We ended up spending the night in the cathedral. Lydia did her best with the rations I provided, but they were pretty bland. I told her it was delicious anyway. After all, it was made by a pretty girl, so it was naturally better. The food might improve when Cook reached level 2, but she'd probably have to make a few meals first. Wait, did a Cook job even work that way? That job might just allow someone to cook more complex foods, rather than make normal foods taste better. More research was needed. I might need to take up cooking. I was used to cooking for myself anyway.
I gave Lydia my bedroll, but she absolutely wouldn’t take it, insisting that she had to sleep on the floor. Had I more guts, I might have offered to share the bedroll. I didn’t think she would mind. However, after the ear incident, I didn’t want things to be awkward between us anymore, so I chickened out.
We woke up the next morning, ate dry food, and then carefully opened the door. It was time to start working on our escape. It was very unlikely that the adventuring team would work their way down to this floor any time soon. Rescue could be weeks away. Therefore, we had no choice but to continue forward. We found the stairway down before we found the stairway up. It took a while to realize where the stairway up was because it was surrounded by zombies and skeletons.
Up until that point, we tried to avoid encounters, and if we did fight, it was usually only one. After the most recent kill, Lydia’s Swordsman job leveled to 5 and my White Mage job leveled to 7. This could be considered an incredible rate for normal people, but we were seriously putting our lives on the line here. Without Divine Aura and Lydia’s speed, this dungeon would have been impossible for the pair of us. Even then, if we were seen by more than two enemies, we had no choice but to run until they lost track of us.
That was, at least, until I leveled. At level 7, the spell I got was Harm Undead. It did a bit more damage than weak heal, and it used a lot less mana. It also cast quickly with good distance. Suffice it to say, I grew a lot more confident after earning it, and we started fighting groups of two as well. However, we finally reached a point where the zombies were just too congested to do anything like that with them. Any attempt to attract a zombie’s attention led to four or more chasing after us.
“We’re going to need to kite them,” I said. “We’ll attract the four and lead them on. I’ll cast the spells I can to take them down until there is two left. Can you take out the other two?”
By this point, we had been fighting all day, and Lydia had grown used to being face to face with a zombie. Her movements were a lot more confident as she grew used to the sword. We had only run into one other skeleton on this floor, and their sword wasn’t as nice as the one she acquired, so it was still the same one from before. As for Divine Aura, I needed to cast it about once every ten minutes to maintain the light shining from it and its extra damage.
“Alright! Let’s go!”
Like that, we steadily whittled down the zombie menace. Levels came harder and harder the higher up we got. As I didn't gain another level in White Mage, I considered other options that could increase our suitability. Near the end of a few fights when Lydia was taking care of the last zombie, I switched to Hero so that it would get the experience instead. After a few kills, it leveled up by one.
{You have unlocked the Hero skill: Switch Position.}
And the skill was a bit useless. I practiced it a few times with Lydia, who clapped excitedly by what was essentially a teleportation spell. The skill allowed me to swap positions with anyone in my party. It could be cast instantly, but it locked our feet in place for about 2 seconds after, making the spell exceptionally bad. If I was an actual hero, I could use it to take a hit for someone in danger. However, as a support, I could only throw my party under the bus and flee before I was hit. Since there would be no warning for them, they would assuredly be hit in my place. It was the ultimate in douchey skill if I was the one to use it. I decided to return to White Mage and hope I got more spells that could aid in killing the undead.
We had finally cleared out the corridor with the zombies in it. We could now progress to the 4th floor. That’s when I noticed that the staircase only went up about three steps. Wait, why was there rubble there?
“S-seriously?” I said in disbelief. “Can a dungeon even cheat like this?”
The stairway had collapsed. Giant boulders now barricaded our way out of the labyrinth.
“This must have been… other Masters doing.” Lydia said as she put a hand on the stone. “He’s used similar tactics before to stop enemies from chasing him.”
“That noble really left us for dead,” I moaned bitterly.
"The dungeon will heal itself in a few days," Lydia explained. “What shall we do, Master?”
“We may be out of food by then. We have no choice but to keep going down… and hope that we get a spell that takes up back up to the surface.” I responded regretfully.
If we could land on a trap like the one that sent me to the 5th floor in reverse, that would be the best.
But..but! being able to switch positions is AMAZING! Imagine, a rogue sneaks behind the BBEG, and then swaps place with the damn warrior or maybe even paladin! SURPRISE FACKIN ROUND! Decapitated from behind if super lucky! So many tactics are now available to him..... and he says its useless!? W H A T
No matter if the feet are stuck, you can still attack! TP the healer to an injured member, 1 shot the BBEG, no matter the drawbacks, this skill is amazing.
While it would be a good skill on any other class, with a support it's a bit... meh.
Switch positions would be useful outside of combat. Or to switch with a tank if you get aggro. Which the tank wouldn’t mind since taking the hits is his role.
gah. climb over the boulders and remove the rubble
I wonder if he kept the 2nd sword as a backup, and why he didn't have her duel wield. Should be good for her speed-based build.
Dual Wield takes a lot more skill and she's only level 5, and a shield could slow her down since she's speed-based so one sword is good enough. But if I was him I would've kept a sword for myself as well, even if he doesn't want to fight he could at least keep it for emergencies
To: @GhostKiller
Good point. But being ambidexterous CAN be learned. I know becauase I was a born leftie, but re-trained to use my right as my primary hand. Though my right hand is now more deft, my left is still stronger. What you can do now is NOT indicative of what you can do later with dedication and training.
@EugeneTillory I never said she couldn’t do it, I just said it would be harder. Besides even if she was born ambidextrous it would still be hard to learn to dual wield since you need a lot more coordination and training than with a single sword.
... even before that, she's a malnourished and starved young lady... Her size is depicted to be about 4ft tall? those swords (if standard size) are over half her size... Your practically suggesting dual-wield greatswords/halberds...
@SnafuSam Wait, since when is she 4ft tall? I completely missed that
@GhostKiller MC is described ch.1 as an overweight school student (We can gather high school due to the presence of a cheer-leading squad & cheerleader f*cking over the nerd...). So unless He's an unique giant at 6ft and overweight... then as a still-developing young man (age never specified) averaging 5ft.
Ch.13 Gives our main description of Her, which says "possibly a year or two younger" and how She was carrying multiple large bags "on her small back" if MC is describing Her in such a way (yes there are many inconsistencies) then We can gather that the subtype catkin/tigerkin which the author is using is of the compact muscles category. Which puts Her about 6-10 inches shorter than the MC (5ft-8inch=4ft4in) with considerably stronger muscles otherwise she'd be falling over just from the bag-mass...
Later on, 'most' POV interaction has Him looking "down", while being more comfortable patting Her on the head (where He sees). Her height has Her hugging His stomach (presumably under his arm), and being able to walk while holding onto Him (much harder when same height). as such it's not a surprise that it's missed, as it's never properly pointed out.
@SnafuSam The MC could be about 5'10 and she could be between 5'5 and 5'2, that is really small and there's a considerable difference between 5'10 and 5'5, and even more if she's 5'2. I'm gonna go with 5'4 as that is more or less the average, but she could be smaller than that. I think that 4ft is a bit too much, but I'm not saying it's not possible either
@EugeneTillory Precisely. Dedication and Training. Usually, both are time consuming, and when in situation where food is low, and they must leave as quickly as they can, I don’t believe giving her a second sword would result in her learning a new technique all of a sudden. Of course, this is a game world, she’d probably just obtain it after killing a few people with them.
The same thing happened to my philosophy teacher R R.