"Maryele-san, Maryele-san!" The youth who jumped just now ran to her. The youth was holding a spear-like weapon with sharp edges on either side, he should be a Samurai. He was wearing leather armor under the hot sun, but he was totally wet after falling into the sea, just like a dog after a bath. "Heal me please!" The youth was bleeding profusely from his head. "No problem." Maryele nodded energetically, sat upright and cast Healing Light. A six-pointed white star appeared at her fingertip, and the youth's HP was refilled after absorbing its light. "This is great, I'm cured!" The youth felt his wound, the bleeding had been healed. Healing Light was a low-level spell with a short cast time and weak effects. It was normally used to bridge the gap while waiting for the high-level spells to cool down. But for low-level players, this was a powerful spell that could completely recover their HP. "Thank you!" "Anytime, anytime." Maryele smiled. "Don't mention it, go for another one! Get some more crabs! I suggest you ambush them from the side, remember to watch out for the restriction of your skills as well." "Okay, understood!" The youth ran off full of energy down the beach.
"Hahhhh!" "Die! Die, die! Just die!" "Accept your fate!" Maryele lay down on her deck chair as she listened to the battle cries of the beginners, the ice-cold soda in the glass cooling the summer heat. This was just like heaven. She couldn't help but smile. Many of the beginners here wanted to be in the production line. This was the 3rd month since the Catastrophe, but they were willing to stay at this low-level because they abhorred fighting. This was not a problem as players focusing on production were necessary to support battle guilds who went out to farm. But in this alternate world, being a pure production player was very risky. If they had no battle power, they couldn't protect themselves in a crisis. And a high player level was beneficial to production as well, some simple ingredients could be obtained faster if they went by themselves. This point probably played a big part in convincing them. Or maybe the beginners were aware of that, but the production guilds did not have a comprehensive beginner support program for them, so they had given up. The beginners gathered at this beach were passionately grinding by engaging the crabs repeatedly. To make it clear, every time they had a setback and were about to give up, Maryele would heal their wounds with her sunflower-like smile. So even if they wanted to retreat, they couldn't do it, the pride of boys was such a pathetic thing. As for the girls, they were influenced by the furious fighting atmosphere of the boys and held the thought 'can't be helped, I will also train a bit more...' Only Maryele was not aware of this reason. (Everyone is working so hard... Wah, the weather is so nice.) The sleepy Maryele continued to enjoy her vacation.
From the angle of the sun, it should be about 3pm. Isuzu was on her way to a pond nearby. It was not a big pond, but because there was fresh water flowing in, the pond was cool and clear, the water for the group was all drawn from here. It might not be suitable for drinking so no one had tried that, but Isuzu thought it should be fine. There were no showers in the hills. No one actually suggested it, but Isuzu's group decided to take turns to shower in the pond. "... Huff!... Ha!" The distant sound of breathing came from deep in the forest. (Who is it?) Isuzu peeked in the direction of the sound. The one training vigorously in the forest was Rundelhous. He was wearing a light purple costume similar to the uniform of a noble's boarding school, with a cloak of a mage on top, and was sweating profusely. He must have been exercising for quite some time. If the fluid that was dyeing the ground in darker shades was sweat, he might have been training all this while after leaving the dungeon. Rundelhous extended his left hand forward. He created a big fireball, compressing it to the limit to the size of a fist. This process required immense concentration, Rundelhous who was always very concerned with his image was sweating like a pig and clenching his teeth. After shooting the ball, a large ball of mist formed in his hand, which he compressed into an ice ball and shot out like he did before. This attack extinguished the fireball he shot out earlier. The magic that had been changed into ice and fire clashed fiercely in the forest, producing lots of steam. Rundelhous did not let down his guard and kept moving around, maneuvering himself from time to time to avoid the scalding water. Incorporating defensive moves into his attacks, he seemed to be doing a battle simulation. Isuzu noticed 2 lines on either side of Rundelhous, she didn't understand the meaning behind them. Only after watching Rundelhous for a few minutes did she realize what they represented. (... The walls of the dungeon.) The 2 lines on the ground represented the tunnel in the dungeon, Rundelhous was fighting invisible skeletons that were coming at him from the front. He kept moving around all over the place, but he did not cross the line, because they were walls. And he had been moving for quite a while now. It seemed like a long time, but after about 5 minutes, Rundelhous fell on his knees and breathed out loud. He maintained this position like he was puking, giving out an embarrassingly loud panting sound. "Are you okay...?" Isuzu who had been watching from behind the trees asked hesitantly. He reminded her of a classmate with asthma who displayed similar symptoms.
