Why am I not in the village?

I was still in the cavern of the Blighted Squall Banshee. My party mates, the Asipu summons, and the Vengeful Pennae were moving in slow motion. Everything was tinted in a dreamy shimmer, like the reflection on rippling water. Melonomi galloped to me, shouting gibberish. All the sounds I heard melded together in a cacophony of static as if I was in the middle of two radio channels, getting signals from both.

Were those boxy traditional radios still in use?

Bowing down to examine myself, I found my hooves floating half a meter above the ground. My body had turned translucent and pale. Ghost-like, even.

I’m an actual ghost!

That stupid angel killed me in one hit!

Again, I wondered why hadn’t I respawned back in Kurghal Village. If players died, they could choose to wait as a ghost, maybe get resurrected by party mates, or to instantly resurrect at their saved spawn point. I switched my settings to the latter after I died, testing fall damage when I first arrived on this mountain.

I didn’t have party mates to ress me then, so I figured, why bother being a ghost? It also made my quest solo killing Mirdabons far more efficient and less annoying, instantly returning to the cliffs every time I died after jumping off of it.

The system was asking me if I wanted to change my settings. ‘Resurrection Skill in Party,’ it said. I looked again at Melonomi coming to my side, yelling at my ghostly face. Then it clicked.

[ Toggle Automatic Death Respawn Setting: OFF ]

[ Melonomi Resurrected You! ]

The next time I blinked, the world had returned to normal.

Bright flashes. Buffeting winds kicked up dust and pebbles. Explosions entangled with the shouts of my fleeing teammates and the Banshee’s grating screeches. Paritor used his summons to block the descending Pennae. The billowy cherubs crashed into the Asipu spirits, killing them in a meatgrinder of wind blades. Then they reformed themselves before flying up again to prepare another divebombing run.

That bought an opening for Megan and Nitana to attack the Pennae, killing several of them.

“Did you turn on Automatic Death Respawn?” Melonomi furiously asked me as if I had offended her entire bloodline. “I couldn’t—!”

“Behind you!” I grabbed her arm and pulled her toward me. Bottles slammed against my metal breastplate. I teetered a few steps back. Because of her level, she was bigger than me, and we almost tumbled.

Three Vengeful Penna in triangle formation swooped past where Melonomi had stood, rising steeply into the air after they missed.

Melonomi was unperturbed. “I couldn’t resurrect you!” she said, wagging her finger. “I didn’t know what was going on. What the hell was my ress not working?”

“There, my debt repaid,” I said with a gallant smile, making it clear I owed her nothing.

It irked part of me that she ignored my heroism. Another part was surprised she used a resurrection skill. I assumed she didn’t have any because she went the potion-brewing route. Did she have multiple kinds of Healer Ocadules?

And there was my last part, puzzling about how in the blazing meatballs a [Lvl 42 Vengeful Penna] instantly deleted me. Why was it so strong? I had tanked higher-leveled enemies than them. Was it due to the buffs of the Banshee?

“I thought I was doing something wrong,” Melonomi went on. “I checked my Shards, and they were all correct. So, it must’ve been on your end. Did you turn on—?

“It’s off now,” I cut in. I wouldn’t say I liked being called out on my mistakes.

As a dedicated support, Melonomi would more than likely have ress. At the least, I should’ve asked her to get my settings right. She mentioned Shards; she probably had [Embers of Rebirth], the reward for reaching the other side of the tunnels. Most players, even support ones, chose the other options as rewards—DPS Shards exclusively found in the quest—and sold them for a high price because of their rarity. I was right that Melonomi’s potion-brewing Ocadule didn’t have ress, but I didn’t consider she’d go for [Embers of Rebirth].

“My bad on that one,” I hastily said as Melonomi opened her mouth. “I had it turned on because we didn’t have someone with ress in our party before.”

Now that we have, I wasn’t sure I was happy about it.

I supposed I should be. If Melonomi weren’t here, I’d be stuck outside the dungeon, waiting for my party to reset or complete it. This wasn’t an open-world boss fight where players could come and go. And with two ressers in the party—or would be two, as I was yet to get my [Embers of Rebirth]—there was more security and room for mistakes.

Regrettably, that also meant my party would rely less on me. I, Herald Stone, wouldn’t be as special or important anymore.

Mope about that later, I told myself. We had a fight on our hands now.

A Penna slammed into Kezo, taking almost a quarter of his health in a car-sized tornado. No wonder I croaked in one hit. Fortunately for Kezo, he lifestealed the damage from the Squall Banshee.

But more Pennae aimed for him.

I placed Totems in their path of descent, then used [Poison Bottle Cast] to make a poison cloud in between the Totems.

[Enraging Call] stopped a few crazed mini-angels, the Totems taking the brunt of their wind explosions. The Pennae that had used their skills reformed themselves, getting poisoned as they did, and rose accented with purple bubbles. Two Pennae weren’t caught by the taunts and hit Kezo. Melonomi was ready to heal him.

The Banshee screeched again, dusting us with a fresh batch of debuffs before zooming all over the ceiling to repeat her cycle.

I ran below the left-behind Pennae, trying to catch their attention. When they locked onto me with glowing red eyes, I headed to Megan and Nitana, leaving Totems, [Tongues of Flames], and [Morabodry] clouds in my wake. More wind blasts, followed by fiery explosions as Megan and Nitana roasted the spent Pennae, slowly rising. They killed several.

