Live Dungeon!

Chapter 25, Skill Image

All the 4 people in the Silver Beast party were so happy to be able to shake Garm’s hand, looking at that, Missil mumbled. He was lamenting the fact that he was not born as a handsome guy as he gulped the beer in front of him. After that, Camille and Missil, the seniors of the group, grabbed Tsutomu and pulled him in for a long talk.

The birdmen were looking down at them lately. Some of them were very cold saying that they just wanted to get the power of a clan leader or something like that. Both of them were seeking advice from Tsutomu saying something like it was not easy when their father was not around. All the young adventurers around Garm looked at Tsutomu with sympathy.

After Tsutomu finished answering all the questions, Missil put the jug that he just finished on the rack.

“Oii Tsutomu!! What the heck with that long range heal of yours?! Teach this old man how to do that too, will you?”

“Eh? The how-to, huh? Well, to be honest, I think anyone can do that if he or she is already used with throwing magic”

“Tsutomu!! Telling other adventurers your secret technique is a taboo!! Give me more beer!!”

“Camille, you really should stop drinking. I don’t want to carry you back to the inn, you know?”

“But you already know my party’s secret technique!! That’s so unfair of you!! So give me some information too!”

As Missil shouted, Tsutomu smiled and tried to laugh it off. After all, he was in the middle of gathering information from red bird woman when Misil made his prompt request.

“I don’t mind teaching you though. So, do you have any clue on why you are failing?”

“Ohh, are you really going to teach me? Well, I might be able to throw my heal quite far, you see. But it won’t heal anything at all. Compared to that, it’s way better if I start chewing healing grass”

“Eh? Is that so?”

Tsutomu thought that the reason for that failure was because it was not easy to throw magic. Even for Tsutomu, during his training, he spent 2 of the 5 days of his training trying to figure out what to do since the magic vanished when he threw it. He had to try changing his heal into a ball or a boomerang so that he could throw it afar.

In the end, he found out that imagining it as shooting a bullet worked the best. Not to mention that he could adjust its trajectory too, thus he was currently using that image. But because of that, he could not put extra attention to the strength of the healing. It was true that the healing power increased when he did that in a close range, but since it was not like the healing power fell that fast with distance, Tsutomu did not really mind at all.

“…I’m sorry. I don’t really know. I’ll do some research and tell you if I find anything”

“Ohh, you’re too kind. This old man was just a bit curious, you know?”

Hearing what Tsutomu said, Missil whispered to him. Which to that, Tsutomu just scratched his cheek with his index finger while letting out an empty laugh.

“We have a monitor anyway, I bet my secret will go out to the public sooner or later. Not to mention that I don’t like how white mages are treated in this era”

“Well, we’re in a harsh era for the mages, after all. In the past, all parties at least had one, you know. I guess this is because of the development of the potion, it’s complicated things.”

“Seriously though, it’s really infuriating, it feels like people just throw us away since they don’t need us for healing anymore!!”

Tsutomu shouted those words since he was a bit drunk. As Camille poured more beer in his mug, Tsutomu then took another sip.

The most basic healing potion made from healing herbs found in the grassland and forests was not that strong, compared to a healer, the healer’s healing ability was way better. Thus white mages who could heal cut off limbs using high heal or medic to remove debuff were highly valuable.

But for the debuff, a potion was researched to heal the poison debuff that adventurers often got from the 20th floor or lower. Not to mention, it was not that hard to harvest the required ingredients for that potion. Thus it was faster to remove that debuff by drinking that potion rather than going back to a healer, and so the value of the white mages has decreased.

But because the undead monsters in the wasteland located on the 30th floor were weak against holy magic, the value of the white mages increased for that level, a bit.

But the Shell Crab in the beaches on the 40th floor would run back to their nest when they were hurt and came back not too long after that fully healed, thus the dungeon expedition would halt there.