"Rundelhous-san, it is this way." Isuzu tilted her head slightly, and as she started on the trail leading to the pond, the young man said to her: "Miss Isuzu, please just call me Rudy, that's how my parents address me." Isuzu listened to this with a tingling in her heart. 3 Shiroe and Akatsuki were brought to the depths of the Ancient Palace of Eternal Ice, they did not know which zone they were in. In the depths of the palace, it was cold despite it being summer, the cold was between 'cool' and 'chilly'. At the end of the tunnel was a sculpted giant metal door. "This way, this is my abode, please come in." ReGan who claimed to be a sage opened the door and invited the 2 of them in. There were several thousand books in the library. You could tell it was a library from the gigantic round table, the tall ceilings and the room that extended in a straight line into the depths like a tunnel. There were mountains of books surrounding them. On either side of the tunnel wall were shelves twice the height of Shiroe. They were filled to the brim with delicacies known as books. The journals and scrolls spilled onto the floor, forming mini-avalanches. This sight continued on deep into the darkness. ReGan searched around the room as he said 'Hmm, this is weird' 'Where did it go?' Shiroe and Akatsuki occupied a couch after clearing the books that were on it. "Eh, I apologize, I have misplaced the beverages I prepared in advance." ReGan was sorry about that, but Shiroe shook his head and replied: "It's alright," taking a few glasses and a bottle of black rose tea from his bag. This tea had became a popular beverage among the masses, it was thicker than brewed tea but was not as bitter, and you could add honey or sugar to it to fit your preferences. The one Shiroe made had been cooled in the spring wells and sweetened with syrup. Shiroe poured cups for himself, ReGan, and Akatsuki. ReGan gave an expression of joy with just a sip. He might be short and frail, but he had a charming aura, a man of mystery. From his appearance, he seemed about Shiroe's age. "My gratitude, I have always been poor in searching for things... Is this Dazanegg's Magic Bag?" "That's right, I had someone make this for me." Shiroe nodded and replied bluntly. "I have researched this bag before... for the process of crystallizing the magic circuits, you would need purple flame crystals and wyvern leather right?" "Yes, I gathered these materials before they could work on this." Shiroe was impressed, this was a level 45 quest 'Getting a Magical Backpack'. The sage ReaGan had a good grasp on the contents of the quest, much more knowledgeable than normal People of the Land. "Please excuse my impudence, let me introduce myself again, I am ReGan. I claimed to be a mage and use magic, but technically I am a magic scholar." "Magic scholar?" "Yes, someone who researches magic. I am also a lecturer for normal magical studies, but I have been focusing on doing research." "Researching here?" "Yes, I have lived in the Ancient Palace of Eternal Ice for over 30 years, this was originally the laboratory of my master. But after he passed on a few years ago, I inherited his work and continued to research day and night, do forgive my poor dress sense." "... Mirror Lake... you are the Sage of Mirror Lake?" Shiroe remembered ReGan's first introduction and understood the significance of this title. Sage of Mirror Lake. When Elder Tales was just a game, this was a title that was related to several quests, rumors, and books. For instance, the crucial item 'Key of Eternal Darkness' for the major raid '9 Prisons of Heroes' was said to be made by the Sage of Mirror Lake. But this was just a setting in the game which Shiroe thought was meant to add more background to the story, so he did not give it much thought. "I guess I am. But I still can't refer to myself with the title, unable to drop the feeling of being a student. When others mention this title, I always feel that they are referring to my master." "So the Sage of Mirror Lake is a hereditary title?" "It is indeed, please call me ReGan." With his humble demeanor, the Sage of Mirror Lake did not have the air of one with such a grand title. The silence flowed between them. Shiroe drank his black rose tea and his brain turned