since he had already exceeded his physical limit, his situation was more difficult than ever.

“>.”

But this was also a great opportunity — a situation that could push himself even further. Although Diniel had already half-given up, Korinna was still supporting him. Feeling grateful for that, Daryl kept on defending against the Mount Golem’s attacks.

“Ngh–!”

Each time he took a hit, he felt as if his body was being torn apart. Although Korinna would always heal away his pain and injuries, if he were to take a few more hits, he felt like he would start seeing his life flash before his eyes — like he was in hell already.

Not that it was real, however, as Daryl had already experienced this sensation so many times during his training with Garm. He spat out blood from his mouth and kept his eyes forward, facing the Mount Golem again.

He normally would not be able to stay like this for long, with Korinna’s support being what kept him here. Daryl peeled his eyes open, observing the Mount Golem’s every move and defending while also considering his surroundings.

“>.”

Besides, Korinna would build a lot of aggro when her twofold > took effect, so he had to pull as much of it to himself as he could. He clashed with the Mount Golem’s punch head-on with a bash of his tower shield. The hit threw him far away and dealt heavy damage, but this way, he was able to build enough aggro.

Ever since hearing from Tsutomu that the team would get another attempt at layer seventy in case they failed, Daryl had been trying to break his limits — but in the end, it seemed not to be achievable through training. It had to be during a real fight, where the result actually mattered.

“>.”

By now, Daryl was down to using the standard red aura >. The Mount Golem kicked him away, the impact breaking the vial of Blue Potion he was holding. He proceeded to lick whatever was left of it from his hand.

As if to punish him for doing that, the Mount Golem blasted a heat ray from its eyes, which he blocked with his tower shield, narrowly avoiding being burned to death — then he blocked its successive attacks, too. After he was done licking up the blood-mixed Blue Potion, Daryl used his recovered mental energy to unleash more skills.

He swore to win this fight with this team — and without relying on Tsutomu and Hannah. His pride as a Tank made him want to be as good as those two, and not just someone who only let the flow take him.

Daryl was now moving around sluggishly, even by Heavy Knights’ standards, saying nothing except the names of his skills, and getting hit so much that one would expect him to die any second now. Although the amount of blood he had coughed up should have been lethal by now, he was receiving consistent support and healing, so was still up and fighting — surely this was what it meant for one to fight over their limit.

And so, in the end, Daryl escaped from the Grim Reaper’s blade — he lasted longer than five minutes against the Mount Golem’s onslaught, and against Korinna’s foresight.

Xeno came back to life, and the > that Korinna had cast on Daryl did nothing but generate more aggro.

“>.”

Sensing Xeno’s revival, Daryl used more of his skills to keep the aggro on himself. He completely disregarded the costs of mental energy involved, even though pushing himself this way could result in symptoms similar to severe sleep deprivation down the line.

“……”

“Here.”

Diniel, having retrieved the Scorchstone Robe from under a pile of rocks, passed it on to Xeno — who was looking at Daryl as the latter was still fighting while being covered in blood.

“They really are something else.”

Diniel had hoped for the team to be wiped out quickly, but Daryl and Korinna persisted beyond belief. And now that she saw someone achieve results by working harder than her, she did not feel like slacking off anymore. She prepared her ice arrows, and started using > again each time Daryl was knocked away.

Xeno blasted off his silver > a few times to try and ease Daryl’s burden. But by now, Daryl had already generated much higher aggro than Korinna — who had generated quite a lot herself due to her repeated use of revival skills — so Xeno could barely pull it back to him, and in the end, failed to distract the enemy.

For another forty minutes, Daryl continued carrying out his role as a Tank, while Korinna supported and healed him. And in the end, with one last > from Diniel, the Mount Golem was destroyed.