Chapter 342: Guwon's Counterattack
Chapter 342: Guwon's Counterattack
Instead of talking about the towel, I decided to bring up another thought that had occurred to me while watching Rachel command her spirits.
“Come to think of it, Diana.”
“Hm?”
“You asked before if I could handle spirits, didn’t you?”
“Mm. We did have that conversation. I see. In that case, once we’ve finished our meal, shall we go over the basics?”
“Here?”
“It’s not as if we have anything else to do.”
Well, she had a point.
We had decided to spend the day here for the sake of the unconscious adventurers and our two exhausted healers, but it was still a bit too early to go to sleep.
“Of course, starting with the basics is only possible if you have an affinity for spirits, I daresay.”
Now that she mentioned it, I think she’d said that before.
That we had to check my affinity first.
“I’m telling you now, don’t get your hopes up. You’re the physical type, after all.”
“Ah, you don’t have to worry about that.”
“You were quite confident last time, too.”
“Well, yeah.”
My confidence had a basis.
A system that applied to every single game Great Earth had ever made was that basis.
The game that had brought me to this world was no exception; a key feature of all Great Earth games was the ability to have multiple jobs.
When you hear that you can have multiple jobs, the first question that comes to mind is whether it’s possible to create a perfect, all-powerful character who can steamroll everything.
To put it simply, that kind of playstyle was indeed possible.
However, Great Earth made that kind of play difficult by imposing a certain restriction.
They placed a constraint on the stat growth system.
With the exception of a few special jobs, stat increases upon leveling up a job are random.
Let’s take my case as an example.
When the Saint job levels up, all stats unconditionally increase by 1. For the Martial Artist job, however, only related stats—Strength, Durability, Agility, and Stamina—increase by 1 at random.
A single level-up could raise all four stats by 1, or conversely, none of them might increase at all.
And the factor that determines the probability of these stats increasing is talent.
Talent is like a hidden stat that you can’t see, and it’s generally known to come in two types.
Innate talent and acquired talent.
Innate talent is exactly what it sounds like: talent you’re born with.
A unique talent specific to that person, determined at birth.
For example, in Diana’s case, despite having no jobs related to Charm, her Charm stat was maxed out all the way to level 250.
This can only be explained as innate talent—she was born beautiful, which made it easier for her Charm stat to increase.
And acquired talent was directly related to one’s jobs.
Although you could freely take on any job, the job with the highest level would influence that person’s stat growth.
You can think of it as a system that distinguishes between a main job and sub jobs. If the highest-level job is a warrior class, stats like Strength and Durability become easier to raise, while stats like Intelligence and Spirit become harder to raise.
And if two or more jobs are at the same level, the job that reached that level first becomes the main job.
So, the factors of innate and acquired talent combine to determine the probability of a stat increasing when a job level rises.
That’s not all. This thing called talent not only affects the probability of stats increasing on level-up, but also the probability of stats increasing through training.
Let’s use Diana as an example again.
Diana’s main job is Mage.
Therefore, stats like Strength and Durability are difficult for her to raise, while stats like Intelligence and Spirit are easy to raise.
And I’m sure her innate talent is similar.
She probably has next to no talent for Strength or Durability. On the other hand, her talent for Intelligence, Spirit, and, as a bonus, Charm, is likely at the highest level.
That’s why Diana’s stats were the way they were.
A girl who had lived for nearly 3,000 years still hadn’t surpassed 50 in Strength or Durability, while her Intelligence, Spirit, and Charm were maxed out.
Well, that was a long explanation, but in other words, raising an all-rounder character is incredibly difficult.
You can assume that it’s almost impossible to raise stats that are contrary to your main job, even if you acquire a related job.
That’s probably why Miriel, the clan leader of Arachne, fights almost exclusively with her sword, even though she’s a magic swordsman.
