The next day, we waited on the field where the wave would hit.
Therese said she’d be fighting with L’Arc. And L’Arc, well, he was probably going to be with that Aultcray guy.
“Any second now.”
“Everyone’s gotten pretty used to waiting around on the field.”
“Even the supply runners look like veterans. Romina, is everything okay without Alto?”
I sent a chat to Romina to make sure.
“No problem. I have the Pekkles taking care of a lot of it. Sheryl looked like she wanted to use one of the Pekkle-o-meters, so I gave it to her.”
“I get that you’re all strong, but make sure you coordinate properly, okay? You’ve been able to brute-force it with equipment and levels, but failure’s a real possibility this time.”
We all nodded at Kanade’s warning.
That said... The ones in the most danger were me, Shouko, and Yamikage.
If a Spirit took damage beyond their Intermediary Stone’s Shield Energy, they’d start to get weaker and weaker. And, if they played it poorly and let their main Energy pool drop to zero, they’d die, and it’d take a long time to recover all the losses.
At the very least, we wouldn’t be able to return to the front lines—we’d be stuck resupplying at best. This was the game’s main event and all, but if we rushed into it without thinking of the consequences, it would definitely come back to bite us.
Powerful, but crippled hard by death. That was the essence of Spirits.
Now that Cooperation Skills were a thing, it was easy to imagine that the enemy attacks would become more brutal to match.
“I daresay, let’s aim for a good ranking again.”
“Yeah.”
I’d managed to secure a few Rank 1s in the last wave, but I couldn’t get cocky and assume it would just fall into my lap again. It wasn’t like I had the player skills of Shouko or Yamikage.
“Yamikage, you always get a good score. I’m jealous,” my big sister groaned while wearing a Brave Pekkle Costume.
Hey, the players around us are giving you weird looks, you know.
“We’ve got a whole Brave Pekkle family now.”
“That island lord. Where’d he manage to get a second one? And dang, that’s one huge Pekkle.”
“You got it all wrong. That there’s an evolution of the Pekkle Costume equipment. I wonder what the key enhancement material is. I mean, I know it takes a well-used shield, but the rest’s a mystery.”
“Kapapa!”
One of the players had even put on a Kappa Costume for the bit and was running around, shouting their name like a Pokémon. The costumes we sold off had started to corrupt the player base.
This game’s going to start looking pretty surreal if this becomes the norm, although that’s pretty typical for an online game.
By the way, Kanade was equipped with a Lizardman Spike Shield, which was one of the recipes in the Secret Treasures of the Lizardmen collection that I’d given Romina. Of course, Brave Pekkle was equipped with his own copy of it.
“R-Right, I daresay...”
Yamikage seemed a bit overwhelmed. Seems she was still as shy as ever.
“I know eating damage has a ranking, but does blocking damage earn you contribution points too?”
“Of course it does. This time, I’m aiming for the number one tank slot!”
How reassuring.
“Yamikage was always a hot topic, you know? A self-sustaining DPS who’s always at the top in wave rankings. Every mage tries to copy her at least once.”
“It’s a gamer’s nature to imitate and analyze what works.”
“You say that, but I’ve never seen a Drain-focused ninja like Yamikage in any of the wave battles. What’s up with that?”
Kanade sounded pretty knowledgeable—probably because of all the temporary parties she’d been in.
“Yes, that’s the thing. Drain’s output is way lower than you’d think, and that fighting style is so finicky that it’s better to just use regular attribute magic. They say Yamikage’s broken in a weird way.”
Well...she did use accessories specialized for Drain, and her other gear was also stacked with enchantments.
During the second wave—the one Shouko and I were barred from—Yamikage’s performance was solid thanks to all the sea battles, and by the third wave at Cal Mira, her Energy stat had simply reached an absurd level.
“It seems no one else can keep up with Yamikage, the Drain Ninja.”
“Hmm... If you think you can catch me, I daresay, just try it.”
I’m not jealous of your Drain at all, by the way.
