When we arrived at Aswarth’s Undersea Ruins, we found it completely crowded. Clearly we weren’t the only ones heading in for a dungeon run. It didn’t seem as though anyone had obtained the Rainbow Guard yet. As for how I knew, there was a sheet on the item exchange counter that showed how many still remained in stock. The number was still ten, unchanged from the day before.
With the five-runs-a-day limit, I doubted anyone could’ve possibly gotten to the very bottom of the dungeon so quickly. Considering the difficulty, the item necessary to trade for the Rainbow Guard, called Galactic Rainbow, likely wouldn’t be unearthed until later in the summer. Our vacation had only just begun.
Your humble servant offers up his summer unto you, Rainbow Guard!
Turning toward Shizuku, I explained, “We’re about to enter a dungeon that changes shape each time you progress to the next floor. Clear conditions include killing all the monsters on a floor and other stuff like that. There are save points along the way, so if we save at them, we can start from there in future attempts. So each time, our main goal is finding the next save point as we progress.”
“I see. An unpredictable adventure, then. How interesting.”
“Since you don’t seem too experienced in this particular game, well, you can just get used to it as you fight off mobs. All you really have to do is follow our lead.”
“Understood. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
“It’s our first time too!” Yano said cheerily. “Takashiro and Emily, you take the lead.”
Emily flashed a thumbs-up. “No prob! If things start looking hairy, just hide behind me, ’kay? I’ll take aggro!”
“Oh, right. Maeda, Yano, Shizuku—can you three put on these yukatas I brought from the cottage?”
While they were recovering MP over time thanks to the yukatas, we could expect a pure increase in attack power using my Elemental Circle. The only problem was that the yukatas only gave 1 DEF, so giving it to our main tank Emily this time would be seriously bad.
Conversely, while Emily was on tank duty, they could fight with the yukatas equipped as long as they didn’t steal aggro. Finally, I could put in some work as a back-line supporter!
This magic relied on the power of the limited-time yukata gear, though, so once we returned to our world, it would turn back into a lame “for fun” spell that took away all of my allies’ MP. Symbologist was gonna shine in a way it only could here in the world of Summertide! I would savor that joy as a memory of a summer gone!
I’d already explained how my Elemental Circle worked, so Maeda and the other girls changed without a fuss. Shizuku still didn’t quite have the hang of the system menu, so Emily taught her how to use it while she changed.
“Lucky. I wish I could fight in a yukata.”
“Sorry, Emily. You’re tanking, so we can’t afford to put you in one.”
“Aww. You don’t wanna see me in a yukata, Ren?”
“I just did, though.” I had seen her dancing around in one before we left the cottage.
She sure was cute. It’s nice to see foreign girls wearing yukatas.
“Ahem! But wait, I say. We should get right to it, should we not? I’ll reappear soon.”
“Err, you know you can wear a yukata inside, right?”
They only came with 1 DEF, but that was still one more than going in naked.
“Hmph. I appreciate the thought.”
Guess that’s a no, huh?
“Now, off we go! Using a Super Special Warp Stone right off the bat feels like a waste, so let’s start with a normal one!” I tossed a normal Warp Stone into the maw of the familiar girlish lion’s head.
“Thankies! Where d’you wanna start? Your current save point is at B6F!”
“Then let’s start there!”
“Okaaay! Have a great time! Make way for the guests!”
The world before my eyes warped and distorted. We started on B6F. What would it be like? When we warped in, a system message came in right away!
Gate Condition: Defeat the giant monster!
“Giant monster?”
“That’s a new one,” Emily said as we exchanged glances.
Yesterday, we’d started off by dying to a monster house. After that, every other floor had asked us to eliminate the monsters within.
“But wait, I say. I believe there may be an abnormally large monster on this floor. In short, we should defeat that.”
“Guess so.”
From our current position, we saw a few monsters, but they were all normal size. Maybe we ought to check somewhere else?
“This way, then!” I shouted.
With Emily and me leading the pack, we left the save-point room. After going along the path for a while, we found another room. Inside was something that really stood out.
“Oh. That was quick.”
Emily laughed. “Ahahaha! How obvious can you get?”
It was a massive treasure chest, ten times bigger than normal. It was so huge that we had to look up at it. Seeing as this floor’s clear condition was to defeat a giant monster, that meant that this was a gigantified Mimic. Like Emily said, it was obvious.