at high speed. Attending the meeting of League of Freedom Cities Eastal was due to their invitation, but it was also a step in gathering intelligence of the world. Attending this meeting provided the chance to know and interact with the leaders of the world, widening their information network, much more in depth than what you could get poking around in the streets. But this was a big catch. It had been 3 months since the Catastrophe. All kinds of knowledge about the world was gathered slowly by Shiroe's group. At least the minimum knowledge to live their daily lives normally was complete. The Adventurers in Akiba were successful in getting food, clothes, and shelter. But information like this made Shiroe think that "there is so much more to learn." There would be no problem if it was just Shiroe alone. Or if there were only a few members living together, all problems could be solved. No matter what the People of the Land thought or what was the truth of this world, Shiroe and the others were able to survive in this world with their abilities. They could go on journeys indefinitely, or build a base in the deep mountains, they could survive no matter what. But Shiroe could not think of it this way. There were 15,000 Adventurers in Akiba and almost 30,000 in the whole server, if he could abandon them, he wouldn't have started the Round Table Council. The 30,000 Adventurers could not ignore the People of the Land and live by themselves, they also needed a base of their own. In this area under the Japanese server, the population was probably 1.5 million, the 15,000 Adventurers were too big in number, they would have a large impact on the world no matter what they did. In fact, the new production method already had a huge impact on the world. Even if Nyanta did not discover this new method, someone would definitely discover it after a few months and the news would spread. Shiroe took advantage of everyone's confusion and depression after the Catastrophe and took the initiative to control the situation. Shiroe did not feel responsible for the spread of the new production method, but he needed to understand the impact of this new knowledge. And there should be similar incidents in the future. No matter how they tried to conceal it, Adventurers were still an alien existence in this world. To achieve a good ending and divert them from the path of destruction, they would need deep and wide knowledge of the world. Shiroe's group lacked such knowledge. (This conversation... might be more important than the meeting with the nobles.) ReGan stared at Shiroe with interest and said: "I claimed to be a magic scholar, but the school of magic covers a lot of areas and has many fields of studies. My research focuses on global-level magic." "... Global level?" Shiroe rubbed his chin as he listened to this foreign term. "Yes, this is in accordance to the scale of the magic effects, magic can be categorized into action level, battle level, tactical level, strategic level, war level, national level, continental level, and global level. This is just one way of categorizing them, you can also group them by their features into energy control, changes in material form, conjuring types. Arranging them by spell levels is also commonly used." Shiroe thought as he listened. This was a rare way of thinking, if you categorized by the features of magic... for instance, Sorcerers controlled energy, Summoners conjured creatures... Shiroe could understand, that was a simple way of doing it. Shiroe also understood grouping them by spell levels, which was what spells could be learned at each specific player level, the way used by the officials in Elder Tales. "To categorize by scale, you need to analyze the magic by its effects or understand its intent through observation. Action class is a magic that simulates a single action. For example swinging a sword to attack a monster, if you do this by magic, that is action class, hurting one or a group of monsters is the effect, which can be achieved by a single action. The magic used by mages are mostly action class, no matter how damaging the attack might be." From this perspective, Shiroe's basic attack, Mind Bolt, was an action level magic. That was a magic bolt that hurt the enemy's mind, but