“Also, Spirits only make up a small part of the population. The meta on how well Drain synergizes hasn’t really been explored.”
“By that logic, bro and Shouko should be able to pull off something similar.”
“Well, we’re not magicians, she and I.”
Shouko, Yamikage, and I all had our own fighting styles. Sure, Shouko had started to fish with me lately, but we still used completely different weapons in battle. It was only natural.
“What if you picked up Drain as a sub-weapon? You’ll probably get more Energy that way than by defeating monsters normally.”
Kanade made a proposal to the two of us.
“I might’ve heard you out in the early game, but the Energy cap is fixed until we get the next update, and we’re pretty close to it. Is there even a point?”
By now, we’d met the conditions to raise the cap. Back when we started, though, the limit had seemed so distant that it had been all about grinding as much Energy as possible just to maintain our builds. There was even that time when Shouko used up all the Energy she had stored up to protect everyone, standing as a wall to endure the vicious attacks of the city liberation boss. She was instrumental to victory, but unfortunately, that led to her getting kicked out of her party.
“If I pick up too many skills, my hourly Energy cost...”
And I lost Mana if I wanted to swap things out, so constantly juggling setups would be a net loss in the end. I’d been raising my Energy Production whenever I could, but that had a cap too.
Essentially, learning Drain would come at a heavy cost for me.
“We were actually talking about me or Shouko learning magic back when we were developing Cal Mira, but it was expensive and there were annoying requirements we had to meet, so we put it off.”
“Yes, unfortunately, trying to learn everything is not easy.”
“I daresay, the system could be a bit more flexible with learning skills.”
While the three of us lamented the woes of being Spirits, Kanade, Tsumugi, Sheryl—and even Romina in Chat—looked upon us with furrowed brows.
“To other races, you guys look like you can do everything.”
“Seriously, it always seems like you’re swapping skills and builds left and right.”
“Right?”
“The grass simply looks greener.”
I mean, yeah, we envied the other races too. I was boosting my Mana Production, believe me, but higher-tier skills didn’t just drain Energy, but Mana too.
“Let’s be real, the people from other races change their builds too, right?”
Why are we the only ones expected to adapt to every situation?
“Yes, some people go all in and completely overhaul their builds. Those people usually have to farm Cal Mira’s instance dungeon to make use of its time compression.”
Oh... So they use the dungeon to work out those proficiency issues.
“Well, you guys are all about doing your own thing. Forcing a mold on you wouldn’t do us any good. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be the party everyone looks up to.”
“I-I daresay, they look up to us?”
“Of course they do. I told you everyone’s copying you, right, Yamikage? And Shouko and Tsumugi have insane natural reflexes.”
True... Seeking enjoyment has always been our creed, but Shouko and the others are all top-tier. Not to mention Tsumugi and Kanade are veteran gamers. They earned our game keys by winning a fighting game tournament, after all.
Sheryl was staring at us silently. It was kinda scary for some reason.
“And you, Sheryl. Your name comes up a lot among spear users, you know, although people are always arguing over whether your main focus is on spearmanship or carpentry.”
So basically, they were having theory crafting debates. They were probably saying things like “Her skill composition is clearly this! This one’s her main and this one’s her sub!” Even when there was an actual definitive answer, it was nothing but back-and-forth speculation.
“Uh-huh... What do they think I am?”
Ah, she’s curious.
“Around sixty percent say spearman, thirty say shipwright-specialized carpenter.”
“And the rest, I daresay?”
“I’ve heard pirate and whaling captain too.”
For some reason, Sheryl looked a bit embarrassed as her eyes drifted to the floor.
“So, what is it really? You know, don’t you, Kizuna?”
“Diver,” I said with confidence.
“Uh...huh.”
Ah, by that response, I’m not wrong, but not right either.
“Lady Sheryl is an explorer, milord. The shipbuilding was just a part of her journey to reach the unknown.”
Sheryl nodded at Yamikage’s words.
Come to think of it, she did start shipbuilding to find new land. I was stuck on the whole fishing angle.