Chapter 102: First Raid On The Seventh Floor

Tomorrow will be the last raid we'll have since the event timer will run out on the next night, if we want to be in our best condition we will have to avoid entering the dungeon on the day of the event.

As such, we'll have to make the most of these last two chances we have before the demon queen arrives.

There are two possible options available currently, either I focus all the tickets on skills, which will most definitely strengthen us, or I can also spend some of the tickets on potions.

As it stands, by spending just 10 tickets, I can reliably get one or more mana-restoring potions, which would enable us to go deeper into the floor, thus earning more levels.

Both options are good, but taking into consideration future events, it will be better to get as many level-ups as possible, so I decided to use some tickets for potions and the remaining twenty-one resulted in the following skills:

[Block Analysis] x3, [X Slash] x3, [Physical Prowess] x3, [Better Crafting] x2, [Improved Artistic Skill] x2, [Information Blocking] x2, [Sight Enhancement] x2, [Wind Cover] x1, [Mental Resistance] x1, [Mana Transfer] x1, [Unending Determination] x1.

With no further preparations necessary, we went to properly explore the seventh floor.

Yesterday we had managed to get to level 34 here, so there was only a gap of 8 levels between us and the strongest monsters on this floor.

Normally that would be a problem, but with our skill levels and everyone's specialized builds, we can punch way up our levels.

Not to mention, having Mia with us helps quite a lot since she instantly hits the level cap of this floor the moment she enters it.

If one of the golems seems too troublesome, we leave it in her care.

Now that their levels are growing closer, her rivalry with Claire has become the most competitive it has ever been.

There isn't much variation of monsters on this floor, aside from them all being golems of different materials, they are usually divided into three classes, scouts, tanks, and raiders.

The scouts are either small snake-like creatures crawling and digging holes on the ground, or small birds, slightly bigger than Apollo.

They aren't hard to kill, lacking both strength and defense, but their speed and small sizes are a bit problematic, not to mention, that they generally appear when a large group is nearby, and even if you kill them, the others will still be most likely alarmed, so taking them out by surprise as we usually do using Ellie becomes way harder to do.

It also makes it hard to use Claire to her full potential since once the monsters get close enough to engage in physical combat unless we coordinate well, we would risk getting hit by large-scale attacks.

When they have the initiative, they may also target Claire first as she is part of the frontline, essentially locking her from targeting multiple enemies at once as she focuses on fighting with her sword.

This single addition makes us have to revise the way we've been fighting, at least for this floor.

In one of the strategies we're now employing, we make use of Anna's defense so that when a large group of monsters comes, she can block them and use her sword to stun them for a bit.

If for whatever reason this fails, then Licia, Bea, and I will focus on holding them down using our magic.

As long as they group themselves and we manage to get Anna out of the way, Claire is free to use her magic on them.

It's mostly a roundabout way to reach the same result we were getting prior, but it works for the time.

Though it's quite taxing on Anna, and there were some close calls when she almost got hit with friendly fire.

Aside from that, Mia and I are also taking turns as forward scouts. Thanks to our speed, we're able to proceed further ahead and come back upon killing the enemy scout and determining the position of the monster group.

By quickly getting back, we can then engage in our old strategies again.

Both of these require way more effort, but that's how much information is important, now that we can't silently approach and take them by surprise, each engagement has become way more dangerous.

The other monsters aren't as much of a problem, they are either strong or fast and may possess an annoying Gift, but it's pretty much the same as it's been for other floors.

Generally, the golem tanks are bigger and slower but might be very strong or resistant.

As for the raiders, they are similar to wolves and use their speed to attack.

Most of the monsters on this floor don't rely on magic, except for the golems made out of crystals, these pose a bigger threat due to their flexibility when fighting. Even scouts can be made of crystals, and by using magic, they might defend themselves long enough to become way incredibly troublesome.

Great, by correcting one mistake it seems like I triggered another one.

Well, there's not much to that story either so it should be fine if I'm honest with her.

Miwen: "She was a crush I had I guess. But besides getting her number, nothing really happened, so there's no need to be jealous."

Licia: "I'm not jealous. What did you like about her?"

Yeah, not jealous alright.

To be fair, I barely remember her face at all now, and I never talked to her before asking her number.

She was pretty quiet, and you would barely notice her existence, even more so if you were trying hard not to fail.

I'm sure Licia will notice if I lie, so there's no reason to even try.

But it's also hard to say what is it that made me interested in the first place.

Mia: "Knowing this guy? It was her body."

Miwen: "Probably... Wait..."

This girl interjected right when I was thinking hard to give an honest answer, and she just had to say the most outrageous thing possible, it's almost like she's trying to get me in a bad spot.

Miwen: "I don't actually know why I went after her. She wasn't really hot either, at least not noticeably so. She was also quite quiet so perhaps I thought it would be my best shot... Though now that I think about it, she started getting more popular by the end of our last year..."

Maybe that's why I gave up calling her.

Well, if I barely remember her, in the end, it wasn't anything important.

Miwen: "More importantly... I thought you liked fighting games Claire. I wasn't expecting you to pick a dating sim."

It was a cheap way to get out of the conversation, but if I hadn't done something I might've ended up getting on Licia's bad side.

As for the game Claire was playing, it looked like your typical visual novel dating simulator, and while the graphics were pretty good, it wasn't the style of games she often plays.

Normally, this type of game runs even on a potato, but the gameplay seemed to be very intricate and expansive, with a lot of different elements, and according to Claire, the story is incredibly long, meaning the game takes a lot of storage too, thanks to all of that, to run it well, you kind of need a good phone, to begin with.

Once she got excited and started telling me about its story though, it became clear exactly what is it that made her want to try out the game so much.

At the game start, she has the choice of playing with the meek commoner heroine or the villainous duke's daughter.

Their start couldn't be more different, but their objective is the same, gaining the heart of the prince and the other characters that surround them.

It's a bit strange how two of the main targets for the villainess are her brothers, one of them holding a high position in the minister and the other being a general.

Even her third target, her butler, is a bit strange. No one seems to have figured out how to romance him yet, which is absolutely insane considering that we have the internet on our side.

There's speculation that even though he was marketed as a main character, the company behind the game decided to cut his route or make him a DLC.

It's also strange that a bunch of others who seem like minor characters also have routes of their own. Not to mention how the butler isn't even an option for the commoner heroine since every action she takes diminishes his opinion of her.

Considering the other options the villainess has, I guess that her being a playable character was just an afterthought to follow trends.

I hope they at least put some effort into it though since Claire seems to have picked up this game just to play with the duke's daughter.

Even if it's just a game, this allows her to feel a bit about how her life might've gone back in her world while experiencing things she might've wanted to, but never could.

She only played a bit of the prologue, but she seemed very satisfied with it, and not only did I manage to patch things up with her, but she also made sure to thank me later that night.