Out of pure fortune, a clan by the name of Aldred Crow managed to defeat the Shell Crabs. The other clans who saw it tried to mimic their success with no avail. Thus there was an era where people started searching for a way to defeat the Shell Crab without relying on luck.

People noticed that the destroyed shell would quickly heal back by a white mucus that they secreted, but it was obvious that it was not enough to completely heal their wounds. As they tried to research the reason why they could heal that fast, the result showed that it might be because of a type of healing fish that could rarely be found on the beaches.

And because of the discovery of that fish, the potion technology received a huge boost. By the combination of that fish and the healing herb found in the forest, people were able to create a potion that was stronger than high heal.

With the invention of that potion, the healing role mostly shifted from white mages to potions. And so, the Shell Crabs could be quickly defeated with a team of 5 attackers with no healer.

At first, when these potions were produced, they were expensive due to the demand. Not too long after that, potions with the same power of a high heal started to pop up in the market with a price that even mid sized (middle) clans could buy.

Eventually, the middle clan could still earn money even when they used that potion on a regular basis and the value of white mages fell further down; starting from those than explore above the 40th floor. As the healing role was completely taken by potions, the white mages who still traveled to the 40th floor and below were white mages who could use Raise to resurrect dead people.

From there, the value of the white mage continued to fall further. Although they were still useful until the wasteland on the 30th floor, they were rarely employed to go to the lower floor. Then fortunately, due to the flying creatures found in the 50th floor, and the discovery of a type of flying spell of sorts, that allowed mages to fly using a type of wind magic, the value of mages went up; so did white mages by a bit.

But the mages thought that it was only a matter of time before someone created a magic tool that would allow people to fly. Thus, they started to think of what they could do starting from offense support magic to healing support magic. But in the end, those who were left were white mages who could only use support and resurrection magic.

These mages would use almost no healing magic at all and used support magic instead to boost the status of the whole party. Then, when the main firepower of the party was killed, their duty was to resurrect that person and buffed him or her up with all the available support magic and grabbed the attention of the monsters, and when that person came back alive, they would focus on healing that person back to his or her optimal condition as soon as possible.

Tsutomu understood that job division, but he did not think that it optimized the potency of the white mages. Moreover, even when they successfully subjugated a dungeon floor, most of the credits would go to the attacker while the white mages would look at them with jealousy from the guild.

Tsutomu sometimes wondered if the white mages understood the position that they were in. He hopes that most of them thought that it was a bad situation. At the moment, most of the people looked down upon him and ridiculed him since they thought that he could only go to the dungeon because he was piggybacking Garm and Camille.

Although it was not as bad as Tsutomu, the other mages also suffered from that negative view. Tsutomu questioned whether it was really alright if this continued and was it really that fun being someone else’s stepping stone.

Tsutomu complained a lot about the current condition of the white mages while enjoying his dinner and eventually exited that tavern with the help of some people.

On the next day, Tsutomu took a medicine to reduce the hangover and went down to the 56th floor. Camille also bought herself a potion to heal her hangover.

Not like the entrance of the 56th floor, a lush green valley, Tsutomu and the other two went into a narrow barren ravine located in the lowest location on the whole floor, high steep walls enclosed the area as if to discourage anyone from going further.

“Fly”

As Tsutomu cast fly on Camille to scout the area, he quickly refilled the potions. He then handed over a pouch filled with potions from yesterday to Camille and proceeded to refill his own blue potion. After he listened to Camille’s report, he then cast fly on himself and Garm.

“This way”

As Camille flew through the sky, Garm and Tsutomu followed behind her. Maybe it was because the battle training against the bird worked well, Tsutomu was able to cast fly better than before. Even if they accelerated through the sky, they were able to stay stable. And even if the balance was disrupted, it would be restored before it could cause a panic.

As Camille cut through the narrow rocky passages, Garm and Tsutomu followed closely behind her. When they spotted about 30-50 brown goblins above the ground, they would use the surrounding rocks to hide since the goblins would start trying to shoot them down if they were spotted.