Looking at Miriel’s combat style, she only uses magic to imbue her sword with an element to strengthen it; her fighting method is almost identical to that of a pure swordsman.
She probably lacks the stats to use magic in the conventional way.
Of course, there’s not much point in raising jobs with similar related stats, either.
If you think about how to break the level cap, you’ll realize that you can max out the relevant stats by focusing on just one job.
Once the related stats are already maxed, there’s little meaning in raising another related job.
Sure, you might get some behavioral bonuses based on the job level, but it’s better to just raise your main job’s level than to go through all that grinding for it.
In the first place, it’s hard enough to properly raise even one job.
And this is reality, not a game.
Mastering even a single job is an extremely difficult task.
Look at Miriel. She’s already level 250, but it seems her level cap hasn’t been broken.
And that’s despite how diligently she seems to explore the dungeon.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with the player.
Everything I’ve said so far is something you’d only need to think about when raising your companions while playing the game.
When it comes to the player’s own character, these things are almost irrelevant.
Fundamentally, all of Great Earth’s games were adult games, and the player is given a related job from the very beginning.
That job is unconditionally the player’s main job. Just like how my main job is Saint.
But that doesn’t mean they could make it impossible to try other playstyles.
There will always be users who want to play as a mage or a warrior, even if their main job is Saint.
Therefore, you can basically assume that the player has above-average talent in all stats.
My Martial Artist and Assassin jobs were also getting decent stat gains with each level-up.
That was a long-winded way of saying that I could expect my affinity for spirits to be above a certain level as well.
No, in fact, acquiring the Elementalist job would be even better, as it would allow me to raise my most deficient stats, Intelligence and Spirit.
It’s not like I was planning to master the Elementalist job anyway.
“So, how do we do this affinity check?”
As soon as we finished eating, I asked Diana.
For reference, Sara, who had the best eyes, had taken on guard duty. Silvia and Rachel were gathering the dishes to be washed with magic.
Leia and Matilda had taken the patients inside the tent to rest.
“Hm. Wait a moment. For now, we shall only check your affinity with the four great elemental spirits. Is that acceptable?”
“Yeah.”
The water spirit was all I wanted anyway.
When I nodded, Diana took out a few magic stones and held them in her hand.
Then, extending her hand forward and chanting an incantation, she slowly opened her palm. The magic stones in her hand crumbled into dust and fell, forming a magic circle on the ground.
“Hoo. It is done. Now, stand on top of this.”
As I stood on the magic circle, Diana placed a finger on my chest and moved it slowly, as if drawing a picture on my body.
“Follow my hand and circulate your mana, and feel for the presence of the spirits around you… you’re fast.”
There was no need to follow Diana’s instructions. The moment I stepped onto the magic circle, a system window popped up asking if I wanted to form a contract with the spirits.
Without a moment’s hesitation, I accepted, and soon I had completed contracts with all four great elemental spirits.
“Hoh. You can handle all four great elemental spirits?”
Watching me, Diana muttered, sounding quite impressed.
“What?! All four great spirits?! That’s amazing. I’m so jealous.”
And unlike Diana, who was only calmly impressed, Rachel, who had been watching from the side, looked at me as if she could die from envy.
Her reaction seems dramatically different from Diana’s.
Ah, I see. Diana said she could handle spirits, too. And she can probably handle all four great spirits as well.
I guess the difference in their reactions is the difference between someone who can already do it and someone who can’t.
“Hehet. Is that so? I guess I’m just overflowing with talent.”
“Hey, now. Getting so conceited again. Does this mean you no longer require my guidance?”
“Hmph. Of course….”
I had managed to learn to handle spirits far more easily than I had expected.
I immediately summoned a spirit and, as a test, tried to have it wash Silvia.
Why Silvia, you ask? No reason. She just happened to be in my line of sight.
However, I was forced to realize a critical problem with summoning spirits using the game system.
I opened the skill window, but I could only see skills for using spirits in combat.
