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Volume 3 Epilogue 1.1

Translator: Kureha
Editor: Weasalopes

「I’m still amazed that we managed to win against that thing…」

As the group was having a very delayed dinner, or rather, a mid-night snack back at the inn, Tatsuya commented about the Stone Golem which they somehow managed to defeat. The Octogals have also finished eating their Takoyaki and now the only person who hasn’t eaten a thing was Hiroshi. Aearis and others have gone back to Igreos temple to sort out tomorrow’s schedule.

「That was a raid boss monster without a doubt…」

「Even if we’re just looking at tanks, we would need at least 20 or 30 of it, and probably about 200 volunteering soldiers. There was nothing we could do about it this time but that wasn’t a monster a 500 member party could defeat.」

Haruna added agreeing with what Tatsuya said. As someone who has fought in many front lines, the Tower Golem’s strength was something that could not be compared to any other monsters. If it came to monsters stronger than that, even Makoto could only name Dragon Road Balshem.

This Balshem is only a field class boss but there has been no record of anyone defeating this monster. Even the hardcore no-lifers have issues like lack of fire force. But moreover, Balshem could knock out any players with one sweep so hardly anyone could have decent combat with this monster.

「It would have been different if we had three more heat-tolerant extras. But if we fought according to theory, we would have definitely run out of stamina and lost…」

「You’re right, it didn’t have as much fire force compared to Balshem. But if our tanks got attacked three more times, they would have been destroyed. Thinking back to its defence stats, all I can say is as expected of Golems. We would run out of stamina or magic power if we only focused on breaking through its defence.」

「When you were back in our original universe, how easily do you think you would have defeated a monster like that?」

「I’d say fifty-fifty. I can think of about five players who had the useful extra skill but when it comes to monsters like that, nobody knows what weapon is most effective against it. Also, I didn’t have any extra skill at the time so …」 

「I see, so it was a miracle that we managed to win against that thing.」

 To Tatsuya’s conclusion, Makoto nodded seriously. To be honest, if Hiroshi and Mio never obtained an extra skill, the two of them would have been defeated. It was likely that a country named Darl wouldn’t have existed either. 

「If Mio didn’t activate Armor Smash on her staff, I don’t think her attack would have given that much damage on the monster. But Hiroshi’s Titanic Roar would have caused a lot of damage on Golems like that without decaying them so I think something would have worked out in the end.」

「Hearin’ that, if Makoto-san used made another swin’ ya katana, wouldn’t it have shattered then?」

「Putting aside my stamina, it requires cooling time so I can’t use that skill a couple of times in a row. Extra skills that are at a novie level has a cooling time so long you’re not even sure if you can use it at least once every battle. Also, my weapon gets more damage against larger opponents so I doubt I could have made another hit.」

「True dat.」

To Hiroshi’s question, Makoto quickly explained the problem which cannot be fixed. Makoto’s Gale Slash had a problem with both its activation time and the frequency that she could use. It also doesn’t help with increasing any skill levels or provide any defence. Her weapon also doesn’t convert the stamina it is absorbing. So, the most they could do was place an enchantment on that cuts stamina absorption by 75%. This was how she was able to make an average amount of hits in all of the battles they have been in.

However, they couldn’t do anything about the cooling time. For example, with Makoto’s Gale Slash, since the skill level is only on novie, it has a cooling time of 1500 seconds.  If the skill level was at its max, the cooling time will decrease up to 5 seconds. But this didn’t change the fact that she could not use this skill in a row. On the other hand, Mio’s Dragon Fall has a very short cooling time. However, there is a time where she would not be able to use it for around 3 to 5 seconds. Thanks to Haruna’s numerous extra skill, their limitations could have been minimized but issues other than that are much bigger than it is difficult to find any use for it at this current time. 

The amour crash which Makoto mentioned previously automatically activates whenever the player is fighting against an opponent with a hard outer layer like Golems, or an opponent wearing a bronze armour. It automatically activates whether if it’s a boss class monster or not. However, even if the opponent is wearing armour, if the equipment’s defence status is any less than soft leather armour, then this skill will not activate automatically. There is also an abnormal condition where it cannot be used against monsters with extremely high defence status like Kraken. On top of that, certain metallic equipment has an enchantment on that can neutralize armour crash. In fact, as long as the equipment has auto-repair enchanted, the damage it gets from the attack can be healed fairly quickly.

