Chapter 63

  Fifteen

  For being a shattered fountain courtyard placed at the end of the Devil’s botanical garden, it still manages to flood me with relief once we emerge from the Arena of Guile back into the second floor Main Hall’s warm embrace. I let myself collapse against the dark stonework, letting the warmth from it soak into my back like impromptu heat therapy.

  My friends and allies share looks between each other, since this is hardly my normal go-getter, nigh-hyperactive energy.

  Leuke’s the first one to speak up. “Hey, you took out one of these guardians completely on your own, Rem! That’s pretty amazing! Great work!”

  I wave it off. “Eh, I just got lucky and happened to have the right spell on me because I bought it on impulse while drunk on hard orangeade. The guy wasn’t exactly that tough past that. He had more curses, but he could only curse me, not my gun.”

  Ayre takes a more concerned approach, delicately sitting on the rim of the fountain next to my slumped form. “... If the illusion … brought up anything painful, Remmi … you can always talk to me about it.”

  Oh. They think I’m depressed. I mean, I guess I am, just a little, but not like that. “Eh, it was really nice, actually,” I answer, giving his leg a reassuring pat. “You got to meet a friend of mine from home. We went shopping.” I pause and look Ayre over from head to toe and back again. “Actually, you look great in a sundress, you should try it sometime.”

  That gets me exactly the same confused expression that Dream Ayre had given me when I objected to her having tits. “... A … sundress?”

  “Yeah, it’s a lightweight, sleeveless dress for warm weather with simple, relaxed designs. You paired it with a belt and a scarf. I could never pull it off without looking like I was trying to be fancy, but you wear it like a natural.”

  “... Um … thank … you?” It takes him conscious, visible effort to change back to the topic at hand. “So … what’s wrong, then? Did the illusion make you homesick?”

  “A little,” I admit, “but I just tell myself the same thing I’ve been telling myself since I got here, that I’ll get back someday, or I won’t. No sense missing out on the present.” I pull myself up into a more proper, less sprawled out, sitting position. “No, what’s got me down is this dungeon. Our first silver-ranked dungeon, and, honestly, it’s really making me feel like I’m fifteen.”

  That triggers another round of looks between everyone, and Leuke comes over to join us on the fountain.

  “Uh … do you mean the age, or the level?”

  The question makes me blink, eyes widening in realization. Oh, right, they really are the same at the moment. I guess I’ve never really paid the age much thought. I know everyone else perceives me as younger, but I’ve always had other things to do, other things to focus on, and being a Hero always meant I was dealing with things beyond what a fifteen-year-old back on Earth would ever have been expected to handle.

  On Earth, a fifteen-year-old might have a part-time job, or a younger sibling they have to babysit. They’re too young for a car, are probably still prohibited from dating without supervision, and are still heavily reliant on the provisions of their parents. Here, from day one, I’ve been thrown into combat, become a land-owner, built my own house (twice), revolutionized the coffee industry, and traveled the country without escort under the mission of purifying the land against dark forces.

  I may be fifteen, but I haven’t been living like it. Not even by this world’s standards, much less the ones I reflexively measure everything by.

  Ayre picks up on it immediately and giggles, covering his lips with his fingers. “That’s Remmi’s, Wait, I’m fifteen? face.”

  That finally pulls Korrigan into the conversation. “She doesn’t know how old she is?”

  “You know,” Ayre answers, grinning, “sometimes, I don’t think she does! She definitely gets so busy thinking of things to craft that it slips her mind.”

  I reach over and slap his knee. “I just forgot they were the same right now! Obviously, I meant my level!”

  That makes the little oni’s eyes widen. “You’re only level fifteen?!”

  “Rem’s numbers are … weird,” Leuke provides informatively in my defense. “Fifteen for her doesn’t mean what it does for anyone else. Her numbers are more like those of somebody twenty or twenty-five. And her performance is more like somebody level thirty.”

