Despite all the pain I’d had to go through, I ended up getting something good out of the Kelpie hunt after all.

Splash Step (A)

SPD +2

Increase speed by 20%

Deal AOE damage worth 10% of your ATK when you dash

They weren’t the best A rank boots, but they were definitely much better than what I had at the moment.

I quickly replaced the chainmail boots I’d gotten from Richard with these new ones, and tested them out. Lashing out with Sorrow had gotten a lot faster, while running a lap around the Lakes proved that I was definitely moving quicker than I had before.

With every dash, pushing off the ground created a small splash as if I were standing in a puddle, the miniature waves washing out and hitting whatever was near me.

Not bad.

I put the chainmail boots away in my Inventory, and began making the trip back to the Capital.

There were other things that could be done in the Lakes of Luna, but I wasn’t high level enough for it yet. My break was over anyway, and I still had to work on the magic thing so I could report back to Marge and Trix.

Speaking of Trix…

I opened up my friends list and expanded the direct messenger.

BAD_LUCK: Hey Trix

BAD_LUCK: Done with the Lakes

BAD_LUCK: Free to grind Ironsalt anytime

Trix seemed to have been waiting for this, since he replied within a few seconds.

TRIXNOCT: Good

TRIXNOCT: I’m waiting for you back at the Capital

TRIXNOCT: We can take my waypoint directly to the Fortress of Ruin

BAD_LUCK: Got it

BAD_LUCK: On my way

By the time I got back to the Capital, Trix was already waiting at the gate. He’d equipped an enormous suit of armour, one with a helmet that covered his head. His beard flopped out the open visor of the helmet, hanging out in front of the emblem engraved on the chest plate, one that I recognised to be the symbol of the Chosen Ones’ Alliance.

“The Fortress of Ruin is incredibly hard during the two weeks of a new Chosen One’s arrival,” he remarked, rubbing his hands. “It’s why I’m so geared up.”

“I know. I had to grind it solo back in the day,” I replied. “All for a Howl of the North Wind.”

“Very well worth it,” Trix remarked. “I’m thinking that your role in the team will be to stay in the back and assist. Do you have a ranged weapon?”

“I do, in fact,” I pulled out the bow I’d gotten from the Blazing Lady.

Omen (B)

ATK + 70

Mobs are less likely to aggro to the user.

No Class Bonus

I pulled open the empty bow.

“It’s only a B rarity, so it probably won’t do too much damage, though.”

“That should be fine,” Trix harrumphed. “You’re still low level, so the team and I will be doing most of the heavy lifting anyway. Do you have buffing skills?”

“I’ve got Gift of the Sun and Gift of the Wind.”

“Perfect. You can make use of those too. Be sure to double check your stuff before we go. We’re going to be in the Fortress for a couple hours,” Trix opened up his own inventory and fell silent, his eyes going over the contents of a screen.

I wondered if I should tell Trix about my newfound aversion to killing mobs, but I decided to keep it to myself. I was the one who’d asked for help grinding the Fortress of Ruin, after all. Would look ridiculous if I’d called him all the way out here only to tell him that I was actually a pacifist.

Knowing that I wasn’t killing for sport helped somewhat. Maybe it was back when I was still a regular player, but now that I was stuck in this world, it wasn’t. It was out of necessity. If I wanted to level up and be of help to everyone, I’d just have to suck it up and get used to it.

It would just have to be something I got over on my own.

Trix finished up the final checks to his inventory, and closed it. He clapped his hands together. “Well, the rest of the team is waiting on the other side of the portal. Shall we go?”

“Sure.”

Trix’s large hand thumped down on my shoulder as he activated the teleport. The world crumbled away into a long, dark corridor lit by blue torches. It looked like the corridor that I’d first arrived in, the one where Rue had greeted me.

Sitting down against the walls were two other people who looked to be teenagers. One was a girl with short, bobbed hair and round ears, while the other was a boy who looked like he was more suited to a T-shirt than the armour he was wearing.

“Allow me to introduce you to the team,” Trix gestured towards the girl. “This is Pam, Level 100 Human,” he then gestured to the man. “And this is Adam, Level 98 Briar Elf. Pam, Adam, this is Luck. Level 39 Kobold.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Pam, shaking my hand. “So you’re the new Chosen One. Are you adjusting okay?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “There were a few hiccups, but I’d say I’m holding up decently.”

“Welcome to the team,” Adam stepped forward to shake my hand as well. “I hear we’re going to be partying up with you this time around.”

Trix nodded. “The main objective of this particular run is to help Luck with levelling up and getting equipment. We’ll use our main formation, with the addition of Luck for support, since he’s still low level. Any questions?”

“What’s the main formation?” I asked.

“Me and Adam will play DPS, while Trix plays tank,” replied Pam. “Trix will go ahead and draw aggro while me and Adam pick off the outliers one by one. Adam has healing skills and can also shield if things get rough.”

“Which it shouldn’t,” Trix said. “Fortress of Ruin should be a piece of cake as long as you don’t mess up the aggro.”

“Got it,” No promises, but hey, I’d try my best.

“Any more questions?” Trix looked around.

“So Luck gets first dibs on the drops?” asked Adam.