「Anyway, from today’s battle, I can confirm that what I was worried about is true…」

「A thing that you were worried about?」

「Yeah, I was looking at Hiroshi’s defence which made me think about something. That there might be monsters which are too strong for us to completely avoid their attacks. Even if Hiroshi attacked them with his full set of holy steel armour.」

To Makoto’s comment, everyone gave a grave expression. It was because such problems could bring a matter of life and death.

「This world has some aspects which are different from the game. But putting aside the battle formations, the strength of each monster isn’t that different from the game in general. Don’t you think?」

「Well, you’re right.」

「And in the game it’s programmed so that at least one or two boss monsters which are almost impossible to defeat.」

「So what you’re saying is that almost impossible monster that’s been programmed in is the Dragon Road Balshem?」

「I’m not the one to say but if it’s Balshem’s strength, Hiroshi would be able to handle it with ease once he trains Fortress. Or even levelling up his stats until there’s not much more space for improvement. So even Balshem is within the range that Hiroshi can handle.」

To Makoto’s terrifying comment, Tatsuya lost his words. It was true that compared to Hiroshi’s abilities it was a fairly a low-level monster. If Hiroshi trained up to level 300, which would be easy for him, his HP would increase to the point where a Tower Golem’s fire fore wouldn’t be a threat.

Considering the number of monsters, they have defeated after being teleported, Hiroshi’s current level would be close to 200. Increasing 100 more levels may make it harder for him to level up. Yet it would still increase his armour by one or two points and his defence stats and HP would be ridiculously high.

「Taking that into consideration, I guess it would make sense for a stronger monster to show up.」

「Right? I don’t want any incidents happening so we really need to plan ahead keeping that condition in our mind.」

「… I guess we should all learn Fortress.」

「Yeah, that would be the bare minimum.」

To this terrifying truth Makoto brought up, Tatsuya sighed and glanced over to Hiroshi. Although they could do something about their skill levels, it wasn’t something that could change over-night. So, Hiroshi was already planning to make some items.

Apart from Fortress being a useless skill other than defence, the reason why nobody has trained this skill was simple. It would overshadow their self-amplifying offence skills. Fortress is harder to train for as hit count is a vital part of the training. With magic-based attackers and healers, their equipment is mostly fabric-based and it’s difficult to increase their defence stats. So, defending themselves by learning Fortress was a rare thought to occur considering its likelihood and risk.

As an insight, it hasn’t been an issue previously but apart from Haruna, everyone else has been using self-amplifying skills in battles up until now. The reason why Haruna doesn’t use the self-amplifying skill is that a skill which is effective against her opponent depends on the condition at the time. Also, recently her role during battles have been more focused on fighting and singing to provide aiding magic whenever it’s needed. So, there’s no need for her to use self-amplifying skills.

「Hey, Hiro, have you got any ideas for items that could avoid instant death in case we mess in the middle of a boss fight?」

「A few, but t’ would be difficult to prepare em overnight.」

「Could you tell us the general idea of it?」

「Welp, one non-reusable defence item, defence enchant that requires coolin’ time n’ for the rest, t’ would be somethin’ alon’ the lines o’ God’s liquor.」

Makoto flinched at the phrase God’s liquor. It was a rare item even among the no-lifers. Only a very few of them have been obtained that it’s difficult to quantify the item’s rarity. It was a very mysterious item. If there was any information Makoto could get, she wanted to hear everything she could about it.

