Tsumugi always got bored so easily that she’d be stuck on nothing but fighting games and FPSs. I really couldn’t imagine her learning any serious production skills.
Sure, she’d grab scythe and other combat skills without a lick of hesitation, but everything else seemed to fall to the wayside. Maybe she could settle for fishing or trapping, since those naturally rose with all the processing work?
“Do I have to learn something?”
“Not really, but won’t you get bored if it’s nothing but fighting? Plenty of RPGs have side content too, right?”
“True, but I seriously have zero interest in production stuff.”
It was pretty much impossible for our pure combatant Tsumugi to pick up another hobby. She’d begrudgingly help out with the crab industry if need be, but anything beyond that was a hard ask.
“For Lady Tsumugi...I daresay, how does juggling sound? Or maybe dance? Something where you move your body to entertain a crowd might work out, I daresay.”
“Juggling?”
“Or more generally, some kind of performance art. Flashy tricks, I daresay. You know, those people who spin yo-yos forever and do all sorts of stunts?”
I see. That might suit a girl with the attention span of a goldfish.
“But practicing sounds like a pain,” the girl grumbled.
“You practice in training mode to win fighting games, right? Same sort of thing.”
“I see. Good analogy, bro.”
“In Tsumugi’s case, she mostly does things by intuition. With a bit of practice, she’ll probably pick up on synergies quite fast.”
And just as there were hobby skills that could synergize with combat, there had to be combat skills that could feed into hobbies.
“I see...but do you actually get anything tangible from doing tricks?”
Well...that was a painful question. It was a little different from production skills.
“My music experiment will not provide any tangible product either, I daresay.”
“And you’re still gonna learn it, Yammy? I know there might be a synergy with chanting, but still.”
“Lady Tsumugi, a Second Life is more than defeating monsters, I daresay.”
“I’ll think about it when the time comes.”
Honestly...Tsumugi wasn’t wrong. It was never too late to pick up a hobby, and there was nothing wrong with waiting until her life stabilized.
“Lady Tsumugi, Lady Shouko discovered new techniques by combining fishing with ropes. It isn’t a bad idea to experiment and see what leads to new skills, I daresay.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’ll try juggling if I feel like it. It might be a hint for something new.”
In this game, diversifying seemed to be more effective than focusing on a single point.
“I get it. It’s a waste not to try out various things and have fun. I mean, fighting alongside everyone’s just a hobby for me to do in between fishing.”
“Milord...”
“Yeah, my bro’s a bit...”
Hey, don’t look at me like that.
“You’re very consistent, Kizuna.”
“You only started fossil cleaning because you found fossil fish, I daresay.”
“That’s commitment for you. Now then, the tower’s in sight. Everyone’s hammering away at it, so it’s only a matter of time before it falls.”
At Tsumugi’s words, we all turned our eyes to the last remaining tower and the all-out attack that was being carried out on it.
“This thing’s pretty sturdy.”
“I mean, it makes sense that they’re getting harder to take down with each wave.”
“But this one feels more than twice as strong as the last one. Not to say we haven’t gotten stronger ourselves.”
The chat was filled with messages like that.
In our case, we managed to brute-force it with the Energy Blade...but the second one also went down pretty quick. Was the last tower just tougher than all the rest? The way the players swarmed around it made it look like a scene from a zombie apocalypse movie with the zombies swarming a building where the survivors were holed up, though it was a bit rude to think of people that way.
“It’s a little hard to approach it, I daresay.”
“Yep.”
“Really? I think it’ll be a piece of cake. I’m gonna go attack, ’kay?”
And with that, Tsumugi charged at the tower.
Left behind, we launched some long-range attacks and watched from afar; before long, the tower collapsed.
With all the work the other players put in, maybe we didn’t have to come after all.
“All right! Third tower down! It’s boss time.”
“Yep! This wave went by nice and smooth.”
It was the fourth one... Of course, the players were getting used to it.
“Are you stupid? The enemies were pretty strong! Don’t you get that the Island Lord Party and a few no-lifers have been shaving them down for you?”
Hmm? So it’s confirmed—the monsters are considered strong. Well...we’ve got good equipment and a good Cooperation Skill to scatter debuffs. I won’t deny that.
We’d also made up for our lacking numbers with Pekkles, drastically reducing the damage we took as we pushed forward.
“There’s no telling how much of a pain the boss is—”
The chatter paused mid-sentence as a vast array of monsters suddenly spawned all around us. At the same time, a tremor shook the ground.
“Wh-What?”
“Umm, boss confirmed at A-2! It’s a humanoid monster with an elephant’s head, Dimension Ganesha! The quakes are insane!”
Wait a second, we’re pretty far from A-2. You’re telling me those tremors reach all the way here? Whoa...we’re shaking! We’re shaking! Did they have to go this hard on the effect?!
“Kizuna!”
“Whoa! This one might be a challenge!”
The spawn rate skyrocketed as Dimension Garudas and Dimension Djinns started swarming the players en masse. And it wasn’t just ten or twenty of them either—so many I could only describe them as countless, as each individual player soon found themselves surrounded by multiple monsters at once.
“Haaaah!”
“Hraaah!”
“We’ll thin them out with AoE! Tsumugi! Follow me!”
“Yeah! This might actually be pretty bad!”
“Yamikage, let’s carve out some space to fight!”
“Kizuna! You’re over there, right? Hold out until I get there! The armor’s keeping me alive, but it’s getting rough...”
“Thanks! Big help!”
“Gwaaaaaaah!”
“Iwaaaaaaaaaaaahk!”