What am I supposed to do in this situation? Will it understand if I just talk to it?
“Hey! Spirit! Wash Silvia! Washing!”
“Eh? Hyaaaaah!”
At my voice, Silvia, who had been organizing the dishes, let out a strange sound and squeezed her eyes shut, her body tensing as if bracing for something. But the palm-sized water spirit just wiggled and looked at me, showing no reaction at all.
“…What do you think you’re doing? And why are you tormenting poor Silvia-yang again?”
Diana immediately stood on her tiptoes, reached out, and gave me a bonk on the head.
Just like Sara, Diana is quite fond of Silvia.
In Diana’s case, though, I got the feeling it wasn’t just because I treat Silvia like my main wife.
Hey. Stop being so nice to Silvia just because she’s flat-chested. That kind of solidarity won’t lead to anything. Besides, you’re just going to betray her when you grow up anyway.
“Ahem. I wasn’t tormenting her. I was trying to tell it to wash the dishes Silvia was organizing. The words just came out wrong. Anyway, Lady Diana. Please teach me how to handle spirits.”
“Hm? Where did that conceited attitude from before go? Why not try to figure it out on your own?”
“Huh? Conceited? Who? You don’t mean me, do you?”
“It seems that ability of yours isn’t so omnipotent after all.”
Diana muttered as if it was obvious without even looking.
As expected of Lady Diana. So sharp.
“Hmph. I suppose it can’t be helped. Then listen closely to what I have to say.”
But even as she said that, Diana taught me how to handle spirits.
Spirits generally do not understand human speech.
Therefore, to communicate, one must convey their intentions with mana, which was not as easy as it sounded.
The learning curve was so steep it felt like learning a whole new language, and the need for delicate mana control made it even more difficult.
And this was just the basic course for handling spirits.
After mastering this, you had to build a bond and raise your affinity through mana-dialogue with the spirits.
Being an Elementalist is a really tough job.
I think I understood why Diana didn’t needlessly summon spirits.
I can’t use magic myself, but it definitely seemed like it would be less of a hassle for her to just cast the magic herself rather than use a spirit to do it.
Still, I’m going to master this.
For the day I can have spirits wash my body.
“So… like this?”
Since it was impossible to learn to communicate with mana in a single day, I started by learning a few simple phrases.
Beginning with a greeting, the foundation of any language.
When I used my mana to offer a greeting, the water spirit wiggled and bowed its head.
Honestly, it was so small I couldn’t even make out its facial features, but that was a greeting, right?
Wiggling around on my palm, it might actually be kind of cute.
I see. So this is the fun Elementalists have when handling spirits.
“Cute. With this, I guess I don’t really need Silvia anymore….”
“W-Whaaat?”
When I deliberately muttered that, our cute Silvia immediately took the bait, her voice trembling with anxiety.
“Silvia always runs away whenever I try to hug her. A spirit might be better. They’re both cute, anyway. Don’t you think so?”
“I-I-I don’t!”
Silvia grabbed my arm with both hands and shouted desperately.
“What? Are you trying to say you’re cuter?”
“Eek? N-No. That’s not what I meant, but….”
“Alright. Then I’ll acknowledge it if you come and hug me yourself.”
“Eh?”
“Well, what are you waiting for? Hurry up.”
I opened my arms and faced Silvia.
Silvia’s body froze at the sudden development, and she looked completely at a loss.
“You’re not going to do it? I guess I’ll just stick with the spirit….”
“I-I’ll do it! Hah! H-Hoo, hoo, hyaaaaaah….”
Silvia let out a battle cry and desperately threw herself into my arms, then immediately melted.
Hmph. Taking the bait so easily. Silvia, my dear. This is why you’re my pet….
“You idiot, seriously! Can’t you cut it out?!”
In the end, Sara, who couldn’t watch any longer, stopped her guard duty to come over and smack me, but I had not a single regret about my actions.