Under a different set of circumstances, Sherrys advice would have been pretty useful, if not for its one, blatant weakness: if we really tried asking the Explorer at the entrance to the Labyrinth or in any of the Explorers Guilds about the monsters inhabiting specific floors, the only thing they would have been able to tell us would be what types of monsters are there, and that kind of information gives us jack shit, to say it lightly.
What good would the information about the types of monsters be if they do not tell you what are their weaknesses, the attack patterns they are going to use and how to deal with them in the best way possible? For example, we have fought against Collagen Coral before so we already know that even if their levels are higher we can deal with them without any kind of trouble, but the same cannot be said about the monsters that we have never fought before. If we happened upon such monsters, we would have no choice but to go back to the good old strategy of hitting it until it dies to figure out where it is best to hit it and what its attack patterns actually are, so if possible, I would like to learn about such monsters first, and for that, Sherry would be an ideal source of information. . . . . . . . assuming that she possesses the knowledge about most of the monsters that can be encountered in the Labyrinths of course.
Haaaaa. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sherry, in the future, can I ask you to gather all the information about the monsters from the Labyrinths that you possibly can for us?
Instead of worrying about that myself I decided that it is going to be best if I pushed that problem onto Sherry, who sighed heavily and gave me a really tired look. But really Sherry, stop looking at me in such a disappointed way, or it will really become a habit and your face is going to stay permanently distorted like that! This is fine with you, right? You are not suddenly going to say that you do not want to do this because this is too much work for just one person, right?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . All right. I will take care of it.
She nodded and agreed to my request, but her look when she was doing that was somewhat cold. At this point, it was hard for me to tell if she was doing that because she truly meant it, or just because she was trying to screw with me a little. Either way, when she was looking at me with such eyes, Sherry was well and truly scary.
O-Okay, now our biggest issue to resolve should be: what are we going to do once four monsters start showing up?
Hmm, let me see. . . . we could split it in the following ways: three monsters for me and one for Sherry or two monsters for me, two for Sherry, or I could handle two of them at once while Sherry and master would take one each. Or if you want. . . . . .
Of course it will not be a problem. If this is what you want, then that is going to be the setting we are going to go with for the time being. Roxanne? First guide us to the place with a few monsters as a warm-up on this floor, and after that, let us search for a group of four of them so that Sherry could test her idea.
On it, master!
As expected of Roxanne, she is always so cooperative. Going along with my ideas is one thing, but I am so happy to see that she is ready and willing to help sherry as well. Thank you, Roxanne. You truly are the best slave a guy could ask for. If Sherry manages to get a hang of the technique she was talking about fast enough, it is going to tremendously increase the flexibility of our Party.
When the first group of Collagen Corals appeared, I got rid of all of them pretty much effortlessly thanks to my magic. Even though the monsters here on the eighth floor take as much as five shots of it to be taken down, at my current level I do not feel like that is much at all. To be honest, the Lv.7 enemies on the seventh floor in Quratars Labyrinth felt like they were tougher to beat than Lv.8 enemies here in Vales Labyrinth, and just to remind you, they were the friggin Slow Rabbits! So even though we just defeated what was universally referred to as the strongest monster of the lower floors, it does not mean that the regular monsters on the eighth floor got drastically stronger in comparison to their counterparts from the lower floors, which bodes really well for the future.
The next group of three enemies was also easily defeated by Roxanne and Sherrys combined efforts, and then finally a group that we happened upon after that was the one we were looking for: the one consisting of four monsters at the same time, three Collagen Corrals and one Escape Goat. The presence of the Escape Goat is going to make this encounter that much more awkward, but at this point there is nothing that we can really do about it besides rolling with it.
Roxanne, go and handle the right side, the one with the Collagen Coral and the Escape Goat! Sherry, you go and take out the other two!
I gave the girls my instructions as I launched two Fire Storms towards the monsters. Even if I wanted to fire more of them, this is as much as I can do, because the third Fire Storm would likely drop the Escape Goats HP to such a level that it would have started to run away, and that is not what I want at all. I want all four of the enemies to stay together, exactly like they are now, so that Sherry could get some practice with her Club swinging.
Roxanne and Sherry engaged the monsters. Sherry swung her Club and hit the first Collagen Corral from the left, but when she wanted to continue the swinging motion so that the strike could be carried onto the second Collagen Corral, she was unable to do so, because the edge of her Club stopped soon after it came into contact with the second
Collagen Corrals round body, and it used that chance to jump up to Sherry and ram itself into her.