“Now, about the Guild Versus event… There are two guilds that we should be worried about. ‘Ifrit’s Country,’ the huge guild whose members have come in at 4th, 7th, 8th and 10th during the first event. And the small guild, ‘Maple Tree’ whose members have come in at 3rd, 6th, and 9th.”
Pain thought that if there were any guilds with players that could change the tide of battle, it was these two guilds.
“Didn’t Maple Tree have that kid in blue who everyone was talking about during the second event? That was pretty crazy.”
Frederica said.
But they weren’t too clear on just how crazy, because they had very little information on Maple Tree, to begin with.
They had especially little information about Maple and Kanade.
They knew nothing about Yui and Mai.
Not even their existence.
“It depends on the event itself, but we could just crush them with resources? At worst, Pain will do something about it…”
Like Dread was saying, there was a big difference in number between their guild of four, and Maple Tree.
It there was one thing that smaller guilds had as an advantage, it was material superiority.
“Our guild is made up of strong people. There is no problem. We all have poison resistance, and those who could manage it have even acquired paralysis resistance as well. I think the guild we need to be wary of is Ifrit’s Country, no?”
Drag suggested.
“Besides, with our guild, we have the crafters go out to the dungeon and make our equipment.”
This dungeon that Frederica was talking about, was the second dungeon on the third layer. And while only crafters could enter it, you could acquire materials that allowed you to make equipment with added skills for the first time.
And so they had made several rounds and prepared tons of equipment with high resistance.
“Maple, was it? Her methods of attack are status ailments and a shield I think? But she is slow? It’s hard to believe, but she apparently put all of her points into defense…I think we should be able to contain her.”
“Hmm… For now, you should gather information, Frederica. We need to know more about Maple Tree.”
“You worry too much, Pain. Not that I care!”
Frederica said as she left the room, staff in hand.
Dread and Drag followed after her.
Pain remained and mumbled.
“…There is nothing scarier than the unknown. There is too little information on Maple Tree.”
They did not know the power of Chrome’s equipment.
They did not know Kanade’s magic.
They had never experienced Sally’s ability to evade.
They did not know Yui and Mai’s ability to destroy.
And more than anything…
Most of their members believed that Maple fought her enemies with poison and her shield.
They did not know about the angel or monsters or machine god or Syrup, or the light rays.
Pain alone felt that there must be something more to it, but there was nothing to support this suspicion.
As Pain was busy being cautious about Maple Tree, Izu was sitting in a chair at the guild home. Her long blue hair went down to her waist, as she fidgeted uncomfortably.
Izu had heard stories about this new dungeon.
Izu rarely went out, but now she felt a compulsion to leave.
“Oh…I wish I could borrow them from Maple or Sally…”
By borrow, she was, of course, talking about Syrup and Oboro.
With those two, she would be a lot safer wandering in the dungeons.
As a death penalty, you would not only lose gold and some items, but your stats would also be lowered for a limited time.
She really wanted to avoid that.
However, the two were nowhere near the guild at this time.
And so she waited here for five minutes.
That was all the time it took to reach the limits of her patience. She took what she could in terms of combat items and collecting items and put them into her inventory before flying out the door.
And then after she flew with her machine for about five minutes.
Izu jumped into the dungeon.
“Now…let’s do some mining.”
Izu gathered ore and crystals at an incredible rate.
Crafting jobs did not allow you to learn weapon skills or any combat magic. But they had exclusive skills of their own.
It was skills like Smithing and Synthesizing.
However, those could only be used at the workshop.
An exception was Synthesize, which you could do anywhere as long as you were level V. But you still needed the materials, and there were often time restraints in place.
For instance, one important means of attack for a crafter was bombs, but they could only be made at the workshop, and only five could be carried at once.
As for potions, they could only make the second weakest ones.
Furthermore, any damage they dealt with weapons would be decreased, which was an annoying demerit.
On the other hands, they would receive experience points for creating equipment with the Smithing skill.
In other words, combat was incredibly tough for them.
So crafters were people who were so engrossed in their work, that this did not bother them.
And Izu was no different.
If anything, she was at the top of the crafting world.
Every since release, she had mined ore in order to raise different skills related to crafting. Smithing, Sewing, Cultivation, Synthesis, she would often do this into the late hours of the night.
The time spent turned into her strength, and now she was second to none in her craft.
But on the other hand, her ‘Throwing’ skill was very low in level. And it was an important combat skill for crafters.
It was a skill that increased the damage of attacks such as the throwing of knives and items.
Izu had only focused on collecting items, and so her Throwing skill was very low.
“Oh, there is a fishing spot over here.”
Izu pulled out a fishing rod and started to fish.
And the fish that she caught dropped materials that she had never seen before.
Izu’s fishing rod was handmade.
The materials here allowed you to attach skills to equipment, but that was specifically for ‘equipment.’
Thought, there were a few items that allowed this previously.
Izu’s pickaxe and fishing rod had better drop rates for rare items now, and they were more durable and faster. These were made through the immense amount of materials and time that Izu had spent, and it was where she was ahead of the others.
Once Izu was finished fishing, she continued to go further into the dungeon.
“I haven’t seen any monsters yet. Not that I’m complaining.”
It wouldn’t make sense to have monsters that Crafters couldn’t beat since it was a dungeon that only they could enter.
As an extension of this, monsters only appeared in designated spots.
It was also possible to avoid fighting anything including the boss monster.
Along the way, Izu encountered a monster with crystals on its back, but she avoided it.
The reason was that she already had information about the boss.
As soon as you entered the boss room, a teleport circle would appear near you. And so it was possible to escape without fighting it. Izu was after the crystals that covered the boss, and she knew that she could collect them with a pickaxe.
And so she wanted to save the pickaxe for this purpose.
She continued to collect materials while avoiding the weak enemies until she reached the boss room and opened the doors.
The room was covered in beautiful, shining, white crystals.
And in the far back of the room, a giant lizard covered in crystals of the same color was slowly standing up.
“I’m going to take some of your back crystals…okay?”
Izu said as she brandished her pickaxe.