the effect was equivalent to shooting an arrow. Even if there were damage or debuffs, they were just additional conditions. "Battle level magic can decide the result of a single battle. If you cast it, you can determine the fate of your enemies and your allied party." This was a deep way of categorizing magic. For example Shiroe's Astral Hypnos seemed like an action level spell, but depending on the way it was used, it could push a group of enemies to the brink of defeat. Labeling it as battle level made sense in this situation. "Tactical level magic can affect 2-3 battles at the same time, a legendary magic cast by a group of Sorcerers belongs to this class." Affecting multiple battles, meaning powerful buffing enchantments? Shiroe could only find one spell in his arsenal that fit this description. "Strategic level is even larger in scale, the effect can last for days, a single spell can defeat a fortress, a tower, or a dungeon." This was already beyond Shiroe's imagination. It might make sense in a simulation game, but players role-played as Adventurers in Elder Tales, if the Adventurer had the power to destroy a dungeon by himself, there would be no need to work together since they had such overwhelming forces. "Let's keep the rest of this short, war level can decide a war, national level can destroy an enemy nation, continental level can affect the whole continent with a single spell. As for global level..." "It's a magic that can decides the existence or the fate of the world... correct?" "That is correct." Shiroe understood the concept. It was still understandable if you treated it as academic research, but did such spells exist? No, in the world of Elder Tales, Shiroe was an Enchanter himself, questioning the existence of magic was ridiculous, but the scale in this topic was too big, he was unable to relate to it. "About that... Pardon me for asking, I can keep up with this categorization, but does such magic exist? Or is this just a theoretical category?" Shiroe's question made ReGan smile charmingly and answer. "It does exist, Searching through the archives and with my own observations, magic of this level happened 3 times, it is called World Fraction." "... The Catastrophe right?" ReGan's expression confirmed Shiroe's query instantly.
"About 350 years ago, the world was much more prosperous than it is now, even if it could not match the glory of the fallen ancient empire, the population was still 3-5 times more than it is right now. Using the continent as their base, people spread to the corners of the world." "What do you mean by continent?" "Ah, I mean the neighboring Eureddo continent." The Eurasia continent... including China, the countries in the middle-east, Shiroe nodded in reply. This was without question the biggest continent in the world. But he did not start with the ancient lore, which surprised Shiroe. According to the background story of Elder Tales, the ancient empire which advanced civilization to its limits was ripped apart and reconstructed. The developers did not mention the dark age during the rebuilding of the world, so the players only thought of Elder Tales as the world right after the reconstruction. But the buildings and roads from the ancient times deteriorated to this extent, which meant all sorts of things happened during this dark period of time. Shiroe kept thinking of it as a blank period of time where nothing happened, so this fact surprised him. "The four races of Humans, Alvs, Elves and Dwarves lived gloriously in the world, every country lived in peace and prosperity, the magical items you can find in dungeons today are remnants from this period of time. The Ancient Palace of Eternal Ice we are in is an ancient magical structure, obviously different from that of the ancient lore, right? This is built by the Alv during that time, and they're also the inventors of magic, the pioneers in magic civilization. The various magical items they created are said to be able to decipher the mysteries of the world. The Alv... The developers listed them as an extinct ancient race, Shiroe was a Half-Alv who inherited this ancient bloodline, but there was no history or story behind this in the game, he only knew they were powerful in magic, a race suitable to use magic items.