  Korrigan’s face plainly shows she’s trying to square that kind of performance with someone with that low a level. “She fights at twice her level?!”

  It’s Leuke’s turn for widened eyes, and, after a moment of deep concentration, he gives up and starts using his fingers. It doesn’t take much effort to figure out he’s trying to double fifteen and check the result.

  “Usually, yes,” Ayre provides to fill the awkward resulting silence. “In some situations, even higher. I actually struggle to keep up with her. I’ve always marked it up to her being a Hero, but from what Leuke’s shared, she’s weird even for them.”

  I’m not pouting. I’m not. “Do you have to compliment me by calling me weird?”

  Ayre tilts his head thoughtfully to one side. “No, I guess not. You’re right, I could absolutely call you weird without the compliment.”

  I give his legs a shove this time. “If you’re gonna be rude, get your perfect thighs out of my face to do it.”

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  Since the topic’s moved on, Leuke seems to have given up on his math, and leans down toward me. “So are you saying you don’t feel strong enough?”

  I twist up one side of my mouth and give a noncommittal wiggle of my hand. “Eh, yes and no. It’s complicated. I’m weird because my stats only affect me.”

  That trading of looks transpires again, but Leuke soon focuses back on me. “... Sorry, as opposed to what, exactly?”

  I slap the pistol in my holster. “No matter how fast I get, no matter how tough I am, no matter how much I can lift, my weapon’s power is set. Now, it’s set really crazy high, and it has its own skill tree to take it even higher, but it’s still a bottleneck.”

  I pause for a moment, then shift toward him. “It’d be like if you had a sword that always did three hundred damage. Guaranteed, every swing. At first, you might say, hey, that’s a really strong sword, and you’d be right. But when it’s still doing three hundred damage when your strength is, like, thirty quintillion, it becomes a problem.”

  He wrinkles his nose and looks toward the others. “... Is that a real number?”

  Korrigan sways back and forth. “... Technically?”

  I let out a huff as I slap the stone with both hands. “The number’s not the point! It’s just an example! My point is, this dungeon has been a chore. There’s been whole sections we couldn’t have done without being way more powerful than we are if we hadn’t had a dedicated strongman on the team.”

  I turn specifically to the Swordmaster Hero. “Leuke, if you hadn’t decided to come with us, we’d probably still be stuck on that boulder puzzle, and even if we figured out a way to cheese that, the wrestler would have likely killed us. To be direct, this is not a dungeon Ayre and I could have done on our own.”

  “Remmi, that’s normal,” Ayre puts in consolingly. “It’s actually really, really bizarre that a two-person team, and with both people of the same specialty besides, went around clearing dungeons like we did. Most teams are well-balanced with specific roles defined and covered, and almost always five or more. Even with four of us here, we’re still technically undermanned. What you’re experiencing isn’t weakness, it’s the strain of having to cover for the roles we’re lacking.”

  I take that in for a moment, then look around at the group. “What roles are we still lacking?”

  That drives Ayre to sigh as he actually pinches his nose, shutting his eyes. “You mean besides the fact that Leuke and Korrigan are only temporary? Even if they were permanent members, that’s one frontline warrior and three backline attackers. Furthermore, Leuke is much more focused on offense than defense, and we’re effectively forcing him to do both. We also have no support at all.”

  He opens his eyes again and turns his hand palm up toward me. “Ideally, we’d have at least one other person on the front line who’s focused on defense. We would also need a priest. Not only do they heal and are able to remove negative effects and curses, but they can cast barriers to protect vulnerable members or those who are in immediate danger. We would also want someone well-versed in traps and scouting, and not just because this dungeon had an entire wing dedicated to the things. It’s a good role to have in every dungeon.”

  Finally, he turns to Korrigan. “And, Korrigan, I mean no offense, but a well-rounded mage is essential in dangerous dungeons. It’s fine to have a specialty, but being able to cast a simple Slow Fall would have literally saved our lives today, not to mention the usefulness in a basic understanding of illusion magic. That you can only cast offensive spells basically just makes you another back-liner, and forces other teammates to pick up those tasks.”

