Chapter 42

We Managed to Take it Down Easily

A lot of Wizard staffs have low durability, but Sage staffs are made solid and sturdy. This is because they’re often used as blunt weapons to strike at enemies.

「Splendid parrying as always. You’d swoon Shielders if they saw you right now.」

「Stop staring at me and do your thing! Armor Melt Acid!」

While reminding Mylia of her job, I cast a spell that decreases the defensive power of an enemy. A basic Skill, its effects are not that significant, but it was better than nothing.

「Oops, sorry! Attack Field!」

She moved and activated a Skill that strengthens the body. Its effects last for ten minutes.

「Combo Attack!」

With the Skill active, she thrust her spear then pulled it back immediately. There’s actually no need for her to say the Skill out loud, but it’s better to make a habit of doing so. It’ll help with coordination when in a party.

Then again, in high-level combat, Skills are activated too fast for the tongue to keep up. In such a situation, members come up with other ways to coordinate with the others.

「Combo Attack!」

Using the same Skill, she thrust her spear once more. Combo Attack is a Skill that increases the power of the next attack as long as the combo is not broken. By the third combo, its effect decreases, but it’s still mighty enough to be used in succession. But the next Skill she used was a different one.

「Guard Pierce!」

Guard Pierce is a Skill that decreases the defense of the part of the body hit by the attack. Its AOE is small, but it’s a lot more effective than Armor Melt Acid.

「Support Attack!」

She activated Skills one by one in the order that I taught her to. Support Attack increases the power of the next attack multifold. It has a few seconds of cooldown so it can’t be used successively. Instead it’s used like this, in combination with other Skills. The next attack was the main one.

「Full Burst Crash!」

It immediately cancels the effects of buffing Skills like Attack Field, Combo Attack, and Support Attack. In exchange a mighty blow with power equivalent to that of the cancelled Skill effects is channelled into one attack. It’s a Skill that serves as one of the main repertoire for this type of Hero.

Receiving the full force of the attack, the Blood Tiger gave a low grunt… or not. Quietly, the upper half of its body tumbled to the ground. Its body split in two from where the Full Burst Crash hit it. Not even given a chance to let out a groan, the Blood Tiger drew its last breath.

「…Eh?」

The one who unleashed the combo, Mylia, looked confused. She couldn’t believe the scene that unfolded before her eyes. Correction: the scene that she, herself, brought about.

「This is the power of combining Skills. The Skill Tree I taught you earlier allows you to use this kind of combo efficiently.」

『Combo-Type Hero』

After creating numerous Hero-class characters and testing various Skill Trees in BBO, this was the result I arrived at. Their single-target firepower is only second to a Sage that specializes in the same field. If you make some adjustments to the combo, it’ll still have significant power against multiple enemies. It’s one of the Skill Tree’s special features.

Its only drawback is that it’s difficult to pull off. But learning other combo patterns and using them randomly will still prove to be quite formidable. To top it off, if you learn each Skill’s characteristics, you can create your own combos on the spot appropriate to the situation. That makes this job class able to maintain high firepower.

If there wasn’t a Sage class available, I would’ve chosen Hero without thinking twice and gone for the Combo-type. But a Sage with the proper Skill configuration is still stronger than a Hero. Which is why I chose the job class in the first place.

「The Blood Tiger is a strong B-ranked monster that a six-man party even has trouble with. Can it really be killed that easily?」

「Yeah. We worked together this time, but once you’re familiar with your skills, you can kill one solo. You use Over Guard to deflect its attack and create an opening, then land combos. You actually get more firepower that way. It’s risky if you’re not yet used to it, so for the time being, you’ll have to refrain from using counters.」

Among the Skills I taught her earlier is the『Guard Critical』. With it, attacks deflected back with Over Guard get a critical hit bonus and your critical hits get more power than normal.

Counter Combo-type Heroes were called the strongest when it came to instant firepower because of this.

「When you said I’m going to learn some powerful Skills, I didn’t expect it to be this incredible. You can fight an S-ranked monster with this.」

「…There are S-ranked monsters?」

「They technically exist, but there’s not one S-ranked adventurer yet. There are actually S-ranked and SS-ranked monsters though no one’s even killed one before. If an S-ranked and above monster shows up, an evacuation is immediately ordered around the area.」

I see. So S-rank monsters are unique beings.