Chapter 152 29.6 Utility?

GUIDANCE

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The dev clicked her tongue as she watched Moriya spring into action. Her current partner began the salvo of bullets that began flying out in all directions, forcing her to cast heal after heal as she tried to mitigate the damage being dealt to him by his own weapons.

"[Medica]! [Adloqium]!"

Almost immediately, she kept her eyes peeled on a character that she herself created. Fleuger was supposed to be a one-off, a throwaway Somatic that shouldn't even see the light of day after he got defeated. He even had a pretty basic [Manifest] that she never really put that much thought into. He was just a boring Republican enemy meant to introduce her players to the concept of Somatic-on-Somatic battle.

But apparently, the Engine had other plans.

"Hah! I can see where you'll go, Moriya!"

Guidance clicked her tongue as her partner ate a few shots aimed solely at him. She supposed that she wasn't being targeted because she wasn't generating aggro, but she had a feeling that the current status quo might change the more she tried healing Moriya.

"[Cure!] [Cure!]"

"What the- Will you stop that!?"

And there it was...

Her eyes never leaving his rifle, Guidance kept her distance as she sprinted across the now delineated arena around them. It was the one thing that she even noticed to realize that they were currently in an instanced battle. It also explained why she took so much damage despite Fleuger being massively lower leveled than she was. Her levels got synced, and it was only through Moriya's efforts that she was even alive right now.

"Guidance!"

"Just keep up the pressure!" Guidance quickly replied, her [Keystroke] already glowing with another casted [Move]. "I can take care of myself!"

"Got it!"

[*BANG! BANG!*]

Focusing on her cast, she gritted through her teeth as she ignored the bullets punching through her arms and legs. She had a [Medica] on her, meaning that she could theoretically shrug off most attacks without worrying about her health going to zero. After all, a healer's job wasn't to keep her party healthy, it was to keep her party alive.

And yes, that meant that the lowest acceptable amount of health on her bars was always at a whopping one.

"[Adloqium]! [Medica]!"

Erecting a barrier around herself, the dev returned her focus on healing Moriya through his rapidly dropping health. Seriously, why in the hell did he even think that pistols that shot out blood were a good idea? Was he trying to get himself killed?

"[Blood Shot]! [Blood Screen]!"

"New tricks, Moriya!? Not that those can save you from my own!"

Her eyes widened as Moriya's health dropped in massive increments from those two [Moves]. Immediately raising her keyboard, she cast yet another salvo of heals for her health-happy partner.

"[Cure]! [Cure]!"

Guidance clicked her tongue as she kept her eyes peeled on the bars being displayed by her [Manifest], her own [MP] dropping rapidly with each cast of heals that she had to do. She couldn't even throw out her own attacks with how quickly Moriya was eating through his own health!

"Can you at least exercise some restraint?!" she blurted out, her frustration slowly getting the better of her. "I'm running out of [MP] here!"

"Well, sorry for trying to fight back then!" Moriya fired back, his pistols still providing cover fire as their enemy dodged and weaved through them anyway. "Why even fight like this?! Let's just defeat this guy and get it over with!"

[*BANG! BANG!*]

"Don't ignore me!"

Once more, a flurry of bullets erupted as Fleuger reasserted his presence in the fight. Frankly, she was slowly inching into a flow state of methodically dodging and healing as she kept her partner alive. All of the flashy fighting and weaving was nothing to her. All that mattered was that she did her job and that she did it well.

Nothing else mattered. It wasn't her goddamn fault if Moriya couldn't kill this guy again.

"I'm not! I'm still shooting at you!" Moriya shouted out.

"As if that worked the first time. [Medica]," Guidance scoffed, throwing in yet another heal over time on Moriya's dropping bars. "And haven't you beaten this guy once? You should've blitzed him already!"

"There's not a lack of trying on my part, Guidance," Moriya rolled his eyes. "I'm doing my best here!"

"Well try harder!" she scoffed aloud. "I can't keep you alive forever!"

Seriously, hadn't he survived against this guy without a healer before? Did giving him leeway to make mistakes made him cockier to just keep on firing his laughably stupid build of a glass cannon on steroids?

"How about you actually think and kill this guy?!" Guidance fired back mid-cast. "[Medica]! I'm running out of heals for you here!"

[*BANG! BANG! BANG!*]

"You're both underestimating me!"

"Yes, we are!" Guidance addressed the poor enemy Somatic in the arena. "You're supposed to be a solved fight, and yet Moriya here is having a hard time against you!"

"Wha- You dare!"

Predictably, the taunt she had made her take aggro as Fleuger fired off a few shots at her. Thankfully, the barrier she gave herself earlier still hadn't popped, allowing her to tank the two bullets without any fanfare.

"Not fair!"

"Life isn't fair!" Moriya shouted out, closing the gap between him and the enemy as he finally did something different. "Also, our fight ends here!"

"Wha-"

[*THUD! THUD!*]

With a loud flurry of thuds, Guidance watched in annoyed satisfaction as Moriya beat Fleuger in the head with his pistols. Well, that was one way to avoid having to account for trajectories. If the attack was coming in point-blank range, there was just no dodging it no matter how fast you are.

"N-Not... again...."

"There..."

Landing on the deck, Fleuger finally fell, Moriya standing over him with a proud smile on his face. As if he had anything to be proud of with that poor of a performance.

"You should really learn how to play, Moriya," she sighed in annoyance. "The grief you put me through was just ridiculous."

"But we still did it, right?" he smiled at her.

The dev rolled her eyes. Seriously, why was she humoring this guy... "Fine then. But you still need restraint. I can't keep you alive if I keep healing you through avoidable attacks."

Truly, greed was something that never left her life.

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