"There are many theories behind the identity of the six scrapped princesses, the theory here is that they are different individuals with their own names and place of birth. But there is one thing for certain, they are all princesses from different parts of the continent. Six scrapped princesses was coined by later historians, it is said they did not act in concert, and had become slaves like their kinsman. They escaped execution because of their royal status, which is a form of fortune. The history books describes them as 'so beautiful that they are pampered like gemstones'. The royalty, leaders, and nobles treat them as their exclusive pets, keeping them imprisoned in 6 different countries. But they did not end their lives as slaves, some used magic, some led a rebellion of enslaved Alv, some controlled the royalty from the dark, all of them started revolutions against the whole human race." Shiroe was attracted to these words, but his emotions remained neutral, leaning towards the Alv at most. From the view of a modern Japanese, the humans of the alternate world attacked the Alv out of envy of their magic technology and the remnants of the Alv started terrorist attacks to retaliate, all these were within expectations. "The human, elf, and dwarf empires who destroyed the Alv gained many magical technologies, but they had not grown accustomed to them, so a war in the form of countless stalemates started. The reason of the stalemate is because the human, elf, and dwarf nations were fighting among themselves. The six scrapped princesses were no heroines, but vengeful spirits, they orchestrated chaos behind the scenes, disrupting society, confusing the populace, spreading the seeds of discord everywhere in human society. There were many casualties in this war. If the records are correct, the total deaths matches the current population of the world. On the other hand, the six scrapped princesses were pushed to their limits. They were Alv after all, and their weakness of low reproduction ability made the population small. Even if they hid behind the scenes of the infighting among allies, they are fragile when discovered. As the six scrapped princesses were about to be killed... the first World Fraction happened." "The first..." They were finally getting to the point, Shiroe gulped. He noticed Akatsuki beside him was also totally engrossed. "Yes, the first World Fraction was speculated to be a result of powerful magic by the Alv. But there remains many mysteries, especially in the technical sense that we cannot solve. We cannot even understand the basic principle behind it, let alone replicate it. The World Fraction occurred, and the demihumans appeared... They did not exist until 300 hundred years ago. ... Demihumans did not exist. This was something Shiroe did not expect, but he could understand why civilizations including the Alv were ten times more prosperous. The world practically belonged to the humans then.
"Next will be the Iron Ages. As explained, Goblin, Kobold, Orc, Troll, Gnoll, Sahuagin, and Lizardmen, these demihumans terrorized the populace all over the world. These cruel creatures invaded the civilization circles of humans, and life began to lose its shine. After much research, defense magic and setting up of barriers... the legacy of the Alv... started to work. But there was no such assistance back then, so the humans planned to fight back. The first plan they executed was to use the secrets of the Alv to create new warriors, the 'Human Instrumentality Project', a large-scale experiment which created werecats, wolf fangs, foxtails, animal hybrids and race of ceremony, the re-engineering of a human. They were sent to the front-lines as a man-made race, the human battle for survival begins here." When he only mentioned human, dwarf, elf, and Alv, Shiroe felt uneasy, but it seemed that the hybrids made their debut here. Werecats, wolf fangs, foxtails, and race of ceremony were races made for battle by humans. "Several countries in Eureddo thought the battle was hopeless and gave up. They organized big fleets of ships to cross the ocean towards a new continent. The new continent also had demihumans, but they persevered and built their own country in this brand new world, and with the power of their faith, the 'Ancient' was born." ... The new continent, it should be referring to the Wayne continent, or the Americas continent in the old world. So in this alternate world, the Americas were discovered 300 years ago. This should be the adaptation of the history of Eurasia and Asia, coinciding with the discovery of the continent in the old world. Shiroe tried to imagine the situation in the American server, but he shook his head and stopped that train of thought.
240 years ago. Adventurers appeared. "There is nothing of significance in the history that follows. The powerful Adventurers were a gospel for all of humanity. The 'Fields of Dead Spirits', 'The King of Hades', 'The Jade Throne of the Dragon', all kinds of crises that hit Yamato were solved by the Adventurers. The world did not became peaceful, but it is now more stable, and is on the way of restoration." (And so it links to our current situation...) "Adventurers... Now that you mentioned it, ReGan-san you seem to know about me. Why is that?" Shiroe felt concerned and asked. "Because Shiroe-sama is an archmage, I feel that among the Adventurers, you would be the one who is most familiar with the situation." "Archmage?" Shiroe was confused, he did not recall completing any grand quest that granted such a prestigious title. "Shiroe-sama first appeared in history 98 years ago, there are other long lived Adventurers other than you, but in terms of frequency and activeness, Shiroe-sama must surely be an archmage, correct?"