“Let’s just kick things off, then!” Emily approached the treasure chest and put a hand on it.
“Reeeee!”
The giant Mimic leapt into action, excited to find that someone had fallen for its ruse. Did you really think we didn’t know, man?!
Emily activated Provoke immediately after it started moving, pulling aggro to herself for good. Now it was time for us to attack.
“Elemental Circle!”
As usual, I targeted Draco with it. By setting the circle on him, I could move it at will.
Faithfully, Draco reported, “Chirp! Green!”
I supposed it was a habit for him by now. What a good boy. He was always doing what I asked of him. Indeed, the circle was green. So it was wind attribute. At the very least, this probably wouldn’t heal the Mimic. If the thing were a wind monster, then it would likely heal.
“Draco, follow me!”
With Draco in tow, I went next to the Mimic. It was facing Emily, so I circled around to its back, adjusting my position so that Emily wouldn’t be in the circle.
“Maeda, Yano, Shizuku! Come over here and attack from inside the circle!” I called out, swinging my covered Canesword.
My attacks missed due to my abysmal DEX, but the extra wind damage from my enchantment was hitting it. Shock waves, much like the ones from Akira’s Skyfall, erupted from my staff.
“Ooh, this is awesome!”
Shock waves rode on the stabs of Yano’s bayonet, as well. She thrust her gun forward to pierce, lifted it up and smacked our foe with the handle, then followed up with a kick. Incidentally, Yano had used her Merit Points to get a Master’s Scroll (Kicks), helping to patch up her point-blank fighting ability. Clearly she had been inspired by Yukino’s hybrid style of kicking and dual-wielding. She’d been so excited over having just barely secured enough points from our last exam for the scroll.
With each kick, her bare legs peeked out of her yukata, making for a pretty enticing sight.
Shock waves followed every single attack, grinding down the Mimic’s health. Its gigantification meant it had a much higher HP bar than normal, but it wasn’t much of a problem.
“It’s fun to attack head-on once in a while,” Maeda said, swinging her staff around.
She was able to use offensive magic, so just by wearing the yukata, she was able to attack all she wanted without consuming much MP.
But when I think about it that way, I guess the yukata’s the thing that stands out, rather than the Elemental Circle.
Circle or not, having the yukata on greatly increased the amount of MP at Maeda’s disposal. This increased both the amount of damage she could deal and the amount of healing she could offer. Truly, the yukata was all-powerful. Incredible in both form and function!
Meanwhile, Shizuku threw a few attacks of her own at the Mimic, as if measuring how it felt. “Hmm? Ohohoho! So that’s how you move! It’s not quite what I expected!”
With each strike of her fists, shock wave after shock wave smacked the Mimic. Same with her kicks, grapples, and strikes. Grapples, of course, fell into the “throws” category. You’d have to wonder what part of a Mimic you could “grapple,” but when she jumped up to the lid of the chest and squeezed, sure enough, she debuffed it.
Wait a second. Is she using every single one of the martial artist’s moves?!
Shizuku’s martial artist class came with four potential types of motions: punches, kicks, throws, and striking techniques. To start, people could pick two of them to specialize in. Yes, two.
Does that mean she has the other two equipped as talents? She’s like a master of martial arts!
Shizuku then unleashed a ball of energy from her hands. “Haaaah!”
Oh, of course. When martial artists have all four motions set, they can use chi waves.
The animation for them looked exactly like the legendary attack from the anime Dragon Orb, so they should have been super popular. However, they were not. As for why, it was simple: the waves were weak. Waves of energy were long-range attacks, but they were far weaker in power than gunshots or arrows.
Guns and bows consumed ammunition to attack, so it would have been pretty imbalanced for energy waves to consume nothing and be better. Thus, its strength was kept pretty low. Typically, it didn’t come up except for when martial artists took screenshots of each other pretending to do anime attacks.
If someone wanted to equip both other martial artist talents just for chi waves, they might as well have just used one talent slot to be able to equip guns or bows. It was hard to call martial artist itself a crappy class, but unfortunately, energy waves in themselves were a useless ability.
“Oho! What’s this?! Hahaha, how neat!”
But Shizuku was clearly having fun pew-pewing energy waves around, and far be it from me to ruin someone’s fun. Likely due to the ranged nature of the waves, my Elemental Circle had no effect on her attacks. Pretty sad! Just normally attacking was better in every way.