Volume 3 - CH 23

On the day of the Raid Quest, the four of us, Luce, Celt, Mabel, and I, were traveling by carriage.

The carriage was arranged by the Guild for us.

If we lifted the curtains, we could see the other carriages carrying the people who also signed up for the Raid.

“It seems the Howlod Family sent a lot of their soldiers for the Raid this time.”

In addition to the about twenty adventurers, the Marquee seems to have sent around the same number of soldiers with us.

That being said, only half of the soldiers will enter the Sunken Utopia, with the rest being on stand-by outside the entrance.

On the surface it’s to prevent the possible overflow of monsters from causing problems, which is also partly true, but their main objective is to block the escape of the traitor mixed in with the Raid this time.

“Even if they raised the reward for this Raid, most normal adventurers will still find this a bit fishy and stay away.”

Celt let out an exasperated sigh.

At first glance, the number of adventurers that signed up are about the same as last time, but the truth is a bit different.

The adventurers’ guild put a heavy emphasis on this Raid, and the scale of the recruitment drive was on another level as well.

However, they didn’t manage to gather a sufficient force in the end, which made it necessary for the Howlod Family to send their own soldiers to make up the difference.

“This is a strange looking map though. It looks almost like a real city.”

Mabel gasped after looking at the map of the Sunken Utopia.

“It’s not really a city that existed in reality before. It’s just a dream of Alzaroth about a sunken city. The buildings are nothing but a facade in there.”

I said as I opened my Status.

“Elma-san….? Is something wrong?”

Luce blinked in confusion.

“It’s just with our course decided, I wanted to allocate some of my Skill points now.”

I had quite a number of Skill points in stock by now.

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【Skill Trees】

［Remaining Skill points: 17］

〈Vow of the Heavy Armor〉[41/100]

〈Beginner Swordsmanship〉[5/50]

〈Smoldering Fang of Madness〉[15/70]

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I put 【8】 Skill points into [Vow of the Heavy Armor].

Truthfully, the next Skill from that is kind of meh, so I was thinking of leaving it for later.

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【Skill Trees】

［Remaining Skill points: 9］

〈Vow of the Heavy Armor〉[49/100]【+8】

〈Beginner Swordsmanship〉[5/50]

〈Smoldering Fang of Madness〉[15/70]

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【With [Vow of the Heavy Armor] reaching [49/100], you have gained the Special Skill [Knight’s Conviction].】

Good…..I got [Knight’s Conviction].

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〈Knight’s Conviction〉【Special Skill】

Provides immunity to the Berserk abnormal status effect.

Confers a resistance to the Sleep abnormal status effect.

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“You got a new Skill?”

Luce asked me.

“Yeah, it gives some protection against two types of abnormal status effects.”

“Woah! That sounds amazing~!”

“….that’s sadly not the case here. Both of them are just minor status effects.”

The concept for the Skill is ‘overcoming the negative influence affecting the mind with the help of the strong will of a knight’.

However, this was often made fun of by the players in the early days of Magic World, saying ‘then do something about Confusion too’.

The Berserk abnormal condition makes the target drown in their fury, making them unable to use attack Skills and also prevents them from voluntarily stepping back from fighting an enemy.

The Sleep abnormal condition makes the target unable to move for a certain amount of time, or until the target receives some damage.

Though both of them are the kind of status effects that would prevent someone with a defense Class from fulfilling their role, those two types are simply so rare that coming across them basically never happens.

Even if they are packaged with something else, getting resistances for those are just not that appealing.

There wasn’t even any content in the game that would raise the demand for Heavy Knights because of their [Knight’s Conviction].

It’s basically the embodiment of the ‘falling-just-short-of-being-able-to-scratch-that-itch Class’ sentiment about the early days of the Heavy Knight.

“O-oh, I see…..”

“Well, there are some things that [Knight’s Conviction] is still good for, but nothing that would make it a must take it right away.”

That’s the reason why I put off allocating my Skill points until now.

What I really wanted was the next Skill.

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【Skill Trees】

［Remaining Skill points: 1］

So I put 【8】 more Skill points into [Vow of the Heavy Armor].

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〈Magic Guard〉【Normal Skill】

By covering your shield with mana when attacked, you can raise its Defense.

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“Nice…..!”

Whether you have this Skill or not makes a huge difference in the stability of the Heavy Knight, and it also greatly increases its ability to deal with a wider range of attacks.

To sum it up, by sacrificing some MP, you can greatly decrease the damage you would otherwise suffer even through the shield.

In Magic World, equipment rarely breaks and it’s quite easy to block attacks that are otherwise hard to evade.

However, because of that you tend to frequently take some damage even through a shield.

You can’t use it to power up your [Shield Bash] by activating both at the same time either, but it’s still quite a useful Skill despite that.

It’s also another way of avoiding damage when [Half-Dead Savage Dragon] is active.

I was mulling over how we should move during this Raid, but I came to the conclusion that I’m better off having [Magic Guard] in the end.

So I decided to prioritize this over the [Smoldering Fang of Madness].

“….stop messing with your Status in front of other people. I don’t know about Luce, but Mabel and I won’t be staying with you permanently after this.”

Celt said to me.

“You all shared your Statuses with me before already on my suggestion, so I would’ve felt bad if I tried to conceal myself while allocating my Skill points after that. I trust all three of you, and to better be able to coordinate our efforts, I feel it would be for the best if you knew what I can do.”

After saying all that, I glanced towards Mabel.

“Also…..sorry about this, but I would like to ask you something, Mabel.”

“Me…..?”

Mabel blinked in confusion.

“As far as I know, you have 【5】 unallocated Skill points, 【42】 in [Staff of Faith], 【20】 in [Druid’s Curse], and 【0】 in [Beginner Staff Techniques], right?”

“….did you really memorize all that in just a moment?”

Mabel asked with a forced smile on her face.

“We showed our Statuses to each other because we had no other choice at the time, but who would memorize someone else’s Status to this degree?”

Celt also looked a bit exasperated.

“….sorry.”

I could remember both Mabel’s and Celt’s Statuses clearly enough that I could write them all down right now if I wanted to, but maybe it’s best if I don’t mention that here.

“Did your Status change in any way after that?”

“It didn’t, but…..what about it?”

“I will create an opportunity for you to gain some levels during the delve. If you manage to level up twice, then I would like you to put all your points into [Staff of Faith].”

“Into [Staff of Faith]…..?”

Mabel once again blinked in confusion.

“It’s the Skill Tree I want to raise most anyway, so it’s not a problem. However, I heard from another adventurer with the same Class as mine that the next Skill from [Staff of Faith] is not that remarkable. Do we need it to counter something the Dream Lord can do perhaps?”

“Well….something like that, yeah.”

It shouldn’t happen in any case, but if what I’m afraid of comes to pass, then it’s possible we won’t survive without the Skill she would get at 【49】 in [Staff of Faith].