Chapter 63: Putting Feelings Into a Moment, Part 10
Author’s Note: Today was honestly a bit dicey, so I ended up padding the word count with skills... but I'm past the tough part now, so I'll build up my backlog tomorrow.
Sunraku: "Alright... so this is the place?"
Emul: "Hai na! This is Rabituza's Skill Gardener...wa!"
After frantically logging in and out of different games, I was currently in Rabituza. Guided by Emul, I had at long last arrived at a facility I'd be using for the first time in my entire Shangri-La Frontier playthrough.
The reason was that, as a result of all that power-leveling, I'd acquired a massive number of skills — which meant I now urgently needed to sort through them and power them up. After allocating all my points, my current status looked like this:
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Player Name: Sunraku LV:51 (5) JOB: Mercenary (Dual Wielder) 73,200 Mani HP:30 MP:10 STM:60 STR:40 DEX:50 AGI:70 TEC:55 VIT:5 LUC:74
Skills: · Rush Slash → Infinite Slash · Spiral Edge → Drill Piercer · Knuckle Rush → Selectable · Slide Move → Skate Foot · Repel Counter → Parrying Protection · Loop Slash Lv.8 · Edge Climb → Greater Climbing · Accel Lv.MAX · One-Boat Leap → Five-Fold Jump · Quick Spin → Sharp Turn · Deer Step Lv.7 · Water Skip Lv.6 · Crossroads Slash Lv.4 · Oppressive Kick Lv.5 · Piercing Armor Lv.3 · Best Step · Fighting Spirit Lv.7 · Unbreakable Lv.5 · High Runner Lv.6 · Naked Sense Lv.4 · Hunger Impulse Lv.4
Equipment: Right & Left: Empire Bee Twinblades Head: Staring Bird Mask (VIT+1) Body: Lycagon's Curse Waist: Splitblade Belt (VIT+4) Feet: Lycagon's Curse Accessory: None
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Sunraku: "Ugh, look at this tissue-paper armor."
It's honestly worse than paper now — toilet-paper-tier fragility. One drop of water and it'd probably tear a hole right through. Part of that's because I haven't upgraded my gear, but the real killer is my VIT, which I've never put a single point into, sitting proudly in the single digits.
I gave up on the defensive side anyway, since one hit is going to wipe me out no matter what. Honestly, I would've liked to put more into Luck... damn you, my favorite weapon.
Sunraku: "Things were getting pretty cluttered. A facility for sorting stuff out makes total sense..."
Having a lot of skills isn't bad in itself, but thirty or forty of them is just a mess. So it's only natural that there'd be a garden that, true to its name, prunes the unnecessary branches to thicken the main trunk. What I'm getting at here is: I want to punch my past self.
Emul: "There's a Skill Gardener in the city too...wa, but this one has a much better selection...wa! But that's a secret...wa!"
Sunraku: "Nice, nice. I love that kind of secret inequality."
Exchanging dialogue straight out of a corrupt magistrate and shady merchant, Emul and I stepped into the Skill Gardener inside the Rabbit Palace.
Elke: "Weeelcome... oh my, it's Emul and the bird person, isn't it...?"
Sunraku: "Is 'the bird person' just my permanent name now?"
I feel like I hear that every time we meet... makes it harder and harder to ever change my headgear.
A rabbit with a languid, drawn-out way of speaking — strong "onee-san" vibes — greeted Emul and me. Something about her looked like Emul; part of it was her ears, the same lop-eared type, but she also had a stronger impression of being a sister, somehow.
Emul: "Elke, big sis! Sunraku-san, Elke is my big sister, and there’s one other sister too... We’re triplets, wa!"
Sunraku: "Huh."
Elke: "Nice to meet youuu."
So it wasn't just top-to-bottom in order — there were triplets and twins in the mix too. I crouched slightly to shake hands with Emul's older sister... Elke, while getting down to business.
Sunraku: "So, uh, I can combine skills here, right?"
Elke: "Yeees, that's right... I'm quite good at that sort of thing, sooo... my father asked me to be the one in charge here..."
Sunraku: "Is thaaat so..."
Emul: "S-Sunraku-san, you're picking up her speech pattern...wa!"
Oops.
Sunraku: "Alright, let's get to skill combining right away."
Elke: "Yes, yees... well then, tell me which skills you'd like to link...?"
As Elke spoke, a window appeared in front of me. Looking at it, I could see a list of all my currently acquired skills. By selecting two, I could apparently preview what kind of skill would be born from the combination. I see — it wasn't the type where you had no idea what you'd get.
Let's see here... combine this and this to make that...
Elke: "Oh, and one more thing... skills with higher levels combined together will result in a better skill..."
Sunraku: "Hmm, hmm."
Hearing that, I felt the urge to max out every skill's level. But skill levels rise alongside your player level, so if I wanted to max everything now, I'd probably have to hit level 60... no, maybe 65. Can't afford to be picky. Let's just merge them and be done.
Sunraku: "Well, something like this, I guess."
