“Equipment Set A!”
With that, I was back to normal. The Death Chariot armor came with ridiculous stat decreases and slowed me down, so I only donned it when I needed a dark circle.
Now that I was ready to go, I approached the Horned Buffalo and started to attack. I used my only viable normal attack, a simple shoulder charge.
You might recall that I was ignoring DEX to min-max my drama cannon damage, so my normal attacks always missed. My Canesword’s normal strikes were mere illusions! Thus, the shoulder charge was the only thing that could actually strike.
Like hidden weapon arts, striking arts ignored evasion. There were several drawbacks: they weren’t very strong, didn’t combo well into other things, and cost HP along with AP to use. It was an unpopular style, but for someone who ignored DEX and put all their points into VIT, it was peerless.
Ren attacked.
Dealt 81 damage to Horned Buffalo!
Ren attacked.
Dealt 60 damage to Horned Buffalo!
Ren recovered 60 HP.
Ren’s maximum HP increased by 60.
Mmm, that’s the stuff!
Considering the sad damage on my normal attacks, the Elemental Circle was a major boon. I was much better at tickling enemies to death. Couldn’t ignore the fact that it healed me too.
The extra effect sapped 5 MP each time it went off, but symbologist came equipped with Turnover by default, allowing me to swap my HP and MP at will.
Normally, I would reduce my MP to zero and use a hidden weapon art in my ult to make it deal way more damage. But if used for its original purpose of restoring MP, then I didn’t have to worry about the MP-consumption effect of the dark circle.
Elemental Circle wasn’t too shabby in these kinds of situations! I was definitely better off with it than without.
“Now I can heal and fight, bawk! Thanks!”
The Infernal Armor combined with Kokoru had MP, so the HP-absorption effect went off just fine. It also had high defense, so with the Elemental Circle’s effect on top of it, his HP didn’t go down at all. In fact, it was going up as his maximum HP continued to increase.
“That set looks gross, but the effect seems worth it, bawk!”
Kokoru had previously only seen my Elemental Circle when it was random. By limiting it to the dark circle, which had the best effect of the lot, I had made a dramatic improvement—even if, yes, I did look stupid as heck.
Gear isn’t about looks! It’s about stats!
Bad-looking gear that was both powerful and easy to obtain was pretty common in MMOs; some people would put it on as a group and look awful together.
“Yep. I’m praying for the day when symbologist’s dark circles become a big hit and everyone’s walking around town wearing Death Chariot gear!”
“That’s a dark future, bawk...”
We took down incoming enemies while we chatted. Once they were down, we continued through the courtyard. More enemies came at us along the way, but we were able to defeat them and carry on without much issue.
Nothing was strong enough to require my ultimate, so the dark circles were enough. Without it, we would’ve been really lacking. Again, I was much better off with it in my arsenal. Overall, it was good magic for shoring up symbologist’s main weakness.
That said, it wasn’t too incredible. It would never be able to stand up to real offensive classes.
The drama cannon just couldn’t deal real damage without using an ultimate. Using it here would be overkill and a waste of time, as this was one of those big small-fry battles I mentioned.
Thanks to the Elemental Circle, my ultimate-less score went from about a five out of a hundred, to fifteen out of a hundred. I’d tripled the number! That was huge progress.
After we finished culling the courtyard monsters and entered the mansion proper, I asked Kokoru, “Your mom’s the one controlling these monsters, right? Do you know where she is?”
“Let’s try going to her room first, bawk. I’ll lead the way!”
“Awesome. I’ll be right behind you.”
With Kokoru at the front, we ran through the super huge mansion. Watching Kokoru in full armor as he led the charge made me realize that his cowardice and unreliability from the guild competitive mission were long gone.
He was a real man now. As the man who had raised him, I grew even smugger.
“We’ll be in a big lobby after this, bawk! Momma’s room is right upstairs from there on the third floor, bawk!”
“Gotcha!”
Unlike the beasts that prowled outside, the monsters in the mansion were humanoid, like the living armor that Kokoru used and the various types of undead monsters. In terms of strength, they weren’t much different from the others.
But I mean, imagine large mammals all running around a mansion. That just sounds annoying. Let those into your home, and you’d be cleaning up fur and droppings all day.
We continued to slay hordes of foes until we ran into an enormous door at the end of the hallway. According to Kokoru, this door would lead to a lobby.
“Let’s open it!”
“Okay, bawk!”
We slammed into the door, which flew open with a loud bang. This area was likely meant to be an entrance lobby. The ceiling was several floors up, leading to a skylight at the very top that let the gentle sunlight through.
A big spiral staircase connected the floors. There were gaudy furnishings all around, including expensive-looking golden implements and knickknacks. Many of them followed the basic chicken motif.
Okay, guys, we get it. You’re chickens.
Still, I was in awe of the place. It was practically a castle at this point!
In the middle of it all, a statue of a winged demon—I think they called them Gargoyles—stood before the staircase, guarding it. It was about twice my height. In a lobby this big, having huge monsters made sense, though.
The Gargoyle roared and glared at us with its ruby-red eyes.
“LEAVE THIS PLACE, OR FORFEIT YOUR LIFE!”
Ooh! Now that’s a mid-boss!
He wanted us to leave, but we couldn’t just do that. Was taking him down our only option?
“There’s our mid boss, Kokoru! Let’s crush him and keep going!”
“Yes, sir, bawk!”
“DO YOU REFUSE TO LEAVE?”
The gargantuan Gargoyle’s eyes burned brighter. He looked good and ready to kill us.