  I consider Ayre’s words for a moment while poor Korrigan tries to find something fascinating about her shoes. “Wow, so the fact that we’re only one warrior and three ranged units is actually really stupid.”

  “It’s been manageable because you’re so diverse,” he offers. “You’ve been filling three different roles at once, and Leuke’s been managing two. But if you two weren’t Heroes, then, yeah, this setup never would have worked.”

  Oh. Well, that’s a sobering evaluation of the state of our forces. Really, I’m surprised I didn’t put it together sooner. I’m hardly oblivious to the concept of party balance. Tank, DPS, Healer, Blaster, they’re the standard roles of any party. In most games, the DPS doubles as the rogue, scouting for traps and threats, and it’s nice to have one more person specializing in buffs and debuffs to really maximize performance.

  Ayre and I probably qualify as DPS. We’ve also both got scouting profiles. Korrigan is an eponymous Blaster. Leuke’s serving as the Tank, the one that takes hits and holds aggression so that the rest of us can put in our work. My healing bullets and a small collection of spells have so far let me pretend to also be the party healer.

  That’s what Ayre means by it being manageable. We’re technically covering all of the essential positions, but we’re doing it with a skeleton crew. Worse, like Ayre said, he and I cover the same roles. Though it pains me to admit it, tactically, one of us is redundant. Add to that the fact that our Black Mage didn’t bother learning anything but Fire and Thunder, and it paints a grim picture of our readiness.

  It’s definitely a problem we’re going to have to look into, especially when Ayre and I take off on our own again, but it’s not the only issue. I give a sigh. “Well, besides that, if I’m operating at a thirty, then I’m still underperforming. The ogre sub-bosses are all in the upper thirties, and you can bet the final boss is going to be even higher.”

  “Remmi,” Ayre tries again, “I know you’re used to thinking of such things, but most people can’t see monster levels. We just know that they’re stronger than us and that’s why we bring a well-balanced team.”

  “Well, I’m used to being overleveled, okay?” I insist as I finally push myself up to my feet. “I don’t like leaving things to RNG when I can skew them in my favor, instead. And after this dungeon, I’m definitely taking a look at pumping my numbers up again. I’m sick of close calls.” In games, close calls were your warning sign that you were falling behind in the grind.

  Korrigan looks to Ayre. “What’s auran-ji?”

  The elf waves it off, though. “Some figure of speech Remmi’s people make. It basically just means chance or luck.” Then Ayre focuses on me again. “If you want to look at gains again, after this dungeon will be a good time to do so. I’m going to need to spend some time training, too. Just don’t overdo it, or get so obsessed with numbers that you lose sight of what you actually need.”

  I roll my eyes as I reach into my bag, “Yeesh, Ayre, you’re starting to sound like Yorin. I’ll be reasonable about it, I promise. Maybe invest some more in my gun’s power ranks, too.”

  I pull out a twisted, gnarled staff of bleached-white wood. It’s impossible to say what type of wood it might once have been, but it looks almost bone-like now, and in the very peak, there’s an embedded stone of cloudy purple the size of a fist.

  “By the way,” I say, “I pulled this off of the warlock when he died.” And I toss it to Korrigan without preamble, watching her fumble with it to get hold of it without dropping it or her old staff. “Looks like we finally got an item for you, Korrigan! Congrats!”

  She holds it reverently, running her hands up and down its length. “What’s it do?”

  “Ogre’s Wicked Staff,” I provide. “Increases Intellect and maximum Mana, and reduces the cost of spells. Also improves the effectiveness of your curses.”

  That last one gets a frown out of the girl. “But I don’t know any curses.”

  I just grin, glancing to Ayre as I reference the elf’s previous criticism. “Take it as motivation to get more well-rounded.”

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