“Yup. He does need them. Any objections to that?”

“No, no,” Adam raised his hands and grumbled.

We then proceeded to discuss strategy for a while before setting out. Apparently, the waypoint had dropped us off on the 80th floor of the Fortress of Ruin, where the drops started to go into A and S territory. Naturally, the mobs were also more difficult, but to a team like Trix’s, they shouldn’t be too much trouble.

That was assuming that I could keep in line, of course. With my track record of being generally terrible in teams, there was no promising that everything would go smoothly.

With the added risk of the pain feature, I decided to be very careful when carrying out support. It was one thing to mess up a team play, but another thing entirely if I ended up hurting someone in the process of blundering.

“Everyone ready?” Trix asked, standing in front of a giant set of iron doors that would lead to the next level.

We all nodded. Slowly and surely, Trix pushed open the doors, and the painful grind began.

***

“This is not working out,” Adam complained.

We’d just passed the 83rd level of the Fortress of Ruin, barely scraping by. We’d been pummelled with wave after wave of Ruined Soldiers, servants of the Decay. They all wore elaborate, silver masks, and every one of them did Ruin damage. That is to say, each one of their attacks caused lifedrain. Even getting hit once would heal the enemy.

The biggest problem with the current team was that we didn’t have a healer. Although I was playing support, none of my skills included a healing one. The only one who did have healing skills was Adam, but if he were to heal, he’d be taken off damage dealing duty.

In that case, only Pam would be left to deal damage, and that wasn’t enough to kill the Ruined Soldiers before they healed. In a way, the tank and dps strategy was working against us, since Trix didn’t do enough damage to kill the enemies on his own nor was his speed high enough to dodge all the attacks. Meanwhile, the enemies could keep siphoning health off from Trix’s massive HP pool.

This made progress horrifically slow. It felt like we were chipping away at a brick wall with spoons. No matter how hard we tried, the nature of our adversary made it a thankless chore.

“Should we go back to the lower floors?” Trix asked. “This seems a bit too rough going for us.”

“I don’t get it,” Pam sighed. “It worked fine when it was just us three.”

“It’s because of the number of people here,” Adam scowled. “The enemies’ HP in this dungeon multiplies by the number of people in the party. It was fine when there were three of us because our damage was just right for the amount of HP they had at three people. But now that their HP has increased, we’re no longer dishing out enough damage.”

He then raised his eyebrows at me.

“Sorry for not pulling my weight,” I rubbed my forehead. I didn’t think it was entirely my fault, but Adam did have a point. At such a low level, my DPS capabilities were severely lacking, while my character wasn’t built as a support.

“It’s fine, Luck. We’re here because you needed to Level up, not because we needed to clear the dungeon,” Trix shook his head. “Anyway, let’s keep going.”

The next floor proceeded much like the last. Trix activated aggro, drawing all the enemies towards him instead of us. Then he activated a stunning skill, stopping the Ruined Soldiers from leeching off his HP for a brief moment.

Then, I’d cast my only two support spells, Gift of the Sun and Gift of the Wind. Pam and Adam would then jump in and attack aggressively,

Then the enemies would stop being stunned, attack Trix, and proceed to recover all of their HP.

Then the cycle would repeat.

After another torturous session, Pam slumped to the floor.

“I give up, this is horrible,” she grumbled. “Let’s go back to Floor 50.”

“I saw that you were able to stun the enemies at the start,” I turned to Trix. “Would it be possible if you stun them again before they attack?”

“You mean Earth Shaker?” he replied, shaking his head. “It has a cooldown of 20 seconds and a duration of 15. The enemies recover from the stun before the cooldown ends.”

“I see…” I thought for a moment. “Anyone else have AOE stunning skills?”

“I do,” Adam nodded. “Petrify. Duration 5 seconds, cooldown 15. Why?”

I did some quick math. 15 seconds plus 5 would make up Earth Shaker’s cooldown time, then the 15 second duration would just leave enough time for Petrify to cooldown and ready to start up again.

“We could try making use of a stunlock rotation, see if that works out better for us. With first Trix, then Adam doing the stunning.”

“But that would take me off DPS duty,” Adam protested. “Our damage would be even lower than it is now. Wouldn’t that make it slower?

“Our main problem was with the enemies healing themselves. Since we can’t do enough damage to kill them before they heal, then it might be worth stopping them from healing altogether.”

“Earth Shaker’s range isn’t very wide,” Pam pointed out. “You wouldn’t be able to catch all the enemies.”

“But we have Trix’s aggro spell to gather them, don’t we?” I asked. “Trix could draw aggro to round them up in one place, then stunlock them. Then if we have any AOE damage skills, we could use those to hit them all at once. Even if there are stragglers, they’ll be easier to deal with afterwards than the whole group healing together.”

“Gather and stunlock… gather and stunlock…” Pam closed her eyes, thinking. “I don’t know… the cooldowns are too close together. Adam would be coming in clutch with Petrify. It would require a lot of coordination.”

“Still, couldn’t hurt to try,” Trix stroked his beard, and hefted his hammer over his shoulder.

“Worst case scenario, we return to the 50th Floor.”