Chapter 356 Finding Party Members
When Edward woke up, he found himself standing at the small square over the head of the Tortoise Colossus.
“Tch…”
He was not too willing to remember how he died since his death had been too horrible.
Even if Player could adjust the sensations of their bodies to a certain extent, it was just too horrific having to watch countless misshapen creatures tearing your own body apart.
“You’re out too…” Gou Dan, who had been sitting in a corner greeted him. “What happened after I died? Joe here died too quickly and saw nothing.”
“You died before I did!”
Joe couldn’t hold back a retort, clearly upset with being mocked by Joe. “Alright, stop fooling around. The Dark Sky Stratum is much scarier than I thought anyway…”
Edward couldn’t help feeling a shiver when he remembered the monsters he saw when he summoned the Blue Eyes Whitefire Dragon. “We’ve had it too easy in the Faint Crystal Stratum and the Deep Wall Stratum, and now that I think about it, there is no way it would have been simple since the event period is seven days.”
It was already frightening that they could reach the third stratum in such a short time, and who knows what Steel Earth or the Eternal Archives would have in store.
That being said, Edward wasn’t at all cowed as a devout believer of the God of Games. Moreover, Players never lacked a big heart which always allowed them to forget their pain, and an immense curiosity towards dungeons they had yet to clear.
He hence told Gou Dan and Joe about what Mufasa and he saw after they died, freaking them out.
Naturally, neither of them was actually intimidated. In fact, they became even more interested in Dark Sky thanks to Edward’s description.
Edward then spoke about the uniqueness of the monsters that killed him in hopes that they wouldn’t be making the same basic mistakes in their next entry. However, even as he felt his throat go dry from talking, the person he was waiting for still had not arrived.
“Wait. Mister Mufasa still hasn’t come out?”
After all, Mufasa was with Edward when he died, but he was showing no signs of resurrecting after coming back to life for so long. There was no notification of his death in the party channel either-in fact, his HP was quite healthy, and since buffs that appear after successful deflection or parrying keep popping up over his status bar, indicating that he was still fighting.
“As expected of him, doing what we can’t so easily…” Beside Edward, Joe couldn’t help giving his praise.
“Oh, right. Where’s Mister Marni, then? Wasn’t he out for some time?” Edward asked, bemused.
“He must have joined another group and entered the dungeon before us,” Joe replied. “He did die quite early.”
Edward found it reasonable when he thought about it. Given that no one would know whether the later dungeons were dangerous, Marni naturally wouldn’t stay here to wait for them—what if they managed to drive straight through the entire dungeon? Wouldn’t he have been waiting for nothing? Still, Edward was a little disappointed not to have Marni with them at Dark Sky. If they could feed him off to the monsters, their group might have been able to reach the next stratum…
Edward himself killed the thought the instant it surfaced.
‘Oh, Edward, Edward. How could you come up with something that? It’s not theological at all! It seems that my faith is not firm at all, I should chant the Church of Games doctrine a hundred times later.”
“Looks like it would take Mister Mufasa a while more to come out. With that being the case, let’s look for things we need for the next exploration.”
Having understood the current situation, Edward didn’t keep hesitating around and waste time.
Players like them who had reached Dark Sky would more or less saved up some elven arcane text that could be smelted into new runes. They could then try exchanging unused runes or attempt new runic arrangements. Moreover, they need to replenish potions and other consumables, which they had spent a lot in the Deep Wall dive alone.
“Incidentally, my Zoffy rune isn’t effective and I should exchange it for other runes.” As the Skyfire Herald, Edward possesses strong fire resistance in the first place, which meant that the fire resistance rune Zoffy was useless for him aside from increasing his equipment durability against fire damage. “Besides…”
After exchanging his runes at the blacksmith shop of the Unnamed Town, Edward hesitated for some time, and eventually teleported to Trinia through the lifestone.
***
They couldn’t mobilize a raid party for this event, and could at best operate in a group of six.
And initially, Edward’s group was a full party when they entered the dungeon, which included himself, Joe, Gou Dan, Eleena, Mufasa and Marni.
Nonetheless, the team was already left with only four at the Faint Crystal Stratum when Marni was killed and Eleena left the group after finding the old mayor of Crookes.
It hurt even more that they had no healers and what passed off as half-a-tank amongst their quartet.
After all, Joe’s Spirit Swordsman class deducts one-fourth of his HP to be used as HP for his spirit familiar, which mean that familiar swordsmen would only have slightly more HP than mages even if their basic stats were quite high. Therefore, if they weren’t an armored class, they wouldn’t even count as half a tank.
It would clearly be a little difficult to clear a dungeon with such a setup.
Moreover, Eleena, their party’s usual carry was being used as a tool for this event. She had to stay in front of the Tortoise Colossus to open the path into the dungeon for other Players, and therefore couldn’t really join the event.
Marni had also left their party earlier to join another party, and with that being the case, they would have to look for others to fill the vacant spots.
Therefore, the people Edward had to sought out was certain.
The first would be Leah. The Warrior Princess was quite interested in the new dungeon as well, although she was a little uncomfortable with joining the event since she wasn’t present in the battle against the Tortoise Colossus.
But after Edward’s invite, she easily agreed to joining his party, ignoring old Vanke’s protests.
Hence, the new carry was online.
Still, Leah’s Warrior Princess class leaned towards combat. Compared to Eleena’s Saintess-in-training class which had an assortment of skills to handle almost all situations, Leah was more like a machine for team buffs, with herself having high attack and defense allowing her to both fight and defend, although she only lacked healing despite her strength. That was precisely why Edward had to visit Trinia to find their last party member.
“Jessica, could you come to help me at the moment?”