To go to the 59th floor, they had to go through a certain black gate. Once they got there, Tsutomu would prepare the team for the fight against the fire dragons, which also doubled as a level grinding too. The adventurers had stuck on the 60th floor for the last 6 months, and during that time, only fire mages were able to fight the fire dragon. Because of that, so many tools were developed in order to fight a fire dragon.

There were a lot of tools or equipment that Tsutomu did not know of, since they did not exist when it was a game. Tsutomu was planning to try all the tools that he brought after exploring the market.

Just like that, he followed Camille’s instructions to sneak by the goblins while repelling back the birds that occasionally attacked them. Then as Camille went first on a turn, she suddenly raised her hand to stop, so Tsutomu and Garm stopped.

“There’s a herd of lightning sheep ahead. We’re lucky”

“Oh, isn’t that a ramon?”

“Ramon? Ahh, that rare monster, huh?”

“Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen any treasure box since that one. So this might be the time where my luck is back”

“That thing basically takes your lifetime worth of luck though. Kukuku”

Tsutomu smiled back at Camille who giggled silently before peeking out from the cliff and saw a herd of Lightning Sheep grazing on the brown grass on the ground.

A black body with white fur. Its horn spiraled upward into the sky. Other than that, they looked just like a herd of normal sheep. And of course, since they stored electricity, their body lashed out white sparks from time to time.

There were an extremely small number of monsters who could drop thunder magic stone in the dungeon. There were only two rare monsters that produced this stone: the Electric Slime and the Lightning Sheep. Of course, they could look outside the dungeon, but since the supply was scarce, the thunder magic stone has always been an expensive good.

Not to mention, those monsters would try to protect each other by living near each other and conducting electricity between the herds. If they sneaked and tried to hunt for them, the Lightning Sheep would let out a strong shock and run away.

During this time, the black mages who have a strong AoE attack or an archer who could snipe from distance would work the best. But in the current party, only Tsutomu who could use ranged attack.

“It’s not a good idea to approach them, right?”

“Well, we might be able to kill one, but we’ll definitely die afterward, I experienced that myself after all”

Camille covered his mouth with her red robe as she remembered that incident and almost burst into a laugh. Tsutomu folded his hand and thought for a bit before he replied back.

“Well, I’ll try to go alone, don’t mad at me if I fail though”

“It’s fine. After all, that thing use to appear right when you don’t have AoE attack”

“Ahh, that desire sensor, huh?”

“Desire sensor?”

“Ah, it’s nothing”

Camille tilted her head but Tsutomu answered back with that. Then he peeked out the cliff while trying not to make any sound and swing his white wand toward the Lightning Sheep.

“Holy wing”

He then focused on the image that the red bird woman told him. He imagined wings growing from his back and opened them up. After that, he focused on the wing that he had released, and sharpened every single quill on it as if the wing were slicing the wind apart.

Although the red bird woman’s explanation was very vague, Tsutomu was able to clearly imagine it and focused his magic power on that wing.

Its power was clearly on a different level compared to the wing that he shot at the goblins the other day. The wing he had right now cut through the air and quills rained down from the sky like falling spears on the Lightning Sheep. The chaotic scene was mixed with thunder that roared and sparks fired in a frenzy around the area.

When Tsutomu finished, a dozen of sheep already turned into magic stones as the rest of the sheep ran away from the area while enveloping themselves in ferocious thunder.

“…Tsutomu!! That was amazing!!”

“Thanks”

Camille flew out from the cliff and patted Tsutomu’s head. Tsutomu, himself, was a bit surprised to see how powerful his holy wing was. Garm was only standing behind him holding himself back from jumping at Tsutomu too.

They might have not found a treasure box, but they were able to get 7 small lightning magic stones and 8 medium sized lightning magic stones dropped by the Lightning Sheep. Tsutomu looked happy as he picked them up and put them inside his bag.

It did not take long after that for them to find the black gate to reach the 57th floor. Tsutomu looked determined to reach the 59th floor that day as he excitedly went through the black gate.