They come back to their tents quite late into the night, but Marcheline couldn’t sleep.

What to do? The skills available to her are all for Support, and she doesn’t have any connections, nor resources. What is she gonna do about Black Diamonds? It’s rare even in the game, you can’t casually use it to level up the skills of Purple heroes or lower.

You usually just make them eat duplicate heroes.

Marcheline’s eyes go wide, and she abruptly sits up in bed.

Earlier...

“What about Grey he-... er, bloodlines?”

“Oh those? They’re mostly found on low level pests inside the capital. It’s fine, they can’t really bother anyone. An annoyance at best.”

“I haven’t really seen any of them...”

“Hold on,” Linda brings out a booklet, this one looks better-kept, or unused, than the booklet for Blue skills, “this one has drawings.”

Opening it, Marcheline’s eyebrows go up.

They’re exactly the same as the Grey heroes in game.

Calling them ‘Heroes’ would be a stretch though, Marcheline concedes. They’re fodder at best.

“I should ask Linda where I could find these Greys.”

—

Early the next day, Marcheline helps Linda and the other women to cook their lunch. The ingredients were provided by the Church.

“Those pests? I guess you can find Green, Blue, and Red Slimes in the city sewers,” yuck, no,“Soot Balls near old fire pits, Lightning Fruits up the Purple trees…” Linda lists off common breeding areas for them.

Marcheline has never encountered them because these things prefer to live within Mana-rich areas, especially in this capital.

“Do people form a party with them?”

“Eh, sometimes. But these things are just as smart as animals, you can form a party with them without their consent. It’s gonna screw up the team strategy if you’re not careful. Plus they’re really weak, and who’s gonna spend gems to increase their maximum level?”

All heroes are stuck at level 20 unless you give them gems to upgrade. The max level in the game was 40 for Heroes, 60 for the Main Character. But…

[Marcheline Lvl1/???]

“Speaking of, what’s the highest level a person could achieve?”

Linda pauses in her chopping, “I don’t know.” She says, “the gems used to Upgrade are very expensive due to the demand, so most people are level 20 or 25. I hear it’s pretty rare to be level 40, those are the strongest people in the Kingdom.”

“Neat.”

That afternoon, Marcheline goes to find those Grey fodders. She finds a bunch of Soot Balls. They really are easy to capture. One is about the size of half her palm, and now she has five in a sack.

“Form Party.”

Soot Ball Lvl3/20

Marcheline cocks her head to the side. Hm, she can’t see it’s skills, just it’s MP and HP indicators. But from her memories…

[Skill: Remnant Spark Lvl1: (Passive )When attacked, has 20% chance of filling Skill Cast Progress by 12.5%.]

[Skill: Puff Lvl1: Increases Crit of all allies by 5%, for 3 turns. Cost: -50% SC]

She only knows this through puzzle events. Even newbies wouldn’t be desperate enough to add Grey heroes in their starting parties.

Marcheline takes out another Soot Ball and flicks it lightly. She places her Party member in front of the angry little thing. With two in their party, engaging in battle gives them 6.25% SC Progress to start with, which should increase by the same starting amount every minute.

The Soot attacks, she keeps bopping it to keep it angry, but not dead. The second time it retaliates, their Party’s SC Progress increases by 12.5%.

Another flick, and the enemy Soot dies. She watches as her little ball bounces over to the dead one… and eats it. She doesn’t know what she expected, the dead one just melts like wax upon contact, then her living Soot Ball absorbs it.

She repeats the process and watches as the SC Progress bar just fills up by 12.5% again. She wonders if [Remnant Spark] even leveled up, because at a higher level, it doesn’t increase the Progress percentage gained, but it increases the chance of it, if at all.

If her luck is shit, the less useful [Puff] might’ve leveled up instead. Remembering something, she looks sternly at the Ball, “Do not use the Puff skill to drain our Skill Cast.”

Sure enough, once the SC bar reaches 50%, the pest uses skill [Puff] and loses all their progress. In the game, she could just set a default skill or a normal attack for all heroes, including the Grey ones. So this is what they mean by “messing up” the party.

Hm, but default skills aren’t selectable at the start of the game, were they? Didn’t she gain that player option after hitting level 40?

She sighs. Marcheline wistfully thinks back to a Blue Mermaid Hero that increases the SC Progress by 37.5% at the start of battle, and another 37.5% whenever she sacrifices her Health by 20%.

They’re pretty common but very useful for new players, especially since most skills only use 25-37% of the Progress bar per skill cast.

What is she gonna do with a Soot Ball taking up a whole member slot, draining the SC bar carelessly, when she’s limited to just five in a party?

Hm?

Party: 2/???

What…!

Marcheline glances at her bag of ‘pests’ and quickly hunts for more.

It takes her an hour and a half, but she’s gathered 21 Soot Balls, and 3  Thunder Fruits. She adds them all to her team.

Party: 25/???

It’s just like her level. These Grey Heroes clearly display a level maximum of 20, but she doesn’t have that. She can only assume that the indicators for others are accurate. She briefly wonders if making a shield with them, hoping for their instant deaths so they can’t screw up, would allow her to spam other useful skills. Maybe she could even pretend to have a different bloodline.

So. An unlimited number of non-sapient minions, the capacity to upgrade weapons and armor, a spatial storage…

Marcheline first feels elation. Is-is this main character perks? Took you seven goddamn years, didn’t it?

Then a chill runs down her spine. Oh but she’s not behind a screen. When it comes to real power, real resources... that’s a target for real threats.

Ch6 end