"Hmmm, is it breakfast?" Tohya got up with an unkempt head of hair, Minori reminded him: "Ehmm, Tohya, your hair." Tohya just answered "Ehmm." Without much thought. "Should we eat?" "Let's eat." Tohya moved slowly out of bed, Rundelhous beside him was also awake. He seemed to still be dreaming and says: "Morning Miss Minori... you are as beautiful as the sun as well." After this baffling greeting he staggered towards the tent entrance. "Rundelhous-san, it is raining outside!" Minori warned him, but he mumbled: "I am just changing my face and washing clothes" as he left. Serara came back just as the tent flaps closed. Minori didn't notice when she went out, and Serara happily placed some fruits beside the sandwich tray. (Seemed like she spent the morning with Nyanta. A morning date?) With Serara's help, Minori poured the soup into bowls. The reheated soup gave off the fragrance of clam chowder soup and seemed to be delicious. "Of course, it is top quality!" The cheerful Serara said, she probably tested the taste with Nyanta. Minori thought it was indeed delicious with the corn and crab meat mixed in.
"That..." Tohya said in this heavy atmosphere. "Do you want more soup?" Serara asked Tohya, with her eyes on the pot. "No... it's not about the soup." Tohya said, choosing his words. With the gazes on him, Tohya repeatedly opened his mouth and hesitated, he probably could not find the correct words to express himself. Tohya was bad with words and hesitated like this a lot, a sight Minori was familiar with. Minori immediately understood what Tohya wanted to do when their eyes met. Tohya wanted to break the current situation by encouraging the group. Was the brother trying to protect his sister and become a target for the group? Minori could see this happening. Since Tohya was set on proposing an idea, Minori had to tag along. (No, this is something I should have done.) '... Listen, if you encounter any trouble, remember to move forward. Not your legs, but your hearts.' She remembered the advice Naotsugu gave a few days ago. To move forward with your heart, Minori felt that she finally understood the meaning behind these words, that was to have courage. Courage didn't mean not backing down from a fight, but the will to overcome the fear in your heart. Minori realized the thing that had stopped because of fear was her heart. Because of this, she said with determination, "Everyone, shall we challenge the dungeon in the afternoon today?" 6 "Ah?" Isuzu made a sound in astonishment. "What are you saying Miss Minori! We are here for training right? The priority of the lesson should be to head into the dungeon as soon as possible and accumulate EXP to level up, correct?" Rundelhous retorted with a strong attitude. "But we can only challenge it once a day, and we left before 3 hours yesterday and the day before, right? If that is the case, we will achieve the same results if we enter in the afternoon, right?" "You... You have a point, but we can't stay like this forever." Rundelhous said fretfully, he seemed unable to accept this. "It is because we can't stay like this forever." "Minori-chan?" Serara sounded worried, probably thinking that Minori would have a fight with Rundelhous. Minori felt her pleas to not be too heavy-handed. "So, for this whole morning..." Minori's words made Serara and Tohya tense up. "Let's kill time together lazily." But the tension was shattered by the 2nd half of Minori's words. "Miss Minori, are you joking?" Rundelhous sat up straight, a hint of anger in his voice. His character aside, his blonde hair and handsome face was intimidating when he was angry, Minori shrank a bit in her heart. But Isuzu was not afraid of Rundelhous at all and said casually: "Rudy, calm down." to ease his anger. Isuzu was good at observing the mood, and she might even be too conscious of it sometimes. So her actions confounded Minori, she was not afraid of Rundelhous at all. "Describing it as killing time lazily might be pushing it too much, but I feel that we should introduce ourselves." Minori chose her words carefully and continued talking to her party members. "My name is Minori, level 21, 14 years old, belonging to the human race in this world. I am the sister of Tohya here, I have the lowest level in the group. I am sorry for being a burden to this party." Rundelhous snorted lightly at her speech, but Minori didn't mind. No, it should be she could not mind. "My class is Kannagi, one