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Player Name: Sunraku LV:51 (5) JOB: Mercenary (Dual Wielder) 73,200 Mani HP:30 MP:10 STM:60 STR:40 DEX:50 AGI:70 TEC:55 VIT:5 LUC:74
Skills: · Infinite Slash · Drill Piercer · In-Fight Lv.1 · Skate Foot · Parrying Protection · Hand of Fortune Lv.1 · Greater Climbing · Climax Boost Lv.1 · Five-Fold Jump · Sharp Turn · Assassin Pierce Lv.1 · Oppressive Kick Lv.5 · Best Step · Hunger Wolf · Off-Road Lv.1
Equipment: Right & Left: Empire Bee Twinblades Head: Staring Bird Mask (VIT+1) Body: Lycagon's Curse Waist: Splitblade Belt (VIT+4) Feet: Lycagon's Curse Accessory: None
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Yeah, I'd say things are fairly well organized now. That said, after actually using the system, I realized it's not just simple addition — you can't just smash any two skills together. It seems like the resulting skill is determined based on the player's current stats and level at the time of combination. What a nightmare for the analysis crowd. No wonder strategy sites get bogged down.
For now, I should get a rough grasp of everything, with real combat testing to come naturally.
Infinite Slash, Drill Piercer, Skate Foot, Parrying Protection, Greater Climbing, Five-Fold Jump, Sharp Turn... these are mostly variations of the skills I've been using since the start, with minor name and effect differences.
In-Fight is a skill created by mixing a melee skill with an evasion skill. It grants a damage bonus at extremely close range. Since I'm fundamentally a dual-wielder, this'll shine best in situations where I'm forced to let go of my swords.
Hand of Fortune... I remember seeing a similar name — Hand of Glory — in some trash game. In that game, it was the name of a magical catalyst. Here, it's a skill name. This skill calculates its damage based on LUC — Luck — rather than STR. In other words, putting it mildly, it's a god-tier skill. For someone like me, with tissue-paper armor and stats heavily weighted toward Technique and Luck, it's an invaluable source of firepower. I'm going to treasure this one.
Climax Boost combines Accel and Fighting Spirit. When your HP is at one-third or less, and the opponent's level is higher than yours, it applies a huge bonus to all stats... The effect itself is great, but the problem is it doesn't mesh well with how I fight. Tissue-paper armor, remember?
Assassin Pierce. A skill that increases thrust damage when the enemy isn't targeting you. That's it.
Oppressive Kick is something I picked up from repeatedly stomping on downed eels and lobsters. It's a melee skill that deals increased damage against enemies that are knocked down, knocked back, or otherwise incapacitated or afflicted with status conditions. I didn't have any good combination partners for it, so I left it alone this time.
Best Step — this is a skill Emul knows too. Apparently, it lets you perform a single perfect jump even on unstable footing. It's got a whiff of potential mischief to it. You know — walls, enemy bodies... yeah?
And now, the problem child skill that gives me complicated feelings for personal reasons... Hunger Wolf. The skill itself is actually pretty interesting: "The hungrier you are and the lower your HP, the greater the buff to STR, AGI, and VIT — but as a trade-off, STM, DEX, and TEC take a debuff." For short decisive battles and pure offensive output, it's extremely useful. But... "Hunger," "Wolf," "DEX, TEC" — why does this thing manage to gouge at my trauma with such precision? Please, give me a break...
Shaking it off — next is Off-Road. This one's pretty good. It's a skill that lets you move as if on flat ground even in water, mud, sand... any kind of unstable footing. Plus, it lasts level × 10 seconds, meaning even at level 1, that's a full ten seconds. Max it out at level 10, and you're guaranteed a hundred seconds. Beautiful.
Sunraku: "...Yeah, that's pretty good."
For my current situation, I'd say I've managed to assemble a solid lineup of skills. Man, the Skill Gardener is seriously useful! Apparently, there was some colossal idiot out there who never even knew this amazing facility existed until now! Jeez, I wonder who that could possibly be!
Elke: "By the way... Sunraku-saaan?"
Sunraku: "Gwah!"
G-Goosebumps shot down my spine. Not in a bad way — it was just the surprise of Elke's whisper-voice catching me off guard.
Wondering what was up, I looked away from the status window and down to find Elke wearing an expression that resembled Emul's melted, squishy smile, holding a small notebook-sized booklet... ah. This is the "business smile."
Elke: "How about some skill manuals that are only available here in Rabituzaaa? Since you're a favorite of Emul's, I'll give you a special discount...?"
Emul: "Sunraku-san, you’re so lucky, wa! Big sis Elke is usually such a money-grub—"
WHAM!!
Emul: "Gweh?!"
Elke: "I'll give you a nice discount, okaaay...?"
I offer a prayer for Emul, now afflicted with the status condition "bump on the head." I get what you were trying to tell me, really...
But anyway, if there are discounts to be had, maybe I'll take a look at the selection.
Sunraku: "Let's see, let's see..."
· Vorpal Sword Art 【Half Moon Slash】 50,000 Mani · Vorpal Blade Art 【Water Mirror Moon】 80,000 Mani · Vorpal Spear Art 【Moonlight Thrust】 70,000 Mani · Vorpal Grappling Art 【Crescent Moon Tomoe】 90,000 Mani Et cetera, et cetera...
Sunraku: "Wait, these are EXPENSIVE!!"
Someone tell me exactly which part is "discounted"!
You demon! Devil! Elke!