Paritor, on the other hand, found it hard to deal damage as most of his summons were melee-ranged. He continued using them to body block the Pennae for Megan and Nitana to kill. Surviving the Pennae’s heavy crossfire would’ve been a nightmare if we didn't have him on the team.

“Nice work, Paritor!” I said, taking on Kezo’s mantle.

Best butter up Paritor. He might feel resentful that he couldn’t showcase his DPS—an instinct of DPSers.

“Anything to contribute to the team,” he said. His health and Ancestral Shroud alternated going up and down as he replenished his dwindling army, summoning minions for them to be killed the next moment. “If only the Asipu spirits were made of wind instead of fire, they might survive longer. Instead, they’re getting snuffed out in one blow.”

“Like candles! I get it,” Megan said, apparently listening to our conversation.

“You don’t have to explain the joke,” said Nitana. “Oh, wait. That wasn’t a joke. Don’t explain the… metaphor?”

“Because the tiny angels are made of wind, you see,” said Megan. “And they blowing the—”

“Don’t explain it!”

“It probably counts as a pun,” I said. “But a pun is a joke. Anyway, it’s a good one. Blowing wind…”

Wind? I opened my stats and quickly checked them, then returned my attention to the battle. Half my attention, anyway. There were tank matters afoot in my mind.

I had Wind Resistance but a mere pittance—barely half that of my Fire, Earth, and Water Resistances, which weren’t high themselves. Elemental Resistances were capped at seventy-five percent. The maximum could be raised to ninety percent the last I checked, probably more, by certain items and abilities, like [Molten Corium] for Fire. But it wasn’t enough to reach seventy-five or whatever the cap was and stop there. A tank had to go beyond, and overcap Elemental Resistances since enemies could also reduce them.

I had been neglecting my Elemental Resistances.

Or more like I was yet to build them and a bazillion other things because I was starting my tank. I didn’t even have any Lightning Resistance, which must be why the Crackal’s lightning shower could rip me apart if I didn’t have Melonomi’s buff. Other Elements I had zero protection against.

The Vengeful Pennae must have high Wind damage modifiers, probably reducing my Wind Resistance with their skill before hitting me. This illustrated the advantage of DPSers being able to narrowly tailor their builds, like focusing on only one element—Fire, in Kezo’s case—while a tank had to cover all elements.

But was that enough to explain the Pennae’s massive damage?

The Crackal…

“Melonomi!” I called. She was near Kezo, ensuring he was safe while attacking the Banshee. “Melonomi, what was that potion with the blue smoke that you used when we fought the Crackal? The one that smelt like burnt bread?”

“The Magic Dampener? Huh, it does smell like burnt bread now that you mentioned it.”

“What does it do?”

“Increases Magic Damage Reduction, Magic Resilience, and gives a bunch of—Hiya!” She ducked. A Penna flew past her, its stubby arms barely reaching her horns. “A bunch of other anti-magic stuff I can’t recall. Can we talk about this later?”

“Right, we should focus on the fight.” Though I said that, I was anything but focused, taking another peek at my stats.

My Magic Resilience was just a third of my Armor. The Pennae must be dealing Magic Wind damage—massive amounts of it. I wasn’t geared to tank that. Like crit monsters, I hadn’t encountered many spellcaster types before; most dealt physical damage.

“Unprepared for the real world…” I muttered to myself.

“We’re doing great, guys!” Kezo said after the last Penna dissolved into the air. The Squall Banshee stopped again to resummon them. “Three more cycles, and I’ll finish her. Plenty of learnings for all of us in this fight.”

Plenty of learnings, indeed.

My inadequacies as a tank were brought to the fore, and I didn’t like facing my inadequacies.

But perhaps I was too harsh on myself. I barely passed my early game phase and had room to grow. Better learn these lessons now that I was low-leveled—refresh these lessons, to be more accurate, as I had already known them a decade and a half ago—than when I was set on my build and had invested in all the wrong things. It was easy to get sidetracked in my off-meta mindset. Though I’d walk the less traveled path, I’d face the same challenges as any other tank.

As Kezo estimated, he managed to kill the Squall Banshee after three more Pennae resummoning sessions.

“That wasn’t so bad as you made it out to be, Kezo,” Megan said as we walked out of the cave.

“Thanks to Paritor,” said Kezo, putting his arms on Paritor’s shoulders as if they had known each other for more than a couple of hours. “Glad to have you on the team.”

Paritor looked uncomfortable with the forward chumminess but didn’t pull back. “I adapted to the circumstances the best I could. A relief it worked out well.”

“Worked out really, really well,” I said. “My Totems aren’t enough to catch all of those mini-angels. But there’s one problem…”

“What is it, Herald?” asked Kezo.

“We didn’t get much of a practice because Paritor made the fight easier.”

Laughter abounded. The perfect joke and the perfect end to the fight. I pictured the six of us walking to the sunset as the credits rolled. I should get a round of applause for that line. I wouldn’t be surprised if cheering suddenly erupted out of the blue.

“Is that cheering I hear?” Melonomi cupped her hands on her ears.

“Yes…” I said. But it didn’t seem like people were cheering for me. We hurried to the main cavern to see what was happening.