「When you say along the lines of God’s liquor, do you mean there are ones other than Soma of the Gods?」

「The items that’re categorized into God’s liquor would be Soma and Amrita. In general, their effective time-span is 5 minutes, if ‘t a non-reusable one, the time-span would be ‘round 10 minutes. Apart from preventin’ any unexpected-incidents, ‘t also can avoid death.」 

「… Any unexpected incidents? Not only the ability to avoid instant death?」

「Yup, includin’ HP damage. As lon’ as the item’s active, no matter how much damage ya git, ya HP doesn’ git any lower than 1. Dependin’ on its quality, there are ones dat can even cancel death due t’ HP damage..」

「Oh, I see, since the one we had was a drop item, it was low in quality.」

Makoto agreed with Hiroshi’s explanation. The disadvantage of drop items was that it varied largely in quality. God’s liquor crafted by a clocksmith can even be considered a high-quality item. However, if the item’s rank were lower by one, the quality would be so low that it will not be classified as a high-quality item. This is fairly obvious, yet if a certain monster was defeated using high ranking weapons, then God’s liquor dropped from that monster is most likely going to be low in quality. With Soma of the Gods, players can even expect to find the lowest quality of its kind from using high-ranking weapons.

When low-quality God’s liquor is obtained, if the individual does not possess a compatible skill, it is impossible to determine the item’s exact status. This was why Makoto didn’t know anything about Soma of the Gods that they used to have. However, if God’s liquor was used as equipment, its general ability can be determined even without special equipment or appraisal, as long as the player’s level is high enough.

「Soma focuses more on healin’ so while tis active, the players’ HP, MP n’ stamina recovers completely every second. On the other hand, Amrita is an offence item so while tis active, all o’ the players’ abilities increase by times five. Amrita n’ Soma has different range o’ consumables so ‘t can be active at the same time. But if ya’ll to choose, ya’d rather have ‘t as a way to avoid instant death while waitin’ for the other item’s coolin’ time, ight?」

「… Both options are extreme,」

「Welp, ‘t requires extra skills to craft it so tis only natural that they have extreme functions. Oh, n’ with ability enhancement, there’s an item called holy medicine. The high-quality ones will increase za player’s lowest skill by times five for 3 hours. ‘t takes ‘bout twelve hours for the effect to completely ware off but ‘t doesn’t haf coolin’ time. So, if ya not worried ‘bout tis addictive side-effect, ya could activate it again once ‘t starts to ware off. But if ya drink it in five-hour intervals, the side-effect shouldn’t show up.」

「No wonder extra skill is needed to craft that item.」

「Other than that, I could make a potion where dependin’ on tis quality, ‘t can permanently increase the player’s ability by three points. I didn’t make em this time since I thought they were useless for solvin’ our last problem. N’ I’ve never heard o’ most o’ the materials that are needed so ‘t would be difficult to craft em.」

Makoto’s expression changed as Hiroshi mentioned a potion that could permanently enhance abilities. In the past 5 years, only 4 have been found in drops. They were the rarest out of any rare items. To think that an item like that could be crafted, the battlefront no-lifers realised how much they’ve been looking down on crafting skills in Fairclo. They started to think that perhaps it was a good decision that crafting no-lifers kept their information to themselves.

To be honest, now that they continued to operate with Hiroshi, Haruna and Makoto both understood why crafting skills are so hard to level up. Considering all the items that can be crafted in the game, if crafting skills were something that could be easily obtained, it would ruin the game balance. The impact would be visible even if all the craftsmen were to only reach the intermediate level.

「… maybe, consider that potion for a future project? What are some items you can craft it quicker?」

「If we’re excludin’ the side-effects, there’s a defence item that I only a couple more materials for. If we’re talkin’ ’bout defence items n’ enchantments without any side-effect than I would need some materials from Lorren n’ Spirit Spire Cave.」

「So, from a practical perspective, first, let’s make the item with side-effect for everyone. Then maybe craft more clothes made from spirit silk?」

「Don be ridiculous. Tis better to use higher quality materials n’ some materials combined from different monsters. That way, we can triple the item’s ability. There’s a material I don know where we can harvest ‘t from, but with that, could easily make a cheat item like God’s clothes.」

「If we were to make back-up clothes for everyone, would we have enough yarn to make God’s clothes?」

「Eazy.」

Hearing Hiroshi’s statement, Makoto decided to wrap up their discussion.

「Then to start with, we should make the defence item with side-effect, one for everyone. Hiroshi, where would we be able to gather the lacking materials?」

「T’ at Forre.」

「In that case, once we finish our business in Darl, let’s head towards Forre. And for Haruna and others, make sure to train Fortress.」

Everyone nodded to Makoto’s words. The direction in which the group should be heading in was decided. And like that, the day ended with everyone doing what they can do for now.