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Volume 13 Chapter 5 Part 7

Now, it is not like I have actually gotten myself drunk because of using the Overwhelming Skill, but whenever I was activating it, there was this eerie feeling running through my body that made me feel like I was actually getting drunk.

On the other hand, since the time-slowing effect on the Overdriving Skill seems to be weaker than the one on the Overwhelming skill, that dreadful feeling of drunken nausea has gone away. The movements of the monsters around me were still slowed down, but they were now slowed down to such a soft and gentle degree that I didn’t have trouble perceiving them clearly.

Perhaps the reason why the Overwhelming Skill of the Hero’s Job slows the monsters down to such an uncomfortable degree is because when the wearer of the Hero’s Job is at a low level, they are relatively weak and not as used to fighting against the monsters like an experienced Hero would be. Therefore the system thinks that slowing the monsters down to a crawl is actually more important for them?

Going by that logic, once the recipient of the Hero’s Job attains a higher level as a Hero and gets stronger, they should be more experienced and accustomed to battles in the Labyrinths. So when they attain the Advanced Job of a Great Hero, the system thinks that a smaller slowing effect is sufficient, and that’s why the slow on Overdriving seems weaker to me than the one on Overwhelming.

With Overdriving, I think that the effect that slows down the movements of the enemies around me is (Medium) at best, but the increased duration of it and (Large) increases to pretty much all of my stats more than make up for it.

If we assume that someone would get the Hero Job at Lv.1, it would mean that they are still pretty much a beginner, just like in every rpg game there is. As a beginner with no experience whatsoever, if the slowing of the monster’s movements was not as extreme as in the case of Overwhelming, the user could still get completely trampled, and maybe even killed by them, because slowing the enemies just a little won’t mean jack if you don’t know how to fight them at all.

A Lv.1 Great Hero should be able to deal with their enemies without having to rely on restricting the enemy movements too harshly. Taking this into consideration, the effect of Overdriving is probably what it is. The increased movement speed and the slowing effect placed onto the enemies granted by the Overwhelming Skill were both kind of an overkill, to the point where a Skill granted to the user by the Advanced Job version of the Hero Job needed to actually suppress it.

This begs the question: Just how overpowered was the Overwhelming Skill, actually? Well, the Overdriving Skill on the Great Hero Job does not seem to have that problem anymore; so if anything, it should be easier to use in comparison with Overwhelming.

Maybe I will even be able to use it on a daily basis? After all, if I go and hit the monster that I am fighting while actively using the Overdriving Skill, then the power of my physical attack will be greatly increased thanks to the Increase STR (Large) effect, and in turn, the increased power of my attack directly translates to the amount of MP that can be absorbed when the enemy monsters are getting hit, so technically I should not have any problems with running out of the MP needed to keep using Overdriving.

Yes, if all of my assumptions turn out to be correct, then I should definitely be able to use Overdriving on a daily basis. There is a part of me that still has doubts if this Skill is not using something else that the game is not telling me about to power this cheat-like ability, but for the time being, it cannot be helped, since I do not know what that something would be.

Maybe it causes my fatigue to accumulate faster, making me that much more susceptible to receiving injuries as a result? Maybe if I continue to use it for five or ten years, or even thirty or fifty years I will feel no side effects whatsoever, only for them to suddenly come crashing down on me when I least expect them to?

It is also unclear to me whether Recovery Magic has any long-term effects at all, but I cannot allow myself to worry about something like that every single time I use it. Since this world operates on a video game logic, I am going to treat Overdriving just like any other Skill, and if it has any catches or hidden mechanics to it, let’s hope that any such potential issues are cleared in time.

「Ah. 」

As I continued to test the usability of the Great Hero Job, we randomly entered a room that had only two exits: the one where we just came from, and the other one on the other side of the room. Looks like we have found the Waiting Room.

「Amazing! So the Boss Room was in a place like this? There were not a significant number of monsters in this area, so I was about to take us elsewhere, but despite that you still managed to find the right way anyway. You really are impressive, Master! 」

No, wait. Roxanne is convinced that I was the one who found this Waiting Room? No, no, no, it is not thanks to me at all!

The fact that we have found this Waiting Room is nothing more than a coincidence, but now that the deed is done, it actually makes me think that I should not have conducted the testing of the Great Hero Job on this floor at all! If only we went to the lower floor like we usually did before, then we wouldn’t be in this place right now! Also… is it really possible for there to be fewer monsters around the Waiting Room?

I wonder.

Up until now, it was usually the other way around. Whenever we were getting closer to the Boss Room on the lower floors, the numbers of monsters would always increase because of the Labyrinth’s instincts to protect the Floor Boss. On the flipside, that was always an indication that we were going in the correct direction.

Although there’s no way for us people to understand the thought processes of Labyrinths or monsters living in them, there is really no need for us to deliberately weaken our own defenses. If anything, we should be thinking about bolstering our own defenses as much as possible, because monsters would usually try to do the same.

Up until now, it may have been that Roxanne’s relentless pursuit of fighting the ever increasing numbers of monsters at once made the progress of our exploration of the Labyrinths way faster than it would usually be if we were taking our time with it, but is that really what it is? I have discovered the truth of the matter in one of the most unexpected of places.

Maybe the Labyrinth was in the middle of bolstering the defenses of the Floor Boss’s Boss Room, but because Roxanne was constantly leading us to the places with many monsters in them, we have arrived at the Waiting Room before the Labyrinth could finish generating enough monsters to act as obstacles.

「Hmm… Could it be that the Labyrinth has changed its strategy, and instead of amassing all the monsters near the Boss Room it was trying to spread them around the entire floor to stop intruders from approaching the Boss Room itself? 」

「I see. That is certainly a possibility. 」

Trying to dabble in trickery instead of trying to just overwhelm intruders with the numbers of its soldiers… talk about a change of tactics.

「No. I don’t think that this is usually the case. It probably just happened to be that way this time. Just because we got lucky this time, expecting it to work the same way every single time is nothing but the Gambler’s Fallacy. 」

Yeah…. So, remind me, who was the one who imparted this particular piece of unnecessary wisdom to Sherry?

「Well, since we don’t know what the right answer to this question is, then I think it would be best to stop thinking about it and just go and do things the way that we have always done them up until now. 」

As expected, Roxanne’s solution to every problem was to take us to a place with a large number of monsters in it. Well, now that I have access to the Overdriving Skill, so we shouldn’t have that much trouble, so bring it on, monsters! I will take all of you on!

「Shall we go to the Boss Room then? Ah, but then again, the Duke of Hartz and his men should be attacking the most developed Labyrinth in the area, so we could wait for them to defeat it as well. 」