of the three healing class." "We know." "No, you don't." Rundelhous attempted to break her flow, but Minori retorted with a serious look. "You don't know about me, and I don't know much about you all too. What do you like, what do you hate. Do you prefer to be in the spotlight or to keep a low profile, I don't know anything. And because I don't know, even if I want to help... I don't know where to start." "..." Serara was totally shaken and tensed up. She had never seen Minori reject someone's words so strongly, only Tohya was not alarmed. Unexpectedly Isuzu was surprised but had a gentle smile on her face. "Please tell me everything about yourself. I am weak, if I don't listen and remember it all, I won't be able to support everyone." "What do you mean by everything?" Serara asked hesitantly. "Everything literally. For instance, what is that fireball Rundelhous-san conjures?" "That is a lava ball, an Orb of Lava as it is named." Rundelhous replied casually. "Saying it like this is the same as telling us nothing... For example, why do you use this magic but not other spells? You know a variety of attack spells, correct?" "Because this spell is effective." "Why is it effective?" Minori pressed him. Rundelhous collected his thoughts and answered. "Among the spells I know, this is one of the more powerful ones. Not only that, it has a short cast time of 2 seconds and a pretty good re-cast time of 18 seconds. This is a good balance, allowing me to cast this spell every 20 seconds. It is not very rapid, but once every 20 seconds means I can cast this spell several times in a battle. Furthermore, even though this is a group attack magic, it takes the form of a small ball of lava weaving through the enemies, so it won't hit Tohya who is guarding the front. It is an excellent spell." Minori listened carefully and nodded at his words. "Wait a minute, the Samurai's taunt has a short range, and its cast time is 1.5 seconds," Tohya said with a confused look. "What do you mean?" "It means that as I am moving towards the enemy, I will invoke the skill Samurai Challenge to taunt them. Although it does no damage, it appears to them as though they were hit hard, and they will focus all their aggression on me." Serara also looked lost. She understood the words, but not the underlying concept behind the other classes, this was the first time she heard about these skills. "Hmm..." Rundelhous displayed his excellent comprehension skill. This was a necessary knowledge. If the monsters focused their attacks on the damage dealers, they would want to divert their attention away with a bigger threat, which meant stronger attacks. But to endure the attacks from them, the vanguard would need high HP and defense. Tohya was a tank specializing in taking enemies' attacks with his high defense. He was strong in defense, but Rundelhous was twice as strong in terms of attack power. To overcome this, tanks needed to learn skills that could hold the enemies' aggression despite having low attack power. Excellent tanks must have these skills to focus the enemies' attention on them. These types of skills were known collectively as taunts. It caused low but painful damage to them, burning the impression that the tank was the hated enemy into their minds. "Even though all warrior classes have taunt skills, each class has their own unique taunts. The range of the taunt is very short for Samurai, about 3 meters. It is about melee range where you can hit the enemy directly, and you need to lure them this close before invoking the taunt. It takes about 2 seconds between casting the skill and it hitting the enemy." Isuzu listened to the discussion with a blank face, the contents were complicated. "In short, the cast time of Orb of Lava and Samurai Challenge is about the same, but Orb of Lava has a much bigger range. If both spells are cast when the enemy is within their casting range, Orb of Lava will hit first, and the skeletons will target Rundelhous-san." That was the conclusion. The taunt skill that Tohya was using was not effective in the battle. If the enemy used ranged attacks, it would be outside of his taunting range. The ranged attack of Rundelhous would draw the enemies' attention before the taunt hit anyway.
It was raining outside, but the group could no longer hear its sound.
What they could do, what they could not do.
What they were good at, what they were bad at.
Minori's group kept discussing until it was noon.