The last thing that I want is other people discovering that I can use magic, even though I am not technically a Mage.
I guess I will have to depend on Roxanne more than ever before now.
「Priests and monks wear it, too, so if anyone asks, you can always say that you have one of these Jobs equipped.」
So what Sherry says is basically that if I decide to wear Alba in the Labyrinths, I might as well deceive people that I am not a Mage, but either a Priest or a monk. As long as I don’t encounter Gozer or other members of the Knight Order of Hartz Duchy, there will be no problem, but just to be on the safe side, I should better not head anywhere outside of the Labyrinth with the Alba equipped.
Alba is light and can be tied around the waist with a strap, so it shouldn’t be hindering my movements, which means that even if I switch to using Durandal with the Alba equipped, there should be no sense of incongruity for me.
「Although it might be a little bit weird for someone claiming to be a Monk or a Priest to be fighting with a sword, but a monk fighting on the frontlines in the Labyrinth should not be anything too out of the ordinary, right?」
「Yes. Because the more the firepower a Party is going to have in the vanguard position, the better.」
Roxanne confirms my words.
Since the size of the Party is limited t only six people, I don’t think that I can afford to have any of my Party Members take on an exclusively healing-oriented Job. If we want to clear the Labyrinths out as fast as possible, then we have to focus everything that we have into firepower, so it’s goo to hear that a Monk who’s going to go berserk with a sword in hand is not going to be treated as anything out of the ordinary.
Feeling pretty good about myself and the performance of the new piece of protective gear thus far, we continued the exploration of the Labyrinths.
During that exploration, I also took a moment to test how my new Staff of Offerings was performing in actual combat, and I have to say that it was going exactly how I expected it to do. The increase to the power of my Spells granted by the 「Increase INT x2」Skill was nice, but other than that, it was not too different from my previously used Rod of Offerings.
We shortly reach the Boss Room of the fifteenth floor of Haruba’s Labyrinth, most likely due to the accumulation of all those times when the duration of the battles against the common enemies has been shortened. Either that, or maybe it was also partially because Miria was feeling more enthusiastic than usual?
「Okay Sherry, since the main enemy on this floor was a Bitch Butterfly, then what its Floor Boss variant is going to be?」
Miria seems to be fine too, and like I thought, there’s no need for me to be worried about Roxanne, because she also emerged out of that attack without even a single scratch on her, and since Sherry is wielding a spear for this battle, chipping away at the Madame Butterfly’s body whenever she could, she should be a safe distance away from the harm’s way.
All in all, everyone seems to be safe, and that’s all that matters for me.
With Madame Butterfly’s initial attack finished, it was time for us to switch back to attack, and once the four of us surrounded the Floor Boss from every possible direction, disposing off of her was quite simple and fast since she was too dumb to realize that constantly facing the one who attacked her while we were doing that from all around her won’t let it perform even a single attack again.
After a little while, our group of four finally succeeds in defeating Madame Butterfly. It drops down to the ground, turns into smoke and dissipates into nothingness.
「A Magic Crystal, desu!」
Miria shouts excitedly as she picks up the thing that remained after the Floor Boss was gone. Is there really a Magic Crystal?
I can’t see it myself, but 「Identify」 shows that there really is a Magic Crystal there.
Miria runs to me with the Magic Crystal in tow, forgetting to bring me the other Drop Items that should also be there. When she presented it to me, I saw that what she was holding in her hands was a Black Magic Crystal. How did she noticed something that appeared out of nowhere so fast?
「As expected of Miria. Well done.」
「Yes, desu.」
I lightly pat Miria on the head.
It’s unfortunate that I can’t play with her cat ears right now, but it cannot be helped at this moment since she has her protective gear on, and telling her to take it off just so that I could scratch her ears does not seem like the best idea, even if the Boss Room us empty now.
「That reminds me, we previously found a Magic Crystal in a Boss Room as well. Are Magic Crystals easily found in Boss rooms?」